what is more fun with GURPS fast magic or slow magic?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

My preference is to treat magic like superpowers that are learned as skills. One guy studies to concentrate really hard and make wounds go away, one person studies to concentrate really hard and make things burn, another learns to concentrate really hard and make a stick glow like a torch without burning, and so on; with practice, they learn to do these things with less concentration until, like many skills, they become almost second-nature.

That's a possible approach. There are genres where it works. But I tend to like superpowers better in the supers genre than in the fantasy genre.

I don't like the idea of imploring supernatural forces to gain such effects in general; that clashes uncomfortably with my real-world spiritual beliefs and is also abrasive to my suspension of disbelief.

When I do allow intelligent supernatural forces to be involved I usually don't call it magic, and I am inclined to make such interactions fickle (you ask your patron for aid, but as he's the boss it's up to his interpretation of how to deliver, if indeed he deems your situation to warrant his intervention at all).

° I have no real-world supernatural beliefs, and therefore stories about calling on supernatural forces don't give me a sense of roleplaying "false" or "wrong" supernatural beliefs. To me it's all mythology.

° As it happens, I enjoy fantasy as a genre, and am perfectly willing to suspend my disbelief. I've run campaigns where the supernatural forces were Muslim, or Christian; I've run campaigns where they're classical pagan or animist. To me they're all mythology. I can recognize intellectually that someone might feel otherwise, but it's hard for me to imagine feeling that way myself.

° What you describe as "I don't call it magic" is precisely the sort of thing that feels most authentically magical to me.

Bill Stoddard