Implications of Gurps Magic on a Merchant Princes-like setting - advice needed

[tshiggins]

I'll echo what the others said.

Do not change the rules. Eliminate all VH spells, from the get-go, and then ruthlessly cull anything you think might create problems.

Then make what remains very rare, and perhaps might bring the attention of the Church -- and its Inquisition.

As for Alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone, consider that very carefully. If it's known to work, by even a few, the entire trade economy is jeopardized.

However, if the possibility of its existence is discovered during the course of events, then it could be a great McGuffin. If people learn the PCs are after such a thing, or are trying to secure the reagents to make one, then said PCs come to the attention of every rich and powerful person in the known world.

See the standalone Black Company book, The Silver Spike , for how that would likely play out. :)

(Hint: It would totally suck to be the PCs.]

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I'll echo what the others said.

Do not change the rules. Eliminate all VH spells, from the get-go, and then ruthlessly cull anything you think might create problems.

Then make what remains very rare, and perhaps might bring the attention of the Church -- and its Inquisition.

Depending on how recently magic was rediscovered, spells that have prerequisites at all may not have been invented or rediscovered yet, or just those that have other spells as prerequisites may not have been. Even if some exist, declaring that such spells are very rare and hard to find is totally plausible in an 'Emerging Magic' setting. Likewise, entire Colleges may be absent, or unavailable to the PCs.

Do you have a copy of GURPS Thaumatology: Magical Styles, or some spare cash to order it? That could be vary useful in determining what spells are available, if you only have access to spells from your own style (because your teacher doesn't know any others).

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Some thoughts on that:

• The Dungeon Fantasy series makes some tweaks which are coincidentally useful here: creation and transformation spells are limited, teleportation is right out, and so on. Check that out.
• Don't just limit available spells. It isn't just the range of magic which is limited, but how well it gets done. Feel free to cap absolute spell levels without special resources. Finding a grimoire which allows you to learn such-and-such a spell or college of spells to 15 rather than a max of 14 becomes huge without removing magic from the game.
• Lean heavily into the social context. There can be any number of dabblers, but effective magicians should be few and far between, and those few are not going to be immune to politics and social pressures. The acknowledged master of fire spells is on the outs with the doge, the best healing mage is Jewish, and of course the Council of Ten gets in the way of everything.

[whswhs]

If you want an approach that's actually consistent with medieval views on magic, I did some research on that for my book on Worminghall. It uses the basic GURPS Magic system, but with some spells excluded, and others regrouped, and it discusses the specific things that were religiously forbidden.

[Anaraxes]

If magic is so recently rediscovered that it's not widely known, or believed in, then there's an edge there for the mages (particularly the PC mage) in that people in the setting won't be prepared to deal with magic*, there won't be common access to anti-magic dispels and wards and so on, and it won't readily come to mind as a explanation. That is, it's all the same things the GURPS Powers lumps into "countermeasures". It's also the classic case for the Unusual Background Advantage, in this case a surcharge just to represent the increased effectiveness of Magery and GURPS Magic in a setting where magic is much more scarce and unknown than the presumed default for Magic.

--
* scrying on enemy plans, mind probes and mind control, Apporting objects through portcullises, Body of Air slipping through cracks, remote viewing and teleporting into the vault... many, many tricks that a merchant prince would find invaluable that aren't overt combat spells or direct economy breakers. If the NPCs can't reasonably be guarded against that because they don't know about magic and aren't prepared to counter it, then the PCs will just run roughshod over them.

[dcarson]

For a merchant prince finding out a day earlier then everyone else how this years grain harvest went in country we ship grain from to here is a major thing. Lets you buy options or short the market knowing it will work. See the movie Trading Places for a worked example :-).

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by dcarson

For a merchant prince finding out a day earlier then everyone else...

Or even hours. One of the early popular applications of the telescope (in the real world) was by merchants, to spot incoming ships before they arrived at port. Knowing a ship was inbound gave them enough time to get a jump on the competition. If it were a friendly ship, or you knew its flag code, you could even get information on the success of its voyage and any opportunities from unexpected changes in the manifest.