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

Anaraxes · 08-06-2019, 05:42 PM

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.

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* 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.

08-06-2019, 05:42 PM	#11
Anaraxes Join Date: Sep 2007	Re: Implications of Gurps Magic on a Merchant Princes-like setting - advice needed 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.