Walk me through inventing the first spell...

[hal]

Hello Folks,
As I reread more Closely, the rules presented in GURPS MAGIC for reasons that involve "researching rules as written" for future discussions and material, I am struck by the issues involving the invention of new spells per GURPS MAGIC for 4e versus the original rules as presented in GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition.

To wit:

If you presume you're in a world in which there may or may not be Deities who provide useful information to humanity - then the idea of which came first, the chicken or the egg, does not apply. To wit, having a deity give mankind the first spell that its first mageborn will utilize pre-empts the entire argument right? But let's talk about the first mage born who doesn't have spells, but is told by a deity "you can do spells even though there are no such things as spells just yet."

How does the first spell get created?

Per GURPS MAGIC pg 17, we have this:

"A magical workshop is required, with accoutrements that cost
$(prerequisite count +1)x(400 energy)x(the setting’s prevailing price per
energy point (pp. 21-22)). The researcher and his assistants may choose to offset up to 90% of this investment by enchanting the supplies themselves;
10% of the cost is consumable supplies which must be purchased."

The problem with the paragraph above, is that it specifies the spell researchers can enchant things. Enchantment requires spells. The first spell developed has no spells to be able to fulfill the requirement for the prerequisites of enchantment as a spell. The other problem is that when enchanting, you need the underlying spell ENCHANTMENT along with the actual "aspect" of what is being enchanted into the item in question. What enchantment is being produced by the enchanted supplies for the enchanted lab?

The next issue is this: Thaumatology (Pg 225 of GURPS BASIC SET: CHARACTERS) states it is a study of matical theory. Presumably, his knowledge of magical theory would have to be based on a default skill level of IQ-7. Or can he? The problem here is this:

"Thaumatology IQ/Very Hard Default: IQ-7*."

"* There is no default in a nonmagical setting, or for those who have never witnessed “real” magic."

Our first budding mage who invents the first spell, is incapable of actually researching the first spell ever. The only way that he (the mageborn) may conclude that magic is being performed, is if he sees a deity successfully do something that seems like magic and he's trying to replicate what he saw. But think about it, an IQ 11 mageborn, who suffers a -7 penalty to his IQ in lieu of an actual thaumatology skill, is not going to be successful in coming up with a spell concept. Why? It has never been successful enough in the first place, and anyone who didn't have magery was doomed from the start due to a lack of magery unless they are trying to start their study in a mana high area. To cast a spell in a normal mana region, the first spell requires magery 0 at the very least.

Yes, we can have different styles of magery where you can have improvisational spell casting, thereby creating a spell where none had existed before. But in a world in which such magery does not exist, how does the first spell ever get invented by mortal humans?

[munin]

The first magical workshop would consist of "these really cool rocks and stuff" which have geat value due to being pretty/weird/etc as well as possibly due to having been used in rituals for generations. Enchantment of the workshop is optional, thus unnecessary, or the objects may have actually gained "supernatural significance" from being used in rituals.


You invent Thaumatology the same way you invent any other skill at TL0, by trying things until something works. It might take thousands of people trying for thousands of years but that's TL0 for you.

[Varyon]

In most mythologies, magic spells are not invented by humans - rather, they are directly taught to humans by one or more deities. That is, rather than the God of Magic showing up and saying "Hey! Hey you! Yeah, over there! You can do magic, hop to it!" and then taking off, you instead have him appearing to someone - or someones - and taking the time to instruct them in their first spells. Even in the Bible (at least the Old Testament), the "magic" humans can do is charlatanry, granted by demons/malevolent spirits, or taught to them by God (like causing sheep with specific fur patterns to be born, cracking open rocks for water, etc). Granted, I don't think humans ever invent magic in mythology, but whatever.


Failing that, consider that the GURPS invention rules are obviously intended for an established TL. But if magic spells don't exist yet, you're at the magical equivalent of the very beginning of TL 0. You're looking for the low-hanging fruit. You aren't inventing the first grenade launcher - you're figuring out how to reliably break rocks so they make useful tools. You aren't inventing the automobile - you're noticing that round rocks are easier to transport by rolling them, and seeing if you can't make something like that for transporting stuff. You aren't inventing a fusion reactor - you're figuring out how to rub sticks together to make fire. GURPS invention rules are geared more toward the first, inventing something highly advanced... and so are the GURPS magic invention rules.

Now, I have no idea what the low-hanging fruit of spells are... although I guess there's a Least of Spells supplement out there that might contain them. At the least, I'd imagine the lowest-hanging fruit only require Magery 0 (or no Magery at all - magic was probably first discovered in a High Mana Zone) and have no prerequisite spells. And many of the other spells should be discoverable without an advanced magical lab - indeed, you could simply declare that any spell from GURPS Magic with a prerequisite of Magery 1 or lower can be discovered by simpler means than the magical invention rules, and that those are only needed for new custom spells, or the more advanced spells from later supplements.


Another idea is to consider that many ancient cultures watched, revered, and emulated the various animals that shared their land. There have also been long-established traditions of gaining the strength of an animal via rituals involving harvested organs from said animal. In a world where magical beasts exist, early humans may have figured out some basic magic from emulating such beasts and/or from rituals utilizing their mana organs. This could easily be an aspect of the above "low-hanging fruit" concept.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by hal

Hello Folks,
As I reread more Closely, the rules presented in GURPS MAGIC for reasons that involve "researching rules as written" for future discussions and material, I am struck by the issues involving the invention of new spells per GURPS MAGIC for 4e versus the original rules as presented in GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition.

To wit:

If you presume you're in a world in which there may or may not be Deities who provide useful information to humanity - then the idea of which came first, the chicken or the egg, does not apply. To wit, having a deity give mankind the first spell that its first mageborn will utilize pre-empts the entire argument right? But let's talk about the first mage born who doesn't have spells, but is told by a deity "you can do spells even though there are no such things as spells just yet."

How does the first spell get created?

Per GURPS MAGIC pg 17, we have this:

"A magical workshop is required, with accoutrements that cost
$(prerequisite count +1)x(400 energy)x(the setting’s prevailing price per
energy point (pp. 21-22)). The researcher and his assistants may choose to offset up to 90% of this investment by enchanting the supplies themselves;
10% of the cost is consumable supplies which must be purchased."

The problem with the paragraph above, is that it specifies the spell researchers can enchant things. Enchantment requires spells. The first spell developed has no spells to be able to fulfill the requirement for the prerequisites of enchantment as a spell. The other problem is that when enchanting, you need the underlying spell ENCHANTMENT along with the actual "aspect" of what is being enchanted into the item in question. What enchantment is being produced by the enchanted supplies for the enchanted lab?

The next issue is this: Thaumatology (Pg 225 of GURPS BASIC SET: CHARACTERS) states it is a study of matical theory. Presumably, his knowledge of magical theory would have to be based on a default skill level of IQ-7. Or can he? The problem here is this:

"Thaumatology IQ/Very Hard Default: IQ-7*."

"* There is no default in a nonmagical setting, or for those who have never witnessed “real” magic."

Our first budding mage who invents the first spell, is incapable of actually researching the first spell ever. The only way that he (the mageborn) may conclude that magic is being performed, is if he sees a deity successfully do something that seems like magic and he's trying to replicate what he saw. But think about it, an IQ 11 mageborn, who suffers a -7 penalty to his IQ in lieu of an actual thaumatology skill, is not going to be successful in coming up with a spell concept. Why? It has never been successful enough in the first place, and anyone who didn't have magery was doomed from the start due to a lack of magery unless they are trying to start their study in a mana high area. To cast a spell in a normal mana region, the first spell requires magery 0 at the very least.

Yes, we can have different styles of magery where you can have improvisational spell casting, thereby creating a spell where none had existed before. But in a world in which such magery does not exist, how does the first spell ever get invented by mortal humans?

You know, this in some ways is like asking "who invented the first alcoholic beverage, or who had the brilliant idea of smashing small seeds of wheat to create flour, and even more than that, who thought about getting that wheat-dust, mix with cows milk and chickens eggs and make breads or cakes. Who invented culinary?

And the process is trial and mistake. Lots and lots of mistakes and waste of material that, once in a while, produce a single useful result.

How did we went from dancing to the rain to the scientific method? "Standing on the shoulders of giants", said Isaac Newton. There is, human knowledge is not build up from the ground by each single human being, but rather is a process upon which each new contributor adds new blocks to a structure that have been built since the early days of human beings.

In this sense, knowledge is like evolution or like getting older. If you were to show a picture of yours as a baby, as a child, as a teen, an adult and an elder, one of each, I would be able to quickly identify each stage.

However, if you took 1 picture of yours every single day of your life and showed me the collection of your thousands of pictures, I wouldnt be able to point at any single one and say "oh yes, this one is the one that you cease to be a child and became a teen!". Rather, it would all be a big and massive constant transitioning stage.

So, the answer to your question is: there was NO "first mage" or "first spell". There were only "proto-mages" and "proto-spells" being refined over longs periods of time by lots and lots of trial and mistake, until after many many eras those ideas and disciplines would solidify into the body of knowledge called "Thaumatology".

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by hal

How does the first spell get created?

It entirely depends on the rules of magic in that world.

If Improvisational Magic is 100% not possible, then the only way mortals can learn real magic is by outside intervention (spirits, demons, deities, extraplanar visitors, etc.). Without some form of Improvisational Magic available, mortals won't even be able to accidentally stumble into causing some sort of magical effect without using an outside source. It is even quite likely that no one would even believe that magic was possible without some sort of outside intervention.

You can think of non-Improvisational Magic as having an invisible, insubstantial muscle that you can't move at all without being told how to, while Improvisational Magic is having a similar muscle that you can move at random.

Now if some form of Improvisational Magic exists, you have the ability to potentially replicate an effect over and over, which forms the basis of ritualistic invention. This is true even if the ability to use Improvisational Magic is extremely rare.

[TGLS]

If you have a campaign that involves, um, primitive magic, then I think you'll be better served with the awakening rules from powers and handling it narratively as opposed to using anything resembling invention rules.

[ajardoor]

I imagine you sleep in a place of power and the knowledge comes to you in a dream?

[Pursuivant]

You're ignoring environment and imagination.

If magic exists, then there will be places and creatures that are, or inherently become, magical. If humans exist they will hope, dream, and wish for certain things to be true. Those are the bases for magic.

Because humans naturally want to see patterns, and naturally feel a sense of awe in the presence of mighty forces, they will naturally wish for things that are awesome and will naturally try to recreate the patterns to seemingly lead to those awesome events. Those are the bases for religion.

Instinctively, humans will use the magical laws of contagion (i.e., connect A to B to get some of A's properties into B) and similarity (i.e., because the sun is hot like fire, we can use fire to represent sunlight) to get seemingly magic effects.

The first magic items might be simple tools that become spontaneously magical, e.g., the bullroarer that is extra loud because it's been used within the sacred cave for generations, or the fire drill that gives +2 to start fires because the wood used to make it came from an ancient magical tree which was struck by divine lightning.

They might also be magically-active parts of magical animals or plants. E.g., the seal skin that allows shapeshifting because it was taken from a selkie, or the bow that is extra deadly because it was fashioned from wood of a yew tree that grew over a mass grave on a battlefield.

Select for a proto-mage with IQ 15 + Magery 3 who's familiar with these spontaneously magical devices operating in a Very High Mana environment (and remember, mages can sense mana levels, so they can seek out such places) and magic will spontaneously happen. If our paleolithic Merlin survives the experience, they might bust their butts trying to make that cool magical experience happen again. Once they figure it out, and can consistently get the same effect using the same ritual, materials, and mindset they'll try to recreate the experience elsewhere. They've just invented the first spell. Others will want to do the same trick, and mages' apprentices are born.

Over time, our budding archmage will learn to streamline their magical procedures, imagining the ingredients and rituals rather than needing to have or do them, until they can finally cast a spell as an act of will. At that point, they might realize that all that is really needed to magic is knowledge, power, and will to turn the power on and off ("To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent"). When that happens, you get fully developed magic.

[Inky]

Originally Posted by hal

"A magical workshop is required, with accoutrements that cost
$(prerequisite count +1)x(400 energy)x(the setting’s prevailing price per
energy point (pp. 21-22)). The researcher and his assistants may choose to offset up to 90% of this investment by enchanting the supplies themselves;
10% of the cost is consumable supplies which must be purchased."

As munin says, this implies that the materials have to be enchanted, but it doesn't actually say so, so by the letter of the rules as written any kind of equipment would do so long as it was worth the same as the market price of 400 points of energy (for a spell with no prerequisites, which this would have to be).

Actually, if you were sneaky, you could say that since nobody but your would-be magician knows yet that humans can do anything useful with magical energy, the market price of 400 points of energy is zero!

Another explanation might be that the equipment just has to contain 400 points of mana, and it doesn't necessarily have to have got there by the use of the Enchant spell. In that case, there might be materials in the setting that were naturally more magical than others, as in a lot of real-life folklore - rowan wood, vervain, wolves' teeth, or what have you, not to mention bones or fur from any magical creatures that the setting might have. After all, High Mana areas have to get that way somehow. And since Magery includes a rudimentary sense of what items are magical, the would-be magician knows what to look for.

(Since animals can be bought either as Allies with CP or as property with cash, could a live magical creature to study count as a - very valuable - piece of your "workshop equipment"?)


Thaumatology not having a default is a trickier one - GURPS's basic magic system seems to assume that magic is a thing all by itself with nothing in common with anything else. (As opposed to, say, S. John Ross's Hedge Magic system, which is literally based on making "magic medicine" be an extension of "normal medicine" and so on. Or the suggestions that are sometimes made that a Middle-Earth game might base magic on music and craft skills.) The only way that working it out from scratch would actually be rules-legal would be to use Wild Talent.

Unless, as Pursuivant said, there are other ways that magic can happen in the setting, without anyone having to use the Thaumatology skill, and you call that close enough to count as having "witnessed 'real' magic" to give you a Thaumatology default.

I seem to remember this exact discussion happening recently about Wrestling, which also has no default!

[hal]

I have to admit, after seeing these responses, that I should have included the line...

Rules as written that is...

;)

Mind you, I'm not above modifying things here and there, or using other approaches such as has been mentioned here in this thread. But here is the rub...

If I'm gong to write something in the Alaconius lectures, I have to try and keep it as close to rules as written as I possibly can so that those who read the lectures - can rest easy that the research into the rules is as tight as I can make it. Mind you, I can be mistaken, and I'm not the line editor for the game - so there is that. On the flip side, if I point something out as part of the rules as written - some GM may say "Hmmm, never thought of that" or some player may think "Hey! I can do that?"

Inventing the first spell details what happens when you use the rules as written for the invention of spells, which in turn requires a mindset of "Ok, how do spells get invented?"

As I see it now - the first spells need to be necessary for the needs of the caster. The way some subsequent spells become invented, is either by direct need for the spell itself, or - as the case may be, are invented as the stepping stone required to reach a desired spell. Research for a new spell not only includes how to actively craft the new spell itself, but if the spell caster lacks the requisite spells necessary - reveals those spells that must be invented in order to attain the final goal. As a quick example, if you have one spell in the requsite chain, and you wish to invent a new spell that has a requisite chain of 4 spells, the researcher then successfully invents his spell (so to speak), will learn that he lacks requisite #2. Now the researcher has to actually invent spell #2 before he can resume research into the spell he wants. If he succeeds, he learns that he has to invent requisite spell #3. On it goes until he finally invents all the requisite spells AND the spell he really wanted.

The spell invention rules for GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition (aka known as GURPS CLASSIC MAGIC) has no such provision for "enchanted lab" or "Enchanted library". It doesn't leave the definition of what enchantments are necessary for the process to be done. Heck, the concept of an enchanted library or lab isn't really all too well defined, leaving it up to the GM to make a decision, which could be as simple as "Ingredients with magical properties rather than ingredients that have specifically been enchanted".

Problem is - it isn't a rules as written solution, which then permits someone to say "hey, that's now how I read the rules as written."

Now maybe you glet the reason this thread was created. Me? I utilize the older version of spell research - largely to avoid the chicken and the egg routine.

I don't have a problem with the idea of the Gods giving man kind a leg up on early spells. I don't have a problem with other races giving mankind a leg up as well (but if it isn't mankind that has to wrestle with inventing the first new spells, it will be the other races who have to face that issue - rules as written).

Yes, there are vararities of magic where you can spontaneously wish for a spell and it will happen. But it doesn't permit the person to know the spell outright. It does however, let anyone who witnesses the spell effects/casting, to reasearch the spell - but that puts us back to where we have the problem of an enchanted lab/library. If you don't have one, or can't make it - how do you get an enchanted library/lab?

Again - rules as written is the goal here. But thank you for your contributions! :)