GURPS Man to Man.... how to add magic?

[tbone]

I don't know whether this is your best choice, but be sure to check out GURPS LITE for 3e: http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/3e/gurpslite.pdf

It presents the basic magic system, with 14 simple and (mostly) combat-oriented spells, in less than two pages.

[RGTraynor]

Beyond that, you can simply apply a basic approach. Sit down with a copy of 3rd edition GURPS Magic, and ignore Grimoire. Just spend a half hour going through it with your buddies. Skip over whole colleges that aren't likely to be applicable; Knowledge, for instance.

Any spell you unanimously agree is combat-applicable is fair game. Any spell to which any of you object (or which you think is too powerful; I wouldn't allow Area mass damage spells, myself), draw a pencil mark through it. Keep the book costs for M/H M/VH spells, as well as for Magery, and there you go. Just ditch the notion of prerequisites altogether, and let people take whatever spells they like.

And there you go. Whether it's perfectly balanced or not, eh, I wouldn't worry about it. Nothing prevents you, after all, from deciding after a match or three that X spell is too much, and out it goes.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Taneli

I believe it was the GURPS Fantasy 1st edition that added magic to GURPS, but that's out of print and not available as a PDF, so it's probably not the best choice.

Which was carried forward almost completely unchanged up through to GURPS 3e Magic.

And even despite the few significant edits between 3e and 4e, I'd say just use GURPS 4e Magic as is, or even better DFRPG Spells if you have it.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

Skip over whole colleges that aren't likely to be applicable; Knowledge, for instance.

There are Knowledge spells that could be useful "pre-battle" to give one side bonuses over the other, say a few one time uses of Luck, or bonuses that could deployed strategically. Or being able to bring in reserves from the exact right side of the battle map...

[Giovanni]

Beyond that, you can simply apply a basic approach. Sit down with a copy of 3rd edition GURPS Magic, and ignore Grimoire. Just spend a half hour going through it with your buddies. Skip over whole colleges that aren't likely to be applicable; Knowledge, for instance.

Any spell you unanimously agree is combat-applicable is fair game. Any spell to which any of you object (or which you think is too powerful; I wouldn't allow Area mass damage spells, myself), draw a pencil mark through it. Keep the book costs for M/H M/VH spells, as well as for Magery, and there you go. Just ditch the notion of prerequisites altogether, and let people take whatever spells they like.

That's exactley what we will do....

S John Ross's Blue Room had some rules for using 3e GURPS magic in a gladiatorial type game. You can find them archived here - that might be of some use in adding magic to Man to Man.

I cannot reach the linked page [error 404]

[ehrbar]

Originally Posted by Giovanni

I cannot reach the linked page [error 404]

Try http://web.archive.org/web/201608010...m/gladmage.htm

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

There are Knowledge spells that could be useful "pre-battle" to give one side bonuses over the other, say a few one time uses of Luck, or bonuses that could deployed strategically. Or being able to bring in reserves from the exact right side of the battle map...

Having seen Food spells used tactically (and effectively), no doubt someone will come up with some argument as to why just about any spell could be useful to a gladiatorial game. The OP specified "simple," and I took him at his word.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by ehrbar

Try http://web.archive.org/web/201608010...m/gladmage.htm

Thanks. I fixed the link in my original post.