Genericness of Magic in GURPS

[LoneWolf23k]

Originally Posted by Lupo

Temporary Enchantment as written are often inefficient and expensive... your example shows it clearly (53 energy for a single +1 damage??)

If you want to use them extensively in your campaign (that is, "most mages use temporary enchantments, they are the typicall party enhancing spell") you'll have to greatly reduce its cost.

Okay then, I guess we need some new spells, then. How about something like "Empower Weapon", granting a flat +1 to weapon damage per two points of Energy spent?

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by Lupo

Temporary Enchantment as written are often inefficient and expensive... your example shows it clearly (53 energy for a single +1 damage??)

If you want to use them extensively in your campaign (that is, "most mages use temporary enchantments, they are the typicall party enhancing spell") you'll have to greatly reduce its cost.


You might be interested in Sharpen (M118) who works on both cutting and impaling damage.

Thanks for pointing that one out - I'd missed it when I first went through the list. It doesn't do everything I'd like (adding cutting damage to blunt weapons), but it is an example of exactly the kind of spell that is largely lacking in GURPS Magic: cheap short-term enchantments (because, really, that's what Sharpen is) with durations based on time rather than number of uses.

There are a few more things I would like to have seen in GURPS Magic, and I hope Thaumatology includes some if not all of them:

1) War College. Even if it had just sucked up spells from existing lists like a Hoover. That way a battlecaster wouldn't have to be a college dabbler, and could even take One College Magery.
2) Emanations. Area spells that center on the caster and move with him/her. Just about every Area spell could be duplicated as an Emanation spell with no tweaking of cost: the tradeoff of mobility vs. range seems good enough to me.
3) Combinations. A way to cast two or more spells at the same time, using one skill roll, at a skill penalty or increased FP cost (sort of like combat Combinations in MA, but not quite). Thunderclap + Lightning is a stupid example but it's basically what I'm thinking of.
4) Aspected magic. Another way to do clerical magic, keeping all the prerequisites but making each spell only work on friends or enemies of the caster's religion (depending on the kind of spell it is), with a reduction to skill cost (H -> A, VH -> H) or FP cost.

With the exception of #2, these fill the gap of what I mean by "too generic." Why is there no War College? I don't know - there's no divine law that says there has to be one. And it certainly isn't hard to make a house rule to create it, so I'm not up in arms about the lack of a War College. I get the feeling that the editors of GURPS Magic (over the years) wanted to move away from the D&D battlecaster paradigm (to make it more generic), which is FINE... but a War College would really have come in handy for Dungeon Fantasy 1.

[tylrlsaa]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

I feel the opposite: GURPS magic is too generic for my uses. It makes certain assumptions about the nature of a spellcasting culture that are too restrictive for what I need. For example, a "battle mage" using GURPS magic doesn't have many options for enhancing others' weapons. What's worse, there is next to no true minor enchantment system in GURPS magic: there's major enchantment (lasts forever, takes a long, long time to cast) and temporary enchantment (lasts X uses, takes a long time to cast), but no minor enchantment (lasts X minutes, takes a few seconds to cast). The only spell I can think of off hand is Flaming Weapon.

With respect, sir. It IS the GENERIC universal role-play system. If you feel it is too generic, customize. Write up house rules that are comfortable to you and your players and go have a good time. That's the whole point.

[LemmingLord]

GURPS Magic spells seem very out of place. I know the comment has been made before, but generic-izing the psionics system was the right thing to do, and so would be doing so with magic.

That said, GURPS Magic spells are a fine "house rule" to add to the generic system. :)

But yes - GURPS Magic is quite non-generic. It feels like it should be a part of a world book. You can't model Forgotten Realms D&D style magic or MAGE the ascension brand magic off it. Its really its own creature.

[Lonewulf]

For what it's worth, I'm making my own magic system for my Dragon Age RPG (title a work in progress).

So far, it works a bit more like Mage than anything. I'm trying to set it up so that most users can get practical use out of it, but only the most powerful can get anything REALLY significant out of it. I.E., you can't really sling fireballs around until Magery 1 or so. To do so beforehand is dangerous, and draining.

It's meant for a Normal mana world (with certain high mana zones), and magic is divided into three parts.

Regardless, I recommend that anyone that's even the slightest bit interested look here: http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Dragon_Age

I'm still brainstorming and just using the wiki for scribing it down.

A lot of the figures are just "ballpark figures". Either way, if your complaint is that magic is too *general* and not specific enough, then you would dislike my system.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by LemmingLord

GURPS Magic spells seem very out of place. I know the comment has been made before, but generic-izing the psionics system was the right thing to do, and so would be doing so with magic. .

Magic has been genericised of course. The magery system is merely an alternative to the generic approach.

[Lupo]

Originally Posted by LemmingLord

GURPS Magic spells seem very out of place. I know the comment has been made before, but generic-izing the psionics system was the right thing to do, and so would be doing so with magic.

That said, GURPS Magic spells are a fine "house rule" to add to the generic system. :)

But yes - GURPS Magic is quite non-generic. It feels like it should be a part of a world book. You can't model Forgotten Realms D&D style magic or MAGE the ascension brand magic off it. Its really its own creature.

How could a single magic system possibly model both D&D and Mage the ascension?
GURPS has a very functional "power building" system (that is, GURPS Powers) that will allow you to build any possible magic system (though it can be complex).
GURPS Magic is quite customizable, and can cover most fantasy magic system, but makes certain assumptions, and if you use it as written, it will be different from D&D, Mage or any other system.

[LemmingLord]

Originally Posted by Lupo

How could a single magic system possibly model both D&D and Mage the ascension?

Yes, like you said, Powers attempts to be the toolkit to do just just that..

My concern is that when Steve Jackson Games has put out game world books in the past, they force the game world to work wih the GURPS Magic system basically developed for the Banestorm GURPS Fantasy book long long ago. While I think the system has many merits, it is NOT the system of any other world but Banestorm..

And now that many of the old worldbooks will never be translated upto 4th edition... we remain stuck with an alien magic system. It is an aborration to the genericness of GURPS..

I am pleased that powers is in place that they can change this with future magical worlds and I beg and pray that they will use powers to describe magical abilities in future non-Banestorm world books.

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by tylrlsaa

With respect, sir. It IS the GENERIC universal role-play system. If you feel it is too generic, customize. Write up house rules that are comfortable to you and your players and go have a good time. That's the whole point.

Yes, absolutely. I should have been clearer, my comment wasn't meant to be purely a criticism. I have been developing my own house rules (simply by adding a Combination spell, which allows more than one spell to be cast at the same time, at a skill penalty, one can effectively expand the spell list), using the magic system as the primary structure, and I'm quite happy with the way magic works in GURPS generally. That being said, I do think the lack of minor enchantments was an oversight.

[Gudiomen]

Originally Posted by Jabani

A lot of people (myself included) have made the claim that the GURPS magic system is not particularly universal, citing its rigid structure or whatever. And while I still think this is somewhat true, I noticed today that the spells themselves can be woven to fit each individual campaign better (which is what GURPS is supposed to do after all).

Certainly it's possible to modify the magic system, as many of us have probably done. The general complaint however stems for the fact that the rules provided are not generic enough and not "reverse-engeneerable" as for instance the powers system.
This occurs in other parts of the system... Alternate Form, for instance, takes 10 seconds by default to change. This makes things complicated, because there is no "reduced time" enhancement, so it would make more sense to make the default 1 second and allow GM's and players to increase the time with limitations if they wanted a slow metamorphosis.
Magic, however... is seeded with little non-generic bits in the system. From the "must have loop to purify water" and "item requires X gem encrusted to enchant" to making certain assumptions of how magic works in your setting. Some of these can be easely eliminated, others will affect the power of the spell and hence, the balance.
Another problem is the non-generic and ridig spell prerequisite system. Since spells are portrayed as skills and obey the same point progression, in order to make the more powerful spells more costly, they're placed in the end of a prerequisite line or tree that not allways makes sense in your setting. Modifying the prerequisite chain is a frank pain in the ass, and the rules provide no help or examples of this.
There are alternatives... Ritual Magic, Runes, etc... however, the ritual system makes mages totaly generalistic and at least capable of casting any spell.
The inbuilt gestures and vocal components, the setting assumptions about mana, etc, etc, etc...

I don't think the system is useless by any means, or bad for that matter. It's just not as generic and flexible as the rest of the system. DF: Adveturers brought the first effective example of Power Investure magic and an alternate to the prerequisite chain system. Rune magic isn't a bad alternative at all.

I just think magic in GURPS has to grow a lot before it can be on par with the rest of the system. Namely the atribute-(dis)advantage-skills parts...

People who are trying to emulate a certain magic system, or that have a certain concept they want to try often find themselves "alone" in the venture. The rules can't be bent far enough, and provide no guideline that would give you an assuring feeling of balance.

I'm hoping Thaumatology will go even further in overcoming the deficits of the GURPS magic alternatives. I'm not sure, but I'm hoping...

To the editors: we're not just looking for new types of magic, we're looking for diferent mechanical options for doing the same type of magic: alternatives to prerequisites, or skills for that matter; use of Bang! skills; school advantage and a single spell to control it; an official position on the basic modifiers to make powers into "spells"; and so on...

I'll hate it if Thaumatology is just the old Voodoo and Cabal rules revamped.

Magic also gained antipathy from old players because it bought nearly nothing new... it was basically a copy-paste-edit job. And the art was very bad compared to the rest of 4th edition books. It has nothing to do with the magic system itself, but it just adds insult to injury.