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Old 08-06-2019, 11:50 AM   #1
Calliban
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Default Implications of Gurps Magic on a Merchant Princes-like setting - advice needed

I'll be running a Fantasy Venice campaign where PCs are all members of a Merchant Family trying to ascend to glory. I'll be using GURPS Crusade and all the Hot Spots as background, but there will be some supernatural stuff going on.

I've decided to allow cinematic Martial Arts to make duels feel more vibrant, and probably Divine Favor to allow for cleric-like powers to priests and such. Probably a lot of stuff from the Social Engineering series to help emulate the intricacies of the Intrigue and all the Commerce going on.

One of my players asked for GURPS Magic, as he is a fan of the Standard magic system; We rationalized Magic could easily be a forgotten science that is being re-discovery during the renaissance. It has been a long time since we used Magic on our campaigns (late 3e), but I have some concerns.

A Merchant campaign has a lot of planning trying to predict the demand for goods, as well as travel and negotiation to acquire and sell given goods. If I recall correctly there are a lot of spells that can predict markets, create goods, simplify travel, and facilitate negotiations.

My concerns are mostly to think how to avoid a Mage from hijacking the campaign and cheese/shutdown an important part of it.

Are there any specifics I should change in the rules to make sure everything works out in the end? Any advice on how to deal with Magical Economies?

Thanks!
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Old 08-06-2019, 12:25 PM   #2
Gold & Appel Inc
 
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Default Re: Implications of Gurps Magic on a Merchant Princes-like setting - advice needed

Calliban,

I 100% approve of your goals, and while not exactly being a Machiavellian Master here, I think that the best advice for you that I can give is to trust your instincts and keep your pimp hand strong. Best,

-G&AINC
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Old 08-06-2019, 12:27 PM   #3
Glimmerman
 
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Default Re: Implications of Gurps Magic on a Merchant Princes-like setting - advice needed

You could ban all Very Hard magic spells at the beginning because they are just not re-discovered yet. And if players tangle too much with magical economy, there will be dire consequences from merchant princes - accusations of counterfeiting, arson, assassination attempts etc.
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Old 08-06-2019, 12:33 PM   #4
Stormcrow
 
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Default Re: Implications of Gurps Magic on a Merchant Princes-like setting - advice needed

You don't need to change the rules. Just change what's available. If magic is a lost art being rediscovered, then you have every reason to withhold more powerful spells. You control how many levels of Magery player characters can have. You control what social disadvantages may accompany being a wizard (Social Stigma? Reputation? Odious Personal Habit?).

Unless the magic system is specifically designed to reflect "magic as it was believed to have been" (and, hence, not all that spectacularly effective), it's not going to mesh with an otherwise historical setting. Either just accept that and sweep the contradictions under the rug ("Why don't wizards make their own gold?" "Shh! Don't worry about it.") or find some combination of impediments to magic that explain why the setting remains fairly historical ("Thus far, nobody has managed to rediscover a way to turn lead into gold.").
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Old 08-06-2019, 12:54 PM   #5
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Default Re: Implications of Gurps Magic on a Merchant Princes-like setting - advice needed

Give created materials a duration of 1 day.
Weather manipulation causes side effects elsewhere, so if you make it rain for your crops someone else is getting a drought and they wont be happy.
Divination could have blind spots or be otherwise less than reliable, getting more unreliable the farther ahead you look.
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Old 08-06-2019, 12:55 PM   #6
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Implications of Gurps Magic on a Merchant Princes-like setting - advice needed

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stormcrow View Post
Y ("Thus far, nobody has managed to rediscover a way to turn lead into gold.").
If you want specifics this happens to be true for the canon system in Magic. In the Magic book the only way to do it is with Alchemy. Specifically the very hard to make Philosopher's Stone in the back of the Alchemy section.

Note that after you've done this a single Philosopher's Stone will make you millions of G$ per year but not an unlimited amount.

Someone may want to argue that you could do it with a Transmute Earth to Metal but gold is not one of the example metals and it probably requires rules and linguistic abuse to allow the designation of "simple" to become synonomous with "precious".

In any event a GM would have to allow Tranmute Earth to Gold. There's no precendent saying he should. The word "allow" would probably apply to a number of other spells in Magic that some people would argue are abusive.
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Old 08-06-2019, 01:18 PM   #7
tshiggins
 
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Default Re: Implications of Gurps Magic on a Merchant Princes-like setting - advice needed

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.]
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Old 08-06-2019, 01:33 PM   #8
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Default Re: Implications of Gurps Magic on a Merchant Princes-like setting - advice needed

Quote:
Originally Posted by tshiggins View Post
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).
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Old 08-06-2019, 02:01 PM   #9
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Default Re: Implications of Gurps Magic on a Merchant Princes-like setting - advice needed

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.
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Old 08-06-2019, 02:14 PM   #10
whswhs
 
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Default Re: Implications of Gurps Magic on a Merchant Princes-like setting - advice needed

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.
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