Discussing Yrth History & Evolution of GURPS MAGIC

[maximara]

Originally Posted by hal

Nice Catch.

GURPS FANTASY 1st edition predates the invention (or conceptualization) of Magery 0 and a few other things.

Did the pre-Religion way of Clerical magic exist in GURPS Fantasy 1st edition as it did in Classic: Magic? If so by a strict RAW it was Magery 0 in all but name. It would go a long way on explaining why the Errata for GURPS Fantasy 1st edition is written the way the way it is.

"A simple clerical advantage is to allow non-mage clerics to use spells of one (or a few) colleges as though they were mages. So, even in normal and low-mana areas, a cleric of (for instance) a healing-oriented power can cast Healing spells."

Originally Posted by hal

Now, some might talk about Magery levels 4+ - which is distinctly a GURPS 4e concept. Me? I don't generally ALLOW magery 4+ in my games for only ONE reason...

We have Magery 0 spells (by default, any spell not requiring magery 1+)
We have Magery 1 spells that require magery 1 as a requisite to learn
We have Magery 2 spells that require magery 2 as a requisite to learn
We have Magery 3 spells that require magery 3 as a requisite to learn

Where are the magery 4 spells that require magery 4 as a requisite?

IIRC they only exist in Pyramid 3/76: Dungeon Fantasy IV. (2015) meaning they are a very late comer to 4e and aimed at Dungeon Fantasy which is not Yrth.

Originally Posted by hal

Magery was not only the ability to cast spells in low/normal/high/very high mana regions, it was also, essentially a way of differentiating how so terribly complex a spell was so as to be incomprehensible to a mind to study.

Without Magery 3, no one can learn a magery 3 spell regardless of how much time and effort that goes into studying the spell.

Until there is a systemic method for denoting what spells are complexity 4, 5, 6, 7, etc - we really shouldn't have Magery 4+ in the campaign.

I agree. As I stated a while back GURPS 4e Magic could have eliminated the need for things like Least of Spells by having "requires Magery 0" for some of the spells.

Originally Posted by hal

The thing to keep in the back of your minds when discussing whether or not one can have a medieval TL 3 society with some of these spells is that not only do they violate genre conventions, but also in some instances, violate the basic framework of GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition.

Well that "framework" includes non-magery/non-Power Investiture Clerical magic, Rune Magic, and Alchemy so there is still a lot on the table.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

are we talking about Yrth or about something else? Yrth is not a dungeon fantasy setting littered with networks of caves and tunnels filled with monsters and loot.

And which kind of 'entry level' dungeon? In 1e and 2e AD&D, you could spend months on a dungeon full of orcs or goblins who had a tiny chance of one magic item. Its 3e and later which makes potions as common as in video games.

I meant "dungeon" in its broader sense (module) ala Mordag's Little Finger (Classic: Fantasy Adventures)

Also 1e and 2e AD&D adventurers were scaled to the level of the "dungeon" they were in. Much of the time was waiting around for the spell caster to relearn/prayer for their spells and what speed bumps were in the module were tailor made to burn through their limited resources.

Take a 6 member 50 point GURPS party through Keep of the Boarderlands, like I did back when all there was GURPS 1e and be stunned how fast they go through the thing.

[hal]

Originally Posted by maximara

Did the pre-Religion way of Clerical magic exist in GURPS Fantasy 1st edition as it did in Classic: Magic? If so by a strict RAW it was Magery 0 in all but name. It would go a long way on explaining why the Errata for GURPS Fantasy 1st edition is written the way the way it is.

The only reference to clerical magic in GURPS FANTASY 1st edition was "How Religion Works" sidebar on page 70. It lists the possibilities as:

Non-intervention
Occasional intervention
Magical Aid
Active Deities

The Magical aid simply states that magic is a divine power. It, like GURPS MAGIC page 84, or GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition page 94, suggests granting a bonus of +1 to +3 depending on the deity and the college of spells etc.

Unlike GURPS MAGIC or GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition, where we have perhaps the first recorded instance of magery 0 (ie, Clerical investment for spell casting is made more expensive per college of spells, but also an additional +5 cost per +1 bonus to spell casting) - GURPS FANTASY 1st edition doesn't go that far with Clerical Investment at all. Looking at GURPS 2nd edition, Clerical Investment was not even invented as an advantage yet. GURPS 2nd edition books I have in my possession show a copyright of 1986.

Originally Posted by maximara

"A simple clerical advantage is to allow non-mage clerics to use spells of one (or a few) colleges as though they were mages. So, even in normal and low-mana areas, a cleric of (for instance) a healing-oriented power can cast Healing spells."

But - as best as I can tell, even with GURPS MAGIC or GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition, such "Miracle casting" was still subject to the penalties of low mana. Only later did GURPS draw away from Mana for clerical powers by calling it sanctity or some such.

Originally Posted by maximara

IIRC they only exist in Pyramid 3/76: Dungeon Fantasy IV. (2015) meaning they are a very late comer to 4e and aimed at Dungeon Fantasy which is not Yrth.

I could grow to hate you for pointing out yet another Pyramid issue I don't have. LOL

<snipped stuff>

Originally Posted by maximara

Well that "framework" includes non-magery/non-Power Investiture Clerical magic, Rune Magic, and Alchemy so there is still a lot on the table.

The good news is - that absent any specifics in "Rune Magic" and Clerical powers etc - we can either do one of two things:

Merge in with the original 2% population figure, EVERY style of magic that can be cast, which includes Runemagic, knacks, clerical magics etc - or we can make the presumption that the original 2% was geared for specifically, the spell slingers from GURPS FANTASY 1st edition, and for those who still want to use that 2% guideline - everything that GURPS MAGIC introduced subsequently.

As was discovered in the other thread (Mages are coins) - I did a test run of code I created for use with VB.NET that would essentially use the full 2% value of a general population as an "entered manually" bit of data. It would then spit out what the magery values were based on each lower level of magery was 10x more common than the next highest. I did 5 test runs for each version (magery 1-3 only and the newer magery 0 to 3) and found an interesting pattern emerge...

Here is a sample of five runs that generate the Magery using non-magery 0:

Magery 1: 44 Magery 2: 7 Magery3: 0
Magery 1: 42 Magery 2: 9 Magery3: 0
Magery 1: 44 Magery 2: 6 Magery3: 1
Magery 1: 41 Magery 2: 9 Magery3: 1
Magery 1: 46 Magery 2: 5 Magery3: 0


This is what I generate when allowing for the new fangled Magery 0 instead:
Magery 0: 47 Magery 1: 4 Magery 2: 0 Magery3: 0
Magery 0: 44 Magery 1: 7 Magery 2: 0 Magery3: 0
Magery 0: 47 Magery 1: 4 Magery 2: 0 Magery3: 0
Magery 0: 41 Magery 1: 9 Magery 2: 1 Magery3: 0
Magery 0: 41 Magery 1: 10 Magery 2: 0 Magery3: 0

Note that in those runs, I was basically rolling a random number between 1 to 111 for the more traditional pre-magery 0 table of results, and from 1 to 1111 for the Magery 0 to magery 3 results. The idea was that each person born with Magery, would get a randomly generated Magery value that was in line with statistical expectations.

Magery 0 as part of a 2% population limit, results in 90% of all mageborn having only magery 0. The pre-magery 0 method results in 90% of the mageborn population having Magery 1 instead. So that is a relatively huge difference right there.

In the end? The prevelance of magery within a population is strictly a world building decision. If you make this a genetic issue, assuming that Magery is a recessive gene, then to obtain a roughly 2% population with a purely recessive gene sequence, you would have to have Magery depend on 6 genetic factors. The value would be 1/2^6 which is 1.5% of the population.

If on the other hand, you wanted to go with Magery 3 depends on a purely recessive gene set up for 10 sites, the odds of having a pure Magery 3 type of individual would be 1/2^10 or .097 percent of the general population. You could then monkey around with the idea of saying that variations in sites 7 through 10 determine various effects such as Magery 0, Magery 1, Magery 2 and even one college magery etc. But that is a detail that I really don't want to get into. If you really wanted to be nasty, one could easily make it that Genetically speaking, to have a pure magery 3 character, the magery genes are also linked with genetic disorders that MUST be present for it to express itself (ie become functional). Frankly? Genetics make me want to run and forget numbers at all... Statistical analysis is NOT my forte. I'm fine up to pre-calculus. ;)

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by maximara

I meant "dungeon" in its broader sense (module) ala Mordag's Little Finger (Classic: Fantasy Adventures)

Dungeons are a subset of adventures and a subset of published adventures (modules). "Explore this disabled space-ship" might count as a dungeon.

But to avoid getting distracted with semantics, can you give me an example of a modern adventure for Yrth which you feel has an implausible number of magic items? Mordag's Little Finger is very old (1991) and centred around an enchantress, a necromancer, and a vampire. I can't make a quick list of magic items in it.

You cited "the trope of magic items being 'easily' findable in the neighborhood dungeon. Given how fragile most are there has to be somebody or a group of somebodies making these magic items at a reasonable pace."

[David Johnston2]

[QUOTE=hal;2379467]

The good news is - that absent any specifics in "Rune Magic" and Clerical powers etc - we can either do one of two things:

There is still no indication in Banestorm that sanctity based spell casting exists on Yrth although advantages like True Faith and Healing do exist and are not included in the 2%.

In the end? The prevelance of magery within a population is strictly a world building decision. If you make this a genetic issue, assuming that Magery is a recessive gene, then to obtain a roughly 2% population with a purely recessive gene sequence, you would have to have Magery depend on 6 genetic factors. The value would be 1/2^6 which is 1.5% of the population.

If on the other hand, you wanted to go with Magery 3 depends on a purely recessive gene set up for 10 sites, the odds of having a pure Magery 3 type of individual would be 1/2^10 or .097 percent of the general population. You could then monkey around with the idea of saying that variations in sites 7 through 10 determine various effects such as Magery 0, Magery 1, Magery 2 and even one college magery etc. But that is a detail that I really don't want to get into. If you really wanted to be nasty, one could easily make it that Genetically speaking, to have a pure magery 3 character, the magery genes are also linked with genetic disorders that MUST be present for it to express itself (ie become functional). Frankly? Genetics make me want to run and forget numbers at all... Statistical analysis is NOT my forte. I'm fine up to pre-calculus. ;)

Pray allow me to mess up your calculation by pointing out that while Banestorm does explicitly say that you have to have inborn potential to be a mage, it doesn't explicitly say that people who are mageborn can't train up their level of magery. (Although it does indicate that 90% of mageborn are left at 0) I would say levels of one college magery are probably the product of personality and training and not purely genetic.

[StevenH]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Pray allow me to mess up your calculation by pointing out that while Banestorm does explicitly say that have to have inborn potential to be a mage, it doesn't explicity say that people who are mageborn can't train up their level of magery. (Although it does indicate that 90% of mageborn are left at 0) I would say levels of one college magery are probably the product of personality and training and not purely genetic.

I like the idea that you can train up a level in Magery, personally. It also simulates what I read in L.E. Modesitt's Recluce series--those mages can increase their power and range by practicing. His Order and Chaos mages get better skill-wise as well, but I like the mechanism of being able to train both skill and power.

Since the Recluce series was originally written to demonstrate that magic has economic effects (and can't just be simply "grafted on" to an otherwise mundane world), it might be useful to keep that in mind. (As, I think, we are.)

As for increasing the amount of magic items in the world (using the basic magic system) we can make the average mana level High instead of Normal; we can lower the difficulty of spells from "Astrophysics" to "Algebra" (that is, VH-->H, H-->A, or even knock them down 2 levels); change how spells are bought from separate skills to techniques based on your skill in a College; we can change the prerequisites to have shorter chains. I suppose we could also just knock a zero off of the amount of mana it takes to enchant. There are likely other ways in Thaumatology, but I haven't had the chance to read through that yet.

But I don't think we need to do that. I don't think Yrth was ever supposed to be a D&D equivalent, which I sort of equate with a world with magic items lying around all over the place. I always saw Yrth as a more realistic attempt to come up with a world that had a slew of different sentient species, magic, supernatural creatures, and all the rest. It's debatable how well they succeeded, but it was at least a good attempt.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by StevenH

I like the idea that you can train up a level in Magery, personally. It also simulates what I read in L.E. Modesitt's Recluce series--those mages can increase their power and range by practicing. His Order and Chaos mages get better skill-wise as well, but I like the mechanism of being able to train both skill and power.

That would make a lot of sense, you are born with the talent to be able to cast magic i.e have the magic advantage, but without proper training this talent isn´t worth much.

Compared to for example sports that would fit to the semirealistic approach GURPS takes mostly. It is amazing to see what people who are nearly bare of any talent can reach if the only train hard enough for a long time and have a trainer who is worth the name. Sometimes they beat even in local championships folks with a lot of talent i.e. both parents former athlets, who lack this zeal.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

There is still no indication in Banestorm that sanctity based spell casting exists on Yrth although advantages like True Faith and Healing do exist and are not included in the 2%..

Actually, Banestorm clearly states that Power Investiture "is unknown on Yrth. Priests who can cast spells are almost always born with Magery. Those with specifically “god-granted” powers usually don’t cast spells as such, having other supernatural abilities; see p. 26." (pg 183) So sanctity is basically DOA as far as Yrth goes.

But it is actually page 84 that interests us: "This setting includes some new talents. (...) Close to Heaven: Exorcism, Meditation, Religious Ritual, Ritual Magic, Symbol Drawing, and Theology. Reaction bonus: “religious professionals.” 5 points/level."

This means that Ritual Magic, in some form, does exist on Yrth; and with all the changes and options GURPS Thaumatology who knows what form it takes. The Fractional Magery option (-5 to skill if you don't know magery in normal and low mana but magery can be learned) really messes things up.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Pray allow me to mess up your calculation by pointing out that while Banestorm does explicitly say that you have to have inborn potential to be a mage, it doesn't explicitly say that people who are mageborn can't train up their level of magery. (Although it does indicate that 90% of mageborn are left at 0) I would say levels of one college magery are probably the product of personality and training and not purely genetic.

With ritual magic out and about perhaps the mageborn are actually Fractional Magery 1 [1] and they have to improve up to Magery 0.