[Thaumatology] Powers as (Path/Book) Magic

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I can't say how close the Constantine show was to the comics in terms of plot arc but the character was pretty close.

The show was very close in spirit, it embodied what a young Constantine might have been doing or he might have done, had those events occurred in comic.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

The Constantine movie was weird, because they moved the whole thing from London to LA and added in some voodoo/hoodoo elements. But I feel like they did a good job of capturing the spirit of the character.

The voodoo specialist Constantine visits in the movie also appeared in the comic. He has worldwide connections with practioners of all sorts.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The 2005 movie Constantine starring Keanu Reeves was (maybe)based on that. I mostly note it as one of those adapted movies where the lead actor was too lazy to dye his hair. <shrug> Maybe Keanu wouldn't have looked good all bleached out(think Billy Idol). They may finally be making a sequel.

I don't normally think of Keanu as being lazy. The man has a famous work ethic. Remember that film producers consider audiences to be morons. They probably thought nobody would recognize a blond Keanu, and fail to throw enough money at the screen.

[Prince Charon]

Added a couple of links to the opening post. To try to get the thread back on track, one of the ideas that prompted me to start the thread:

Prof. Phineas Horton was the mad scientist who made the Golden Age Human Torch; Torch was described as an android or a synthezoid, not a robot: he had internal organs like those of a human, made of Horton cells - he was basically a homunculous, just not miniaturized. So, Horton being a Ritual Alchemist makes sense. The Torch could be the result of Embodying a powerful fire elemental in the artificial body, though that's not the only option - in his introductory story he's confused by the world around him, and by his powers, learning to use them over the course of the story. While that could be the fire elemental needing to regain his memories after a partially-botched summoning, it's also possible that the new man had a massive talent for fire magic, and needed to practice to control it. Having spirits use a form of Path/Book Magic themselves (possibly closer to the version in The Magic of Stories, each spirit having an Archetype or Archetypes) is somewhat fitting in this context, and for those who care, does mean the point cost of their abilities are consistent with the point costs of mortals' abilities. The fluff just needs to be adjusted to fit.

Toro and Captain Kerosene both have abilities quite similar to the Human Torch, but not identical. Perhaps they emphasized different rituals in practice, or perhaps they use different styles. Kerosene's powers were unstable at first (either a disadvantage, or a limitation on Magery or Path/Book Adept), and he seems to have a phoenix-like ability to resurrect from his own ashes, which Toro hasn't demonstrated, needing to be revived by outside forces.

I've been thinking about a single-Book style, perhaps called Book of Flames, that one or both might use variants of: the rituals from GURPS Thaumatology that fit best (all from Path of the Elements) are Endure Elements, Firecalm, and Conjure Flame. Firecalm and Endure Elements basically work as-is (albeit they'd need to use the latter at a rather high level - or it could be a side-effect of Burning Man, below), while Conjure Flame probably needs replacing or reworking, as they tend to get areas of flame by setting things on fire, or extending existing flames in a manner that more resembles a ritual based on the Shape Fire spell from GURPS Magic. I'd say that the ritual (possibly called 'Fireshaping') could have the same skill penalty and casting time for Effect Shaping, and the same energy cost under Energy Accumulating, as Conjure Flames does. The fireballs that the Human Torch and Toro tend to use might be from a separate ritual, or just specific instances of Fireshaping.

The signature power of the Human Torch and imitations thereof, beyond fire creation and control in general, is flying around while covered in flames, and usually quite resistant to bullets. This isn't the same as Body of Fire, as the solid body remains beneath the flames. I'm honestly not sure if this should be one ritual, or two or three. Right now, I'm calling the 'covered in flames that don't burn you' aspect 'Burning Man,' and the flight ritual 'Shooting Star.' If the bullet resistance is part of one of these, it should probably be Burning Man. If not, I'm not sure what to call it. I considered making it a version of Ghost Shirt, but it's too consistent and working at too short a range for that.


Thoughts?

[oneofmanynameless]

I guess I wonder at why you'd try to powers as magic instead of magic as powers, when the advantage system has a far more robust system for designing your own powers and abilities (or spells) to suit whatever concept the character has and Path/Book magic has a fairly limited collection of spells with no real rules for expanding on it.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

I guess I wonder at why you'd try to powers as magic instead of magic as powers, when the advantage system has a far more robust system for designing your own powers and abilities (or spells) to suit whatever concept the character has and Path/Book magic has a fairly limited collection of spells with no real rules for expanding on it.

A couple of reasons: First, it's an intellectual exercise that I won't know whether it's useful unless someone tests it; I do a lot of those. Second, it can give a different feel to the setting and game, and enable different playstyles, much the way spell-based magic can give a different feel from Magic as Powers, or Symbol Drawing Magic.

Yes, creating new rituals for Path/Book magic without using the Ritual Path Magic system is largely a matter of fudging (and I mostly don't use RPM, because I find it annoying and counterintuitive most of the time), but this isn't a huge problem, since GMs may each want to adjust the costs and limitations differently for their setting - e.g. in one setting, Fireball may be a casual low-effort attack that lots of mages use, and in another, it's quite hard to get working, and mainly the sign of a powerful specialized Fire Magus.

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

A couple of reasons: First, it's an intellectual exercise that I won't know whether it's useful unless someone tests it; I do a lot of those.

I can certainly get behind that. I do plenty of those myself.

It seems like the types of powers that will be the most difficult to handle with this type of system would be something like Super Strength, or the abilities of the Biomorph template from GURPS Supers. E.G. Abilities that are always on, as opposed to abilities like those of the Blaster Template from GURPS Supers which all require activation. This will also extend to powers that are deeply interconnected with racial templates, like the abilities of a werewolf, vampire, or fire elemental. Anything truly innate and supposedly second nature will feel awkward in a system that is entirely about using skills to activate effects. You certainly can train innate abilities (hiking and running and lifting are all skills for improving innate capacities humans have) but those skills tend to work very differently from a Path or Book.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by Inky

A lot of those Golden Age superhero comics and pulp stories seem to have some kind of 'mind over matter' thing (sometimes martial-arts and/or mysterious-Eastern-magic-inspired) going on at the back of their minds, some unspoken and some in so many words, so in some cases it is magic, albeit not in so many words, which might be one reason it fits well

Wonder Woman in particular — though she went with “Greek martial arts” in her early days: her superhuman feats were largely explained as Amazonian Training that let her channel “mental energy” through her body.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

I can certainly get behind that. I do plenty of those myself.

It seems like the types of powers that will be the most difficult to handle with this type of system would be something like Super Strength, or the abilities of the Biomorph template from GURPS Supers. E.G. Abilities that are always on, as opposed to abilities like those of the Blaster Template from GURPS Supers which all require activation. This will also extend to powers that are deeply interconnected with racial templates, like the abilities of a werewolf, vampire, or fire elemental. Anything truly innate and supposedly second nature will feel awkward in a system that is entirely about using skills to activate effects. You certainly can train innate abilities (hiking and running and lifting are all skills for improving innate capacities humans have) but those skills tend to work very differently from a Path or Book.

Agreed. A hybrid system where something skill-like is used for active abilities while something advantage-like is used for passive abilities might be reasonable.

Although you might be surprised at how blurry that line can be. I just mentioned Wonder Woman as an ideal candidate for this treatment; in particular, her feats is super-strength are essentially skill-based. In fact, there are Cinematic Combat Skills that let you magnify your strength for one feat. Likewise, the Superboy introduced in the 1990s had “tactile telekinesis”, which he used to simulate, among other things, Superman's bulletproofing; there was one scene early on, before he realized the n nature of his powers, when he woke up in a hospital as a nurse was about to jab a needle into him. When it broke instead of breaking his skin, he smirked at the nurse's confusion — until the nurse pointed out that she was confused because they hadn't had any difficulty hooking him up to an IV earlier while he was unconscious, and Superboy freaked out when he saw a needle already sticking into his arm.

So even super-strength and invulnerability can technically be skill-based.

I'm not sure that Path/Book would necessarily be the best way to go for this sort of thing, as the defining feature of Path/Book Magic are the Effect-Shaping or Energy-Accumulating rules that are designed to make casting take a long time and require a lot of prep. Regular Magic spells might be a better fit; possibly with Ritual Magic if you prefer to learn Colleges of spells as skills and individual spells as techniques, instead of learning individual spells as skills.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Agreed. A hybrid system where something skill-like is used for active abilities while something advantage-like is used for passive abilities might be reasonable.

That's largely what I'm going for, though I don't think I articulated it well enough. A spirit might have the Invisibility and Insubstantiality advantages because of what their 'bodies' are, but have a lot of other abilities expressed mechanically by rituals (though in-setting, not necessarily in the sense that we associate with the word 'ritual' - the Magic of Stories article described that interestingly, I think, but I'm blanking on the exact quote or quotes, and it would be inconvenient for me to look it up right now).

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Although you might be surprised at how blurry that line can be. I just mentioned Wonder Woman as an ideal candidate for this treatment; in particular, her feats is super-strength are essentially skill-based. In fact, there are Cinematic Combat Skills that let you magnify your strength for one feat. Likewise, the Superboy introduced in the 1990s had “tactile telekinesis”, which he used to simulate, among other things, Superman's bulletproofing; there was one scene early on, before he realized the n nature of his powers, when he woke up in a hospital as a nurse was about to jab a needle into him. When it broke instead of breaking his skin, he smirked at the nurse's confusion — until the nurse pointed out that she was confused because they hadn't had any difficulty hooking him up to an IV earlier while he was unconscious, and Superboy freaked out when he saw a needle already sticking into his arm.

So even super-strength and invulnerability can technically be skill-based.

Good examples.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

I'm not sure that Path/Book would necessarily be the best way to go for this sort of thing, as the defining feature of Path/Book Magic are the Effect-Shaping or Energy-Accumulating rules that are designed to make casting take a long time and require a lot of prep. Regular Magic spells might be a better fit; possibly with Ritual Magic if you prefer to learn Colleges of spells as skills and individual spells as techniques, instead of learning individual spells as skills.

I'm not looking for 'is this the best fit in general,' because that's very debatable and circumstantial, I'm looking for 'can this be made playable enough as Path/Book Magic that people could have fun with it, without wandering too far from the depictions in the source material?'

EDIT: Also, meant to point this out due to the mention of werewolves et al earlier: The opening post of Monsters as Magicians... or vice versa includes a brief worked example of 'Werewolves as Book-style Magicians,' because the common Horror trope of the werewolf as a person cursed to transform of the full moon is one of many variations.