10-20-2016, 06:25 PM | #31 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: GURPS Powers and Enchanting
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You're quite correct that not everyone thinks that way. Really, though, all I was doing was framing the process in the way I'm used to thinking of it, and objecting to being told that I couldn't think of it that way, and that no one ever portrayed the creation of magical objects that way.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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10-20-2016, 06:32 PM | #32 | |
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: USA, Arizona, Mesa
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Re: GURPS Powers and Enchanting
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10-20-2016, 08:11 PM | #33 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: GURPS Powers and Enchanting
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My real point, though, is that a lot of stories about magic involve someone with magical skill going through a long, elaborate procedure at the end of which they have a magical gadget. I don't think it's really critical whether this procedure is "I smelt metal, make a sword blank, hammer it into shape, temper it, inscribe the blade with runes of power, and so on—and while doing so, I put power into it," or "I take a sword and go through a ritual that puts power into it." What you've got is a long, slowly cast spell that makes an object magical. On the other hand, you don't have that with divinely powered objects. They have their power because a god has said, "Let this thing have power!" You don't have it with super powers, either. Some of them are made by brilliant scientists, often using weird science; some are the result of accidents; some are gifts from advanced alien civilizations. The basic process is a Gadgeteering roll, or a series of them. It's really uncommon to have chi powers put into a gadget at all. The narratives that go with the different power sources are also different from each other. And I really don't see any payoff in trying to assimilate them all to the same model. Still less do I see the merit in making it a form of Affliction, which is an innate power of a superhuman being, usually. That doesn't fit either "I studied magic and learned to make daggers +1" or "I had insights into the true nature of the cosmos that enabled me to invent a shrinking ray." The use of Affliction is a roll to use a power; the other two are rolls to use skills. The fact that the results are somewhat akin signifies no more than that you can leap great distances with Super Jump, or with a cinematic martial arts skill, or with a spell. Or, I don't know, by being possessed by the grasshopper god rpchrrrkrrt.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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10-21-2016, 01:10 AM | #34 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: GURPS Powers and Enchanting
We need to justify what we put into RPGs? To whom? Is there a board of Fantasy RPG Authenticity?
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10-21-2016, 09:23 AM | #35 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: GURPS Powers and Enchanting
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So, for example, if I were running a science fiction game, and I had vampires in it, my players might be saying, "Whaaat? Where did vampires come from?" Because, you know, vampires are supernatural monsters and science fiction as a genre is naturalistic. But I could justify it by having a scientific/medical rationale for what looks like vampirism being a form of disease, as A.E. Van Vogt did in "Asylum." Or I could have a mutated race that taps another race's biological energy; that's at best soft science fiction, as vitalism is obsolete as a scientific theory, but Jacqueline Lichtenberg made it work in the Sime/Gen novels. The whole question of "justification" came up because we were having a discussion that involved people presenting reasons for believing something. Presenting reasons is "justifying." That's why my objection was to "assuming what you set out to prove." (Many years ago, I saw the proofs of a mathematical paper. The typesetting had produced an error where one line of type stuck out beyond the edge of the column, and looked bad. And the proofreader had noted "justify" next to it, meaning, in proofreader language, "line this up with the lines above and below." And the author had written, in the margin, a neat little proof that the statement being made in that line was mathematically correct!)
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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10-21-2016, 11:10 AM | #36 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: GURPS Powers and Enchanting
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We should remember that such stories don't really distinguish between something that is magical and something that is not magical. The elves in The Lord of the Rings sometimes express confusion about this distinction, because as far as they're concerned, there isn't one. To them, the problem is simply one of craft. To put it in terms they would find uncouth, it is a technological problem. Middle-earth does not have "mana" which "powers" magic. Elven ropes loosen when called because the elves know how to make ropes that do this. They could even have taught a hobbit this craft, they say. But some crafts require resources the lesser folk are unable to provide. The One Ring, for example, required Sauron to put his own spirit into it; a hobbit couldn't be taught that. The line between these artifacts is fuzzy, not distinct. In such a setting, a "magical" artifact is simply represented in game terms as advanced technology. Creating such an item requires only the use of skills. The Game Master may decide that some items require ingredients that are hard to acquire or utilize, like the spirit of the creator, but the actual creation is still just the use of skills. Creating such items probably involves very hefty penalties, such that only those who have 20+ skill levels have a chance of succeeding. If your setting's magic does have a clear difference between magical and non-magical, however, then this approach won't work. |
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10-21-2016, 12:28 PM | #37 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: GURPS Powers and Enchanting
It still doesn't follow that if I am playing a game in Golarion that I should have to abide by the way things worked in Middle Earth. It strikes me as fairly useless and limiting snobbery to insist that every secondary world follows rules derived from Tolkienic purism. That Golarion is in some way derived from Tolkien by way of Gygax and Wood isn't especially relevant, any more than my descent from fish has any relevance on my desire not to drown.
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10-21-2016, 01:34 PM | #38 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: GURPS Powers and Enchanting
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The basic approach still works, though: determine the source and nature of magic, then use the rules of GURPS that deal with those sources. In GURPS, a magical source usually means taking the Magical (-10%) power modifier, which implies that it's fueled by mana and can be disrupted by anti-magic or a change in mana. If your game world considers "magic" to be something other than this, figure out what that "other" is, and implement it. Going from a Tolkien or folklore basis is simply one application of this. |
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10-21-2016, 01:49 PM | #39 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: GURPS Powers and Enchanting
What does not being able to "justify" game worlds that reflect those mechanics mean then?
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10-21-2016, 02:58 PM | #40 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
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Re: GURPS Powers and Enchanting
Bill, after giving it some thought I'm not sure I can even agree with your base premise (Which as I read it is that peicemail enchantment over time is not really a thing in fiction or proposed 'real' magical items).
Even in Tolkien: Narsil had powerful enchantments on it, and even when broken it retained its magic. Then the elves reforged it into Andúril and it became even greater. In GURPS magic I imagine this looks something like this: 1. Narsil is a +3/+3 blade with penetrating weapon 2. 2. Narsil is shattered, and looses all enchantment 3. Narsil is used to cut off Sauron's finger and loose the one ring- gaining enchantment through deed to +2/+2 and penetrating weapon 5 4. Elves reforge fragments of Narsil into Andúril and upgrade it to +5/+5 (master elven smiths presumably have one of the many time compression for enchantment builds to do this in a reasonable time period). In a magic as powers/sorcery type setup this may instead be that someone is using devotional enchantment on the sword, or a compounding affliction And in greek mythology: Zeus wields thunderbolts through his contract with the cyclops- it takes the cyclops people a long time to churn out a thunderbolt (so its perhaps a spell stone of lightning strike done via slow and sure enchantment, in sorcery). And even in the christian/catholic faith: The longer a relic has been prayed over, and by the larger the group of people, the stronger the relic is- this pretty much a stock presentation of 'enchantment through devotion' en mass, and they are god empowered religious artifacts to boot. In ALEISTER CROWLEY's 'practical magic' (I refuse the spell it the way he did) tokens/icons/fetishes/whatever are made by 'focusing your energy' on the object. The longer you focus in each session, and the more sessions you do the more powerful it is In druidic/wiccan rites repeating the same ritual on the same item over and over is supposed to strengthen it. In the highland sword dance the longer a woman can dance over her lovers swords the longer he can sustain in combat without suffering a blow. This can be strengthened with subsequent dances. So even in fiction/mythology the concept of incremental focused enchantment over time is present. |
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