Magical Traditions via the Ritual Magic system (Not RPM)

[Pbuckley]

Originally Posted by Rolando

With so many colleges available I think it is a feature, not a real limitation, so no discount on Magery needed.

If anything a quirk like disadvantage if the character doesn't want to learn any other tradition (eg.: Traditionalist Elementalist (-1)).

Also for a character to start with more than one tradition may be an unusual background.

You may give more flavor by adding advantages and disadvantages to the traditions, social advantages/disadvantages fit perfectly for the traditions, but you may also have some available advantages for each tradition. For example Temperature tolerance and other "elemental adaptability" advantages for Elementalism; something related to true seeing, mind control, subterfuge or appearance for Glamour; green thumb, animal empathy or other nature related advantages for Animism; medium, special senses and similar for mysticism.

These are some good idea's glad I reread. I was already thinking each Tradition would have pre-requisite, if not associated disadvantages. For instance Animism requiring Sense of Duty (Nature,) Maybe a Template with required disads and a few associated advantages?

Originally Posted by ravenfish

If you're willing to more work as a GM, you could, rather than limit by college as such, assign spells by "theme", estimate how many "colleges-worth" of spells each theme is, and assign a limitation equal in value to that many colleges. E.g., say that Glamor gets only the Illusion half of Illusion-and-Creation, and the "clouding men's minds" part of Communication-and-Empathy but not the "boosting mental abilities" part, so maybe that's one college worth of spells between them rather than two, Mysticism gets only the anti-magic-protection and not the anti-physical part of Protection and Warding and the Light half of Light and Darkness and call that one college worth of spells, and so on. This could either augment the limited college selection (as you already thought of in a few cases) or replace it completely. If your college selections come out to different sizes, but you want all mages to pay the same amount per level, you could throw on some limitations or enhancements to make up the difference (see Thaumatology for more modifiers to Magery than you could ever want).

After talking with my players I don't think I am going to go in this direction. It's better that the Traditions are more broad rather than ultra focused. This is still GURPS and part of the fun of that is the Freedom it allows. No need to go full Dungeon Fantasy with the structure. Hell the entire reason I am doing this is to thematically separate different kinds of Magic without forcing class templates on my players. That being said I am already fiddling around with collages a bit, but want to keep things relatively Vanilla/Low maintenance. As I have a tendency to dive into things a bit TOO far.

Originally Posted by khorboth

I created a similar system for a different world. Some options to consider:

A VERY small list of universal spells. Since the tree is gone, PRC is just a number, and you can move spells freely between colleges. Either cast them at highest skill or at core "ritual magic" skill. This would include anything truly universal. Recover Energy. Detect magic. Detect Evil. Maybe a half-dozen depending on your world-building. Stuff that EVERY spellcaster does.

Also, consider a +1 to one college, maybe two if they get fewer. It's just enough specialization to give real flavor. Sure, lots of casters CAN heal, but these guys are better. Or THOSE guys are more in tune with animals.

Oh, I like that! Taking notes!

I know i wanted to knock down the PRC for the Plant & Animal Collages, as they have some flavor pre-reqs early on, that shaft some already niche collages (I mean Animal Can be Strong based on Setting/GM, but Plant is Niche beyond a few spells that are really useful in survival games. But overall both lag behind while having some annoying Prereq baggage.) It also helps me maintain Animisms Weather aspect without having them shine as brightly as Elementalist with Air/Water magic. I'll definitely fiddle with that.

Noteworthy question Ritual Magic currently assumes that it grants access to all Collages, rather than a handful, would that justify toning it's difficulty level down?