06-03-2021, 06:28 PM | #61 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
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One thing which strikes me is that most miraculous spells require Magery, often Magery 2 or Magery 3. There will be a lot of desire to fake these powerful spells with simple ones. And that per p. B66, detecting magic items by sight or touch requires a Per + Magery check. Aura costs 3 FP (half an hour of highly skilled labour) per subject, Divination is difficult and likely to only be cast to find powerful mages ("mirror, mirror, on the wall, show me the most powerful mage in this barony except for ..."), and the "pick a magic item amongst mundane items" test has a high rate of false negatives. That does not suggest that our model society is better at identifying the talented than most real-world societies. It also brings up a character type: someone with unrecognized Magery who has learned a spell or two, perhaps from books, perhaps from someone who knows the spell by rote but can't cast it outside a High Mana Zone. If I were a lord in this society, I would buy a few scrolls of Major Healing and Cure Disease for emergencies. A local mage can read them even if they don't know those spells.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature Last edited by Polydamas; 06-03-2021 at 11:37 PM. |
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06-04-2021, 10:37 AM | #62 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
There is one problem with focusing on GURPS Classic Magic, and that is sex and reproduction. Humans have been managing their fertility for a long time (with some temporary difficulties in the 19th and 20th centuries), and love spells and fertility potions are a significant part of real-world magical practice. For some reason, GURPS Classic Magic does not have spells covering the functions which the elixers Ceres and Eros provide. These spells are important for world-building.
My version of this setting has the first four spells (and Ease Labour) even though they are not in GURPS Classic Magic.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature Last edited by Polydamas; 06-04-2021 at 10:53 AM. |
06-06-2021, 08:38 AM | #63 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
Hi Guys,
Sorry for the delay in posting here lately. End of month is always busy for me... In any event, What I propose to do soon, is start to discuss parameters that will go into this exercise. Each person will be granted a "manor" for which they are the Lord. Each of your Lords will be given a Reeve whose job it is to help oversee the day to day affairs of your manor - see that the work is done to the best of his ability to organize labor that is owed to the Lord vs overall labor that is theoretically available on the basis of using young adults, and fully adult individuals as well. If you want to utilize "ceremonial castings" each hour of ceremony will deduct 1 manhour per day per ritual. In addition, each of the Nobles will have to pay for services such as teaching people to read, and so forth. So, my goal is this: Get you all talking about what parameters you want to see for this exercise. For example, the Church will be nominally Christian but without the bias against magic (ie, no Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live mentality). The church will STRENOUSLY protest against the use of any spirit altering spells or spells that deprive a man of free will and a connection to God. Doesn't mean the Lord can't over rule it, but it will cause bad odor between the Church and the Lord - which, if it gets out of hand, can cause an edit to be raised against the Lord or even excommunicated. Think hard about the legality classes of spells you're willing as Lord, to tolerate on your Manor. In other words, if you don't like certain spells to be freely available, you may want to find some way to control (hence the control rating) those spells. There will be the potential for regional events that affect the entire kingdom, as well as local events to affect your manor only. First thing up for debate: If we're dealing with 10 villages in theory, and each of you are going to want to know how many mageborn you have in your village - do you want to set it up as a general "pool" of mageborn, where each one is assigned to a random manor (ie if we have three of you in this, then manors 1-3 are going to be assigned to you for your control, while those with manors 4 - 10 will be known to exist, but not directly impact on your manor unless you hire their services directly. Alternatively, we simply roll at 2% chance per person on your manor (thus, if you have an 1800 acre holding, with 90 families, plus the 1 family that is your own Noble family - that works out to about 455 people on YOUR manor. That is roughly 9 mageborn that you get a shot at. Now, in private conversation with one individual, the question was "Can we build player characters for this" when I spoke of making these mageborn semi-player characters in capabilities. The stats will be rolled randomly, as will their magery. My idea is to make it such that each NPC will gain a total of 2 character points per year of age past 15 for use with spells and other "life skills" Necessary for the mageborn. Area knowledge will be one such skill. Cooking, housekeeping, along with general skills necessary in engaging in day to day living (hiking, rudimentary animal husbandry skills, etc) After that, one can spend points in spells left and right providing that the following is observed: Mages require 200 hours of training to learn a new spell. This means that not only does the Mage require training time to perfect his grasp of the spell, but that a teacher must ALSO dedicate that time to teaching said student the spell. This in turn also requires that the "masters" who are teaching the apprentices, will also have to have the skill of teaching at 12. So, give this some thought about what kinds of parameters you want to look into. Know that the Lord's income is STRICTLY based on what the manor itself produces in the way of wheat (cash crop), Barley, Rye, oats, vegetables, hay, etc. The lord will have to permit the serfs to sell their produce to either a merchant who comes to the Manor, or they have to go to the nearest town to get a higher value for their goods. General rule of thumb? Every item sold on the market gets half its value in coin. Payments in rent to the Lord are often in both coin and kind (ie, something that is worth 8 silver coins per bushel - is worth 8 silver coins in Kind when given to the Lord). Be aware too - that prices of agricultural goods fluctuate. In times of shortages (roughly 1 year in 4) prices rise. In times of plenty, prices drop. As for the "Freemen" within your manor... They rarely are involved in court cases heard in your court. For that, they take their cases directly to the Hundreds Courts that handles cases for freemen. In cases between Free and nobility - that is where the court will hear the case. In cases between serfs and freemen, they CAN agree to your court in resolving the issue - or they can still demand the Hundred instead. As freemen, they are beholden to no one but the King. Marriages and such: No one can leave the manor if they owe you service as your serf. They can't marry without your permission. If they want to live off the manor for a time, they have to enter into an agreement between you and them, for a fee that is paid annually. Be aware too, that historically, such agreements often fell by the wayside and the Lord would find that his agreed upon payment was not met. Not to worry though, you can take it out on the remaining family STILL on the Manor. You can easily force a son for example, to marry another - because that is your right. In the end? You will decide in a broad sense, what the customs of the manor will be after you make decisions as Lord of the Village. What you decide in your life time becomes precedent that the villagers will attempt to hold your heirs to going forward. Last but not least: each Family owes a given number of days labor for tasks necessary for the day to day running of your manor. If there is a mageborn who is part of a family or even the Head of the family, you can specify that you wish for their labor to be spell casting for a day or what have you. As Mel Brooks once said, it is good to be King. Ok, maybe not King in this case, but you're the higher authority in this experiment. So - 2 character points per age over 12 devoted to spell casting and life skills? Do you want to track them as almost player characters with character sheets and such? Do you want to specify low mana or normal mana? Do you wish to use Pre-Magery 0 invention and require that lowest magery possible is magery 1 and highest is magery 3? Do you wish to go the route of permitting an alchemist in the game as a "Tradesman"? If so, I can easily add that "trade" to the trade's list and generate manors. If you want to build player character Landed Knights, how many character points do you wish to use for that? If yes, I will presume that automatically (ie free of charge) each Knight would start with Status 3, and Comfortable wealth, along with Duty to Liege. So, let's get this rolling with some discussions of where we want to go and explore. One more thing while I'm thinking about it. There are essentially three periods of development for GURPS MAGIC. GURPS FANTASY 1st edition was GURPS MAGIC version 1. GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition was essentially GURPS MAGIC version 2. GURPS GRIMOIRE made it verion 2.5, and GURPS MAGIC for 4e is essentially 2.5 on steroids (and thus, version 3). If unfettered access to all spells within GURPS MAGIC for 4e is what you want to experiment with, be my guests. If you want to see what the differences are with one manor using 4e, while others use GURPS MAGIC 2e, or even simply GURPS FANTASY 1st edition, that works for me as well. On that note, things will be a little busy again, but I will check in from time to time where we engage in discussing various things. For example? If 90% of your mageborn are magery 0 mages - that means that spell lists will be VERY limited over time. If you want to postulate that the Chruch will take over the training of any and All mageborn with magery 3, then that works as well. After all, the church does love its literate people! So, the floor is open. Let's see what you make of this. Hal |
06-06-2021, 12:22 PM | #64 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
Another thing to vote upon...
English history being what it is, has this fun little element called the Norman Invasion. From there, we see an evolution of not just social changes within England's system of governance, but also how land is treated in the eyes of the Conquerors. One possible "switch" to consider for this world building exercise... Land is relatively peaceful, without the recent memory of the conquest or even NO history of conquest - or a land in which the Conquest is relatively recent. Any one setting of the suggested above would have an interesting impact not just on the lives of those living in such a world, but would also suggest a new "craft" that the mageborn may excel at that mundane means would be hard pressed to compete against. For example, we find that plowing was an activity that was practiced throughout the year to the extent that worked land was defined by how much land a team of oxen or horses can plow within a given period of time. If SHAPE Earth as a spell has the same general benefit that plow teams have - then it may very well work out that the mageborn could serve in lieu of plowing teams. Someone here would have to work out the math involved (time vs energy vs spell backfires etc.) The one BENEFIT that could possibly be derived from mageborn acting in lieu of plow teams is that they can handle terrain in geometric shapes other than long thing lines as produced by a plowing team. Another possibility too are defensive works. If a given amount or volume of "earthen works" needs to be erected, could the mageborn actively produce Motte and Bailey fortifications far more cheaply than simple manpower would suggest? One would need to look at the rules for digging in GURPS to find out just how worth the while it might be to use spells in place of unskilled muscle power for that particular task. So, ask yourself whether or not you want to have a recent conquest of the area, old history conquest of the area, or no conquest of the area. For those who may be interested, there is a product worth picking up for its history value, along with application to a Role playing environment: ORBIS MUNDI 2 by Phillip McGregor Myself, I've also picked up THE MARKET from the same author and have enjoyed reading it immensely. The nice thing is, there is a lot of meaty information in those PDFs that I find them worth utilizing in world building. Even now, I'm devouring my newest acquisition of recent that details arms and armor of the late middle ages. |
06-07-2021, 10:05 AM | #65 | |||||||
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
I'd prefer a recent conquest environment. It gives us narrative permission to be shaking up the status quo.
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I'd also like to take this time to protest against a requirement to know a prereq at 10 or some other number. I think knowing the theory of a spell but not being any good with it makes a good deal of sense. Quote:
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Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one! |
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06-07-2021, 11:29 AM | #66 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
I think that apprenticeship would use the On-The-Job Training rules (pp. B292-293).
The list of spells in that book was never intended to be used in one setting. Looking at GURPS Classic Magic, I see that GURPS 4e made more mechanical fixes than I remembered, but the spell list was "every spell anyone has ever proposed for GURPS" not "spells suitable for a particular kind of setting."
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature Last edited by Polydamas; 06-07-2021 at 11:34 AM. |
06-07-2021, 12:45 PM | #67 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
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If a given spell is a Magery 3 spell and would REALLY break society at a TL 3 organization level (as explained in GURPS LOW tech for 4e, then we can identify said spells as provisionally genre breaking. In addition, those GM's who permit player character mages to update their magery levels after character creation will know they'd better be prepared to explain why there aren't more "upgraded mageborn" in their campaign worlds. One thing I liked about GURPS 3e that is missing in 4e was something that made a lot of sense to me at the time, and still does despite the philosophy behind GURPS 4e... To wit: When a player's character starts game play as a full grown adult, any increases in attributes will come MUCH harder. It is harder for an adult to increase their "IQ", or their "ST" (although it still can be done via weight lifting, steroid use, etc). 3e's rule was that it costs DOUBLE to improve any attribute after start of play on the presumption that your adult attributes represent your body fully grown and/or mature. In any event - as this is titled "world building" - we're not just focused on the mechanical aspects per se, but also on the world building repercussions as well. See my next post on some potential issues for NPC "growth" as they grow older (and it is't just the issue of aging per se). |
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06-07-2021, 12:54 PM | #68 | ||
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
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Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one! |
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06-07-2021, 01:17 PM | #69 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
here is a trial run of npc generation using a population of mageborn size 51.
Each "Name" was randomly picked from a list of English names that I have access to (purchased from DriveThruRPG.com) where it is a single text file containing one name per line. Each name has one of three prefixes: F: (for female names) M: (for Male Names) S: (for surnames) This app was designed for those who might want to use it, to develop their naming conventions and take it from there Each attribute is rolled as 2d6/2 rounded up +7 (generating a range between 8 and 13) Magery is randomly assigned based on the ratio of population within the mageborn who will have a chance of Magery 0, Magery 1, Magery 2, and Magery 3. This assumes a 10:1 ratio of lower magery to the next higher magery. Because it is Random, it is possible to get a Magery 3 result in someone despite there only being some 51 mageborn in the trial population size. Please note that the App does permit you to change your parameters during program run, where you can use a 7:1 ratio because 7 is more mystical. You could select 9:1 because 9 is more mystical being thrice three. You get the drift. You're not stuck exploring 10:1 as given in GURPS FANTASY 1st edition. Social Status was developed from both HARN MANOR and from a reference book on Tax rolls from the time period of about 1200 AD from Southern England. Current Age is assigned via a PDF table called FAMILY TREES that I picked up from HARN FORUMS. Age upon Death uses the same table. I added the "decimal concept" so that the birth date can be narrowed down to Month/Day/Hour/Seconds if you so desired. Same with the moment of death for the NPC. Social Status was developed from both HARN MANOR and from a reference book on Tax rolls from the time period of about 1200 AD from Southern England. The last column is simply the integer value of (Age-11)*2. This is how many character points that can in theory be dropped into spells and/or skills associated with spell casters. The sample below does not include names... Code:
ID ST DX IQ HT Mage Status Gender Age Death Points 1 9 12 11 9 0 Serf Male 27.809 67.194 33 2 13 9 9 10 0 Serf Female 2.34 56.78 0 3 11 9 12 12 1 Serf Female 30.293 68.13 38 4 9 11 9 8 0 Serf Male 39.908 82.532 57 5 10 11 10 10 0 Serf Female 48.045 77.596 74 6 10 8 10 12 0 Serf Male 21.742 63.866 21 7 10 9 9 10 0 Serf Female 18.378 70.066 14 8 9 9 10 8 0 Serf Female 4.212 47.973 0 9 10 8 11 10 0 Serf Female 55.852 74.66 89 10 12 12 10 10 0 Serf Female 26.907 52.544 31 11 12 10 10 12 0 Serf Female 59.69 68.818 97 12 9 9 8 11 0 Freeman Male 16.963 36.408 11 13 8 11 11 11 0 Serf Female 47.288 66.437 72 14 8 11 10 10 2 Serf Male 37.95 43.736 53 15 10 13 8 10 0 Serf Male 24.515 49.886 27 16 12 10 10 11 0 Freeman Male 56.031 66.16 90 17 10 10 12 9 0 Serf Female 1.305 52.266 0 18 11 12 11 8 0 Serf Female 29.779 62.565 37 19 11 8 10 11 1 Serf Female 34.078 72.181 46 20 8 11 11 11 0 Serf Female 43.694 76.561 65 21 11 9 10 11 0 Serf Female 10.504 42.679 0 22 13 9 11 11 0 Serf Male 24.191 59.294 26 23 10 10 10 9 0 Serf Male 32.807 55.914 43 24 8 9 9 12 0 Serf Female 63.059 80.209 104 25 11 12 11 8 0 Serf Male 48.721 53.7 75 26 11 11 8 9 0 Serf Male 60.845 65.657 99 27 10 11 11 12 0 Serf Female 1.803 56.636 0 28 11 11 11 9 0 Serf Female 30.149 67.038 38 29 9 10 12 9 0 Serf Male 38.55 74.337 55 30 12 9 11 12 0 Serf Male 44.85 47.106 67 31 9 9 11 11 0 Serf Male 26.619 59.572 31 32 8 10 11 8 0 Serf Male 11.717 29.213 0 33 11 11 10 9 1 Serf Male 43.358 64.166 64 34 9 10 11 11 0 Serf Female 35.679 67.317 49 35 9 11 11 10 0 Serf Male 15.461 59.294 8 36 10 10 10 9 0 Serf Male 32.807 55.914 43 37 10 9 9 12 0 Serf Female 63.059 80.445 104 38 9 10 12 10 0 Serf Female 28.456 64.345 34 39 10 9 10 11 0 Serf Male 36.858 57.537 51 40 11 12 8 12 0 Serf Male 10.417 73.302 0 41 9 11 10 11 0 Serf Female 43.815 79.631 65 42 11 10 12 11 0 Serf Female 22.776 62.687 23 43 8 10 10 9 0 Serf Female 34.199 71.089 46 44 8 9 11 11 0 Crafts Male 42.601 82.388 63 45 11 11 13 9 0 Serf Male 29.9 75.238 37 46 9 10 13 12 0 Serf Male 6.118 21.028 0 47 8 8 9 10 0 Serf Male 16.541 75.96 11 48 10 12 12 11 0 Freeman Male 45.473 46.794 68 49 12 9 10 12 0 Serf Female 6.939 27.456 0 50 11 10 9 12 0 Serf Female 18.968 44.58 15 51 9 11 11 9 0 Crafts Female 5.46 57.537 0 As such, I would suggest the following rule concept: 2 points per year 12+ on up to 30. From there, it becomes 1 point. If NPC mageborn have children for example, there will be times where spell casting during pregnancy might not be a wise option. Fine tuning, fiddling here, or there, makes sense. One thing that came from this thread that I will put into my bag of tricks is this: If a teacher does not have the skill to teach or has a skill level less than 12, then training by said teacher requires twice as long. Since spells require either a book or a teacher, a poor teacher can be comparable to learning by yourself with no teacher. |
06-07-2021, 05:07 PM | #70 |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3
For the list of parameters, I am mostly with EricTheRed, with the exception that I would like the alchemist to be available as a tradesman. It's likely the only "reliable" magic we will have access to, given the realities of spell-learning and spell-casting.
The spells available to us will be the interesting bit. Even if every single spell in Magic 4e was theoretically available, realistically most won't be. Either not enough Magery, or not enough time, or not enough IQ to effectively learn it. And then there is the concept of "The lord of the manor will only let me learn spells he thinks are cost effective". A lot of the spells in the list are...interesting...but not of any real economic value. When you are losing out of weeks of labor from someone, you want it to be worth it. So the spells that the mages will be "aiming" for have to have some kind of economic return. There just isn't enough of a surplus population that isn't busy trying to enable the survival of the manor and its surroundings. So one thing I think we will need to do is go through the lists and find out what the "real world value" of the spell would be. Would it increase harvests? Decrease insect damage to crops? Make things grow faster? Make sheep grow more wool or cotton grow more boles (or whatever the fluffs of cotton are called)? If there is a chance of external enemies, that would open up the damaging spells, making them potentially "useful". Making and Breaking spells are likely "useful". As would the spell "Extinguish Fire", if only because thatch roofs can be flammable.
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Warmest regards, StevenH My current worldbuilding project. You can find the Adventure Logs of the campaign here. I try to write them up as narrative prose, with illustrations. As such, they are "embellished" accounts of the play sessions. Link of the moment: Bestiary of Plants. In a world of mana, plants evolved to use it as an energy source. It is also the new home of the Alaconius Lectures, a series of essays about the various Colleges of Spells. |
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