[DF] World-building implications of Incantation Magic?

Michael Thayne · 07-01-2021, 01:38 PM

When I first saw the rules for Incantation magic in Dungeon Fantasy my first inclination was to disallow it, because it's so open-ended and I didn't want a player coming up with something crazy to do with it and then having this big, open question in my world-building about why no one else had ever thought of that before. But looking again at the system, maybe it's not so bad? Lots of GURPS Magic spells can be made permanent for 100x the usual cost, but Incantations as far as I can tell can't be made permanent, which addresses one fairly major issue. The ability to theoretically keep a wide variety of effects going for a day without paying FP for maintenance seems potentially significant, but probably not that big a deal so long as the magic is semi-secret, preventing most people from just hiring an Incanter to provide that sort of thing. Anything I'm missing?

ericthered · 07-02-2021, 09:29 AM

I haven't worked out the implications of standard magic, let alone incantation magic.

It might make magic easier to learn and use in general, because five minutes for a casting that costs no FP is cheaper than an instant casting that costs 3 FP for basically every situation, and a lot of magical use cases are a single effect.

07-01-2021, 01:38 PM	#1
Michael Thayne Join Date: May 2010	[DF] World-building implications of Incantation Magic? When I first saw the rules for Incantation magic in *Dungeon Fantasy* my first inclination was to disallow it, because it's so open-ended and I didn't want a player coming up with something crazy to do with it and then having this big, open question in my world-building about why no one else had ever thought of that before. But looking again at the system, maybe it's not so bad? Lots of *GURPS Magic* spells can be made permanent for 100x the usual cost, but Incantations as far as I can tell can't be made permanent, which addresses one fairly major issue. The ability to theoretically keep a wide variety of effects going for a day without paying FP for maintenance seems potentially significant, but probably not that big a deal so long as the magic is semi-secret, preventing most people from just hiring an Incanter to provide that sort of thing. Anything I'm missing?

07-02-2021, 09:29 AM	#2
ericthered Hero of Democracy Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: far from the ocean	Re: [DF] World-building implications of Incantation Magic? I haven't worked out the implications of standard magic, let alone incantation magic. It might make magic easier to learn and use in general, because five minutes for a casting that costs no FP is cheaper than an instant casting that costs 3 FP for basically every situation, and a lot of magical use cases are a single effect. __________________ 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!