08-08-2018, 08:24 AM | #11 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [Magic] Colleges And Prerequisites: What Are They?
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And of course there are tons of fantasy game settings – I'd argue a majority – where magic is a replacement for technology. There, it stands to reason that if a tech-user might have no idea of how to light a campfire with flint and steel (a Survival roll) but be good at turning things into fiery death (using Guns (Grenade Launcher) or Guns (LAW)), a magic-user could be in the same boat. The "But magic-users don't just use fire, they create it!" argument isn't very convincing; I know quite a few real-life people who could use Chemistry to concoct incendiaries but still have no clue about setting campfires with found materials using Survival. Setting all that aside, big things are easy; it's control that's hard. It's easy to learn how to throw a punch, or to dance with large movements of the entire body. It's much harder to stop a punch a centimeter from the face of a sparring partner, or to lead your dance partner's left leg four centimeters to the right without any apparent upper-body movement. It doesn't strain belief to imagine that anybody can set huge, destructive fires, but only advanced students can set small ones that leave the forest intact. I really have no issues with a school of destructive magic that just jumps right to Fireball and leaves Ignite Fire for later. It isn't as if prerequisite count is a major control on magic anyway. The things that matter the most in Actual Play™ are energy cost and casting time. This is why I like clerical magic that divvies up spells by Power Investiture and has no spell prerequisites: Any spell, from the least showy to the most impressive, could be the first spell you learn. What limits your ability to learn the flashy, high-powered stuff isn't prior learning, but an innate capacity to channel enough energy, as represented by your Power Investiture level. In fact, when talking of "Is it inherent to magic or imposed by magic-users?", I think the need to learn small, controlled effects before large, destructive ones is largely the latter – that is, something insisted upon by magic teachers. It isn't that new students can't blow things up out straight of the gate; it's just that it's expensive and dangerous to teach them to do so. Nobody particularly wants to have to replace the magic library or pay weregild to the family of a deceased professor when some apprentice decides to mess with Fireball on Day One.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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08-08-2018, 10:15 AM | #12 |
Join Date: Feb 2014
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Re: [Magic] Colleges And Prerequisites: What Are They?
We’ve all seen videos of people using fuel for campfire prep which turns into a fireball instead of a campfire...
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08-08-2018, 04:04 PM | #13 | |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: [Magic] Colleges And Prerequisites: What Are They?
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08-08-2018, 04:10 PM | #14 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [Magic] Colleges And Prerequisites: What Are They?
Yup. For Infinite Cabal, I use hermetic astrology and decans a lot. The colleges really do represent the structure of magic and the universe, and other powers are associated with the decans that don't have colleges.
The PCs have been to a version of the Iconic Realm where there is a physical realm for each decan, and spells are living things that you can talk to and get to know.
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08-09-2018, 01:31 AM | #15 | |||||
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: [Magic] Colleges And Prerequisites: What Are They?
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08-09-2018, 06:52 AM | #16 | ||
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [Magic] Colleges And Prerequisites: What Are They?
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On the game-world level, prerequisite structure definitely means something! It embodies the philosophy of a school of magical thought, represents the course calendar of an academy, reflects the biases of the archmages willing to accept apprentices this century, or something similar. As many people in this thread have pointed out already, those are worldbuilding issues. They are extremely meaningful for establishing a setting's "flavor." On a rules level (that is, in Actual Play™), prerequisite structure isn't the control on PC power that energy cost and casting time are. I can line up 20 prerequisites in front of a spell, but that's ultimately just 20 points, and along the way gives the wizard 20 other neat magic tricks. If I want that spell to be harder to (ab)use, that isn't much of a fix. The solution is to have it cost 8 energy instead of 4, or take 5 seconds instead of 1. Getting that spell up to where high skill knocks casting time and cost down to 1 second and 4 energy will cost more like 50+ points even for a talented mage, and those points are one-note, doing nothing to expand the caster's repertoire. It's essential not to assume that the goal of every character-creation rule is to curb PC capabilities. Prerequisites are more about "makes sense" than "limits power." So are familiarities, which cost no points! And so are optional specialties, which can make a character better, for free, in one area important to the player. It's just good worldbuilding to assume that people take the 100-level course before the 200-level one, learn to drive specific vehicles or shoot specific guns, pursue a particular research interest in physics or literature, etc. None of that has anything to do with being better in combat or otherwise "more powerful." Quote:
As was noted earlier, that depends entirely on what Fireball is. If it's very specifically the ritual of projecting fire at a distance, even bad castings might not create fire dangerously close. Flame Jet, on the other hand . . .
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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08-09-2018, 07:08 AM | #17 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: [Magic] Colleges And Prerequisites: What Are They?
One of the reasons why I like flexible magic is because it does not bother with Colleges or Prerequisites (and sometimes does not even bother with Magery). When combined with Threshold-Limited magic, it may represent manipulation of reality. When combined with Spirit-Assisted magic, it may represent contracts with major spirits. When combined with the Energy Accumulation, it may represent negotiations with minor spirits. When combined with the Effect Shaping, it may represent domination of minor spirits. As GMs, we are free to mix and match as we wish.
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08-09-2018, 07:21 AM | #18 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: [Magic] Colleges And Prerequisites: What Are They?
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Imagine just typing random commands into your Unix shell. "fireball" gets you a fireball, but maybe you have a typo. "fireb" was intended as short for "fire bad" and gives you Protection From Fire; "freball" just compresses all your stuff in your pack(puts your files back into their tarball); and "freb" starts playing Lynryd Skynryd tunes out of nowhere. |
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08-09-2018, 07:30 AM | #19 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [Magic] Colleges And Prerequisites: What Are They?
Though that might at least light your campfire. Okay, your cigarette.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
08-09-2018, 08:04 AM | #20 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: [Magic] Colleges And Prerequisites: What Are They?
While I don't wish to dispute what has been said about this previously, I do want to note that the idea of a distinction between "human concepts" and "how magic works"—or, as Kromm puts it, between epistemology and ontology—may in itself be the expression of a rationalistic and objectivistic worldview that foreign to magic. Or at least to a view of magic that makes it something other than an odd sort of technology. If magic really works then the subjective human perception of how things are may actually influence how things are.
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magic, magical styles, thaumatology |
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