Honey, I Summoned a Demon

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Which is why you should not use the rules made for adventuring, with the artificial probability constraint of the game mechanic, to extrapolate worldwide or industrial results.

Or not. It all depends on the presumptions underlying magic use the GM chooses for the campaign.

Originally Posted by Celjabba

That way lies madness.

Or at least a Fright Check. Or a healthy market for trained demon-slayer security guards. Or NIOSH regulations regarding industrial exposure to "Accidentally Invoked Extraplanar Entities (AIEEs)."

[AlexanderHowl]

Or diplomatic relations with the demon realms that specify the compensation that a demon may receive when summoned into the world by accident. After all, demons are evil, not necessarily unreasonable.

[Flyndaran]

That's perfect for an extra hidden back story. One nation is known for not having trouble with demons and loved for that. But the real reason is that "they" sacrifice people to a demon lord who prevents such "lesser" demons from answering.

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

....If a city possessed 50 such teams, a demon would be summoned every three days.

Good point. I'd figured the odds for doing three or four spells, but never computing something like that for a whole city--for just one spell done by city teams! If you add up all the other spells....

Originally Posted by Kale

....I'd love to see the OSHA* rules for a world like that.

Originally Posted by Gef

....Or run with what the previous posts imply, stat up a standard backfire demon, and have a public service that handles the mess, charging a hefty fine which the guild will cover.

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Which is why you should not use the rules made for adventuring, with the artificial probability constraint of the game mechanic, to extrapolate worldwide or industrial results.
That way lies madness.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

<shrug>This mechanic establishes quite adequately why that's far from an automatic proposition. And if you want an industrial magic setting, then you change the default rules for your non-default setting.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

It also provides a practical reason for the old story-default that mages are secretive and discourage public knowledge of their secrets....It also gives anti-magic zealots a reason to be the way they are, other than irrational zealotry.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

....Or a healthy market for trained demon-slayer security guards. Or NIOSH regulations regarding industrial exposure to "Accidentally Invoked Extraplanar Entities (AIEEs)."

Actually, I think those could spark an idea for an entire campaign: Welcome to the GURPS Magical Bureaucracy Campaign!

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

The power of the demon should really correlate with the power of the spell that backfired, IMO.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Agreed. One of the more interesting variations that I have experimented with is assigning a particular type of demon for every College....

Interesting concepts; I may use those.

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by DAT

There is a long, but funny, story. This took place about 12 years ago, …

It looks like I'm not the only one who makes notes of his games....

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

In actuality, though, the odds of this "backfire" are pretty slim. Has anyone, as either a GM or player, had a demon appear on a random roll on the chart? If so, what happened?

I've seen it happen twice since I started using GURPS Magic in 1996. In the first instance, the PCs were relatively weak (beginning adventurers). I described a standard demon appearing and then ended the session. In the ensuing week, I prepared a battle that would be quite fun, but not intended to wipe the party out. It threw their plans entirely out of whack, though, because it was a loud, dangerous battle that alerted other enemies (and allies) and forced the party to burn through precious resources (single-use magic items).

The second time was with the same group (most of the same PCs and players), but they were far more experienced, averaging 400+ points. They had actually dealt with demons on more than one occasion, so I didn't hesitate in bringing through one of the worst fiends they had ever encountered. (It had been barred from this plane due to earlier adventures, but I ruled that the wizard's blunder somehow broke the seals.) Like the first time, we ended the game as it emerged. For the ensuing battle, however, I did not have the demon attack them directly (beyond some sort of basic area attack). Instead, it went off causing mayhem in the surrounding world. This was far worse from the PC's perspective because it was undoing their hard work and tarnishing their heretofore gleaming reputation.

Those were good times!

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

In GURPS Magic p.7, one of the two rarest results on the Critical Spell Failure Table is accidentally summoning a demon (or other malign entity). My current half-elf PC has a habit of saying something like, "Oh, if I cast this spell on you, it won't hurt a bit. Unless, of course, I accidentally summon a demon."

In actuality, though, the odds of this "backfire" are pretty slim. Has anyone, as either a GM or player, had a demon appear on a random roll on the chart? If so, what happened?

Only happened once in about 30 years of Gurps GMing ... and I switched to another result because summoning entities was not fitting in the setting.

Perhaps twice, actually, but it wasn't anything worth remenbering. Botch spell, summon demon, kill demon ... I sort of remember such an encounter, but it may have been something else.

But as a player, I once witnesssed a memorable use : we were investigating a murder, and the wizard casted images of the past (or maybe history ? whichever 3e spell was available). He botched the roll, summoned a demon ... and the GM had the demon appear in the past and slaughter the victim.

He had to rewrote quite a bit of his scenario on the fly, obviously, but it was great.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Which is why you should not use the rules made for adventuring, with the artificial probability constraint of the game mechanic, to extrapolate worldwide or industrial results.
That way lies madness.

Well, Magic does use it for getting the economy of enchanted items...

It can also be quite nice when you can see that the setting and magic system are well enough thought out that they naturally fit together.

[David Johansen]

I usually have the demon show up dripping lava with a towel wrapped around its waist or sitting down reading a book. It's first words are usually "Damn it's cold out here."

You'd be crabby too.

Still, when it comes to OHSS, I'd expect a properly functioning demon trap turns the hazard into an opportunity to make an extra profit.

[The Colonel]

Presumably you could work with other, non-demonic apports - or replace one demon with a number of lesser ones, perhaps including a gang of unclean spirits that set up camp in nearby corpses, creating an rash of spontaneous undead...