Book/Path Magic

[namada]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

If by "bog standard" he menas D&Desque, then neither GURPS Magic or DFRPG Spells (Magic 4.5 ed) fit the "Vancien mold".

That was my assumption - D&D-esque. However, I don't find Vancian magic to be necessary to fit that mold. Rolemaster and it's Shadow World setting, for example, is very much typical fantasy gaming system/setting, but it doesn't use Vancian magic.

Originally Posted by RyanW

If by "bog standard" you mean "dungeon fantasy" I agree with your point, but not your description. Dungeon fantasy is a bizarre subgenre almost unique to RPGs and media deliberately emulating them.

That was my assumption; I was equating "bog-standard" with the typical settings of most fantasy RPGs - laden with Humans, Elves, Dwarfs, Halflings, Orcs, etc.

[pawsplay]

A true bog-standard fantasy race would be a marsh-wiggle.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

A true bog-standard fantasy race would be a marsh-wiggle.

Or perhaps a boggie.

"We boggies are a hairy folk
Who like to eat until we choke.
Loving all like friend and brother,
Hardly ever eat each other."

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by apoc527

I would personally be very interested in getting more Path/Book magic design guidelines. I find I really like what I see, but there's not enough of it. Surely, what's in Thaumatology isn't intended to be a "complete system"!

RPM is rather well worked out in Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic... but that's not anything like Path/Book magic. As far as Path/Book magic goes, I can imagine what more could really be worked out for it.

It uses vanilla Magic's "Skills as Spells" system, just with a different prerequisite chain and stricter limits on what spells are learnable. (And maybe a shift in how Magery works? I'm not sure/too lazy to go looking.)

Originally Posted by namada

That was my assumption - D&D-esque. However, I don't find Vancian magic to be necessary to fit that mold. Rolemaster and it's Shadow World setting, for example, is very much typical fantasy gaming system/setting, but it doesn't use Vancian magic.

I'll grant you that "D&D" is a subset of the "kitchen sink fantasy", but as it's the 800lb gorilla in the rpg scene, it's what I think of when most people say "bog standard fantasy".

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

I'll grant you that "D&D" is a subset of the "kitchen sink fantasy", but as it's the 800lb gorilla in the rpg scene, it's what I think of when most people say "bog standard fantasy".

Yeah but Kage2000 was talking about SHadowrun and Earthdawn.

[Kage2020]

in working with the specific settings that I am, I was very likely have been far too glib to use the term "bog-standard". So my apologies for that. More for derailing what might have otherwise been a productive conversation.

For reference in terms of my current project, I've kind of settled on Thaumatology: Sorcery for the "base" magic system. Most notably this means that it is linked to a ranked advantage that can be reduced, or increased, because of setting-specific requirements (mana level; elemental flavouring vis-a-vis correspondence etc.).

On the other hand, "ritual magic" seems to land squarely in Path magic rather than using yet another power mod.

For those familiar with Shadowrun, I'm very much not a fan of how they treated mages vs. shaman, so pushing everything into the "ritual" territory would work well.

Could this be RPM? Maybe. My original magic system was predicated upon RPM until it didn't quite work, but I would totally love to explore a design approach for Path/Book Magic.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Yeah but Kage2000 was talking about SHadowrun and Earthdawn.

Two things: Neither one are 'bog-standard fantasy" by any stretch of the imagination and he said Sorcery mostly fixed his issues with them.

Originally Posted by Kage2020

For those familiar with Shadowrun, I'm very much not a fan of how they treated mages vs. shaman, so pushing everything into the "ritual" territory would work well.

Could this be RPM? Maybe. My original magic system was predicated upon RPM until it didn't quite work, but I would totally love to explore a design approach for Path/Book Magic.

For 'replicating' a Shadowrun feel, I'd go with predesigned rituals, use standard non-Adept rules for all long* ritual work, and allow Adepts to specifically learn a number of 'fast' rituals, and speed* those up so they really are combat useful.

By 'learn fast rituals' what I mean is a way I did this for a rework of RPM into a more Dresden File-esque setting. Adept allowed the wizards to have a number of rituals that used Adept energy-gathering speed, that number was equal to the amount of points spent in Thaumatology plus their levels of Magery. I also allowed them to buy a leveled Perk that added it's level x2 in "Practiced Rituals". On the whole the two casters in that game had about 20 rituals they could fire off at combat speeds and then all the other rituals had to be set up as charms, potions, or enchanted items/areas.


* I doubled the time it took for non-Ritual Adept "Practiced Rituals" and doubled the amount of energy drawn for Practiced Rituals. Though in hindsight, simply letting the wizards buy more ER would have been a better choice than halving the time to draw energy for Practiced Rituals.