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Old 05-24-2012, 06:22 PM   #1
Kromm
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Default Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III

Grimoires, potions, spells
Magic in every form
Gathered in one place
— Some hack
The number 3 seems to come up a lot where magic is concerned, and e23's Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III is no exception. Yes, we liked the theme so much that we did it again . . . twice. In the spirit of GURPS Thaumatology, this issue of Pyramid takes a long look at different ways of working magic:
  • Adelphos Dionysos applies the methods of GURPS Thaumatology: Magical Styles to that most magical of elixirs: wine. Because fireballs and demons are all well and good, but magic can be thirsty work.

  • GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 14: Psi linked Elder Things and psychic delvers – perhaps to a greater extent than either would like – but why not take it a step further? Cultists of the Elder Gods offers new cleric and holy warrior lenses that bestow psionic rather than holy abilities on those mad enough to serve the Things, along with spell lists and even divine servitor elements. Don't fight the insanity . . . worship it!

  • Spells are fun, but drinkable spells are even better! That's the attitude taken by Bottled Magic, anyway. This article introduces alchemy to Ritual Path magic (the system found in GURPS Monster Hunters 1: Champions and the upcoming GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic), giving your magicians, sages, and witches even more versatility.

  • In this month's Eidetic Memory, David Pulver dives into magic's dark underbelly. Ghoul Magic introduces a new tome, with plenty of backstory on how it was created and four new Book-magic rituals aimed specifically at ghouls, cannibals, or those willing to debase themselves horribly for magical power – a classic dark-fantasy theme.

  • Everyone with a working imagination knows that "a world without magic" comes with an implied " . . . yet" at the end. That's what The Missioners are here for – to help the world discover (or rediscover) that spark. But what are their real goals? And can you trust someone who cares more about the world as a whole than the individual people in it (including you)?

  • In GURPS Magic, spells have prerequisites. If you assume that someone had to invent the simple ones before inventing the harder ones, and expand that into a full system, you get Magic as Technological Progress. Now a magical society can be defined by a tech level and a sorcery level, easily codifying which spells are old hat, which are new and cool, and which are at best tricky experimental inventions.

  • Many GMs want to make in-game magic as realistic as possible, and the first step toward doing so is to research real-world magical traditions. But where to start? By reading these Real Weird Books, a list of magical works (most available free online) with descriptions and suggestions for using each one in a game.

  • And no Pyramid would be complete without casting Create Usual Features, which conjured up a Random Thought Table that shows how to turn magical secrecy into power (and fun!), Odds and Ends that'll give your magic items some unexpected twists, and a Murphy's Rules that might strike you as a bit obvious.
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Old 05-24-2012, 07:55 PM   #2
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III

Sounds good. On my to do list for next payday.
And Alchemy from the preview almost makes my mode skills RAW :) Cool, at least its a precedent I can point to.
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Old 05-24-2012, 08:50 PM   #3
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III

The Alchemy and Cultist of the Elder God articles are excellent; now we just need proper enchantment in the RPM system and we're set;)
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Old 05-24-2012, 08:55 PM   #4
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III

Got it, reading it, looks great so far :) be back tomorrow after I'm done.
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Old 05-24-2012, 08:56 PM   #5
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III

So is it worth it for just the alchemy?
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Old 05-24-2012, 09:04 PM   #6
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III

Depends on if you make extensive use of RPM or not; personally, I'd probably buy it just for the Alchemy, but that's up to you.

The only things I dislike about the Alchemy system are the examples of the required materials. Rather than being all about drawings of stuff, I'd be happier with animal body parts or natural elements, etc. Things like 'eye of newt' or 'a hawk's feather', rather than 'a picture of an airplane' or 'an autographed drawing of Road Runner'. That said, it's easy enough to just say the required materials need to be more traditional and less drawings, especially since there are very few examples of materials - you'd need to come up with some of your own, anyways.
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Old 05-24-2012, 09:35 PM   #7
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III

Well another Alchemy system is nice to have and as its for RPM which is popular and getting expanded 'soon'. Also as it is for RPM and that is built off merging Path?Book and Symbol/Syntactic from Thaumatology it can probably be modified without too much hassle for those. Note I haven't read it yet.
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Old 05-25-2012, 02:54 AM   #8
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III

I bought this book yesterday as soon as I saw it (before this thread was up) because I've been looking forward to it for weeks now (due to my own speculation from leaks). Its got a number of interesting articles, the alchemy looks like it could be awesome - but I've never bothered trying to learn Ritual Path magic as I removed magic from my MH setting, so I might have to go back and learn it now...


The main reason I bought it however was for the cultists! Now that I've read that article through once or twice to get a general idea of how it'll play (not crunched the differences yet though)... my assessment is that it doesn't seem like they'll play overly different in how they feel compared to Mentalists.

Cultists (ie all the variants) get a handful of key differences, and upgrades in theory, but they look as though they get much of the same flavour and drawbacks. They generally should, but it looks like a white wash of the psi flavour over other core 'mechanics' so that you don't have to be stuck with using the Mentalist abilities. This certainly is good if you want the flavour and power source, but without the limitations of the powers in Psi.

I was sort of hoping for something a little more varied that just a straight up blend, to be brutally honest, as I really like new mechanics to play with. It's a great article for showing how to mesh to the two... so I'm currently going through with a fine-toothed comb and making a personal wizard version with one or two differing mechanical twists to scratch that itch for me. So it still gets full stars as the main reason for me in buying pyramid is to harvest well formed ideas which you I warp to my own agenda!


I love the Box Labelled: To Pandora article, and am once again jealous of Steve Marsh and his gaming history.

The Sorcery Levels take on magic also looks very useful... if I could find a use for it. Very much something to read before making a world/campaign by the looks of it, clearly a lot of work has gone into it and it'll be very resourceful if you can utilise it. I just don't have any room for it in my games atm.

The odds and ends are pretty usable too, even if its just a tiny spark of an idea.

Overall I'm very impressed with this article, I hope for Thaumatology IV in the future, the series is awesome.
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Old 05-25-2012, 04:39 AM   #9
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III

Quote:
Originally Posted by PseudoFenton View Post
The main reason I bought it however was for the cultists! Now that I've read that article through once or twice to get a general idea of how it'll play (not crunched the differences yet though)... my assessment is that it doesn't seem like they'll play overly different in how they feel compared to Mentalists.

Cultists (ie all the variants) get a handful of key differences, and upgrades in theory, but they look as though they get much of the same flavour and drawbacks. They generally should, but it looks like a white wash of the psi flavour over other core 'mechanics' so that you don't have to be stuck with using the Mentalist abilities. This certainly is good if you want the flavour and power source, but without the limitations of the powers in Psi.

I was sort of hoping for something a little more varied that just a straight up blend, to be brutally honest, as I really like new mechanics to play with. It's a great article for showing how to mesh to the two... so I'm currently going through with a fine-toothed comb and making a personal wizard version with one or two differing mechanical twists to scratch that itch for me. So it still gets full stars as the main reason for me in buying pyramid is to harvest well formed ideas which you I warp to my own agenda!
I'm really interested in what you do with them. I try to present all my articles in a ready to use format. In fact, the original article was for another issue, as an Apendix Z, and was much shorter, I added the Elder Servitors, Unholy Warriors of the Elder Gods, and most of the flavor when I rewrote it for this issue.

Mechanically, it's a straight up blend, true. I didn't think about it, but I could have added some more psi abilities (available to both mentalists and cultists). This article, however, was an experiment on trying to add more flavor text, and doing so in the style of DF14. I think I succeeded, but it's only my opinion. As for playing similarly to Mentalists, well, the thing is, by the flavor, they're not that different.
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Old 05-25-2012, 04:53 AM   #10
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kuroshima View Post
Mechanically, it's a straight up blend, true. I didn't think about it, but I could have added some more psi abilities (available to both mentalists and cultists). This article, however, was an experiment on trying to add more flavor text, and doing so in the style of DF14. I think I succeeded, but it's only my opinion.
I'm hesitant to quantify the exact things I was actually looking for, as I might actually get around to trying to write a pyramid article one of these days and this might be half worthwhile (more so than most of the other stuff I glue together to make interesting things for my games). In short however I guess I just had a different vision of the blend, something with more complexity of ingredients with a slightly different focus that's more in line with how I see Psi powers to work in terms of game balance and flavour.

I enjoyed the flavour and write up in the article, and as I say the mechanics are still useful as a 'proofed' form of combining the psi flavour with other professions mechanics, so its not without its uses. I'm also sure other readers are less interested in what I was craving and will be fully satisfied with the ready made format for getting those cultists in their games!
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