To what extent does RPM encourage/facilitate/prevent generalist casters?

[Peter Knutsen]

GURPS Magic's magic system is built around the paradigm of the generalist caster as the norm, with One-College Magery and similar as an afterthought.

RPM at least isn't as bad as that. That much is clear to me.

But exactly how much less bad it is, or isn't, isn't.

Paths default off a single skill, Thaumatology, but you need to put 1 CP into each Path to get serious benefit from it. So it is fair to say that it still facilitates the easy creation of generalist casters? Medium fair? A bit harsh? Essentially true?

Assuming a situation in which players are free to spend their points as they wish, using the word "free" in the strongest and broadest possible sense, what's the likelihood of any randomly chosen player making a very specialized caster with a single Path, a fairly specialized one, a broadly skilled one, one who's almost a generalist, or one who is a complete generalist with all 9 Paths at a usable skill level relative to the power level of the campaign, meaning that what constitutes a useable level in a 400 CP MH campaign is different from what constitues a useable level in a 150 CP fantasy campaign?

Apart from the likelihood speculation, what have actual players in actual campaigns done, if they were allowed to create their own characters (and didn't have them created for them, by the GM, which I know that at least one RPM GM is very fond of doing)?

And equally interestingly, what are those player characters like after ten sessions of advancement? Both the likelihood-speculated characters, and the ones from actual play?

It looks like it's fairly easy, just 1 CP, to "branch out" (pun intended) to cover another Path, so even if you start out as a single-Path ritualist, you're a mere 8 CP away from being able to utilize all the Paths.

Of course there are rewards for higher Path skills. Those 8 CP could buy +2 skill to your favourite Path. But how valuable is that actually, if the alternative is to spend them on buying the reamining 8 Paths that you hven't yet learned, thereby massively increasing your versatility?

And what about the effect of the Magery cap? It seems to me that at some point, it'll start to act as a "force" upon player decisions and/or character decisions, and push deelopment towards generalism.

Keep in mind, I'm only interested in cases in which the choices are made by players or characters, not in cases wher the GM makes the decisions.



For bonus point, what about the Ritual Magic system from GURPS Magic? The one that's vaguely RPM-like but not quite, with a skill for each College, and spells defaulting off College skill at -X where X is the spell's prerequisite count, and uing the standard spells from GURPS Magic.

That seems to me to very strongly encourage casters to remain specialists. It seems like as if it can not be said in any way to facilitate - make easy - the creation of generalists.

Am I correct in this assumption?