Genericness of Magic in GURPS

Jabani · 01-29-2008, 12:27 AM

A lot of people (myself included) have made the claim that the GURPS magic system is not particularly universal, citing its rigid structure or whatever. And while I still think this is somewhat true, I noticed today that the spells themselves can be woven to fit each individual campaign better (which is what GURPS is supposed to do after all).

Take, for instance, the Sense Life spell: "Tells the caster if there is any life in the subject area, and gives a general impression (on a good roll) of what kind." Now at first that struck me as rather vague. But then I imagined how Kromm would use it, with his colorful improvisational GMing style, and I realized how adaptable that spell could be for the clever GM. It says that on a good roll, it gives a general impression of what kind of life, but it doesn't delimit the info the GM can convey. In a strongly symbolic Good vs. Evil campaign, it might tell the user if the life is good or bad. In other types of games, it could tell the user if its magical, demonic, hostile, demi-human, or whatever. And it could get even more specific than that, if it served the GM's purposes. Which makes it (and other spells like it, which I'm forgetting right now) very useful to the toolkit GM, as does the seemingly too-ambiguous "on a good roll." That very vagueness is useful, and makes GURPS magic more generic.

01-29-2008, 12:27 AM	#1
Jabani Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Anywhere but home	Genericness of Magic in GURPS A lot of people (myself included) have made the claim that the GURPS magic system is not particularly universal, citing its rigid structure or whatever. And while I still think this is somewhat true, I noticed today that the spells themselves can be woven to fit each individual campaign better (which is what GURPS is supposed to do after all). Take, for instance, the Sense Life spell: "Tells the caster if there is any life in the subject area, and gives a general impression (on a good roll) of what kind." Now at first that struck me as rather vague. But then I imagined how Kromm would use it, with his colorful improvisational GMing style, and I realized how adaptable that spell could be for the clever GM. It says that on a good roll, it gives a general impression of what kind of life, but it doesn't delimit the info the GM can convey. In a strongly symbolic Good vs. Evil campaign, it might tell the user if the life is good or bad. In other types of games, it could tell the user if its magical, demonic, hostile, demi-human, or whatever. And it could get even more specific than that, if it served the GM's purposes. Which makes it (and other spells like it, which I'm forgetting right now) very useful to the toolkit GM, as does the seemingly too-ambiguous "on a good roll." That very vagueness is useful, and makes GURPS magic more generic.