Thaumotology Lite?

[Captain-Captain]

One complaint 4e Lite gets is it doesn't cover Spells the way 3e lite did.

Perhaps a Lite book covering various magic systems could be released. In this age of Kickstarter mania, it might well give the game a boost re: new players.

[ericbsmith]

There's been a lot of talk about this from fans; not so much from SJG staffers. While it's an interesting idea I kind of doubt that SJGames will be doing any GURPS "kickstarters." I mean, who knows, but I just doubt it.

As for a "Spells Lite," if you want something for your own games my suggestion would be to just print out the 20 page Magic chapter of the Basic Set. This would provide an excellent starter spell kit as a game/convention handout for a Mage/Cleric character.

[d_ns]

I could definitely see the benefit of a DF focused guide - one that took the spell lists for Clerics and Druids, for example, and included the descriptions and mechanics, without the enchantment/item info, so that the players could get a quick look without having to delve through the whole tome.

[ericbsmith]

The problem with using Dungeon Fantasy to create the spell lists is that there's just too many spells listed in DF. Cleric and Druid each have about 130 spells in their list. Even with a little overlap that's going on 225 spells, which translates to reprinting at least 45 pages from Magic. And that's not counting the Unholy spells from DF3 (even with overlapping spells the list is now pushing 300 spells and 60 pages). And lets not even mention DF7: Clerics. That's not really a "Lite" version of the book, and is a large enough extract that you're creating some serious issues (like page references by having the spells in two different books; editing nightmares). And we're completely ignoring the Wizard (not to mention the poor, overlooked Bard), who can use a good 750+ of the spells from Magic.

Now, I can see room for a "Magic Lite" which looks similar to the Magic chapter of the Basic Set but with a little more fledged out spell list. I just don't think Dungeon Fantasy is a viable place to look for it; DF really requires most of GURPS Magic if you intend to include any spellcasters.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

The problem with using Dungeon Fantasy to create the spell lists is that there's just too many spells listed in DF. Cleric and Druid each have about 130 spells in their list. Even with a little overlap that's going on 225 spells, which translates to reprinting at least 45 pages from Magic. And that's not counting the Unholy spells from DF3 (even with overlapping spells the list is now pushing 300 spells and 60 pages). And lets not even mention DF7: Clerics. That's not really a "Lite" version of the book, and is a large enough extract that you're creating some serious issues (like page references by having the spells in two different books; editing nightmares). And we're completely ignoring the Wizard (not to mention the poor, overlooked Bard), who can use a good 750+ of the spells from Magic.

Now, I can see room for a "Magic Lite" which looks similar to the Magic chapter of the Basic Set but with a little more fledged out spell list. I just don't think Dungeon Fantasy is a viable place to look for it; DF really requires most of GURPS Magic if you intend to include any spellcasters.

Some of us are working at removing GURPS Magic from Dungeon Fantasy ;) I already have the warrior-mage/spellsword with The Mystic Knight, and the clerics (and druids, though he fit isn't optimal) with Dungeon Saints. Bards can be built with only bard-song abilities and no spells already. Only wizards remain, and they pose some remarkable challenges. Still, you can drop them, and drop in Mentalists, and you've got a full rooster without any GURPS Magic spells.

Of course, this is not something to build with Lite...

[johndallman]

A Spells Lite is going to be a bit restrictive, since it has to be fairly short. A more general magic system in 10-15 pages would be a lot more appealing, and Ritual Path Magic from Monster Hunters might be a good start.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by d_ns

I could definitely see the benefit of a DF focused guide - one that took the spell lists for Clerics and Druids, for example, and included the descriptions and mechanics, without the enchantment/item info, so that the players could get a quick look without having to delve through the whole tome.

Cramming more spells in per page, by omitting DF-irrelevant info. Yes, that would be quite useful.

SJ Games could make one such PDF for Druids and one for vanilla Clerics. It doesn't make sense to make them for the variant Clerics in DFx, though. The whole idea would be to have a short-and-sweet PDF, very focused, and very fast to use because the density of spells-per-page is high.

How are the spells from GURPS Magic subdivided in DF, anyway? I mean in statistical terms. How many spells are there in total? And of those spells, how many are available to learn and use for DF Clerics, DF Druids and DF Wizards?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

There's been a lot of talk about this from fans; not so much from SJG staffers. While it's an interesting idea I kind of doubt that SJGames will be doing any GURPS "kickstarters." I mean, who knows, but I just doubt it.

If they do, the most sensible place to start would be GURPS Vehicles. To find out exacly how great consumer interest is, as measured in $$$$.

I get the impression it's mostly written already, in draft form, but if they did a kickstarter they could pay David Pulver an advance, so he'd know it's a worthwhile project and is going to get published.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

If they do, the most sensible place to start would be GURPS Vehicles. To find out exacly how great consumer interest is, as measured in $$$$.

Short of GURPS Calculus I can't think of a worse possible product to try to integrate people back into GURPS.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Cramming more spells in per page, by omitting DF-irrelevant info. Yes, that would be quite useful.

There really isn't a lot of information in a spell description that's irrelevant to DF, other than the prerequisites if you're talking specifically about Clerics or Druids. I mean, you can cut out spells which aren't on the allowed list, but there are still a lot of spells.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

How are the spells from GURPS Magic subdivided in DF, anyway? I mean in statistical terms. How many spells are there in total? And of those spells, how many are available to learn and use for DF Clerics, DF Druids and DF Wizards?

Cleric and Druid each have about 120 spells, divided into 6 tiers; each tier requires an additional level of Power Investiture. Wizards are prohibited from using Gate, Animal, Weather, and most Healing spells but can freely take any of the other ~6-700 spells (and most Weather spells can be accessed through Water or Air college). The sheer number of spells is exactly what makes this idea not particularly viable.

GURPS Magic gets an average of about 5 spells per page. Using that as a guide stick a Cleric Spells Lite or Druid Spells Lite would have to be about 25 pages, not including any extra pages dedicated to magic rules. That's certainly small enough to be useful to a player, but it's large enough to be cost prohibitive to a customer (GURPS Magic goes for $24.95 in PDF; I'm not sure what price point would make this viable for the work involved compared to just buying Magic).