Thaumotology Lite?

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Some of us are working at removing GURPS Magic from Dungeon Fantasy ;)

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

No, but that does bring to mind the possibility of a product dedicated to Clerical, Druidic, and Bardic Powers to be used as a complete replacement for their spells. Or even a DF: Sorcerers which uses Spells as Powers as an alternative to the Wizard.

[ericbsmith]

The thought occurs to me that if someone really wants to have a cut down spell list to present to their players a good option is actually to get GURPS Classic: Magic, which is only $7.99. One of the complaints about GURPS Magic for 4th Edition was that it changed very little from the previous edition; in this case that actually becomes an asset. The relatively few changes between editions makes it an excellent "Spells Medium" for GURPS 4th Edition and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy (with the 20 pages from the GURPS Basic Set Characters being a very effective "Spells Lite").

So, to sum up my thoughts:
For "Spells Lite" print out pages 234-253 of Basic Set Characters and add a nice looking cover page to it - perhaps the original cover art for GURPS Magic.
For "Spells Medium" get GURPS Classic: Magic. At $7.99 it's a pretty good deal;you could probably find the printed version on eBay or elsewhere if you really wanted.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

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

GURPS Asparagus, maybe?

heh

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

The thought occurs to me that if someone really wants to have a cut down spell list to present to their players a good option is actually to get GURPS Classic: Magic, which is only $7.99. One of the complaints about GURPS Magic for 4th Edition was that it changed very little from the previous edition; in this case that actually becomes an asset. The relatively few changes between editions makes it an excellent "Spells Medium" for GURPS 4th Edition and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy (with the 20 pages from the GURPS Basic Set Characters being a very effective "Spells Lite").

So, to sum up my thoughts:
For "Spells Lite" print out pages 234-253 of Basic Set Characters and add a nice looking cover page to it - perhaps the original cover art for GURPS Magic.
For "Spells Medium" get GURPS Classic: Magic. At $7.99 it's a pretty good deal;you could probably find the printed version on eBay or elsewhere if you really wanted.

Nice *admiring* I should have added some relevant links to my own arguments along this line. Good job!

[BaHalus]

this product could use a compact format, with smaller fonts coded fields and, maybe, resumed descriptions for the spells with longer descriptions. An idea could be adapted versions of the spells charts, maybe an editable version.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

For "Spells Lite" print out pages 234-253 of Basic Set Characters and add a nice looking cover page to it - perhaps the original cover art for GURPS Magic.

Honest, that picture is really outlandish to me —yes, I know that it's included in the composition for the Magic 4e book cover, but there it's less visible between the handful of images.

If it were a commercial product or part of the announcement for a game in a convention, it would dispel a good part of the interest I could have in such a game.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by demonsbane

Honest, that picture is really outlandish to me —yes, I know that it's included in the composition for the Magic 4e book cover, but there it's less visible between the handful of images.

I'm amused by the complaint of "outlandish" for the cover of GURPS Magic ;) I get your point, in that it's not traditional fantasy, but this is magic for GURPS, which covers a heck of a lot of genre overlap.

Originally Posted by demonsbane

If it were a commercial product or part of the announcement for a game in a convention, it would dispel a good part of the interest I could have in such a game.

I hadn't seen it full size before; I actually quite like it. *shrug* to each their own etc.

[Peter Knutsen]

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.

It would be preferable to not have one 60-page supplement that contains all the spells for DF Clerics and DF Druids, but rather one 35-page supplement containing all the spells for DF1 vanilla Clerics, and another 35-page supplement containing all the spells for DF Druids.

Not going to happen, but those would be nice references for DF players.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by 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.

The problem is, GURPS Magic is wonderfully objective and GM-independent, whatever its flaws.

I'm not aware of any new magic system for GURPS, published by SJ Games after the very first version of GURPS Magic, that is as fudge-light and objective and complete as GURPS Magic.

RPM is extremelty heavy on GM on-the-fly judgements, and Path/Book is woefully incomplete, compared to how much ground, how wide a variety of effects, GURPS Magic covers.

And objective rules and limited GM judgement is one of the great appeals of Dungeons & Dragons, starting with 3rd Edition. You read the book - then you know what you can and can't do.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Not going to happen, but those would be nice references for DF players.

Don't get me wrong, it would be a nice product to have the spell extracts for each "class" in Dungeon Fantasy. I just don't see a market for it unless GURPS suddenly starts selling 10x the volume it currently is; such a spells book would be a niche product of a niche product of a niche product.