🚀 go-pugleaf

hall@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Robert J. Hall) writes:
>
>How about this: "Mundane magic is weakened magic". If you use a spell
>over and over, it develops into an ordinary physical phenomenon and
>loses its special magical nature. Thus, each time you use a particular
>spell you have developed, it becomes weaker and harder to cast.

I'm not sure how you mean this: develops into an ordinary physical
phenomenon.  Do you mean everybody can shoot flame jets from their
fingers after a while?  If so, this obviously won't work.  If you mean
it simply gets harder to cast, though, that's a good effect.

>You could also have a property that says: "Shared magic is mundane magic."
>If a Wizard shares his particular secrets with another, then the magic
>becomes more mundane and is weakened.

True - and not just shared, but analyzed.  Thus, if you cast a spell in
front of another magician, he'll be impressed and start watching you
closely.  After another couple of castings, he might be able to analyze
the spell, thus making it "shared" even though the sharing was
involuntary.  There could easily be rules for this, such as making a
roll vs. IQ or Magic Lore or whatever, to figure out a spell.  The
first casting: no chance to figure it out.  The second that you
observe, a hefty penalty, the third, a slightly less hefty penalty, and
so on until about the eight time you've seen it is at straight IQ or
Magic Lore, maybe.

Another thing I've been mulling over is the infinite universe theory of
magic (mentioned in Bonewitts).  If there exists a universe in which
fireballs are possible, the magician is able to switch to that universe
- no one else notices the change, except perhaps another magician.  In
this new universe, everything else is identical, except that fireballs
can be magically created by those who know how.  Well, not *quite*
identical beyond that ability though . . .

What if switching to the fireball universe means some other possible
spell effect is lost?  You can't cast a spell to see through walls in
such a universe, perhaps.  So to cast such a spell, the magician has to
switch universes again.

I'm not sure where this could go, but it's an intriguing thought I share
in the hopes of sparking someone else to do something creative with it.

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu

On the subject of encouraging players NOT to always use the same
spells, it occured to me that you could do this by setting up the\
experience system (in whatever form it may take) properly.

For example, if you gave "magic-sphere XP" for using your magical skills,
that could only be spent on magic related skills, you could use something
like...

  Used magic in a useful (not inconsequential) way: 1 xp.
  Found time for experimentation and study: +1 xp.
  Depended solely upon experimental spells and untried formulae: +3 xp.

Simply put, the character learns less from using skills that he has already
mastered than from using skills in which his experience is limited. Of course,
this has the "disadvantage" that the character WILL use the spells he is most
familiar with when the situation is crucial- you don't take unnecessary
chances when your life is at stake...

If you break XP up per skill (like Cyberpunk IP's) you can add something
to the effect that increasing a low skill adds complementary IPs to related
skills, while increasing a high skill doesn't: the knowledge and training
necessary to get that good is too specialized to be applied to other skills.

  Alternately (or with the above ideas), you can use the magic mechanics to
encourage experimentation and creativity. For instance, you can give bonuses
to attempts to Resist and/or Dispell an attack based on their familiarity
with it... and if you can guess *exactly* what kind of spell your opponent
will choose to throw, you can prepare a counter-spell to reflect it right 
back at him!

Kiz

In article <1992Dec18.151103.23858@oz.plymouth.edu>, sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan) writes:
|> hall@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Robert J. Hall) writes:
|> >
|> >How about this: "Mundane magic is weakened magic". If you use a spell
|> >over and over, it develops into an ordinary physical phenomenon and
|> >loses its special magical nature. Thus, each time you use a particular
|> >spell you have developed, it becomes weaker and harder to cast.
|> 
|> I'm not sure how you mean this: develops into an ordinary physical
|> phenomenon.  Do you mean everybody can shoot flame jets from their
|> fingers after a while?  If so, this obviously won't work.  If you mean
|> it simply gets harder to cast, though, that's a good effect.

Could have a bizaare effect on the type of magic cast in a world where
magic works as described above.  Every mage would constantly be trying
to come up with new spells, as old ones are used up.  All the obvious
spells would have been used up ages ago, so magic would be pretty weird.
Forget your average fireball spell.  That went ages ago.  These days
people cast 'poison confetti rain' spells etc...

s.mathers@trl.oz.au writes:
>
>Could have a bizaare effect on the type of magic cast in a world where
>magic works as described above.  Every mage would constantly be trying
>to come up with new spells, as old ones are used up.  All the obvious
>spells would have been used up ages ago, so magic would be pretty weird.
>Forget your average fireball spell.  That went ages ago.  These days
>people cast 'poison confetti rain' spells etc...

Right - I wrote this option up into FUDGE Magic, first version - but you
just can't do it.  You run into book-keeping problems.  You have to keep
track of every spell ever cast by every PC and NPC mage . . .

If someone figures out a way to do this, *please* let me know - this
would be my favorite option!

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu