From: eeh (lgyreng!tg01!eeh@fernwood.mpk.ca.us)
Date: Thu 03 Jun 1993 - 05:57:59 EEST
I know I will regret this, but I felt I just had to put in my $0.02 into this discussion.
P.A.Snow@gdr.bath.ac.uk (P A Snow) wrote:
How "magical" do you want magic/sorcery to feel?
The current rules for cults and shmanism do work well but ultimately lead to a world view where magic is technology. This is fine if this is how Glorantha is seen to be. However, if sorcery in Glorantha is intended to feel like magic in stories from Earth, it must be made more mysterious and unknown. The latter parts of Paul R's analysis took sorcery down the Sorcery is technology route. Is this really what people want? If western culture/magic is going to be constructed to parallel western european development then surely sorcery should be difficult to master and unpredictable so society has to rely on technology and learning and move away from sorcery in order to progress.
To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. If we plan to have a set of rules covering sorcery, they will, by definition, appear mechanistic. The only way we can have mysterious magic either to keep the rules by which magic functions a secret, or having the GM wing it.
To determine what sort of sorcery RQIV should have, we must examine Gloranthan cultures.
RQII only deals with the area of Dragon Pass. There are two magic systems, battle magic, and rune magic, and both are controlled by the religious cults that domiate the area. Battle magic is the magic of the common man, and the major revinue source for cults. For a price, a cult will teach any Joe off the street one of the standard battle magic spells. Because of the 4-point stacking limit, battle magic is very useful, but not very powerful. It is also quite draining, because it uses personal magic points.
Rune magic is reserved for those who dedicate their lives to the cult: priests, rune lords, and initates. Rune magic is very expensive, requiring permanent sacrifice of POW. Only priests are allowed reusable rune magic, and they must spend a full day in prayerr to recover a single point of magic. Battle magic matrices are created through rune magic spells, and rune magic matrices are Heroic items. Although most of the population uses battle magic, reusable rune magic is probably restricted to 5% of the population or less.
Shamans operate on the fringes of this culture, trapping the souls of the recently dead on their journey to the judgement of Daka Fal, and using their POW, and what spells they still remember.
[ I still don't understand justification for the RQIII magic systems. ]
gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au (Graeme Lindsell) wrote:
>From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu
>RQ Sorcery - Paul Reilly
> So if we use these rules _all_ western armies should be made up of
>people with enhanced stats and damage boost on all their weapons. You might
While I agree with your other points, remember that those western armies are composed of soldiers with much weaker magic than those of the polytheistic or tribal cultures. Sorcery is great for the professional practitioner but its crap compared with spirit magic for the amateur: harder to learn, harder to cast and less effective: most sorcery needs a lot of MP behind it before its any good. I think RQIII sorcery is very un-Gloranthan in feel because of this: I think it would be a better system for a less magical world such as Gateway Earth. It's probably not a coincidence that this system first appeared in RQIII, with its drift away from Glorantha. The inclusion of spells for Farmers and Knights is something i like a lot about your Runic system.
One question: do you think there is any way to give Western non-sorcerers a chance at a POW tick under your current rules, or do you prefer a new mechanic for getting POW increases? Remember that the Malkioni saints need POW sacrifice in the only description of them we have seen.
In western Genertela, the same magical distribution should exist: Knights are the equivalent of Rune Lords, and Sorcerers the analogs of Rune Priests. Your knight spends his entire life training for his position as premier warrior. I think knights should be denied all access to magic, even enchanted armor and weapons. This is not a very big disadvantage, because a knight armored in unenchanted iron plate is almost completely immune to all magic.
Sorcerers typically spend their entire life training for their position as well. Unlike priests who receive their magic from the gods, sorcerers are on their own. Thier *skills* are the manipulation of raw magic. (I see no justification for free int, or requiring int fro memorizing spells. There is no real difference between bastard sword attack and invoke fire, except invoke fire is not immedeately obvious -- 0% base, or less.)
[I will henceforth use the term spell to refer to a basic spell *plus* all manipulations upon the spell.]
Sorcerers are flying without a net, and their chances of success should be inversly proportional to the power of the spell. This is best simulated by subtracting 5% for each point of manipulation from the spell chance, and 10% per point for each manipulation. These should be rolled *separately* and *in order*, so if a sorcerer attempted to invoke fire at increased intensity and range, succeeded at the fire and the intensity, but not the range, it would have the desired intensity, but zero range (*ouch!*).
pvanheus@cs.uct.ac.za (Peter van Heusden) wrote:
My concept of Sorcery is heavily influenced by 2 things. 1) Tolkien. 2) Ars Magica
[...]
2) Ars Magica has 2 basic types of spell - spontaneous, and formulaic. This all will be discussed below, however.
[...]
2) BIG problem. We don't want this to only work in Glorantha. So, do we create a dual system, or drop the runic idea, or give a sorcery construction kit, whereby you can adapt sorcery to your world.
[ Probably a very good idea ]
[...]
Ok. What should we have:
Ars Magica (AM) has 2 types of spell, as I have said. A spontaneous spell is a off the cuff combination of forms (read Runes) and techniques (things like create, destroy, change). A mage would often light a candle like this: quick create Fire on the candle. Basically, I was thinking of skills for each form, and each technique, and averaging them or something. This has been done, posted, responded to, etc, before.
[ As I said, I think each technique should be rolled separately. ]
Then, you have formulaic spells - the ones in books. Basically, you crit on a spell, you can write it down, and get a new spell, which you can then cast again and improve seperately. Its a lot less dangerous that spontaneous magic.
Here I tend to disagree. I go by the rule that *permanant* effects require *permanant* power. At least one point of permanent POW is needed to "tack down" sorcerous magic so it does not dissipate. Duration should be on a linear scale: 1pt duration (default) = 3min, 2pts = 6min, 3pts = 9min, etc. This provides for several things:
Sorcery Spell Matrices:
These are very similar to battle magic matrices. A sorcer casts a spell, with any desired manipulations, into an object and tacks it down with a point of permanent pow. The spell is cast with the enchant matrix skill so its effects are not immediately felt. That spell matrix is now immutable and cannot be manipulated further. The matrix can now be given to anyone, and whenever he puts in the necessary amount of pow, the spell is recast.
Sorcerous Enchantments:
Cast a spell, tack it down, and it becomes permanent. Enchanting a suit of armor is expensive, because it requires a point of permanent POW per location.
Time delayed spells:
Use a point of permanent POW and create a spell storage conatiner. The sorcerer may then cast a spell into that container. The spell will not immediately take effect, but may be released at a later time by the sorcerer. Several of these are often placed in magic wands.
Magic point storage:
A sorcerer can create 1 point of magic point storage by sacrificing 1 POW into an item. This storage is not self-regenrating, and cannot be used either offensively or defensively for overcoming someone's POW or spirit combat.
Spirit trapping:
Sorcerers don't beleive in spirits.
POW storage crystals:
These are not generally available in the West.
What this means it that sorcerers are not limited by stacking. They are limited by their sorcerous abilities and the magic point requirements of their spells.
One final point: Cantrips. Cantrips are the sorcerous analog of battle magic. Sorcerers use the create cantrip skill design a spell. This spell can then be taught to a commoner at 1 point per week, if the sorcerer succeeds with his teach cantrip skill. The student's chance to cast the cantrip is quite low, say INT x 2 or INT x 3. A cantrip *cannot* be manipulated further.
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