From: Ken McKinney (mad@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Tue 13 Aug 1991 - 09:56:33 EEST
Subject: Reply to comments on my sorcery system in Digest issue 22
Re: Andrew posting my letter to him: Andrew, you can repost any
personal correspondence from me if you feel it's relevant. People on
the digest should give me some leeway since my typing and grammar is
a little more fast and loose when I think I'm only talking to one person!
Re: Michael Kossowsky's comments -- he feels the system makes sorcerers
with little or no previous experience useless. Well, that's true. If
you allocate percentages to skills solely on the basis of age (as in the
current RQ experience system) and your sorcerer is deemed to have no previous
experience (ie. he is age 15 or so) then he won't have learned sorcery, which
takes years of study, and won't be able to cast sorcery spells. He doesn't
stack up to an Orlanthi in a similar situation because spirit magic doesn't
have to be studied and you can use a sword (albeit badly) without having
been trained in it. I don't feel that someone without training should be
able to cast sorcery at all so I don't see this as a problem. If you
want a viable sorcerer in a low-level campaign you could do several things.
You could say that sorcerers from Malkioni cultures get some sorcery training
before the age of 15 (they don't get cultural weapons bonuses, so maybe
they deserve this). You could simply start your sorcerer out enough older
than the other characters to make him equally skilled in relation to them.
Wizards are stereotypically wiser and older than their warrior companions,
so this isn't too strange. You could start your other characters at age
20 and start the sorcerer at 25, for example.
One of the guys I play RQ with came up with the following idea to solve
the low-powered sorcerer problem. Say that sorcerers get their familiars
upon becoming apprentices, rather than when they become adepts. The
idea would be that the familiar carries the sorcerer rather than the
other way around when the sorcerer is young. Your master would make the
familiar for you and forge a bond between you and it. The familiar would
have a small amount of innate sorcery skill which you would have access
to, determined by the skill and area of expertise of your master. The
familiar would not be able to increase it's skills, but would be able
to teach you what it knew. You would have a mental bond with your
familiar which would allow you to use either its skill or yours to cast
a spell. Eventually your studies would allow you to progress beyond
the ability of your familiar, after which you would use your own skills
rather than its for spellcasting.
This would create some neat effects. Imagine the picture of the impatient
young sorcerer having to learn magic from a toad with a croaky voice. GM's
could stick players with amusing familiars (goats, lizards, etc.) if they
so desired. And it would help out the beginning sorcerers without making
better ones more powerful. The main drawback I see is that the mere
possession of a familiar might make the beginning sorcerer too powerful,
and that you would have to scrap the adept requirement of making a
familiar. Come to think of it, you could keep this requirement but say
the familiar has to be made for another apprentice. This would force
sorcerers to take apprentices.
I don't really favor going back to the RQ2 experience method of forcing
players to get skill checks between training sessions. In my mind this
excaberates the problem of skill check frenzy. Also, I like it when
my sorcerers have to hit the books every once in a while rather than
just adventure. I feel it makes the profession more "realistic".
Re: Paul Reilly's comments about having sorcery go off at sacred
time: I've thought about doing this as well. I can think of 2 ways
to do it:
1 - All temporal magic is automatically dispelled at the onset of sacred
time and when it is over. Spells with a duration of Forever or Until
Caster's Death are not affected.
2 - Like 1, but in addition no magic can be cast with a duration of more
than 10 minutes during sacred time.
Note that the onset of Truth Week is also Godday and When Yelm Rises,
so all spells with a duration of Until Truth Week or less go off at the
onset of Truth Week. So we're just extending this concept if we
say that spell's go off when sacred time hits.
I don't see the need to let sorcerers get around this either on their
person or with magic they cast on others. I think it's a good thing
for sorcerers to be somewhat more vulnerable during Sacred Time, which
is largely associated with Gods. So I think that all spells, unless made
permanent (involving ungodly amounts of Law skill) should go off at sacred
time.
Re: Dakin Burdick's comments:
Thanks for the compliments on my system. Your system sounds neat as well.
I like the idea of building on prerequisites because it forces people
to specialize to do the really big stuff, thus lending play balance. I
wanted a system where my players could easily make up new spells as
we went along, though, and a prerequisite system makes this much harder.
Also, It's hard to think of prerequisites for some really awesome spells
(what's the prerequisite for Tap?) so spells which aren't that interesting
end up being made just for the purpose of being prerequisites. You might
want to post some of your stuff to the Digest if it's compatible with
RuneQuest, though.
Re: The NightMare: Excellent demon. Is this your idea of what the
horses Ethilrist brought back from hell would be like? Also, does anyone
care to guesstimate how many people are in the Black Horse Troop and what
their average skill levels are?
Re: John Castellucci's RQ player roster: I'd like to be in it. Here's
some personal Data:
Name: Ken McKinney
Age: 25
Internet: currently mad@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
Phone: (512) 476-8956
Snailmail: 707 W. 21st Street, Austin TX 78705
I currently play and GM RuneQuest but would be interested in playing
Ars Magica or Torg also. I've been playing RuneQuest since around 1980.
I'm primarily interested in Gloranthan RuneQuest material though I have
run and played in non-gloranthan games. Anyone in the Austin area who
plays RuneQuest is welcome to contact me and play in my game. So far
there are 6 players and I'll probably cut it off at 10 or so (not everyone
shows up each week).
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