[net.games.frp] A Colorful Magic System

steve@siemens.UUCP (04/03/85)

I wrote a message recently with a few 'teaser' comments about a magic
system I have worked up.  Since I received several requests for more,
I will try to post it over the next couple weeks.  (in several parts.)
This message is background material and a very breif overview.  The
system never was finished, but then no frp system ever is.  There is
a large amount of relative drudgery that never was done -- converting
all the D&D spells to fit into this system.  Also, the playtesting
showed some flaws that I never fixed.  As you may deduce, frp is very
much backburner for me these days.

So, here comes the background:

I started playing frp games when some wargame enthusiast friends of mine
talked me into playing a few scenarios from the fantasy supplement to
the Chainmail medieval miniatures rules (second edition).  A few months
later one of the guys' older brother came home from college with a set
of new rules called Dungeons and Dragons.  He had a copy of a copy of ...
a copy of the published booklets because the first printing sold out so
quickly.  So we all made copies of his copy, although it was getting
pretty illegible, and started to play.  We each had totally different
interpretations of the rules and that itself was a lot of fun.  Anyway,
I started making my own alterations from there, so my frp system is not
based on AD&D or even modern D&D, but they share a common ancestor.  I
independently came up with an alignment scheme similar to the two-
dimensional one used in AD&D today, although now I don't use alignment
very much.

To digress a moment, one of the funniest things a guy ever did back in
those early days, was to take a pike for his weapon on an expedition into
a dungeon.  He carried it over his shoulder, and when we came to some monsters
he was unable to turn it around in the 10' wide corridor, so he couldn't
help fight.  (He did this on purpose.)  He did get experience since our
best interpretation of the rules was that everyone with the party gets
experience, but he could never get away with that again.  What a sleazy
thing to do!

Back to my magic system:  it is very firmly based in the level of experience
type of system, which I kind of like.  It gives people a greater feeling
of accomplishment, I think, to go up a quantum jump in abilities every so
often, than to continuously dribble up by minute amounts.  But it's not
always very "realistic".  Anyway, magic is divided into ten areas of
subject called colors.  The colors correspond to the ten elements the
world is made of, you see.  I don't have my notes with me, so I can only
list a few right here:  black is earth, white is air, yellow is time, green
is plant life, brown is animal life, purple is magic itself, etc.  A beginning
mu selects his primary color, and his level of expertise in that color is
equal to his experience level.  He is also often known as "foo the bar"
where foo is his name and bar is his primary color.  If he is third level
of expertise in some color he is said to be of (or in) the third circle
of that color.

When an mu goes up a level, he also is able to increase his level of
expertise in one or two other colors (his colors that he has greater than
zero expertise are his secondary colors), but his greatest expertise must
always be in his primary color.  In order to actually gain the knowledge
of these, he must study for long periods of time under a higher-level mage
or do research for longer periods of time on his own, or at low levels
he can go away to mage university.

Besides the colors, there are different forms of doing magic.
I don't remember the categories exactly (remember I said I don't have
my notes?) but they are something like this:  one is enchanting items,
one is making brews, potions, ointments, etc., one is writing runes
that are triggered by some simple event (first level, by being broken),
and I think one is summoning demons but I'm not sure.  When an mu goes
up a level, he goes up one in his primary color and in one or two of
the set of all other colors plus the different forms.

Note that no form of magic is something the mu can do on the fly.  He
cannot get into a battle situation and suddenly decide to cast magic
missile; he must have previously enchanted some arrows, or prepared a
potion of Hitting Your Mark or something.  The fundamental difference
(from a gaming point of view) between clerics and mu's is that mu's
must do their preparations ahead of time while clerics can blunder into
a situation and pray themselves out of it.

Each spell requires expertise to some level in some color(s) as well as
some form of magic.  The low level spells are generally available in
all forms of magic and require expertise in one color only, but the
really powerful spells may require expertise in several colors to higher
degrees.  For example, (this is from faulty memory) enchanting a weapon
to +1 permanently requires 4th circle of red, 3rd circle of yellow, and
3rd circle of enchanting.  An mu could be able to do this at 4th level
(or so), but only if he studied exactly those things leading up to that,
and he would be good for not a whole lot else besides enchanting weapons
to +1 permanently, (or to +2 for "a few blows", or to +3 for one blow).

Illusionists are just mu's who specialise in casting illusions, no longer
a separate class.  (Druids are just clerics who worship the druidic gods,
too.  I am a firm believer in 3 character classes:  fighter mu and cleric.
Theives are fighters who spend all their time improving their theiving
skills instead of fighting.)

So long for now, I hope you're not too impatient for me to go find my notes
and follow up with some detail.

Steve Clark    ...princeton!siemens!steve

steve@siemens.UUCP (04/11/85)

I posted this before but it didn't seem to make it out onto the net.

I wrote a message recently with a few 'teaser' comments about a magic
system I have worked up.  Since I received several requests for more,
I will try to post it over the next couple weeks.  (in several parts.)
This message is background material and a very breif overview.  The
system never was finished, but then no frp system ever is.  There is
a large amount of relative drudgery that never was done -- converting
all the D&D spells to fit into this system.  Also, the playtesting
showed some flaws that I never fixed.  As you may deduce, frp is very
much backburner for me these days.

So, here comes the background:

I started playing frp games when some wargame enthusiast friends of mine
talked me into playing a few scenarios from the fantasy supplement to
the Chainmail medieval miniatures rules (second edition).  A few months
later one of the guys' older brother came home from college with a set
of new rules called Dungeons and Dragons.  He had a copy of a copy of ...
a copy of the published booklets because the first printing sold out so
quickly.  So we all made copies of his copy, although it was getting
pretty illegible, and started to play.  We each had totally different
interpretations of the rules and that itself was a lot of fun.  Anyway,
I started making my own alterations from there, so my frp system is not
based on AD&D or even modern D&D, but they share a common ancestor.  I
independently came up with an alignment scheme similar to the two-
dimensional one used in AD&D today, although now I don't use alignment
very much.

To digress a moment, one of the funniest things a guy ever did back in
those early days, was to take a pike for his weapon on an expedition into
a dungeon.  He carried it over his shoulder, and when we came to some monsters
he was unable to turn it around in the 10' wide corridor, so he couldn't
help fight.  (He did this on purpose.)  He did get experience since our
best interpretation of the rules was that everyone with the party gets
experience, but he could never get away with that again.  What a sleazy
thing to do!

Back to my magic system:  it is very firmly based in the level of experience
type of system, which I kind of like.  It gives people a greater feeling
of accomplishment, I think, to go up a quantum jump in abilities every so
often, than to continuously dribble up by minute amounts.  But it's not
always very "realistic".  Anyway, magic is divided into ten areas of
subject called colors.  The colors correspond to the ten elements the
world is made of, you see.  I don't have my notes with me, so I can only
list a few right here:  black is earth, white is air, yellow is time, green
is plant life, brown is animal life, purple is magic itself, etc.  A beginning
mu selects his primary color, and his level of expertise in that color is
equal to his experience level.  He is also often known as "foo the bar"
where foo is his name and bar is his primary color.  If he is third level
of expertise in some color he is said to be of (or in) the third circle
of that color.

When an mu goes up a level, he also is able to increase his level of
expertise in one or two other colors (his colors that he has greater than
zero expertise are his secondary colors), but his greatest expertise must
always be in his primary color.  In order to actually gain the knowledge
of these, he must study for long periods of time under a higher-level mage
or do research for longer periods of time on his own, or at low levels
he can go away to mage university.

Besides the colors, there are different forms of doing magic.
I don't remember the categories exactly (remember I said I don't have
my notes?) but they are something like this:  one is enchanting items,
one is making brews, potions, ointments, etc., one is writing runes
that are triggered by some simple event (first level, by being broken),
and I think one is summoning demons but I'm not sure.  When an mu goes
up a level, he goes up one in his primary color and in one or two of
the set of all other colors plus the different forms.

Note that no form of magic is something the mu can do on the fly.  He
cannot get into a battle situation and suddenly decide to cast magic
missile; he must have previously enchanted some arrows, or prepared a
potion of Hitting Your Mark or something.  The fundamental difference
(from a gaming point of view) between clerics and mu's is that mu's
must do their preparations ahead of time while clerics can blunder into
a situation and pray themselves out of it.

Each spell requires expertise to some level in some color(s) as well as
some form of magic.  The low level spells are generally available in
all forms of magic and require expertise in one color only, but the
really powerful spells may require expertise in several colors to higher
degrees.  For example, (this is from faulty memory) enchanting a weapon
to +1 permanently requires 4th circle of red, 3rd circle of yellow, and
3rd circle of enchanting.  An mu could be able to do this at 4th level
(or so), but only if he studied exactly those things leading up to that,
and he would be good for not a whole lot else besides enchanting weapons
to +1 permanently, (or to +2 for "a few blows", or to +3 for one blow).

Illusionists are just mu's who specialise in casting illusions, no longer
a separate class.  (Druids are just clerics who worship the druidic gods,
too.  I am a firm believer in 3 character classes:  fighter mu and cleric.
Theives are fighters who spend all their time improving their theiving
skills instead of fighting.)

So long for now, I hope you're not too impatient for me to go find my notes
and follow up with some detail.

Steve Clark    ...princeton!siemens!steve

steve@siemens.UUCP (05/07/85)

Here is the second part about my "Colorful Magic System".  Please, would
somebody who is interested send me a note so I can be sure it makes it out
to the net (and that there is still interest).  This assumes a system of
fatigue points and body points which maps onto a D&D modification I have
seen many people use.  This modification says that you become unconscious
when hit points go to zero, but you don't die until you go negative more
than your constitution.  (But you have to do things like roll system shocks
etc.)  What D&D calls "hit points" are fatigue points; your body points
are equal to your constitution.  I won't bother justifying this here.

			Magic Users

The basic philosophy about magic is that it is something that takes a
lot of preparation and is not done on the spur of the moment.  A magic
user does not cast spells at a moment's notice -- instead he enchants
devices, brews potions, writes scrolls, and conjures up demons to do
his magic.  (Clerics are the ones that have their prayers answered
immediately.)  Of course, a magic user could keep a bag full of all
sorts of potions and scrolls and stuff, and use them whenever necessary,
but he has to prepare them ahead of time and deal with nasties that
detect all that magic.

Another main point is that magic users have a very wide range of spells
to choose from, but they are forced to specialize in order to get to do
any high level magic.  To this end, magic spells are divided into 10
classes, or "colors".  The categories are as follows:

    Black	gravity, metals, mechanisms
    Brown	animals, characteristics of animals, shape-changing
    Red		fire, weapons
    Orange	illusion, mirrors
    Yellow	time, speed/motion, age, spacial distortions
    Green	plants, characteristics of plants, barriers, containers, armor
    Blue	water, guidance, travel, communication, health, poison, sound
    Violet	electricity, emotion, mind, mind control
    Grey	magic itself, the Astral plane, ESP, good & evil
    White	air, weather, shapes, invisibility, light

A magic user has a proficiency level in each color, and when he starts out
he picks one color to be his "primary" color.  Each time he goes up a level
in experience, he increases his proficiency in his primary color by one.
His proficiency in any other color may not be greater than his proficiency
in his primary color.

There are also four different methods or means of carrying out magic spells,
and a magic user has proficiencies in the four methods as well as the ten
colors.  The methods are:

    Enchanting		weapons, armor, amulets, rings, wands
    Brewing		potions, gases, ointments
    Spell-Storing	writing scrolls or storing in a device (e.g. ring)
			enchanting specifically for storing spells
    Conjuring Demons	elementals and such; they can be bound to symbols
			(runes) or charged with a task immediately

These will be explained in detail later.

Each time a magic user goes up one experience level, he increments his
proficiency in some colors and/or methods.  Before he starts out he has
zero proficiency in everything, and he increments some proficiencies as
if he went from 0th level to 1st level.  The number of proficiencies he
increments depends on his level and intelligence:  it is either 3 or 2
per level, including his primary color.  That is, he increments his
proficiency in his primary color and one or two other colors or methods
each level of experience.

		       Increment 3	Increment 2
      Intelligence    Proficiencies    Proficiencies
	 1 - 10		never		level 1 & up
	11 & 12		level 1		level 2 & up
	13 & 14		level 2		level 3 & up
	15 & 16		level 3		level 4 & up
	17 & 18		level 4		level 5 & up
	over 18		level 5		level 6 & up

Not all spells can be cast in all methods.  It might be possible to enchant
an amulet with some spell, or brew a potion with it, but not to store it
nor to conjure a demon to do it.  Casting a spell requires a magic user to
use fatigue points; typically more fatigue points than he can expend in one
day.  He will simply have to spend several days expending his fatigue points
on the spell.  He can work on several spells at once, but if he stops entirely
on a particular spell he has to start it all over again.  He may use his
body points on a spell, but he will have to heal just as if he received
wounds in combat.  He can sacrifice himself by going negative:  he can use
as many fatigue/body points as he wants in one spell, but he dies.

Most spells are considered "standard spells".  Unless explicitly stated
otherwise, everything having to do with any spell is standard.  For standard
spells, the number of fatigue points required to cast a spell is proportional
to the level of the spell and depends upon the intelligence of the magic
user.  The spell will have a single "spell level" and color which will
determine what proficiency the magic user must have in the color of the spell
and the method he wishes to use to cast it.  The following tables sum up
this information.

    Intelligence    20  19  18  17  16  15  14  13  12  11  10    n
    F. P.           20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  40 - n

F.P. is the number of fatigue points required per level of spell.

    Spell      Caster's Proficiency in       Fatigue     Minimum Fatigue
    Level     Method      Method + Color     Points*     Points per Day
      1		1		2		1		1
      2		1		3		2		2
      3		2		4		3		3
      4		2		5		4		4
      5		3		6		5		5
      6		3		7		6		6
      n      (n+1)%2	       n+1		n		n

* This number is multiplied by F.P. determined from the magic user's
intelligence in the previous table.

Also, a magic user must always have a proficiency of at least one in the
color of the spell he wishes to cast.

steve@siemens.UUCP (05/07/85)

I forgot to mention my return address:

...!princeton!siemens!steve

-the poster of the colorful magic system

steve@siemens.UUCP (07/26/85)

I have been doing other things for a month or two, but I finally got back
to posting about my "Colorful Magic System".  If you are interested, I can
send you any of the previous postings.  If I get mail from interested people
I am more likely to continue posting what little I have left.

Here are some of the special spells I have concocted.  Most of the spells
are up to you as DM to adapt from whatever system you're already using.
The next thing I will post probably will be illusion related spell.

                       Some Spells

          Armor +n  (Green, Enchanting or Brewing)
To enchant armor to +n is a spell of level n+1.   It is necessary that the
armor already be enchanted to +(n-1).  (Enchanting armor to +2 requires first
enchanting it to +1; to brew an ointment to  +3 requires first brewing it to
+1 and then to +2; etc.)  A piece of armor may be enchanted directly, or an
ointment may be brewed that must be rubbed onto the armor.  To cast this
spell of level n, the caster must have proficiency in Green of n and a
proficiency in enchanting or brewing of level n.  The basic spell lasts until
the wearer of the armor is not hit, but would have been if the armor had
not been enchanted.  That is, until the enchantment of the armor saves
the wearer from a hit.

          Shield +n  (Green, Enchanting or Brewing)
This is the same as Armor +n but the spell is level n instead of n+1.

          Weapon +n Damage (Red, Enchanting or Brewing)
To enchant a normal weapon to +n is a spell of level n+1.  Just like armor,
it is necessary that the weapon already be magically +(n-1).  A weapon may
be enchanted directly, or an ointment can be brewed that must be rubbed onto
the weapon.  To cast this spell of level n, the magic user must have
proficiency in Red of level n and in enchanting or brewing of level n.  The
basic spell lasts until the weapon makes a hit.

          Missile Weapon +n Damage (Red, Enchanting or Brewing)
This is the same as Weapon +n Damage, but the spell is level n instead of n+1.

          Weapon +n to Hit (Red, Enchanting or Brewing)
This is just like Weapon +n Damage, but the standard spell lasts until
the weapon hits, when it would not have hit if it were not enchanted.

          Missile Weapon +n to Hit (Red, Enchanting or Brewing)
This is just like Weapon +n Damage, but the standard spell lasts until
the weapon hits, when it would not have hit if it were not enchanted.

quint@topaz.ARPA (Amqueue) (08/02/85)

In article <26000014@siemens.UUCP> steve@siemens.UUCP writes:
>
>I have been doing other things for a month or two, but I finally got back
>to posting about my "Colorful Magic System".  If you are interested, I can
>send you any of the previous postings.  If I get mail from interested people
>I am more likely to continue posting what little I have left.

>    information and spells of appropriate colors


I seemed to have missed this previously. There is a gaming system around,
I think it is still in print, called Phantasy Conclave (tm, probably). It
uses a similar idea for its magic, battle magic being Red, nature type
magic being green, and onward. Each of its races also has innate magic of 
a typifying color. Ive played it once or twice, at conventions, but dont 
know of any group local to me that really plays it. The main thing that I
like about this system is that the people who wrote it formed a gaming
club, and will send one of their members to any group To Teach You How 
To Play It! It is very heavily into role-playing, *especially* on the
part of the dm... they suggest that you ahve a dm team, one to basically
act the primary roles, give descriptions, and generally run things, and 
one to act the secondary roles, run any npcs going with the group, help
with melees, and be generally useful. 

    If there is general interest, I will post more on this game. If you 
want the address, send to me personally and I will mail it to you.

I have no interest in this other than having played it 3 times.


Movies we never want to see: Buckaroo Banzai Meets The Ghostbusters.

Yahtzee!
/amqueue