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