[net.games.frp] My world -- and welcome to it

laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (10/08/83)

Some of you have said "why can't you have a magical system where Oaths
are breakable?" both here in net.games.frp and in mail to me. The short
answer is because it is incompatible with my definition of magic. I
suppose you could have breakable Oaths if you had a different definition
of magic.

Somebody postulated "using up the magic" in the casting of spells. I gather
that this is the Larry Niven theory of mana (sp?) for magic (although you
may have re-invented it, or found it somewhere else). Larry Niven uses
this in his Warlock stories the first of which is called "What Good is
a Glass Dagger?" and is in THE FLIGHT OF THE HORSE. There are other ones,
but this is the best one as far as I am concerned, though I am rather
interested in the Unfinished Stories that were published in one collection
or another (ALL THE MYRIAD WAYS ??) . 

this theory goes like this: magic is a natural resource, like petroleum.
You use up magic when you cast spells. Once the magic is all gone, there
is no more. Certain creatures (like unicorns and dragons) use up magic
just by BEING. When there is no magic, there will be no more of them,
either. 

I do not know whether you use deities as the source of all magic (permitting
a continuous-creation of magic, to the relief of the dragons who know
about the nature of the universe) or whether they are a special sort of
magical creature which will also come to pass when the magic goes away.

I have seen this system played. It seems to be workable. The problem is,
from a world builder's point of veiw, it is not as much fun, or more
simply I DON'T LIKE IT. The prospect of dedicating your lives to a
dwindling resource is not very appealing to me. Also, it makes magic
rather distinct from the spell-casters, where to my mind spell casting
should be a thoroughly intimate experience. 

I get the same feeling about this veiw of magic as some people get of
certain computer systems or computer programs. WHAT A KLUDGE! You have
tried to tack a theory of magic like a bag onto a thoroughly materialistic
veiw of the universe. Thus it is no wonder when your Gods become mere
super powerful human beings and your magic items have all the personality
of a bulldozer (20th century -- I once used a dispaced one in a campaign
as a monster, but it had escaped from Hollywood set of KILLDOZER and had
a lot of personality). And you are lead to the (in my mind) ridiculous
situation where mortals are contemplating killing Orcus which is a
perfectly reasonable (if utterly foolhardy) proposition in a world
where there is no difference in kind between creatures, only a difference
in degree.

But enough denouncing. if you like this sort of world, fine -- i just thought
that I might let you know why others might not like it.

Here is my definition of magic: Magic is the art of causing changes by
	an effort of will and in comformity with that will.

this is not a new definition. If you read any books on magic, you will
find that this is either stated somewhere or implicit. This is also a
rather broad definition. By this definition there is relatively little
difference between 'living' and 'magic', since strictly speaking the
fighter who beheads his opponent is causing change in correspondence with
his will. To my mind, this is a very good thing. However, if you want
to talk to one of my NPC -- a 20th level Lawful Evil Fighter with the
express purpose of removing magic from the world through the systemetic
brainwashing of all of his land coupled with the murder of all wizards
druids and clerics, go right ahead...

this secret that all acts are magical is one that all MUs know. For the
rest of the world, the defintion of magic(2) <hmm makes sense as a 
system call, how convenient!> is that magic(2) is magic(1) when the
magic(1) is performed by 'supernatural' means, where supernatural means
"I don't understand it".

So where do Oaths come in? Well, Oaths are a pretty thorough statement
of will. And given there are spells where words are enough a statement
of will thus becomes a pretty powerful spell. On a personal level it is
the most powerful sort of spell since it requires the commitment of
*yourself*. 

This is different from a lie. lawfuls can lie, chaotics can lie, but
once you get "I swear" out of a creature you have got an Oath. And in
my world, the universe (more properly the continuum of universes) takes
notice.

What would it mean to break an Oath? Well, that would depend on the
creature and the Oath involved. For instance, if a character made an
Oath not to harm or kill a certain being in this and all subsequent
lifetimes, and then was killed and reincarnated without any memory of the
Oath, and tried to kill the being. thus he is breaking the Oath, but
unintentionally. What would happen? Well, in the first place, he could
not kill or even harm the creature. his spells would backfire, he would
miss with a bow, his sword would break rather than kill the creature,
a particularily nasty form of sickness might leave him in bed... have
you read "A SPELL FOR CHAMELEON" by Peirs Anthony? The universe is
subtle, so for a while the character might think that he had been suffering
from incredibly bad luck, but after a while he may catch on (at least
enough to get some cleric or magic user or sage to explain what was wrong
with him ...)

What happens when a character suffers a change in alignment after making
an Oath? Real trouble. His will is in pretty bad shape, given that these
things do not in general change overnight. Temporary insanity is probable,
and permanent insanity is quite possible. if the player recovers from his
insanity, then he is faces with having the consequences of an Oath which
no longer correspond to his will. I hope that he swore by some deity,
since he will need to do something for that deity to get the Oath revoked.
If he swore instead by "himself and all his powers" (by the way, this is
the sort of Oath i would get Orcus to swear) he may find himself without
any powers. if the Oath involved "to never think a harmful thought about
X" and he is now a thoroughly evil creature who cannot help but think evil
thoughts about X, he may be annialated. The universe itself will not
hold him. On the other hand, there is a certain amount of protection in
certain Oaths. The universe does not like to be concerned with the
problem of annialating people who cannot exist within its framework.
it is generally easier to have the spell that would change the alignment
fail in the first place. (See Fritz Leiber's "Try and Change the Past" for
the opposite viewpoint, but wonderfully done. My universe is as 'active'
as Leiber's, at any rate.)

What about voluntary changes in alignment? Well, in general, these happen
over a long time. To some extent you can usually reinterpret the Oath in
the light of the new person you are. This is why the wording of Oaths
is so important. an Oath to "do what is best for X" is not a very good
Oath -- what if in the future i decide that what is best for X is death
at the stake? Hardly what X had in mind...

Also, voluntary changes in alignment should be done in such a way that
cannot come in conflict with past Oaths. Anyone who can break Oaths (this
includes the person who says -- 'but I didn't really mean it' has denied
the magical nature of reality. What do we call people with serious functional
difficulties in perceiving reality? Insane. People who try to break Oaths
on such flimsy grounds as "personal convenience" are manifestly insane.
Moreover, their soul is likely to be in pretty serious bad shape as well as
their mind! (If your soul was in good shape you wouldn't say such things.
I would check to see that *all* of your soul is there -- if you are
missing a chunk of it, this is one of the sorts of insanities that can
effect you). 

This does not preclude voluntary changes in alignment (after all, people
have found religion after leading particularily vile lives in the past)
and if you can actually become trasformed (by a God) into another person
then it is possible to escape one's Oath. However, such transformations
are not very common and are in genral not the sort of thing that happens
to the casual Oath breaker...

This has gone on far too long already; i honestly didn't think that I
had this much in me on the nature of Oaths, but I guess I did. I
will field all questions that this generartes.

laura creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura

laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (10/08/83)

if you got an article that was completely full of 'U's, I am sorry. The
modem on the machine end packed it in as I was posting this article.
i cancelled the old version, but csrg was talking to us at the time,
so you may get the funny version anyway. 

next, i am assuming that you got my previous article (utcsstat.1214)
(this article is a followup to that one.) the last one was too long,
so I am not going to repost the definitions I used in it.

Okay -- I got mail which said "your system is flawed since there can
be no magic resistance". I find this strange, since I think that this
is one area where the "magic-as-a-non-renewable-resource" crowd is
on pretty shakey cosmological grounds; i suppose they must think the
same of my cosmology.

okay. by definition it is impossible to have magic(1) resistance. Anything
with magic(1) resistance would exist without having the ability to act,
since all acts are magic(1) in nature. And anything that can not act,
cannot communicate its existance to the rest of the world. So it is
classified with all the other things that are a priori unmeasurable
and unknowable -- it does not exist.

however, this does not preclude magic(2) resistance, which is what the
vulgar term "magic resistance" anyway. however, it requires a better
understanding of magic(2). Magic(2) is not a tool like a sword or an
axe. Magic(2) is a specific description of the universe which is
highly interrelated. Thus you cannot talk about "Suppose there was nothing
in the world but a magic user and he cast a fireball", because the specific
condition (or description) of the world that produces fireballs is not
one in which there is nothing in the world but a magic user. Another way to
say this is that magic(2) does not come soley from the mind of the magic user,
but also from the universe.

So there is no way to bring about the conditions that will produce a
magical effect in the vicinity of a magic resistant creature, in the
same way you cannot produce a fire effect in a fire resistant creature.
Where does magic resistance come from? Well, from the will of the resistant
creature. (you have to modify this slightly to get resistant items, either
by giving non-living things a will, or by making their resistance part of
the will of their creator.) So, if a magic resistant creature wants to
be effected by magic, then it can be. (but there may be some resistance
to the idea, which explains why creatures who are willingly ploymorphed
still have to make a saving throw...)

When I first ran a dungeon, I used these words literally. Somebody tried
to cast a spell at Osiris (who he did not recognise) and I countered
with "you could not think of doing this". i figured that it would be
like asking a stone age man to explain Canadian Income Tax Laws.
This did not go over very well with the group. I held my ground for a
few weeks, but then found that this was not a very workable system, in
that the first thing that people did was cast spells at every new item
and monster. If they couldn't, they knew that it was magic-resistant...

These days, I let you cast perfect spells (to your flawed perception
at any rate) which have no effect. You have, of course, botched the
spell, but in a subtle way that you do not understand.

It is interesting that in some respects my world and Tim Maroney's
world will be opposites -- i gather that he has magic resistance as
a conscious act of magic, where I would have the power to override
magic resistance the one that requires consciousness. 

laura creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura

ps -- these days I do not let my Gods wander through the world indiscriminately
	either -- you live and learn.