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.