So, a while back I posted a link to my In The Shadow of Dragons frpg.  Since then I learned that name was used for a recent D&D comic so I'm back to my working title The Esoteric Confabulation.

Anyhow, I've mucked about with a number of structural spell systems where a limited set of effects is applied broadly but I've never been happy with them.  The spell list is the single biggest hold up on this thing.  But tonight I threw away all thought of rational process or internal consistancy and wrote these.  I haven't set costs or levels to them yet and I need at least twice as many to fill in the gaps.  I'm not looking for a hugely expansive list.  I like my games to fit in a shorter book than that allows but I am looking to hit a sense of magic that a tight process doesn't allow.

Note that the subjects which can be affected by a given spell are limited by the arts the magician has studied.

Animals are creatures with an Intelligence less than seven and no ability to speak.
Monsters are creatures that have magical traits or a level adjustment.


All I Survey
   Another spell's effects are extended to everything in the magician's immediate field of vision.

Beast Calling
   An animal native to the area is drawn to the magician.  It will come as fast as it can and will seek to aid and serve the magician to the best of its ability to understand them.  A specific creature can be called if its true name is known.

Beastial Aspect
   The subject's features take on a resemblance of a specified animal and receives all the Traits and none of the Characteristics thereof.

Beastial Form
   The subject of the spell becomes an animal.  In so doing they take on the Traits and physical Characteristics of the animal in question and lose their own.  The skills of the new form are not gained and must be developed by the character or used at default levels.  If an individual takes to a specific form frequently it is acceptable to work up a specific set of statistics by removing their native form's abilities and adding in those of the animal species.

Become Shapeless Wind
   The subject's body is turned to air.  In this form they lack the density to bear any weapons, armor, or equipment but can fly and pass through gaps and cracks at a rate of two points of Size per action.   Returning to their normal form while so doing causes damage in direct proportion to the amount of them that is on the other side and can be deadly.  Physical attacks made against them pass through without causing harm.

Binding Condition
   The spell's effects last until a specified condition is met.  Increasingly difficult conditions produce increasing levels of coincidence to undo the binding.

Bind Spirit
   A spirit is bound to another spell thus freeing the magician from concentrating to control it.  Whether the spirit will obey the magician depends entirely on the nature of that spirit.  A familiar spirit will obey automatically though it may be given to mischief.  Other spirits will follow their own nature for good or for ill.  A familiar spirit is created by the magician summoning and binding a spirit to themselves, a focus, or a small animal.

Blasting Fires
   Fire violently erupts from the magician's outstretched hands, scorching and burning everything in front of them.  Flammable goods and materials catch fire and continue to burn.

Brast Asunder
   An inanimate object is shattered, scattering fragments all around it making the area rough ground.  Those who do not shield their eyes risk getting dust, splinters, and fragments in them.

Catlike Grace
   The subject's Agility is increased by the Result of the spell.

Charming Mein
   The subject's appearance and voice become pleasing and their words compelling which increases their Appearance and Voice by the Result of the spell.

Choking Smoke
   A cloud of smoke is conjured up around the subject making them hard to see but also making it rather difficult for them to breathe.

Clinging Mud
   The dirt around the subject becomes thick, sticky mud that impedes movement and creates a risk of slipping or tripping even after the area is escaped until footwear can be scraped and washed.

Course of the Sun
   The magician binds another spell to the solar cycle causing it to last for a full day from the time of casting.

Cycle of the Moon
   By binding another spell to the lunar cycle the magician extends its effects for a full lunar month.

Directed Deflection
   The magician deflects an oncoming missile or physical spell effect with a gesture.

Ears of the Rabbit
   The subject's Hearing is increased by the Result of the spell.

Enchant Item
   The magician prepares an item to contain a permanent magical effect.  If no other spells are placed into the item it can serve as a Focus.  Placing another spell upon the item makes it into a Receptacle containing that spell which can be released at a later time by a word of command.  An elixir can be enchanted in this manner to create a single dose of a Potion.  Items that will act as permanent passive effect or provide the ability to cast the spell on command must also have an inexhaustible source of power bound into it.

Eyes of the Eagle
   The subject's Sight is improved by the Result of the spell.

Far Seeing
   By gazing into a reflective surface the magician can observe distant events.  They must  traverse their point of vision until it reaches the point they wish to observe unless they know the true name of a the person or place they wish to observe.  The point of vision can move rapidly and from a great height but must slow down to zone in on the desired place.  A magician can become quite lost searching dark forests or the alleys of cities as the point of vision can pass through solid objects but cannot see through them.  Nor does it provide the ability to see in the dark.

Field of Deflection
   Wild currents in the air deflect incoming missiles around the magician.

Fluid Form
   The subject is transformed into water.  Any gear is not transformed but as their shape is maintained by their will it remains in place if they so desire.  In this form they can move and attack normally but items become slippery in their grasp.  They are too soft to harm foes without a weapon but treat any damage inflicted as double for the purpose of knocking enemies down.  They can leak through narrow cracks or fissures at a rate of one point of Size per action but cannot retain their equipment while doing so.  Returning to their normal form while in the middle of doing this can be deadly as it causes damage in direct proportion to the amount of them that was on the other side of the crack.  Attacks pass right through them causing no harm but if they are wearing armor and suffer damage greater than their Strength it is knocked right through and off of them.

Ghastly Animation
   The bodies of the dead rise to do the necromancer's bidding.  Really, doing this is what makes someone a necromancer so get used to the label.  The lurching, decaying forms have a Strength score equal to their Size and an Agility of twenty points minus that.  Spirits can be bound into the animated bodies to free the necromancer from directing their unholy minions but most spirits will be enraged and will turn on their master.  Only unclean and demonic spirits will accept this state of affairs and obey the magician's will.

Glamour
   Light and shadow, expectation and fear are bound up in this illusion until it seems real.  One can climb stairs or bathe in a stream woven of glamour if one but believes.

Hold Fast the Heavens
   At the magician's word, the sun, moon, planets, and stars are frozen in their natural course.  This powerful spell is bound to draw unwanted attention from deities and other powerful spirits.

Hover Unnaturally
   The subject drifts off the ground and moves about at the magician's will.  The movement is limited to a running pace and lacks any capacity for fine manipulation or animation of the affected object.  

Hideous Strength
   The subject's Strength is increased by the Result of the spell.

Immolation
   The subject bursts into flame but is not consumed.  Anything touching them or that they touch is burned or heated up.

Impel Object
   The subject is suddenly hurled through the air with great force and speed.  This produces a flying move for a single action and results in the subject and anything they run into taking falling damage as if the movement rate was the height from which they fell.  If the subject was already hovering unnaturally they take no damage.  It is possible to impel a quiver full of arrows or a spear.

Indefatiguablilty
   The subject's Endurance is increased by the Result of the spell.

Irresistible Compulsion
   The subject will obey the magician's commands without question or resistance even if their life is put at risk or their morals are violated, however, they will remember what they did and who made them do it when the spell ends.

Mending
   The magician shapes the material to mend or heal the subject to the best of their ability.  While it produces miraculous results, mending is limited by the magician's skill as a crafter or physician and the appropriate skill must be applied or the repairs will be flawed or even harmful to the subject.

Mists Obscure
   The subject is wreathed in dense fog which prevents them from seeing out or being seen.  The mist will extinguish candles and make torches sputter and smoke.  Exposed bread, cloth and paper become damp and iron and steel items  need to be dried and oiled or they will rust.

Monstrous Aspect
   All the Traits, but not the Characteristics of a specified monster associated with the arts studied by the magician are gained by the subject.

Monstrous Form
   The subject is turned into a monster associated with the arts studied by the magician, trading its physical Characteristics and Traits for their own.  No skills are gained in the transformation so all actions are made at default levels.  A specific profile for a favored form can be worked out by subtracting the character's racial abilities and adding the monsters.

Mystic Circle
   By marking out a circle and binding another spell to it the effects are extended to all within the circle.  The size of the circle is limited by the time and area available to the magician as larger circles take progressively longer to mark out properly.

Nose of the Hound
   The subject's Smell is increased by the Result of the spell.

Prescient Visions
   The magician has visions while they sleep or meditate.  The topic of the visions can be specified but they will provide vague glimpses of the past and future.  Sometimes the visions will be nonsensical or symbolic in nature.  A vision of oneself wearing a crown and sitting in an opulent palace does not mean one will become a king.

Radiant Aura
   The subject begins to glow brightly dispelling any darkness around them.  This makes it impossible for them to hide or even conceal themselves.

Rocky Form
   The subject is turned to stone.  In this form they have Armor equal to their Size and effectively double their Strength.  They cannot swim and are slowed to half their normal movement rate and initiative.

Sending
   Binds another spell to one of the winds allowing it to travel great distances in search of its target.

Seeming
   The magician weaves light and shadow to cloak the subject in a convincing but illusionary guise.  Thus a rocky hill might become a mighty castle or a stream a raging river.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy
   The magician puts forth a pronouncement of the future and commands fate itself to obey.  Needless to say this is dangerous business and fate is fickle at the best of times and downright vicious when provoked in this manner.  The prophecy must be made in the presence of a sizable number of witnesses and may be as simple or complex as the magician likes but the event prophesied will almost certainly come to pass in some sense, somehow, at some point in time.  The more specific and outrageous the prophecy is, the more vicious and twisted the road will be.

Shadowy Figure
   The subject's form becomes dark and shadowy, making them difficult to spot in all but the brightest conditions.

Spirit Walking
   Leaving their body asleep or meditating the magician's spirit walks through the spirit realm.  The physical world becomes shadowy and insubstantial and vanishes entirely as they go deeper into that endless shadow.  They can see other spirits, spells, and miasma in this way and spy, unseen on events in the mortal realm.  While relatively close to the mortal realm they can move normally.  The deeper they pass into the spirit realm, the faster they can move but this is done at the risk of becoming lost.  While spirit walking their body is in danger of possession unless it is protected by a familiar spirit or a circle of protection.  If their spirit is trapped or destroyed their body will slowly die.  

Summon Monster
   A monster is called up from another realm.  The monster must be associated with the arts studied by the magician.   A specific monster can be summoned if its true name is known by the magician.

Summon Spirit
   A spirit is called out of the spirit realm into the magician's presence.  The spirit called will be one of a type that is associated with the arts the magician has studied.  The spirit will make itself known and listen to the magician's entreaties but must be convinced to share information or serve the magician.

Swiftness
   The subject's movement rate is doubled.

True Seeing
   The magician can see through glamour, illusion and base concealment and deception.  They can see spirits, including possessing spirits, and spells and the miasma around spell casters.

Turn of the Seasons
   Another spell is bound to the solar cycle, causing it to last a full year from the time of casting.

Unnatural Animation
   Concentration
   An object is brought to life by the caster's will.  Its Strength is equal to its Size and its Agility is twenty minus that.  Its Armor is determined by its material and size.

Voice of Mastery
   The subject's voice is not easily resisted or denied.

Wall of Force
   A wall of pure force is conjured up about the subject.  The wall is only as impenetrable as the magician's will.

Words of Unbinding
   The magician dissolves any spells of binding around them.

Words of Unmaking
   The subject's very being is unraveled into raw chaos.  The spirit and body of living things are destroyed utterly as are structures and objects.

Wrack The Earth
   The very earth heaves and rolls causing the ground to be broken up and structures to collapse.  Any being in the vicinity is likely to fall, suffer damage, and be trapped.  Those in structures that collapse automatically suffer damage.

Wrack The Heavens
   Day and night strive for mastery in the sky.  The stars are shaken from their appointed places.  Innumerable bolts of lightning and whirlwinds sweep across the earth.  Rain, hail, and snow fall all at once.  The spirit realm is disrupted and plunged into a dense miasma  This spell is devastating in the extreme and uncontrollable once it is cast.  All the world's deities and spirits will be looking for the magician and intending them immediate and eternal harm.

Wrath of the Heavens
   The magician calls up a terrible hurricane with gale force winds and heavy rainfall.

This is magnificent. I love me some good meaty magicks. You wouldn't have that link handy again?

http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/SDCH.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/SDRS.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/SDCB.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/SDMK.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/SDBS.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/SDTB.htm[/QUOTE]

What/why a narrative simulation game?

I don't know, just tired of the whole debate over what a roleplaying game is I suppose.  And also because I've always intended it to be broader than just roleplaying.  I want to get wargames rules in there too.  I guess I'd say that an rpg would be one way you could use the system but it isn't the only or right way to play it.

Quote from: David Johansen;657373I don't know, just tired of the whole debate over what a roleplaying game is I suppose.  And also because I've always intended it to be broader than just roleplaying.  I want to get wargames rules in there too.  I guess I'd say that an rpg would be one way you could use the system but it isn't the only or right way to play it.

Lots of RPGs contain wargaming rules, as in mass combat, sieges, etc? I genuinely don't see the distinction there.

True enough, I don't remember what I was thinking when I wrote it but I was very likely responding to some on-line flameout about story games verses roleplaying or whatever it was at the time.  I've been working on parts of this thing for at least five years, the skill list is directly descended from one of my attempts to re-write D&D.  And I'd have writen that particular bit before I got sucked into the Rolemaster revision team.

Still, I think the point is to give people permission to do their own thing with it.  Now I'm leaning towards packaging an rpg, wargame, and campaign system separately and having them interact well as I think that would provide the broadest customer base.

Quote from: David Johansen;657430True enough, I don't remember what I was thinking when I wrote it but I was very likely responding to some on-line flameout about story games verses roleplaying or whatever it was at the time.  

Goodness whatever could you mean, hahaha!

It's a very interesting system, the emergent probabilities that come from combining three attributes plus skills in d100 roll under system - with shades of BRP I fancy - must make for quite a flavourful mix. How does it play?

Quote from: David Johansen;657430I've been working on parts of this thing for at least five years, the skill list is directly descended from one of my attempts to re-write D&D.  And I'd have writen that particular bit before I got sucked into the Rolemaster revision team.

Still, I think the point is to give people permission to do their own thing with it.  Now I'm leaning towards packaging an rpg, wargame, and campaign system separately and having them interact well as I think that would provide the broadest customer base.

That can work, I prefer to bind it all into one volume myself since there isn't really enough of a division between wargamers and RPGers to warrant seperating them, unless you want to go the route of full minis and battlefield rules.

Play?  Heh I'd like to know myself though I should get some actual playtest in soon.

It comes from Rolemaster Standard System at its root.  The three stats per skill and the skill / category split in particular but also the detail in the hit locations and damage.

BRP certainly is the root of all attack / parry / damage systems.  And this is one.  Runequest has the focus on spirits in magic.

There's an old heartbreaker called Wizard's Realm that was very influential on my thinking, it was so open while being a small, tight system.  But then I also liked High Fantasy quite a bit.  I really love the early self published games, they're full of character and neat little bits.

The initiative system is basically Villains and Vigillantes and Chivalry and Sorcery's magic system and medivalism are certainly influences.

But yes, I think I want the mass battle rules and campaign rules to stand alone as games in their own right.

I keep waffling between the write-up for every spell and the broad classes of spells but I'm leaning towards the broad classes.  The thing is that I like to keep rule books to a reasonable length.  I'm tired of needing a fork lift to play a game.  And huge, expansive spell lists simply don't help.  Also, there's the redundancy of 500 different mending spells to consider.  Still, it's an interesting side trek.

But just because it's a detailed and flavorful system doesn't mean it has to be bogged down by 2500 spells.

What makes it Narr? I didn't see anything (in an admittedly quick scan) in the rules that make it so.

As for spells vs. effects plus modifiers, my intuitive preference if for the latter, but I have yet to see an implementation that I find satisfactory, since I want something that would be quick in play. As in a player could make a spell up on the spot in a dozen or two seconds. Hero has multiplication, so it's out. Fuzion is an additive version of Hero, so it could work, but the effects can be difficult to select. Dynamic magic from BESM/tri-stat is just six levels of effects, so it seems a bit simple, though it's the most flexible. Something about BRP's Sorcery doesn't work for me. I really like Eastern Magic from Stormbringer, but the costs are wonky IMO. Chaos Magic from Mongoose for 3.x was interesting, but I disliked the corruption mechanic and wasn't happy with a couple other elements.

I almost think, like you did here, that a better approach might be a relatively small list of flavorful spells tied together by a setting concept.

My contention is that narrative through simulation is still narrative.  The notion that narrativism is in some way superior to simulationism or indeed divorced from it is ridiculous.  

Some of it is in the underlying philosophy behind modifiers and structures.  For example, rather than building the difficulty of spells by area range and damage they're costed by how difficult I feel the effect should be to accomplish.

I have this odd notion that magic should look like magic.  That a magician should dress like a magician instead of wearing leather armor and packing a ballista because the runes and robes and staves are integral to the nature and source of their powers.  That a stack of mouldy old books should have more appeal to a magician than a mountain of gold.

Actually it's a system where spells on the fly are very difficult.  If you want to cast a spell you don't know it's generally lots of researching the grimoires and acquiring the materials.  Well at low levels anyhow big modifiers don't matter so much when you're level one hundred.  

I want the game to scale from the minor adventures of an assistant pig keeper to the final twilight of the gods but that doesn't mean that the assistant pig keeper can or should be able to kill Thor with a push spell.

Quote from: David Johansen;661425My contention is that narrative through simulation is still narrative.  The notion that narrativism is in some way superior to simulationism or indeed divorced from it is ridiculous.  

Right, but what I'm saying is I don't see anything in terms of rules that are designed to make dramatic results happen. No dramatic editing, no fate points, no players making decisions based on what would make a good story rather than what the PCs would do were they real; nothing that is usually associated with storygames.

What makes this narrative sim rather than just plain sim? How is it different than RQ or D&D or GURPS in how it approaches narratives? Because if the answer is "narratives are emergent" then that can apply just as easily to the other games I just mentioned.

I'm not trying to be critical, I'm just missing whatever it is that you think makes it nar.

Fine...

Mostly it was just a troll line aimed at the Story Gamers and anti-story gamers alike.

I very strongly believe that rpgs need to be fluid enough to meet the needs of the group that is playing them.  The system I'm putting forth here is poorly suited for a one off or a lark.  While it's no Rolemaster Standard System, there's still a fair bit of work involved in character creation and there's a lot of skills.  When I get the character editor going it'll be faster and easier but still it's not a lite game by any stretch of the imagination.

There are social attack and defense skills here and quantified relationships.  There's also a trait system that softens the level breaks a little.  That isn't quite done yet but will be core.

But I do believe simulationist systems can also shape the narrative.  Take Chivalry and Sorcery.  Knights better at combat than anyone else, plain and simple and magic isn't particularly useful in combat.  Thus one gets more knights as player characters.  I don't mind nudging my players down a path but I don't like to whack them over the head with a cluebyfour the way "narrativist" games do.

Still as the structure evolves a bit more, beyond the building blocks and functional tools I believe that the narrative aspect of the game will become more apparent.

As I was digging through old documents of mine for spells to add to the list I found this one:

Invoke The Boot
   Ragemore The Frantic was a powerful sorcerer, who had some long standing disputes with his family.  Before his death he enchanted "The Boot" a common, but solid piece of leather footwear, who's mate had worn out, by kicking small animals as legend has it.  Being a well attuned personal item, Ragemore imbedded a healthy portion of his own bile in The Boot and unleashed it into the aether.  Bound as it was to the reading of his last will and testament, its impact upon his inheritors is the stuff of legend.  The Boot still circles in the Aether, equally close and distant to all things, it is summoned easily enough to place a well aimed kick at the head or ass of a nominated target.