In Dark Albion, I tried to make magic-users (and to a certain extent, clerics) more "medieval authentic" in the style of how magic worked in the Albion setting.  I introduced the rules for demon summoning, which work completely separately from the vancian part of the magic system, toned down the spell selection to get rid of stuff that would be too flashy, and tried to frame stuff on item-creation of D&D-style magic items and spell-research to fit the setting.

But lately I've been toying with the idea of trying to remake both Clerics and Magisters (Magic-users) to fit the medieval authentic mode even more accurately. This would involve scrapping the Vancian magic and spell system entirely, giving clerics a limited selection of miraculous gifts, and magic-users a set of skills and magical talents as well as knowledge of summoning.  

Some of these magical techniques would be potentially quite powerful, but mostly would require either more time or more preparation beforehand, rather than the vancian system where magisters can cast a spell in a single round so long as they've just memorized it.

All of it would be based on the type of things medieval/renaissance magicians actually studied and were believed to be able to do.

Is this something that people would have an interest in?

Fuck yes.

Since you're here and on the subject have you ever looked at Chivalry and Sorcery first edition?  I've never seen second but I've heard it was more cleaned up and rational.

Yes, absolutely.

Sounds totally awesome. Would buy, even though I'd be in it for the magic system, and would use it in things like historical GURPS games and as inspiration for homebrew magic for homebrew fantasy settings of my own, again converted to a different rule set.

You mean kind of like "The Highest Level of All Fantasy Wargaming only less of a clusterfuck?

Hell yes I'd be interested.

That would be something both unique and immediately useful to my campaign. I'd buy it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;933149In Dark Albion, I tried to make magic-users (and to a certain extent, clerics) more "medieval authentic" in the style of how magic worked in the Albion setting.  I introduced the rules for demon summoning, which work completely separately from the vancian part of the magic system, toned down the spell selection to get rid of stuff that would be too flashy, and tried to frame stuff on item-creation of D&D-style magic items and spell-research to fit the setting.

But lately I've been toying with the idea of trying to remake both Clerics and Magisters (Magic-users) to fit the medieval authentic mode even more accurately. This would involve scrapping the Vancian magic and spell system entirely, giving clerics a limited selection of miraculous gifts, and magic-users a set of skills and magical talents as well as knowledge of summoning.  

Some of these magical techniques would be potentially quite powerful, but mostly would require either more time or more preparation beforehand, rather than the vancian system where magisters can cast a spell in a single round so long as they've just memorized it.

All of it would be based on the type of things medieval/renaissance magicians actually studied and were believed to be able to do.

Is this something that people would have an interest in?

If you make it mechanically compatible with the general OSR, I would be:).

Quote from: RPGPundit;933149But lately I've been toying with the idea of trying to remake both Clerics and Magisters (Magic-users) to fit the medieval authentic mode even more accurately. This would involve scrapping the Vancian magic and spell system entirely, giving clerics a limited selection of miraculous gifts, and magic-users a set of skills and magical talents as well as knowledge of summoning.  

Fixing clerics to make them more authentic would be easy, but would probably make them less appealing as a class, at least to some players. The "limited selection of miraculous gifts" would be really limited, but versatile:

 + bless/protection from evil
 + healing damage
 + cure poison
 + cure disease
 + remove curse
 + divine guidance (divination)
 + divine intercession (summon angel)

The versatility would come from being able to apply these effects to practically anything: blessing crops to protect them from witches' curses, for example. But a certain kind of player is going to hate the lack of a big list of spells.

Making magisters primarily summoners is interesting, but not completely authentic. The bulk of medieval magic is two things: folklore and hermeticism. The folklore would be knowledge of potion recipes or magical properties of plants, animals and minerals. A few of these could be implemented as summoning, for example a hair from the tail of a horse turning into a snake when submerged in water could be interpreted as Summon Snake. But you'd need a lot of listings to make it feel like a full magical folklore system. I don't think anyone's really succeeded in this respect. Hermeticism is easier, but a lot of people seem to object to the system in Fantasy Wargaming, possibly the only system close to getting hermeticism right.

So what I'm saying is that I'm interested in seeing a more authentically medieval magical system, but it may be more work than you'd planned, and a lot of your potential customers may actually be turned off by it.

This sounds terrific. I've re-cast priestly magic in these terms in my own home-cooked rewrites of The Fantasy Trip. And I always loved 1E C&S's take on both miracles and sorcerous magic (though I understand both sub-systems could be done much better). The major challenge you will face is making this still work well as a game. D&D magic is easy to make fun of in a white-room argument about game design, but it is actually a terrific system for a game, particularly at the range of level's D&D assumed when it was first created. Magic without pretty strict resource management would radically change your experience of playing D&D.

Sure, I'd buy it.  I'd also buy the same version for historical Indian religion/magic, pre-Islamic Arab/Moor, pre-Roman Brythonic Druidism etc...

In my opinion, OSR compatibility should be "very loose".  There's been 40 years of official and unofficial D&D spell lists with various cultural flavors, I want the "real deal", I don't necessarily give a shit about Classes/Levels/Die systems, etc...  You want to write a chapter on Divination that requires an actual complete Tarot Deck, go for it.

Make sure you include some "authentic" Goetic/Satanic/Key of Solomon stuff in there.  I don't want the D&D Law vs/Chaos bullshit but "Get Thee Behind Me Satan!" and "The Power of Christ Compels You!" and Kabbalic guys summoning Angels to do their bidding.

If you don't have every major Abrahamic faith denouncing you, you did it wrong.

Quote from: CRKrueger;933212Sure, I'd buy it.  I'd also buy the same version for historical Indian religion/magic, pre-Islamic Arab/Moor, pre-Roman Brythonic Druidism etc...

In my opinion, OSR compatibility should be "very loose".

What I meant was, "don't make it compatible only with Dark Albion, and we're good".

QuoteThere's been 40 years of official and unofficial D&D spell lists with various cultural flavors, I want the "real deal", I don't necessarily give a shit about Classes/Levels/Die systems, etc...  You want to write a chapter on Divination that requires an actual complete Tarot Deck, go for it.

I officially support the Green One in this;).

QuoteMake sure you include some "authentic" Goetic/Satanic/Key of Solomon stuff in there.  I don't want the D&D Law vs/Chaos bullshit but "Get Thee Behind Me Satan!" and "The Power of Christ Compels You!" and Kabbalic guys summoning Angels to do their bidding.

If you don't have every major Abrahamic faith denouncing you, you did it wrong.

And if you can get all the major Abrahamic faiths to denounce you, it might even broaden the hobby's appeal:D!

Lunar slime loses its interest after a while.

Quote from: One Horse Town;933232Lunar slime loses its interest after a while.

That one went over my head.

Quote from: CRKrueger;933255That one went over my head.

In Ancient Greece water left out under a full moon overnight was called lunar slime (well the translation anyhow) and was used in magical rites also known as the 'Thessalonika Trick'. Might also be in relation to the slime left behind by certain molluscs and used in magical rites. Anyway, long story short, ancient magic stuff morphed into middle-ages magic morphed into modern wicca and other traditions.

It's interesting from an academic standpoint, the real trick is not overdoing it for the purposes of showing off how much you know in an RPG book and having it as playable. As i said, lunar slime can get boring quickly.