I've run Ars Magica and AD&D with Vancian Magic.  My players are typically too lazy for something like Ars Magica- though I, personally, love it.  I know there are other options- a ton of them, but they just want to eat pizza and roll the dice, so Vancian Magic it is.  I can make it work, rules wise and setting wise, so that's what I use.

I recently made a psionics system and as I did so I thought about how it related to Dark Sun (where arcane magic is invented by a psionicist).  This quote by Galadriel also came to mind:

QuoteFor this is what your folk would call magic, I believe: though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy. But this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel. Did you not say that you wished to see Elf-magic?

So here is my idea:

"Magic" to do with charming and perception is psionics.  This is the subtle magic of historic fantasy.  Psions have one power point per XP in my system (xp needed to reach a level is the level squared, characters start with 1 xp) but you can scale it to whatever.

Additionally, there is raw elemental divine magic.  This magic is flashy but not as easy to control.  Instead of discrete spells you have a more free form system.  The quality of your result is based on your skill check.  This is the magic of clerics in dark sun, or of benders in avatar.  Using this raw magic directly is difficult, so you might have to appease spirits or visit elemental shrines to connect with it.

Then there is arcane magic.  Psions can, instead of learning normal psionic power, can use their extreme mental powers to to bundle up elemental magic into discrete spells.  This can be vancian magic, but you can put some twists on it.

By making psionics the base power, we can unify it with extraordinary martial powers, such as a berserker's rage, or a knight's immunity to fear.

Palladium's Rifts system is a great example of how not to do spell points, with each spell's level and cost assigned arbitrarily.  Rolemaster's spell point per level is so much cleaner.  GURPS is decent but you'll still be constantly looking up spell costs.  Both have some kind of underlying rationale to spell level placement though Rolemaster's is less useful for guessing as it varies by class.

For my own, The Arcane Confabulation, I eventually settled on accumulated penalties with increasing radius as casting spells churns up the miasma in the aether.  This makes the careful accumulation of power through preparation and the careful stilling of the aether after casting important but not essential features of spell casting.  Leaving the aether in turmoil results in two headed calfs and other negative influences over time so sloppy and lazy magicians have a way of becoming very unpopular.

Quote from: zagreus on November 19, 2023, 08:55:14 AM
I've run Ars Magica and AD&D with Vancian Magic.  My players are typically too lazy for something like Ars Magica- though I, personally, love it.  I know there are other options- a ton of them, but they just want to eat pizza and roll the dice, so Vancian Magic it is.  I can make it work, rules wise and setting wise, so that's what I use.

RAW Ars Magica is great. I love the crunchiness and flavorfulness of it, and the downtime mechanic really scratches an itch for me, as someone that enjoys gams with resource management.

Sadly I've only ever gotten to play a few sessions ever, as it's extremely difficult to find a GM. The little I did play was very memorable.

Vancian magic is good at what it does, which is to front-load the decision-making process of choosing spells to a downtime/rest activity so that in a combat players aren't looking at 50 million options, and making the process of casting spells a matter of crossing off a list.

Personally I like a roll-to-cast system, but every roll adds time to the game. I also think it's okay if spellcasters aren't casting spells every single round. It seems like the general gamer mentality has grown to expect that spellcasters don't do anything unless it's with magical assistance, which is not my preferred fantasy.

Quote from: Zelen on November 19, 2023, 04:29:07 PM
Personally I like a roll-to-cast system, but every roll adds time to the game.

This needs to be absolutely central to design.  My approach is that an action should never result in more than one d20 being rolled.  I'm going for "players roll the dice", so players roll to cast their spells, and they roll to save against monster/npc spells.  Monsters don't need to roll cast (that is covered by the player's save) and they don't get saves (that is covered by the player's roll to cast the spell).

If a player character has an ability that gives him an extra attack as part of the same action, he uses the same roll for both.  No rolling additional d20s, one per action.

Setting matters. Depends what your setting demands.

If you're looking for something to simply replace Vancian in a "normal" D&D campaign, well are you prepared to do the legwork of retooling the mechanics of the system to accommodate whatever you're replacing it with?

Whatever system I use for magic there are couple of things I demand:

1) Skill check. Non-casters must make a check to swing swords/shoot bows - you're making a check to cast your fucking spell.
2) Magic is Risky. If you fail your cast, there will be a chance something *bad* happens. The degree of which depends on the conceits of the setting.
3) Magic is rare and powerful. That means YOU as a caster are rare and might become powerful, but you do not exist in a vacuum. i.e. Casters will be dealing with caster-things which tend to not necessarily be pleasant or have responsibilities that non-casters can't even imagine.

Right now - Savage Worlds is my system of choice. It's mid-crunch (number of systems required to run the game) low-complexity (number of calculations required to run those systems). The magic system is *super flexible*. You can run low-magic settings where a "caster" might only know a few abilities. Or you can crank it up to INSANE levels that outstrip d20's parameters and blows their doors off - WITHOUT having to fundamentally change the mechanics. You can run it natively which uses Points to empower the Casters Powers (Spells) and you can spend extra points to charge your spell with extra effects.

Example: You might choose a spell called "Bolt" - you give it a trapping chosen when you get the Power. (Lightning, Fire, Cold, etc). When you cast it - it costs 1PP, but if you want to modify it the spell has these options: Armor Piercing (+1-3), Lingering Damage (+2 - basically makes your bolt do damage over time after cast), Increased Range (+1/+2) and a whole host of options.

Each spell also has special modifiers that depend on the PC's Rank (level) in casting. The options make casters *very* versatile compared to their d20 counterparts.

Savage Worlds has a Pathfinder Edition that effectively encapsulates all of the d20 system into the Savage Worlds system. It plays faster, scales vastly higher (you can *easily* play high-level very high-magic infused campaigns without difficulty), and runs smoother.

If you want to take it to God-mode, you can easily crib the mechanics from Savage Worlds Rifts - now you're running around with magic that can level castles and towns with ease. Likewise non-casters can scale to pretty insane levels too. And most importantly the spellcasting system uses the normal task-resolution, so there very little extra to learn outside of the regular mechanics.

Not really on topic, but I'm always interested in these kinds of discussions.

I never really liked the concept of the spell being wiped from the mind in Vancian magic.  I just considered the daily study to be the Magic User studying all the phenomena and elements that allowed the spell to be cast at that time.  So the alignment of the stars, planar convergence, local ley lines or places of power, and other associated variables, along with brushing up on the various gestures, magic words, and materials required.  Similarly, I just consider Spell Slots to be just the amount of Magic Energy the caster has per day.

In our games I allow caster to cast any spell they have memorized normally any number of times per day, up to their available spell slots.  If they don't get a chance to study on a particular day, but the spell is one that they have studied recently (ie last memorized spells) then it requires a casting roll.  Success and the spell is cast normally; Failure and the spell is cast at half effect.  I even allow a caster to cast a spell they know, but don't currently have memorized with a casting roll.  Success and spell is at half effect; failure and the slot is lost.

I find a quasi-Vancian system can still make sense. In this version, a magic-user isn't memorizing in the morning. They're just doing all of the ritual work to have a spell ready to fire on a moment's notice. In the evening, of course they can't use that same spell again yet because they haven't had the chance to ready themselves for it. As for why they can't just immediately re-prepare? Maybe the preparation process itself takes a toll on the magic-user's mind or body, necessitating a break from the process for a while.

The mechanism of Vancian magic "feels" like a War Game method of treating a caster as an armor-unit in a wargame. Which should be obvious to anyone that knows the history of D&D's mechanics emerging out of wargaming.

It's one of my largest criticisms of D&D is that, mechanically, magic in the game never really was representative of the fantasy games that inspired it. I don't think it even represents "Vancian magic" ala Dying Earth very well. It's a narrative label placed on top of a chunky wargaming ammunition mechanic and sure, back then it sounded cool, to have an ammo round call 'Melf's Acid Arrow' loaded into the "slot". But it's always been a clunky system. Despite having the name "Vancian Magic" - literally every other fantasy series in the Appendix N. did magic differently, and the rest of the TTRPG world that evolved outside of D&D made better (or not) attempts to capture it.

People cling to Vancian magic because they're brand loyalists and/or it's a tradition they can't let go of (for whatever reason).

QuotePeople cling to Vancian magic because they're brand loyalists and/or it's a tradition they can't let go of (for whatever reason).

I mean people who play with Gygaxian intention of game first, setting second, players third - well treat it as part of game, and that's gamist aspect is feature not bug for them.

Quote from: tenbones on November 20, 2023, 10:57:04 AM
People cling to Vancian magic because they're brand loyalists and/or it's a tradition they can't let go of (for whatever reason).

Or maybe they just like it.  I see no reason to be dismissive towards those who's opinion might diverge from yours.

Quote from: RulesLiteOSRpls on November 20, 2023, 10:34:54 AM
I find a quasi-Vancian system can still make sense. In this version, a magic-user isn't memorizing in the morning. They're just doing all of the ritual work to have a spell ready to fire on a moment's notice. In the evening, of course they can't use that same spell again yet because they haven't had the chance to ready themselves for it. As for why they can't just immediately re-prepare? Maybe the preparation process itself takes a toll on the magic-user's mind or body, necessitating a break from the process for a while.

Merlin in Roger Zelanzy's Amber series actually described doing exactly that -- leaving everything but a few key words out that can be executed to complete the ritual later.

Quote from: tenbones on November 20, 2023, 10:57:04 AM
People cling to Vancian magic because they're brand loyalists and/or it's a tradition they can't let go of (for whatever reason).

What I find hard with replacing Vancian magic is how to handle the "alpha strike". This was a problem in (for example) 3E psionics, where a character could burn magic very quickly to achieve large effects. Some of this is present is 5E as well, with the jokes about perpetual long rests.

A nice feature about Vancian magic is that every time you cast the caster now has fewer options. It makes them consider the opportunity cost of firing off a spell. A very good fatigue system might do the same. But that is the part that of the system that is hard to replace with spell points and such. The extremely powerful spells of D&D look a bit out pf place in a power point system.

I like to compare to Rolemaster, which did power points reasonably ok and made each type of spell effect a costly planning in advance exercise (you learned one list at a time and never had enough points). It shifted the strategic point of focus, but kept it in play and mages tended to have specialties and themes.

Vancian magic has proven to be a bookkeeping handshake. It doesn't feel right for most games, but it can be relatively straightforward to keep track of what spell slots are expended and when they reset. So while I am not a huge fan of the flavor, I understand why it continues to persist.

Given my 'druthers, I much prefer unified cooldown, where players have a pool of MP or Mana or whatever you choose to call magic energy which is constantly recharging. This creates an opportunity cost where casting a large spell means you briefly can't cast again, which puts significantly more weight behind your choice of spells and incentivizes players to do more things than simply spell-cast.

The tradeoff for this mechanic is that you must keep a running tally of your MP, which is pretty bookkeeping intensive. I personally keep these figures by looping a paperclip over one edge of the character sheet, which slides along a few digits to indicate the current running total. I have played systems which used running tally MP systems (Hero System) and they are very hard to manage without a device like this.