Quote from: Dracones on March 20, 2024, 12:17:27 PM
I feel like most of early D&D was just a bunch of people literally stealing ideas from all over the place and shoving them into the player manuals. Some of the early monsters were ripped off from 1960's era plastic dinosaur toys. I'd bet Vancian magic made it into D&D purely because it seemed cool to someone at the time. I find it interesting that mana systems never really caught on more in tabletop fantasy. I'm not sure if that's because people just got used to Vancian and it "feels" right, or if Vancian ends up working better for real life play vs fantasy video games that nearly all use mana systems.

Mana systems have some hidden issues that aren't as apparent as the Vancian slots issues are, especially in games like D&D where the power level scales dramatically. You can work around most of those issues by setting up the mana points on a log or even exponential scale instead of an arithmetic one, but then that makes the mana system a little more complicated to manage.  Plus, it doesn't solve the opposite problem of then dumping a huge amount of points into low-level magic and spamming it.  For any given set of spells, there is an optimum scale for mana points.  Get very far from that narrow range, and you skew it towards that low-powered spam or high-powered "nova blast". 

The more spells you add, and the more types of magics, the harder this gets.  That's the reason that Runequest, for example, can all but use mana points without much trouble while they don't work nearly as well in D&D.  It's also why the Runequest sorcerer (with the most scaling) has the most issues of the RQ classes, and why simple mana point conversions work just fine in a D&D game kept to low-levels (or, for that matter, a different mana point system skewed for D&D mid-levels, and then keeping the game there).

Bottom line, for any naive and even some careful game development, Vancian slots play better than they look while mana points look better than they play.  There's a not inconsiderable amount of thought and math and testing needed to make that no longer true.

Circling back on topic, that's another reason why practical magic doesn't take off in D&D.  If you gate practical magic behind a resource that can be used for splashier things, it won't get used much.  Push this far enough, it won't get used at all, and thus you might as well not even have it. 

Quote from: Dracones on March 20, 2024, 12:17:27 PMI'd bet Vancian magic made it into D&D purely because it seemed cool to someone at the time.

Gygax liked The Dying Earth, yes, but the appeal of Vancian magic is that in what is quintessentially a skirmish wargame where wizards are your mobile artillery, Vancian magic eliminates a lot of potential arguments about what magic can do, under what circumstances and at what ranges.

Quote from: ForgottenFWhat gets annoying to me is when the magic system and the world don't match

I've never seen an RPG magic system where the mechanics matched the way magic is believed to work by the people in that setting, largely because RPGs never bother to detail that.  RPG authors come up with the mechanics for magic first, and then don't bother to define a metaphysic that would make magic work that way.

Go into any occult or New Age bookstore and pick up a book on "How To Do Magic(k)" and you'll get a complete metaphysic that explains why what you're doing is supposed to produce results.  It may not be coherent or consistent, but it will be complete in a way no RPG is.

I did write a Middle Earth inspired alternative magic system for The Arcane Confabulation a while back.  It involves singing to the spirits of creation in the area to get their attention.

For a guy like Gandalf it's probably a lot easier.  "Heeey BOB mah river man!  It's me Orilin, 'member how I cheered you up when you was down?  I was wondering if you could like make the waves look like horses man.  'cause that'd be bitchin'

Quote from: David Johansen on March 20, 2024, 02:22:26 PM
It involves singing to the spirits of creation in the area to get their attention.

The Legend of Eli Monpress.  An otherwise unremarkable mashup of anime tropes, but that's the exact magic system.  Pretty original cosmology, too.

Anyway, one of the more interesting aspects in Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is that when you get to the Continental Magic Association arc, and you see all sorts of Mages competing to get a 1st Class Certification, one of the characters mentions that most 'Attack' spells (instead of being the Demon-derived Zoltraak) use whatever is at hand to create a weapon. This consumes far less mana. And sure, you have some who are able to create a stream of fire instead (something even Gandalf said he can't do, as he even says to Legolas that he 'needs something to burn' when they're stuck on Caradhras). So the Mage Scharf has a spell, Jubelade, that he uses to turn flower petals into sharp objects that he can then manipulate (like hurl them at a target to create a barrier between himself and an offensive spell). We see Richter do something similar with Earth, Bargland, that is basically Earth Bending from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Ehre as well does something similar with Doragate, which turns rocks into missiles.

But Frieren has a simple spell, which is unnamed, that was her mistress' favorite: one to create a field of flowers. Its goofy, "low powered" folk magic and not really 'relevant'....until you remember Jubeblade. Imagine you're in a battle and your Mage takes a handful of seeds and scatters them before turning them into full grown flowers and murdering everyone around you when they become this hailstorm of razor blades. I'm presuming the Frieren's spell is essentially transmutation of a sort, but still requires SOMETHING that can be turned into the flowers, like even dressed stone becomes an area with soil and the flowers sprout instantly. So you couldn't necessarily use such a spell if you were underwater or the like, or maybe it would turn the floor under the water into something similar, like kelp.

Now, another interesting aspect is that Mages in Frieren's world can even use 'Goddess Magic', which generally requires inborn talent (Clerics in their world cannot study to become such, they must be 'chosen'). However, said Mages must have such spells written down in a Grimoire to access. Otherwise, they can only wield such magic, as I stated, if they had inborn talent. I suppose there could be some such casters that were born with both the inborn talent of Goddess Magic and the willpower and intellect to strive to wield Arcane Magic.

Greetings!

Yeah, I have always liked the concepts and themes of "Folk Magic". In Thandor, I have generally not worried too much about *Classes* or formal structure. I just give various NPC's whatever Folk Magic spells that seem appropriate. Such people possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities to learn and use such Folk Magic spells. It really is that simple.

Hedge Wizards, Healing Women, weirdly talented wandering Charlatans--all easily and neatly covered. Folk Magic abilities. DONE.

I have also found that doing such has been very flexible, simple, fast, and light-weight. In addition, it fits neatly with historical mythology and folklore.

I highly recommend embracing such ideas for your own campaigns.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on March 21, 2024, 02:50:24 AMSuch people possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities to learn and use such Folk Magic spells. It really is that simple.

Hedge Wizards, Healing Women, weirdly talented wandering Charlatans--all easily and neatly covered. Folk Magic abilities. DONE.

That could certainly work. Imagine many common folk walking around have mastered some level of Apprentice-level Magic. AD&D called them Cantrips, but I use that term for any/all such Arcane spells. Same with Orisons (all Divine spells) for Seers, my version of Clerics, and Ortha (Nature/Ley-Line Magic) for Oak Wardens, what I call Druids, and Witches.

I had already incorporated such Folk Magic into my Light Novel I've been laboriously working off and on (every time I get ahead, something in life comes along to knock me back, so I'm still only 2/3rds of the way to my writing goal and no artwork yet).

QuoteArienne walked out of the bathing area to watch the other acolyte seated at a small wooden washtub in the wash room next door busily scrubbing her scapular. In fact, the young woman had already finished with her hooded cloak, arming cap, tunic, breeches and undergarments and was now gently cleaning the silken fabric of the garb. Soon its snowy white color returned and the golden eagle clasping the crimson triskelion displayed on the chest regained its countenance, though the torn fabric would need to be mended especially along the left hip area. But the blood and viscous black corruption had been leached out of the cloth. The clothing was all hung near fireplace to dry.

The young woman was similarly attired to her sister, though her robe and headscarf were dyed dark green.

"I will be done with this soon. Mother has a supply of silken thread I can use to repair this so that it looks almost new. I still have to clean and mend your gambeson, though. I do think we have some linen thread I can use to sew the rents in it. I'm sorry to say we cannot fix your mail byrnie as none of us is a smith nor is there a smithy attached to the demesne if we had one who could live with us."

"What is your name, little sister?"

"Elena, my lady."

"You do good work, Elena," said the cleric as she held up her vestment to look at it. "Its almost as good as the day it was presented to me!"

Laughing slightly, Elena beamed, "There are minor applications of Orisons to aid in cleaning we can learn as acolytes of the Hearth Mother. But, it does require a little elbow grease to bring it out fully."