Quote from: Simlasa;860910That's all assuming a certain flavor of fantasy... ubiquitous, repeatable, reliable, safe magic.

Which is something of the standard.  Most systems do have magic that works that way: predictable, repeatable, reliable.

And that's what makes the most sense.  I agree that mysterious/powerful/perilous is a popular literary trope.  Where I differ is in believing that almost no one would really learn such magics, in a realistic world.  If I've got a 1-in-20 chance of blowing myself up through casting a spell, that's grotesquely too risky for anyone with a smidgen of common sense, even barring the probability that your average apprentice wizard would kill himself before graduating.  And if I've got a 1-in-100 chance of razing a city block every time I cast a spell, the mere knowledge of sorcery would be a capital crime in every civilized land.

Quote from: Ravenswing;861102Which is something of the standard.  Most systems do have magic that works that way: predictable, repeatable, reliable.

Which SOME of us feel isn't very interesting... isn't very 'magical'... that it's just technology by another name. It's one of the many things that bugged me about D&D back in the day... and seeing folks working on alternate takes was one of the many things that brought be back, under the OSR.

QuoteAnd that's what makes the most sense.

Sense has little to do with it, it's imaginary bullshit so it comes down to matters of taste. If magic is dangerous and strange it's up to the PCs as to whether they choose to engage with it. Besides, throughout history people have messed around with dangerous things they didn't understand... led expeditions into places that stood a good chance of killing them. In a setting filled with monsters and plagues and marauding armies magic might be the lesser risk.
And who says it's a '1in20' chance? Even DCC is more lenient than that.

Quote from: estar;861077GURPS - GURPS magic is the same spirit as D&D magic except more diverse and flexible. The big difference is that there are few earth shattering "I win in mass combat" spell. A GURPs Mage is very deadly one on one and in small scale combat but lacks the punch to do much in a mass melee.

Shape Earth isn't an "I win in mass combat" spell?

I like magic that's safe if you're ready for it and dangerous if you over reach.  This is one place Rolemaster Standard System shines.  Your first level wizard might know fireball, but it'll take him a long time to cast it, use most of his energy, and still have a high rate of failure / risk of backfire.

Quote from: David Johansen;861109Shape Earth isn't an "I win in mass combat" spell?

Not with it being a regular spell (-1 to skill per 1 yard of range) at a cost of 1 mana per 1 cubic foot of earth. It handy against a small group but nothing like the impact of a D&D Fireball spell with a 20 foot radius and a range of 240 feet.

GURPS Mages are far more deadly and versatile in one on one combat but D&D magic-users rule as far as mass mayhem goes.

It's almost as if some D&D spells were based on artillery effects.



Because they were.

Quote from: Bren;861118It's almost as if some D&D spells were based on artillery effects.



Because they were.

And let's not forget the mustard gas!


Mmmm, mustard gas.

Uh, technology has been historically unreliable at its every onset. And rapidly following had wisdom, regulation, and improvements built around each over time. Guns, cars, computers, even toasters, didn't all start out our current way.

There was a lot of explosions, crashes, shocks, and deaths along the way. There still is. Yet we still use them.

Because we're lazy and we bank on our accrued safety measures for just one more use... Because the odds are in our favor, right?... Because we trust other people to get it right even if we fuck up (even though we say they're even worse lazy fuck ups when we don't get our things right fucking now!)...

Nothing wrong with a little potential explody. Nothing's 100% reliable. Nothing.

Quote from: Omega;861052One thing I miss, and yet dont miss, in D&D was the sort of wild west gunslinger aspect to wizards. The better you got, the more likely some young upstart was to come along and challenge you in the hopes of either being as good as they think they are. Or getting lucky. Those spellbooks were worth major fortunes if you can pry them from the hands of someone else. Especially in any setting where new spells past your starters were only gained by scrolls and spellbooks.

It's been a longstanding axiom in my games that casters have come to realize that their primary concern should/would always be other casters. Most casters in my game get salty and learn quickly how to deal with non-casters. Their vectors of attack usually are straightforward. And just BEING a caster is usually enough to ward off attack.

But other casters? Oh yeah - it's like Highlander... that SPELLBOOK! Imagine if Fighters and Rogues in 3.x/PF could kill another non-caster and learn their Feats? That's tantamount to what arcane-casters could do with spellbooks.

This is an good point I'd forgotten about my irritation at the assumptions of the systems and settings in D&D (which took me a few tweaks to make dangerous to merely BE an Arcane caster).

Yet still, purists will always complain at any attempt to curb the power of casters by giving them clearer context. I've had people tell me they refused to play Darksun because Psionics is too powerful, despite that having nothing to do with being an Arcane caster. Same stupid "logic".

Quote from: Simlasa;861108Which SOME of us feel isn't very interesting... isn't very 'magical'... that it's just technology by another name. It's one of the many things that bugged me about D&D back in the day... and seeing folks working on alternate takes was one of the many things that brought be back, under the OSR.

Then make magic dangerous and unpredictable. Have every caster roll on a backlash table or something like the Wild Sorcerer wild magic table.

And in AD&D at least there were spells with a price to cast. Haste aged you, one or two permanently lowered your constitution. And so on. Then there were those spells that if you miscalculated then they could hit you as well. See my recounts elsewhere her about nearly TPKing the party with a ligntning bolt spell. Rare. But it happens. And in the SSI Gold Box games it happened way too often even well into the game when you should know the areas and still somehow tagged the party with cloudkill.

Not to mention that BX and AD&D mages were just about helpless without their spellbooks. Remove or destroy those and the magic user was unable to recover spells until the book was replaced. That in and of itself is a severe vulnerability.

In my Red Shetland RPG way back magic had a burnout chance where the more erg you pumped into a spell, the higher the chance was that youd fry your own magical synapses and not be able to cast for a period.

You could apply something simmilar in 5e for pumping a spell with a higher level slot than normal. Like an INT save with a penalty based on how many levels of slot was expended in the pump. I have actually considered applying that too.

The DMG has some tables for scroll use mishaps for example that could be applied.

Dragonlance had magic that waxed and waned based on the moon the mage was aligned to as another example.

But bitching and sneering about magic being predictable is not going to win
any sympathizers that werent allready bitching and sneering. Instead explain some of the benefits of playing with risky magic. Because there are and it can be alot of fun when played right.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;861119And let's not forget the mustard gas!


Mmmm, mustard gas.

Comes in traditional yellow and now in grey Poupon.

Quote from: Opaopajr;861126Uh, technology has been historically unreliable at its every onset. And rapidly following had wisdom, regulation, and improvements built around each over time. Guns, cars, computers, even toasters, didn't all start out our current way.

There was a lot of explosions, crashes, shocks, and deaths along the way. There still is. Yet we still use them.

Pre-3e spells in D&D are oft described more like computer programs imprinted on the casters brain. A set formula/code that does the same one thing reliably. Probably after lots of painful trial and error.

One fun thing in Dragon used to be the Pages from the Mages section that occasionally detailed spellbooks that contained a wizards progressing in refining a new spell. Or the spells evolution into new forms as research progresses.

So what we see in AD&D are the "debugged" programs that work reliably every time. (And having had to do debugging for Compute magazine I can tell you that is not an easy task sometimes.(Machine Language=Elven! ARGH!))

Quote from: estar;861115Not with it being a regular spell (-1 to skill per 1 yard of range) at a cost of 1 mana per 1 cubic foot of earth. It handy against a small group but nothing like the impact of a D&D Fireball spell with a 20 foot radius and a range of 240 feet.

GURPS Mages are far more deadly and versatile in one on one combat but D&D magic-users rule as far as mass mayhem goes.

You're just using it wrong.  Cast at the free due to skill level you can move a lot of earth in an hour or a day.  Trenches, earthen works, pits, hills.  If you've got a few other spells to remove the risk you can use it to undermine the dirt below the battle field so it'll collapse when the enemy charges.

No, it's not a blast an area spell, but it can really make a mess with a little preparation.

But then I've also seen earth to air used on the walls on either side of a castle gate.  But my older brother is a civil engineer so I've seen a lot of dirty tricks.

Quote from: Omega;861160But bitching and sneering about magic being predictable is not going to win any sympathizers that werent allready bitching and sneering. Instead explain some of the benefits of playing with risky magic. Because there are and it can be alot of fun when played right.

Except that I'm not trying to 'win sympathizers' or convince anyone to share my tastes... just stating my preferences and agreeing with the OP... oh, and arguing with Ravenswing's suggestion that any one approach to 'magic' makes more sense than another.

Quote from: Ravenswing;860818No kidding.  One of the things that drive me nuts about how a lot of RPGs and campaigns are structured is the fucked up notion that the only spells any wizard would likely know are paramilitary.

Sorry, but a lot of wizards are going to have spells to tell time.  To light fires.  To clean themselves (or their surroundings) without fuss, water or soap.  To measure volumes and distances in a snap.  To make small change when the pushcart vendor can't possibly change a gold sovereign for a three-bit meat pie.  The most powerful PC wizard in my campaign's history -- and at a skill level to make her one of the world's greatest wizards -- knows Summon Teapot, because you never know when you might want a hot, soothing cup in the back of beyond.  And let's face it, if a Birth Control spell doesn't make the Top Five List of any gameworld's enchanted item roster by volume, it's because the concept is forbidden by religion or the GM has no handle on the motivations of real people.

As far as the general desirability of spellcasters in campaigns, that's of course a personal preference thing.  But as to how much a wizard "usurps" the niches of other characters?

Bullshit.  Just bullshit.

I will be one happy camper when the 1950s-two-women-at-the-party-wearing-the-same-dress BS concept of "niche protection" is a vanished memory.  The job of adventurers is to solve the adventure.  Period.  I freely admit that there are drama queens out there whose egos can't stand the concept of not having a skill that They Do Better Than Anyone Else, but I see no reason to coddle or cater to them.

And that's why I like Eberron.

Quote from: Ravenswing;861102Which is something of the standard.  Most systems do have magic that works that way: predictable, repeatable, reliable.

And that's what makes the most sense.  I agree that mysterious/powerful/perilous is a popular literary trope.  Where I differ is in believing that almost no one would really learn such magics, in a realistic world.  If I've got a 1-in-20 chance of blowing myself up through casting a spell, that's grotesquely too risky for anyone with a smidgen of common sense, even barring the probability that your average apprentice wizard would kill himself before graduating.  And if I've got a 1-in-100 chance of razing a city block every time I cast a spell, the mere knowledge of sorcery would be a capital crime in every civilized land.

It's not difficult to reconcile:

The academies teach magic which is predictable, repeatable, and reliable.  But it also takes hours (or days) of preparation to work out all the correct astrological correspondences, lay out appropriate wards, and perform the proper ritual.

Of course, adventurers rarely have that kind of time and need to get spells off in a handful of seconds, or maybe a minute, tops.  To do that, you have to estimate, cut corners, or outright make shit up on the spot, which introduces a risk that you'll make a mistake and not have the safeguards in place to compensate for it, so then you get the 1-in-20 or 1-in-100 chance of melting your own face off.  It may be grotesquely risky, but, when there's an orc horde about to run you down, those odds are a lot better than your chances of surviving their assault.