Quote from: One Horse Town;799767In my experience free-form magic never really works. I'll be interested to see what he does with it.

It works reasonably well in Ars Magica... honestly, I leapt straight on this because it sounded like another take on the Ars concept, and the setting sounded interesting.

Plus, as Derebar points out, Graham is a man you can trust. He gets shit done.

Quote from: Ladybird;799790It works reasonably well in Ars Magica... honestly, I leapt straight on this because it sounded like another take on the Ars concept, and the setting sounded interesting.

Plus, as Derebar points out, Graham is a man you can trust. He gets shit done.

Thank you for that!  It is appreciated!

It has been in my head to write for a while because i know that AM, whilst a fantastic game, is just too much game for my players to agree to.  So this is the rules and setting that my players would play.

The Freeform Magic is a combination of a Control and an Element (very much like AM) but then a Target Number is set by combining range, targets, effect etc.  So you just "build" the spell you need.
Each combination will also have descriptions of what can be achieved.

Quote from: One Horse Town;799767In my experience free-form magic never really works. I'll be interested to see what he does with it.

Yeah the building blocks are always cool to think of, but put in use, the scale is frequently a problem as the designers don't do much with giving examples or help.

Heal a wound might be Shape Body for example, but what are the different thresholds for different wounds?

Regen a Limb might be Create and Shape Body, but tip of a finger, or bottom half of your body is what target numbers?

The GM can wing it of course, but then he's the one setting thresholds and limits for everything, at which point he's writing the most difficult part of the magic system himself and has to keep track of it all to make it consistent, so disintegrating a door-shaped section of identical walls isn't widely varying difficulty.  So, one of the benefits of having the freeform system itself - the speed - is completely undercut.

Fascinating idea. Curious choice of system, certainly not a dealbreaker, but then I could never get D6 to work for me outside of Star Wars. The freeform magic system sounds simple enough and fun, though CRK raises some interesting objections (hopefully the writer(s) is(are) tackling them).

I might get it eventually, not for the game, but to mine for ideas from Persian history and myth.

Quote from: One Horse Town;799767In my experience free-form magic never really works. I'll be interested to see what he does with it.

It really works very well in Ars Magica.

Quote from: The Butcher;799811Fascinating idea. Curious choice of system, certainly not a dealbreaker, but then I could never get D6 to work for me outside of Star Wars. The freeform magic system sounds simple enough and fun, though CRK raises some interesting objections (hopefully the writer(s) is(are) tackling them).

I might get it eventually, not for the game, but to mine for ideas from Persian history and myth.

I will try and post a couple of examples of "spell" creation tomorrow.  It seems to work well in the playtesting so far anyway!

Some answers to questions I posed to Graham:

- what is the estimated page count of the rulebook?

The page count will be somewhere in the 140-odd page range.... possibly anyway!

- will their be advice on running a troupe style game?

There will be a fairly comprehensive GM section, covering the gameplay style.

- is there enough setting material in the rulebook to get started?

There will be enough setting info to get started, and if we can hit the 5K target I will also make the chapters of the setting book available as they are written.

- any chance we will see a cover or logo mock up?

I need to give the layout of the cover more thought, but hopefully within a week I will have that.

- are the sorcerers rivals in their own Vahmans or allies in a single Vahman?

The default will be that the Sorcerers are all part of the same Vahnam, but it would be very easy for them to be separate and either friendly or rivals.

Quote from: CRKrueger;799807The GM can wing it of course, but then he's the one setting thresholds and limits for everything, at which point he's writing the most difficult part of the magic system himself and has to keep track of it all to make it consistent, so disintegrating a door-shaped section of identical walls isn't widely varying difficulty.  So, one of the benefits of having the freeform system itself - the speed - is completely undercut.

As a player, this has never upset me... If things aren't the same each time, fine, it's magic not science. Maybe something about this wall is different.

Sure, it's a cop out, but in this case I don't think it's a big deal.

Quote from: Frey;799813It really works very well in Ars Magica.

I think free form magic tends to be more effort than its worth in a standard fantasy RPG, where a magic user is one option of many.

However, it works well in RPGs like Ars Magica as they are about wizards and their use of magic. As such, the flexibility and focus on magic is a major part of the game itself. I expect that the same will be true with SoUT, where the sorcerers are the main PCs and their exploration, gathering and use of magic a focus of gameplay.

I wouldn't say that it works well in Ars Magica either. It works, i won't deny it, but it's not very intuitive and whilst i don't think it's a problem that different groups will come up with different methods of creating what is basically the same spell, i don't find it very satisfying.

It's very hard to do and i'll give the first person to do it to my satisfaction at least 1 dollar.

The magic chapter is meant to be up in draft by the end of this week, along with the combat chapter. That will be the bulk of the mechanics, though I am interested to see whether the Vahnam chapter will have any mechanics for running it as a group.

Quote from: bottg;799815I will try and post a couple of examples of "spell" creation tomorrow.  It seems to work well in the playtesting so far anyway!

Now we've got you here Graham, any chance a) you'll be up to Conpulsion next year, and b) you might be persuaded to take Sorcerers for a whirl?

Quote from: Derabar;800110Now we've got you here Graham, any chance a) you'll be up to Conpulsion next year, and b) you might be persuaded to take Sorcerers for a whirl?

Absolutely!  I live a damn site closer to Edinburgh now, so it is not so much of a trek for me.  And SoUT should be all done, finished and out there by then so i would love to run a game or two!

#rpgnet Q&A set for 12/4, 7 p.m. Central!

The draft of the Minor Character creation chapter is now available to the public.

Also, the rough draft of the combat chapter went up. It looks most like Star Wars 1e in terms of complexity, being nowhere as complex as either Fantasy D6 or Star Wars 2e, but not quite as simple as Mini-6.