Authentic Thaumaturgy

[Captain Obvious]

I pulled out my copy of this today, and went into some depth with the system, rather than the cursory look-over I gave it when I first got the book. Has anyone actually tried using this? I don't think Bonewits ever used any sort of playtest on his game system.

The biggest stumbling block I've found is that while he gives 26 Laws of Magic, his example spells use only five, and I can't figure out just why some spells use the Law of Knowledge and others don't, and I can't figure out why some of the laws aren't used at all, or even how some of the laws would ever be applied.

I was thinking that maybe constructing spells under this system and converting them to Hero stats would provide a fair amount of flavor to a Hero magic system, but now I'm thinking that that level of reliance on the AT system would make for a pretty unstable foundation....

[Chris Goodwin]

Advice: Don't use any of the crunchy bits. Use some of the basic ideas and work them up in Hero.

Bonewits' earlier book Real Magic is a better game supplement, IMO. (I much prefer the first edition, written by (as he puts it) young, pretentious Bonewits, to the second, written by the older potbellied bearded middle aged guy with the twinkle in his eye.) As an occultist, Bonewits is a better game designer than when he is a game designer, if you catch my drift. I've gotten more gaming use out of that book than many of the gaming books in my collection.

Probably the main reason that most of his example spells use only five Laws are because they are the pretty fundamental ones. I'd imagine that probably all of the spells use Knowledge, even though it's not mentioned in some because he mentions under the description of Knowledge that it's pretty much the most fundamental of them all.

[Chris Goodwin]

N.B. The system as presented in AT is basically GURPS Psionics.

[Just A Guy Name]

It's been several years since I read AT (I doubt I could even find it in my collection, now), but I don't recall it resembling the power system in Psionics much. Are you, perhaps, thinking of the ritual magic system presented in other GURPS supplements? The variant Hermetic magic in Cabal uses some of the Laws as modifiers.

[Captain Obvious]

Advice: Don't use any of the crunchy bits. Use some of the basic ideas and work them up in Hero.

Unfortunately, taking out the crunchy bits leaves behind very little that I haven't already picked up from fantasy literature, real world myths and legends, and scholarly works like Frazer's Golden Bough.

It's kind of disappointing, because at least on the surface, the AT system seems like a viable alternative d20 magic system.

[OddHat]

I always thought that AT was unnecessarily complicated; it had flavor, but the mechanics did not work in play. Have you tried GURPS Voodoo or GURPS Spirits? Mechanically these systems are much smoother, and they can easilly incorporate the background from AT or Cabal.

I've played with adapting the system for GURPS a few times; the biggest problem is that Spirits are absurdly expensive unless you hand wave them as special effects, but otherwise it works well.

The Valdorian Age supplement is supposed to have a Spirit Magic system that looks interesting.

[badger3k]

Oddly enough, I never heard of this. Not really my cup of tea anyway, but (to push a site I like and find informative), there's a variety of "real" sources here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/alc/index.htm

How adaptable they are to a game system depends on how much work you want to put into it.

Other than that, I have nothing to add, sorry.

[fredrik_nilsson]

I haven't tried Authentic Thaumaturgy, so I can't say much about it.

If you're main purpose isn't Authentic Thaumaturgy itself, but rather trying another magic system for your game I recommend taking a look at Phile Hine's home page.

There are several gems under "writings -> e-books", like the one attached to this post.

[Nyrath]

I always thought that some of the laws of magic from AT would work best in Hero System terms as exotic advantages and limitations.

[CourtFool]

I have tried many times and given up in frustration. Maybe you just reduce the penalty to the magic roll for each Law of Magic applied when casting a spell.

Curse my small llama brain!