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Duke Bushido

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  1. Like
    Duke Bushido reacted to LoneWolf in How to Build: "Accidental Exile" Complication   
    I would use Accidental Change for this.  Depending on how often he shrinks down to the dangerous size it would be worth about 5-10 point on an 8 or less roll.  The change is that he goes to the other universe.
  2. Like
    Duke Bushido reacted to Scott Ruggels in A Thread For Random RPG Musings   
    Yeah physical THerapy was kind of a bitch after the bad sumer of 2018.
     
  3. Like
    Duke Bushido reacted to Doc Democracy in How to Build: "Accidental Exile" Complication   
    @Grailknight has made a good suggestion but it feels off to me if the NPC has to pay points for something that complicates their life or disadvantages them.
     
    I would be more inclined to make it a custom complication.  It might be a small value one, maybe five points, when using full shrinking, on an 8 or less he gets trapped in the Microverse for 1D6 weeks.
  4. Thanks
    Duke Bushido reacted to Lord Liaden in A Thread For Random RPG Musings   
    You have my sympathies, Duke. 😟
     
    FWIW I've known a couple of people who had to learn how to breathe again. But once one gets there, I stand by my point.
  5. Like
    Duke Bushido reacted to Lord Liaden in A Thread For Random RPG Musings   
    I'm terrible at drawing maps. I'm the kind of draftsman who draws a straight line when I'm trying for a crooked one. I save every game-applicable map I come across, in hope of repurposing them later.
  6. Haha
    Duke Bushido reacted to Starlord in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
    Sounds like you know allele bit about genetics....
  7. Thanks
    Duke Bushido reacted to dmjalund in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
    Black hair genes are never recessive
  8. Haha
    Duke Bushido reacted to mattingly in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
  9. Like
    Duke Bushido got a reaction from Chris Goodwin in It's a matter of balance   
    Seconded.
     
    Forty years of rhis game, and I havent found amything more consistently accurate.
     
     
  10. Thanks
    Duke Bushido reacted to Hugh Neilson in It's a matter of balance   
    Looking at likely damage taken and likely damage inflicted still makes sense to me.
  11. Haha
    Duke Bushido got a reaction from Scott Ruggels in The Most Grandiose Crime?   
    Build up the new restaurant.  This time, do not refuse Pepsi.  Conquer the world with military might.  Acquire a second restaurant location.
     
     
  12. Haha
    Duke Bushido reacted to Cancer in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
  13. Like
    Duke Bushido reacted to Old Man in A Thread For Random RPG Musings   
    Just doing what I do best!  Although this time you might have mistaken me for someone else.
     
     
     
     
     
    This is a good point, although I have to mention that spells can do things that clubs and crossbows cannot.  It is hard to turn someone into a newt with a crossbow.
     
     
     
    This is an excellent method to keeping magic mysterious: sheer complexity.  And it's something I ought to have thought of myself, given my line of work.  But yes, for the vast majority of people, modern devices are akin to magic items.  Motorcycles and mobile phones alike are such complex creations that very few individuals would be capable of explaining, in detail and completeness, how they even work.  Even those of us in the field are often reduced to the role of Adeptus Mechanicus: lubricating the sacred sprockets with mystical unguents without understanding why, copying the script of the python into the wizard's window in blind faith that it will find meaning in a page of gibberish.  Indeed, this is what Vancian magic actually is--distant descendants of a once-advanced society, memorizing and forgetting the last spells with no comprehension of how the spell causes the effect.  Wandering the ruined Earth in search of more priceless fragments of knowledge.
     
    So you take this phenomenon and apply it to a culture where literacy is so rare that the mere act of reading and writing is viewed as near-witchcraft, with suspicion and distrust, and it almost doesn't matter whether magic/technology is learnable and teachable.  Because you don't even know whether it can be understood, let alone understand it.  Even now there are technologies and mysteries that have been lost to the ages.  We don't know how Archimedes burned the ships at Syracuse.  We don't know where Ulfberht steel came from.  We think we know what Greek fire was.  We think we know what Viking sunstones were.  We don't know who built the Antikythera mechanism and we only figured out what it was for in the last few years.  Knowledge gets lost; advanced knowledge gets loster.
     
    Mechanics aside, that's why I appreciate things like Gloranthan disease spirits--it evokes a time when people simply didn't know what was going on.  That, in and of itself, lends a sense of mystery to the setting and the magic within it.  It doesn't even matter whether that's canonically how disease actually works in the setting, what matters is that that's how the characters understand things to be.  A world that is poorly understood has exponentially more possibilities than one which is not.  You don't get to write "Here be dragons" on a thoroughly explored, dragon-free part of the map.
  14. Like
    Duke Bushido reacted to Chris Goodwin in A Thread For Random RPG Musings   
    Ultimately, yes.  If the setting points out that that's the in-universe explanation, I've lost interest.  
     
    In large part, the same thing turns me off of Spelljammer.  Space in a D&D game?  Sign me up!  Except it's... not.  Not what I'm looking for, really.  
     
    It's not so much "yay, science!"  It's that the world has to have the feeling of a world I could live in.  A world where diseases are caused by evil spirits, or planets are surrounded by crystal shells and phlogiston-powered wooden ships fly through the aether, isn't that kind of world.  It feels like something obviously constructed, like an amusement park ride.  
     
    I'm not just looking for something I can throw fireballs and hack enemies apart with swords.  I'd like something that I can look at the conditions and draw conclusions from them.  

    I found a post on another forum that sums it up for me, enough that I've got it bookmarked. 
     
     
    Fun world building elements, emergent setting, things that to me seem like they could happen.  I can anticipate things that might happen and characters that could exist in a world that functions according to familiar natural laws, or at least feels like a place I could visit.  Like an idea I've had in my pocket for a fantasy world: in cities, where construction is largely of wood, and there are people packed in, and there are spells that can easily prevent fires, treat disease, purify water, nonlethally stop thieves, light streetlamps at night, and so forth, cities will pay a premium for casters who can cast those.  Anyone who can do so gets a reduced entry fee into the city, and reduced even more if they take a few volunteer shifts on watch.  This is something that's gameable, that I can hang plot hooks on, that can exist in the background and occasionally come to the notice of PCs even if they're not directly involved.
     
    If tides are entirely the whims of Zeboim, then I have no idea what else might be, and just that fact is enough to make me not care.  
  15. Thanks
    Duke Bushido got a reaction from Chris Goodwin in A Thread For Random RPG Musings   
    Well thank you, Sir.  The sentiment is mutual ; I assure you.
     
    Well, if the memes are to be believed, youhavw to write it down, and _then_ it is science, but as we are reading books....
     

     
     
     
     
     
    Perhaps I should have said more, but I was trying to stay on-target for once. 
     
     
     
     
    I have had the reverse experience!  I remember hiw anniyed I was thr first time I walked into a book store and science fiction and fantasy were lumped into the same section!
     
    Personally, I blame Star Wars:  hopping into a single-seater and hopping off across the galaxy without so much as gatorade jug in which to pee isn't the sort of life support that says "I will be out for a few hours," is it?
     
    Then we have actual wizards in space, doing magic thingies at each other...
     
    (Do not worry, Star Wars fans.  I am not going to mention mitochondria--  I mean, midichlorians.  I do not at all like Star Wars, but when that midichlorians thing came out--  well, let's just say that I felt your outrage and your shame.  I wouldn't dream of throwing that at you, even if it was the _only_ reason I didn't like it)
     
    So yeah:  that and John Carter; to a lesser extent, DC's Warlord (is that John Carter knock-off still going, or was that just a seventies thing?)-
     
    Massive overlap; I get it.  Overlap, but not the same.  Sure: from outside, the difference is as miniscule as dieselpunk and steampunk, but from _inside_, the difference is as massive as dieselpunk and steampunk!
     
    Or, you know...  I could just call it a fandom thing.  Whatever works for the reader who has givwn up on both of these and moved on to Teslapunk or Fashionpunk....
     
    We _know_-  or at least, out of defference to those who really do not want to see it for flavor reasons, let's say that the argument can be made that a game _must_ have a sort of science in its magic:
     
    Who can have magic, and why can they have it?  How do they learn it?  How do they improve it?  Can they teach or share it with others?  (Yes; I get that you will happily share a fireball with any gelatinous cube that happens along, but that is not where I was going...)
     
    What determines the strength or effectiveness of the magic?  And so on and so forth.  It is possible entirely to have a magic system with no explanation of what the source of magic is or where it comes from, but those questions and several others must be answered to make the magic useable in the game.  And because there are observable steps and means of progression that characters must know in order to work toward that progression, the argument can be made that, at least in a game, there is actual recordable, repeatable, verifiable science and consistency (unless your effects roll is 2d1000, in which case, expect an average of 1000, but good luck getting consistency!)
     
    And we're back!
     
    Not That anyone would notice, but apparently it is entirely possible to just nod off for six hours mid-composition, realize you have to be at work in twenty minutes, etc, etc...
     
    At any rate, in a game environment, there are still ways to keep magic mysterious and awe-inspiring.  After considerable distillation, they fall into four categories:
     
    1) do not explain the source.  No one knows where magic comes from or why it exists.  This is pretty common in games, but by itself it doesnt really 'eliminate' a science-y, studyable, reproducability to the effects themselves.  Variations on this include using, on HERO terms, "variable special effects" where the SFX of the moment are chosen by the GM.  A 6dRKA may be a fireball with one use, and a baby Dragon the next, and a maelstrom of sand and gravel the next.
     
    However, it will _always_ be a 6dRKA, and the PC will always in ow how to cast it (Activation roll or/and Burnout can add some suspense or surprise there) and he will always know how to improve it.  There is an inherent understanding- and science-able results- that just cannot be gotten around.
     
    2) vary the results.  One moment when a spell is cast, it results in a baby Dragon screaming down the corridor at mach 2 , eyes full of murder and jaws open wide.  The next usage, it creates a bridge of light, swirling with all the colors of a rainbow.  The third usage, everyone in the part loses fifteen pounds.  The fourth usage, two randomly selected characters anywhere within a radius equal to line of sight are teleported onto the deck of a galleon far out at sea.
     
    I don't think I have to go too much into the problems involved here, and the strain on both the GM and his relationship with the players, but let's suffice it to say that there will be no magic users in your party, ever.  No one wants any kind of equipment- shelter, weapon, or magical ability- that cannot be consistently relied upon.  No; I take that back.  If you are unfortunate enough to have "that one guy" who, in his own sort of way, derives some of his pleasure from being disruptive or compunding the party's troubles, he will likely want to play spellslingers almost exclusively.  😕
     
    other than him, though, no one will want this because, as funny as it might be in less-tess scenarios, no one wants magic they cannot estimate-  magic without a science-like reproduceable, consistent reliability.
     
    3)The PCs can't have it.  If the PCs cant have it, they can't really study it, learn about it, etc, etc.  They will never understand it, so it will always be awe-inspiring.  Now I know that I am in the significant minority here, but I have always been okay with this kind of magic in-game.  Only some special class of people or certain individuals or perhaps it takes a whole coven, acting in concert, to wield magic, and whatever that qualifier might be, it is completely off the table for PCs.  While it is an extreme example, think "Conan."  He regularly encounters incredible magic, but (so far as I know) has never been able to wield it himself.
     
    The gaming problem here is that, as I said, I am in the minority as a player who is perfectly fine with this.  Most players that I have encountered are like Old Man (who has confessed to prefering magic users with amazing abilities) or even worse: I want to be a godlike figure among men.  Okay, how about when I get to third level....?
     
    4)  magic blows everything else out of the water.  This creates your awe-inspiring, cannot-really-comprehend, magic-is-the-shiz-nit sense of wonder.  Entire mountain ranges have been destroyed and others created purely as collateral effects of duel magics.  Villages thrive in the desert because a kindly but reclusive wizard brought forth a river in an ocean of sand and sun-scarred stone.  A scryong spell gains access to the innermost thoughts of an enemy across the sea, and his ships can be sunk a thousand miles away with but a malicious thiught and a whispered word.  Or, to put it more colloquially, "my character is a badass wizard."
     
    Variants on this include clerical blessings and "letting god do the dirty work."
     
    Hopefully, I don't have to go too far into this one to point out the game balance issues.  I mean, I think we all all remember every edition of DnD where the only defense against a spell slinger was to kill them off before they got past 4th level.
     
    What works in books-  unknowable, capricious, fickle, awe-inspiring, powerful-beyond-comprehension magic--  just doesn't work well in a game (unless you have tables full of guys like me: "that's fine; I didn't want it anyway").   Of it is accessible at all, there _must_ be either a way to measure, summon, wield, and improve it, or take the results totally out of the Player's control (which is going to result in a lot of "didn't want it anyway").  In other words, there _must_ be a science to it.  It may not be fully explained (we sont know where it comes from or why it works), but it must be,understandable in game terms, which ultimately results in it beinf understood in-game, at least to a point.
     
    Science! 
     
     
     
    That is well and good.  See number 2, itemized above, because that is the only gameable method by which this may be achieved.  Unfortunately, it is not a lot of fun.  At least, not for long.  Except for that one guy...
     
     
    And now we can get into why it doesn't _really_ work in fiction, either, but not today.  I have been pecking at this phone long enough.
     
    Let'a just summarize with "someone learned how to do it: how to summon it; how to control it; how to get the effects he wants- possibly even how to teach it.  So it might be mysterious and unknowable to the reader, but the character is reading spell books to learn from other people who not only learned to do it, but how to break it down in such a way as to both reproduce it and record it, and possibly teach it.  Or maybe he is the first guy to come up with this spell, and he is writing it down to either teach it, re-learn it at a future point, oraybe play with variations at some point in the future.  Or maybe....
     
    "Once we have the Moon Stone, Princess...  Once we have the Moon Stone, and the stars are aligned, then the world will bow before you...."
     
    Sounds like someone understands this stuff _way_ more than the author wants you to think is possible.  (Personally, I have always thought that it is either because the author isnt good at "it just is," or because he is counting on your willingness not to notice that there seems to be some science-like methodology at work here, or because he has figured out that "it just is" is crap for,building tension when whatever it just is also happens to consistently benefit the wielder.  But note that the disclaimer "Personally" indicates a poorly (ie, not even remotely)-researched opinion babsed on absolutely nothing beyond all-too-fallible human intuition.  And why are there only two intuitions?  Women's intuition and human intuition.  Why do women (typically also human) get to double-dip?  Why do men have to share?
     
    Anyway, there is a lot more there supporting the idea that wondrous, unexplainable, unscience-able magic doesnt _really_ exist in fiction, either, but that really is a different discussion, and best sone by someone more versed in the genre than I am.
     
    So, moving on....
     
     
     
     
     
    Yes!  Even though I do not particularly care for magic (at least, not still-extant, non-deity-derived magic, though I am oddly okay with certain types of "nature magic"), I absolutely _love_ some of the superstitions and even religions that can be found in many works of fantasy.  No complaints there!
     
     
     
    See, I sont even mind the plague demon thing, if that is actually how disease works, or if it isn't, but it is the popular superstition.
     
    But I _do_ want to know which is which.  It is probably quite opposite of your own take, but it helps me enjoy the story if I understand the story, or at least what it is actually story lore and setting, etc.
     
     
     
     
     
    Funny.  I had no idea that I was dead.  Or maybe I am not, and this just happens to work on a certain subset of the living, too. 
     
     
     
     
     
    It doesnt have to be technology, but if a character in a story is using it, then either it _is_ predictable within certain acceptable tolerances, or the wielder is straight-up insane without any concern for what happens to any portion of the universe as a result of informing it, even if that change is slow painful immolation and that portion is confined entirely to him:
     
    You can predict this sword.  Only one in ten times will a guy take it from,you and smack you with it.
     
    You can predict this gun.  Only one in fifty of these have ever exploded in the user's face.
     
    You cannot predict this magic!  It might create a tidal wave to destroy your enemies.  It might create a great chasm that swallows your allies.  It might so nothing but dree Prometheus and put you in his place.  It might just kill you for the heck of it and do nothing.  It might make your enemy king od the universe.
     
    Eh.  I'm good with all of that. Let 'er rip!
     
    It might be worse.
     
    I said "let 'er rip!"
     
    So...  Either reasonably predictable, or complete insanity.  Nothing else,is really justifiable.
     
    Well, there _is_ a third thing, but it makes for both lousy gaming and lousy story telling:  as we cannot ever know or understand magic, and it does exist (which is difficult to prove if it exists as some inmate-able, unscience-able force), then we exist entirely at its whim, and there is nothing we can do about it, which doesn't really do anything except turn "magic" into "corporate money" and we leave fantasy completely to retuen to our dystopian reality.  It doesnt make good entertaibment because it is precisely what we are trying to entertain ourselves away from for a few hours.
     
     
     
     
     
    Agreed on all counts.  I only add that it is difficult to tell _any_ story where magic truly is unknowable, unquantifiable, and still able to be wielded.
     
     
     
    See?  I can totally,get into alchemical magic, though before anyone protests, I am already well-aware that all "alchemical magic" boils down to is a new set of eules dor chemistry, with a sometimes-ezisting restriction on who knows how to what, and without delving too deeply into the actual chemical makeup differences between "the femur of an ogre slain at midnight" and any other femur, inckydinf that of an ogre who died at two-ish on Wednesday, of old age.
     
    But alchemy givws us healing potions and potions of fireball and strange liquids that transmute lead to gold, if onky for a while, and for me, the new (and real-world wrong) rules for chemistry is enough to be "magic."
     
     
     
    If That is "Mage: the Ascension," I will defer to your knowledge.  I kind if got White Wolf burnout in the 90s, about the time I was reading my twenty-somethingth Vampire book.  I still havent been abke to make myself look back.  😕
     
     
     
    I cannot attempt to answer for Chris (and given that it is two in the afternoon here (I mentioned I am at work, right?  I am buildinf the post on my not-long-or-frequent-enough-for-having-to-deal-with-the-public breaks), he has probably already answered for himself, but I _can_ offer some insight that might help:
     
    He and I have remarkably similar preferences for magic- that is to say, that it is consistent enough to be manageable, even if I only certain special people can manage it at all.
     
    Outside of the subject, a lot of us have been here for years, and accordingly percieve an intimacy that may not be reciprocated, or perhaps simply isn't recognized.  Thus, we might fire off less-formalized or less-complete thoughts when in a hurry or as a quick toss-out, expecting more comprehension or understanding of context than might actually happen.
     
     
    I have done it quite often, amd on one occasion inadvertently. Really torqued off someone I _thought- I was sharing a humourous reference with (still sorry about that, LL- sincerely sorry).  I have worjed much harder to avoid that ever since (and you folks have endure _even longer_ posts because of it.
     
     
     
    I feel I have to point rhis out, bwcause I dont believe Chris is the sort od person to _start_ an argument; I expect it was some sort of shorthand summation of his opinion that he thiught would be better-received.
     
    I only offer this because it was Chris Goodwin- a relative stranger a couole of thousand mukes away from me- who told me "I live you, Man.  Men don't express that enough.  We as aren't allowes to.  But it is okay to love your friends, and if you love people, you should let them know, because they might need to hear it once in a while."
     
    That lead to more tangential research on my part that forced me to realize that imthis is specifically a "white man" problem, as none of my non-white cowrkers or friends have the slightest problem with hugging each other or staying "love, you Dude."  (This peobabky explains a lot more history than I want to think about, and this clearly isnt the place for that (though for what it is worth, since this discovery, Hammerhead has not gone a single day without hearing it from me).
     
    Anyway, for that reason and many others, if I ever think Chris is being anything but courteous, I always assume I missed somw important context.
     
    And now You know all that.  I have got to find a way to work _sleep_ into my schedule more than every other night...
     
     
     
     
     
    Okay, I dont know what i did wrong, but I wiped what I was trying to quote.
     
    Still:  thank you, LL.  I have a feeling you get what I am trying to say.
     
    Magic should be amazing, but it needs to be reliable and xonaiatent as well.
     
     
  16. Thanks
    Duke Bushido reacted to Doc Democracy in A Thread For Random RPG Musings   
    I am going to embark on thus epic.  I have NO idea how you type all this on a phone....
     
    I think that it is not going to work with a vancian style magic which, itself, is written as a technology in the dying earth books, ways of harnessing ancient power with the trappings of magic.
     
    So yes, I agree, slots and unreliability don't work.  I would also say there is a lot of ground in between getting effects so defined you can throw a fireball to hit opponents in melee with your friends and not even singe their eyebrows and starting the magic with no idea of the effects you expect or hope for.
     
     
    Well, because technology is measurable and semi-dependable.  It is something people, as you say, utilise but rarely are able to explain, nevermind maintain. 
     
    Technology works, utilises measurable forces and anyone doing the right things with the right kit get the same results.  If that is what you want in your game, why call it magic, it is technology and might as well be presented as such, no?
     
     
    This is indeed a big thing.  No point in looking too hard at the literature because you xan actually find anything and everything to support stuff because, to our understanding, there is no such thing as magic. 😀
     
    Technology is learnable and teachable.  If there are, like you say, restrictions on who can learn magic then magic is not universally learnable or teachable. I think that is one of the significant differences.  Only those with talent can do more than dabble (sometimes not even that) and some folk can, fir some unknown reason, become adepts.  Now that might be seen as similar to maths.  some folk find it hard to add up single figures, others solve quadratic equations in their head - we don't really understand how that happens either.
     
     
    And yet, in Fantasy literature, they rarely are. Grimoires are often the personal notes of an adept.  Others trying to use them approach with care, like dealing with an unexploded bomb, trying to extract meaning and understanding to create their own grimoire.  Each adept adapting the teachings to their iwn situation.
     
    I reckon that is another feature, for me, of magic.  Technology is universal, it works the same way regardless of who applies it.  Magic is personal and individual, and every practitioner begins with a broad understanding but needs to fine-tune the process to accommodate their particular relationship with the magical powers.
     
     
    I love this analogy, but you are almost arguing against your statement that you xannot teach what you do not know, possibly because these things are not binary until you get to the point where you either do it absolutely right or die.
     
    Beyond that a whole range of approaches get a number of outcomes that approximate OK, those closest to "correct" go faster/straighter/longer.  I think that feels magical to me but with magic, there is no single correct way, there is probably only one way for any individual but not one that you can reliably teach.
     
     
    Yes! The difference though is that while the technology folk are working to a template, knowing where they are making compromises from an ideal and seeking a physical harmony, the magician is "listening to the vapours" hoping to find a place where they properly resonate to deliver the right harmony.  More art than science and influenced by who is doing it.
     
     
    I think that it is more likely to be secret from the cgaracter than the reader.  Or they both share a belief of what is true, like the motorcyclists you talked about, they think they know what is true, they believe what they are going to will result in a particular outcome.
     
    Thing is, even with technology there are the pioneers who do stuff for the first time,teaching themselves through trial and error.  With technology it is better as, when you find something out, you can show someone else in the firm knowledge they will be able to do it too. With magic, none of that is a given. It is where not only finding a teacher, but the right teacher is important.
     
     
    I hear you but you realise you have probably now put more thought into the basics than most people who love reading about it.  You are even getting close to gave written as many words on the matter as a Fantasy writer.
     
    Doc
  17. Like
    Duke Bushido reacted to Hugh Neilson in A Thread For Random RPG Musings   
    The Spellsinger series provides a "not fully controlled and never understood" magic. The main character generally gets a spell effect from the song he chooses, but it's often far from what he expected.
     
    The game problems with magic of this nature have already been drawn out above.  Players like to know what their characters can do, and want some narrative control over the results.  The latter can be implemented if the player exercises some (or full) control over the results of the magic, despite the character being unable to do so, but this will also break that "magic is a mystery" vibe.
     
    A GM would have to think on their feet to have results that vary every time and are fair to the character (neither overpowered nor underpowered). Part of that challenge is that there will be a LOT more spells in-game than need to be in the books. Imagine having to dream up a different result several times in each encounter in a typical fantasy game.  Magic is typically used more sparingly in the source material.  Duke mentions Conan - the wizards he battles aren't blasting off a Lightning Bolt or Magic Missile in response to each of Conan's sword slashes.
  18. Like
    Duke Bushido got a reaction from Doc Democracy in A Thread For Random RPG Musings   
    Agreed.  However, it also needs to be reasonably consistent and more-or-less reliable to be useful for players-- or at least for other players to risk allocating resources on even a periodic basis.  In DnD, why would I waste a spell slot on something that, when cast, does whatever the heck it wants without regard to what I need?  A spell from which any utility is unlikely and coincidental.  In HERO or GURPS terms, why would I spend points on magic with unknowable results when I can buy a club and a crossbow  that do more or less the same thing every time?  Mysterious magic is a risk: it is an expense with zero verifiable benefits.  In HERO fandom terms "I cannot be assured that I will get what I paid for."   You might frequently find yourself _not_ getring what you pay for, but I suppose this can be rectified by making such magic free in points systems and require zero spell slots in others.  Thus, when they bite you in the backside, it cost you nothing and you had the option to use something reliable that you acquired normally.
     
    But moving beyond another rehash of something whose key points game-wise I _think_ we more-or-less understand each other on I have need of clarification on one of your points of contention:
     
     
     
     
    I do not see the similarities.  I certainly do not see how making magic measurable and semi-dependable makes it technology.  Realistically, I don't see how it can exist in a non-measurable, non-quantifiable state.  Even before its discovery, mathematics comfirmed the existence of either a Higgs bosun, or something very much like it.
     
    So I want to take a look at the similarities- or potential similarities, since one of these things does not actually exist- between the two.
     
    Technology is learnable and teachable.  I have never encountered any genre source of magic that was not the same, though typically magic has score and score of restrictions on who can learn it, to include teachers who, out of genre convention if nothing else, are incredibly rare and usuallly unwilling.
     
    Both _can_ be studied; both can, to varying degrees, be classified by results.  That is, they can both be used for construction, destruction, support, etc.
     
    If you accept the existence of grimoires or teachers or magic items, then both can be mass produced.  There are restrictions on who can learn to do what, and some people take to it better than others. 
     
    I would tentatively put forward the idea that, in fiction, whether or not the reader is aware of it, that magic has always been this way, simply because anyone wielding must have some way to figure out at least rudimentary control of it, and at a minimum, how to turn it on.  How to turn it off might be useful, but I suppose that isn't entitely necessary if you have no plans for "...and after _that_-"...
     
    Keeping secrets from the reader isn't terribly hard.  Murder mysteries absolutely rely on it.  There is nothing about the reader's ignorance that must translate into ignorant characters, though.
     
    _Somehow_, the control the magic.  _Somehow_, they get results that line up with their goals.  _Somehow_, they can assemble the components or lay out the circles or prepare the sacrifice or know the proper position of the moon and the incantations and just how many fairie farts are required--
     
    They have learned the results and how to get them.  They may not be entirely accurate (looking at you, Nazi who who looked into the Ark of the Covenant and then went all claymation-under-a-buffet-heat-lamp), but they have a solid enough idea of everything that they have learned what to do before they did it.
     
    It is extremely difficult to teach something that isnt quantifiable.  It is extremely difficult to learn something that isnt quantified with at least partial accuracy.
     
    My favorite example of this is actually kind of useless amongst the general public, simply because it requires an intimate knowledge that the general public does not possess:
     
    Teaching and learning motorcycle riding.  Most people have no idea that the _vast_ majority of motorcycle riders in North America do not actually  know how to ride a motorcycle.  They know how to _operate_ one.  They know how to work the controls, how to to start it and get where they want to go, but when a truly bad thing comes along, they will make the worst decisions because they actually have no idea how the motorcycle works.  Why?  They were taught by people who really didn't know, either.
     
    You cannot teach something you do not know.
     
    As You go through your life, as you encounter a bike at the gas pumps, as the operator how the motorcycle steers and how do you make it turn.  Pay special heed to the number of different answers you get.  Ask why this works.  Again, note the number of differenr answers you get.
     
    There is only _one_ correct answer, and one correct reason, and anyone who doesnt know what they are is foinf to be doing a whole lot of the wrong thing in a situation that calls for flawless action in order to make it through.
     
    Yet these people still operate motorcycles and do not die.
     
    Why?
     
    Well, for one, they haven't ever been in a flawless-or-die situation.  Moat importantly, they have stumbled upon the correct thing to do _in general_ even though they are unaware of it.  They learned something, on some level, even if it isn't in the conscious decision making part of their brain.
     
    Sure, that is a technological example, but  as magic is entirely fictional, I cannot really offer a graspable real-world example of controlling magic.
     
    Except through Clarke's Law.
     
    I think it is safe to assume that most people here can operate a car.  That most people here can operate an elevator.  That most people here can ride a ship to sea.
     
    How many of those people,understand how they work?  I do not mean,how many people can google it up; I mean how many of those people understand each and every principle at work at every moment from the tiniest flow of electrons to the starter solenoid (or relay, in some cases) to the balancing of tidal forces to the shaping of an,explosion to the tempering and cooling of different metals to the scavenging effect that _pulls_ exhaust from the engine to the venture effect and,why it shapes gasoline into a perfect droplet and why this is critical and so on and so forth?
     
    I dont profess to be a great wizard with a terrible burden of knowledge.  There are _lots_ of us.  But I am,willing to bet that even here, that group is a smaller set than the group who can operate a car.  I am also willing to bet that if we looked into that group for people who could diagnose a problem in the automobile- from crank,bearings to a missing counterweight on a propshaft, that number gets smaller still.  Then going,into,that group we look foe those who understand what repairs must be made, then to those who know how to do the repairs, then to those who are actually,capable of doing the repairs...
     
    And,at some,point from the group of people who have seen but never been,inside of a car, we cross into magic.  At some point, that same thing that a group of us take for granted as we sit on the side of an Arizona state highway with the starter of an old KZ 400 pulled apart and scattered on the jacket we threw down to keep the parts out of the sand, as we work patiently with a pocket knife cutting strips from a discarded Pabst can in the hopes of wrapping enough layers around the rear of the armature shaft to properly center the shaft in the over-worn bronze bushing in the DE Frame so that it would properly contact all four of the worn-too-short brushes, so that maybe we can get out of the sun... As we dip a strip of cloth cut from a spare pair of socks into the crank case to draw,up enough oil to hopefully keep out aluminum-lined bushing from galling the second we hit the start button...,as we cuss ourselves for,the hundredth time for not going ahead and installing new roll pins,in the kickstarter before heading to California....
     
    At some point,between those two people, we have crossed into magic.  Ritualistic magic using materials gathered from the countryside and the blood of the dead beast, its organs,revitalized and life restored (for,what it's worth, I replaced both the bushings and the entire brush rack in the starter as well as the roll pins in the kick stick at the very first bike shop I found in California).
     
    At some point, what I looked at as "sunburn as punishment for my own impatience" was intricate and puzzling magic for the lizard resting in the shadow of the bike and the one roadrunner that briefly paused on the grassless sand ridge and studied me, first with one eye, then the other, before trotting off to wherever he was headed.
     
    It took me a lifetime od helping my father do things I did not want to do, and then helping other people do things I did not want to do, but did because they couldn't, and they needed help- to develop the knowledge and skills that revived the bike that afternoon (I also learned that if there is noone else on the road, leave the bike running while you pee; it isnt _that_ much gas!)
     
    I wasn't quite thirty then.  I have lived more than that liferime,over again, and the things I know and am capable of now would aabsolutely impress that younger, more muscular, head-full-of-hair version of me, so far are they beyind his own abilities.
     
    But it is safe to say that magical or not, he _can_ learn them.  Some,through trial and,error, some,through education, some,through repetition and,study, and all of them one little bit at a time.
     
    I poatulate that, whether or not it is secret,from,the reader, rhe characters in a book,must have learned their magic controlling abikities similarly, else how could they have them?  Even beinf "born with the power to summon magic and bend,it to his will" is insufficient: at some point, he has to digure out what makes,it appear, and what he must do or think,or want to make,it work.
     
     
    In this way, like,it or not, it has _always_ been like technology. I suppose.  Some people are less likely to want to notice that than others, I guess.
     
    The difference-  the primary, fundamental,difference, in my own opinion, is that infinite or finite, fragile or vast from,time itself, anyone can be trained to _make_ technology, eventually, but magic comes,from somewhere else.  No matter what we learn,about controlling it or summoning it or  supressing it, we may never know where it comes,from, or why it exists, and we will never, ever be able to duplicate or create the magic itself.
     
    I can speak only for me, but for,me. That is different enough, and wondrous enough, and also why I really,don't like it.
     

     
     
     
     
     
    I've been at this for a couple of hours now; I will stress,a couple,od other points at some,later time, if I remeber to,do so.
     
    Later, Amigo!
     
     
  19. Haha
    Duke Bushido reacted to mattingly in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
  20. Haha
    Duke Bushido reacted to Starlord in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
  21. Like
    Duke Bushido reacted to Scott Ruggels in Restricted power origins campaigns   
    Oh definitely. We did a brief "All Powered Armored Suits, All the time, and though the campaign was short it had a unified feel, like a Television show. It was a lot of fun. Cold War, so it was the U.S. Versus the Commies, and the occasional villain group or malign corporation.
  22. Like
    Duke Bushido got a reaction from L. Marcus in Quote of the Week From My Life.   
    "Really?  Nobody needs five of the same d@nnn#d motorcycle!"
     
    "Boy, explain this to your momma."
     
    "Well, you see, Mom, it's like this:
     
    We don't have a a _blue_ one...."
     
    Thanks, Boy.  Real helpful.
     
     
  23. Like
    Duke Bushido reacted to tkdguy in A Thread For Random RPG Musings   
    If I play characters with magic, I usually make them multiclass, usually fighter/mages. That's probably because I grew up with B/X and I liked to play elves because of the Silmarillion. I rarely play a pure spellcaster. Clerics never held much appeal for me.
     
    On another note, how feasible would airships be in a fantasy campaign? Even if magic is used to create lift, there are so many large flying creatures around that the airships could become targets.
  24. Thanks
    Duke Bushido reacted to Old Man in A Thread For Random RPG Musings   
    So many strongly held opinions about magic!  Although that is pretty normal--in the fantasy fiction discussion groups I frequent, "hard" vs. "soft" magic systems are always a topic of lively discussion. Naturally that would carry over to RPGs.
     
    My preferences tend to come down on the "soft" side of the spectrum, i.e. mysterious and poorly understood.  I find that more well defined systems, in fiction, are uninteresting--being fully understandable, they become esoteric.  In some cases this also leads to some strange inconsistencies with the setting.
     
    As others have mentioned, mysterious-and-poorly-understood magic is tough to do in any RPG that attempts to be balanced.  Hero manages to at least sort of address the subject with skill rolls, Side Effects, and other disadvantages.  Other systems, like Ars Magica, address it by leaving a certain amount of wiggle room in the effect.  Or in the more lightweight systems, almost not having a system at all.
     
    What really sets Hero apart is that its flexibility allows it to cover multiple magic systems.  You can have the wizards of the Fire College go up against the Wild Pool Magicians with the assistance of the Vancian Amnesiacs.  After four decades of fantasy gaming I have yet to see any other system that can really do this.  Usually the best they can do is have you pick spells from a different list.  But the point is that Hero can really do both hard and soft magic, and I'm frankly astonished that no other game system has really tried.
     
    Clerical magic is a whole other ballgame, as it directly involves the theology of the setting.  It's hard to be an atheist when priests are slinging flame strikes and blade barriers.  At that point, religion becomes less a matter of faith and more one of devotion and adherence.  It's a weird side effect of D&D video game magic, and to me it smacks of football teams granting magic powers to its craziest fans.  I have toyed with the idea of requiring clerical spells (prayers?) to be bought with Invisible Power Effects, just to make it a teeny bit less obvious to onlookers that The Gods Walk Among Them.  That only works for certain effects, but it does maintain a lot of the mystery.  Arcane magic might benefit from the same.
  25. Like
    Duke Bushido got a reaction from Chris Goodwin in Restricted power origins campaigns   
    The world has seen exactly two "abnormally talented" individuals in the past, but not quite super-human.  They have been gone (killed in wartime) for a couple of generations at this point, and really only exist as historical clues for the characters to either discover or miss as they see fit.
     
    I have only run this past two players thus far, as it is in-progress.  Both seem interested.
     
    We will be doing "tiered" power structures, which is to say that there will be three options for how many starting points /disads you want (we play 2e: Disadplications bite hard because to get higher points, you take more of them.
     
    The setting lore for the three levels (again, to be discovered by players) is essentially: one abducted ancestor is level1.   Level 1 is primarily increased characteristics, though a minor power may occur.
     
    One abductee ancestor _on each side_ (ie, one in the lineage or each parent) is level 2.  This is primarily powers, but no characterisitcs will  exceed maxims.
     
    One actual "talented" individual as a parent (it is possible to have a power or trait and never actually know it: very few modern people ever have to _really push_ their strength, or run from certain death, etc) and one adbductee or talented person in the lineage from the other parent yields level 3, which is traditional "super hero" mix of both powers and characteristics.
     
    Powers (and certain characteristics may; havent decided yet) have some sort of "control roll;" this will weigh heavier on level 3 characters, obviously.  This is an enforced power limitation that can be bought off with experience, etc. as can any other such limitations.
     
    The characters will, in the initial session, be being "helped" individulally by various organizations, as they have found themselves with these abilities and very poor control.
     
    I have not decided on the organizations, though clearly, with perhaps one exception, the goal is to control the  character and to to recreate the abilities.  I am leaning heavily- if I have enough players commit- to having _one_ organization genuinely interested in helping the character because he needs help, and then of course, the things to learn are too good to pass up.
     
    Level three, having the most disadplications already, will have hanging over them that a small amount of their character points will not be spent by them, but by me, at inopportune times (I am thinking 10 to fifteen points for a 300 pt character, but I will get that sussed out as I go).
     
    During the game, EP will be rewarded more-or-less "by the book," meaning that characters of higher starter power level will likely earn experience a bit slower-- that whole "more powerful / less powerful" thing.  I am okay with this, as it gives tier 1 and tier 2 characters a bit of lead to 'catch up,' so to speak.  
     
    Again, I am not entirely sure how it will shake out in the final form, but that is the preliminary.  I am thinking of mandatory Hunters-  the "helpful organizations" from which they have escaped (save the altruistic one, if I decide do include it.  The idea is that, should the players not figure it out within... Say, four sessions or so-  then rhe altruistic organization dumps the character they are helping, having seen a pattern of talented people popping up and "disappearing."  (I may throw in a government angle, but I am always leery of such a thing: realistically, PCs do not have a snowball's chance against a national government determined to capture and hold them or otherwise "solve" the problem).  So if the PCs havent figured it out, the one group will info dump somethinf to the effect of "you have to go!  You can't stay here!  It is too dangerous for _all_ of us!  You were never here; you don't know us; we don't know you, but listen: you are not alone!  There are other like you!  There are othera like you, amd we have reason to bekieve that you are _all_ in danger.  Find them.  Find the others; you are stronger together!  Stay hidden, but stay together!"
     
    Or something like that.  As a sort of "proof of the pudding (and to add a layer of mystery), when they do meet up and befin to work together, I am thinking of just dumping five character points onto them each time they pick up a new someone as part of their team.
     
    Then there will be a three or four sessions of "on the run" (and the altruistic organization will be a closed door to them at this point; they won't find a trace of it anywhere) and from their, I would like to work in a couple of complete arcs of actual superhero / secret identity / colorful costumes stuff, with honest to goodness super villains (whose powers have the same source, of course).  I _may_ let one or two of the villains have ties to one or more od the organizations the PCs were being "helped" by (and probably will, if the players want to chase those threads).
     
    Hopefully at least _one_ of the characters will have discussed "my nutty grandmother who is in an,institution because she believes she was abducted by aliens, which should trigger  a cascade of "alien abduction?  Wierd!  Me, too!", as I intend to present framework histories (not complete backstories, but "interesting details about your life," (they should not suspect anything, as I have done rhis before- not regularly, but as a means to pushing them toward bexoming a cohesive team-- you all fought in the same war on the same,front-- that sort of thing, and just to keep them grounded, I have always thrown in an offbeat detail or two "just for fun.")
     
    And just about the time they are really adapting to this superhero thing-- remember they are the first od their kind; this world will not even have them as fiction, if I can work that in without giving away anything)-
     
    About the time they get used to it, there is an en masse attempt to take them down, durinf which time they will winnow down the strength of the secret agencies and perhaps even rhe military---
     
    And the aliens will return.
     
    And that is where I am stumped.  Why?  Why are the aliens back?  I would like do avoid the bulk of rhe tropes, obviously, but that leaves me nothing but "hey, we accidentally vreated auper beings, but son't worry!  We would like to set that right," and frankly, I dont like that.  I suspect the reason that the teopes have become tropes ("we are here to harvest our bioweapons;" "we need to run some more tests;" "why jave you not,taken over this world?  You were programmed to do so!" etc have all become,tropes is because they work reasonably well as-is.  Still, I would like do,come,up with something just a bit,off the beaten path, but still ominous to,crescendo,what I see as,a,three-year campaign.
     
     
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