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Tuesday, May 9, 2023

The trouble with magic

Rules provide for a way to resolve situations that come up in games in a consistent way.*

Those situations generally have a real-world equivalent or match that can help you shape those rules

Magic provides a way to get a result that may or may not have a real-world logical underpinning without the usual paths to make that happen.

When magic meets rules, especially over a long enough campaign and enough use of magic, you end up with all sorts of weirdness. Attempts to resolve them can be equally weird - Fireball spells that fill cubic volume, but oddly don't have cover shadowing effects from others caught in the blast. Invisibility spells that don't address what happens to the light from your light source. Healing magic that can completely heal a wound yet leave you with an arrow or pick embedded. These all need rulings* that quickly become the basis for the next ruling. Often, solutions to edge cases beget more edge cases.

In a short game, or one with relatively little ability to fling around magic (so-called Vancian systems, say), you don't end up with too many issues. There just aren't enough situations and enough spells to make that happen. In a long game - my DF Felltower game is one - you just end up with so many layed rulings and cases that it can be confusing. And that's assuming well-written rules with well-written spells that match the rules. For GURPS and the magic system, the system has a lot of 1st-3rd edition legacy thinking with a 4e chassis to run on. It's not perfect. Then you add in the assumptions of DF - which further modifies the system.

So many of my GURPS Magic revisions are just attempts to make the spells match the assumptions of the game, with as little creation of new edge cases and weird uses as possible. I don't mind creative use of magic, but I do mind spells that have effects that have an outsized impact on the game or create loopholes and munchkin toys. "I can use spell X to solve our problem in new way Y!" is cool. "I can use spell X to eliminate probem Y for all time for minimal cost!" is generally not. Finding ways to let spells work well without doing great violence to the game world and the game system can be tough.

That's the real trouble I have with magic. It's providing power but with appropriate constraints on runaway game effects. The lack of a base reality means all of the rules have to be based on in-game effects with the rules consistency. I can't let the description of how it works derail the discussion of how the spell will change the game if the description is followed to the letter.

I won't say it's fun but it is interesting.




* In case someone quotes "Rulings not rules!" here is my take on that. Rulings are just rules you didn't know until they came up in play.

2 comments:

  1. The thing I learned about using GURPS Magic for over two decades that at its heart it is a scholarly profession in a pre-industrial society. Somebody has to support the mage for umpteen hours before they can do something useful. So that limits the quantity of folks capable of changing the setting.

    Because it take so much time to get up to speed, those who manage it will use it for what they view as the highest payoff in terms of where their personality and interest lie.

    What this amounts too is mages being able to create islands of unbelievable prosperity around them. That individually they are among the formidable combatant one encounters. However they are just one individual and there is little the average mage can do against a army other than be an important cog in another army.

    But then again, in the two decade I used GURPS as my primary system for the Majestic Wilderlands, I did not use Mega dungeons. The closest I had was the Majestic Fastness but it was more of a sacked dwarven fastness turned evil city ruled by a dragon than a traditional dungeon.

    Most of the dungeons I ran then were one or two level affairs like crypts, or hidden lairs of an individual or small group.

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  2. "It's providing power but with appropriate constraints on runaway game effects."

    It feels like 'with' should be 'without'.

    "I won't say it's fun but it is interesting."

    Inversely to me, the debate is //fun//. The clash of ideas, the very being wrong is fun (I think I'm the only person I know who enjoys discovering they are wrong, or rather, I enjoy a good debate where someone points out all the flaws in my arguments, the weakness in my thoughts, and I can either shore up and fortify those faults, or discover a knew way to think about things), and of course the TRIUMPH of being right.

    I actually enjoy rules debates.

    And they come up frequently, though in my boardgame group, we often don't go very far with a rules debate, once we've hashed the primary lines of thoughts, and either found and rejected the weaker ideas, or discovered all sides are roughly equal (equal for enjoyment of play) we'll usually call for an immediate vote. Being there are usually four of us, if the vote is split we dice for it and then live with the results until someone can find a FAQ outlining which side was correct. (And even then, if the correct side ends up being less fun... we sometimes stick with our new house ruling, sometimes. Like "No Federation" when we're playing Star Trek Ascendancy.)


    Ahem, but yes, GURPS Magic has 4 editions of Sacred Cows (and copypasta) adding weight to it's flaws. Though, to be fair, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions of GURPS were essentially the same rules, more similar than 3e and 4e, and those two are also //very// similar (and more so in Magic, you can almost just the spells straight from 3e, 95% of them have no changes).

    It's DFRPG (and the DF) that estrange GURPS Magic 4e, though I think DFRPG Spells (what I'm calling 4.5e*), if adhered to strictly, is better than 4e for that system. The flaws in GURPS 4e Magic really show up in spells that were discarded from DF/RPG... though, as you well know, there are still niche problems lurking in DFRPG Spells.

    .* Because it's a further refinement of the 4e editing, and then just drops the really problematic spells entirely I'm feeling okay calling 4.5e.

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