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From: steve@siemens.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: Re: limiting magic (A solution?)
Message-ID: <26000004@siemens.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Apr-85 08:40:00 EST
Article-I.D.: siemens.26000004
Posted: Thu Apr 11 08:40:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Apr-85 06:51:42 EST
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Nf-ID: #R:udenva:-50000:siemens:26000004:000:1617
Nf-From: siemens!steve    Apr 11 08:40:00 1985


I am the one who first posed this question (this time around, anyway),
so I suppose I can put my stamp of approval on the material components
idea, and it will be somewhat official.  I had considered that idea
before and abandoned it as taking too long for me to come up with
material components for every spell.  There's a little known frp game
called 'Chivalry and Sorcery' that takes this idea to an extreme:
the mage has to acquire various components, sometimes mundane like dog's
thigh bone, sometimes exotic like dragon skin, and enchant it before
it can be used for spells.  The enchanting takes a long time and has
high probability of failure, so the mage could spend years enchanting
the components for some high-level spell only to have the enchanting
fail and have to start over. 

Of all the suggestions for limiting magic, the material components is
the best one because it is "realistic", flexible (for the dm to determine
how difficult to acquire them), a good source for adventures, and the
players will appreciate their magic much more because it is more involved
(but not more boring) to acheive.

And for the dm's who like to set up scenarios but don't want the players
to know it is set up, it is possible to set up some various scenarios for
the material components of spells (some may be generic, some for specific
components), and it will be totally up to the players to figure out what
to go after, so they won't feel manipulated.

(The usual disclaimer that I don't have Chivalry & Sorcery in front of me
and it's been years since I looked at it.)

-Steve Clark    ...princeton!siemens!steve