Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.6.2.14 $; site siemens.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!siemens!steve
From: steve@siemens.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: A colorful magic system (1)
Message-ID: <26000005@siemens.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Apr-85 10:06:00 EST
Article-I.D.: siemens.26000005
Posted: Thu Apr 11 10:06:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Apr-85 06:52:12 EST
Lines: 100
Nf-ID: #N:siemens:26000005:000:5790
Nf-From: siemens!steve    Apr 11 10:06:00 1985


I posted this before but it didn't seem to make it out onto the net.

I wrote a message recently with a few 'teaser' comments about a magic
system I have worked up.  Since I received several requests for more,
I will try to post it over the next couple weeks.  (in several parts.)
This message is background material and a very breif overview.  The
system never was finished, but then no frp system ever is.  There is
a large amount of relative drudgery that never was done -- converting
all the D&D spells to fit into this system.  Also, the playtesting
showed some flaws that I never fixed.  As you may deduce, frp is very
much backburner for me these days.

So, here comes the background:

I started playing frp games when some wargame enthusiast friends of mine
talked me into playing a few scenarios from the fantasy supplement to
the Chainmail medieval miniatures rules (second edition).  A few months
later one of the guys' older brother came home from college with a set
of new rules called Dungeons and Dragons.  He had a copy of a copy of ...
a copy of the published booklets because the first printing sold out so
quickly.  So we all made copies of his copy, although it was getting
pretty illegible, and started to play.  We each had totally different
interpretations of the rules and that itself was a lot of fun.  Anyway,
I started making my own alterations from there, so my frp system is not
based on AD&D or even modern D&D, but they share a common ancestor.  I
independently came up with an alignment scheme similar to the two-
dimensional one used in AD&D today, although now I don't use alignment
very much.

To digress a moment, one of the funniest things a guy ever did back in
those early days, was to take a pike for his weapon on an expedition into
a dungeon.  He carried it over his shoulder, and when we came to some monsters
he was unable to turn it around in the 10' wide corridor, so he couldn't
help fight.  (He did this on purpose.)  He did get experience since our
best interpretation of the rules was that everyone with the party gets
experience, but he could never get away with that again.  What a sleazy
thing to do!

Back to my magic system:  it is very firmly based in the level of experience
type of system, which I kind of like.  It gives people a greater feeling
of accomplishment, I think, to go up a quantum jump in abilities every so
often, than to continuously dribble up by minute amounts.  But it's not
always very "realistic".  Anyway, magic is divided into ten areas of
subject called colors.  The colors correspond to the ten elements the
world is made of, you see.  I don't have my notes with me, so I can only
list a few right here:  black is earth, white is air, yellow is time, green
is plant life, brown is animal life, purple is magic itself, etc.  A beginning
mu selects his primary color, and his level of expertise in that color is
equal to his experience level.  He is also often known as "foo the bar"
where foo is his name and bar is his primary color.  If he is third level
of expertise in some color he is said to be of (or in) the third circle
of that color.

When an mu goes up a level, he also is able to increase his level of
expertise in one or two other colors (his colors that he has greater than
zero expertise are his secondary colors), but his greatest expertise must
always be in his primary color.  In order to actually gain the knowledge
of these, he must study for long periods of time under a higher-level mage
or do research for longer periods of time on his own, or at low levels
he can go away to mage university.

Besides the colors, there are different forms of doing magic.
I don't remember the categories exactly (remember I said I don't have
my notes?) but they are something like this:  one is enchanting items,
one is making brews, potions, ointments, etc., one is writing runes
that are triggered by some simple event (first level, by being broken),
and I think one is summoning demons but I'm not sure.  When an mu goes
up a level, he goes up one in his primary color and in one or two of
the set of all other colors plus the different forms.

Note that no form of magic is something the mu can do on the fly.  He
cannot get into a battle situation and suddenly decide to cast magic
missile; he must have previously enchanted some arrows, or prepared a
potion of Hitting Your Mark or something.  The fundamental difference
(from a gaming point of view) between clerics and mu's is that mu's
must do their preparations ahead of time while clerics can blunder into
a situation and pray themselves out of it.

Each spell requires expertise to some level in some color(s) as well as
some form of magic.  The low level spells are generally available in
all forms of magic and require expertise in one color only, but the
really powerful spells may require expertise in several colors to higher
degrees.  For example, (this is from faulty memory) enchanting a weapon
to +1 permanently requires 4th circle of red, 3rd circle of yellow, and
3rd circle of enchanting.  An mu could be able to do this at 4th level
(or so), but only if he studied exactly those things leading up to that,
and he would be good for not a whole lot else besides enchanting weapons
to +1 permanently, (or to +2 for "a few blows", or to +3 for one blow).

Illusionists are just mu's who specialise in casting illusions, no longer
a separate class.  (Druids are just clerics who worship the druidic gods,
too.  I am a firm believer in 3 character classes:  fighter mu and cleric.
Theives are fighters who spend all their time improving their theiving
skills instead of fighting.)

So long for now, I hope you're not too impatient for me to go find my notes
and follow up with some detail.

Steve Clark    ...princeton!siemens!steve