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From: tim@k.cs.cmu.edu (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: Re: Illusionists
Message-ID: <674@k.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 26-Nov-85 17:10:22 EST
Article-I.D.: k.674
Posted: Tue Nov 26 17:10:22 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Nov-85 21:31:13 EST
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I'd like to hear less about interpretation of the Phantasmal Force spell and
more about how illusions ought to work in the best of all possible
campaigns.  Remember, any DM can throw out or rewrite spells that she or he
finds unworkable.

To get things started: Illusions are not merely false sensory data.  Go down
to the hologram gallery on Haight Street in San Francisco and put your
finger on the button in the dish.  You saw it, but that didn't fool your
finger into feeling it, because it isn't really there.  Nor would the sight
of a sword swinging into your arm be sufficient to cause you to react in
pain; you would notice that there was no tactile impression.

Second, illusions are too complex to be maintained by a person.  There is
simply no way anyone could have strong enough powers of visualization to
produce a really convincing illusion of any complex phenomenon from someone
else's perspective, matching eye movements, Dopplering, and so forth.  It
would be even more ridiculous to imagine that someone could produce a
multi-sensory hologram which would appear correct from all directions.  Some
sort of auxiliary processor (that is, a spirit) would be necessary.

Third, illusions may be disbelieved, and they will have no effect.  In
literature, this is usually represented as an act of will on the part of the
disbeliever.  What this suggests most to me is shrugging off a spiritual
attack.  Disbelieving does not go particularly well with the view that
illusions fabricate temporary reality.

So the illusion system I would most like to see completely discards all this
AD&D nonsense, which (with typically absurd Gygaxian logic) is clearly based
on an idea that a Phantasmal Force is false sensory data, and also the
RuneQuest III "temporary reality" approach, which disallows disbelieving.
Instead, illusionists would summon, bind, and control spirits of illusion,
which can be set upon various people to psychically attack them.  If a
person realizes that she or he is under spiritual attack, then an attempt to
throw off the spirit (disbelieving) may be made.  If not, then the person's
nervous sytem reacts precisely as if the illusion were real.  There would
be, for example, no blood from a wound, but to the person affected it would
look as if the red red krovvy were spurting out in torrents, the part of the
body affected would be useless, and if enough blood were lost, the whole
nervous system would go into shock or shut down entirely.

Instead of having "more real illusions, with more sensory compoenents" as
the illusionist gains experience, as in AD&D, more powerful illusionists
would be able to summon more spirits or spirits that could affect more
people, make it more difficult for a victim to realize that the phenomena
are not real (by using more intelligent spirits), and summon spirits of
illusion that are harder to shake off (disbelieve).

Comments?
-=-
Tim Maroney, Professional Heretic, CMU Center for Art and Technology
tim@k.cs.cmu.edu       | uucp: {seismo,decwrl,ucbvax,etc.}!k.cs.cmu.edu!tim
CompuServe: 74176,1360 | God is not dead; he just smells funny.