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From: cdrigney@uokvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: Question on resurrection
Message-ID: <2400116@uokvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Dec-85 03:36:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uokvax.2400116
Posted: Mon Dec  9 03:36:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Dec-85 04:26:55 EST
References: <2200040@uok.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:uok.UUCP:2200040:uokvax.UUCP:2400116:000:1976
Nf-From: uokvax.UUCP!cdrigney    Dec  9 02:36:00 1985


> /* Written  6:09 pm  Dec  8, 1985 by whherron@uok.UUCP in uokvax.UUCP:net.games.frp */
>  During a campaign, one of our characters was killed.  A
> resurrection spell was cast, and worked...but the character
> had forgotten all of the spells that he had memorized prior
> to tthe campaign.
> 
> [...] The DM argued that a) this was a traumatic injury,
> and b) that spells are saved in a "different" kind of memory
> (emphasis is DM's).
> 
> Is there any precedent for his decision (preferably in print
> somewhere)?  Should there be?

Precedent doesn't matter in FRP; it's the GM's world, and his
world-view is what counts.  His interpretation seems reasonable,
although if he's suggesting that spells are stored in short-term
rather than long-term memory, then the character should also
forget everything else he was only keeping in short term memory
when he was killed.  As a rough approximation, one might suggest
that would be all but the most important things that had happened
to him, back to his last REM sleep.

Or is the GM suggesting a 3rd kind of memory, "magic memory" as
it were, which only some people have?  That would be an elegant
way of explaining why only some people can cast spells, and those
who can't cast spells can't understand them at all no matter how
bright they may be otherwise, and why a mage forgets his spell as
he casts it (it's "erase after reading" memory).

A 3rd possibility is that your mage's memory was volatile RAM -
dying is like turning the power off, and resurrection is a
reboot.  Perhaps the mage should move his more important spells
to ROM.  Fascinating new vistas appear!  Just think of PROMs,
EPROMs, high-speed cache memory, spell books as offline media,
disk storage, *real* head crashes, and magical magnets like
feeblemind!! Am I serious?  Should I be? :-)

		--Carl Rigney
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