D&D General It's all Jack Vance's fault

[Charlaquin]

Vance actually explains his magic system in the foreword to Rhialto the Marvellous. A spell, in Vancian magic, is a series of words, thoughts, and actions that attract a response from a supernatural entity that can sense them. These entities aren't necessarily intelligent, or even sentient. They range in power from minor madlings, through the quarrelsome sandestins, to the lesser daihaks. Temuchin classified the daihaks as a category including both 'demons' and 'gods.' When the magician constrains a spell in memory, the words in the brain throb with energy; this is the entity noticing that the first part of the operation has been completed. When the caster releases the spell, the entity performs whatever action the spell was related to, perhaps infusing an area with fire or a deluge of acid, or perhaps it merely removes carbon dioxide from the caster's lungs and replaces it with oxygen.

Each spell is different and precise. You can no more "modify" Rhialto's Green Turmoil to produce fire, than I can suddenly turn my sweat into drops of gold. Experimentation is fraught with dangers; while many of the more popular spells call on entities with the mental power of plankton, more potent entities can provide more potent effects, and are generally more mischievous and unreliable.

As a result, the most powerful magicians reduce their reliance on spells in favor of direct control of the supernatural entities in question. Different methods are required for each entity, and many remain unknown; Temuchin's disappearance (and the sudden reappearance of different body parts identified as coming from his still-living body, that have appeared in myriad places in the thousands of years since then) is believed to have been caused by his experiments regarding control of the daihaks. Most sorcerers prefer to use sandestins, who can be controlled by the use of chugs*, although not often with perfect success.

* chug: a semi-intelligent type of sandestin, which by a system too intricate to be presently detailed, works to control the sandestins. Even use of the word 'chug' is repellant to the sandestins.

Wow. An RPG that actually tried to emulate this magic system would be really cool!

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I would say D&D used a Vancian model almost 100% because of the specific Dying Earth short story "Mazirian the Magician" (not only the most D&D relevant of Vance's works, but also some of the tightest prose and most evocative world-building; per word count probably the most vital appendix N recommendation). The story follows a mage (of evil alignment) on a brief quest burning through the roughly five spells he, being of exceptional intelligence, can cram into his brain at one time. As presented in that particular story magic is just so gameable, being both absurdly powerful yet at the same time coming up against tight resource management restrictions. The Excellent Prismatic Spray will absolutely annihilate all the enemies before you, but then it's gone until you study with your books again. There are many magic systems in fiction, but very few that basically lay out a resource management game. As weird as it is, I think if I was a game designer struggling with how to incorporate magic and I read that particular story, it would be hard to resist cribbing it pretty hard. Personally I would have followed it a bit closer; in Vance nothing prevents a mage from loading up on spells again anytime they can take the time to study their books, we should have gotten short-rest casters who based on character level and ability can have a certain limit of overall levels of spell in their loadout at one time rather than having these additional artificial limitations like spells per day and spell slots.

But the huge downside of adopting this one, very distinctive and idiosyncratic approach to magic for a game drawing on the whole of fantasy literature, pop culture, etc. is that it doesn't really fit with most of those other fantasy settings you are drawing on, and a system of such powerful and readily available magic has huge worldbuilding consequences. I certainly won't blame Gygax for being drawn to the system of magic that was basically already built as a game system that just needed to be fleshed out, and that would let players wield ridiculously powerful magic. But it is very unfortunate that the dominant tabletop game is married to a magic system that is fundamentally incompatible with most fantasy fiction (including Vance once the fire and forget element was dropped).

 

[Umbran]

To be fair, Ascension’s system was intentionally both very powerful and very flexible. The horror of mage is of the “no one should wield such power” variety, so being able to do absurd things is very much on-theme. Basically, WoD in general and Mage in particular are not really aiming for game balance in the first place.

Yes, but that's the point.

And there's absurd from a strictly mortal point of view, and there's having a neophyte Mage turning an antediluvian vampire, one of the more powerful creatures you could run into in the WoD, into a harmless rock because, since it is undead, it is not alive, and therefore is considered Matter, and transforming one form of matter into another is a bog easy feat that can be accomplished by a basic build starting character.

 

[RealAlHazred]

Wow. An RPG that actually tried to emulate this magic system would be really cool!

Personally I would have followed it a bit closer; in Vance nothing prevents a mage from loading up on spells again anytime they can take the time to study their books, we should have gotten short-rest casters who based on character level and ability can have a certain limit of overall levels of spell in their loadout at one time rather than having these additional artificial limitations like spells per day and spell slots.

In my OSE game, I've been toying with a Vancian magician class, who can memorize up to their level in spells per day. There are two "levels" of spell: simple and formidable; formidable spells take up "1.5 levels" for memorization (this is also supported by Mazirian, who can memorize "six spells, or four of the most formidable.") Since OSE only goes to level 14 (and that's rare) it's not too outrageously spell-heavy. And spells have no level, but that doesn't mean they're all "equal in power." The Charm of Untiring Nourishment can keep you from needing to eat or breathe, but only until you eat or breathe yourself (or, you know, you go to sleep.) Meanwhile, the Excellent Prismatic Spray (as you noted) kills the target who fails their saving throw; and even on a success they take a lot of damage which may kill them. I'm not super-happy with it yet, but I'm still tinkering.

 

[niklinna]

Vance actually explains his magic system in the foreword to Rhialto the Marvellous. A spell, in Vancian magic, is a series of words, thoughts, and actions that attract a response from a supernatural entity that can sense them. These entities aren't necessarily intelligent, or even sentient. They range in power from minor madlings, through the quarrelsome sandestins, to the lesser daihaks. Temuchin classified the daihaks as a category including both 'demons' and 'gods.' When the magician constrains a spell in memory, the words in the brain throb with energy; this is the entity noticing that the first part of the operation has been completed. When the caster releases the spell, the entity performs whatever action the spell was related to, perhaps infusing an area with fire or a deluge of acid, or perhaps it merely removes carbon dioxide from the caster's lungs and replaces it with oxygen.

Each spell is different and precise. You can no more "modify" Rhialto's Green Turmoil to produce fire, than I can suddenly turn my sweat into drops of gold. Experimentation is fraught with dangers; while many of the more popular spells call on entities with the mental power of plankton, more potent entities can provide more potent effects, and are generally more mischievous and unreliable.

As a result, the most powerful magicians reduce their reliance on spells in favor of direct control of the supernatural entities in question. Different methods are required for each entity, and many remain unknown; Temuchin's disappearance (and the sudden reappearance of different body parts identified as coming from his still-living body, that have appeared in myriad places in the thousands of years since then) is believed to have been caused by his experiments regarding control of the daihaks. Most sorcerers prefer to use sandestins, who can be controlled by the use of chugs*, although not often with perfect success.

* chug: a semi-intelligent type of sandestin, which by a system too intricate to be presently detailed, works to control the sandestins. Even use of the word 'chug' is repellant to the sandestins.

So cool! You have given me renewed interest in completing my reading of The Dying Earth.

 

[niklinna]

One of the things I really liked about Vance's system was specificity. I would have magic-user players tell me, "I'm memorizing three burning hands today." And I'd say, "Okay, Jabberwocky's a short poem. I want you to memorize Jabberwocky before next session, but I want you to memorize it twice, in different parts of your brain." I got the point across. It encouraged caster players to find similar spells with slightly different effects that were nevertheless different spells. It only works if the GM actively makes sure there are alternatives that can be found.

This is interesting! The first thing I thought when I read "three burning hands" was, isn't that not possible in early D&D? Did you make up lots of homebrew spells to provide those alternatives?

 

[Oofta]

The way I explained it back when it was fire and forget was that you pre-cast 99% of the spell. That last utterance just triggered one of the spells you had loaded up and ready to go.

I actually assumed (right or wrong) that since D&D grew out of a wargame, spells and spell slots represented different types of artillery that the "wizard" unit had prepared.

Whatever the case, the way spells are handled in D&D is simple and easy to track so it works reasonably well. While I'd prefer some sort of spell point/mana pool for casters, that has it's own issues. Getting away from pre-selecting individual spells and "upcasting" spells is a move in the right direction. Now if they would fix bonus action spells.

 

[niklinna]

So can we take away from this that the fundamental components of Vance you are discussing to be...

1. That each spell is affixed in the mind ahead of time, and once cast, is lost from this rather limited reservoir, and (perhaps more importantly)...
2. That each spell is a rather specific, relatively well defined set of outcomes. There isn't a systematic theory about what is and isn't in-bounds for magic per se, just that there is this spell and it does ABC and this other spell and it does XYZ and effect LMNO seems less powerful than either of them and thematically fits what magic has been shown to do, but since no one knows spell LMNO it effectively doesn't exist.

Is that somewhat close?

Well that's my understanding from reading the first, hm, half?, of his stories. Really curious about that foreword to Rhialto the Marvelous, now.

FWIW, and to clarify-- Vance was apparently Gary's darling. He changed Arneson's magic system (which IIRC was more about preparing reagents and might have ended up with each spell being like a one-use magic item) to the 'Vancian' system (which honestly always deviated from Vance quite a bit. Particularly in that with Vance even the highest echelons of magic users wouldn't have dozens of spells prepared at once). He also supposedly resisted Dr. J. Eric Holmes suggestion of converting it to a spell-point system for the Holmes Basic edition.

I did not know this, very interesting.

 

[Cadence]

Vance actually explains his magic system in the foreword to Rhialto the Marvellous. A spell, in Vancian magic, is a series of words, thoughts, and actions that attract a response from a supernatural entity that can sense them. These entities aren't necessarily intelligent, or even sentient. They range in power from minor madlings, through the quarrelsome sandestins, to the lesser daihaks. Temuchin classified the daihaks as a category including both 'demons' and 'gods.' When the magician constrains a spell in memory, the words in the brain throb with energy; this is the entity noticing that the first part of the operation has been completed. When the caster releases the spell, the entity performs whatever action the spell was related to, perhaps infusing an area with fire or a deluge of acid, or perhaps it merely removes carbon dioxide from the caster's lungs and replaces it with oxygen.

Each spell is different and precise. You can no more "modify" Rhialto's Green Turmoil to produce fire, than I can suddenly turn my sweat into drops of gold. Experimentation is fraught with dangers; while many of the more popular spells call on entities with the mental power of plankton, more potent entities can provide more potent effects, and are generally more mischievous and unreliable.

As a result, the most powerful magicians reduce their reliance on spells in favor of direct control of the supernatural entities in question. Different methods are required for each entity, and many remain unknown; Temuchin's disappearance (and the sudden reappearance of different body parts identified as coming from his still-living body, that have appeared in myriad places in the thousands of years since then) is believed to have been caused by his experiments regarding control of the daihaks. Most sorcerers prefer to use sandestins, who can be controlled by the use of chugs*, although not often with perfect success.

* chug: a semi-intelligent type of sandestin, which by a system too intricate to be presently detailed, works to control the sandestins. Even use of the word 'chug' is repellant to the sandestins.

It really feels like the magic in Rhialto is a totally different thing than in Dying Earth, Overworld, and Cugel. Enough that I wonder when he decided magic involved sandestins, daihaks, and the like.

In any case Rhialto didn't come out until 1984 and so was too late to be an influence on early D&D.

As an aside, I also really recommend the "Songs of the Dying Earth" tribute anthology that has stories that fit the differing feels of each of the original books.

 

[niklinna]

One thing to note: Vancian magic as used in DnD has some helpful balancing effects - specifically, you're forced to spread out your power budget on a mix of different level spells (well, after 5th level or so). You can't just save up your points and only cast fireball. This is a good thing, and most spell point variant rules either end up being overtuned because the caster can always fire on full automatic (well, with a 5-minute work day but they're heavily incentivized to do that) - or they try to recreate this with additional limitations on high-level spells but those rules always seem kludgy.

It's not the only way to get the result... but it does get at least one positive result.

Yes, limited memorized spells (which as we've learned is at best half of Vancian magic) has some very good properties with regard to balancing things out in a game.

But the huge downside of adopting this one, very distinctive and idiosyncratic approach to magic for a game drawing on the whole of fantasy literature, pop culture, etc. is that it doesn't really fit with most of those other fantasy settings you are drawing on, and a system of such powerful and readily available magic has huge worldbuilding consequences. I certainly won't blame Gygax for being drawn to the system of magic that was basically already built as a game system that just needed to be fleshed out, and that would let players wield ridiculously powerful magic. But it is very unfortunate that the dominant tabletop game is married to a magic system that is fundamentally incompatible with most fantasy fiction (including Vance once the fire and forget element was dropped).

And here is the flip side! Those huge worldbuilding consequences have had an impact far beyond D&D itself.

I once toyed with a system where you had spell levels but casting your top-level spell was kinda like a 1-rep max, it would also reduce your ability to cast lots of lower-level spells, and recovery time would be figured relative to that. It got unwieldy fast. Fixed uses per level, with the change to multiple uses of a given prepared/known spell, really is quite elegant in a lot of ways.

The formulary of spells is a separate design axis from that, but as we've seen, there are some good reasons for that too, even though it brings certain constraints with it. But boy has it become the dominant paradigm. Even games where spellcasters only get a couple of spells, like Torg Eternity, have gobs and gobs of spells to choose from—in which case there wind up being gobs and gobs of spells nobody takes because when you only get three spells, you pick the most versatile or most frequently useful ones!