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<blockquote data-quote="Riley37" data-source="post: 7444424" data-attributes="member: 6786839"><p>The degree to which the rules for PC spellcasting are consistent and predictable, should match the degree to which PCs understand magic as consistent and predictable. </p><p></p><p>On one hand, there is a fictional setting, in which there is a University which teaches students how to do magic, and lesson 1 is that magic *actively resists attempts to confine and systematize it*, so watch out. Learn what has already been learned. if you do too many experiments using scientific method, magic might cause a laboratory fine in which you die horribly. *That* has been established, by trial and error, repeatedly, and if you wanna become the next researcher to die in a laboratory fire, the University says "not in OUR laboratory". Listen to lectures and read books, and play within the boundaries established as safe, before you push any further. This is a paradigm in which PCs can study and learn wizardry, but there's an in-universe reason NOT to ask certain questions.</p><p></p><p>On another hand, if mages consistently learn first-level spells, and THEN learn second-level spells, and every mage ever has become capable of casting Detect Magic *before* they became capable of casting Detect Thoughts, then of course mages understand that there's a difference between Detect Magic and Detect Thoughts, and when mage A meets mage B, "what's the most powerful spell you can cast?" is in-universe shorthand for level of magery.</p><p></p><p>That said, there are FRPG rules, in which magic is less consistent and predictable than it is in 5E D&D. In some FRPGs, casting a spell doesn't ALWAYS work. It is as variable as playing a musical instrument, or climbing a cliff; or even more so; that is, there's a skill check, *every time a mage casts a spell*, and a botch is ALWAYS a possible outcome, though it's a minimizable risk (with appropriate preparations for a simple spell). In Shadowrun, for example, there's a skill check AND there's also areas in which magic is stronger or weaker (kinda like the Weave in Forgotten Realms). See also, the Wizard of Earthsea books: "rules change, in the Reaches".</p><p></p><p>Those rules systems require more effort to run. Or more DM rulings. Maybe magic works consistently in the setting, maybe not so much; what I want, is a close match between the level of consistency in the rules for the PCs, and the level of consistency in the understanding of the characters in the setting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Riley37, post: 7444424, member: 6786839"] The degree to which the rules for PC spellcasting are consistent and predictable, should match the degree to which PCs understand magic as consistent and predictable. On one hand, there is a fictional setting, in which there is a University which teaches students how to do magic, and lesson 1 is that magic *actively resists attempts to confine and systematize it*, so watch out. Learn what has already been learned. if you do too many experiments using scientific method, magic might cause a laboratory fine in which you die horribly. *That* has been established, by trial and error, repeatedly, and if you wanna become the next researcher to die in a laboratory fire, the University says "not in OUR laboratory". Listen to lectures and read books, and play within the boundaries established as safe, before you push any further. This is a paradigm in which PCs can study and learn wizardry, but there's an in-universe reason NOT to ask certain questions. On another hand, if mages consistently learn first-level spells, and THEN learn second-level spells, and every mage ever has become capable of casting Detect Magic *before* they became capable of casting Detect Thoughts, then of course mages understand that there's a difference between Detect Magic and Detect Thoughts, and when mage A meets mage B, "what's the most powerful spell you can cast?" is in-universe shorthand for level of magery. That said, there are FRPG rules, in which magic is less consistent and predictable than it is in 5E D&D. In some FRPGs, casting a spell doesn't ALWAYS work. It is as variable as playing a musical instrument, or climbing a cliff; or even more so; that is, there's a skill check, *every time a mage casts a spell*, and a botch is ALWAYS a possible outcome, though it's a minimizable risk (with appropriate preparations for a simple spell). In Shadowrun, for example, there's a skill check AND there's also areas in which magic is stronger or weaker (kinda like the Weave in Forgotten Realms). See also, the Wizard of Earthsea books: "rules change, in the Reaches". Those rules systems require more effort to run. Or more DM rulings. Maybe magic works consistently in the setting, maybe not so much; what I want, is a close match between the level of consistency in the rules for the PCs, and the level of consistency in the understanding of the characters in the setting. [/QUOTE]
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