The Great Conjunction (RPG DESIGN CONTEST)

[Lord Xtheth]

Try LX, and see what ya get. At worst you can always have the skeleton of a work you can develop later.

Um... what's LX?

Edit: My Brain Fart ended while I wrote that question... you were reffering to me.

durr

 

[Jack7]

Edit: My Brain Fart...

happens to everybody.

 

[fuindordm]

I've thought about this for a long time and I've decided to skip spells as well. So I'm with RCX on this one. Rather I'm gonna have magic (arcane magic) and miracles (divine magic) and people can create rituals, spells, capabilities out of that in any way they want, given a few simple guidelines and limitations I set out. I gonna try and avoid, as much as possible, telling them how to use or employ their magic, rather I'm gonna tell them what it can or can't do, and then let them do with it whatever they want. That's the way I'm also gonna approach magic.

A really open-ended system would be great, but I don't think I'm up to it for this game. I fully intend for players to make up their own effects, but it will be more like D&D spell research than Ars Magica or Mage: the Ascension.

The spell list can also provide a lot of flavor text for the setting, and serve as a way of demonstrating what each kind of magic can and can't do.

Ben

 

[Jack7]

A really open-ended system would be great, but I don't think I'm up to it for this game. I fully intend for players to make up their own effects, but it will be more like D&D spell research than Ars Magica or Mage: the Ascension.

The spell list can also provide a lot of flavor text for the setting, and serve as a way of demonstrating what each kind of magic can and can't do.

In the case you misunderstood me Ben I'm just saying that's the way I'm gonna do it, not the way everybody should. I didn't know Ars Magica did that though. I'm really gonna have to track that down. Lots of people have suggested I get it.

 

[EP]

A really open-ended system would be great, but I don't think I'm up to it for this game. I fully intend for players to make up their own effects, but it will be more like D&D spell research than Ars Magica or Mage: the Ascension.

Same, but I think mine is starting to look more and more like Mage. Never played it, but have heard that it basically allows you to come up with whatever effect you like so long as you have the right power level for it, or something.

So far, I have twelve spell "categories," each of which is more of an effect. Flame spells, for example, are anything that uses fire and can include burning wood to summoning a serpent made of fire and ash. Depending on the range and overall damage of the spell, you have to spend points to make it work. The more you go, the fewer points you have, blah, blah.

Now that I think of it, I can just cut back on the number of spells and use that space for suits. Eureka!

 

[RandomCitizenX]

Same, but I think mine is starting to look more and more like Mage. Never played it, but have heard that it basically allows you to come up with whatever effect you like so long as you have the right power level for it, or something.

So far, I have twelve spell "categories," each of which is more of an effect. Flame spells, for example, are anything that uses fire and can include burning wood to summoning a serpent made of fire and ash. Depending on the range and overall damage of the spell, you have to spend points to make it work. The more you go, the fewer points you have, blah, blah.

Now that I think of it, I can just cut back on the number of spells and use that space for suits. Eureka!

I think that when dynamic magic is around it is hard to avoid Mage. To me it is the 300lbs gorilla of dynamic magic design. The system I am working on is broken up into three arts and three material mediums, with each one being progressively harder. If you try to use the 1st art on the 1st medium you won't have much difficult getting an effect that falls under that art. If you try to use the 3rd art on the 3rd medium, then you either need to be lucky or powerful to get the effect just the way you want. Hopefully this is enough to set my work away from mage. I think your categories sound promising, especially when combined with the bits of setting I have seen posted here and there.



Just wondering for other entries, how heroic/powerful are you expecting PCs to be out of the gate? I know for my game the PCs are already going to have a leg up against the average person in the setting due to "fate" or what have you.

 

[EP]

Just wondering for other entries, how heroic/powerful are you expecting PCs to be out of the gate? I know for my game the PCs are already going to have a leg up against the average person in the setting due to "fate" or what have you.

Safe to say they'll be more powerful. Much more. But that's also because I'm thinking epic sci-fi for combat in this one. One guy against fifty kind of stuff. Then it's just a matter of providing nasty bad guys to make it a challenge one-on-one.

 

[Jack7]

I looked into Ars Magica and got a copy. It's not what I'm doing with how magic works but it is quite fascinating. Now I guess I'm going to have to look into Mage and see how that works.

Just wondering for other entries, how heroic/powerful are you expecting PCs to be out of the gate? I know for my game the PCs are already going to have a leg up against the average person in the setting due to "fate" or what have you.

I guess that depends upon how one defines powerful. A lot of people will be more powerful politically or in authority, or in other respects to power, especially when a character is just starting out. That is the characters can start from any social or political or background position in my setting. So in that respect they will start form wherever they start. (Though maybe I should devise a way in which people can develop backgrounds based on social potion that may or may not give them other types of advantages. Or disadvantages for that matter.) And how much influence they have over others will also be another matter altogether.

As for how the average character stands in relation to the average person (at the beginning of their professional career) I reckon I should address that in some way as to how they stand in relation to magic. Maybe though I should make magic influence access to social, political, and economic status rather than the other way around.

One thing I have decided for certain, magicians will not be "special" in regards to other types of characters, fighters, agents, etc. like in Ars Magica. Though I like the idea of them being secretive and covert. At least the human ones. Very much so.

I've also decided that I'm going to make the Wizard a proto-scientist and natural scientist, an illusionist, cartographer, and an inventor and engineer. And I'm going to make the Mage an alchemist and chemist, an astrologer, a sort of psychic and a doctor. They will both be sages and experts, of a kind. Those won't be limits to those classes, just major capabilities. Wizards and Mages will be human character "classes."

Humanoid characters will have "classes" that correspond to the more traditional D&D Wizard.

(I always thought humans and humanoids should have very different ways of looking at and approaching the world, and since they would also have different innate abilities and skills, would naturally develop very different professions [or classes]. Just as Medieval Europe developed the idea of the Paladin and Templar and Knight Errant and the Japanese the Samurai and Ronin, and that's a wide range of difference based upon nothing more than variances of geography and within dissimilar human culture, you would naturally expect Humans and Elves to also develop radically different approaches to culture, society, duty, obligation, and profession. The idea that radically different races [species really] and cultures would develop the exact same expressions of adventuring profession, or outlook, always seemed a real weakness of the D&D model to me, as it developed later anyways, with wholesale "be anything and everything you like no matter your background." I suspect they'd also have very, very, very different ways of looking at both "magic" and "divine magic," and religion. For instance a human cleric would be nothing like an dwarven one anymore than a Christian cleric would be the same as a Muslim one. And a human Wizard would likely be very little like an elven Wizard. Why would they be similar? Though over time they might become slightly more compatible and transform over time as each begins to influence the other more directly. Eventually creating a sort of hybrid profession, maybe even a hybrid culture if they interacted often enough. More likely though they would create a sort of racial and cultural sympathy, where one side or the other comes to admire certain aspects of the other and how they operate. An elf might convert and desire to become a Paladin, though he would be next to unique, or a human might want to become "elf-like" and strive to become an elven-type Wizard, rather than a human type Wizard. But that would be mainly the function of setting, how cultures and magic and religion and professions and other things "transform" over time.)

Otherwise, I have decided that Sorcerers and Warlocks will be enemies of the Wizard and Magi.

And clerics and paladins and others will also have their own natural enemies or nemeses.

So the character "classes" or professions will have built in character/NPC game opposition.

 

[fuindordm]

I'm definitely not aiming for superheroes! I expect characters to be skilled normals, and about half the party to have access to some kind of magic. Even dedicated magicians, however, won't start out with a lot of power. They need to have some cool abilities to look forward to as they develop...

All forms of magic are considered spiritual or divine in my setting. The True Speech is a faint echo of divine influence over the world, Alchemists pursue a spiritual quest as they study the nature of matter, Astrologers devote themselves to learning the divine will expressed in stars and planets, and Theurgists speak directly with spirits. Since all these paths result in personal power, there is an element of society that considers them prideful or impious. But on the other hand, practitioners argue that this is just how the world works.

 

[helium3]

Uhhh. Please add me to the list of people who intend to submit something?