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

[niklinna]

"E, I, and Y make the G sound 'juh""

My 7 year old learned that in 1st grade. Kinda like the "I before E except after C" thing. If e, i, or y follows a g (as long as it's not the first letter in a word), then it's a "juh" sound, like "agent" or "egypt" or "digit".

Ah yeah I missed that! Thanks for the highlight.

 

[Sacrosanct]

If it's as reliable as i before e except after c, then there will be more words that break the rule than follow it.

How many times does it work? How many does it not? What’s that %, then tell me if it’s reliable or not

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

How many times does it work? How many does it not? What’s that %, then tell me if it’s reliable or not

If it's as reliable as i before e except after c, then there will be more words that break the rule than follow it.

'weird' is the only exception I can think of off the top of my head...

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

'weird' is the only exception I can think of off the top of my head...

Well, look at that...

 

[Stormonu]

Never read Vance's works.

If it were done from scratch now, I think I'd prefer a system where the spell has a fixed DC to cast*, getting more difficult with each repeat casting (ranging from +0 to +10 per spell cast - akin to the spell's level to the difficulty each time). You could increase the DC to make the spell more potent, last long or such. Spellcasters would have a small bundle of spells they know, probably along the current "known spells" they get.

* casting it on an opponent would be something like DC 10 + target's defense attribute + spell difficulty.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Aside! How do you pronounce "Cugel". I can think of three ways off the top of my head:

• Rhymes with "cudgel".
• More like "coo-gel", with a soft 'g' like in "gelatin".
• Or like "coo-ghel", with a hard 'g' like in "gelding". (This is how I pronounce it.)

I was under the impression that it was supposed to be pronounced "cuh-ghel", with a hard "g", but I don't know why I'm under that impression.

In my head he's "Cudgel", because that's the name that fit his personality (and I got through most of the first book before I noticed the spelling). He just sort of blunders about casually ruining people's lives and occasionally overthrowing a society or two in pursuit of his own short-term needs. Seems like the human embodiement of a cudgel to me. Maybe he's not the most obviously cudgel-like person (he is Cugel the Clever after all), but when he comes to your town expect things to get smashed.

 

[dragoner]

Vecna is Vance, according to Luke Gygax. I love the Dying Earth stories, I think it would be a cooler way to play than pseudo-medieval.

 

[Fifth Element]

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.

The obvious retort would be "If I memorize Jabberwocky, and then recite it, it doesn't disappear from my memory. In fact, the act of reciting it will if anything solidify it in my memory, making it easier to remember and recite again without having to study it again. So it seems this is not analagous to this spell-casting system."

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

The obvious retort would be "If I memorize Jabberwocky, and then recite it, it doesn't disappear from my memory. In fact, the act of reciting it will if anything solidify it in my memory, making it easier to remember and recite again without having to study it again. So it seems this is not analagous to this spell-casting system."

I dunno, a lot of what I learned in high school vanished from my brain right after the final exam.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Never read Vance's works.

If it were done from scratch now, I think I'd prefer a system where the spell has a fixed DC to cast*, getting more difficult with each repeat casting (ranging from +0 to +10 per spell cast - akin to the spell's level to the difficulty each time). You could increase the DC to make the spell more potent, last long or such. Spellcasters would have a small bundle of spells they know, probably along the current "known spells" they get.

* casting it on an opponent would be something like DC 10 + target's defense attribute + spell difficulty.

I suspect making how many times you can cast dependent on being lucky with dice would not go over well with a lot of people.