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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9484714" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Interestingly while I was checking my sources for comment #97, I came across a couple of forum references to how Dave Arneson said that Blackmoor originally used a spell point system, and in that same letter to A&E in July '75, Gary opined that spell points would be a more flexible and logical system, but would be too complex and detailed.Gary Gygax, A&E #2 (July 1975):But in April '76 in The Strategic Review, in that detailed article on the D&D magic system, Gary makes no mention of spell points at all.And by January 1980 in The Dragon #33, AD&D's Magic System: How and Why It Works, he openly disparages spell points as unbalanced:He then goes into a detailed discussion of verbal, somatic, and material components and how he thinks they make spells more balanced, believable and of "realistic flavor", and toward the end goes into a bit of speculation about how those components might be detailed more, categorized and regularized in the future, and extrapolated on to expand the magic system further.Whereas Dave Arneson, for example in Pegasus issue 1 (1981), was still talking up the virtues of spell points and saying that's how magic was originally supposed to work in D&D.Although if you read First Fantasy Campaign, it indicates that Blackmoor primarily used spell formulae, where you needed material components/ingredients to power the spells, such as "Super Berries". FFC also indicates that Constitution factored into how many spells you could cast.</blockquote>

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