DCC: Stabilizing Magic?

[GothmogIV]

Rules-nerds, crunch-meisters, deep thinkers, unite! I could use some help workshopping an idea. Let me say from the get-go, I'm not asking if anyone likes this idea! I'm asking for people to help me think through the mechanics of the DCC rules related to magic users.

I recently played a fun DCC campaign with my group of very experienced players. It all went well, and was fun, but two of my players are sort of meh on DCC's magic system. Having played games with more stable magic systems (D&D of various editions, Chaosium games like CoC, Stormbringer, Dragonbane, etc.) they were used to predictable, reliable spells. They didn't love the crazy swinginess of the DCC magic system.

I was speaking to someone on Discord and they gave me an idea for how to make magic more stable (here's where we get rulesy):
When a wizard gets a new spell, they roll a d20 and add their modifiers (Int. and level). Whatever that number is, that's the spells effect every time they cast it. For example, say a wizard has the Charm spell. They roll, add mods, and end up with a 17. Whatever the spell effect is for a 17 on the Charm spell's description, that's what it does every time a wizard successfully casts it. Yes, you can still roll a 1 and face terrible consequences. Maybe a 20 means your spell can manifest differently. And: you can chose to spellburn, or use luck, to move your spell up to the next category (like, if you spell burn and juice your spell up to a 24, you could have whatever the spell effects are that are listed in that range). But rather than face the swinginess--both good and bad--you have the same effect each and every time you successfully cast.

I was thinking that a lawful wizard could have stable spells, a chaos wizard could use the regular rules, and a neutral wizard could pick per spell (i.e. this one is chaotic, this one is lawful/stable).

DCC friends, help me kick the tires on this idea. Does it work? (Again, not "Do I like this?" but mechanically...is it tenable?)

 

[Ath'kethin]

I think it would work.

I've also dealt with players accustomed to more magic-as-reliable-technology style spells turning up their nose at DCC's system. A good option is the Magician from The Dying Earth setting for DCC, who casts spells using what they call Rote Magic; its approach is very similar to what you describe.

Essentially, a magician learns a single way to cast a spell, based on the notes and experiences of previous generations of magician. When they learn a new spell, the magician rolls their spell check to determine that single way of casting. In Dying Earth they start with a D16 for this purpose, which gradually increases to a D30+4 as the magician goes up in level. The result of the check can never be lower than the minimum successful result on the spell's table; that is, the magician always casts the spell successfully after learning it. The spell will never just fail, but they also will never have the spectacular results that a higher roll would have garnered.

Each time the magician goes up a level they can reroll the result for a spell they know and choose whether to take the enw result or keep the old one. They can also choose, when casting a spell, to take a lower result than their check would normally indicate, since with some spells a lower check result is more useful in some situations.

In this variant, a magician can use Spellburn or burn luck when making their initial check when they learn the spell, but not when casting it. They also memorize their spells in a day, so they have to choose which spells they want for the day in the morning.

In short: mechanically I think your idea works fine; a similar approach has been extensively playtested and published by Goodman. What you describe isn't exactly the approach used there, but it isn't too different either. Your variations based on alignment are also interesting, and doesn't seem any more chaotic or troublesome having all wizards use the standard rules.

 

[GothmogIV]

I am going to take a look at that option. Thank you for your help!