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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 3222579" data-attributes="member: 30001">The spells in Vance:1.  have unique names2.  have fairly well-defined effects (ie. there's not a whole lot of shaping and manipulation of parameters - pretty much just choose your area of effect and cast)3.  they exist in books4.  you have to know them to cast them - just because you've thought of the Excellent Prismatic Spray doesn't mean you can cast it.5.  the more trained your mind is for magic, the more spells you can cast6.  when you cast it it's gone from your memoryCompare this to Gandalf:  he never names his spells, never deals with a spell book to cast them, and never forgets a spell after he casts it.  IMO the differences between Vance's magic and DnD are not really significant - because DnD is a game, and has level-based advancement and different character classes, you would expect things to be better defined in DnD than they need to be in Vance's fiction.  Basically, DnD magic is far more like Vancian magic than it is like anything else.  Also, consider DeCamp's "Compleat Enchanter" series - which AFAICT contributed the "Verbal, Somatic, Material" idea to DnD's system.  The thing that Vance and deCamp have in common with their magic systems is that they are described from the point of view of the caster - the protagonists of the stories are spell casters.  The POV in Howard and Tolkien is from the non-spellcaster perspective, and IMO there isn't much of a magic system at all.</blockquote>

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