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It's all Jack Vance's fault
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<blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8804554" data-attributes="member: 6988941"><p>I would say D&D used a Vancian model almost 100% because of the specific <em>Dying Earth</em> short story "Mazirian the Magician" (not only the most D&D relevant of Vance's works, but also some of the tightest prose and most evocative world-building; per word count probably the most vital appendix N recommendation). The story follows a mage (of evil alignment) on a brief quest burning through the roughly five spells he, being of exceptional intelligence, can cram into his brain at one time. As presented in that particular story magic is just so gameable, being both absurdly powerful yet at the same time coming up against tight resource management restrictions. The Excellent Prismatic Spray will absolutely annihilate all the enemies before you, but then it's gone until you study with your books again. There are many magic systems in fiction, but very few that basically lay out a resource management game. As weird as it is, I think if I was a game designer struggling with how to incorporate magic and I read that particular story, it would be hard to resist cribbing it pretty hard. Personally I would have followed it a bit closer; in Vance nothing prevents a mage from loading up on spells again anytime they can take the time to study their books, we should have gotten short-rest casters who based on character level and ability can have a certain limit of overall levels of spell in their loadout at one time rather than having these additional artificial limitations like spells per day and spell slots.</p><p></p><p>But the huge downside of adopting this one, very distinctive and idiosyncratic approach to magic for a game drawing on the whole of fantasy literature, pop culture, etc. is that it doesn't really fit with most of those other fantasy settings you are drawing on, and a system of such powerful and readily available magic has huge worldbuilding consequences. I certainly won't blame Gygax for being drawn to the system of magic that was basically already built as a game system that just needed to be fleshed out, and that would let players wield ridiculously powerful magic. But it is very unfortunate that the dominant tabletop game is married to a magic system that is fundamentally incompatible with most fantasy fiction (including Vance once the fire and forget element was dropped).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Benjamin Olson, post: 8804554, member: 6988941"] I would say D&D used a Vancian model almost 100% because of the specific [I]Dying Earth[/I] short story "Mazirian the Magician" (not only the most D&D relevant of Vance's works, but also some of the tightest prose and most evocative world-building; per word count probably the most vital appendix N recommendation). The story follows a mage (of evil alignment) on a brief quest burning through the roughly five spells he, being of exceptional intelligence, can cram into his brain at one time. As presented in that particular story magic is just so gameable, being both absurdly powerful yet at the same time coming up against tight resource management restrictions. The Excellent Prismatic Spray will absolutely annihilate all the enemies before you, but then it's gone until you study with your books again. There are many magic systems in fiction, but very few that basically lay out a resource management game. As weird as it is, I think if I was a game designer struggling with how to incorporate magic and I read that particular story, it would be hard to resist cribbing it pretty hard. Personally I would have followed it a bit closer; in Vance nothing prevents a mage from loading up on spells again anytime they can take the time to study their books, we should have gotten short-rest casters who based on character level and ability can have a certain limit of overall levels of spell in their loadout at one time rather than having these additional artificial limitations like spells per day and spell slots. But the huge downside of adopting this one, very distinctive and idiosyncratic approach to magic for a game drawing on the whole of fantasy literature, pop culture, etc. is that it doesn't really fit with most of those other fantasy settings you are drawing on, and a system of such powerful and readily available magic has huge worldbuilding consequences. I certainly won't blame Gygax for being drawn to the system of magic that was basically already built as a game system that just needed to be fleshed out, and that would let players wield ridiculously powerful magic. But it is very unfortunate that the dominant tabletop game is married to a magic system that is fundamentally incompatible with most fantasy fiction (including Vance once the fire and forget element was dropped). [/QUOTE]
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