Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8805009" data-attributes="member: 18">I mean, this is a weird question, because it's so easy to answer, because other RPGs exist. Here are some options from other RPGs:1) A simple system where you know certain spells and make a relatively simple test to see if you can cast them. There's no need for it to be complicated, frustrating, or full of loopholes.Good examples would be tons of PtbA games, including Dungeon World (which is a good illustration of how you don't really need Vancian to do a D&D-emulating game), the extremely well-designed "Resistance"-systems games like Spire and Heart, or even certain editions of Shadowrun (which is a nightmare of a game, but not because of the actual spell system). White Wolf games also often take this sort of approach.2) A spell-point system that is designed in from the ground up. It doesn't need to require "a lot of extra tracking and overhead", and the problem re: "spam powerful spells" literally doesn't have to happen - just have a shallower pool that is easier to refresh.You can absolutely create those problems - but that's a design choice. Neither is inherent to spell-point systems.Vast numbers of games have taken this approach and experimented with all kinds of different pools.3) Various games present systems which allow you to essentially create magical efforts on the fly, and don't require the DM to "figure out of it works", because they have a well-designed and well-explained system to support that.This often works best in a magic-centric game, or one where all the PCs are casters, but arguably 3E and 5E also work best in that situation! Still, loads of games have done it well.4) An actual Vancian system, like say, Worlds Without Number.5) A system where you burn endurance or some other resource rather than spell points or slots.6) Some combination of the above.I mean, [USER=6801845]@Oofta[/USER], do you really want this answered, because we could just make a giant list of RPGs and go through their magic/magic-equivalent systems, and I think we'll find most of them are pretty functional, and whilst you might not think they're "better" than quasi-Vancian slot-based (which 5E uses), they're certainly workable, and some are outright impressive.</blockquote>

Verification