Chaldfont said:
Weren't those books inspired by a D&D campaign anyway?
I too remember reading the Magician books as a kid and loving them. The Riftwar was a really cool idea.
Yeah, they were based on an old D&D campaign, back in the 70's....then they adapted to their own rules, and Raymond Feist is writing novels which take place in the time leading up to where the campaign setting was at. So actually, the Riftware, Shadow War, and Conclave of Shadows series are all actually in the past. Even the dragons are almost out of D&D....he's got gold and silver dragons, as well as the other colours, though the alignments of them work differently. More like Eberron where you can have evil gold dragons, though most aren't.
I took part in a thread on the WotC boards where we were trying to work out how the magic system, which is differentiated between Lesser and Greater Paths would work. There were some really good ideas flying around.
I really hope they're following through with someone on this. I think I remember reading that Raymond Feist was hung up over the fact that the D&D magic rules couldn't cover his vision of how magic in Midkemia works....yet he may not have been aware of D20, and the flexibility of the system. Someone needs to show him the variant magic systems from Midnight, Wheel of Time, Black Company, Elements of Magic, and others, to show him just what can be done.
I'm thinking something like the standard wizard, or the magician class from Birthright 3E for lesser magicians (has to memorize, but limited to enchantments, illusions, divinations, or spells from other schools limited to lvl 1 and 2), and the Mage from Elements of magic (completely flexible spellcasting), or Wizard from Black Company campaign setting would work to cover the two extremes.
I'd be all over a Midkemia game done by Green Ronin....or maybe even Mongoose. I've heard they did great things with Conan, though I haven't looked at it.
I'd love to contribute to such a product myself. I've always been a huge fan of the novels.
Banshee
