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<blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 3364599" data-attributes="member: 710">Yes, Earthdawn seems like a good example for different &quot;advances&quot; in magic. But it's not only a question of advancement of understanding, it was also a question of the ebbs and flow of mana in the world. Shadowrun also offers a kind of magic advancements over the course of its editions. The rules for magic changed slightly. A notable difference might be between 3rd and the new 4th edition: In 3rd edition, spellcasters were divided into Shamans and Hermeticians. Shamans had a Totem and could conjure nature spirits. They were &quot;spontanous&quot; conjurer, in that they could conjure a new spirit on the fly, though they could only retain control over a single spirit at the same time. Hermeticians could conjure elementals, which required a long ritual. They could bound multiple elementals with this rituals, and could call and control them individually. In the 4th edition, the game mechanis for magic were more streamlined, and as a result, the strict distinction between shamanistic and hermetic magic was removed. Every spellcaster could summon spirits on the fly or bind spirits. The in-game logic was that magicians have learned that the distinction was artifical and that the percieved limits didn't really exist. (I guess not all SR groups were happy with these changes, by the way, though I appreciated the streamlining a lot.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mustrum_Ridcully, post: 3364599, member: 710"] Yes, Earthdawn seems like a good example for different "advances" in magic. But it's not only a question of advancement of understanding, it was also a question of the ebbs and flow of mana in the world. Shadowrun also offers a kind of magic advancements over the course of its editions. The rules for magic changed slightly. A notable difference might be between 3rd and the new 4th edition: In 3rd edition, spellcasters were divided into Shamans and Hermeticians. Shamans had a Totem and could conjure nature spirits. They were "spontanous" conjurer, in that they could conjure a new spirit on the fly, though they could only retain control over a single spirit at the same time. Hermeticians could conjure elementals, which required a long ritual. They could bound multiple elementals with this rituals, and could call and control them individually. In the 4th edition, the game mechanis for magic were more streamlined, and as a result, the strict distinction between shamanistic and hermetic magic was removed. Every spellcaster could summon spirits on the fly or bind spirits. The in-game logic was that magicians have learned that the distinction was artifical and that the percieved limits didn't really exist. (I guess not all SR groups were happy with these changes, by the way, though I appreciated the streamlining a lot.) [/QUOTE]

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