D&D General Who Invents Spells, and How Old Are They

[Teemu]

I usually dont use the spells in the PHB as ''spells'' in fiction: they are a description of the effect produced by expending a spell slot on a custom/personnal/setting specific spell.

ie: Wizard Bob in my game doesnt cast ''Fireball'', he cast ''Invoke the Sovereign Pyre'' as spell creating the ''Fireball'' effect, designed by the cultist of Imix somewhere in the Hordelands and who found its way to his spellbook when he traded his best shoes and a nice bottle of chianti for it.

So even is 2 spellcasters have the same spell effects loadout, they dont necessarily have the same spells in their books.

I think this is the most coherent approach. If we assume that the spells we have in the PHB and other products are specific creations (or maybe given by gods or nature spirits), then what about monsters' innate spells that are identical? If shatter is actually Mordenkainen's shatter, what about the monster that casts the same spell because it needed a sound-based spell for flavor? Or if fireball was created by a Netherese mage, why does a fire elemental creature cast the same exact spell innately? Or a cleric who receives fireball as a domain spell? It doesn't add up.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah, that's Tolkien's ethos alright. One part rejection of the modern industrial world and the horrors of World War I, one part a particular line of Catholic thought holding that the world was perfect at the beginning in the Garden of Eden and it's been all downhill since. For better or for worse, Middle Earth was his personal creation and it really reflect him. It's just, being one of the foundations of a new genre, his every little quirk got encoded as a new tradition.

Well, it isn't just a Catholic notion there. Europe still carries the legacy of Rome. I relatively recently learned how much Europe collapsed after the end of the Roman Empire--with some cities literally collapsing into occupying just the amphitheater, and that being sufficiently spacious to hold the whole town's population! And the Greeks themselves often saw themselves as the weak, feeble, flawed descendants of an ancient, lost golden age, with the preceding era of Greek culture being seen as the last echoes of that bygone age of greatness (that is, the era of the Homeric myths.)

Idolizing a forgotten past is a pretty common European thing, and I'm fairly sure it's found in Chinese myth as well (but it's been a while, I could be mistaken.) With Europe in particular, it really was the case that for something like 800 years, they couldn't really match the feats of engineering and architecture of the ancients, and it's taken modern science for us to figure out some of the things that made their work so durable (e.g. the recent discovery of the self-healing properties of Roman concrete, or the slightly less recent discovery that using seawater in concrete can make it dramatically harder.)

Consider the enormous amount of ancient literature lost in Europe but preserved in the Arab world before returning through Al-Andalus, and the nearly-unquestionable status of thinkers like Euclid, Galen, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, etc., and you get a justifiable sense in which the "great works" of the ancients were difficult to surpass for an age. It wasn't that they couldn't be in principle; it's that their society was built on a higher degree of infrastructure and organization than medieval Europe could support. Coupled with the difficulty of preserving the knowledge and technologies of Antiquity, even if people did make advancements, it was hard for those advancements to have major impact. Not impossible, just hard.

All that said, it is something of a Euro-centric perspective to put SO MUCH emphasis on "the ancients were just, like, WAY cooler than us." There's a place for that, to be sure, but there's a place for the world getting better. My setting has something of an advantage here; the "ancients" were the ancient Genie-Rajahs, who were powerful because they have innate magic, and who abandoned the world a couple of millennia ago. They took basically everything except the cities themselves with them, so the mortals they left behind had to rebuild their society themselves. Not quite "from scratch," but definitely a lot of effort. There have been setbacks and blind alleys, but by and large, mortal society has been successfully putting itself together and getting stronger rather than weaker. Much, much more is known by mortals about magic than the ancients could have known.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, it isn't just a Catholic notion there. Europe still carries the legacy of Rome. I relatively recently learned how much Europe collapsed after the end of the Roman Empire--with some cities literally collapsing into occupying just the amphitheater, and that being sufficiently spacious to hold the whole town's population! And the Greeks themselves often saw themselves as the weak, feeble, flawed descendants of an ancient, lost golden age, with the preceding era of Greek culture being seen as the last echoes of that bygone age of greatness (that is, the era of the Homeric myths.)

Idolizing a forgotten past is a pretty common European thing, and I'm fairly sure it's found in Chinese myth as well (but it's been a while, I could be mistaken.) With Europe in particular, it really was the case that for something like 800 years, they couldn't really match the feats of engineering and architecture of the ancients, and it's taken modern science for us to figure out some of the things that made their work so durable (e.g. the recent discovery of the self-healing properties of Roman concrete, or the slightly less recent discovery that using seawater in concrete can make it dramatically harder.)

Consider the enormous amount of ancient literature lost in Europe but preserved in the Arab world before returning through Al-Andalus, and the nearly-unquestionable status of thinkers like Euclid, Galen, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, etc., and you get a justifiable sense in which the "great works" of the ancients were difficult to surpass for an age. It wasn't that they couldn't be in principle; it's that their society was built on a higher degree of infrastructure and organization than medieval Europe could support. Coupled with the difficulty of preserving the knowledge and technologies of Antiquity, even if people did make advancements, it was hard for those advancements to have major impact. Not impossible, just hard.

All that said, it is something of a Euro-centric perspective to put SO MUCH emphasis on "the ancients were just, like, WAY cooler than us." There's a place for that, to be sure, but there's a place for the world getting better. My setting has something of an advantage here; the "ancients" were the ancient Genie-Rajahs, who were powerful because they have innate magic, and who abandoned the world a couple of millennia ago. They took basically everything except the cities themselves with them, so the mortals they left behind had to rebuild their society themselves. Not quite "from scratch," but definitely a lot of effort. There have been setbacks and blind alleys, but by and large, mortal society has been successfully putting itself together and getting stronger rather than weaker. Much, much more is known by mortals about magic than the ancients could have known.

It also kind of ignores the fact that while some things were lost, other things advanced beyond what the “ancients” could accomplish, and even some of what was lost was lost before Rome began to “fall”. (Ie, decline over at least a few hundred years).

Not to mention the influence of Voltaire on the invention of the concept of the Middle Ages being a time where basically nothing good happened so that he could pretend that the Italian Renaissance was much more of a distinct and abrupt shift in the cultural, philosophical, artistic, and scientific, sophistication of all of Europe.

Which is why I love Eberron. It does a much better job of having things that have advanced and things which have been irreparably lost, at the same time. Makes the world feel much more real, to me.

 

[Umbran]

Who invented the common spells?

How old are they?

Do you give players input on these questions?

For my D&D games, this is an example of something I typically don't specify unless it becomes relevant in play.

If I wanted to run a game where the nature and history of magic itself was a major pot point or mover of the action, I probably wouldn't use D&D for the purpose.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

For my D&D games, this is an example of something I typically don't specify unless it becomes relevant in play.

If I wanted to run a game where the nature and history of magic itself was a major pot point or mover of the action, I probably wouldn't use D&D for the purpose.

I see this kind of sentiment a lot, and fair enough, but generally IME one is looking to fit an element into a D&D game, not base a whole game/campaign on that element.

I do think that 5e could use a robust spell modification and creation system, though.

 

[Stormonu]

What Baker is forgetting-- or, rather, is embracing what D&D was forgetting-- is that new tech was never safe and sure. Aside from a singular specific subclass, there is no concern about the operability of magic in D&D. That surely wasn't true in the great wars of the 20th century where mines and mortars and guns and bombs didn't always go off as expected.

...and still true sometimes.

Now this makes me wonder what spells might be "inferior" copies that arose as cheap or fumbled magic. Maybe shocking grasp, for example, came about because some mage's apprentice couldn't wrap his head around lightning bolt...

 

[Rabulias]

If shatter is actually Mordenkainen's shatter, what about the monster that casts the same spell because it needed a sound-based spell for flavor? Or if fireball was created by a Netherese mage, why does a fire elemental creature cast the same exact spell innately? Or a cleric who receives fireball as a domain spell? It doesn't add up.

Look at this the other way: maybe Mordenkainen was inspired by a creature's sonic attack to create his shatter spell.

 

[Umbran]

I see this kind of sentiment a lot, and fair enough, but generally IME one is looking to fit an element into a D&D game, not base a whole game/campaign on that element.

Well, you asked about what each of us does. I'm telling you what I do.

There's a lot of fantasy fiction out there in which exploring the nature of magic is a large element. I don't typically use D&D for such stories. I don't find D&D's magic system to be well-suited for it, and would typically look for another system. The result is that my games usually have relatively few house rules.

You may find that's typical of me. I don't try very hard to make D&D, or whatever system, do what I want. If it doesn't do it natively, I find another system to do the job.

I do think that 5e could use a robust spell modification and creation system, though.

No argument there.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Alternate tongue-in-cheek answer:

Everyone knows mathemagicians do their best work young!

 

[Grantypants]

This question came up in passing at my table, and I suggested that the names attached to some spells were brand names. Other generic spells were either knockoffs or the copyright/patent/etc had expired. The campaign didn't really dig into this any further, but I think that concept could support an interesting Acq. Inc. style game.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Who invented the common spells?

They were discovered or invented piecemeal over time. Some were adaptations of powers granted by spiritual entities once mortals better understood how to gather the flux of Chaos or vril of Pattern. The Fundaments of Will by Trevyn Dannaj is the foundational text for Trevonic magical theory, which is the basis for modern spellcasting.

How old are they?

Trevonic theory is about 900 years old, but some spells, polymorph famously, are significantly older on the order of thousands of years.

Do you give players input on these questions?

The name of Trevyn's player was Steve.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, you asked about what each of us does. I'm telling you what I do.

There's a lot of fantasy fiction out there in which exploring the nature of magic is a large element. I don't typically use D&D for such stories. I don't find D&D's magic system to be well-suited for it, and would typically look for another system. The result is that my games usually have relatively few house rules.

I didn’t intend to suggest that there’s anything wrong with not worrying about it.

You may find that's typical of me. I don't try very hard to make D&D, or whatever system, do what I want. If it doesn't do it natively, I find another system to do the job.

What do you do when a player is interested in something the system doesn’t go into much but that is thematically appropriate?

No argument there.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Having finished doing my taxes, including having to deal with having sold stock for the first time, I had an idea that wizards basically have to do accounting to learn spells, much less create them.

So, there are natural laws, divine precepts, loopholes, caveats, and addendums, formulae to determine a value that has to be plugged into another formula, all of that. Types of magic are like filing for income in multiple states, which is why so many mages focus on one or two types and keep the rest simple.

And the rules change, and vary, so you can’t just copy a spell and go, you have to figure out the rules it operates under and re-file it under your native/current rules!

Can’t wait for someone to play a mage soon so I can throw this at them.

 

[Umbran]

What do you do when a player is interested in something the system doesn’t go into much but that is thematically appropriate?

I front load that question - I pick what game I'm running based on player input. If the players say that they want to play a game in which they explore and play with the fundamental nature of magic as a major plot element and theme, then I'll pick a game that suits.

If the player is interested in something and doesn't mention it at or before session zero, we can have a conversation, but I can't really promise it'll work out well.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I front load that question - I pick what game I'm running based on player input. If the players say that they want to play a game in which they explore and play with the fundamental nature of magic as a major plot element and theme, then I'll pick a game that suits.

If the player is interested in something and doesn't mention it at or before session zero, we can have a conversation, but I can't really promise it'll work out well.

Huh. I guess it’s just hard for me to imagine a table that wouldn’t want a diverse enough set of things that I need to accommodate a broad spectrum within a campaign.

Of course my own adhd and preference for running very different adventures within a campaign contribute to that.

 

[Umbran]

Huh. I guess it’s just hard for me to imagine a table that wouldn’t want a diverse enough set of things that I need to accommodate a broad spectrum within a campaign.

Yeah, but ,"broad," is not, "anything you can think of after the fact."

Like, if I am playing a fantasy game, and one PC wants to explore creation of technology, and they didn't raise that early on, they are asking something that likely violates expectations all across the setting and character designs. That's not what anyone signed on for at Session Zero.

Of course my own adhd and preference for running very different adventures within a campaign contribute to that.

I don't see this as a question about individual adventures. It seemed to me to be about major themes and elements.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, but ,"broad," is not, "anything you can think of after the fact."

Like, if I am playing a fantasy game, and one PC wants to explore creation of technology, and they didn't raise that early on, they are asking something that likely violates expectations all across the setting and character designs. That's not what anyone signed on for at Session Zero.

Sure, but that isn’t what I’m referencing. I’m talking about two things, and again neither is an attack on how you do things:

1. The ability of players to figure out the story of their PC in play, and for yhe DM to be able to surprise players with circumstances they weren’t expecting, both of which often mean that an adventure might heavily feature something that isn’t otherwise important to the game in general.
I’ve talked about this before whenever D&D heist adventures comes up. I’m not going to play blades in the dark just because I know my Eberron game will end up featuring at least one heist, nor Pendragon or whatever just because I know the BoV Paladin with a gothic romantic flair will be put in the position to try to redeem her order, have people come and want to follow her, and need to participate in a tourney or two, as part of her story arc.


2. The ability to let the mage PC explore the fundamental nature of arcane magic, without making the whole game be about that.

I don't see this as a question about individual adventures. It seemed to me to be about major themes and elements.

It’s about both, because what adventures are likely to pop up has a huge impact on expectations about play for the campaign generally.

 

[Umbran]

2. The ability to let the mage PC explore the fundamental nature of arcane magic, without making the whole game be about that.

Ah. So, here's the bit that gets me - D&D's magic system has many constraints that are plain and visible to the players that constrain what that "fundamental nature" can plausibly be - whatever it is, it must be consistent with the resulting game mechanics. And I've been playing this game for umpteen years, and have seen a bunch, most of which didn't really work very well.

And, then either learning that "fundamental nature" doesn't really change anything, because of that mechanical restriction, or I have to break the mechanics to give them something cool for figuring it out. I am not a proponent of leading the players on exploration that doesn't actually impact things..

I'd just rather do that in a system with fewer constraints, because then doing something interesting with it without being over or under powered is generally easier.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Ah. So, here's the bit that gets me - D&D's magic system has many constraints that are plain and visible to the players that constrain what that "fundamental nature" can plausibly be - whatever it is, it must be consistent with the resulting game mechanics. And I've been playing this game for umpteen years, and have seen a bunch, most of which didn't really work very well.

And, then either learning that "fundamental nature" doesn't really change anything, because of that mechanical restriction, or I have to break the mechanics to give them something cool for figuring it out. I am not a proponent of leading the players on exploration that doesn't actually impact things..

I'd just rather do that in a system with fewer constraints, because then doing something interesting with it without being over or under powered is generally easier.

Ah, whereas I am very comfortable making new stuff which sometimes creates new rules exceptions in 5e.

But I’m also happy as a player to explore this stuff without ever gaining a non-standard mechanical benefit.

My Gnomish rogue/mage deals in circles, binding energy, invocation and evocation in the hermetic mysticism tradition, and is researching ley lines, energy transferral, and the ethereal plane (where he believes the ancient Fey went to, in a world where the Feywild is part of the world. I’ve made it very clear to the DM I don’t expect the truth of that situation to match the PC’s expectations, it’s just as fun to have the process lead to new theories)

What effect does that have on the mechanics? Well, it partly explains his custom feat that allows him to basically treat his wizard levels as making him a half-caster, rather than never progressing again unless he takes more wizard levels, but that is also a fix for lacking mechanical structures in the game, and the fact that moving him to the artificer class after the fact would make his abilities partly incongruent with the story thus far. I’m somewhat tempted by the forge adept from exploring Eberron though…

Anyway, point being, he can’t like, regain spell slots by using dispel magic through his “spell eater” blade, even though it would thematically make sense, because we aren’t home brewing that far to accommodate how magic works.

I get why you might prefer to play or run for such a PC in a campaign using a system that more directly accommodates his story elements, but I’d rather play him in the campaign with the story premises I built him for, that also suits everyone else at the table, and works “well enough” for all of our character types and the story elements and threads the DM plans on putting before us.

 

[Umbran]

Ah, whereas I am very comfortable making new stuff which sometimes creates new rules exceptions in 5e.

It isn't about "comfort". I'm comfortable doing so. I just don't want to, when there's better systems to do it in. Like, if tree falls in my yard, I'm comfortable using a hand saw to take it apart, but I don't want to do that when I can use a chainsaw, which is better designed for the purpose.

But I’m also happy as a player to explore this stuff without ever gaining a non-standard mechanical benefit.

If it has no mechanical impact, the GM doesn't need to be involved. I encourage my players to make up setting information, so long as it has no mechanical impact.