Design Notes for the Spell system

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Revision as of 05:29, 26 January 2011

Sagatafl's spell magic system differs starkly from many other fantasy RPG magic systems, in that a character's power is in no way measured by the number of Spells he knows.

"I know a powerful Fire Bolt Spell!" "Yes, but can you cast it?"

Note the distinction between know and can cast. Obviously, if the character has a Skill level of 1 or better in the Fire Magic Realm, and if he knows that particular Fire Bolt spell (e.g. Fire Bolt III), then he can attempt to cast it, but unless his Fire Magic Skill is a lot higher than 1, the person he is threatening has nothing to fear (provided he is out of range of a potential Fumble Lash-Out).

The real measures of Power are two-fold: Having a high Skill in one or more Realms (and higher Skill is always better - there is no point where more skill doesn't help in some way), and having a Focus item to lower the RD of Spellcasting. These two combine to enable a character to cast those Spells that he knows, and which belongs to the Realm(s) he has Skill in, and which are covered by his Focus, with relatively speed and a fairly low risk of Fumbling.

In contrast, knowing a Spell is nearly trivial. They are quick to learn (especially low-level non-Greater Spells), and can even be cast when Partially Learned (unlike other Lores), although that results in an RD penalty and a positve modifier to the Spellcasting Fumble Outcome Roll.

One effect of this is that Spells cannot be used by the GM, by letting cooperative players finding many Spells they can learn along the way (similar to spell scrolls in AD&D) as a reward, and by punishing roleplaying players by withholding spell finds completely or almost completely, as a form of Skinnerian training.

Instead, players can purchase all the Spells they want during character creation, and then have their characters progress in power through increasing their Realm Skills via natural usage (see Character Advancement).

As a last resort, players can even have their characters invent Spells that turn out to be needed during the pursuit of their characters' goals. A standard spellcaster is not well suited to inventing Spells, especially Greater Spells or higher level Spells, but with a few not-too-expensive twists during character creation, a typical spellcaster can be tweaked to also be a reasonable capable Spell inventor: Raise Mystical Intelligence, increase Creativity, and increase the Magic Theory Skill. Maybe even addan Enchantment to the character's Focus item that gives a bonus to Creativity, or a bonus either to all Magic Theory or only to Magic Theory when using it to Invent Spells.

Other RPG systems gives the GM tools to control what Spells the player characters know, and enables him to withhold Spells from them covertly, but there is no legitimate need for the GM to have such a tool, and therefore Sagatafl doesn't give it. If there are Spells that the GM doesn't like, the only thing he can legally do is to solve the problem on the world level, which cuts off not only the PCs from that Spell, but also all of the GM's character (all the NPCs).

In addition to the above, the Skill-is-central concept also feels much more realistic and organic to The Designer, than the more traditonal approach where each Spell is a separate thing that stands alone, unconnected to a larger framework of magical lore (as represented by a Realm Skill).

The Realms

Dividing Spells into Realms, and gathering the Realms in Categories, is also a very deliberate decision, made to empower players and GMs to create themed characters. Many RPG systems offer the option of creating a narrowly themed character, analogous to a character who in Sagatafl is skilled only in a single Realm, but either there is no opportunity to create a character who is broadly specialized (without being a genaralist caster), or else the cost is unreasonably high.

Sagatafl offers this. Characters can be generalists (although this is very expensive and leads to a dynamic characterized by great flexibility of spell effects producable, but also low power and low ability to use Casting Options), or they can specialyze as broadly or narrowly as they wish. A single Realm, or in some cases a Realm Pair, or a Category, or even a sub-Realm. Even a single Spell. The later is often a bad idea, but not always.

Johan the Trickster, for instance, is probably the most skilled and powerful illusionist spellcaster in the Ärth setting, and he is specialized in exactly two Greater Spells: Illusion III and Illusion V.

Specialization takes two forms: Concentrating Skill Points in a few Realms (or even just one Realm) instead of spreading them over many Realms, and secondly on Enchanting a Focus item to give a big RD bonus to a narrow subset of Spells (e.g. a single Realm) rather than spending a roughly similar amount of Essence on getting a smaller RD bonus to a broader subset of Spells (multiple Realms, or a Category or two) or on getting a very small RD bonus to all Spells.

The exact Categorization and definition of each Realm will (hpefully) be dealt with in the article on Realms.

The Spells themselves

Obviously many Spells have not yet been created, but there is a (semi-) coherent vision behind the Spells in Sagatafl, and it can be said to be based on two principles: Inclusion and Omission.

Inclusion principle of Spell Design

Many RPG systems have a stuck-in-the-dungeon mentality, when it come to magic, and offer only Spells (and other magics) that are useful for dungeon crawling and other tactical-scale militaristic endavours. If it gets sophisticated, intrusion and detection magics are also included, suitable for thieves, spies, rogues and assassins.

Sagatafl goes beyond that, takes several steps back, and looks at the world as a whole, and as magic as being influenced by Human concerns, including concerns such as health, agriculture, personal safety in non-militaristic situations, and fertility and sex. As such a much greater variety of Spells are included, compared with traditonal fantasy RPGs.

Instead of giving only dungeoncrawling-relevant Spells, and then pretend that yes there are other magics used by the druids in their groves to bless the crops but we can't be arsed to actually design them, Sagatafl includes much. Obviously all imaginable Spells cannot be designe and documented, but existing Spells can often be used as model or as modifiable examples.

Also, world impact is given consideration, unlike dungeoncrawling systems which care only about the tactical-scale adventures of the PCs and can with much fairness be described as not taking place in a world. The best example of the wrongness of the dungon-myopia is probably the Cure Disease spell from AD&D and D&D3, which was a 3rd levl spell (on a spell level scale from 1 to 9 in AD&D and 0 to 9 in D&D3) that could cure any disease whatsoever, with no exception. That's so profoundly retarded a game design "decision" that The Designer is at a loss for words. At the very least the AD&D guys could, with a minimum of thought given to the world outside of the dungeon, have come up with Cure Minor Disease, Cure Major Disease and Cure Critical Disease, each assigned a proper place on the spell level scale.

Omission principle of Spell Design

In combination with the inclusion principle above, there is a principle of deliberate omission of certain Spell effects and types of Spells, for various reasons.

One such reason is when the effect of the Spell is simply undesirable in a general sense. Such magical effects can perhaps be described as counter-conflictual. They prevent conflict and allow routine circumvention of adventure, e.g. by making remote sensing trivially easy, or allowing the magic user to see events of the past.

Others are generally undesirable in a game context (but would work in non-interactive fiction, such as written stories, movies or TV shows), such as having the ability to see into the future.

Other Spell effects again are undesirable from The Designer's subjective point of view, in that they are incompatible with his vision of what a good fantasy world is. This can either be effects completely omitted from the magic system, such as visually blatant low-level magics that leave no potenial for doubt as to whether magic has been used or not (although there are some execptions, perhaps most notably Light I being a 1st level Spell yet clearly magical in nature, and the various Weapon Buff Spells some of which start at 2nd level - granted they're a bit gimped in the Duation department but they're there and they are blatant).

In other cases, such effects are omitted only from the Spell system, while being available elsewhere in the magic system. One example of this is Item Abilities, such as Shrink Item. The Designer simply does not want that available as a Spel, but since any Item Ability costs Essence (and since this particular Item Ability can only be used by the Enchanted item itself), there will be limited occurence of the effect in world terms. It won't be everywhere. It may end up being relatively common, because of its usefulness relative to the cost, but every single instance of t will still be notable, rather than routine.

Another example is with non-traditional magic, which tends to cover everything that isn't Spellcasting or Endowing, or at least everything which cannot be reproduced with Spellcasting (i.e. many think of Familiar as being traditional, even though there are non-Spellcasting ways of getting one).

to be continued...