Sagatafl FAQ

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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: What is Sagatafl?'''
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== About Sagatafl ==
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': Sagatafl is first and foremost a ''character creation'' rules system, that is an ''objective'' set of procedures that a player can interact with, to make choices that together shape up to a coherent whole of a human (or otherwise) being, defined in terms of its inborn developmental potential, and its acquired abilities, with all choices having knowable consequences (all ''combinations'' of choices also have knowable consequences), and the resulting character being guaranteed (once playtesting is over) to not exceed the overall competence/goodness ''level'' one should except from the amount of Goodie Points that were allotted to the character creation process.
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Mostly following logically from the character creation rules is a character advancement subsystem.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: ?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': .
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By necessity, since Sagatafl was never intended to output character sheets for use in other roleplaying gaming rules systems, Sagatafl also has its own subsystems for resolving actions, both physical and non-physical actions, and dealing as objctively as possible with the consequences thereoff.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: ?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': .
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Finally, because the primary use to which the chief designer intends to put Sagatafl is to run RPG campaigns in his Ärth historical fantasy setting, Sagatafl also has several magic systems, and rules for how they interact or fail to interact with each other.
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== What is Sagatafl ==
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: What is Sagatafl about?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': Sagatafl is about human variety, the ways in which Humans can differ from each other, and how different Humans have different potentials for change. Sagatafl not having a subject is good, because it means that once one is equipped with knowledge of human variety, one can think up a character independently of Sagatafl, and wait until the character is fully formed in one's mind before one goes to Sagatafl to see that ''yes indeed'', Sagatafl facilities the creation of that character in vidid and highly individual detail.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: ?'''  
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': .
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Many other RPG systems are created to explore a very narrow subject and so by necessity require players to think up characters who conform to that subject, making system-independent character creation impossible. Or else they are designed for use in an extreme ideological fantasy in which humans have ''infinite'' capacity for change. Or both.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: ?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': .
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== Confusions about and criticisms of Sagatafl ==
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: Does that mean that players have to create their characters wihthout looking at the rules?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': Not at all. It is merely ''important'' to state clearly and frequently that it is possible to do so: To envision a highly detailed and defined four-dimensional individual human being, and then come to Sagatafl and find that the infrastructure required to express that individual in game-mechanical terms ''is'' present.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: ?'''  
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': .
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The vast majority of player characters, and all NPCs, will be created via a back-and-forth process of the player (or the GM, when creating an NPC) interacting with the rules, his choices influenced by the rules, and some of the time a character will be created built around one or two special and interesting traits, possibly traits that no other RPG system simulates well (if at all). Which is a perfectly valid way to create a character.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: ?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': .
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=== Seemingly extreme claims ===
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: Long ago an experiment was conducted, testing Sagatafl (then named FFRE) against a pre-existing character creation, named Jill, created by Usenet poster Mary Kuhner. The experiment was to see if Sagatafl was sufficiently flexible to facilitate the creation and expression of this system-independent character. How did that experiment go? And where is the final result?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': The experiment was severely marred by technical communications problems. This was back in the stone age of communication: Sagatafl existed as a series of documents in MS Word format, and Mary Kuhner had no ability whatsoever to read MS Word. There was no Open Office, using MS Word's built-in function to convert documents to HTML produced results that were horrible, verging on a crime against humanity, and in order to convert MS Word to PDF you needed extremely expensive software packages.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: ?'''  
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': .
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In spite of this, the experiment went very well, in that nothing Mary Kuhner wanted to express or define about the character Jill did not already exist within the Sagatafl character creation infrastructure, except one thing: The possiility that young characters (For jill was still in her teens) could develop intellectually as they matured; that her Intelligence attribute could increase. This struck the chief designer as an excellent concept, and so this was added to Sagatafl's character creation rules, although the current form of those rules differs from the one employed back then (nowadays developmentally immature characters have an RD penalty to the affected Attributes, e.g. Intelligence in Jill's case. That's much cleaner and more elegant, and more sensible to price).
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: ?'''  
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': .
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== Sagatafl and other systems ==
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Since it was not possible to convert the resulting MS Word character sheet to a format that Mary Kuhner could read, except by devoting a dozen man-hours to typing it up in TXT format manually, Mary Kuhner never saw the character sheet, and so the experiment can reasonably be said to not have been completed. However, apart from severe technical communications problems, one must conclude that the experiment went well.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: The two other designs by Peter Knutsen, Multiclass RPG and Modern Action RPG, both appear to be (or are outright defined as) pre-existing system X done right. AD&D for Multiclass RPG, and Feng Shui (tenously) for Modern Action RPG. Is the same the case for Sagatafl? If yes, which system is Sagatafl then an attempt to do right?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': Yes. Sagatafl's primary memetic ancestors are GURPS (mainly 3rd Edition, but nothing really changed in 4th) and Quest FRP v2.1 (and v2.0), but Quest FRP in itself is clearly an attempt at AD&D done right, and in terms of focus and subject matter, Sagatafl is not much like Quest FRP. It is quite fair, however, to describe Sagatafl as GURPS done right. GURPS the way it ought to have been, with the inflexibilities and oversights and errors fixed.
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This is also an overall example of one of the ways in which Sagatafl develops, evolves and improves. The chiefdesigner has a vivid imagination for coming up with unusual and interesting characters, and since NPCs must be ''creatable'' by the rules, such characters are an excellent test for the system, to see if it is flexible enough.
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=== Memetic ancestors ===
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For instance an as-of-yet not fully named Ärth setting character (his byname is Wand-Elf, because he carries a staff and has strangely white hair) has a staff that, among other Endownment, has the ability to change shape into a bow. Sagatafl already offered two Enchantments for objects to change shape, but one was cheap and easy and allowed only very subtle changes of shape, while the other one was expensive and difficult and allowed much more change in the object's shape than what was desired for this character. Because of the invention and definition of this character, a third intermediate Enchantment was added to the system, which can affect an intermediate amount of change upon the item, such as changing from staff to bow and back again, and with this Enchantment having a moderate cost and difficulty.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: In which way is Sagatafl related to Quest FRP, by Mike Greenholdt, Gene Masters and Todd Richmond?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': Quest FRP was hugely inspirational, because of the spell list-based magic system, permanent magic items having charges per time unit (instead of infintie charges, or chargse that run out and are then lost forever, or charges that can only be used if the item's wielder expends some kind of energy), the fairly large list of (primary) attributes (including having a Magic Talent attribute entirely distinct from Intellect, and splitting Agility from Dexterity), the fact that attributes affect skill learning speed (and thus skill cost) instead of adding to skills as in many other systems (e.g. GURPS, Hero System, Ars Magica, indirectly in in BESM). The last was a serious eye-opener, as was the non-gamelable experience point system. That there were rules for creating magic items, rather than having these come into existence solely due to GM fiat or worldbuilder fiat, was also worthwhile although that was not a first for the designer.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: So is Sagatafl open for new challenges of the Jill type? The claim that "you can create any character" with Sagatafl comes across as extreme, and it would be nice to see this claim challenged and upheld.'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': In theory yes, Sagatafl is open for such challenges. In practice, the system is incomplete, and so it is not particularly interesting to create full characters as of yet. Finally, the you can create any character claim must be clarified. First of all, only characters from within human capabilitistic variety are guaranteed creatable. Secondly, the amount of simulation that goes on, the degree of interaction between inborn developmental potential and ability acquisition, is what is noteworthy about Sagatafl. A few other RPG rules systems also allows the creation of any character one can dream up, such as GURPS by Steve Jackson Games, and Hero System by Hero Games, but these systems hardly attempt to simulate character development before and after game start, and implicitly fail to discern between that which is inborn and that whih is acquired.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: In which way is Sagatafl related to GURPS, the Generic Universal RolePlaying System by Steve Jackson?'''  
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': First and foremost, Sagatafl is a point-based character creation system, with the player being given one currency and freedom to use it (the difference here is that GURPS gives theoretical freedom whereas Sagatafl gives ''real'' freedom). This is directly inspired by GURPS. Also when the chief designer first bought the GURPS 3rd Edition Revised core books (Basic Set, and the two Compendia, the first of which deals with character creation), he was very intrigued to see an expansive character creation system dealing with what's inside of human variety (as well as that which is outside of it although that interests him much less), for instance various mental traits, photographic memory, talents for languages or music, and so forth. A year or two previously the chief designer had built a future history universe populated with a lot of interesting human characters, interesting chiefly in the ways they deviated from the human norm, often in terms of individual intellectual potentails. So in this regard he found GURPS to be much in tune with his way of thinking characters, although not completely so. But it was a serious eye-opener, and a big step towards realizing that player characters should not be forced to be capabilitistically normal.
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Therefore, what could be of value to the design process currently is written sketches of characters, with unusual traits or four-dimentional developmental paths clearly marked out, accompanied by questions such as "Can Sagatafl do this?" Being able to say yes is valuable. Being able to say "No, but your sketch has prompted clear (or vague) plans to expand Sagatafl to be able to do this" is also valuable.
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A key component of point-based character creation, using the term in its meaningful sense, is that the player is rewarded (bribed) for putting undesirable traits onto his character sheet. This is very present in Sagatafl.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: The other claim made about Sagatafl is that its character creation procedure is abuse-proof, and therefore does not require GM intervention. This makes no sense. Any RPG character creation system can be abused!'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': Other RPG systems with trait synergies have character creation systems that can be abused, because they were not carefully designed, and utilized an overly simplistic model of the individual human and of human change. This necessitates giving the GM the right to reject a filled-in character sheet for reasons other than world compliance, and that right is intolerable to the chief designer, as it impedes the process of creative flow that creating a player character ought to be.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: In which way is Sagatafl related to Ars Magica?'''  
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': It isn't, really, nor is Ars Magica's Mythic Europe setting significantly related to what one might call Sagatafl's primary setting (although the chief designer likes to think of it as a test setting or system challenge setting), Ärth. The chief inspiration from Ars Magica was, believe it or not, the magic item writeups in the supplement "A Medieval Tapestry". At least the talisman item of the maga who could shapechange into a mist. It was fairly detailed in terms of abilities, which was fascinating. It occured to the chief designer, in a gradual and tacit fashion, that one way a character can express his individuality is in the magic item(s) that he creates for his own use, according to his personal needs and priorities.
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Sagatafl claims that for any amount of Goodie Points, the basic currency of the character creation process, there is a ceiling of overall goodness, of desirability-as-a-PC from a generalized point of view, a point of view that has no specific agenda but to play an RPG, that cannot be exceeded. Thus abusive optimization cannot take place. If the players all create characters built on 120 GP, then the GM can know that no single character will have an overall ability to exert his will on the surrounding world, that is disproportionately greater than that of other efficiently created 120 GP characters.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: In which way is Sagatafl related to Hero System?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': It isn't related, really. The concept of disadvantages was first popularized in Hero System, having been invented by Wayne Shaw for use in an older superhero system, but the chief designer of Sagatafl was not exposed to Hero System until quite late in Sagatafl's conception phase, and he learned of and came to appreciate the concept of disadvantages via GURPS.
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It is quite possible to spend one's GoodiePoints in a less than sub-optimal fashion, and in fact the vast majority of PCs will not be created in an optimal fashion. They will, however, be fairly close to optimal, since Sagatafl can only be said to punish those character concepts that are self-contradictory, such as a character with low Agility ''and'' low Perception whom the player wans to have a very high Dodge skill.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: In which way is Sagatafl related to Dungeons & Dragons?'''  
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': Sagatafl is not related to D&D, or AD&D, at all, except in that Sagatafl is a roleplaying gamign rules system, and so is Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. If one is charitably inclined, one might also regard AD&D and D&D 4th Edition as pseudo-RPG systems.
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Sagatafl gives each player the choice of where the character should fall on a spectrum ranging from a complete generalist with some ability at everything, over a semi-generalist or a broadly specialized character, to a character who is narrowly specialized in a single activity. This is good, and one must be mindful of the fact that there is nothing wrong with creating a specialized character. Any realistic world will be full of specialized characters, and specialization is in no way inherently abusive; it only becomes abusive if the character's overall ability to exert his will on the surrounding world is disproportionately greater than what one would expect from his GP value.
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In one indirect way, AD&D provided crucially important inspiration, though. Via Drager og Dæmoner Expert (see next FAQ entry), the chief designer was exposed to the notion of attribute loss as a world-affecting "brake" on the creation of permanent magical items, but the model used in EDD was flawed, in that there were fairly accessible ways to recover from this attribute loss. One day in the early 1990s the chief desginer was reading the "Forum" letters section of TSR's Dragon Magazine, at that time mainly a house organ for AD&D, and one of the letters suggested a concept called Life Energy Levels, as a more elegant method of handling the concept of level drain, an important and dangerous attack form that some AD&D undead, such as ghouls, could use. This set the chief designer thinking along somewhat different lines, and seeing a potential solution for the problem of needing a world-affecting "brake" on the creation of permanent magical items. If characters were born with some amount of energy that was meant to use only for this purpose and not as some kind of attribute that also did other things and which it was crippling or semi-crippling to lose, then that could be the "brake". The concept of Life Force (LF) was born, later renamed to Essence thanks to Bradd Szonye from the RPG-Create mailing list.
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The two most common forms of "abuse" in non-abuse-proof character cretation systems, are the skill expert and the combat monster.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: Which other RPG rules systems have been an inspiration for creating Sagatafl?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': The chief designer first encountered the Fighting Fantasy books by the other Steve Jackson and by Ian Livingstone, and from this developped numerous primitive roleplaying games. Over the next few years he came upon a few more RPG systems, thus expanding his horizons in terms of knowledge of the variety of the art. Encountering the advanced version of the Swedish RPG Draker och Dæmoner, in Danish translation caleld Drager og Dæmoner Expert, was a serious eye-opener, in terms of rules that tried to be realistic, to mimic reality and have things have the same "shape" as in reality. The presence of rules for making permanent magical items, that is as a rules-driven process that player character can choose to engage in, was important. Having an attribute for magic talent distinct from Intelligence did not do much in DoD and EDD, since PSY also functioned as instinct and willpower and so forth. It was much more specific and visible and had a much greater effect, in Quest FRP.
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The combat monster, however, is often not an actual problem, but merely a perceived problem; a character that is perceived by the GM and/or by the other players to be a problem, even though in fact it is not. The problems arise from the campaign not taking place in a world - a place that has a social structure that responds realistically to violent threats and disruptions, and/or by the lack of competence on behalf of the GM in presenting a campaign in which one feature is that by virtue of natural emergence, only a subset of encountered problems can be efficiently solved by violent means.
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=== Growing beyond it's roots ===
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The skill expert is a character who has unreasoanbe expertise in all or nearly all non-combat skills (or in some cases ''also'' in combat skills) - unreasonable out of proportion to the amount of character creation currency that the character was built on. This is a phenomenon that occurs only in a subset of RPG rules systems, and this is due to bad design decisions having been made, at the very core of those systems, thus making them infixable; to fix such a system, one would have to perform major surgery on it, almost to the point of taking it apart and re-assembling it in a different way.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: Seeing as Quest FRP v2.1 is a major inspiration for Sagatafl, in which ways do the two systems differ?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': They differ in many ways. A ''great many'' ways.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: So can I challenge Sagatafl in this way? Create a character, and argue in a calm and objective fashion that it is abusively good for its GP total?'''
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The attribute list is one place where they do not differ much, although Strength has been seperated out to be a trainable stat whereas the others are defined as being gentic and thus fixed. Frame will also be an attribute, bought with points, in contrast to the randomly rolled Height and Frame of Quest FRP. Some attributes also have sub-attributes.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': Sure, provided you have access to all the necessary character creation rules. You don't have that currently, but once you get it, you're welcome. Just keep in mind that the definition of abuse employed has to be be objective and reasonable. "I don't like" is no good, and "this character is optimized" is downright stupid. If one does not optimize when one creates a character, then what one does it to not choose an area (broad of narrow) of specialization, and so the result is inevitably a generalist character.  
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Also, people who are interested in advance access to material are encouraged to subscribe to the mailing list, and to there request the necessary material once posts are made about it. E.g. the character creation spreadsheet.
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The creation of permanent magical items does not take months and years, but instead costs Essence, and takes only hours or days (maybe weeks for items with Artifact level Enchantments), which leaves the process much less amenable to covert GM disruption. Also the "brake" of Essence acts equally upon every character in the entire world, whereas the "brake" of time does not really act upon societies and large organizations, and powerful patron individuals. A Duke or High Priest could hire a group of Enchanters full-time to mass-produce permanent magic items for his own use and those of his unerlings, in Quest FRP, whereas that is simply not possible in Sagatafl.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: Why does creating a character require a spreadsheet? Sagatafl must be a horribly complicated system, since one cannot create a character by hand.'''
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Mage or "Arcane" Spells are not forcibly learned in sequential spell lists, but are still divided into Realms, very analogous to Quest's Disciplines, often with direct analogues. The lack of spell list space restrictions means that the overall number of Spells in each Realm can be (and often is) much greater, compared to the 10-or-so spells per Discipline in Quest FRP. There is no Mystic Theory skill that aids spellcasting, rather each Realm is a skill of its own, and each Spell is a binary skill.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': Sagatafl character creation is not at all complicated. The character creation procedure is extremely transparent, and the reason a spreadsheet is required is because a huge number of simple arithmetical calculations are required. Each step along the way, as well as the overall consequence of the procedures, is eminently transparent and understanable. There is nothing arcane or unusual or surprising about any of it.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: What will the character creation spreadsheet be like? Do I have to buy MS Office to make characters?'''
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Religious magic is handled via an entirely different system, or rather several systems, all handed as inborn Powers, or rituals of Demon-worship, or subtle magics that anyone can perform.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': An old character creation spreadsheet already exists, and this largely shows what the final version of the new sheet will be like, with multiple pages, output in A4-paper formatted character sheet pages, and so forth, with the main additions being a fault-warning page with a list of warnings, error messages and cautions to the player, and if possible some more detailed information on physical actions (see next entry), including combat, pre-calculated on the sheet, based on the individual character.
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The old spreadsheet is in MS Excel, however, and it has been decided to start over and make the new character creation spreadsheet in Open Office's Calc program, since this enables everyone to make characters without having to buy software. But, as said above, if you have access to the old spreadsheet, then the new one won't really be different in major ways.
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Permanent magic item creation is restricted by Essence expenditure and does not take very long, often hours or days.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: If creating a character takes several hours, then Sagatafl must be horribly slow to play.'''
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There's much more focus on and rules infrastructure for non-violent conflicts, such as social skills, and for creating characters that excel at those, or fit into the social framework of the setting in unusual ways. Also there's a big selection of inborn and social Avantages and DisAdvantages (the social ones are called Perks and negPerks) to define and individualize one's character.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': Sagatafl emphasizes fast at-table play, although ''without'' being willing to disrespect the capabilitistic individuality of each character, and the way to achieve that is to perform as many of the arithmetical calculations in advance of actual play, and have them present on the character sheet in ready-to-reference form (created by the character creation spreadsheet). In addition to this, a lot of other information is available pre-calculated in the form of lookup tables, such as the various Armour Penetration (PA) values for weapons based on attack Success.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: Why have several roll mechanics? You got normal rolls, and Saving Throws, and Detailed Saves, and Coarse Rolls. And sometimes I have to roll 2d8-9 instead of rollin a variable number of twelve-siders. '''
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Combat is in some ways shaped like Quest FRP, in the overall theme, with the two choices of fighting in heav armour or fighting lightly and quickly being distinctive but hopefully (playtesting will tell) functional. The specifics differ enormously, however, and the use of Action Points is thought to be much superior to Quest FRP's combat time system with weapon-specific Blows.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': Everything but combat damage rolls, and a few specialized table rolls and the 2d8-9 "Overcome Roll", are variants of the basic multiple-d12 roll mechanic, with the variation almost always being confied to how the roll is read, often by "grouping" several otherwise distinct outcomes into the same type of outcome.
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For instance the Saving Throw is there because the basic roll mechanic produces outcomes that are far too detailed. When you roll to see, e.g., if a character resists a Spell cast on him, you don't really want to know how well he resisted it, or if he failed to resist, how much he failed. Normally you'd want a binary outcome, did he resist yes/no, but for Sagatafl it was found that having a trinary outcome was actually more desirable, so that the possible outcomes are Yes Did Resist, Resisted Partially, and Did Not Resist.
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The overall process of character creation is much more truly point-based, with the player being given one pool of points (Goodie Points) and the freedom to distribute them between categories of creation points (DP, SP, PP). This means there are no dice rolls, and Sagatafl works fluidly for a huge variety of power levels, rather than the one starting power level that Quest FRP is intended for.
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Detailed Saves are thus an in-between case, between the normal roll mechanic roll and a Saving Throw, where there is a certain greater effect if you resist very well, and another greater effect if you fail really badly at resisting. The Bad Detailed Save is the same as a Detailed Save, except that if you Succeed, the degree of Sccess does not matter, but it does matter if you Fumble badly. One example is rolling to see if Epilipsy triggers (do you get a normal epileptic fit, or a grand mal?); another is rolling to see if a Terminally Ill character dies or is merely bedridden for the Day.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: Likewise, and actually even more so since Sagatafl is GURPS done right, in which ways does Sagatafl differ from GURPS?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': .
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Coarse Rolls are simply an application of the normal roll mechanic, where anything but extreme results are disregarded. If the outcome is in between a certain range, nothing whatsoever happens. Currently, its only use is in Complementary Skill Rolls, but other uses will probably crop up.
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=== Omnia ===
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The 2d8-9 roll is intended to create an average result of zero, which is then modified by adding the strength of the attacking force and subtracting the strength of the resisting force. It is in principle similar to the Resistance Table Rolls found in certain other RPG systems, except that with the way the 2d8 mchanic is shaped, it makes more sense to refer to it as an OVercome Roll than as a Resistance Roll, since it "feels" as if it is the attacker who is doing the rolling. The 2d8 mechanic replaces an old variable-number-of-summed-six-siders mechanic, and is used in places where fairly precise balancing is required, for instance when a Cure Disease effect of a certain strength is trying to overcome a disease of a certain strength. The possible outcomes are Did Not Overcome, Partial Overcome, and Did Overcome, with the later - Did Overcome - sometimes being a question of degree. For instnance a Spell of Suppress Light will suppress a light source for a certain period of time, depending on how great the "Overcome Factor" was.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: What is the relationship between Sagatafl and Omnia?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': .
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== Magic system ==
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: Is Omnia legal, or is it a rights violation?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': .
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: In which ways does Omnia differ from Sagatafl?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': .
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: ?'''
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<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': .
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== The magic systems ==
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: The jargon pertaining to magic items is confusing. Sometimes it's called Enchanting, other times Endowing. What's going on?'''
<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: The jargon pertaining to magic items is confusing. Sometimes it's called Enchanting, other times Endowing. What's going on?'''
<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': This pertains specifically to ''permanent'' magical items. An Enchantment is a magical property of an item, usually permanent or else lasting for a fairly long time. Endowing is a learnable method of putting Enchantments into items, but there are other ways to put Enchantments into items than Endowing. One can use the term Enchanting about any process of rendering an item permanently (or semi-permanently) magical, but from a game-mechanical point of view, one must always know the method used, which can be Endowing or can be something else.  
<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': This pertains specifically to ''permanent'' magical items. An Enchantment is a magical property of an item, usually permanent or else lasting for a fairly long time. Endowing is a learnable method of putting Enchantments into items, but there are other ways to put Enchantments into items than Endowing. One can use the term Enchanting about any process of rendering an item permanently (or semi-permanently) magical, but from a game-mechanical point of view, one must always know the method used, which can be Endowing or can be something else.  
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: Spellcasting seems like it would be slow, with all those rolls to accumulate Progress. Is it really playable?'''  
<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: Spellcasting seems like it would be slow, with all those rolls to accumulate Progress. Is it really playable?'''  
<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': It was a concern of the chief designer initially, that peraps the Progress amount required to cast Spells were too high, not necessarily for 1st Level Spells (which require 2 points of Progress) but possibly the Progress progression escalated too rapidly (doubling every Spell Level). However, extensive analysis, in the form of literally millions of computer-generated dice rolls, showed that as long as the caster's Realm Skill level is reasonable relative to the Roll Diffculty of the Spellcasting attempt (keeping in mind that almost all Spellcasting is aided by a Focus item which lowers the RD), a Spell can usually be completed in a number of cycles that does not exceed its Spell Level by much. For instance casting a 5th Level Spell, a ''very'' powerful and thus ''dramatic'' magical endavour, will almost always be completed in 6-8 cycles.
<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': It was a concern of the chief designer initially, that peraps the Progress amount required to cast Spells were too high, not necessarily for 1st Level Spells (which require 2 points of Progress) but possibly the Progress progression escalated too rapidly (doubling every Spell Level). However, extensive analysis, in the form of literally millions of computer-generated dice rolls, showed that as long as the caster's Realm Skill level is reasonable relative to the Roll Diffculty of the Spellcasting attempt (keeping in mind that almost all Spellcasting is aided by a Focus item which lowers the RD), a Spell can usually be completed in a number of cycles that does not exceed its Spell Level by much. For instance casting a 5th Level Spell, a ''very'' powerful and thus ''dramatic'' magical endavour, will almost always be completed in 6-8 cycles.
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Spell attacks, primarily the various Bolt Spells, Fire Bolt I, Fire Bolt II, Lighting Bolts and Ice Bolts, will also be attempted balanced in such a way that their Range Increment and damage output is reasonable in light of the fact that they take an average of several Rounds to cast each (and several more rounds for the Grade II versions) but can be cast many times before the caster runs out of Spell Energy Points. In short, they must be better than bows and similar weapons, although part of that benefit should reside in the psychological simulation performed by the GM (with some aid of various rules), in that attack Spells are intrinsically scarier than being attacked by mundane weapons.
Spell attacks, primarily the various Bolt Spells, Fire Bolt I, Fire Bolt II, Lighting Bolts and Ice Bolts, will also be attempted balanced in such a way that their Range Increment and damage output is reasonable in light of the fact that they take an average of several Rounds to cast each (and several more rounds for the Grade II versions) but can be cast many times before the caster runs out of Spell Energy Points. In short, they must be better than bows and similar weapons, although part of that benefit should reside in the psychological simulation performed by the GM (with some aid of various rules), in that attack Spells are intrinsically scarier than being attacked by mundane weapons.
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<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: Where are the rules for creating non-permanent magic items, such as potions and scrolls?'''  
<br>'''<font size="+1">Q</font>: Where are the rules for creating non-permanent magic items, such as potions and scrolls?'''  
<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': Such ruless have proven difficult to create. The nice thing about the Essence system for permanent magic (including but not limited to permanent ''items'') is that it acts as a "brake" on the entire ''world'', not just on those very few world denizens who are ''player'' characters.
<br>'''<font size="+1">A</font>''': Such ruless have proven difficult to create. The nice thing about the Essence system for permanent magic (including but not limited to permanent ''items'') is that it acts as a "brake" on the entire ''world'', not just on those very few world denizens who are ''player'' characters.
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One simple model for both potions and scrolls is to take inspiration from Quest FRP v2.1, where scrolls simply reproduce Spells, and where potions reproduce only those Spells that have an internal effect, so that e.g. one cannot have a Potion of Fire Bolt II.
One simple model for both potions and scrolls is to take inspiration from Quest FRP v2.1, where scrolls simply reproduce Spells, and where potions reproduce only those Spells that have an internal effect, so that e.g. one cannot have a Potion of Fire Bolt II.
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== Links ==
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[[Old FAQ content]]
[[Category:FAQ]]
[[Category:FAQ]]

Latest revision as of 09:21, 28 October 2011

Contents

About Sagatafl

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What is Sagatafl

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Confusions about and criticisms of Sagatafl

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Seemingly extreme claims

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Sagatafl and other systems

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Q: The two other designs by Peter Knutsen, Multiclass RPG and Modern Action RPG, both appear to be (or are outright defined as) pre-existing system X done right. AD&D for Multiclass RPG, and Feng Shui (tenously) for Modern Action RPG. Is the same the case for Sagatafl? If yes, which system is Sagatafl then an attempt to do right?
A: Yes. Sagatafl's primary memetic ancestors are GURPS (mainly 3rd Edition, but nothing really changed in 4th) and Quest FRP v2.1 (and v2.0), but Quest FRP in itself is clearly an attempt at AD&D done right, and in terms of focus and subject matter, Sagatafl is not much like Quest FRP. It is quite fair, however, to describe Sagatafl as GURPS done right. GURPS the way it ought to have been, with the inflexibilities and oversights and errors fixed.

Memetic ancestors

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Q: In which way is Sagatafl related to Quest FRP, by Mike Greenholdt, Gene Masters and Todd Richmond?
A: Quest FRP was hugely inspirational, because of the spell list-based magic system, permanent magic items having charges per time unit (instead of infintie charges, or chargse that run out and are then lost forever, or charges that can only be used if the item's wielder expends some kind of energy), the fairly large list of (primary) attributes (including having a Magic Talent attribute entirely distinct from Intellect, and splitting Agility from Dexterity), the fact that attributes affect skill learning speed (and thus skill cost) instead of adding to skills as in many other systems (e.g. GURPS, Hero System, Ars Magica, indirectly in in BESM). The last was a serious eye-opener, as was the non-gamelable experience point system. That there were rules for creating magic items, rather than having these come into existence solely due to GM fiat or worldbuilder fiat, was also worthwhile although that was not a first for the designer.

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Q: In which way is Sagatafl related to GURPS, the Generic Universal RolePlaying System by Steve Jackson?
A: First and foremost, Sagatafl is a point-based character creation system, with the player being given one currency and freedom to use it (the difference here is that GURPS gives theoretical freedom whereas Sagatafl gives real freedom). This is directly inspired by GURPS. Also when the chief designer first bought the GURPS 3rd Edition Revised core books (Basic Set, and the two Compendia, the first of which deals with character creation), he was very intrigued to see an expansive character creation system dealing with what's inside of human variety (as well as that which is outside of it although that interests him much less), for instance various mental traits, photographic memory, talents for languages or music, and so forth. A year or two previously the chief designer had built a future history universe populated with a lot of interesting human characters, interesting chiefly in the ways they deviated from the human norm, often in terms of individual intellectual potentails. So in this regard he found GURPS to be much in tune with his way of thinking characters, although not completely so. But it was a serious eye-opener, and a big step towards realizing that player characters should not be forced to be capabilitistically normal.

A key component of point-based character creation, using the term in its meaningful sense, is that the player is rewarded (bribed) for putting undesirable traits onto his character sheet. This is very present in Sagatafl.

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Q: In which way is Sagatafl related to Ars Magica?
A: It isn't, really, nor is Ars Magica's Mythic Europe setting significantly related to what one might call Sagatafl's primary setting (although the chief designer likes to think of it as a test setting or system challenge setting), Ärth. The chief inspiration from Ars Magica was, believe it or not, the magic item writeups in the supplement "A Medieval Tapestry". At least the talisman item of the maga who could shapechange into a mist. It was fairly detailed in terms of abilities, which was fascinating. It occured to the chief designer, in a gradual and tacit fashion, that one way a character can express his individuality is in the magic item(s) that he creates for his own use, according to his personal needs and priorities.

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Q: In which way is Sagatafl related to Hero System?
A: It isn't related, really. The concept of disadvantages was first popularized in Hero System, having been invented by Wayne Shaw for use in an older superhero system, but the chief designer of Sagatafl was not exposed to Hero System until quite late in Sagatafl's conception phase, and he learned of and came to appreciate the concept of disadvantages via GURPS.

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Q: In which way is Sagatafl related to Dungeons & Dragons?
A: Sagatafl is not related to D&D, or AD&D, at all, except in that Sagatafl is a roleplaying gamign rules system, and so is Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. If one is charitably inclined, one might also regard AD&D and D&D 4th Edition as pseudo-RPG systems.

In one indirect way, AD&D provided crucially important inspiration, though. Via Drager og Dæmoner Expert (see next FAQ entry), the chief designer was exposed to the notion of attribute loss as a world-affecting "brake" on the creation of permanent magical items, but the model used in EDD was flawed, in that there were fairly accessible ways to recover from this attribute loss. One day in the early 1990s the chief desginer was reading the "Forum" letters section of TSR's Dragon Magazine, at that time mainly a house organ for AD&D, and one of the letters suggested a concept called Life Energy Levels, as a more elegant method of handling the concept of level drain, an important and dangerous attack form that some AD&D undead, such as ghouls, could use. This set the chief designer thinking along somewhat different lines, and seeing a potential solution for the problem of needing a world-affecting "brake" on the creation of permanent magical items. If characters were born with some amount of energy that was meant to use only for this purpose and not as some kind of attribute that also did other things and which it was crippling or semi-crippling to lose, then that could be the "brake". The concept of Life Force (LF) was born, later renamed to Essence thanks to Bradd Szonye from the RPG-Create mailing list.

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Q: Which other RPG rules systems have been an inspiration for creating Sagatafl?
A: The chief designer first encountered the Fighting Fantasy books by the other Steve Jackson and by Ian Livingstone, and from this developped numerous primitive roleplaying games. Over the next few years he came upon a few more RPG systems, thus expanding his horizons in terms of knowledge of the variety of the art. Encountering the advanced version of the Swedish RPG Draker och Dæmoner, in Danish translation caleld Drager og Dæmoner Expert, was a serious eye-opener, in terms of rules that tried to be realistic, to mimic reality and have things have the same "shape" as in reality. The presence of rules for making permanent magical items, that is as a rules-driven process that player character can choose to engage in, was important. Having an attribute for magic talent distinct from Intelligence did not do much in DoD and EDD, since PSY also functioned as instinct and willpower and so forth. It was much more specific and visible and had a much greater effect, in Quest FRP.

Growing beyond it's roots

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Q: Seeing as Quest FRP v2.1 is a major inspiration for Sagatafl, in which ways do the two systems differ?
A: They differ in many ways. A great many ways.

The attribute list is one place where they do not differ much, although Strength has been seperated out to be a trainable stat whereas the others are defined as being gentic and thus fixed. Frame will also be an attribute, bought with points, in contrast to the randomly rolled Height and Frame of Quest FRP. Some attributes also have sub-attributes.

The creation of permanent magical items does not take months and years, but instead costs Essence, and takes only hours or days (maybe weeks for items with Artifact level Enchantments), which leaves the process much less amenable to covert GM disruption. Also the "brake" of Essence acts equally upon every character in the entire world, whereas the "brake" of time does not really act upon societies and large organizations, and powerful patron individuals. A Duke or High Priest could hire a group of Enchanters full-time to mass-produce permanent magic items for his own use and those of his unerlings, in Quest FRP, whereas that is simply not possible in Sagatafl.

Mage or "Arcane" Spells are not forcibly learned in sequential spell lists, but are still divided into Realms, very analogous to Quest's Disciplines, often with direct analogues. The lack of spell list space restrictions means that the overall number of Spells in each Realm can be (and often is) much greater, compared to the 10-or-so spells per Discipline in Quest FRP. There is no Mystic Theory skill that aids spellcasting, rather each Realm is a skill of its own, and each Spell is a binary skill.

Religious magic is handled via an entirely different system, or rather several systems, all handed as inborn Powers, or rituals of Demon-worship, or subtle magics that anyone can perform.

Permanent magic item creation is restricted by Essence expenditure and does not take very long, often hours or days.

There's much more focus on and rules infrastructure for non-violent conflicts, such as social skills, and for creating characters that excel at those, or fit into the social framework of the setting in unusual ways. Also there's a big selection of inborn and social Avantages and DisAdvantages (the social ones are called Perks and negPerks) to define and individualize one's character.

Combat is in some ways shaped like Quest FRP, in the overall theme, with the two choices of fighting in heav armour or fighting lightly and quickly being distinctive but hopefully (playtesting will tell) functional. The specifics differ enormously, however, and the use of Action Points is thought to be much superior to Quest FRP's combat time system with weapon-specific Blows.

The overall process of character creation is much more truly point-based, with the player being given one pool of points (Goodie Points) and the freedom to distribute them between categories of creation points (DP, SP, PP). This means there are no dice rolls, and Sagatafl works fluidly for a huge variety of power levels, rather than the one starting power level that Quest FRP is intended for.

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Q: Likewise, and actually even more so since Sagatafl is GURPS done right, in which ways does Sagatafl differ from GURPS?
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Omnia

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Q: What is the relationship between Sagatafl and Omnia?
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Q: Is Omnia legal, or is it a rights violation?
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Q: In which ways does Omnia differ from Sagatafl?
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The magic systems

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Q: The jargon pertaining to magic items is confusing. Sometimes it's called Enchanting, other times Endowing. What's going on?
A: This pertains specifically to permanent magical items. An Enchantment is a magical property of an item, usually permanent or else lasting for a fairly long time. Endowing is a learnable method of putting Enchantments into items, but there are other ways to put Enchantments into items than Endowing. One can use the term Enchanting about any process of rendering an item permanently (or semi-permanently) magical, but from a game-mechanical point of view, one must always know the method used, which can be Endowing or can be something else.

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Q: Spellcasting seems like it would be slow, with all those rolls to accumulate Progress. Is it really playable?
A: It was a concern of the chief designer initially, that peraps the Progress amount required to cast Spells were too high, not necessarily for 1st Level Spells (which require 2 points of Progress) but possibly the Progress progression escalated too rapidly (doubling every Spell Level). However, extensive analysis, in the form of literally millions of computer-generated dice rolls, showed that as long as the caster's Realm Skill level is reasonable relative to the Roll Diffculty of the Spellcasting attempt (keeping in mind that almost all Spellcasting is aided by a Focus item which lowers the RD), a Spell can usually be completed in a number of cycles that does not exceed its Spell Level by much. For instance casting a 5th Level Spell, a very powerful and thus dramatic magical endavour, will almost always be completed in 6-8 cycles.

More desperate casting attempts, where the RD is higher relative to the caster's Realm Skill level, create a process where the caster frequently gets a Minor Fumble and thus loses his Progress and must start over. That's a precarious process, because with the higher RD the risk of all kinds of Fumbles is much higher, including Abortive Fumbles (F-3 and worse), and the general advice to spellcaster characters is to not attempt these castings except in circumstnaces of dire need. Which, not incidentally, is the outcome that was desired from the get go, since the primary brake on Spellcasting is the character's fear of Fumbling.

Spell attacks, primarily the various Bolt Spells, Fire Bolt I, Fire Bolt II, Lighting Bolts and Ice Bolts, will also be attempted balanced in such a way that their Range Increment and damage output is reasonable in light of the fact that they take an average of several Rounds to cast each (and several more rounds for the Grade II versions) but can be cast many times before the caster runs out of Spell Energy Points. In short, they must be better than bows and similar weapons, although part of that benefit should reside in the psychological simulation performed by the GM (with some aid of various rules), in that attack Spells are intrinsically scarier than being attacked by mundane weapons.

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Q: Where are the rules for creating non-permanent magic items, such as potions and scrolls?
A: Such ruless have proven difficult to create. The nice thing about the Essence system for permanent magic (including but not limited to permanent items) is that it acts as a "brake" on the entire world, not just on those very few world denizens who are player characters.

It has so far not been possible to device a functional rules shape that produce a brake effect acting upon NPCs as well as on PCs. One can of course disregard that problem, and just propose a couple of Skills called something like Potion Brewing and Scroll Scribing, and simple rules for how they are used, and for what they can produce, but that is not a priority at all, since such items are largely undesirable in the Ärth setting, as NPCs would realistically mass-produce and stockpile them (as should PCs) which would serve to thoroughly de-medievalize the setting.

One simple model for both potions and scrolls is to take inspiration from Quest FRP v2.1, where scrolls simply reproduce Spells, and where potions reproduce only those Spells that have an internal effect, so that e.g. one cannot have a Potion of Fire Bolt II.

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