The discussion turned to why this is. Why unbalance the mage? The argument made by others is that the fiction fantasy emulates often pairs a powerful wizard with a grim and gritty mercenary; a Gandalf with a Boromir. Players had an expectation that the wizard could perform some very powerful magic, but accepted that they might have a limitation on it, such as being able to only cast once or twice before being depleted. This emulates the fiction, where a wizard is a larger-than-life character, certainly more interesting and powerful than those without magic, but often doesn't use their godlike power (muttering about the position of the stars and the temptation of power) and allows the mere mortals to sort out their problem, until dramatically solving the crisis with a wave of their hand if they're strictly necessary. GURPS Magic does this, and it works very well at the 100 to 150 point level common to older GURPS editions.
The fear, then, is that if we required people to use Sorcery, the magic user ceases to be "interesting" at the point totals where we tend to see grim-and-gritty mercenaries. Now, there are some arguable assumptions leading to this conclusion, but I think while it's true that a genuinely priced wizard, as most people conceive of a wizard, is closer to a 500-point street super than he is to a 150-point gritty mercenary, but the assertion that the 150-point sorcerer would be boring rub me the wrong way. Some of my favorite stories are about "weak" sorcerers (such as "With a Single Spell"), and I think they have a lot to offer a group.
The point of this post is not to argue that GURPS Magic is a problem, or that Wizards, as written, are a problem, or even that Sorcery is superior, though I think all these things are, to some extent, true. Rather, it's to try to alleviate any fears someone might have about "weak sorcerers being boring," to show what they can do, and why low-powered magic-users can often be more interesting than high-powered magic-users!
The Hedge Witch
So what does a "weak" magic user even look like? Well, we have a few options, but I would argue that GURPS DF is the current golden standard for fantasy GURPS gamers. Since we're explicitly talking about low-power characters, we'd use the Henchmen book and create a 125-point magic user: the Apprentice.
Such a character might look something like this:
Attributes: ST 10 [0]; DX 11 [20]; IQ 13 [60]; HT 11 [10].
Advantages: Luck [15]; Language (Elven; Accented) [4]; Language (Draconic, Broken) [2]
Disadvantages: Curious (12) [-5]; Sense of Duty (Companions) [-5]; Wealth (Struggling) [-10]; Weirdness Magnet [-15];
Skills:
- Alchemy (VH) IQ-2 [2]-11
- Exorcism (H) Will-1 [2]-12
- Expert Skill (Natural Philosophy) (H) IQ-1 [2]-12
- First Aid (E) IQ [1]-13;
- Knife (E) DX+1 [2]-12;
- Hazardous Materials (Magical) (A) IQ-1 [1]-12
- Hidden Lore (Magical Writings) (A) IQ [2]-13;
- Hidden Lore (Spirits) (A) IQ [2]-13
- Hiking (A) HT-1 [1]-10;
- Occultism (A) IQ [2]-13;
- Research (A) IQ-1 [1]-12;
- Scrounging (E) Per [1]-12;
- Shortsword (A) DX+1 [4]-12;
- Stealth (A) DX-1 [1]-10;
- Thrown Weapon (Knife) (E) DX+1 [2]-12;
Note, first, that I've skipped the Secondary Characteristics, which have some negative points in there, in case anyone is adding everything up. Note, second, the skills and advantages: the central element of most magic users is esoteric knowledge. Our Hedge Witch knows strange languages, and can read magical writings and understands spirits, and can cast them out, and can recognize a curse and deal with it, and can create potions. She's not great at these things, but she's a sight better than some grizzled mercenary would be. This is the reason a gritty mercenary would bring her along: to translate texts, to handle those strange, ancient runes he's planning on stealing, and to deal with weird curses that might afflict him.
Hedge Witch Magic
Now, onto magic. The Apprentice gets 35 points of magic. What would this buy her with Sorcery? Well, she could buy up to Sorcerous Empowerment 2, but let's see what spells she could get, just out of Sorcery (none of its supplements, nor Generic Enraged Eggplant's considerable collection) with Sorcerous Empowerment 1 [20]
- Air Jet level 3 [4]
- Animal Control [2]
- Haircut [3]
- Ignite Fire [1]
- Shape Fire 1 [4]
- Relieve Madness [2]
- Detect Magic [2]
- Light 3 [4]
- Sunbolt 5 [4]
- Locksmith [2]
- Steal Vitality 1 [4]
- Icy weapon [3]
- Cool (40°F) 3 [4]
- Predict Weather 1 [3]
As you can see, we actually have quite a few options available to us. A build might be Sorcerous Empowerment 1 [20] and Air Jet 3 [4], Cool 2 [3], Detect Magic [2], Light 3 [3] and Predict Weather [3]. This character could sense tomorrow's weather, knock someone over with an average of 20 points of knockback (that's almost enough to knock an ST 10 character three yards), drop the temperature by 40 degrees over a 4 yard radius, create a light, and notice magic.
Arguably, this character isn't actually much worse than what an apprentice would already do (a standard apprentice would have 10 spells, twice as many, but spend much more on fatigue, need to use obvious rituals, and has a higher chance of failure). I happen to think Magic is pretty balanced at these lower point totals. Those who might think she's actually pretty limited in her options should note that the Sorcery book doesn't have many more spells in it than GURPS Basic does. If you want more spells you'll need to buy some of the supplements (or peruse Enraged Eggplant's exhaustive catalog). But notice that she's no slouch. Oh, to be sure, she's not world-shakingly powerful, but she has access to magic that would let her prove useful on a battlefield to assist our mercenary or help him solve problems: she could provide illumination, blast foes back, keep him cool during a hot day, or freeze over water (unless it's too hot out, but 70°F to 30°F is dropping it from a nice summer's day or a warm spring day to freezing temperatures), notice that something is magical and gain some information on it and provide advice for the next day, such as a warning about an impending storm. It's not much, but the 125-point warrior isn't slinging around 20+ broadsword or Weapon Master either. She's appropriate to a more grim-and-gritty setting.
The Strength of Weak Magic
The problem with magic is that it solves everything. That's the nature of magic: it's often about wish fulfillment, as in "I wish this wasn't a problem." Want to get the girl, or get rich, or see your enemies dead? Just cast a spell, and it'll do it for you. People traditionally sought out magic to solve their problems for them, and RPGers tend to view wizards the same way: "Isn't there a spell for this?"
This creates a problem, however, in that gaming generally turns around coming up with clever solutions to new puzzles. The puzzles might be tactical ("How to defeat 10 orcs with only 5 humans..."), or a mystery ("How was the king killed in a sealed room") or social ("I love the princess and she loves me, but for the sake of the kingdom, she must marry the evil prince"). If a wizard can just wave their hand and solve the problem ("The orcs disappear, we look into the past to see what happened, and I create a magic that blesses the kingdom, ending the need for her to marry the evil prince"), then the game ceases to be interesting. Magic must have limitations.
One possible limitation is making the magic simply weak. How could our Hedge Witch solve these problems? Could she freeze something in the room while the Orcs don't know she's there? Could she blow over a brazier of flames behind them to distract them, allowing the mercenary to attack? Could she use detect magic to notice a strange artifact in the company of the dead king? A weak mage needs to apply subtle tricks that others generally don't have access to that don't necessarily overwhelm the puzzle, but give her perspectives and options others don't have. Consider, for example, the wonderful standby of a spell that grants Telekinesis out to 20 yards at ST 5 and it would fit into her 20 point maximum spell budget. What clever tricks could you do, out to 20 yards, with an invisible, ST 5 hand? Quite a few, I'd say.
Of course, this isn't to say it's the only option to limit the power of mages. We could give wizards fantastic cosmic power, but limit the number of times they can use it, and apply huge problems ("Look, I can solve one of those problems, but it'll diminish the mystical resilience of the kingdom, leaving it vulnerable to curses and dooms, so I'd rather not, but if you really need me to, I can), or it might require extensive resource collection ("I can solve all of those problems, but each of them requires a special quest to gather the materials I need"). My point is not that weak effects are necessarily the best option, just that they are one among many to keep mages from making a game boring, and that the weakness of magic often offers an interesting challenge to players.
Mostly, though, I want to pitch the benefits of a very underappreciated magical system, my magic system of choice, and argue that the fact that it reduces the effectiveness of mages is a feature rather than a bug. Drawing down the number of options available to a mage prevents them from overshadowing others, better protects niches, and still offers them more than enough power to make for interesting characters, though often more subtle. And the use of advantages across the board brings the mage's costs demonstrably in line with others, and allows you to leverage the advantage design system inherent in GURPS, rather than try to figure out what a spell should cost or look like using some completely alternate system (such as the guidelines in GURPS Magic, or the extensive guidelines in RPM).
If you want to know more about Sorcery, check out Thaumatology: Sorcery and its supplements, Protection Spells and Sound Spells. If you want to integrate it into Dungeon Fantasy, Antoni Ten Monros has you covered in his quest to strip vanilla magic out of GURPS DF with The Sorcerer in Pyramid #3/82
Just like with your post about flexible magic, I agree on all the points here.
ReplyDelete