A Sorcerous Obsession

 

Sometimes, I just can't get something out of my head.  Back in the good ol' days of the blog, it would end up as a blog series.  Lately, since I need to curate my material more, I hesitate to just brainstorm on the blog, but perhaps that's a bad approach.  After all, the point of this blog is to blather on in a way that gets my juices flowing, which helps me to think, and helps you to think about your own setting, and often starts a conversation. So while this post may or may not result in some changes to Psi-Wars, it will be useful for me to get some thoughts straightened out, and perhaps to inspire you as well, dear reader.  Consider this less of an "article" and more a musing.

So here it goes: The though I can't get out of my head is "Does Psi-Wars need magic?"

On Narrative Magic

My posts on magic, especially the one on flexible magic, tend to be quite popular, despite them not being on topic. But whenever I write them, a little voice in the back of my head objects.  It says something like this:

"But that's not what they want to use magic for.  You don't understand what they're trying to do with magic."

A lot of people who advocate for flexible magic are not generally advocating for it because they want to have infinitely flexible problem solving power, allowing them just invest in a single stat that will solve all of their problems.  Instead, they speak of adding greater flavor to their stories.  They want to run a game that feels occult or like a fairy-tale, and they feel like static magic doesn't offer them this opportunity, while flexible magic does.  They see my arguments about problem solving as moving in the wrong direction.  I actually address this in my post on Flexible Magic, but I thought I might address it in greater detail here.

First, before we get into the rest of this, I want to hedge that I disagree with the notion that static magic can't feel like a fairy tale or like occult horror.  For example, there's a Pyramid article with Path/Book Magic that's explicitly geared towards fairly tale tropes, and Path/Book magic in general is very occult. 

But these still create very solution-oriented magic that's repeatable, when that isn't what they want.  What they want is something that allows them to express their immediate creativity, to create magic that feels unique to the moment or the story. They don't want "I cast sleep.  I cast sleep again." They want this more dynamic thing where they might cast sleep twice, but the nature of the sleep spell, and how it interacts with the setting and the world changes.  The first time it might be a quick, light slumber spell to help someone sleep while their dreams are safeguarded from ghosts, while the second time it might be a dread curse (that also preserves the target in their current age and health) that keeps them asleep until the spell is broken.  Static systems struggle with this sort of nuance and detail, so they naturally reach for a dynamic system.

But I think the problem here isn't actually the dynamic system, it's the mechanical dissonance. They're trying to use a narrativist mechanic in a gamist, solution-oriented game system, and the net result of that inevitably creates the sort of problems that I complain about in  my flexible magic post, where people realize that magic is the One Stat to Rule Them All, and just rolls magic until the problem goes away.  There is, however, a solution to this that allows the creative player to have their creativity without breaking the system they're working with.

The Strength of Weak Magic

Slightly off-topic from things I normally discuss, but I had a lively debate, triggered by the Pyramid Kickstarter, on the problems with GURPS Magic.  Now, while I don't hate GURPS Magic (it offers some very interesting ideas, and I love RPGs that offer that wealth of non-combat-oriented, problem-solving spells), I think Sorcery is an objectively better system.  I think Magic is a symptom of one of the problems that plagues GURPS 4e (and 3e, really) which is point crock, this insistence on having secondary systems that can do what advantages do, but are, for whatever reason, cheaper.  So, instead of buying an innate fire attack, mages learn fireball, and instead of purchasing DR, mages learn shield spell. The result of this is to "hide the true costs" of the mage, and to let him sneak into higher power levels, especially when point totals start to get particularly high.

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!

Thoughts on Occulted Systems

So, based on a positive review, I buckled down and picked up a game I had been eying for awhile: Cultist Simulator. I am completely obsessed with it now, as it's absolutely the sort of game I've desperately wanted for a very long time, and it's devouring more of my free time than I should really allow.

But it did get me thinking about a perennial bugbear of mine, namely magic systems and a lot of my gripes of them.  Cultist Simulator helped me clarify what it is I actually want to see in such a game, or what I'd like to try to explore.

See, in Cultist Simulator, they explain nothing to you.  You have to experiment on your own and figure it all out, and it's pretty complicated stuff.  It's just random enough be uncertain if a failing result is a matter of a bad choice or if you've just gotten unlucky, though not so random that you feel like you couldn't guess.  There are systems that underly things that tend to have a surprising number of moving parts, and while the game (seems to) give you enough information to figure it out, though it's not obvious, and even if you think you know, there may still be some deeper thing to learn.  The fact that these various, abstract concepts have pretty obscure and symbolic names only makes it more fun (My character solved the riddle of the Stag's Door, which was about a queen who never was, and passed through it to become one of the Know.  Now he hungers for the minds of others. Until the Worms came for him).

In short, Cultist Simulator treats the Occult as a mystery to be investigated, which is something I feel a lot of magic systems lack.  Given that I'm thinking about this all the time right now, I thought I might as well right about it, to get it off my chest and maybe give you some ideas as well, dear reader.

Rant: My problem with flexible magic systems

If we can set aside Psi-Wars for a second, I came across a video that I want to comment on before I forget it.  The video discusses essentially why Avada Kadavra is a terrible spell, and he's spot on, but this also has broader implications, especially in one of my pet peeves, and why I've not adapted RPM like the vast majority of GURPS fans seem to have.

The problem with flexible magic systems is that, despite purporting to allow unlimited flexibility in magic, they suck all the need for creativity out of a game.

(I was originally working on this when someone asked me for help on a flexible magic system so I, uh, paused it. It was also turning into something longer than I expected and I wanted to put my time on Psi-Wars, rather than a personal peeve of mine.  However, this was the Patron General Topic of the Month, so I posted it; well, actually it was a tie, but this was more ready than the other topic, so this topic went up.  If you'd like to vote on next month's general topic, feel free to support me via the link in the sidebar.  All I ask is $1 a month).

The Secret Magic of Psi Wars

• The Force as Space Magic
• The Magical Space Knight
• The Other Side of Space Magic

So, we've looked at how we can use the Magic system to imitate the Force of Star Wars, created a few characters and explored the edges of that magic system.  How did we do?

While Psionics obviously captures the intention of the Force better, I'm rather pleased with this implementation.  The powers are exceptionally affordable, appropriately-skill based, the Dark Side feels Dark, the Light Side feels just as powerful (only in a different way) and suitable for what the Light Side should be.  The magic items seem a touch wonky, but Destiny might work exceptionally well for them. But it does have a few problems.

The Magic system relies on active casting: A wizard would intentionally cast Sense Danger or Mage Sense rather than simply knowing, the way a Jedi would.  Jedi typically receive visions or "a bad feeling," or even sufficient warning that they can use a precognitive parry to defend against an attack.  For that matter, precognition in magic is very specific and doesn't match what we see in Star Wars.  The typical scene in Star Wars has a Jedi meditating on the future and receiving visions, and there's no explicit spell to do that in Magic.

Magic is generally wonky and specific, likely stemming from its Fantasy origins.  In addition to active casting, you have arbitrary prerequisites (why is Glitch so much harder than Steal Energy?), and the fact that spells were meant to be cast on others, while a typical Jedi only augments himself.  Finally, many of the spells (especially the enchantments) have a distinctly fantasy feel to them, even if we strictly limit ourselves to just a few spells, such as lightning's ability to cut through metal armor (what armor in Psi-Wars counts as "metal?")

Finally, the typical Jedi can attempt things at "default," such as Rey's struggle to use a Jedi Mind Trick, while the default spell system allows nothing like that.

• The Magic System relies on active casting, while many of a Jedi's gifts "just happen," such as his awareness of danger, or visions granted to him by the force
• Precognition, in general, seems lacking in the standard Magic system.
• Many magic spells can be cast on others as well as on oneself (Jump, for example)
• Magic generally has some inherent wonkiness that gets inherited by this new system, such as the extreme difficulty of some of the ergokinesis spells.
• Jedi can generally try stuff "at default" while Magic doesn't allow that.

As usual, we'll look into how best to solve those problems if we want Space Magic to feel more like the Force... or what happens if we discard the need to adhere strictly to the Force and go in our own direction.

The Other Side of Space Magic

Now that we have a basis for our Space Magic, let's consider some of the details and flexibility the magic system offers us.  Specifically:

• I take a look at how to implement the Dark Side, and the Light Side, in the Magic system.
• I take a look at using Enchantment in an appropriate fashion for a setting inspired by Star Wars
• I examine Destiny, how best to treat it, and how it fits into the larger picture

The Magical Space Knight

lifeweb by tanathiel

If we're going to use Magic-As-Psi (from Pyramid #3-29), we should get an idea of how that will look.  What can such a character do?  Is it sufficient to emulate a decent Jedi?  Can we afford such powers with 50 points?  And how well does this system work?

Before we begin, some notes.  The Magic-as-Psi system removes the standard prerequisite system.  Instead, it counts prereqs and requires a Will + Talent equal to 10 + prerequisites, so a spell with 2 prerequisites requires a Will + Talent of 12 before you can learn it.  Furthermore, for our purposes, I'm going to disregard individual talents in favor of more generic Magery.  This tests the "pure" magic system better, and better emulates the generalist nature of the Jedi.  Finally, the article offers "recommended spells", but we won't use all of them (for example, we won't have pyrokinetic space knights), and we'll add a few more to emulate specific elements (for example, their list seems to neglect Choke).

I have collected a list of recommended powers per talent below, including the Will + Magery prerequisite, the spell, a page reference (always to GURPS Magic) and a cost, the last for my own reference to get an idea of how much energy reserves a typical Space Knight might need to accomplish much.

The Force as Space Magic

Space Wizard by 3nrique

That wizard is just a crazy old man 

-Owen Lars, A New Hope

Thought it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. A magical power holding together good and evil... the dark side and the light. Crazy thing is... it's true. The Force. The Jedi. All of it. It's all true. 

-Han Solo, The Force Awakens

Now since “paranormal” is a long word, and I am basically lazy,we can now introduce the word “psi.” . . . I’m sorry to have to keep doing this, but as we said before, in magic things often become what we call them. 

– Isaac Bonewits, Real Magic

The Force is best depicted as Magic.  The Force itself is described as an energy field that pervades the universe, an energy field that certain individuals are sensitive to and can manipulate through concentration, training and expenditure of energy.  Sometimes, this energy field becomes twisted and aspected in a particular direction, such as Dagobah, which is "Strong in the dark side of the Force."  You know what that sounds like?  Mana.  What do we call the manipulation of mana through concentration, training and expenditure of energy? Magic. While it's true that the effects seen in Star Wars more closely resemble psionics, the entire point of psionics is to replace mystical claptrap with scientific-sounding claptrap when discussing paranormal phenomenon.  But Star Wars returns that mystical claptrap to its paranormal phenomenon.  What do we call mystical paranormal phenomenon? Magic.

Magic can absolutely perform the sorts of tricks we see the Jedi perform.  Oracles and diviners can see the future.  Magicians regularly seem to hover or levitate objects, just as Jedi do, and magicians regularly read and/or influence minds: from stage magicians hypnotizing an audience or reading which card they're holding to witches who "fascinate" or "enchant" their subjects.  In fact, "magic" and "psychic" are largely synonymous terms, especially when it comes to sideshow fortune tellers or stage magicians.

Furthermore, Star Wars is full of magical elements.  It has places of power, such as the dangerous cave Luke stepped into on Dagobah, or the Jedi Temple of Yavin 4 from the Extended Universe, or the tombs of Corriban.  Star Wars also seems to place significant emphasis on artifacts and relics: Kylo Ren's obsession with Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber makes little sense in a scientific context (that makes about as much sense as a modern soldier desperately hunting after Hitler's favorite pistol), but it makes an enormous amount of sense in a mystical context (such as an obsessive hunt after Excalibur or the Spear of Destiny). Star Wars also emphasizes destiny, not just in the sense of "I have foreseen a future and in it, you did this," but in the sense of a metaphysical weight behind someone, a purpose determined by a higher power.  Star Wars generally places a great deal of emphasis on the old and ancient: The Jedi are an ancient religion, and ancient order, unchanged by time.  Why?  Because the Jedi operate in a fundamentally mythic way.  The Force is not a science to be developed over time, but an ancient wisdom to be understood.  The tombs of the Sith contain more wisdom than the laboratories of the Empire.  The result is a setting that trades more strongly in the tropes of fantasy fiction than it does in the tropes of science fiction, thus some people even refer to Star Wars as Science Fantasy.

About ten years ago I set out to write a children's film, and I had an idea of doing a modern fairy tale... I wrote many drafts of this work and then I stumbled across The Hero With a Thousand Faces. It was the first time that I really began to focus. Once I read that book I said to myself, This is what I've been doing. This is it... It was The Hero With a Thousand Faces that just took what was about 500 pages and said, here is the story. Here's the end; here's the focus; here's the way it's all laid out. It was all there and had been there for thousands and thousands of years, as Mr. Campbell pointed out. And I said, "This is it." 

-George Lucas, National Arts Club, 1985, in regards to the inspiration for Star Wars

George Lucas deliberately set this mythical element in Star Wars.  Where most Space Opera makes an effort to hide its origins in some other genre, George Lucas brought it to the forefront.  If we dismiss the idea of the Force as Magic out of hand, we dismiss a major element of Star War's inspiration.

GURPS Magic as the Force

Using GURPS Magic opens up all kinds of great options for us, as it's the most well-supported "powers" system in all of GURPS.  It's supported right out of the core book (like Psi is), and it has an entire hard-back volume expanding it (GURPS Magic) and then another (Thaumatology).

For this exploration we will, of course, be using GURPS Magic.  GURPS absolutely brims with support for Magic (another point in its favor), so we'll use some of those resources, including GURPS Thaumatology, which we'll use to refine any magical concepts that don't entirely fit.

I will not be using the more recent, and increasingly popular, Ritual Path Magic.  I leave designing Space Ritual Path Magic to whatever reader that wishes to explore that concept.

Of course, we don't expect space knights to intone space-latin while making arcane gestures and then shooting a fireball at their opponents.  We expect something that at least looks somewhat psionic.  But fortunately, David Pulver is already a step ahead of us.  He wrote an article entitled "Magic as Psi" in Pyramid #3/29 Psionics. where he tackled this very problem.  He noted that many spells in GURPS Magic already readily imitate Psionic abilities: the Mind college and the Communication college allow the reading and influence of minds, the Movement college allows for telekinetic effects, and the Knowledge college allows for extra-sensory perception.

Magic also has relatively low point-costs associated with them.  Where a psion easily spends 50 points on a single power, a magician with 50 points of spells and Magery is already well on his way to magical mastery.

GURPS Magic does come with quite a few baked-in assumptions, but those aren't necessarily so bad.  The expenditure of fatigue applies to Psionics as well, and tracks nicely with the idea of "Force Points" as seen in other systems.  Spells require concentration to cast, but the Jedi certainly concentrate when casting their spells.  Incantations, wands, staves and magic books are inappropriate, but also removed by Pulver's article, so no longer a concern.  We have more spells than we need, but we can always pare the list down, or even add a few new spells as we need.  And if we find that an element is especially inappropriate, we can always adjust the rules with the help of GURPS Thaumatology.

The only real problem I see with using GURPS Magic is that many Jedi powers seem fairly innate.  They work whether or not the Jedi actively activates them: He dreams what the Force wants him to dream, and the Force warns him of danger moments before it happens.  A Jedi doesn't need to "cast" each ability to activate it.

Getting Started

Like last week, I'll explore what 50 points of magic spells will get you, though unlike Psi, I'll show you what a more integrated Jedi might look like, as Magic allows for much broader characters.  Then we'll dig into the Light Side and the Dark Side of magic, and we'll use Thaumatology to look at how we might handle the different metaphysics, and we'll look at things like enchantment, places of power and destiny.  Finally, we'll look back, see how it all went, what we can do to make it even more Force-like, and what Psi-Wars might look like if we went crazy with a Magical universe.