Magic System Discussion

[kirottu]

It doesn

[Judge Hades]

Not with my experience with Rolemaster, or better put Rollmaster: The game of endless charts. It took me 10 hours to create a single character in all of his slpendor. From all his stats, find the right artwork to represent him then do some minor alterations, getting all of his equipment, write out his entire history to the starting point of the campaign, his listed profession and why he chosen that profession, and skills. The next day he was killed with a single roll of a die. All that time wasted. All that effort for nothing. I stopped playing Rolemaster after that.

[kirottu]

:D

 

Uh, I mean Too bad man, too bad.

[Ellester]

I'll hopefully have time to discuss this topic more tomorrow, but I would like to state that there is currently a CRPG with a mana system that very effectively prevents spamming: World of Warcraft.

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If that

[Nightwolf]

Anyone played EverQuest? I spent twenty (!) hours creating a character, and I still play her. She's basically a virtual me.

[Ellester]

Anyone played EverQuest? I spent twenty (!) hours creating a character, and I still play her. She's basically a virtual me.

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20 hours I

[Nightblade]

Not with my experience with Rolemaster, or better put Rollmaster: The game of endless charts.  It took me 10 hours to create a single character in all of his slpendor.  From all his stats, find the right artwork to represent him then do some minor alterations, getting all of his equipment, write out his entire history to the starting point of the campaign, his listed profession and why he chosen that profession, and skills.  The next day he was killed with a single roll of a die.  All that time wasted.  All that effort for nothing.  I stopped playing Rolemaster after that.

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Jeezus..

 

Learn to play the game will you? If you play it right, have a cleric or healer in the group, you can do quite a bit to avoid being wounded or killed. In Rolemaster swordfights can go on for a long time, even with the critical system.

 

Also, spending a lot of time creating a character background is something you can do in D&D as well. Creating a lvl 1 character with the 2 primary handbooks of the first Rolemaster ed. is something I can do in 15-20 minutes. Of course, if you've never played it before, it takes a bit of time to learn the system, and so character creation would take longer, since you don't know which skills and spells you want. I bet you didn't create your first D&D character in 10 minutes either.

 

I don't know what sort of DM you played with, but you can do it very simple.

 

Roll 10 stats:

 

Con, Str, Agility, Quickness, Self disc, Int, Memory, Empathy, Intuition, Presence.

Check what bonuses you get according to a table, and add race-bonuses.

 

Roll 1-6 background options, or choose (DM discretion) on a table.

Can be options like + to stats or stat bonuses, better skills, free items, extra money etc.

Add some hobby-ranks you get for free when you create a lvl 1 char.

Calculate how many development points you get, depending on the stats Con, Ag, Int, Mem and Self-disc.

 

Choose what skills you want at lvl 1, using your development points. At level 1 you probably wouldn't want more than 5-10 skills, focus on those. Add stat bonuses to the skill-bonuses.

 

Calculate resistance-bonuses.

Calculate hitpoints and mana points based on Con and the magic stat for your realm, Empathy, Presence or Intuition. Hitpoint development is a separate skill you have to develop. Add Body-dev. skill and Con bonus.

 

And voila, that's pretty much it. I can create such a lvl 1 fighter in 10 min. Of course, I can spend more time writing background stories etc. but that's up to each and every DM/player/party.

 

 

Yes there are many charts, one for each weapon in fact, but in a crpg, all this would be baked into the system. Even the criticals. It would make the game much more realistic. You wouldn't be able to run into every acid-trap you could find, like in NWN/HotU, just because you have enough hitpoints. Maybe an A acid critical would injure your toes, make you fall, stun you b/c of the pain, make you fight at minuses, make you bleed etc. It's a much more realistic and mature system imho. Fights would be more challenging. In D&D two fighters can hack away at each other until one drops, and that's it. How challenging is that?! Like two men whaking at each other with clubs, suddenly one drops to the ground, the other one continues to walk around like nothing ever happened. It's just.. dumb. And it doesn't matter how many extra editions and rules-books they add to this dumb system. It's still.. dumb.

 

 

N.

[Loof]

I don't understand this fear of manabased systems. There is nothing in teh concept itself that says you have to be able to spam spells right and left, altho I can see that if your only reference points are CRPG's you might get that impression.

But then again how many real CRPG's have been made with a mana system (as oposed to hackfests such as diablo).

Personaly I would take a good manabased system over D&D's rigid spellslot system anyday. But then I dislike almost everything about D&D (levelbased, classbased, HP per level, to name just a few things)

 

I also agree with Sawyer about Ars Magica havinga very good magic system. The thing that makes that system so nice is (among other things) the ability to improvise spells, so that magic feels likea truely inovative art instead of simply being a rigid gamemechanic to represent the fantastic.

Unfortunetly this is something that would be more or less imposible to implement in a computergame.

[birdiedude]

First off, a disclaimer: I don

[omnimutant]

I think all Fanatsy Magic systems are dumb, Mana or not. Too many David Blains in the RPG world. I think if you need to have magic in your RPG make it more Scientific. Example would be in a goffy cave man game, the guy who can create fire by rubbing some sticks together, would be considerd using magic. Magic =the stuff the most people can't explian at the time, but doesnt go beyond the laws of physics.

 

I've said my part so flame away.

 

P.S. Why ar'nt there any goofy Cave man CRPG's?

[kirottu]

I think all Fanatsy Magic systems are dumb, Mana or not. Too many David Blains in the RPG world. I think if you need to have magic in your RPG make it more Scientific. Example would be in a goffy cave man game, the guy who can create fire by rubbing some sticks together, would be considerd using magic. Magic =the stuff the most people can't explian at the time, but doesnt go beyond the laws of physics. 

 

I've said my part so flame away. 

 

P.S. Why ar'nt there any goofy Cave man CRPG's?

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That what you say is true in real world, not in fantasy world. And if you take magic out of fantasy world you would have real world. Let

[omnimutant]

Fantasy doesnt mean it has to have magic. Look at the Fallout Series For example.

[Volourn]

"Fantasy doesnt mean it has to have magic. Look at the Fallout Series For example."

 

Yes, let's ignore the psionics which is just another form of "magic"..

 

R00fles!

[Alien Love Gardener]

"Fantasy doesnt mean it has to have magic. Look at the Fallout Series For example."

 

Yes, let's ignore the psionics which is just another form of "magic"..

 

R00fles!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And of course, psionics were such a vital component of the gameplay experience. Why, I couldn't possibly imagine what Fallout would've been like if psionics hadn't been a part of it.

[kirottu]

"Fantasy doesnt mean it has to have magic. Look at the Fallout Series For example."

 

Yes, let's ignore the psionics which is just another form of "magic"..

 

R00fles!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And of course, psionics were such a vital component of the gameplay experience. Why, I couldn't possibly imagine what Fallout would've been like if psionics hadn't been a part of it.

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Eh? There was? I have no memory of any psionic skills, perks or monsters in fallout.

 

PS. Omnimutant, fallout is a scifi game, not a fantasy game.

[Alien Love Gardener]

Which was sort of my point.

 

There's some enemies with psionics in the master's lair, iirc, and that's it.

[Volourn]

"And of course, psionics were such a vital component of the gameplay experience. Why, I couldn't possibly imagine what Fallout would've been like if psionics hadn't been a part of it."

 

Irrelevant. Psionics was a part of FO. It doens't matter if it was just a little. The fact is, accoridng to the FO universe, psionics aka magic existed.

[kirottu]

Ah, it would be cool if F3 would have psionic skill and some perks. :cool: Damn... I probably should register at bethesda

[Expresso]

Magic is such a broad term. By definition it just covers all what is supernatural, mystical and paranormal. Psionics or Parapsychology could be vaguely described as a small subset of Magic that deals with "Extra-sensory perception" and "Anomalous operation".

 

More background info on Magic and Psionics at Wikipedia:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(paranormal)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psionics

[Alien Love Gardener]

"And of course, psionics were such a vital component of the gameplay experience. Why, I couldn't possibly imagine what Fallout would've been like if psionics hadn't been a part of it."

 

Irrelevant. Psionics was a part of FO. It doens't matter if it was just a little. The fact is, accoridng to the FO universe, psionics aka magic existed.

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No it's not. Psionics is such a miniscule part of the Fallout universe (unless I'm mistaken, it was completely ignored in the sequel), it has no impact impact on gameplay whatsoever. You can rip it out entirely and noone would notice.

 

Which makes pointing out that Fallout is an excellent example of how one can do a roleplaying game in a fantastical setting without throwing magic into the mix entirely valid.

[AlanC9]

Sure. You could rip psionics out of FO and the game would play the same.

 

Thing is, they didn't do that. They left psionics in. Psionics are officially a part of the FO universe now.

 

And FO2 was even worse. No psi, but a goddamn ghost!

[omnimutant]

I have no memory of any psionic skills, perks or monsters in fallout.

Agreed Can I get a refresher here? I have no recolection of any Psionics. And as far as a ghost is concerend, well thats a ghost. Its not magic. Its folklore if anything. Supernatural? Sure. But magic? No.

 

IMO magic is just a lame excuse to do things one normally could not do in a midevil/fantasy setting.

[Loof]

If psionics was or wasn't a part of fallout is totaly irrelevant, (and yes i agree fallout is sci-fi an dnot fantasy). The question was "can you do fantasy without magic" I would say sure why not if it would make the world more memorable and enjoyable, something I think would depend alot of the rest of the world one was creating.

 

Now what was the point of all the hysterics?