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Vanitas
2014-01-19, 06:06 AM
Hey, guys. Are you familiar with any RPG that includes a detailed magic system in which each magic requires complicated and lengthy rituals, preferably including rare materials?

Malacoda
2014-01-19, 06:40 AM
Does Alchemy in Skyrim count? Otherwise, you could probably do something like that in Gmod ._.

Vanitas
2014-01-19, 06:51 AM
Does Alchemy in Skyrim count? Otherwise, you could probably do something like that in Gmod ._.
I meant tabletop RPGs, sorry

Yora
2014-01-19, 08:17 AM
Which actually is a default assumption in the Tabletop RPG section. :smallamused:

Adventurer Conqueror King has some magic rituals, but I havn't actually looked at the rules yet.

Vanitas
2014-01-19, 08:29 AM
Adventurer Conqueror King has some magic rituals, but I havn't actually looked at the rules yet.
Hm, interesting. I've been wanting to try my hand at this game (despite the horrible horrible name), mainly because of the awesome cover.

Arbane
2014-01-19, 10:31 PM
Hey, guys. Are you familiar with any RPG that includes a detailed magic system in which each magic requires complicated and lengthy rituals, preferably including rare materials?

I think you can do stuff like this in Dresden Files, and I seem to recall the long out-of-print RPG TORG had Occultism, a fairly free-form system where the more steps you took in a ritual, the better the end-result would be.

Oh, Unknown Armies has a fair number of magic rituals, also.

Grinner
2014-01-19, 11:06 PM
Oh, Unknown Armies has a fair number of magic rituals, also.

I thought about suggesting this too, but I don't think it's really what you're looking for. This is complicated by the fact that there's several kinds of ritual, some of which interact with one another.


Tilt rituals are probably the closest to what you're looking for. They're also the least overt, being designed to tinker with probability.
Proxy rituals let you tamper with magic itself, but they're not something you cast too frequently.
Simple thaumaturgy produces the most interesting results, but it also requires little to no input from the players. It's also kinda freaky.


For DIY ritualism, Unknown Armies is not the answer. It has a really cool cosmology though.

What about Ars Magica?

Tyrrell
2014-01-20, 10:39 AM
What about Ars Magica?
Ars Magica has, in the core book, a very useful magic system that does not rely on rituals for most of its power. If you were to choose an RPG spell caster to have around the house for convenience, you'd have a hard time doing better than an Order of Hermes Magi. So without house rules Ars Magica isn't your game.

yet there are ritual components to the core system. Ceremonial and ritual magic from the core book could be made the only ways of casting spells as a simple house rule and that might make for a really nice game (i.e. all spells need to be cast using a ritual or ceremony, and you'd want to limit the applicability of enchanted devices).

I was also going to suggest that three of the magical traditions in the Rival magic supplement for Ars Magica (the Muspelli, the Soquatrans and the Augustinian brotherhood) have excellent magic systems that are based on rituals, but they probably wouldn't be as good as just house ruling the core book. On the other hand if you're looking for a source to steal ideas from you couldn't do better.

Cicciograna
2014-01-20, 12:00 PM
4th Edition, obviously :smalltongue:

veti
2014-01-20, 04:20 PM
Chivalry & Sorcery tried that. It was a mess, but a beautiful mess.

I seem to recall that spells in Call of Cthulhu can take a ridiculous amount of time and, often, unobtanium to cast. More recently, I've read the same about CthuhuTech, if you can stand the general utter awfulness of that system.

Knaight
2014-01-20, 04:34 PM
I've seen this in a number of systems. Barbarians of Lemuria does this, Dresden Files does this, I think Jaws of the Six Serpents does this, some of the Fate 2.0 systems (Door to Shadow) do this, etc. REIGN has a mix and tends towards shorter spells, but there are some that take hours, though none take months.

Rhynn
2014-01-20, 04:58 PM
Adventurer Conqueror King has some magic rituals, but I havn't actually looked at the rules yet.

ACKS rituals are ACKS's version of arcane spells levels 7th-9th and divine spells levels 6th-7th. Instead of being regular spells, these powerful spells (which include D&D standards like wish and resurrection, but are generally meant to be new spells researched by PCs; with robust guidelines provided in the Player's Companion) take weeks to cast and cost expensive ingredients. Learning them is a long process that requires weeks of magical research. Once cast, they are stored on a scroll or a ring to be activated at a later time.

CarpeGuitarrem
2014-01-20, 05:13 PM
Monster of the Week (http://genericgames.co.nz/) uses this, actually. When you use the Big Magic move (which any character can do, but more supernaturally-inclined characters have a better time at), you tell the GM what you want to do, and the GM tells you what special requirements you need to fulfill, based on the lore established for the world. You gather everything required, then make a roll to see if it backfires, requires stuff like increased time, or has complications.

The only thing you might find lacking is specific details, but that's because the world starts skeletal and gets fleshed out through play. It's up to the GM to work out details of rituals as they get requested, and to make everything cohesive.

(There's also other types of magic, but Big Magic is definitely a key bit of stuff.)

Necroticplague
2014-01-20, 05:24 PM
I thought about suggesting this too, but I don't think it's really what you're looking for. This is complicated by the fact that there's several kinds of ritual, some of which interact with one another.


Tilt rituals are probably the closest to what you're looking for. They're also the least overt, being designed to tinker with probability.
Proxy rituals let you tamper with magic itself, but they're not something you cast too frequently.
Simple thaumaturgy produces the most interesting results, but it also requires little to no input from the players. It's also kinda freaky.


For DIY ritualism, Unknown Armies is not the answer. It has a really cool cosmology though.

However, a lot of the magic in Uknown armies is ritualistic, even if it doesn't use formal "rituals". Avatars have to behave in a certain fashion, or else they lose their powers. And pretty much all spellcasters have some ritualistic behavior they have to do to keep and use their powers , like bibliomancers who have to collect books, and pornamancers that have to ritually act out scenes from certain films. The most straight example is Narco-alchs (for significant charges) and mechomancers, for whom all of their power is crafting in their downtime (personamancer masks get in the action a little bit as well).

Tengu_temp
2014-01-20, 06:44 PM
Most of the good sorcery, and all of thaumaturgy, in Exalted are rituals. There are some sorcery spells that can be cast in combat, but they're generally, slow, weak and not worth the hassle and resource expenditure. For such effects, you want charms instead.

Grinner
2014-01-20, 08:06 PM
However, a lot of the magic in Uknown armies is ritualistic, even if it doesn't use formal "rituals". Avatars have to behave in a certain fashion, or else they lose their powers. And pretty much all spellcasters have some ritualistic behavior they have to do to keep and use their powers , like bibliomancers who have to collect books, and pornamancers that have to ritually act out scenes from certain films. The most straight example is Narco-alchs (for significant charges) and mechomancers, for whom all of their power is crafting in their downtime (personamancer masks get in the action a little bit as well).

I had been aware of these things when I wrote that, but I decided to ignore them. They're cool, yes. Believe me, they're very cool. I just don't feel they're what the OP is looking for.

Ritualism is ultimately the process of forming symbols into sentences, with the hope of producing a given outcome. From my experience in looking for a similar system, I'd say the OP is wanting a system where the variables can be tinkered with, and that doesn't really say Unknown Armies to me.

Aron Times
2014-01-20, 09:39 PM
The New World of Darkness has various ritual magic systems for each of the splats. The more extensive of these is in Mage: The Awakening, which is pretty much the emphasis of the game. For Vampire: The Requiem, there go-to splatbook for ritual magic is Blood Sorcery: Sacraments and Blasphemies, which adds a semi-freeform, Mage-like twist to Theban Sorcery and Cruac spells.

As for the other splats, I'm not that familiar with them. I do know that the Malleus Maleficarum, i.e. the Inquisition, has Benedictions, which are holy rituals that grant them an edge over their supernatural enemies. Benedictions are also unique in that they get more powerful during the specific saint's feast day (in Roman Catholicism, each saint has his or her own feast day, which is basically a semi-holy day dedicated to that saint). They are also the only faction throughout the world of darkness that can truly resurrect the dead, though the target will return with a severe derangement in tow.

Vanitas
2014-01-21, 04:08 AM
Thanks for all the suggestions, guy. I'll hunt them down!

Wraith
2014-01-21, 04:12 AM
Thieves' World is a reasonably low-level game when it comes to magic. I haven't played it, but I'm told that even for highly skilled characters all magic requires a ritual of at least a minute to do anything, and powerful spells can take several hours if not days.

BWR
2014-01-21, 06:12 AM
Technically, most game systems have ritualistic magic. You perform certain specific actions - usually including gestures, words, possibly materials - and a certain specific effect occurs.

Several spells from 2e have long casting times of an hour up to a long process taking several days.

The Scarred Land's supplement "Relics and Rituals" details powerful long-casting time spells for multiple casters, based on D&D 3.0.

Magic in Kult often takes an hour or more to employ and requires symbolic foci (which may easily be house ruled to cost a bit more).

Magic in the Laundry Files (basically CoC meets MiB) requires a lot of time and effort and cost to prepare, though depending on your tools andthe power of the effect actually activating it can be as easy as the push of a button or a week long chant.

Magic in the Everlasting can be complex and time-consuming (IIRC, it's been a while since I read the books).

Ravens_cry
2014-01-21, 07:02 AM
This seems to describe Unearthed Arcana's Incantation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/incantations.htm)system quite well.

hamlet
2014-01-21, 11:13 AM
Arduin Eternal has some ritualistic magic.

AEG's 7th Sea has some more, though that game's out of print.

Earthdawn, as I recall, has a bit, though I'm not entirely familiar with it.