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MonkeySage
2016-08-20, 12:06 AM
Your party has entered the dungeon, and gotten into a couple fights in just the past few minutes. You're all freshly rested, but your wizard/sorcerer has blown all of their spells per day and a half rest won't really cut it.

They need a full nights rest in order to cast their spells again...

Of course, what players often do is take that full nights rest, because what is 8 hours to them?

But is that what the characters would do?

"Hey guys lets stop for 8 hours, i'm out of spells..." "But we just woke up!" says everyone else...

The fighter can swing his sword all day, he's not even close to being fully tapped...

Why is the wizard so severely limited? Sure, his few spells are powerful... but spells are his thing. They are what he does best.

Slayn82
2016-08-20, 12:30 AM
Wizards/spellcasters are your mix of logistics, intelligence and artillery specialists. When you are on a team, and one of those guys say you need to wait, unless it's mission critical you act quickly, you bunker up and wait.

Now, when you are on a race against time, you say sorry and ask him to hold back on fancy damage effects and bring the fundamentals.

Let the team take attrition evenly, by having the fighters hold the enemy on choke points, and the rest of party throw lots of arrows and at will spells on enemies not engaged. Cheap potions can help deal with easier encounters. Low level spells like darkness can make enemy coordination difficult. Poison can help finish casters. Unlocked doors can be barred to separate from enemy. Low level allies/minions can hold an area for rest, keep an escape rote open and check for ambushes.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-20, 01:13 AM
Assuming we're talking about a DnD Vancian system, here are the major problems I see.

1. Wizard sleep becomes a resource.

2. There is an inelegant amount of bookkeeping required to keep track of which spells can be used, has been used, may potentially be used next cycle.

3. Wizard can be, depending on player's skill at spell management, utterly too powerful or utterly useless within the same session, neither of which are fun states for the wizard to be in for the wizard's player, other players, and the DM.

4. Wizard players' habits can be constraining on DM, who must plan to give and take away rest times when they are narratively appropriate.

runeghost
2016-08-20, 01:33 AM
Assuming we're talking about a DnD Vancian system, here are the major problems I see.

1. Wizard sleep becomes a resource.

2. There is an inelegant amount of bookkeeping required to keep track of which spells can be used, has been used, may potentially be used next cycle.

3. Wizard can be, depending on player's skill at spell management, utterly too powerful or utterly useless within the same session, neither of which are fun states for the wizard to be in for the wizard's player, other players, and the DM.

4. Wizard players' habits can be constraining on DM, who must plan to give and take away rest times when they are narratively appropriate.

These can certainly all be problems with a fantasy roleplaying game, depending on what you're trying to do with it. But for playing D&D (original, B/X, or AD&D 1st ed) they're the point.

D&D has a strong component of resource management as part of its original DNA.

Wizard sleep is supposed to be resource to be managed, just like fighter hit points, or food and water.

Spell book-keeping is no more onerous than encumbrance bookkeeping, light-source bookkeeping, treasure bookkeeping, etc.

Player skill is, again, part of the point of D&D. If playing your PC (tactically/strategically) well doesn't make him more effective in a system with a strong tactical/strategic component, then it's a poorly done game.

If you're running a classic D&D game based on narrative convention then you're doing it wrong (the classic D&D, not the roleplaying). If you want to run a more narrative game, or any other game with a different feel and emphasis using the general AD&D ruleset, then just swap out the magic system for a spellpoint system, a fatigue system, a skill system or whatever you prefer and fits the game you want to run. That's *also* how classic D&D worked.:wink:

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-20, 01:43 AM
I guess I should've added that just because those parts of the Vancian system are problems, it doesn't preclude them from also being features, depending on the player.

Khedrac
2016-08-20, 02:07 AM
I have to disagree, whilst this is a problem with magic systems, it is not a signature flaw of the Vancian magic system.

The signature flaw of the Vancian magic system is the caster who prepared the wrong spell ("what do you mean it's an albino red dragon? All I took today is fire spells").

This is a flaw of any daily-resource magic system. This is best illustrated by power-point based systems such as 3.5 D&D's psionics (see the strip guesting a psion to the OotS party in Snips Snails and Dragon Tails).
Nearly all rpg magic systems use this limit (the spell resource refreshes overnight) and it makes all such games a matter of resource management.

Vancian casting adds on the extra requirement for the player of trying to judge which spells to use when. As has often been said a dead wizard with 5 uncast disintegrate spells in (what is left of his) memory is of less use than the wizard who gets to the boss fight with nothing left in hers (there's a good chance her companions are fresher). This is part of the skill of playing a wizard.

There are games that avoid or limit the impact of the daily resource flaw, for example when I played RuneQuest at Uni (Avalon Hill RQ) the way we read the rules (right or wrong) was that one's magic points returned over 24 hours - which meant one would get back 1/24th an hour, or someone with a power of 12 would get back 1 magic point every two hours.
On the other hand, the bookkeeping for this is more complex than for pretty much any daily resource system.

The only way to avoid this issue is to have the power usable at will without restriction (like swinging a sword). At this point, the power needs to be something every player gets (as one needs some game balance for people to enjoy themselves) - and this is usually the realm of super-hero games (plus D&D's incarnum).

In short, complain about Vancian casting's flaws all you like - they are legion, but don't blame it for the daily limitation, it's not the cause of that, just one of the afflicted.

Zombimode
2016-08-20, 03:32 AM
Your party has entered the dungeon, and gotten into a couple fights in just the past few minutes. You're all freshly rested, but your wizard/sorcerer has blown all of their spells per day and a half rest won't really cut it.

They need a full nights rest in order to cast their spells again...

Of course, what players often do is take that full nights rest, because what is 8 hours to them?

But is that what the characters would do?

"Hey guys lets stop for 8 hours, i'm out of spells..." "But we just woke up!" says everyone else...

The fighter can swing his sword all day, he's not even close to being fully tapped...

Why is the wizard so severely limited? Sure, his few spells are powerful... but spells are his thing. They are what he does best.

This is a player problem, not a system problem.

Beyond the extremely low levels (1 and 2) full casters have enough resources to cover a good adventuring day. For some reason I hear cries for rest and complaints about to few spell slots only from inexperienced players.

Playing a full caster requires an amount of forethought and planning as well as tactical finesse. A good understanding of the intricacies of the mechanics also helps.

Frozen_Feet
2016-08-20, 05:04 AM
Re: "But what would the other characters do?"

They set up camp, hunt, be on guard for the enemy, eat, take a bath, change clothes, or do any number of other tasks for which they don't need a caster.

---



1. Wizard sleep becomes a resource.

Sleep is already a resource in any game which models fatigue and injury. Safe sleep is a resource in any game with violent opposition.


2. There is an inelegant amount of bookkeeping required to keep track of which spells can be used, has been used, may potentially be used next cycle.

I see this thrown around a lot, it doesn't actually come up at low levels when the need for frequent rests is common because the amount of spells to keep track of is low, and it doesn't come up at high levels because honestly, it's not that hard. You draw or erase dots next to a spell name every once in a while.


3. Wizard can be, depending on player's skill at spell management, utterly too powerful or utterly useless within the same session, neither of which are fun states for the wizard to be in for the wizard's player, other players, and the DM.

"Too powerful" and "utterly useless" is not a good measure to use for "fun". In any case, a player who is poor in a game or a GM who is poorer in the game than their players will likely not have much fun regardless of the system used.


4. Wizard players' habits can be constraining on DM, who must plan to give and take away rest times when they are narratively appropriate.

Why on Earth would a GM even try to plan for such a thing?

LibraryOgre
2016-08-20, 08:25 AM
This is an expectation gap, not a system problem. Lots of people see wizards and say "That guy should be able to cast spells all day long!" But that's not the idea behind the D&D wizard. He's the guy who casts the right spell at the right time, not every spell all the time.

Heck, I find one of the problems with the 3.x wizard is the speed with which things refresh, without reducing the power of the spells. Wizard spells are powerful and useful... but you get all of them back every day, which contributes to the wizard's power.

SimonMoon6
2016-08-20, 10:19 AM
Regarding "D&D is a game of resource management":

Well, not by the time of 3.x, it isn't. Fighter hit points are not a resource to worry about unless the group somehow can't afford a wand of CLW. I suppose that one could, after an *enormous* number of fights without any appropriate wealth increases run out of wands of CLW... but not bloody likely, not past the first few character levels.

So, the entire "resource management" issue is *purely* a wizard/sorcerer issue (clerics and druids at least can do other things when their spells run low). And that's a bad thing. Only one class has resources to manage. And that makes things a bit off-balance. It's always the wizard who wants to go back to sleep after one encounter. Nobody else, only the wizard.

Now, if you take away easy healing from the game (forbid the use of wands of CLW), then things might be a bit more balanced as far as everybody having resources to manage. But the last thing the game needs is more nerfs to the non-wizards.

Personally, I'm not a fan of resource management (unless it's done way better than D&D does it), so I certainly prefer a non-Vancian system, especially the "if I can cast a spell, I can cast it as many times as I want" variety. And some people might complain that that's too superhero-y, but I grew up on superheroes, so I can't see that as a bad thing.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-20, 10:59 AM
Re: "But what would the other characters do?"

They set up camp, hunt, be on guard for the enemy, eat, take a bath, change clothes, or do any number of other tasks for which they don't need a caster.

---



Sleep is already a resource in any game which models fatigue and injury. Safe sleep is a resource in any game with violent opposition.



I see this thrown around a lot, it doesn't actually come up at low levels when the need for frequent rests is common because the amount of spells to keep track of is low, and it doesn't come up at high levels because honestly, it's not that hard. You draw or erase dots next to a spell name every once in a while.



"Too powerful" and "utterly useless" is not a good measure to use for "fun". In any case, a player who is poor in a game or a GM who is poorer in the game than their players will likely not have much fun regardless of the system used.



Why on Earth would a GM even try to plan for such a thing?

In those other games, sleep is used sanely as a resource. Your characters get tired after a lengthy day of adventuring, so they sleep, as we do in real life. In Vancian, the problem arises from the characters dumping off their spells after 2 hours of being awake, and then wanting to sleep again, and then dumping off their spells in one hour and wanting to sleep again, and so on.

Well, I'd figure that spells are objectively some difficulty level to track, and it's annoyingly hard for the people who throw this around a lot, but not for you, because different people find different levels annoying, so there's really no point quibbling about it.

The idea is not that anyone at this table is having fun because they are good at the game, or not having fun because they are bad at it. The idea is that the strength of the wizard can oscillate too dramatically during a game. There is a certain level of challenge that tends to be the most satisfying for people, and that is something that would cause them to say "we struggled, and there was some back-and-forth, but we won/lost narrowly in the end." The reason different versions of DnD have recommendations for the difficulty of monster groups for players to encounter is to attempt to hit that sweet spot throughout the game. But those are dependent on the wizard's management in DnD so that if he blows too many of his spells on the first fight of the game, the party won't hit that sweet spot because it will steamroll the encounter, and if he subsequently has no spells later, the party will also miss the sweet spot by landing on the other side.

I have often seen on this forum GMs asking for help on keeping their wizard players from breaking the game, and the advice is often that they should set up events in the game to hurry the party along rather than let wizards keep resting as they please. People want to do this because the wizard having very many spells tends to make challenges un-fun.

Darth Ultron
2016-08-20, 11:03 AM
This is a player problem, not a system problem.

Beyond the extremely low levels (1 and 2) full casters have enough resources to cover a good adventuring day. For some reason I hear cries for rest and complaints about to few spell slots only from inexperienced players.

Playing a full caster requires an amount of forethought and planning as well as tactical finesse. A good understanding of the intricacies of the mechanics also helps.

Agreed.

It is not the system, it is how you play.

I big thing in the last couple of years are the video gamers. They were first exposed to ''sort of RPGs'' by lame video games. And they are used to the spectacular visual novas of spellcasters just blowing up the whole screen and altering reality. And they bring this view with them when they play a real RPG.

LibraryOgre
2016-08-20, 11:16 AM
Regarding "D&D is a game of resource management":

Well, not by the time of 3.x, it isn't. Fighter hit points are not a resource to worry about unless the group somehow can't afford a wand of CLW. I suppose that one could, after an *enormous* number of fights without any appropriate wealth increases run out of wands of CLW... but not bloody likely, not past the first few character levels.

So, the entire "resource management" issue is *purely* a wizard/sorcerer issue (clerics and druids at least can do other things when their spells run low). And that's a bad thing. Only one class has resources to manage. And that makes things a bit off-balance. It's always the wizard who wants to go back to sleep after one encounter. Nobody else, only the wizard.


But this assumes that only clerics can get wands to take up some of their functions. If your group is investing in healsticks, why isn't the wizard putting some of his cash into a wand of grease? Or Burning Hands? If the fighter is eating through the Cleric's CLW capacity, you're replacing it with a wand. If the wizard is eating through his spells per day, why aren't you doing the same, if you're insistent that they use magic for everything?

Pippa the Pixie
2016-08-20, 11:22 AM
This is an expectation gap, not a system problem. Lots of people see wizards and say "That guy should be able to cast spells all day long!" But that's not the idea behind the D&D wizard. He's the guy who casts the right spell at the right time, not every spell all the time.



This really crept into the game with 4E and the ''at will spells''. To some people being a wizard is using magic all day long. But it is typical modern thinking, sadly. What they want to say is being an archmage, not a wizard is using magic all day long. People just don't want to wait and what everything now....

MonkeySage
2016-08-20, 12:53 PM
I suppose my problem comes from the stand point of being a gm for a party full of casters. There are two players in my group who legitimately do not need their spells; a ranger and an alchemist/barbarian. The other two become extremely vulnerable when they run out... and typically one or two fights is their limit. If it's a random encounter, that's one thing. But in a dungeon, it gets really annoying for me. For example, my players just woke up not 10 minutes ago in game, and now they're going for another 8 hours rest. At level 8.
The casters in this case are an arcane trickster and a summoner.

Thrudd
2016-08-20, 01:32 PM
I suppose my problem comes from the stand point of being a gm for a party full of casters. There are two players in my group who legitimately do not need their spells; a ranger and an alchemist/barbarian. The other two become extremely vulnerable when they run out... and typically one or two fights is their limit. If it's a random encounter, that's one thing. But in a dungeon, it gets really annoying for me. For example, my players just woke up not 10 minutes ago in game, and now they're going for another 8 hours rest. At level 8.
The casters in this case are an arcane trickster and a summoner.

Where do they go to get 8 hours of rest? Not in the dungeon, I hope. Going back to rest for 8 hours before they've finished a certain portion of the dungeon is basically "failing" the dungeon. Whatever progress they made is undone when they come back. Yes, wizards are vulnerable, that's part of playing a wizard. They should be careful not to use spells unless absolutely necessary and when they will be most effective. They have weapon proficiencies for a reason, they can fight instead of using spells most of the time.

If you want a game where wizards are the guys that shoot fire or lightning all the time instead of shooting arrows, like Gauntlet or something, that's different: 4e is probably better for you, or even 5e with its cantrips.

LibraryOgre
2016-08-20, 02:14 PM
I suppose my problem comes from the stand point of being a gm for a party full of casters. There are two players in my group who legitimately do not need their spells; a ranger and an alchemist/barbarian. The other two become extremely vulnerable when they run out... and typically one or two fights is their limit. If it's a random encounter, that's one thing. But in a dungeon, it gets really annoying for me. For example, my players just woke up not 10 minutes ago in game, and now they're going for another 8 hours rest. At level 8.
The casters in this case are an arcane trickster and a summoner.

Then they're not managing their resources well, and the GM is letting them get away with it.

"Ooops, we've spent all our spells. Now we will stop for an 8 hour rest." Unless you've got a foolproof place to hide, or the monsters are all rooted in place, they're going to start finding you, and making sure you stop killing them.

You can play that way if you want, of course, but it's the core idea of the 10-minute workday... "I will spend all my resources in one or two fights, and then return to full power by resting 8 hours. I can do this indefinitely."

Darth Ultron
2016-08-20, 04:39 PM
I suppose my problem comes from the stand point of being a gm for a party full of casters. There are two players in my group who legitimately do not need their spells; a ranger and an alchemist/barbarian. The other two become extremely vulnerable when they run out... and typically one or two fights is their limit. If it's a random encounter, that's one thing. But in a dungeon, it gets really annoying for me. For example, my players just woke up not 10 minutes ago in game, and now they're going for another 8 hours rest. At level 8.
The casters in this case are an arcane trickster and a summoner.

If the players are just going 'nova' and blasting away all their spells in a couple rounds...you can't do much. That is a valid play style, and one would guess they are having fun. But sure you could try to talk to them and explain the whole idea of ''don't use up your spells so fast'', and it is possible they might understand. If they don't, you can't do much. If they can't grasp the concept of ''I used all my spells in the first ten minutes of the game and now have no spells for the next five hours'', then what can you really do?

It is a ban aid, but you could have the next treasure be a chest of wands. Then at least they can just use the wand every round. Though, of course, they will need a chest of wands every hour or so...

You could give everyone like ten levels or so. At least it would take them a good thirty minutes to run out of spells.

One thing that could work is reserve feats, then they get magic they can use at will. Though there are only a couple such feats. And they might not like the ''oh, guess I shoot fire from my feat as I can't do anything else''.

The only real answer might be to switch games. D&D 4E, for example, has 'at will' and 'encounter' powers so the ''spellcasters can always cast a spell''. Or if you want to stick with say D&D 3.5, you could homebrew in some 'encounter spells' or something like that.

A wizard on an adventure, even more so a dungeon crawl, watches their spells. Quite often, a wizard does not cast a spell in every single encounter.

Xuc Xac
2016-08-20, 05:03 PM
To some people being a wizard is using magic all day long. But it is typical modern thinking, sadly.

The idea that wizards can only do magic a few times a day was introduced in the 70s when Gygax decided to use the Vancian model.

Before Vance et al, magic was just something wizards could do. If they didn't use it constantly, it was because they didn't want to or didn't need to. Sometimes magic is presented as having a cost or risk beyond just material components. In cases like that, wizards can use magic all day but they try to limit their use of it because they don't want to push their luck. Imagine if wizards in D&D could cast a spell anytime, but had to roll a D20 to do it successfully and suffered a penalty on a roll equal to the spell's level or less. They'd be a lot more conservative with their "unlimited" spells.

veti
2016-08-20, 05:19 PM
Spell book-keeping is no more onerous than encumbrance bookkeeping, light-source bookkeeping, treasure bookkeeping, etc.

Well, yes it is, because all of those things are routinely either eyeballed or just ignored completely. Spell bookkeeping, on the other hand, is nearly always taken seriously.

Though I do agree that bookkeeping is not a hard part of the process.

Last time I played a wizard, I made up (very basic) cards for my spellbook, selected my hand every "morning", and played them to cast, like M:tG. It requires only a minimal amount of preparation, and it gives everyone a degree of confidence that you're doing it honestly.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-20, 05:44 PM
The idea that wizards can only do magic a few times a day was introduced in the 70s when Gygax decided to use the Vancian model.

Before Vance et al, magic was just something wizards could do. If they didn't use it constantly, it was because they didn't want to or didn't need to. Sometimes magic is presented as having a cost or risk beyond just material components. In cases like that, wizards can use magic all day but they try to limit their use of it because they don't want to push their luck. Imagine if wizards in D&D could cast a spell anytime, but had to roll a D20 to do it successfully and suffered a penalty on a roll equal to the spell's level or less. They'd be a lot more conservative with their "unlimited" spells.

This.

I'd be very curious to see any fictional or mythological instances of "slots per day" magic before Vance and Gygax.

Magic as a book-keeping exercise doesn't really have much "magic" left in it.

Darth Ultron
2016-08-20, 05:48 PM
The idea that wizards can only do magic a few times a day was introduced in the 70s when Gygax decided to use the Vancian model.

Before Vance et al, magic was just something wizards could do. If they didn't use it constantly, it was because they didn't want to or didn't need to. Sometimes magic is presented as having a cost or risk beyond just material components. In cases like that, wizards can use magic all day but they try to limit their use of it because they don't want to push their luck. Imagine if wizards in D&D could cast a spell anytime, but had to roll a D20 to do it successfully and suffered a penalty on a roll equal to the spell's level or less. They'd be a lot more conservative with their "unlimited" spells.

Before what? In the RPG from the '60's that had wizards casting spells at will? What was the name of that game?

But a ''cost'' of magic does not work well in modern D&D, much like all ''harsh'' things. A 3.5 version would be a silly caster level check of 10 plus the spell level and if they failed they would take like one point of temporary damage and not loose the spell. It would be kinda pointless. And like material components and encumbrance, it would just be ignored anyway. And 4E and 5E just go downhill from there....

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-20, 06:20 PM
Before what? In the RPG from the '60's that had wizards casting spells at will? What was the name of that game?

Wizards, witches, sorcerers, and magic were not invented out of whole cloth for RPGS.

MonkeySage
2016-08-20, 06:27 PM
A lot of players of wizards dont' know what to do if it doesn't involve casting spells in combat; they get just a few non-spell like powers in pathfinder, and don't get anything other than spells in 3.5... Sure they could pick up a weapon, but at low levels they get squashed if someone sneezes on them... At higher levels, the enemies they're fighting will simply laugh and mock their pathetic weapon skills.

All wizards have in combat is their magic. Most players do not have 18 intelligence, and can't think the way their character would in that situation.

Thrudd
2016-08-20, 06:53 PM
In the literary and mythological world, pre and post D&D, every book that includes magic has its own rules for magic. In some worlds it is very precise and scientific, in others it is spontaneous and capricious. Sometimes only special people with magical lineages can use it, in others you can learn it through study and hard work. It might require summoning or making deals with spirits or devils, or might require complex, costly or dangerous rituals. Often times, sorcerers and magicians are mysterious characters with unexplained abilities that involve controlling natural phenomena, trafficking with demons and summoning monsters. There is no such thing as a "standard" magical system. The older stories, in most cases, do not explain the hows or whys of a wizard's powers nor reveal whether or not they have any limits. A wizard's magic is often an event, an obstacle that the hero needs to overcome or a one-time boon to help the hero on his way.

Vance created a setting where magic is actually a type of psychic technology, the vestiges of ancient forgotten knowledge which works in a very specific and predictable manner. Gygax liked those stories, and also saw the utility of having magic users that have defined limits and precisely defined spells for a game involving tactics, strategy and resource management. It is in no way representative of "standard magic", because there is and never was a "standard magic", unless you consider "unexplained narrative device" as the standard. Unexplained narrative devices aren't really a thing that work well as something a player should control in a game where they are trying to solve puzzles and overcome tactical and strategic challenges.
Yes, there are other ways to limit and codify magic use for games besides the D&D/Vancian system, but spell points or Mage spheres or skill categories or whatever are no more representative of all fiction than is D&D's system, nor do they represent something more "realistic". It's just a matter of preference in the style of game you are running and an aesthetic preference for one fictional setting or another.

Cluedrew
2016-08-20, 07:02 PM
It is in no way representative of "standard magic", because there is and never was a "standard magic", unless you consider "unexplained narrative device" as the standard.You could also use how magic was thought to work in the middle ages when they believed it worked. Vancian magic has some of that feel but if you ported the historic view over whole you would get something very imbalanced and not very (at all) suited for adventuring.

... Actually Vancian magic has a more than a few commonalities with the historic view of magic. I wonder if there is a reason for that.

SimonMoon6
2016-08-20, 07:08 PM
But this assumes that only clerics can get wands to take up some of their functions. If your group is investing in healsticks, why isn't the wizard putting some of his cash into a wand of grease? Or Burning Hands?

There are several problems with this:

(1) The cleric only needs one kind of wand (CLW) to replicate his entire class function for the entire day. A wizard needs many things. As you suggest, maybe he wants grease. But maybe grease doesn't work for a particular fight (fighting a swarm of stirges or something else that flies without using manufactured weapons). So maybe he should have a wand of Burning Hands. But maybe that doesn't work for a fight (fighting something immune to fire). So maybe he should have a wand of Magic Missile, but really, 3-4 points of damage a turn is not even worth investing in... The wizard would need to spend way more of his financial resources because he never knows which kind of wand he's going to need, so he had better buy a dozen or so, but he probably won't be able to afford all of those *and* the other gear he needs.

Whereas, the cleric only needs CLW.

(2) Wands kind of suck for wizards. Assuming we're talking about 1st caster level wands of 1st level spells (because that's what I assume with CLW), either it's a damaging wand that doesn't do enough damage to be worthwhile or it's a wand with a saving throw which is too low because magic items always have super-low saving throw DCs that make them worthless beyond 1st level.

There aren't nearly as many wizard spells that are just plain useful like a CLW wand, regardless of caster level or save DCs.

And, yes, you can improve things a bit, but to do so, you're spending even more of the poor wizard's financial resources just to take the place of a good night's sleep. And it's never worth it.

Thrudd
2016-08-20, 07:22 PM
A lot of players of wizards dont' know what to do if it doesn't involve casting spells in combat; they get just a few non-spell like powers in pathfinder, and don't get anything other than spells in 3.5... Sure they could pick up a weapon, but at low levels they get squashed if someone sneezes on them... At higher levels, the enemies they're fighting will simply laugh and mock their pathetic weapon skills.

All wizards have in combat is their magic. Most players do not have 18 intelligence, and can't think the way their character would in that situation.

If that's how you and your players think, then switching to 4e or 5e is probably a good idea. Unlimited-use combat magic which scales in damage as you gain levels is available in both.

A part of your problem might be the way you are running the game. You are putting them in situations where you expect them to use their spells all the time, and they expect to be able to use their spells all the time, when the system clearly is designed for a more careful and thoughtful approach to using magic. At low levels, the wizard's use of mundane weapons is not that far behind the other classes and should absolutely be a useful option. At higher levels, if you're going by the book, they usually have magic items for both offense and defense: wands and rods and bracers and amulets and wondrous objects, as well as magic weapons, so they should be able to get along without casting a spell in every encounter. Also in 3.5 and PF, magic item crafting is cheap and easy. If you are running things by the book, they could have basically unlimited low and mid level spells at all times with wands and scrolls. If you aren't allowing magic items to be crafted like that, then you also should be balancing the way you run the game and the type of encounters you use.

This is a solvable problem by adjusting expectations and strategies, adjusting how the game is run, or accepting that this isn't the game you really want to play and choosing one that is more in-line with expectations. Alternatively, if the rules don't work for you and you don't want to change to another edition for some reason, you just homebrew rules to make the game do what you want. PF has unlimited cantrips already. Add a few more cantrips that do damage and require a roll to-hit based on their intelligence bonus, the wizards will never be without magic they can use to help out in a fight.

Lord Raziere
2016-08-20, 08:47 PM
This really crept into the game with 4E and the ''at will spells''. To some people being a wizard is using magic all day long. But it is typical modern thinking, sadly. What they want to say is being an archmage, not a wizard is using magic all day long. People just don't want to wait and what everything now....

....So? I don't see anything wrong with magic all day long, modern thinking or not waiting. Seem to be nice convenient things. could do more with of all of them methinks. could do without the vancian system as well, look at all the bad things it lead to.

that and I don't want tactical resource management in my action fantasy hero rpg. ruins the escapism if you got to worry about bows running out of arrows, or running out of spells or have to constantly prepare things to defeat things too fast for a good fight.

nedz
2016-08-20, 08:48 PM
Then they're not managing their resources well, and the GM is letting them get away with it.

"Ooops, we've spent all our spells. Now we will stop for an 8 hour rest." Unless you've got a foolproof place to hide, or the monsters are all rooted in place, they're going to start finding you, and making sure you stop killing them.

You can play that way if you want, of course, but it's the core idea of the 10-minute workday... "I will spend all my resources in one or two fights, and then return to full power by resting 8 hours. I can do this indefinitely."

this.

When I play casters I am quite frugal with my spells and don't usually run out. OK - at low levels yes - but beyond that no. The Wizard with spells left at the end of a day is more powerful than the Wizard without.

I guess it's a playstyle thing to a degree - but it's also a mark of a more experienced player.

Frozen_Feet
2016-08-20, 08:59 PM
Magic as a book-keeping exercise doesn't really have much "magic" left in it.
Which a downright hilarious thing to say when you look atbi-ching, numerology, qabbala, astrology, alchemy etc. magic systems which have really existed.

Because bookkeeping is a huge part of all of them and that's the reason why D&D's Wizards became associated with book learning and pseudoscience.

Thrudd
2016-08-20, 09:10 PM
....So? I don't see anything wrong with magic all day long, modern thinking or not waiting. Seem to be nice convenient things. could do more with of all of them methinks. could do without the vancian system as well, look at all the bad things it lead to.

that and I don't want tactical resource management in my action fantasy hero rpg. ruins the escapism if you got to worry about bows running out of arrows, or running out of spells or have to constantly prepare things to defeat things too fast for a good fight.

D&D originally was not meant to be an action fantasy hero rpg, and that's why the rules don't simulate fantasy action movies and cartoons (which mostly didn't exist when D&D was created). It's not wrong to want to play a game that simulates an action movie/cartoon style narrative, but D&D has never really been that game. It's not a narrative or cinematic game, at all, but a tactical resource management game which simulates a specific type of swords & sorcery fantasy world (including a style of magic approximating the one Vance invented).

Cinematic Heroic Action Fantasy is a bit more easily portrayed in 4e and 5e D&D, Exalted and a lot of other modern games. It's a more popular style, now, than the older type of game, but it is still a subjective preference.

vasilidor
2016-08-21, 03:09 AM
um... fantasy action movies have been a thing for almost as long as there have been moving pictures... and were predated by fantasy action plays... which were predated by fantasy action stories(Gilgamesh, Homers Oddessy, Beowolf, King arthur) and many of these had wizards in them. one of the key things about the wizards in these books is that they knew the secrets of the universe, and could use these secrets to make it do there bidding.

Kami2awa
2016-08-21, 03:49 AM
If the players are just going 'nova' and blasting away all their spells in a couple rounds...you can't do much. That is a valid play style, and one would guess they are having fun. But sure you could try to talk to them and explain the whole idea of ''don't use up your spells so fast'', and it is possible they might understand. If they don't, you can't do much. If they can't grasp the concept of ''I used all my spells in the first ten minutes of the game and now have no spells for the next five hours'', then what can you really do?


You can introduce the idea that rest is not necessarily uninterrupted. If they don't have a safe place to rest, then they are at risk of encounters during the rest period that spoil spell preparation. If the players don't like it, then you have a problem, but it might well give them a better sense of a dynamic world, where the monsters have a will of their own and their own agenda. In fact, the encounter need not even be deadly - imagine a scenario where a thief sneaks into their camp, or a lost child wanders in asking urgently for help, or a strange, mad hermit appears with cryptic prophesies, or a paranormal event like a sudden rain of blood.

Another possibility is a time limit. Imagine the PCs are on a mission to rescue someone before they are sacrificed/something else horrible happens. They then have a fixed time limit (perhaps even an unknown one) which means they have to be careful about resting too much.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-21, 07:55 AM
Which a downright hilarious thing to say when you look atbi-ching, numerology, qabbala, astrology, alchemy etc. magic systems which have really existed.

Because bookkeeping is a huge part of all of them and that's the reason why D&D's Wizards became associated with book learning and pseudoscience.


Way to take a statement out of context, cherry-pick one sentence, and do so to take a cheap-shot at someone.

Go back and reread the topic of the thread, and reread the chain of comments my post was part of, and pick up the actual context.


(Normally you're on ignore for exactly this kind of snark-first, comprehend-later crap, but I made the mistake of clicking on the thread without being logged in.)

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-21, 08:03 AM
This really crept into the game with 4E and the ''at will spells''. To some people being a wizard is using magic all day long. But it is typical modern thinking, sadly. What they want to say is being an archmage, not a wizard is using magic all day long. People just don't want to wait and what everything now....

Actually, it's not "modern thinking", unless one squints at the history of the topic to only include RPGs, and further yet to only include the iterations of D&D.

Frozen_Feet
2016-08-21, 08:35 AM
Way to take a statement out of context, cherry-pick one sentence, and do so to take a cheap-shot at someone.

Go back and reread the topic of the thread, and reread the chain of comments my post was part of, and pick up the actual context.

I know the context just fine, it doesn't make it less hilarious. The supposed book keeping marathon of Vancian spellcasting has more resemblance to "real" magic than most of the alternatives.

Thrudd
2016-08-21, 11:15 AM
um... fantasy action movies have been a thing for almost as long as there have been moving pictures... and were predated by fantasy action plays... which were predated by fantasy action stories(Gilgamesh, Homers Oddessy, Beowolf, King arthur) and many of these had wizards in them. one of the key things about the wizards in these books is that they knew the secrets of the universe, and could use these secrets to make it do there bidding.

Name a fantasy movie with a wizard or magic using protagonist from before 1975. I can think of a couple fantasy movies, but none have magic using heroes. Clash of the Titans, and the Sinbad movies. Sinbad might have had some influence on D&D spells, though I've never heard anyone say that: the evil wizard in Golden Voyage creates a homonculous out of a ritual using his blood, iirc, he casts a spell to make a gate close by waving his hands and muttering words, and creates a stone golem out of a statue of Kali. Clash of the Titans had only magical monsters and magic artifacts created by the gods, nobody using magic as a wizard.

In mythology, magic is not explained. Gods and monsters do stuff that mortals can't do, and the heroes deal with it with manly braun or clever thinking or both. Often because the heroes are part god themselves.

Merlin's magic has no system. Nowhere in legend is it explained what it is he knows about the universe, how his magic works or if it has limits. It is usually very subtle, however, as he is mainly an advisor and not a participant in the adventures of Arthur and his knights. We never see him flinging lightning bolts around or summoning monsters to do his bidding.

Odysseus encounters a couple sorceresses. Their powers are not explained, they are obstacles. Heroes either are challenged by magic, or are given magic items to help them. They are never magic users themselves. Nowhere does Homer describe a magic system, other than being the children of gods can give you magic powers.

Gandalf's magic is likewise undefined. He does certain things at narratively appropriate times. We are never told how much he knows, how often or how much magic he can use. We know he doesn't often use magic for fighting, for some reason, because he does little to nothing magical to help in most battles. Once again, he is a divine agent that guides and has narratively/dramatically convenient levels of knowledge and power. Not a system you can replicate for a game.

Name a fantasy book or story where the protagonist is a magic user that "knows the secrets of the universe" and can use those secrets to do their bidding, and isn't limited in some serious way, prior to D&D.

Magic users in stories, old movies and myth are advisors or villains with powers of scope and intensity appropriate for the narrative and unexplained in all other respects. This is not a good system for a game where players are trying to solve puzzles and challenges with limited resources.

D&D was never intended or presented as a game of mythical storytelling in the vein of ancient plays and epics. It's not a game of storytelling at all. It draws elements from fantasy stories and mythology to contribute to its setting, in which players control characters navigating the hazards of a fantasy world in the pursuit of power, wealth, glory, righteousness or all of the above.

Later on, people wanted RPGs to tell stories with more narrative and dramatic structure, and games changed and new systems were invented to start doing that. D&D never changed enough to really get there, but a lot of other games have come along with that express purpose. D&D doesn't need to change into that, however. It can be what it is, and people who want story telling can play games made for story telling.

Jay R
2016-08-21, 01:12 PM
I think it’s hilarious that two of the most common complaints about D&D wizards are that they are too powerful and unbalance the game, and that Vancian casting means they are too weak, and we have to reduce a day’s adventures to very few encounters.

Consider the following D&D situations:

1. A low-level Barbarian uses his rage ability on the first encounter. He then complains that he no longer has his most powerful ability, so we should stop playing the game until he gets it back (by hiding until the next day).

2. A Fighter has a luck blade, which allows her to reroll one roll each day. The first time she misses, she re-rolls the attack. Then she states that since she no longer has her most powerful ability, the party has to stop and rest until she gets it back.

3. A player brings a package of a dozen cookies to a D&D game of 6 players, so everybody gets 2 cookies. One player gobbles down his two cookies in the first five minutes, and says that the game is over for the night; we'll start again next week.

In all of these scenarios, the person used up his favorite option early, and then wants special privileges because he made poor decisions.

Just like the Vancian wizard who wants a 15-minute adventuring day.

It is not true that the only thing wizards can do is cast spells. It is not true that a wizard should use up his daily allotments on the first possible opportunity. A wizard has skills and abilities and weapons. Obviously, the wizard's spells are her most powerful effects, and for that reason she gets fewer of them than other classes’ less powerful effects. Therefore she should ration them out over the day, like players do with rage attacks, luck re-rolls, cookies, or any other limited resource.

The player who refuses to ration his daily abilities to last through the day isn’t being punished by the Vancian casting rules. He is being hurt by his refusal to play intelligently under the rules of the game.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-21, 01:59 PM
I'm not sure why it keeps coming back to a presumption that only the needs of "original D&D" matter...

Darth Ultron
2016-08-21, 02:08 PM
Actually, it's not "modern thinking", unless one squints at the history of the topic to only include RPGs, and further yet to only include the iterations of D&D.

So everyone thought of pew pew blaster anime level silliness blaster wizards from the dawn of time? Really? Like the legends of say, Merlin, remember that time he cast a hundred fireballs all day long a blew up an army? Or how about the award for the ''worst wizard ever'' Gandaf? He sure cast a lot od spells, right?

Classic D&D expected spellcasters to run out of spells: it was normal. It's only the modern day video game/anime influenced amers that ''must blast all the time''.

dps
2016-08-21, 02:28 PM
Wizards, witches, sorcerers, and magic were not invented out of whole cloth for RPGS.

Sure, but if you're going to use magic in a game, you've got to have rules for how it works. A lot of fantasy stories don't have any explicit rules for how magic works (or they do, but rules are all in the author's head, and not made know to the readers/audience), or have rules that wouldn't work in a game setting.

I don't think it's a good idea to think in terms of "problems" created by the Vancian system; rather, think in terms of the constraints that the choice of magic system used puts on game design. Any magic system is going to impose constraints on the designer, so the questions really are: 1) was the Vancian system the best choice for DnD, and 2) did the designers of DnD do a good job of dealing with the constraints of the Vancian system.

I'd say that the answer to the first question is yes, at least in context. When DnD was first designed, the Vancian system was probably the simplest available choice, and original DnD was a rather simple game, really. Over time, game systems became more complex, but I'm not sure that players would have accepted as radical a re-do of the magic system as switching to a non-Vancian system would have been.

I'm less sure about the answer to the second question.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-21, 02:29 PM
So everyone thought of pew pew blaster anime level silliness blaster wizards from the dawn of time? Really? Like the legends of say, Merlin, remember that time he cast a hundred fireballs all day long a blew up an army? Or how about the award for the ''worst wizard ever'' Gandaf? He sure cast a lot od spells, right?

Classic D&D expected spellcasters to run out of spells: it was normal. It's only the modern day video game/anime influenced amers that ''must blast all the time''.

A) You're ignoring a multitude of RPGs that were/are not D&D iterations, that existed prior to, what, 1990? 2000?

B) Derisive, belittling phrasing such as "pew pew blaster anime" makes it appear that you're less interested in discussion than you are in having an excuse to attack a caricature of something you personally don't care for.

C) I first started playing D&D in the early-to-mid 80s, and even then, before I'd heard of Vance or his books, or knew anything about the wider world of RPGs, or had heard of any other games, or even knew there was such a thing as "Japanimation", I thought that the "spell slots, literally fire-and-forget" system was bad, and just plain strange, and started looking for other ways to do it.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-21, 02:51 PM
Classic D&D expected spellcasters to run out of spells: it was normal. It's only the modern day video game/anime influenced amers that ''must blast all the time''.

Yes, it was normal. But then someone came along and thought, "this doesn't make a very good game flow," so it was changed.

I find it funny how everything we like and are used to in RPGs apparently come from the ol' good media, like Lord of the Rings and Conan, and everything we dislike and are not used to in RPGs comes from that bad, new-fangled media that the kids like - them anime and video games - that teaches them to be impatient and whiny and this or that.



In all of these scenarios, the person used up his favorite option early, and then wants special privileges because he made poor decisions.

The problem actually comes in when the person used up his favorite options early, and then everyone else in the party is like "well... we want our wizard to have spells too" (or, "we want the barbarian to be able to rage" or "we want the fighter to have her luck blade") and then the DM looks at his materials and says, "ehhh, I guess it wouldn't be appropriate for something nasty to happen when you're resting."

So it's really not equivalent to one player eating all his cookies and demanding parity because he's selfish. The 15 minute adventuring day is really a product of the entire party wanting to maximize effectiveness, and it possibly being another troublesome thing for the DM to watch out for and plan against.

Thrudd
2016-08-21, 03:12 PM
I'm not sure why it keeps coming back to a presumption that only the needs of "original D&D" matter...

It's more that people are confused by the apparent contradiction between what they believe modern D&D is supposed to be, and what it's rules (largely inherited from original D&D) actual describe. D&D 3.5, PF and even 5e have more in common with original D&D than not, and so explaining to people the assumptions the game was built on is pertinent to understanding how the system is meant to be used, even in its more modern incarnations. It's a problem compounded or even created by the fact that the WotC writers have tried to market the game as something the rules don't actually reflect, leading people to wonder why this strange system with its specific setting doesn't portray the action fantasy media from cartoons and video games that they expect.

Xuc Xac
2016-08-21, 03:27 PM
Name a fantasy movie with a wizard or magic using protagonist from before 1975.

You can't deny that there were a lot of fantasy movies, plays, and stories featuring wizards going back to the bronze age, so you're going to make this specifically about movies with wizards as protagonists from only the smaller body of work in the first half of cinema history?

Remember to lift with your legs and not your back. Those goalposts can be heavy.

Temperjoke
2016-08-21, 03:57 PM
I think a large part of the problems created by the system are player expectations vary depending on their experience level and how they mentally rationalize their limitations. After all, Harry Potter was wizard who was casting spells all day without stopping! I grew up reading dragonlance books, where wizards are physically exhausted from casting a lot, so for me, that's the mental image I get when a wizard is out of spell slots, they're exhausted and need a long rest to recover.

As for the problem that was mentioned, the characters go through one battle, then take an 8 hour rest, that sounds like a discussion before hand. I know in 5e they made cantrips unlimited to give spellcasters something they can always use despite being out of spell slots.

Slayn82
2016-08-21, 04:05 PM
.

(2) Wands kind of suck for wizards. Assuming we're talking about 1st caster level wands of 1st level spells (because that's what I assume with CLW), either it's a damaging wand that doesn't do enough damage to be worthwhile or it's a wand with a saving throw which is too low because magic items always have super-low saving throw DCs that make them worthless beyond 1st level.

There aren't nearly as many wizard spells that are just plain useful like a CLW wand, regardless of caster level or save DCs.


Eh, I love True Strike Wands. The fat +20 bonuses and ability to ignore any chance of failure are very useful, and having Alchemy, I created poison for crossbow bolts (allies by unseen servant). Also, throwing Greek fire/ Tanglefoot bags are decent ways to deal with invisible or low level enemies.


Which a downright hilarious thing to say when you look atbi-ching, numerology, qabbala, astrology, alchemy etc. magic systems which have really existed.

Because bookkeeping is a huge part of all of them and that's the reason why D&D's Wizards became associated with book learning and pseudoscience.

Yes, wizards are cautious people who know they are dealing with terrible forces that take very little to escape mortal control. In fact, those formulaic processes favored by then,and the limit, are so popular because you have a pretty good idea of what you are bargaining for.

If something, a D&D spell is pretty straightforward, not having a greater emphasis on the preparation of spell components and intricate, lengthy rituals that that most real world "magical traditions" picture as required.


um... fantasy action movies have been a thing for almost as long as there have been moving pictures... and were predated by fantasy action plays... which were predated by fantasy action stories(Gilgamesh, Homers Oddessy, Beowolf, King arthur) and many of these had wizards in them. one of the key things about the wizards in these books is that they knew the secrets of the universe, and could use these secrets to make it do there bidding.

Yes, but the price those secrets exacted from those mystics alienated them from the general society. At best, those wizards could be allies to a benevolent ruler, or content themselves with being feared rulers.

And an at will power for a traditional depiction of a wizard would usually be depicted as something like an magical object or creatures that did his binding and attacked his enemies. I remember fairy tales about enchanted whips and spears that pursued the enemy, and the charmed guards, sometimes creatures turned into man.

Also, the greatest depiction of a magic user protagonist in media before 70s probably is Fantasia (Black Cauldron is from 1985).

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-21, 04:25 PM
I think we're concentrating too much on people's expectations. Not matching expectations isn't a real problem unless you are using a generic system, which DnD is not. If you have expectations contrary to what the DnD books say, DnD doesn't have a problem, but you that should re-update your expectations or find another game. This discussion does boils down "I think DnD is *supposed* to portray this" and "No, it's *supposed* to portray that" anyways.

More important is discussing the Vancian system as a game design. Does it create problems in game flow? Does it create problems in balancing? Etc.

Temperjoke
2016-08-21, 04:35 PM
I think we're concentrating too much on people's expectations. Not matching expectations isn't a real problem unless you are using a generic system, which DnD is not. If you have expectations contrary to what the DnD books say, DnD doesn't have a problem, but you that should re-update your expectations or find another game. This discussion does boils down "I think DnD is *supposed* to portray this" and "No, it's *supposed* to portray that" anyways.

More important is discussing the Vancian system as a game design. Does it create problems in game flow? Does it create problems in balancing? Etc.

I don't think it does, or at least, I've seen more confusing systems. Every time I've seen someone complaining about the system, it's an expectations issue as opposed to a problem with the system and how it balances things.

Lord Raziere
2016-08-21, 04:55 PM
Look I don't care whether or not wizards historically did this or that in stories. I want my all-blaster magi.

if your hiding behind the "but the fantasy stuff is based on the-" justification, then I don't care about that justification.

whatever reason you have for not having the thing I want, I don't care. the last thing anyone wants to hear is excuses for why things are not happening without any progress towards getting what they want.

We should stop overthinking this and break this down to Yes/No questions:

1. Does this have what I want? Yes or no

2. Does this do it well enough that it works for what I want? Yes or no

3. Is there something else that does this better? Yes or no.

y'know, simplify these conversations into something more logical and cohesive.

Thrudd
2016-08-21, 05:16 PM
You can't deny that there were a lot of fantasy movies, plays, and stories featuring wizards going back to the bronze age, so you're going to make this specifically about movies with wizards as protagonists from only the smaller body of work in the first half of cinema history?

Remember to lift with your legs and not your back. Those goalposts can be heavy.

And all those stories, plays, movies that had wizards tend to explain very little about the wizard or the magic, and presented them almost exclusively as villains, forces of nature/obstacles, quest-givers or advisors. In what way would one expect that to be representative of the role players have in a game about treasure hunting and monster slaying?

I specified pre 1975 because post-D&D cinema and media increasingly are influenced by D&D or the sources D&D was drawn from and would be suspect as examples of what inspired the creation of the rules. Protagonists, because the players of the game are playing the role of the protagonists, the main actors and agents in the events that unfold. What conventions existed in myth and stories for gods, quest-givers, antagonists and obstacles do not apply to the role the players have in the game as the solvers of problems and the tacklers of obstacles.

Give some examples of wizards and magic users from stories that could apply to the role players are meant to have in a role playing game.

I'll start -
LeGuin's Earthsea: magic use is limited by the wizard's ability and learning, and also by a form of cosmic balance. Even so, a game set in this setting would be much different from D&D (and notably it is not mentioned as an inspiration of the game in appendix N). Very good books - also unique and not representative of the swords & sorcery inspiration for D&D.

Tolkien's Gandalf: magic is not used except in extreme situations, and sometimes not even in times of great danger. His magic apparently has strict limits, but they are unexplained. He is a quest-giver/advisor that accompanies the party at certain points and has plot-magic. Not a reasonable example for player characters. Or, perhaps, he is an example of magic users that get a small number of spells that can each be used once in the course of an adventure.

Vance's Dying Earth: features some protagonist magic users, magic use has specific limits based on the wizard's training/ability and available materials, with an explained mechanism for how the wizard learns and uses spells.

RE Howard's Conan stories - sorcerers and wizards like Thoth-Amon are mostly mysterious evil guys who summon monsters and demons and have people sacrificed to dark gods or have designs on ruling kingdoms. They might bear magic artifacts which give them power. Conan either needs to kill them or get away from them.

Greek myth, and most ancient myth, really - heroes never use magic unless it is in the form of a magic item granted or won. Oracles and similar are consulted for prophecy, gods are prayed to and sacrificed to, they do not participate in adventures.

Merlin - is in no sense an appropriate model for player characters. the quintessential advisor, he prophecies and can shape change himself and others as need be, is never depicted as a questing/adventuring character.

Wizards in cinema? Reflect the same roles as wizards in the stories films are drawn from. Evil magicians, scary guys with mysterious powers that control monsters, prophetic advisors, helpful boon-givers.

This all just goes to show that D&D is not and never was intended to be a game depicting stories of mythic or heroic fantasy. It is a game of solving tactical challenges in a fantasy setting where players are given a set of tools inspired by various works of swords & sorcery fantasy and mythology. Decisions about how characters' powers work isn't based on how things are depicted in stories, it comes from the consideration of what would make a fair and challenging game of cooperative problem-solving with a fantasy theme.

SimonMoon6
2016-08-21, 05:37 PM
Name a fantasy movie with a wizard or magic using protagonist from before 1975.

Well, depending on your definition of "protagonist," how about "The Wizard of Oz"? I'm referring to Glinda, the good witch. Of course, one problem is that, throughout history, wizards tend not to be protagonists so much as "evil people with knowledge no man should have", with rare exceptions. It's not that people aren't interested in wizards, it's just that smart people (like Lex Luthor or Doctor Doom) make much better villains than heroes (who are usually dumb, like the viewing public, for audience identification purposes).

And, of course, there were obviously fewer fantasy movies in the early days -- making it hard to find *any* fantasy movies before 1975 of any kind, regardless of protagonists-- due to (a) film-makers not believing there was much interest in the genre (at least, not for ADULTS) and (b) a lack of easy special effects. But here is at least one more possibility depending on your definition of "fantasy" and "protagonist":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust_%281926_film%29

SimonMoon6
2016-08-21, 05:46 PM
And all those stories, plays, movies that had wizards tend to explain very little about the wizard or the magic, and presented them almost exclusively as villains, forces of nature/obstacles, quest-givers or advisors. In what way would one expect that to be representative of the role players have in a game about treasure hunting and monster slaying?

I specified pre 1975 because post-D&D cinema and media increasingly are influenced by D&D or the sources D&D was drawn from and would be suspect as examples of what inspired the creation of the rules. Protagonists, because the players of the game are playing the role of the protagonists, the main actors and agents in the events that unfold. What conventions existed in myth and stories for gods, quest-givers, antagonists and obstacles do not apply to the role the players have in the game as the solvers of problems and the tacklers of obstacles.

Give some examples of wizards and magic users from stories that could apply to the role players are meant to have in a role playing game.


Okay, if we're abandoning movies, how about:

Zatara, DC's early wizard of note, who later would give us a daughter Zatanna. Early Zatara stories gave Zatara very few limits, but soon he had a particular idiom: he cast spells by speaking words backward. Any words he wanted could be used to cast any spell, more or less. Zatanna was similar when she was created (still pre-1975), with no real limits... until she joined the Justice League and they *had* to put limits on her (she could only affect nature (like the classical elements) and magic). Once she was no longer a Justice League member, those limits went away (though there was one strange miniseries involving her needing a staff, everyone ignores that).

And Zatara was, by far, not an original creation. Pretty much every comic company of the day had some sort of magician character in a lead role. Mostly, they were trying to rip off the success of "Mandrake the Magician" (who had very limited abilities), but they were all wildly different.

And, for example, in 1975 itself, there was a TV show called "The Secrets of Isis" in which a schoolteacher gained the magical powers of Isis. I don't know if this counts, but she basically could cast spells (that could control natural forces or magic) by speaking rhyming couplets, such as "Zephyr winds that blow on high, lift me now that I might fly."

Thrudd
2016-08-21, 05:47 PM
Look I don't care whether or not wizards historically did this or that in stories. I want my all-blaster magi.

if your hiding behind the "but the fantasy stuff is based on the-" justification, then I don't care about that justification.

whatever reason you have for not having the thing I want, I don't care. the last thing anyone wants to hear is excuses for why things are not happening without any progress towards getting what they want.

We should stop overthinking this and break this down to Yes/No questions:

1. Does this have what I want? Yes or no

2. Does this do it well enough that it works for what I want? Yes or no

3. Is there something else that does this better? Yes or no.

y'know, simplify these conversations into something more logical and cohesive.

The answer to that is- D&D isn't for you. Or maybe 4e D&D is something you'd like.
But the question of the thread wasn't originally "does D&D have what I want", the topic was "Vancian casting causes problems because people want to use all their spells all the time". And the answer is: the problem isn't with Vancian casting as a system. The system is designed so you think carefully about when to use your spells and don't use them all at once. In this game, you aren't supposed to use all the spells all the time.

It's not hiding behind anything - it's explaining what this game is about and how it works. Knowing that, a person can make decisions about it.

The problem with D&D is that people seem to think it is a generic fantasy story-telling game that should be able to represent any sort of fantasy story they can think of, and then get confused and complain about different elements of the rules which don't support this assumption. We must explain that D&D is not "generic fantasy", it is its own specific group of settings with specific rules about how magic works, and if you don't want to use those specific things you probably want a different game which is truly more generic and more customizable, or matches your preferred setting more closely. Of course, D&D can be customized and house-ruled to any preference, but at some point the amount of house-ruling required justifies simply switching systems, or sometimes you find you have basically created an entirely new game system.

Slayn82
2016-08-21, 05:53 PM
Look I don't care whether or not wizards historically did this or that in stories. I want my all-blaster magi.

if your hiding behind the "but the fantasy stuff is based on the-" justification, then I don't care about that justification.

whatever reason you have for not having the thing I want, I don't care. the last thing anyone wants to hear is excuses for why things are not happening without any progress towards getting what they want.

We should stop overthinking this and break this down to Yes/No questions:

1. Does this have what I want? Yes or no

2. Does this do it well enough that it works for what I want? Yes or no

3. Is there something else that does this better? Yes or no.

y'know, simplify these conversations into something more logical and cohesive.

This discussion is about problems arising from the Vancian Magic System. Strictly talking, there isn't a problem if you know and agree how it works. If you want a blaster mage, it can be done, as long as you are thinking on the framework of spells as a limited ammunition that can't be stockpiled very well but can be replaced in 8 hours of rest.

If you are thinking in the framework of being able to throw a ray of energy at will, sure, nowadays you can be Dr. Strange or an X - Man as well as a anime hero. No demerits. Just won't work very well on the Wizard class, go play a Warlock or something.

A D&D caster preparing spells is a guy choosing what gear he is taking to an expedition. If he has the luxury of time to replace that gear, he will. If time is constrained, he needs to compromise. The 15 minute work day usually means you are overkilling things. And probably pretty open to retaliation if you are misdirected.

Thrudd
2016-08-21, 06:09 PM
Well, depending on your definition of "protagonist," how about "The Wizard of Oz"? I'm referring to Glinda, the good witch. Of course, one problem is that, throughout history, wizards tend not to be protagonists so much as "evil people with knowledge no man should have", with rare exceptions. It's not that people aren't interested in wizards, it's just that smart people (like Lex Luthor or Doctor Doom) make much better villains than heroes (who are usually dumb, like the viewing public, for audience identification purposes).

And, of course, there were obviously fewer fantasy movies in the early days -- making it hard to find *any* fantasy movies before 1975 of any kind, regardless of protagonists-- due to (a) film-makers not believing there was much interest in the genre (at least, not for ADULTS) and (b) a lack of easy special effects. But here is at least one more possibility depending on your definition of "fantasy" and "protagonist":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust_%281926_film%29

Glinda is exactly the advisor/boon giver role I described. Not a participant in the adventure, but a plot device. Not a protagonist.

Comic book magicians are one of the few examples of magic using protagonists (and also not mentioned as one of the appendix N inspirations). Doctor Strange and his ilk. However, this also goes to prove the point that D&D isn't good at or meant to portray these guys exactly how they are narratively presented. It is a game, first and foremost, requiring a means of balancing a team of characters and limiting powers to provide a challenge in problem solving. It isn't a narrative or cinematic system of simulating action from novels, movies or comics. So in the end, it doesn't even matter how magicians were portrayed in stories, what D&D gets from those stories is inspiration for spells, monsters and abilities that get interpreted into the format of strategy and tactical problem solving with a limited pool of resources.

vasilidor
2016-08-21, 06:34 PM
I think part of the problem is wizards and clerics have a habit of going from not enough power to overwhelmingly awesome with a bare fleeting moment in the middle sweet spot, wherever that may be.

and thank you for the fantasia reference, the only thing i could come up with is i know Marvel and DC both had cartoon serials in the sixties that sometimes had wizards. sometimes they were good, sometimes they were bad.

Darth Ultron
2016-08-21, 06:35 PM
Yes, it was normal. But then someone came along and thought, "this doesn't make a very good game flow," so it was changed.

By game flow that was ''the people of a single mindset won't like it''.



I find it funny how everything we like and are used to in RPGs apparently come from the ol' good media, like Lord of the Rings and Conan, and everything we dislike and are not used to in RPGs comes from that bad, new-fangled media that the kids like - them anime and video games - that teaches them to be impatient and whiny and this or that.

It's funny, sure, but true.



The problem actually comes in when the person used up his favorite options early, and then everyone else in the party is like "well... we want our wizard to have spells too" (or, "we want the barbarian to be able to rage" or "we want the fighter to have her luck blade") and then the DM looks at his materials and says, "ehhh, I guess it wouldn't be appropriate for something nasty to happen when you're resting."

So it's really not equivalent to one player eating all his cookies and demanding parity because he's selfish. The 15 minute adventuring day is really a product of the entire party wanting to maximize effectiveness, and it possibly being another troublesome thing for the DM to watch out for and plan against.

This is the mindset right here: the characters must be at near 100% all the time and have full use of all their abilities/spells. The idea that it is not fun, unless your character can always use X. And the hate for the cries of ''I used up all of X for the day'' is why 4/5 E have at will and encounter abilities. So a character can always use them.

A barbarian has to rage in every single fight...or he is not a barbarian is one mindset. The other, more classic mindset is rage is an ability that should be saved and used only when the need is great.

Cluedrew
2016-08-21, 06:55 PM
And the answer is: the problem isn't with Vancian casting as a system. The system is designed so you think carefully about when to use your spells and don't use them all at once. In this game, you aren't supposed to use all the spells all the time.But it doesn't in force that, other parts of the rules set might discourage it (such as wondering monsters), but nothing in the system itself pushes you that way. Or none that I can remember.


This is the mindset right here: the characters must be at near 100% all the time and have full use of all their abilities/spells.This I actually blame on the combat focus of D&D, when being less than 100% increases your chance of being dead you want to run as close to full as you can. Although I suppose this is a factor in any game where a fight can break out, the effect is so much stronger when you are probably going to get into another 3 or so life-or-death battles by the end of the day.

So in the context of D&D is not so much a role-playing mindset as a survival one.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-21, 07:17 PM
Okay, if we're abandoning movies, how about:

Zatara, DC's early wizard of note, who later would give us a daughter Zatanna. Early Zatara stories gave Zatara very few limits, but soon he had a particular idiom: he cast spells by speaking words backward. Any words he wanted could be used to cast any spell, more or less. Zatanna was similar when she was created (still pre-1975), with no real limits... until she joined the Justice League and they *had* to put limits on her (she could only affect nature (like the classical elements) and magic). Once she was no longer a Justice League member, those limits went away (though there was one strange miniseries involving her needing a staff, everyone ignores that).

And Zatara was, by far, not an original creation. Pretty much every comic company of the day had some sort of magician character in a lead role. Mostly, they were trying to rip off the success of "Mandrake the Magician" (who had very limited abilities), but they were all wildly different.

And, for example, in 1975 itself, there was a TV show called "The Secrets of Isis" in which a schoolteacher gained the magical powers of Isis. I don't know if this counts, but she basically could cast spells (that could control natural forces or magic) by speaking rhyming couplets, such as "Zephyr winds that blow on high, lift me now that I might fly."


No, see, those don't count -- only badnewmedia like anime and video games gives people silly expectations about wizards who don't use spell slots, while robbing them of their patience and ability to think ahead. :smallconfused:

(What's the text color for sarcasm, again?)


For that matter -- what year was Dr Strange first published?

Slayn82
2016-08-21, 07:28 PM
But it doesn't in force that, other parts of the rules set might discourage it (such as wondering monsters), but nothing in the system itself pushes you that way. Or none that I can remember.

This I actually blame on the combat focus of D&D, when being less than 100% increases your chance of being dead you want to run as close to full as you can. Although I suppose this is a factor in any game where a fight can break out, the effect is so much stronger when you are probably going to get into another 3 or so life-or-death battles by the end of the day.

So in the context of D&D is not so much a role-playing mindset as a survival one.

It happens in other Systems too. Gurps fatigue and mana rules could be even more obnoxious. Try waiting days until you had your magic gems replenish, at 1 power point/day, with spells costing 3 or more routinely.

In most systems, for a given combat encounter, a magic user will pull a couple big effects, or a bunch of smaller ones. D&D magic is actually pretty impressive, because its so much versatile with many specific effects, and just minor drawbacks to the caster. It isn't very good for improvisation, but nothing that having some magic items and scrolls, plus a open spell slot, can't solve.

Cluedrew
2016-08-21, 07:52 PM
(What's the text color for sarcasm, again?)Blue. Or black, black also works.

To Slayn82: I don't doubt it happens in other systems as well. I'm on the look out for excessive rest/the 5 minute adventuring day in the system I'm building.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-21, 08:22 PM
By game flow that was ''the people of a single mindset won't like it''.



It's funny, sure, but true.



This is the mindset right here: the characters must be at near 100% all the time and have full use of all their abilities/spells. The idea that it is not fun, unless your character can always use X. And the hate for the cries of ''I used up all of X for the day'' is why 4/5 E have at will and encounter abilities. So a character can always use them.

A barbarian has to rage in every single fight...or he is not a barbarian is one mindset. The other, more classic mindset is rage is an ability that should be saved and used only when the need is great.

No, by "game flow," I meant "game flow." I was using that term to describe the property of Vancian casting causing the group's power level to fluctuate wildly throughout the course of a session. This can be bad because it makes it difficult for the DM to set up encounters that hit the sweet spot of challenge level I described in an earlier post. You've thrown away the accurate words I used to describe it, and then substituted in something wholly inaccurate and of your own creation, and then criticized nothing but a strawman. "A barbarian has to rage in every single fight... or he is not a barbarian" ... no, there's no reason to care whether the barbarian is or is not some arbitrary definition of barbarian. The barbarian is a barbarian based on it being written in the book that he is a barbarian. As I have said, DnD is not a generic system, so it gets to tell the player what's a what. Just as a Vancian wizard is a wizard based on that being written in the book that wizards in DnD are Vancian.

By the way, DnD 4e also has Daily abilities that are there so the character can't always them.

Faily
2016-08-21, 09:02 PM
For that matter -- what year was Dr Strange first published?

Googled the exact question, and Wikipedia (first hit) told me " the character first appeared in Strange Tales #110 (cover-dated July 1963)."



---

Not being at 100% power all the time is part of D&D. Vancian Magic of D&D has even gotten much nicer to spellcasters since its earlier days, when it took forever to prepare and regain spells. It's just the way that game is designed to be, and if you don't like dealing with a limited supply of magic spells, well... then D&D might not be the game for you.

But if you thought the Vancian magic of D&D was so bad, look at Legend of the Five Rings. Where you have five stats you need to increase, and each stat correspond to one element, and you can only cast elemental spells that are tied to that stat, so it's like an even more limited Sorcerer! The horror.

Maybe play Ars Magica, where you can cast all the magic you want... until you Fatigue yourself into too many penalties/fall unconscious. Or the magic blows up in your face, because oh boy, botching magic is scary.

Or play Mage. Then you deal with the negative effects of casting magic there too!

And then there are all the fun dangers of casting magic in the world of Call of Cthluhu. Mwuahahaha!


Basically... either magic is handled by being in unlimited supply, but with horrible drawbacks, or in limited supply but with few to no drawbacks. It's all a part of a balancing act. Some prefer one over the other. Some like to have all the magic at their disposal and accept the consequences of using it (risks of failing spectacularly, injuring or exhausting yourself), others prefer to have a limited, but rather safe and reliable, source of magic.

D&D have, from very early on, been a game of resource-management. Food, water, torches, arrows... and magic. Not everyone manages that kind of game as well as others, some just overcome the learning curve slower than others. One of my playgroups started Pathfinder's Strange Aeons this weekend, with level 1 characters, and the Witch (the only caster) was out of spells soon enough... guess what? We adventured on for a long time, and he contributed by standing behind two of us with his Longspear, hoping to get lucky enough to hit something (and he did).



I suppose my problem comes from the stand point of being a gm for a party full of casters. There are two players in my group who legitimately do not need their spells; a ranger and an alchemist/barbarian. The other two become extremely vulnerable when they run out... and typically one or two fights is their limit. If it's a random encounter, that's one thing. But in a dungeon, it gets really annoying for me. For example, my players just woke up not 10 minutes ago in game, and now they're going for another 8 hours rest. At level 8.
The casters in this case are an arcane trickster and a summoner.


So the Arcane Trickster can fall back on Sneak Attack, hopefully getting in some flanking with the Alche-Barb. I can see him being a bit short on spells since he did lose 3 Caster Levels to get into Arcane Trickster PRC.

The Summoner though... man, I'm surprised at that one. Summoner has an Eidolon, and one, maaaaybe two, Summon-spells do more than enough for one fight, unless they're fighting very large groups of enemies.

dps
2016-08-21, 09:18 PM
I think part of the problem is wizards and clerics have a habit of going from not enough power to overwhelmingly awesome with a bare fleeting moment in the middle sweet spot, wherever that may be.


While there is a good bit of truth to this, the problem you're bringing up is partly a problem of game balance and a partly a problem of the leveling system, not a problem with the magic system itself.


Look I don't care whether or not wizards historically did this or that in stories. I want my all-blaster magi.

if your hiding behind the "but the fantasy stuff is based on the-" justification, then I don't care about that justification.

whatever reason you have for not having the thing I want, I don't care. the last thing anyone wants to hear is excuses for why things are not happening without any progress towards getting what they want.

We should stop overthinking this and break this down to Yes/No questions:

1. Does this have what I want? Yes or no

If what you want is a wizard that can cast any spell at any time without any restrictions or drawbacks, no game system worth playing is going to give you that, because then there's no game, just automatic wins for your wizard. And no work of fiction is going to have a wizard like that, either, because then there's no story--the wizard just snaps his fingers, and all the problems are solved.

digiman619
2016-08-21, 09:24 PM
Just going to put this link here.... (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/)

SimonMoon6
2016-08-21, 09:31 PM
If what you want is a wizard that can cast any spell at any time without any restrictions or drawbacks, no game system worth playing is going to give you that, because then there's no game, just automatic wins for your wizard.

Well, the DC Heroes RPG sort of does this. You can have a power called "Sorcery" and you can use it to copy any other power. And because it's from a superhero game, you can use it as much as you want. Of course, you've only got so many points in the power, so your spells will only be so powerful. And there's technically a limitation that if one of your stats isn't high enough, you might hurt yourself (but it's a trivial limitation because you just make sure that stat is high enough so you don't take damage). But it does a great job of mimicking all those wizards who can do basically anything.



And no work of fiction is going to have a wizard like that, either, because then there's no story--the wizard just snaps his fingers, and all the problems are solved.

Lots of comics have wizards who, if they have limitations, they are not clear to the reader. For example, Zatanna who (except during the brief period when she was limited) can cast *any* spell, as long as she says the words backwards. And, yeah, it's a bit crazy. And sometimes, she's a protagonist. She's had her own series on occasion. Sometimes, maybe, she wants to do something and she just can't because she's somehow not that powerful, but really, she has no limitations apart from having to speak to cast her spells.

Doctor Strange, since he was mentioned, at least does have some implied limitations (which are not always made explicit), such as having to call upon other entities when casting spells, entities which might (theoretically) disallow him to use their power ("By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth!"). And he seems to need to gesture as well as speak, giving him yet another limitation over Zatanna.

But, anyway, I don't think that's what people are necessarily wanting. They want a wizard who can cast any spells they know as many times as they want, with the implied assumption that they don't know every spell. It's a standard situation in many stories, to have someone learn one or two spells, and then they have to figure out how to use those spells, that they now can cast as many times as they want.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-21, 10:03 PM
But, anyway, I don't think that's what people are necessarily wanting. They want a wizard who can cast any spells they know as many times as they want, with the implied assumption that they don't know every spell. It's a standard situation in many stories, to have someone learn one or two spells, and then they have to figure out how to use those spells, that they now can cast as many times as they want.


Exactly -- playing a spell-casting character, I'd trade raw ridiculous power for the ability to just use the spells sans contrived daily counts.

Thrudd
2016-08-21, 10:04 PM
But it doesn't in force that, other parts of the rules set might discourage it (such as wondering monsters), but nothing in the system itself pushes you that way. Or none that I can remember.

This I actually blame on the combat focus of D&D, when being less than 100% increases your chance of being dead you want to run as close to full as you can. Although I suppose this is a factor in any game where a fight can break out, the effect is so much stronger when you are probably going to get into another 3 or so life-or-death battles by the end of the day.

So in the context of D&D is not so much a role-playing mindset as a survival one.

True, the rules don't force you to do anything. But if players think about the most effective way to make use of the character's abilities, and the game is being run properly, it will usually become evident that it isn't smart to use up all their resources while there is still a significant amount of time/distance and potential obstacles to go before they can resupply. Retreating/fleeing from random encounters that are too hard to deal with is usually a good idea. Anything that can be handled without magic should be handled without magic. Not all encounters are or should be to-the-death, sometimes you can gain surprise, deal some good damage quickly, and force the enemy to flee without being hurt yourself or needing to resort to magic. Sometimes you can see a tough enemy before they see you and avoid fighting altogether. Sometimes you can negotiate or bribe your way out of a fight. If you know for a fact that you're going to be facing something up ahead, you probably want to save your best magic if at all possible. There is strategy involved, you have to plan for the potential for multiple encounters and obstacles, not just one fight at a time. Now, some games do focus more on the tactics of just one fight at a time, each player is expected to have all their abilities in every fight, and every fight is designed to challenge players to use their abilities most effectively in that particular situation. This is more where 4e went, obviously, and some people like that better. It's a different mindset.
Vancian casting is an appropriate mechanic for the type of game it is in. No, it doesn't reflect most fiction or mythology, it reflects one specific setting which was likely chosen because it had obvious utility as a consumable resource game mechanic. The game rules don't simulate the narratives of heroic fantasy stories or myths. It is a game of treasure hunting and monster slaying in a world populated by elements inspired by fantasy stories and myths, that requires strategy and tactics, improvisation and cooperation. It focuses more on the logistics of planning adventurous expeditions with the goal of getting someplace and then returning safely after a length of time with some profit or goal having been attained.

Thrudd
2016-08-21, 10:13 PM
Exactly -- playing a spell-casting character, I'd trade raw ridiculous power for the ability to just use the spells sans contrived daily counts.

That's just a preference, however, there is nothing inherently better about it, D&D's method isn't a flawed system. The choice was made to give magic users a wider diversity of options limited in a different way, versus using the same couple abilities over and over again. You have a bigger toolbox but need to plan ahead, versus having to think up different ways you can use the one tool you possess. Planning ahead is sort of the theme of D&D as a whole, not only for magic users.

Lord Raziere
2016-08-21, 10:14 PM
But, anyway, I don't think that's what people are necessarily wanting. They want a wizard who can cast any spells they know as many times as they want, with the implied assumption that they don't know every spell. It's a standard situation in many stories, to have someone learn one or two spells, and then they have to figure out how to use those spells, that they now can cast as many times as they want.

Exactly, give me something thematic and simple to magic around and I'll have a lot more fun than all this omni-magic that thinks you have to be either omni-magic or no magic at all.

like, a Pyromancer. just give me control over fire and nothing else. now make me have to figure how to solve everything using only pyromancy- including even perhaps, things that are immune to fire. Thats when you have to get creative. any darn fool can prepare the right spell A to apply to problem B. but figuring out how to get around fire immunity when all you wield is fire is an interesting challenge.

Jay R
2016-08-22, 07:08 AM
Vancian casting doesn't cause problems. Playing without considering the effects of the rules is bad strategy, and bad strategy causes problems.

If you want steak, don't go to a pizza parlor. If you go to a pizza parlor to order steak, the problem isn't that the pizza parlor's menu caused a problem, it's that you made a bad choice. Either have pizza and enjoy it, or go to a steakhouse.

Choose your order intelligently, based on the restaurant's menu, or choose another restaurant.

If you want unlimited casting, don't play D&D. If you play D&D and use up your daily spells on the first encounter or two, the problem isn't that Vancian casting caused a problem, it's that you made a bad choice. Either play as if spells are a limited resource, or go play a different game.

Play the game intelligently, based on the game's rules, or play another game.

Cluedrew
2016-08-22, 07:11 AM
True, the rules don't force you to do anything. But if players think about the most effective way to make use of the character's abilities, and the game is being run properly, it will usually become evident that it isn't smart to use up all their resources while there is still a significant amount of time/distance and potential obstacles to go before they can resupply.Yes this is true. Which is why parties reduce the amount of time/distance/obstacles to their resupply. Which is what leads to the 5 minute adventuring day.

Fight one battle, put everything you have into it, resupply. Makes enormous tactical sense, not so much narrative sense in some cases.

Quertus
2016-08-22, 08:03 AM
The signature flaw of the Vancian magic system is the caster who prepared the wrong spell ("what do you mean it's an albino red dragon? All I took today is fire spells")

Which is, in the end, no different than the fighter only having a weapon that can't penetrate DR (or, worse, a flame tongue in the philostigen!), the rogue only having flasks of oil, etc. This is why 2e Swiss army fighter was a thing.


The only way to avoid this issue is to have the power usable at will without restriction (like swinging a sword). At this point, the power needs to be something every player gets (as one needs some game balance for people to enjoy themselves) - and this is usually the realm of super-hero games (plus D&D's incarnum).

Well, if you want to give everyone that ability, you'd better give the wizard good HP... and the ability to wear armor... and decent weapon selection... and skill with those weapons... and... what other advantages do fighters get?

No, even with at-will abilities, there is still plenty to differentiate a mage from a fighter.


This is a player problem, not a system problem.

Beyond the extremely low levels (1 and 2) full casters have enough resources to cover a good adventuring day. For some reason I hear cries for rest and complaints about to few spell slots only from inexperienced players.

Playing a full caster requires an amount of forethought and planning as well as tactical finesse. A good understanding of the intricacies of the mechanics also helps.


A wizard on an adventure, even more so a dungeon crawl, watches their spells. Quite often, a wizard does not cast a spell in every single encounter.


Well, yes it is, because all of those things are routinely either eyeballed or just ignored completely. Spell bookkeeping, on the other hand, is nearly always taken seriously.


I don't want tactical resource management in my action fantasy hero rpg. ruins the escapism if you got to worry about bows running out of arrows, or running out of spells or have to constantly prepare things to defeat things too fast for a good fight.


this.

When I play casters I am quite frugal with my spells and don't usually run out. OK - at low levels yes - but beyond that no. The Wizard with spells left at the end of a day is more powerful than the Wizard without.

I guess it's a playstyle thing to a degree - but it's also a mark of a more experienced player.

Most games I've played, we keep very careful count of all our resources, be they arrows, bullets, hit points, quintessence, or spells. Doesn't change the fact that I'd love an at will ability on my wizard. And it makes items like a bow of infinite arrows cool - even without the added statistical advantages of Hank's Bow.

This also explains why my signature character, Quertus, is so very frugal with his spells, leaving combat things to the mundanes with their ability to swing a sword or pick a lock or read a map or talk to people an infinite number of times per day. Knock spell? Of course not! The fighter has an axe. For a metal door? Of course not - the fighter has a leather-wrapped rust monster. See invisibility? Of course not - the fighter has a bag of flour. Resource management games breed creativity and problem solving skills.

My signature wizard may seem odd as a PC, but he makes an excellent NPC advisor... almost like the wizards of legend.


spell points or Mage spheres or skill categories or whatever are no more representative of all fiction than is D&D's system

You'd be amazed how well you can call anything a Mage game...


More important is discussing the Vancian system as a game design. Does it create problems in game flow? Does it create problems in balancing? Etc.

Hmmm... Vancian magic makes spell selection in downtime, and taking your turn in combat take more time than at-will abilities... but, IME, less time than fighting with the GM over what spheres are required for what effect in Mage.

Zombimode
2016-08-22, 08:05 AM
Another reason why only inexperienced players have problems with D&D's magic system is that in addition to not being used to the resource management element and making poor choices for spells prepared (and/or spells known) they also tend to make poor choices for spells to use in a given situation leading them to use more spells then a more experienced player would have.
In combat this manifests as trying to used Mind Thrust against vermin, Fort negates spells vs. obvious bruiser type creatures, direct damage spells vs. high hp creatures, area effects vs. single creatures. Incorrectly assessing the threat level of enemies can also lead to a waste of spell slots.


Also, claiming that D&D 3.5 magic users only have their spell slots displays either further a lack of knowledge of the system or a high level of intellectual dishonesty.
For one, you can play a primarily magic using character in 3.5 without having to worry about daily resources. The Warlock class is the prime example, but there are other possibilities.
Second, there are options for vancian spellcasters (and manifesters*). Wands, scrolls, staffs and other use-activated items exist. If you don't pick some of those up, it's your own fault. And not, they don't "suck". Just like with everything else related to magic in 3.5 you have to understand the mechanics and make informed decisions based on that understanding. A wand of fireball is a waste of money. A wand of grease is a useful tool. Trying to use this wand of grease to topple a level 9 rogue is a poor decision. Greasing the ground beneath a Dex 9 Fire Giant can be a good use of a standard action.
Reserve feats are easy to qualify, come in a great variety of effects and scale with level. They also appear in very baseline books (as opposed to setting specific or obscure books). If someone wants magic effects without spending daily resources on it, that is the answer.


It is also intellectual dishonesty to specifically blame the vancian system for the "problem" of resource management. ALL systems of limited resources provide this challenge. Most magic systems in RPGs use some variety of "mana".

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-22, 08:33 AM
Another reason why only inexperienced players have problems with D&D's magic system is that in addition to not being used to the resource management element and making poor choices for spells prepared (and/or spells known) they also tend to make poor choices for spells to use in a given situation leading them to use more spells then a more experienced player would have.

By "have problems", do you mean "struggle with utilizing / maximizing", or do you mean "dislike for some reason"?

Milo v3
2016-08-22, 08:45 AM
Exactly, give me something thematic and simple to magic around and I'll have a lot more fun than all this omni-magic that thinks you have to be either omni-magic or no magic at all.

like, a Pyromancer. just give me control over fire and nothing else. now make me have to figure how to solve everything using only pyromancy- including even perhaps, things that are immune to fire. Thats when you have to get creative. any darn fool can prepare the right spell A to apply to problem B. but figuring out how to get around fire immunity when all you wield is fire is an interesting challenge.
I'm pretty sure that's why sorcerer exists, so that you can make your own Pyromancer/Cyromancer/Necromancer/Erebomancer/etc.

Thrudd
2016-08-22, 08:48 AM
Yes this is true. Which is why parties reduce the amount of time/distance/obstacles to their resupply. Which is what leads to the 5 minute adventuring day.

Fight one battle, put everything you have into it, resupply. Makes enormous tactical sense, not so much narrative sense in some cases.
"When it's being run properly", that wouldn't be possible very often without accepting some form of setback/loss of progress. The world doesn't sit around waiting for you, nor does it let you rest consistently wherever you want. Traveling to and from the place where rest is possible is often dangerous in itself. Trying to rest in the middle of the dungeon is no guarantee.

Zombimode
2016-08-22, 09:11 AM
By "have problems", do you mean "struggle with utilizing / maximizing", or do you mean "dislike for some reason"?

I mean it in the sense it was described in the OP. Dislike on the other hand is not necessarily a problem. I'm sure there are many experienced players that have a good understanding of 3.5 and still don't like it (or part of it). If someone says "I don't like 3.5 wizards because they don't fit my imagination of fantasy magic" then all is fine. It is an understandable reason that doesn't stem from misconceptions.
On the other hand if someone complaint about wizards on the ground of them not having something to do without a spell slot, their complaint comes from inexperience and/or ignorance.

Kish
2016-08-22, 09:22 AM
Then they're not managing their resources well, and the GM is letting them get away with it.

"Ooops, we've spent all our spells. Now we will stop for an 8 hour rest." Unless you've got a foolproof place to hide, or the monsters are all rooted in place, they're going to start finding you, and making sure you stop killing them.

You can play that way if you want, of course, but it's the core idea of the 10-minute workday... "I will spend all my resources in one or two fights, and then return to full power by resting 8 hours. I can do this indefinitely."
Even if you have a foolproof place to hide, this approach is likely to lead to, "You reach the end of the dungeon, three months after you entered it. The villain completed his plan long ago and left." If it doesn't have any kind of consequences, well, that amounts to the DM sending a message, "I encourage and reward the 10-minute day approach," and the same DM should not complain about that message being received and understood.

Tiktakkat
2016-08-22, 11:02 AM
Vancian casting doesn't cause problems. Playing without considering the effects of the rules is bad strategy, and bad strategy causes problems.

If you want steak, don't go to a pizza parlor. If you go to a pizza parlor to order steak, the problem isn't that the pizza parlor's menu caused a problem, it's that you made a bad choice. Either have pizza and enjoy it, or go to a steakhouse.

Choose your order intelligently, based on the restaurant's menu, or choose another restaurant.

If you want unlimited casting, don't play D&D. If you play D&D and use up your daily spells on the first encounter or two, the problem isn't that Vancian casting caused a problem, it's that you made a bad choice. Either play as if spells are a limited resource, or go play a different game.

Play the game intelligently, based on the game's rules, or play another game.

Reminds me of a story:

Back 30 years or so I did a bunch of playtesting for West End Games. (Mostly wargames, though they also did TORG and Star Wars.)

One day I walk in and one of the game designers comes over and asks me a question about a game that I had played once or twice for them. It seems some people contacted the company about a "problem" with the game play.

It was a squad-level WWII game, where turn order was determined by bidding points. Bid more, go first. However, the more you bid, the fewer of your troops could move, and the fewer action phases you could take each turn.

These players were apparently burning out their troops in the first bid, and as a result were unable to do enough to get anywhere near meeting the victory conditions.

The designer asked me if I had found this to be an issue.

I said it wasn't, that it was quite clear that you had to balance going first against going often enough with as many troops as possible, and so never even considered trying to "nova" on the first bid.

He said that was exactly what he intended, and just wanted to confirm that it was as obvious as he thought it was.


So yeah:
"Playing without considering the effects of the rules is bad strategy, and bad strategy causes problems."
That. Always.

wumpus
2016-08-22, 11:43 AM
But this assumes that only clerics can get wands to take up some of their functions. If your group is investing in healsticks, why isn't the wizard putting some of his cash into a wand of grease? Or Burning Hands? If the fighter is eating through the Cleric's CLW capacity, you're replacing it with a wand. If the wizard is eating through his spells per day, why aren't you doing the same, if you're insistent that they use magic for everything?

Note that if your wizard has high stats (and the campaign expects it), you can expect to save against such wands. Magic missile has no save (nor does it miss, unless as an at will abomination). A 2nd level wizard can use it over and over (especially on previously wounded monsters to quickly finish them off, or on highly armored critters) until getting to a stage of actually having useful spells without using the "one/two encounter day".

Magic missile and detect magic wands (make scrolls until you can afford a wand). Use your spells (and your DC bonuses) for things with a save.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-22, 11:59 AM
Vancian casting doesn't cause problems. Playing without considering the effects of the rules is bad strategy, and bad strategy causes problems.

If you want steak, don't go to a pizza parlor. If you go to a pizza parlor to order steak, the problem isn't that the pizza parlor's menu caused a problem, it's that you made a bad choice. Either have pizza and enjoy it, or go to a steakhouse.

Choose your order intelligently, based on the restaurant's menu, or choose another restaurant.

If you want unlimited casting, don't play D&D. If you play D&D and use up your daily spells on the first encounter or two, the problem isn't that Vancian casting caused a problem, it's that you made a bad choice. Either play as if spells are a limited resource, or go play a different game.

Play the game intelligently, based on the game's rules, or play another game.


To me, this just means that most iterations of D&D (and D&D-likes) are very very gamist, and really only make sense for any other sort of play if the setting is specifically reverse-engineered to account for all the rules and mechanics.

Personally, if I wanted to play a game in which the setting and characters are really just "fluff" tacked onto a ruleset, I'd be looking at boardgames or something.

LibraryOgre
2016-08-22, 12:28 PM
Look I don't care whether or not wizards historically did this or that in stories. I want my all-blaster magi.


And that's cool, but that's not a problem with the Vancian system, per se, but rather a mismatch between what the system seeks to accomplish and what you want it to do... like you've been given Word, but you want Excel, so you're going to hack at Word until it can jackleg Excel, all the while complaining that it's not excel.

In a lot of ways, I think the mechanics of the Warlock, or the Pathfinder approach of "Unlimited Cantrips", handles this well. The Warlock is, in many ways, simply a refluffed superhero. He has a few special powers he can pull off, and the all-day blasting. The Unlimited Cantrips lets you be the all-day blaster, even if the blasting you can do is kinda crap ("oooooh, 1d3 damage as a ranged touch attack!") For the wizard in the unlimited cantrips, you still have the big things you can only handle a few times per day, but the optics of your ranged attack remain wizardly, not "dude with a crossbow".

As for "Good wands for wizards", mentioned earlier, I'd point to the "Orb" line of spells, especially the lessers. Same cost as a level 1 wand of magic missile, but it gives you 50 1d8 ranged touch attacks. 750 gold is a lot for that, but since it's more accurate than a crossbow, it may be worth it. A masterwork heavy crossbow with all masterwork ammo is 385 gp, but fires half as often, is subject to damage resistance, and is only as effective as a ranged touch attack if they have 2 points of armor... and for the same damage.

Faily
2016-08-22, 12:57 PM
To me, this just means that most iterations of D&D (and D&D-likes) are very very gamist, and really only make sense for any other sort of play if the setting is specifically reverse-engineered to account for all the rules and mechanics.

Personally, if I wanted to play a game in which the setting and characters are really just "fluff" tacked onto a ruleset, I'd be looking at boardgames or something.


I... what...?

Yes, a game is GAMIST; Chess is gamist, GURPS is gamist, Fate is gamist, Poker is gamist. A game is gamist. But comparing D&D to boardgames is incredibly faulty. Especially over something like Vancian Casting. You know fully well that it is a faulty logic to call it a Boardgame merely because of the ruleset.

Xuc Xac
2016-08-22, 01:00 PM
If you want steak, don't go to a pizza parlor. If you go to a pizza parlor to order steak, the problem isn't that the pizza parlor's menu caused a problem, it's that you made a bad choice. Either have pizza and enjoy it, or go to a steakhouse.


The problem isn't really people ordering steak at a pizza parlor. The problem is that the pizza parlor bills itself as the world's most popular Italian restaurant so people expect to get linguini, spaghetti, gnocchi, and lasagna, but all they get is pizza.

D&D can be a great game, but it's only good at doing its own particular genre, which is a problem when the game's authors keep trying to present it as being more than that.

It's not the world's best pizza, but I won't argue that it is, in fact, pizza. Pizza fans just need to stop saying it's "Italian food" and treating people like they're stupid for asking for ravioli.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-22, 01:01 PM
I... what...?

Yes, a game is GAMIST; Chess is gamist, GURPS is gamist, Fate is gamist, Poker is gamist. A game is gamist. But comparing D&D to boardgames is incredibly faulty. Especially over something like Vancian Casting. You know fully well that it is a faulty logic to call it a Boardgame merely because of the ruleset.

Your response is not directed at the thought I expressed. Please check the context, including the comment my post was in response to.

The comment was "Play the game intelligently, based on the game's rules, or play another game."

As far as I can tell, this puts the rules before the setting, before the characters, before everything. The rules cease to be the map, and become the territory itself; the rules cease to be the journey, and are instead the destination; the rules cease to model or represent the thing, and become the thing, the whole point of playing.

In such a game, the point is no longer "how do I best play this character, with the rules being used to model their interaction with the world they inhabit, while using those rules efficiently", and is instead "how do I create the most mechanically advantageous numerical construct."

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-22, 01:50 PM
The problem isn't really people ordering steak at a pizza parlor. The problem is that the pizza parlor bills itself as the world's most popular Italian restaurant so people expect to get linguini, spaghetti, gnocchi, and lasagna, but all they get is pizza.

D&D can be a great game, but it's only good at doing its own particular genre, which is a problem when the game's authors keep trying to present it as being more than that.

It's not the world's best pizza, but I won't argue that it is, in fact, pizza. Pizza fans just need to stop saying it's "Italian food" and treating people like they're stupid for asking for ravioli.

And because it's the Walmart or Amazon of RPGs, an absolute market-share monster, what we've ended up with both in terms of shelf space and in terms of table space, is the equivalent of an "Italian" chain in every market that only actually serves that one style of pizza... and a bunch of local restaurants that represent a total over-reaction / backlash against pizza.

Jay R
2016-08-22, 02:33 PM
The problem isn't really people ordering steak at a pizza parlor. The problem is that the pizza parlor bills itself as the world's most popular Italian restaurant so people expect to get linguini, spaghetti, gnocchi, and lasagna, but all they get is pizza.

D&D can be a great game, but it's only good at doing its own particular genre, which is a problem when the game's authors keep trying to present it as being more than that.

I'll bite. Who's portraying D&D as a game in which wizards have infinite spells? I can't remember ever hearing anybody say it's a good system for playing something other than D&D with.


It's not the world's best pizza, but I won't argue that it is, in fact, pizza. Pizza fans just need to stop saying it's "Italian food" and treating people like they're stupid for asking for ravioli.

Agreed. Nobody should ever say you can play a D&D game that is inconsistent with D&D. Nobody should tell people that they can use baseball bats in basketball, either. And in both cases, nobody does.


To me, this just means that most iterations of D&D (and D&D-likes) are very very gamist, and really only make sense for any other sort of play if the setting is specifically reverse-engineered to account for all the rules and mechanics.

"Reverse-engineered" is the wrong term here, unless you mean that there was another rpg first, and D&D tried to create a similar game without violating copyrights or patents.

It is certainly true that D&D should be played based on the D&D rules. Don't try to use a sword from seventy meters away, Don't try to use swim checks to scale a mountain, and don't use magic spells like they are inexhaustible. That's just good sense. And playing a strategy that works under the rules in just good sense, just like in every other game in the world.

Good baseball strategy is specifically based on the knowledge that your team only gets three outs in an inning, and all competent baseball players play it that way. If you try a sacrifice bunt when you already have two outs, the system didn't cause the problem; you did.

Good checkers strategy accounts for the fact that a checker can only make many captures in a single turn if they line up correctly, and all competent checkers players play it that way. If you try to capture several checkers when you checker isn't in position to reach them is a series of hops, the system didn't cause the problem; you did.

And yes, good D&D strategy treats limited resources as limited resources, and all competent D&D players play it that way. If you run out of spells in the first encounter or two, the system didn't cause the problem; you did.

If you don't want to play that kind of game, fine. Don't play D&D. But playing it so as to run out of resources fast, and then blaming the system because your strategy doesn't work, makes no sense.

Segev
2016-08-22, 02:43 PM
If we are content to go back to the 1950s or so, we can look at Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie for magic users who are able to do things more or less at will. Sabrina the Teenaged Witch also existed for ages in comic form before Melissa Joan Hart started playing the eponymous half-witch in a live-action series.

Heck, Bewitched and Sabrina could have occurred in the same setting, despite being different companies and authors: witches are a separate race of immortal natural-magic-users who can breed with humans, but live separately in their own "world" and do things like vacation on Mars or the Moon amongst other things that make their lives just "better" than those of mundane mortals.

Samantha, the lead witch of Bewitched, could twitch her nose and do (almost) anything. Some things took an incantation, but the real limits were plot-based. She couldn't undo magic cast by other witches, and she sometimes couldn't reverse her own stuff or failed to do things the way she'd hoped. But magic was just something she could DO.

For Sabrina (and Samantha's daughter, Tabitha), learning magic was more like learning a skill than learning formulae. Learning an instrument or a sport than a course of academic study or even applied engineering.

But again, no limits in terms of how much they could do, nor how often.

But to be fair, like Harry Potter, they would make lousy game systems, unless everybody was a witch/warlock/wizard. In which case you can just model skill with magic as various skills that take rolls to resolve. The system need not be resource-limited if it's instead like a rogue using skills or a fighter attacking in D&D.

Warlocks in D&D 3e kind-of took this approach: just give them weaker at-will magic abilities, and they scale roughly in line with what "non-magical" characters are meant to. (Whether the non-magical ones really do or not is a different topic.)



So it's doable. But the idea of magic that is powerful but limited is not invalid, and can be fun. I do like that PF and 5e have introduced "small" magics that the PC wizard can throw around all day, letting him feel "magical" all the time while still being the Big Gun only a few times per day. Again, whether that's balanced against non-mages is a different question.

PairO'Dice Lost
2016-08-22, 03:14 PM
To me, this just means that most iterations of D&D (and D&D-likes) are very very gamist, and really only make sense for any other sort of play if the setting is specifically reverse-engineered to account for all the rules and mechanics.

Personally, if I wanted to play a game in which the setting and characters are really just "fluff" tacked onto a ruleset, I'd be looking at boardgames or something.

You're conflating two separate aspects of Vancian casting, here: there's the flavor-mechanics relationship of Vancian casting, and there's the kind of gameplay and strategy that Vancian casting encourages. The first aspect is not gamist at all; the flavor is well-described (though more implicitly than explicitly in some cases), the flavor and mechanics are relatively consistent, and Vancian casting could hardly have been designed with flavor as an afterthought when it was the flavor that gave Gygax the idea in the first place.

The second aspect can be described as "gamist" only in that Gygax and Arneson chose to base D&D's magic system on Vance's so that the magic system would encourage the same gameplay and strategy as the rest of the game. Use of Vancian casting during play is not gamist in the hyperbolic way you describe, any more than using any other magic system in any other RPG is gamist if the outcomes of the magic system are intended to fit the expected outcomes of the rest of the game.


Your response is not directed at the thought I expressed. Please check the context, including the comment my post was in response to.

The comment was "Play the game intelligently, based on the game's rules, or play another game."

On the contrary, the comment was "Playing without considering the effects of the rules is bad strategy, and bad strategy causes problems," which is entirely accurate.

A wizard who spends all his spells within a single encounter and a rogue who charges headlong into combat both have the same problem: their strategy is suboptimal (at best) to lethal (at worst) due to the way the magic and combat systems function. Saying that your wizard who can prepare only N spells at a time shouldn't cast them as fast as possible without carefully considering their use, or that your rogue who relies on stealth and teamwork for offensive power and stealth and mobility for avoiding harm shouldn't let himself get cut off from allies and surrounded in the open, is just another way to express that you should be "play this character, with the rules being used to model their interaction with the world they inhabit, while using those rules efficiently."

James Bond doesn't infiltrate a villain's base with extensive backup one radio call away, or enter a firefight with a dozen thugs wearing heavy body armor and wielding a machine gun because the mechanics of [I]his world give plot armor to named characters who operate alone, emphasize avoiding harm over surviving harm, make "good" nameless characters like his backup just as ineffective as "bad" nameless characters like the thugs he's fighting, and reward stealth and witty repartee much more than firepower. It's a completely fair statement to say that someone who brings a loud, slow, mini-gun-toting soldier to a game of James Bond: The RPG and then complains that they keep dying and can't contribute is Doing It Wrong, and it's not that the mechanics are causing problems but rather that player's failure to take the rules into consideration and choosing a strategy that doesn't work well within those rules is causing problems.


But to be fair, like Harry Potter, they would make lousy game systems, unless everybody was a witch/warlock/wizard. In which case you can just model skill with magic as various skills that take rolls to resolve. The system need not be resource-limited if it's instead like a rogue using skills or a fighter attacking in D&D.


Such a system doesn't necessarily need to be a magic-user-only game. Plenty of rules-light games unify the mechanics to the extent that magic and non-magic work essentially the same way; for instance, in the Dresden Files RPG, shooting someone with a pistol and launching a bolt of fire at someone both involve a skill check, as you describe, and both have skill modifiers in the same ranges, can both have Stunts (situational benefits) and Aspects (plot-altering capabilities) attached to them, and so forth. Magic in DFRPG does inflict some stress (mental and physical HP) with each use, but all stress is healed at the end of each scene unless you greatly overextend yourself and magic-users can easily increase their mental stress track, so magic is "at-will" as much as it is in Bewitched or Harry Potter.

The main benefit of magic in that system is that "I can do magic" is more flexible than "I have a gun," but (A) both magic-users and non-magic-users can do plot-altering stuff via use of Aspects, so non-magic-users can contribute on par with magic-users and don't suffer the "fighters can only fight" problem from D&D, and (B) non-magic-users are given more Fate Points (the resource used to trigger the plot-altering capabilities of Aspects) to compensate for their lack of in-character problem solving with extra out-of-character problem solving.

Granted, that kind of system isn't for everyone; Fate is considered to be one of the heaviest rules-light RPGs out there, and it's the absolute lightest game I'm willing to play before I get bored due to the lack of moving parts. But it's certainly one good way to keep magic-users and non-magic-users on par with at-will magic.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-22, 03:34 PM
I'll bite. Who's portraying D&D as a game in which wizards have infinite spells? I can't remember ever hearing anybody say it's a good system for playing something other than D&D with.



Agreed. Nobody should ever say you can play a D&D game that is inconsistent with D&D. Nobody should tell people that they can use baseball bats in basketball, either. And in both cases, nobody does.


Many people, particularly players, present D&D as a universal generic fantasy gaming system that can be used to play a broad swatch of fantasy settings. Players have attempted to run fantasy games of all sorts in a wide variety of settings, using the D&D rules, regardless of how

For years, the rules of actual iterations of D&D / AD&D were published without any strong linkage to a particular setting, fostering that mistaken impression of universality.

AND, many setting books and full gaming products have been made using the D&D mechanics / rules-set with little to no modification of the basic rules presumptions -- even when those rules presumptions are a mismatch with the setting material.


So, yes, in fact, someone has suggested it -- they've been suggesting it for decades, and they have done so frequently.





"Reverse-engineered" is the wrong term here, unless you mean that there was another rpg first, and D&D tried to create a similar game without violating copyrights or patents.


Reverse-engineered is PRECISELY the correct term to use here -- note the exact comment: "To me, this just means that most iterations of D&D (and D&D-likes) are very very gamist, and really only make sense for any other sort of play if the setting is specifically reverse-engineered to account for all the rules and mechanics."

D&D as a rules-set only makes sense for use with settings that are specifically reverse-engineered to match up with the D&D rules-set. D&D rules should not be used for settings that do not take classes, levels, Vancian spell-mechanics, and the rest of the rules of D&D, into account.

I was talking about reverse-engineering the setting, and you're responding as if I was suggesting changes to the game system.

See below for how this matches up with what I've been saying already...




It is certainly true that D&D should be played based on the D&D rules. Don't try to use a sword from seventy meters away, Don't try to use swim checks to scale a mountain, and don't use magic spells like they are inexhaustible. That's just good sense. And playing a strategy that works under the rules in just good sense, just like in every other game in the world.

Good baseball strategy is specifically based on the knowledge that your team only gets three outs in an inning, and all competent baseball players play it that way. If you try a sacrifice bunt when you already have two outs, the system didn't cause the problem; you did.

Good checkers strategy accounts for the fact that a checker can only make many captures in a single turn if they line up correctly, and all competent checkers players play it that way. If you try to capture several checkers when you checker isn't in position to reach them is a series of hops, the system didn't cause the problem; you did.

And yes, good D&D strategy treats limited resources as limited resources, and all competent D&D players play it that way. If you run out of spells in the first encounter or two, the system didn't cause the problem; you did.

If you don't want to play that kind of game, fine. Don't play D&D. But playing it so as to run out of resources fast, and then blaming the system because your strategy doesn't work, makes no sense.

This focus on the game as primarily, first, and foremost a set of rules, is why I suggest that D&D as approached by many players, and at its heart as a system, has its deepest kinship with boardgames or wargames.

I'm not going to tell someone that they're having badwrongfun, but as far as I'm concerned, looking at an RPG as primarily an exercise in rules strategy misses the entire point of an RPG.

That is, the rules are no more than a toolkit, and they are not the point of the RPG. The setting, the characters, the emergent story, the verisimilitude of the inputs and outputs, and so on -- those are the things that matter to me. The system and mechanics are simply the means, and never the ends; the map, and never the territory.

My intent is NEVER to "play D&D", my intent is to play (or run) an RPG in a particular setting. If I'm planning to run a Star Wars game, I can use one of the d20 offerings, or the WEG d6 version, or FFG's goofy thing, or a homemade HERO-system adaptation, or whatever else I consider the best fit for that setting and the game I want to run.

If I'm trying to model the weather, and my model keeps spitting out forecasts of 200-degree weather in winter, I don't question reality, I question the model. Likewise, if I'm running a game in a particular setting, and the rules I happen to be using keep spitting out nonsense, I don't blame the setting, or the players, or myself.

The rules should model, represent, and reflect the setting and tone of the game -- "playing D&D" requires that the setting and tone instead be built around the rules of D&D, unless one is fine with ongoing dissonance.

I'm not looking to play a resource-management game, or a strategy-first game, and yet that's what dominates the available products and available "tables" -- "Use D&D, everyone knows it and we all have the books!" is the common response to almost any attempt to run a game in any sort of fantasy-like setting.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-22, 04:03 PM
You're conflating two separate aspects of Vancian casting, here: there's the flavor-mechanics relationship of Vancian casting, and there's the kind of gameplay and strategy that Vancian casting encourages. The first aspect is not gamist at all; the flavor is well-described (though more implicitly than explicitly in some cases), the flavor and mechanics are relatively consistent, and Vancian casting could hardly have been designed with flavor as an afterthought when it was the flavor that gave Gygax the idea in the first place.

The second aspect can be described as "gamist" only in that Gygax and Arneson chose to base D&D's magic system on Vance's so that the magic system would encourage the same gameplay and strategy as the rest of the game. Use of Vancian casting during play is not gamist in the hyperbolic way you describe, any more than using any other magic system in any other RPG is gamist if the outcomes of the magic system are intended to fit the expected outcomes of the rest of the game.


I'm not conflating anything.

For the most part there's no flavor-mechanics relationship AT ALL in the presentation of spellcasting in D&D products, it's just a set of rules for "that class who is specialized in spellcasting". The sort of gameplay that is encouraged turns the arcane art of magic into a strategic bookkeeping exercise with a laundry-list of mechanical effects.

If Gygax's original intent for the flavor is what matters, then the whole concept of Vancian casting becomes more setting-specific, and even more bizarre for any other setting -- as Gygax clearly intended spellcasting to be fire-and-literally-forget (He refers to spells going into and out of the caster memory repeatedly (http://www.dyingearth.com/files/GARY%20GYGAX%20JACK%20VANCE.pdf)), and this is very specific sort of setup for a very specific sort of setting.


To my way of thinking, the concept of a spell itself being magical, that its written form carried energy, seemed a perfect way to balance the mage against other types of characters in the game. The memorization of the spell required time and concentration so as to impart not merely the written content but also its magical energies. When subsequently cast — by speaking or some other means — the words or gestures, or whatever triggered the magical force of the spell, leaving a blank place in the brain where the previously memorized spell had been held. Because I explained this often, attributing its inspiration to Jack Vance, the D&D magic system of memorized then forgotten spells was dubbed by gamers “the Vancian magic system”.






On the contrary, the comment was "Playing without considering the effects of the rules is bad strategy, and bad strategy causes problems," which is entirely accurate.


Ahem...



Play the game intelligently, based on the game's rules, or play another game.


I quoted the comment I was replying to exactly, and did so in two different posts.





James Bond doesn't infiltrate a villain's base with extensive backup one radio call away, or enter a firefight with a dozen thugs wearing heavy body armor and wielding a machine gun because the mechanics of his world give plot armor to named characters who operate alone, emphasize avoiding harm over surviving harm, make "good" nameless characters like his backup just as ineffective as "bad" nameless characters like the thugs he's fighting, and reward stealth and witty repartee much more than firepower. It's a completely fair statement to say that someone who brings a loud, slow, mini-gun-toting soldier to a game of James Bond: The RPG and then complains that they keep dying and can't contribute is Doing It Wrong, and it's not that the mechanics are causing problems but rather that player's failure to take the rules into consideration and choosing a strategy that doesn't work well within those rules is causing problems.


The real problem there is that we have a situation equivalent to one in which no matter what sort of modern espionage game a group wants to play, there's a "Her Majesty's Secret Service" game out there that dominates the market and is assumed to be the default system, including all the baked-in setting presumptions from trying to emulate that one particular genre of James Bond movies, that gets used no matter how poorly it models what the GM and players are actually trying to do.

Based on past experiences, I'm far more concerned with the mechanics/system "doing it wrong".

nedz
2016-08-22, 05:30 PM
The second aspect can be described as "gamist" only in that Gygax and Arneson chose to base D&D's magic system on Vance's so that the magic system would encourage the same gameplay and strategy as the rest of the game. Use of Vancian casting during play is not gamist in the hyperbolic way you describe, any more than using any other magic system in any other RPG is gamist if the outcomes of the magic system are intended to fit the expected outcomes of the rest of the game.

I'm fairly sure that you have this the wrong way around. If you look at other fantasy works then, as others have sort of pointed out, it's hard to envisage how you turn them into a game. The Vancian system, in the books, lends itself to a game. Later developments have led to the creation of different systems - in fact you don't need to use Vancian casting in 3.5 even - but as the genus of the idea: Vancian was the solution.

Thrudd
2016-08-22, 05:36 PM
Yes, D&D is not a generic fantasy role playing game suitable for representing and telling stories in any setting. It's rules make it out to be a game of strategy and tactics involving treasure hunting in a specific fantasy setting inspired by elements of various works of fiction. The writers and promoters of the game have lied about or misunderstood and thereby misrepresented their product from at least the mid eighties onward. They never changed the rules sufficiently to turn the game into what they and many players want and claim it to be. It is a real shame. That is why these discussions always happen. It must be pointed out that the players can't trust the writers' generic claims about what the game is and must determine what it is based on how the rules actually function after a thorough reading and analyzing. It does say "Italian Restaurant" on the outside, but when you see that the menu is only pizza, you shouldn't be expecting them to make you raviolis.

In my mind, D&D and AD&D from early 80's and earlier is something nobody else has tried to do since, and hasn't been done as well since. That's where I go if I want to play D&D, or else a retroclone based on those rules. If I want to tell a generic fantasy story in a custom setting, I'd go with an actually generic game which has the level of narrative or cinematic style that I want.

Telok
2016-08-22, 06:01 PM
The real problem there is that we have a situation equivalent to one in which no matter what sort of modern espionage game a group wants to play, there's a "Her Majesty's Secret Service" game out there that dominates the market and is assumed to be the default system, including all the baked-in setting presumptions from trying to emulate that one particular genre of James Bond movies, that gets used no matter how poorly it models what the GM and players are actually trying to do.

Based on past experiences, I'm far more concerned with the mechanics/system "doing it wrong".

Ok, I'll admit to not paying close attention to who is on which side of this thing but I'm confused now. Do people want to play D&D or do they want to play a game without Vancian magic and use D&D to do it?

Because of someone wants to play D&D, well they're playing a game built around Vancian magic users. If they want to play a fantasy game without Vancian magic users then why are they playing D&D? And if they can only play D&D for whatever reason, real or imagined, and don't want to use Vancian magic then they can just play a class without the Vancian spellcasting. What's the conflict?

veti
2016-08-22, 06:29 PM
But to be fair, like Harry Potter, they would make lousy game systems, unless everybody was a witch/warlock/wizard. In which case you can just model skill with magic as various skills that take rolls to resolve. The system need not be resource-limited if it's instead like a rogue using skills or a fighter attacking in D&D.

You've done it now, I so want to play a Bewitched RPG. I think it'd be a lot of fun, to work out how to do the things you want without overstepping the bounds of what's allowed (mostly, letting non-family-mortals in on the secret).

Nothing to do with the fact that Elizabeth Montgomery was my first screen crush. No sirree, nothing to do with her at all.

LibraryOgre
2016-08-22, 06:33 PM
You've done it now, I so want to play a Bewitched RPG. I think it'd be a lot of fun, to work out how to do the things you want without overstepping the bounds of what's allowed (mostly, letting non-family-mortals in on the secret).

Nothing to do with the fact that Elizabeth Montgomery was my first screen crush. No sirree, nothing to do with her at all.

I think that was called "Mage: The Ascension". :smalltongue:

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-22, 07:24 PM
Ok, I'll admit to not paying close attention to who is on which side of this thing but I'm confused now. Do people want to play D&D or do they want to play a game without Vancian magic and use D&D to do it?

Because of someone wants to play D&D, well they're playing a game built around Vancian magic users. If they want to play a fantasy game without Vancian magic users then why are they playing D&D? And if they can only play D&D for whatever reason, real or imagined, and don't want to use Vancian magic then they can just play a class without the Vancian spellcasting. What's the conflict?


I'm responding to the claim that problems aren't caused by Vancian systems, they're caused by players.

If there's a disconnect in expectations, it's not because of the players, and it's certainly not (as one poster claimed) because of some snotty disdainful nonsense about video games and anime causing people to lose their smarts.

It's because the marketing of D&D, and especially some of its proponents, treat it as a sort of "for all fantasy gaming needs" product.

SimonMoon6
2016-08-22, 07:41 PM
Ok, I'll admit to not paying close attention to who is on which side of this thing but I'm confused now. Do people want to play D&D or do they want to play a game without Vancian magic and use D&D to do it?

People want to play a fantasy game with wizards without Vancian magic. They also want to play a super-popular game that everybody knows the rules to and that all their friends will want to play.

The problem is that you can't do both. If you do the former, you don't play D&D. If you do the latter, you must play D&D.

SethoMarkus
2016-08-22, 08:08 PM
I'm responding to the claim that problems aren't caused by Vancian systems, they're caused by players.

If there's a disconnect in expectations, it's not because of the players, and it's certainly not (as one poster claimed) because of some snotty disdainful nonsense about video games and anime causing people to lose their smarts.

It's because the marketing of D&D, and especially some of its proponents, treat it as a sort of "for all fantasy gaming needs" product.

I'm going to agree and disagree with this. I believe it is the expectations of the players that causes the issue, however you are correct that the disconnect is not (entirely) their fault. The failure of the Hasbro/WotC marketing teams to understand their product and its scope and limitations is what is responsible for the disconnect. One can hardly put the blame on the Vancian Spellcasting system in use. (I am not trying to infer that you are putting the blame on Vancian Spellcasting.)


People want to play a fantasy game with wizards without Vancian magic. They also want to play a super-popular game that everybody knows the rules to and that all their friends will want to play.

The problem is that you can't do both. If you do the former, you don't play D&D. If you do the latter, you must play D&D.

You can do both, at least with a little forethought and preparation. As pointed out, you can play a non-Vancian spellcaster within D&D, especially with alternative spellcasting systems available in 3.5 (spell points, Warlock casting, even just the humble Sorcerer), and 4th ed really started moving away from this.

I would also say that while D&D is still the dominant image of TTRPG in the public mindset, that view is slowly changing. It may still be the first game that comes to mind, but spend even a little time on a forum such as this and very quickly you'll hear of other games that are quite popular within the community. Sure, that isn't quite what you are talking about, but a player thinking D&D is the only game out there is simply a failure of doing even basic research.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-22, 10:57 PM
I'm going to agree and disagree with this. I believe it is the expectations of the players that causes the issue, however you are correct that the disconnect is not (entirely) their fault. The failure of the Hasbro/WotC marketing teams to understand their product and its scope and limitations is what is responsible for the disconnect. One can hardly put the blame on the Vancian Spellcasting system in use. (I am not trying to infer that you are putting the blame on Vancian Spellcasting.)


It probably sounds like I am, since I also simply dislike it, both conceptually and mechanically, and I'm sure that comes through.

It is also one of the major elements of the D&D iterations that make them so setting-specific (or setting dissonant, in other instances) -- the other elements being classes (the concept, not just specific classes), level-based progression and all the attendant issues, and the various D&Disms in terminology and functionality of armor and weapons.

digiman619
2016-08-23, 02:46 AM
Another problem that I'm surprised wasn't mentioned yet is how the arcane/divine split make certain stories impossible, or at least much, much harder, to tell. Stories about false gods or apotheosis are problematic with this system. I mean, countless leaders thought actual history have claimed to be incarnated gods, but this simply can't be a background for a D&D story because it beggars the question: "If he's not really a god, where are his clerics getting their spells from?" Cleric of ideals offer some leeway, but it's by definition harder to do that in practically any other magic system.

Zombimode
2016-08-23, 03:04 AM
Another problem that I'm surprised wasn't mentioned yet is how the arcane/divine split make certain stories impossible, or at least much, much harder, to tell. Stories about false gods or apotheosis are problematic with this system. I mean, countless leaders thought actual history have claimed to be incarnated gods, but this simply can't be a background for a D&D story because it beggars the question: "If he's not really a god, where are his clerics getting their spells from?" Cleric of ideals offer some leeway, but it's by definition harder to do that in practically any other magic system.

I'm sorry but this is entirely setting dependent. A story like this would fit perfectly into Eberron.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-23, 08:36 AM
Another problem that I'm surprised wasn't mentioned yet is how the arcane/divine split make certain stories impossible, or at least much, much harder, to tell. Stories about false gods or apotheosis are problematic with this system. I mean, countless leaders thought actual history have claimed to be incarnated gods, but this simply can't be a background for a D&D story because it beggars the question: "If he's not really a god, where are his clerics getting their spells from?" Cleric of ideals offer some leeway, but it's by definition harder to do that in practically any other magic system.

In a setting where the deities are real in demonstrable and concrete ways, questions of faith become very different, and it's harder to do some sorts of conflict.

In a setting where magic is real in demonstrable and concrete ways, it loses some of the mystery and, well, magic. Magic in our real world is arcane and mysterious and wrapped in secrecy and odd rituals and conflicting "arts"... because it's not real. The mystery never goes away because there's no underlying truth to be discovered. In a world where it is real, people would treat it just like any other natural force, as something to be harnessed and exploited and controlled and analyzed and demystified.

But... as much as I dislike Vancian magic... neither problem can be pinned on VM in particular. They're just as possible with almost any other RPG spellcasting system.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-23, 09:27 AM
Another problem that I'm surprised wasn't mentioned yet is how the arcane/divine split make certain stories impossible, or at least much, much harder, to tell. Stories about false gods or apotheosis are problematic with this system. I mean, countless leaders thought actual history have claimed to be incarnated gods, but this simply can't be a background for a D&D story because it beggars the question: "If he's not really a god, where are his clerics getting their spells from?" Cleric of ideals offer some leeway, but it's by definition harder to do that in practically any other magic system.

I've simply considered this a problem with DnD's specific spells and assumptions, not with the Vancian-ness of it.

Thrudd
2016-08-23, 01:00 PM
Another problem that I'm surprised wasn't mentioned yet is how the arcane/divine split make certain stories impossible, or at least much, much harder, to tell. Stories about false gods or apotheosis are problematic with this system. I mean, countless leaders thought actual history have claimed to be incarnated gods, but this simply can't be a background for a D&D story because it beggars the question: "If he's not really a god, where are his clerics getting their spells from?" Cleric of ideals offer some leeway, but it's by definition harder to do that in practically any other magic system.

The rules don't actually dictate the existence of deities, per se. They dictate a difference in the way clerics access spells compared to magic users, and the particular setting will need to address a reason for that. A D&D setting needs to address why magic works the way it does, but is not mechanically restricted in the solutions. In the Known World setting from the Basic D&D line of games, the "gods" are immortals who ascended to that state, and there was a set of rules or guidelines about how high level characters could do the same.
There could absolutely be false gods, things people call "gods" because they are a source of magic but who's actually nature is not known at all. Just because people have figured out an aspect of how something works does not mean they understand its true nature. So belief in a deity, even praying to and supposedly receiving spells from them, does not mean the deity actually exists. Druids don't pray to a deity, but they receive spells in the exact same manner and in some cases have access to the same spells as clerics. Why does the druid's communing with nature have the same effect as the cleric's prayers to god? Why can magic users access spells, in some cases identical in effect to ones clerics and druids receive, without praying or communing or anything, but only by studying symbols? A mystery for your setting to solve. Why do all of them seem to operate on the same basic framework of "slots" in one's memory that are emptied after a spell is cast?

wumpus
2016-08-23, 01:09 PM
Ok, I'll admit to not paying close attention to who is on which side of this thing but I'm confused now. Do people want to play D&D or do they want to play a game without Vancian magic and use D&D to do it?

Because of someone wants to play D&D, well they're playing a game built around Vancian magic users. If they want to play a fantasy game without Vancian magic users then why are they playing D&D? And if they can only play D&D for whatever reason, real or imagined, and don't want to use Vancian magic then they can just play a class without the Vancian spellcasting. What's the conflict?

Oddly enough, the MMO Dungeons & Dragons Online essentially ported the 3.x ruleset to a computer (complete with visible dice rolling similar to Baldur's Gate), but didn't include Vancian Casting.

To make this happen, a lot of changes were needed. Hit point inflation was extreme (especially on mobs. Boss mobs with million odd hp levels were possible), with a 25hp bonus handed out at first level and other ways to enhance it. A 20th level character should be well over 500hp). Other means were extended (such as making healing cheap) so that the melee (and archer) types "infinite damage supply" still mattered over the casters' wildly extended magical powers.

One important element is that they did *not* allow any easy means to extend spell power between "rests" (aside from the obvious "pay to win" elements). This allowed the game to remain somewhat true to D&D (and the use of [single use for semi-advanced levels of play, long cool downs for beginners] rest shrine areas in dungeons to avoid "two encounter day" game-braking).

Should you somehow manage (or even want) to port such a thing to the tabletop (and most of the rules were available, but good luck finding any one releases rules all in one spot) I would recommend two different sets of poker chips. One to represent hit points (red bar) and one for spell points (blue bar).

Note: For all this "unlimited power" it sounds like the casters had, it took until 2011 (DDO launched 2007, went f2p 2009) before the "magic remap" lowered spell point costs and included "at will" powers for sorcerers (basically a few spells with a 1 point cost and a rough 1/encounter cooldown, but with free meta-magic could become seriously powerful) basically upset the "balance" and made the sorcerers and other casters wildly more powerful than the melee (who had dominated till then). Sometime after the various expansions this flipped at least one more time, but I wasn't around to watch.

So D&D is possible without vancian casting. An important thing to note is that cap had been level 20 for some time before 2011 when the melee/caster flip happened. Removing vancian casting (and removing/nerfing spells that were win buttons) appears important to making sure that being a wizard wasn't the "I win" button (especially since DDO had a tendency to force re-running the same quests multiple times, so expect players to know every square inch of the dungeon and *exactly* which spells to prepare).

Segev
2016-08-23, 03:02 PM
You've done it now, I so want to play a Bewitched RPG. I think it'd be a lot of fun, to work out how to do the things you want without overstepping the bounds of what's allowed (mostly, letting non-family-mortals in on the secret).

Nothing to do with the fact that Elizabeth Montgomery was my first screen crush. No sirree, nothing to do with her at all.

Bewitched would be a tricky one because you'd have to go from a narrative, free-form, whatever-the-plot-demands level of skill and power for each and every witch and warlock to something codified. It never made an effort to codify rules or even "how" magic worked. Witches could just do it. It would be an interesting exercise to try to make it gamable as more than just a single skill against which you rolled, or the like.

Temperjoke
2016-08-23, 04:24 PM
Bewitched would be a tricky one because you'd have to go from a narrative, free-form, whatever-the-plot-demands level of skill and power for each and every witch and warlock to something codified. It never made an effort to codify rules or even "how" magic worked. Witches could just do it. It would be an interesting exercise to try to make it gamable as more than just a single skill against which you rolled, or the like.

Maybe balancing chance of failure versus a chance of success altered by your character level? It'd help keep things in balance, but would let people who don't appreciate the native system feel like they're able to do whatever they want.

Frankly, I think it'd be easier to stick with the Vancian system.

Segev
2016-08-23, 04:38 PM
Maybe balancing chance of failure versus a chance of success altered by your character level? It'd help keep things in balance, but would let people who don't appreciate the native system feel like they're able to do whatever they want.

Frankly, I think it'd be easier to stick with the Vancian system.

Vancian magic wouldn't work for Bewitched, and Bewitched wouldn't work in D&D.

D&D does its own brand of heroic pseudo-medieval fantasy very well. It does not do modern-ish settings well. And Bewitched takes place in a modern setting where witches just happen to exist and do magic. And where magic seems nearly without defined limits (but faces seemingly-arbitrary undefined limits).

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-23, 04:45 PM
Vancian magic wouldn't work for Bewitched, and Bewitched wouldn't work in D&D.

D&D does its own brand of heroic pseudo-medieval fantasy very well. It does not do modern-ish settings well. And Bewitched takes place in a modern setting where witches just happen to exist and do magic. And where magic seems nearly without defined limits (but faces seemingly-arbitrary undefined limits).

Magic in Bewitched, or Harry Potter, is "plot limited" -- its limits are whatever is convenient to the plot, either overall or at any particular moment in the story.

SethoMarkus
2016-08-23, 05:46 PM
Magic in Bewitched, or Harry Potter, is "plot limited" -- its limits are whatever is convenient to the plot, either overall or at any particular moment in the story.

It's actually quite interesting because a friend and I are working on porting over a Harry Potter flavored wizard (mmm, tastes like chicken) into 3.5. It is at his behest, and I keep telling him that it won't really fit, but lo and behold we're doing it. Now, we may be inventing an entirely new spellcasting system in the process, but so far it is mostly working within d20 rules.

I have nothing to say of the balance of the class/system, and we have much work to do still, but it seems that the lower power of the spells generally seen in HP keeps them in line despite having more ability to cast without limit. (Although, as a note, we are working under the assumption that wizards do have limits on their spellcasting, it just was not touched upon in the movies or books. The simple spells that are seen being spammed we are counting as at-will Cantrips.)

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-23, 05:56 PM
It's actually quite interesting because a friend and I are working on porting over a Harry Potter flavored wizard (mmm, tastes like chicken) into 3.5. It is at his behest, and I keep telling him that it won't really fit, but lo and behold we're doing it. Now, we may be inventing an entirely new spellcasting system in the process, but so far it is mostly working within d20 rules.

I have nothing to say of the balance of the class/system, and we have much work to do still, but it seems that the lower power of the spells generally seen in HP keeps them in line despite having more ability to cast without limit. (Although, as a note, we are working under the assumption that wizards do have limits on their spellcasting, it just was not touched upon in the movies or books. The simple spells that are seen being spammed we are counting as at-will Cantrips.)

Some of the spells thrown around seemingly without limit by certain characters make for some pretty powerful "cantrips".

veti
2016-08-23, 06:43 PM
Bewitched would be a tricky one because you'd have to go from a narrative, free-form, whatever-the-plot-demands level of skill and power for each and every witch and warlock to something codified. It never made an effort to codify rules or even "how" magic worked. Witches could just do it. It would be an interesting exercise to try to make it gamable as more than just a single skill against which you rolled, or the like.

A slightly adapted form of 'Toon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toon_(role-playing_game))' might work... Basically, there are skills and abilities, but the cardinal rule is "if it's cool or funny, it works".

SethoMarkus
2016-08-23, 07:37 PM
Some of the spells thrown around seemingly without limit by certain characters make for some pretty powerful "cantrips".

I apologize, I may have been unclear. I did not intend that all spells are cantrips, nor all spells seen in frequent use. Accio is one example of a "cantrip" level spell for our system.

Aside from that we assume that thw casters shown never reach their limit "on screen", as there several times that we do see characters fatigued after spell use.

It is by no means perfect, but we are quite happy withthe progress. I intend to share it on these forums when we finish, and I welcome your opinion on the class/system then, if tou are so inclined.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-23, 08:30 PM
I apologize, I may have been unclear. I did not intend that all spells are cantrips, nor all spells seen in frequent use. Accio is one example of a "cantrip" level spell for our system.

Aside from that we assume that thw casters shown never reach their limit "on screen", as there several times that we do see characters fatigued after spell use.

It is by no means perfect, but we are quite happy withthe progress. I intend to share it on these forums when we finish, and I welcome your opinion on the class/system then, if tou are so inclined.


No need to apologize, I was just trying to figure out where you were going with it.

I'd be happy to comment when you post it.

CharonsHelper
2016-08-23, 09:26 PM
The real problem there is that we have a situation equivalent to one in which no matter what sort of modern espionage game a group wants to play, there's a "Her Majesty's Secret Service" game out there that dominates the market and is assumed to be the default system, including all the baked-in setting presumptions from trying to emulate that one particular genre of James Bond movies, that gets used no matter how poorly it models what the GM and players are actually trying to do.

Based on past experiences, I'm far more concerned with the mechanics/system "doing it wrong".

It's starting to sound like your real complaint is that you're not the biggest fan of D&D (especially Vancian casting), and you wish that some other system which appealed to your tastes was the market leader so that you could get people to play it with you.

CharonsHelper
2016-08-23, 09:33 PM
Magic in Bewitched, or Harry Potter, is "plot limited" -- its limits are whatever is convenient to the plot, either overall or at any particular moment in the story.

Yeah - Harry Potter magic isn't even internally consistent with the world. Certainly not the only case, but the most obvious, is the very existence of a truth potion which pops up late in book 5. If there is a 100% magic truth potion, you don't really need much of a criminal court system. (The sci-fi Vorkosigan series touches on this, though spies etc. are basically immune to the truth serum - or at least they'll die when it's given to them.) How was Sirius locked up wrongfully? How were Malfoy and so many others NOT locked up? Why doesn't Dumbledore just give Harry a dose at the beginning of book 5 to prove that Voldemort is back? etc.

Rowling is amazing at pacing and creating a fluid backstory, but her world-building is rather shoddy.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-23, 09:35 PM
It's starting to sound like your real complaint is that you're not the biggest fan of D&D (especially Vancian casting), and you wish that some other system which appealed to your tastes was the market leader so that you could get people to play it with you.

I would rather a situation in which the market was not "the market leader," "some games trying to piggyback off the market leader," and "a bunch of other games trying way too hard to not be the market leader to the point of ruining themselves".

CharonsHelper
2016-08-23, 09:39 PM
I would rather a situation in which the market was not "the market leader," "some games trying to piggyback off the market leader," and "a bunch of other games trying way too hard to not be the market leader to the point of ruining themselves".

So... if that's the whole market... you don't like any RPGs at all?

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-23, 09:45 PM
So... if that's the whole market... you don't like any RPGs at all?


Nothing I've found that's currently being published, no.

I liked HERO, for supers and some other things, until 6th came out.

I liked oWoD, for what it was, despite some of its warts.

Illven
2016-08-23, 10:21 PM
Yeah - Harry Potter magic isn't even internally consistent with the world. Certainly not the only case, but the most obvious, is the very existence of a truth potion which pops up late in book 5. If there is a 100% magic truth potion, you don't really need much of a criminal court system. (The sci-fi Vorkosigan series touches on this, though spies etc. are basically immune to the truth serum - or at least they'll die when it's given to them.) How was Sirius locked up wrongfully? How were Malfoy and so many others NOT locked up? Why doesn't Dumbledore just give Harry a dose at the beginning of book 5 to prove that Voldemort is back? etc.

Rowling is amazing at pacing and creating a fluid backstory, but her world-building is rather shoddy.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure there's at least a throwaway line about how strong wizards can resist the truth potion.

darkdragoon
2016-08-23, 10:36 PM
There's a huge difference between the limit in theory and practice.

Bonus slots for doing things you should be doing already (durr, higher int iz gud?)

Specialization

Multimode spells that either handle a bunch of effects or essentially create extra slots

Rope Trick and all the other "nobody's gonna bother us for quite a while" spells provided at low levels

Metamagic

Items, many of which are actually quite cheap and of course, they are in the best position to make if they can't find or buy.

CharonsHelper
2016-08-23, 10:46 PM
To be fair, I'm pretty sure there's at least a throwaway line about how strong wizards can resist the truth potion.

I believe that was just that Slughorn could resist it with an antidote which is why they couldn't question him about horcruxes that way. Not relevant for prisoners awaiting trial.

Though even if it can be resisted by the most powerful wizards, that doesn't eliminate its use on Harry in book 5 to prove that he saw Voldemort return.

Edit: I just googled it, and it looks like Rowling said something vague about it not being infallible in an interview to explain it not fixing things, though that wasn't in the books. Sounds like something she came up with after being asked about it. But it's not like that's the only world-building issue in Harry Potter, just the most obvious. It's rife with them.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-23, 10:49 PM
Yeah - Harry Potter magic isn't even internally consistent with the world. Certainly not the only case, but the most obvious, is the very existence of a truth potion which pops up late in book 5. If there is a 100% magic truth potion, you don't really need much of a criminal court system. (The sci-fi Vorkosigan series touches on this, though spies etc. are basically immune to the truth serum - or at least they'll die when it's given to them.) How was Sirius locked up wrongfully? How were Malfoy and so many others NOT locked up? Why doesn't Dumbledore just give Harry a dose at the beginning of book 5 to prove that Voldemort is back? etc.

Rowling is amazing at pacing and creating a fluid backstory, but her world-building is rather shoddy.


I kept noticing the same sorts of things.

Sometimes there's at least a nod to the issue, such as when all the time-turners in the ministry are trapped in a loop, or the aforementioned comments about wizards able to resist truth serums and mind magic.

Plus the people running the "wizard goverment" appear to have often been fairly incompetent and rather lost in their jobs -- although, again, this has more to do with setting up the plot, than anything.

CharonsHelper
2016-08-23, 10:51 PM
such as when all the time-turners in the ministry are trapped in a loop,.

The time turners always remind me of this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsYWT5Q_R_w

Illven
2016-08-24, 12:05 AM
I believe that was just that Slughorn could resist it with an antidote which is why they couldn't question him about horcruxes that way. Not relevant for prisoners awaiting trial.

Though even if it can be resisted by the most powerful wizards, that doesn't eliminate its use on Harry in book 5 to prove that he saw Voldemort return.

Edit: I just googled it, and it looks like Rowling said something vague about it not being infallible in an interview to explain it not fixing things, though that wasn't in the books. Sounds like something she came up with after being asked about it. But it's not like that's the only world-building issue in Harry Potter, just the most obvious. It's rife with them.

Oh yes, totally. It's well written, just not consistent.

vasilidor
2016-08-24, 12:44 AM
the thing about truth potions is that the person who is under the influence doesn't have to give relative truths. I have had a character under a truth potion and i successfully beat it by phrasing everything in nigh useless riddle format. on one other like occasion, where another of my characters was being questioned about like circumstances, he managed to get loose and kill everyone in the room. a third simply remained silent until it wore off. other ways to get around truth potions exist.

the best part of using nigh incomprehensible riddles is to do it to a DM who likes using riddles. Between that and making a series of characters with 6 or less mental scores whos response to riddle makers was to roll initiative, he eventually got the hint of what i told him at the start of the campaign.

CharonsHelper
2016-08-24, 07:09 AM
the thing about truth potions is that the person who is under the influence doesn't have to give relative truths. I have had a character under a truth potion and i successfully beat it by phrasing everything in nigh useless riddle format. on one other like occasion, where another of my characters was being questioned about like circumstances, he managed to get loose and kill everyone in the room. a third simply remained silent until it wore off. other ways to get around truth potions exist.

the best part of using nigh incomprehensible riddles is to do it to a DM who likes using riddles. Between that and making a series of characters with 6 or less mental scores whos response to riddle makers was to roll initiative, he eventually got the hint of what i told him at the start of the campaign.

Based upon its effect upon Barty Crouch, I don't think that Potterverse truth potions would allow such leeway.

CharonsHelper
2016-08-24, 07:11 AM
Oh yes, totally. It's well written, just not consistent.

I totally agree. As I said above, Rowling is the queen of pacing, which I consider to be the most difficult part of writing. She just has quite a few world-building issues. (consistency among them) That's why I prefer the first three books, which are lite enough that I can ignore them, while 4+ tried to be more serious, so the world-building issues are more grating.

Segev
2016-08-24, 01:52 PM
It's actually quite interesting because a friend and I are working on porting over a Harry Potter flavored wizard (mmm, tastes like chicken) into 3.5. It is at his behest, and I keep telling him that it won't really fit, but lo and behold we're doing it. Now, we may be inventing an entirely new spellcasting system in the process, but so far it is mostly working within d20 rules.


You may have already thought of this and rejected/implemented/moved beyond it, but were I making a "harry potter" style wizard in D&D 3.5, I'd start with the warlock chassis. The at-will invocations are a good approximation for the at-will spells. It would still take work to get the breadth of effects down without overpowering the class, though.



Regarding Rowling and world-building, I've heard (but not independently confirmed) that she wanted a lot of the stuff that happened in books 4 and later to actually come up in earlier books, but her editors originally wouldn't let her make books long enough to do it.

So things like Voldemort's backstory, as learned through the Penseive, were meant to be unveiled through Harry's interaction with the diary in book 2. Book 3 was meant to have a lot of the stuff about the Black family that was shoehorned into Book 7 in it, providing both more impetus to the belief that Sirius was a seriously (pun intended) evil monster, and to hinting at Regilus's white sheep status.


Sadly, things like Veratiserum preventing Sirius's wrongful imprisonment are hard to get around. Even if a "strong wizard" could work around it, or you could phrase things ambiguously to avoid outright lying, if you're innocent, and you want to tell the truth, you could do so as clearly and unambiguousy as you liked.

"I am not a Death Eater, am not and have never been loyal to Voldemort, and was not the Potters' Secret Keeper. I would have done all in my power to keep them alive had I known they were in danger, and Peter Pettigrew is the traitor," would be hard to find any evidence of 'weasel words' in.

Of course, it's quite possible that the hysteria of the time and the general incompetence and corruption of the Magical Government was such that they chose to believe he must have fooled the serum, somehow, or just not wanted to give him a chance to use it. They might've wanted a scapegoat that badly. But that strains belief just from a "why?" perspective. Unless maybe there was a personal vendetta on the part of a Ministry official involved.

SethoMarkus
2016-08-24, 02:15 PM
You may have already thought of this and rejected/implemented/moved beyond it, but were I making a "harry potter" style wizard in D&D 3.5, I'd start with the warlock chassis. The at-will invocations are a good approximation for the at-will spells. It would still take work to get the breadth of effects down without overpowering the class, though.


We're drawing from the Warlock, Truenamer, and Artificer classes, but largely creating a new system entirely. (I hardly believe it is "original" or that nothing similar has been done before, though there certainly aren't any official 3.5 systems similar to it that I am aware of.) It is probably closest to Truenamer in that it is a Skill based system, so I'm not holding my breath for it to be very balanced, at least not until we get to test it some and tweak it.

Really it started as a thought experiment that got way out hand! :smalltongue:

CharonsHelper
2016-08-24, 02:27 PM
We're drawing from the Warlock, Truenamer, and Artificer classes, but largely creating a new system entirely. (I hardly believe it is "original" or that nothing similar has been done before, though there certainly aren't any official 3.5 systems similar to it that I am aware of.) It is probably closest to Truenamer in that it is a Skill based system, so I'm not holding my breath for it to be very balanced, at least not until we get to test it some and tweak it.

You might want to take a look at Naruto d20. It won't be exactly what you're working for, but it's similar. The biggest differences are probably that moves take a resource (chakra) and that there are many physical moves.

All of the moves are based up the skill system (of d20 modern technically, but it actually fixes some of d20 modern's issues, though I still nerfed Fast heroes by 1 defense when I played it). It's got balance issues, but it's surprisingly polished for a homebrew system.

SethoMarkus
2016-08-24, 03:19 PM
You might want to take a look at Naruto d20. It won't be exactly what you're working for, but it's similar. The biggest differences are probably that moves take a resource (chakra) and that there are many physical moves.

All of the moves are based up the skill system (of d20 modern technically, but it actually fixes some of d20 modern's issues, though I still nerfed Fast heroes by 1 defense when I played it). It's got balance issues, but it's surprisingly polished for a homebrew system.

Yeah we've played the Naruto d20 in the past. He was actually the DM for that one. We were just commenting on the similarities yesterday, actually. He prefers to work on things from the ground up, unfortunately, in the name of trying to portray the source material more accurately. (He homebrewed a bunch of addons to the Naruto system as well.)

It's all good, though, as he enjoys the fluff and I enjoy the crunch parts of creation. However, I do appreciate all of the advice and suggestions from this thread! I may have to go back and take another look at some of the additonal resources for Warlock and re-read the rules for Naruto d20 (was several years ago now). Maybe we can simplify this system a little more, as it is becoming unwieldy.

(And now I feel like I have hijacked the thread, my apologies!)

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-24, 03:45 PM
Regarding Rowling and world-building, I've heard (but not independently confirmed) that she wanted a lot of the stuff that happened in books 4 and later to actually come up in earlier books, but her editors originally wouldn't let her make books long enough to do it.

So things like Voldemort's backstory, as learned through the Penseive, were meant to be unveiled through Harry's interaction with the diary in book 2. Book 3 was meant to have a lot of the stuff about the Black family that was shoehorned into Book 7 in it, providing both more impetus to the belief that Sirius was a seriously (pun intended) evil monster, and to hinting at Regilus's white sheep status.


Is there such a thing as a "director's cut" for books?





Sadly, things like Veratiserum preventing Sirius's wrongful imprisonment are hard to get around. Even if a "strong wizard" could work around it, or you could phrase things ambiguously to avoid outright lying, if you're innocent, and you want to tell the truth, you could do so as clearly and unambiguousy as you liked.

"I am not a Death Eater, am not and have never been loyal to Voldemort, and was not the Potters' Secret Keeper. I would have done all in my power to keep them alive had I known they were in danger, and Peter Pettigrew is the traitor," would be hard to find any evidence of 'weasel words' in.

Of course, it's quite possible that the hysteria of the time and the general incompetence and corruption of the Magical Government was such that they chose to believe he must have fooled the serum, somehow, or just not wanted to give him a chance to use it. They might've wanted a scapegoat that badly. But that strains belief just from a "why?" perspective. Unless maybe there was a personal vendetta on the part of a Ministry official involved.


Crouch. Cowardly, vindictive, petty, small-minded, self-absorbed... his actions during both of V's uprisings should make his name synonymous with incompetence.

Cosi
2016-08-24, 04:43 PM
the thing about truth potions is that the person who is under the influence doesn't have to give relative truths.

Yes they do. Because if they don't, that counts as a confession. In a world with 100% reliable truth serum, every trial (well, every question of fact) goes like this:

1. Administer truth potion.
2. Ask if accused committed crime.
3. If accused says no, he goes free. If he says anything else, he's guilty.


I totally agree. As I said above, Rowling is the queen of pacing, which I consider to be the most difficult part of writing. She just has quite a few world-building issues. (consistency among them) That's why I prefer the first three books, which are lite enough that I can ignore them, while 4+ tried to be more serious, so the world-building issues are more grating.

Rowling (though she is far from alone in this) suffered from not hammering out rules of what you can and can't do. Almost every book has something that should completely upend the entire society of Magical Britain, if not the world. Book one has possession, book two has resurrection, book three has time travel, book four has mind control, book five has mind reading, book six has unbreakable vows. I can forgive some of it (because it's a YA novel series), but it's really hard to take a villain seriously when he has access to upwards of half a dozen game breaking tricks.

kyoryu
2016-08-24, 05:05 PM
Yes they do. Because if they don't, that counts as a confession. In a world with 100% reliable truth serum, every trial (well, every question of fact) goes like this:

1. Administer truth potion.
2. Ask if accused committed crime.
3. If accused says no, he goes free. If he says anything else, he's guilty.

No, then the game turns into "how can I do this in such a way that I can truthfully answer any likely questions without admitting guilt."

"Did you murder Bob?"

"No!" (I hired someone to kill Bob! I cut the brake lines in his car, but that wasn't direct action against him, the tree killed him, not me! Etc...)

I've you've dealt with people with certain personality disorders, you become QUITE well aware of how easy it is to mislead without telling a direct untruth. There is a huge, huge gap between "not lying" and "being honest".

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-24, 05:56 PM
Rowling (though she is far from alone in this) suffered from not hammering out rules of what you can and can't do. Almost every book has something that should completely upend the entire society of Magical Britain, if not the world. Book one has possession, book two has resurrection, book three has time travel, book four has mind control, book five has mind reading, book six has unbreakable vows. I can forgive some of it (because it's a YA novel series), but it's really hard to take a villain seriously when he has access to upwards of half a dozen game breaking tricks.


And that sort of thing is why I really dislike the "build it as you go" methods and mechanics in RPGs.

Cosi
2016-08-24, 06:11 PM
"Did you murder Bob?"

"No!" (I hired someone to kill Bob! I cut the brake lines in his car, but that wasn't direct action against him, the tree killed him, not me! Etc...)

Well, yes, if they suspect you of personally killing Bob they are probably not investigating you for having him assassinated. That's not "beating truth serum", it's "setting false leads". And it's not even fool-proof. You can just explain all the things that count as murdering Bob and then ask if they did any of those things.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-24, 06:28 PM
Yes they do. Because if they don't, that counts as a confession. In a world with 100% reliable truth serum, every trial (well, every question of fact) goes like this:

1. Administer truth potion.
2. Ask if accused committed crime.
3. If accused says no, he goes free. If he says anything else, he's guilty.



Not sure how "wizard law" works on this issue, but at least in the US and many other countries, truth serum would be a violation of the right against self-incrimination (and refusal to take it could not be viewed as an implicit admission of guilt).

CharonsHelper
2016-08-24, 07:15 PM
Not sure how "wizard law" works on this issue, but at least in the US and many other countries, truth serum would be a violation of the right against self-incrimination (and refusal to take it could not be viewed as an implicit admission of guilt).

Though in large part that's probably because of how fallible the real world 'truth serums' are. (at one point they used PCP)

LibraryOgre
2016-08-24, 07:17 PM
I totally agree. As I said above, Rowling is the queen of pacing, which I consider to be the most difficult part of writing. She just has quite a few world-building issues. (consistency among them) That's why I prefer the first three books, which are lite enough that I can ignore them, while 4+ tried to be more serious, so the world-building issues are more grating.

IME, YA novels tend to get rocky after the third book in the series, as all the details they have to keep straight.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-24, 07:21 PM
Though in large part that's probably because of how fallible the real world 'truth serums' are. (at one point they used PCP)

No, literally, under those systems of law, you cannot be compelled to testify against or incriminate yourself -- the more reliable accurate and effective the truth serum, the MORE it would violate that standard.

CharonsHelper
2016-08-24, 07:25 PM
No, literally, under those systems of law, you cannot be compelled to testify against or incriminate yourself -- the more reliable accurate and effective the truth serum, the MORE it would violate that standard.

I know that you can't be compelled to testify/incriminate yourself. But that's all in response to old systems of justice in which suspects would be intimidated into confessing etc. Sometimes under threats against them and their family. (Salem witch trials style. etc.) This is a theoretical world in which a 100% accurate truth serum exists.

Even IF (I'm dubious - but for argument's sake) they weren't forced, defendants are certainly allowed to testify in their own defense now, and every actually innocent suspect would plead to take the truth serum to prove their innocence. It would quickly seem pretty fishy to juries any time the defendant didn't take said truth serum, and it would, if not technically required, effectively be.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-24, 07:42 PM
I know that you can't be compelled to testify/incriminate yourself. But that's all in response to old systems of justice in which suspects would be intimidated into confessing etc. Sometimes under threats against them and their family. (Salem witch trials style. etc.) This is a theoretical world in which a 100% accurate truth serum exists.

Even IF (I'm dubious - but for argument's sake) they weren't forced, defendants are certainly allowed to testify in their own defense now, and every actually innocent suspect would plead to take the truth serum to prove their innocence. It would quickly seem pretty fishy to juries any time the defendant didn't take said truth serum, and it would, if not technically required, effectively be.

Not to go too far into this, but as I mentioned above, juries are STRICTLY instructed that pleading the 5th is NOT to be taken as evidence or indication of guilt.

Now, I have no doubt that a system as "whimsical" as that depicted in the wizard governments of the "Potterverse" has no notion of such a protection of basic rights.

vasilidor
2016-08-24, 07:46 PM
I think were getting derailed a bit here. that said one problem I have with the system as present in the games is the material components. In every group I have been in it is either a: out right ignored b: spend hours on end harvesting cobwebs and bat guano, not to mention live spiders. Identify required at one point, on top of a 100 gp pearl, a live fish and a glass of wine to drink it down with.
.
.
.
just checked my AD&D 1ed book, I forgot the owl feather, the 8 points of constitution that you might eventually recover if you can get the rest and the fact that you may straight up fail (15% +5% per level of experience to succeed, plus a save versus magic) your attempt if your dice are unlucky.

so yes I do like the improvements in third for spell casters, and like pathfinder better, but may like something like spheres of power better (if I ever get to play it that is).

Segev
2016-08-25, 08:59 AM
Not sure how "wizard law" works on this issue, but at least in the US and many other countries, truth serum would be a violation of the right against self-incrimination (and refusal to take it could not be viewed as an implicit admission of guilt).

Multiple people were forced - several times with apparent legality - to take Veratiserum, in the novels, I believe.

But yes, even if you can refuse to take it...why wouldn't Sirius Black have demanded it during his trial? Or just of his captors as they planned to throw him into Azkaban without trial? "I didn't do it! Let me prove it!"



Then again... "Did you kill Peter Pettigrew?" would lead to an incriminating answer, since he believed he had. I think. I don't think he knew Peter'd survived until he saw Scabbers years later.

Gnoman
2016-08-25, 10:18 AM
But yes, even if you can refuse to take it...why wouldn't Sirius Black have demanded it during his trial? Or just of his captors as they planned to throw him into Azkaban without trial? "I didn't do it! Let me prove it!"


4 things.

First, Veritaserum is stated in the books to be extremely difficult and time consuming to produce. Having enough on hand to provide to every suspected Dark wizard after the fall of Voldemort in extremely unlikely.

Secondly, the potion is limited by what the victim believes. In Sirius's case he honestly believed he had mudered Pettigrew, and there's no telling how the magic of the Fidelius Charm (we know what happens when the Secret Keeper is dead, but Pettigrew was still alive) would have reacted to the potion. In the later cases where the potion would have fixed the plot, the would-be interrogees were thought to have been magiked or convinced of the truth of their words.

Third, there is one counter to the potion explicitly mentioned in the book (Dumbledore mentions that Slughorn probably keeps the antidote on his person at all times), and Rowling states that the potion can be transfigured into harmlessness or resisted by Occlumency, allowing the drinker to lie his head off while appearing to be under the influence of the potion.

Fourth, Sirius didn't get a trial - Crouch just locked him up and threw away the key.

Frozen_Feet
2016-08-25, 02:14 PM
Yes they do. Because if they don't, that counts as a confession. In a world with 100% reliable truth serum, every trial (well, every question of fact) goes like this:

1. Administer truth potion.
2. Ask if accused committed crime.
3. If accused says no, he goes free. If he says anything else, he's guilty.


Wrong. That the person being asked cannot lie doesn't mean what they tell will be true. One of the big problems world-wide is that by asking loaded or leading questions, you can make an innocent person appear guilty and worse, convince an innocent person that they are indeed guilty.

More, every question requires the one being asked to understand the question. Indeed, this is why IIRC in real trials questions like "did you commit [x] crime?" are frowned upon. It's not a given the defendant actually knows the legal definition of the crime in question, making their answer or even a direct confession of dubious value.

Even more, as if false memories and lack of knowledge weren't bad enough, in HP verse there are actual memory alteration spells. Hence, you can never be sure the person vouching for their innocence under veritaserum didn't just Obviate inconvenient details out of their mind.

warty goblin
2016-08-25, 04:32 PM
Even more, as if false memories and lack of knowledge weren't bad enough, in HP verse there are actual memory alteration spells. Hence, you can never be sure the person vouching for their innocence under veritaserum didn't just Obviate inconvenient details out of their mind.

Or had their memory altered to make them believe they did it. Or they did it while they were possessed or otherwise mind-controlled. Or the key witness is telling the truth about what they saw, but the murderer was Polyjuiced into somebody else. Or the murderer alibis out via Polyjuicing somebody else into them. Or the murderer is legit in two places at once because they went back in time, noting of course that a really clever killer would of course erase their own memory of having killed the person in the first place. Or the victim is killed by a giant snake horcrux rolled up inside the corpse of an old lady; which even if you figured it out, forces you to determine whether or not a snake containing a soul fragment is fit to stand trial. Or whether "stand" is even the right verb for a snake on trial.

Long and short of it, being a detective or prosecutor in the Harry Potter wizarding world would suck.

Jormengand
2016-08-25, 05:34 PM
Getting back to the main topic, if the running out of spells part of vancian casting bothers you, why don't you use a non-vancian system? Play a warlock, convince your DM to let you play a truenamer with the brakes cut off (or pump your check so high you never run out), play a martial initiator so you can recover all your maneuvers easily, play a DMM persist cleric so you still have full BAB and a strength bonus when you run out of spells, play a wilder with daze resistance and a torc of power preservation, play an edition where you never run out of cantrips, and so forth. There's nothing forcing you to mess with vancian stuff if you personally don't like it, but it works for a lot of people.

digiman619
2016-08-25, 06:51 PM
Getting back to the main topic, if the running out of spells part of vancian casting bothers you, why don't you use a non-vancian system? Play a warlock, convince your DM to let you play a truenamer with the brakes cut off (or pump your check so high you never run out), play a martial initiator so you can recover all your maneuvers easily, play a DMM persist cleric so you still have full BAB and a strength bonus when you run out of spells, play a wilder with daze resistance and a torc of power preservation, play an edition where you never run out of cantrips, and so forth. There's nothing forcing you to mess with vancian stuff if you personally don't like it, but it works for a lot of people.

Just going to put these (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war) three (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed) links (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) right here...

Lorsa
2016-08-26, 06:27 AM
I am going to be really annoying, skip all the 6 pages of discussion and answer directly to the OP.


Your party has entered the dungeon, and gotten into a couple fights in just the past few minutes. You're all freshly rested, but your wizard/sorcerer has blown all of their spells per day and a half rest won't really cut it.

They need a full nights rest in order to cast their spells again...

Of course, what players often do is take that full nights rest, because what is 8 hours to them?

What IS 8 hours to them? Why do we need to assume you can just safely take 8 hours of rest, or that the GM couldn't change the narrative to make it as annoying to the players as it is to the characters (like detailing a lot of the rest, so the players gets bored)?



But is that what the characters would do?

Second-guessing the players' ability to properly roleplay their characters is a slippery slope I've found. It's best to avoid it.



"Hey guys lets stop for 8 hours, i'm out of spells..." "But we just woke up!" says everyone else...

The fighter can swing his sword all day, he's not even close to being fully tapped...

Why is the wizard so severely limited? Sure, his few spells are powerful... but spells are his thing. They are what he does best.

The wizard can swing a weapon all day as well. Swinging a sword is not a class feature, it's available to everyone. Granted, a wizard might need to use a dagger, or a quarterstaff or get a weapon proficiency feat, but really, the ability to swing a weapon is there for all.

I find it interesting that you actually did answer your own question. The wizard is limited in the amount of spells he has available precisely because they are powerful. That's the reason. If you don't limit the amount of spells a wizard can use but keep their potency, the wizard will be the biggest baddest monster in the game. Some say he already is.

The point of the wizard is not to use a spell every single round, or even every single encounter. They stand by and let the fighter do most of the fighting, until such a circumstance arise that warrants the use of a spell. THEN he steps in. A wizard is not supposed to throw spells left and right, they're supposed to use spells intelligently, the right one at the right time. In between, they mostly watch. And hit things with a weapon (like everyone else).

In short, a "problem" with a system is something that is NOT working as intended. A consequence that was not foreseen. Where the system fails to do what it's supposed to do.

The "problems" you describe are actually features of the Vancian system. It's how things are supposed to be. Spellcasters get a limited amount of very powerful spells. That's the point. It IS working as intended, so there really isn't a problem.

What COULD be a problem is that the Vancian system is not working as your group intends for magic to work. That's obviously an issue, but it's based solely on opinion. Which system do you like, which do you hate? Choose one you like.

Earthwalker
2016-08-26, 07:01 AM
I do believe there are issues with the vancian casting system and how it is applied in DnD. I am not going to call these problems people have said they are features but I will give a brief rundown of what I think.

Is having limited spells a balance to the spells being powerful?
At low levels when you only have 2 spells then yeah I guess it is, at later levels its far less so, the spells are still powerful but a lvl 5 wizard has loads more spells then a lvl 1 wizard. So is that balancing still working ?


You’re not supposed to go Nova you need to save the spells for when you need them?
How does a player know when he needs to use spells. Don’t use sleep here against these three goblins you might get a chance to use it against 4 goblins later ? Does the player have a reliable way of knowing that. Yeah it forces you to manage resources but are you given the tools to know how to manage them ?


Others have said and I think its true these aren’t problems but it is things to be aware of when playing or running a game with vancian casting. There is work to do for both players and GMs that is never spelled out in the game books. Of course forums like this can give more insight but it just seems odd that none of this is in the rule books. Of course that is not a complaint about the spell casting method just an observation about the game.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-26, 08:09 AM
You’re not supposed to go Nova you need to save the spells for when you need them?
How does a player know when he needs to use spells. Don’t use sleep here against these three goblins you might get a chance to use it against 4 goblins later ? Does the player have a reliable way of knowing that. Yeah it forces you to manage resources but are you given the tools to know how to manage them ?


Yeah, it's more of a "resource usage guessing game" than it is actual "resource management".

Segev
2016-08-26, 08:47 AM
Yeah, it's more of a "resource usage guessing game" than it is actual "resource management".

While the "bigger spider" problem is real, part of the game is learning how to gauge threat level. Are 3 goblins something on which you [u]need[/uI] to use sleep? If so, then either you're probably close to when the party needs to rest anyway, or this is an unusually big threat to your party, or you're in way over your heads.

Resource management can mean "use as little as you can get away with" rather than "only use as much as you can afford." This is especially true when you don't know what you will need later.

wumpus
2016-08-26, 11:14 AM
Yeah, it's more of a "resource usage guessing game" than it is actual "resource management".

If you know exactly what is coming, how does it qualify as an "adventure"? It is pretty much supposed to be a "resource usage guessing game". Also, the "problem" with the players going nova and then resting pretty much relies on the various monsters not realizing that the dungeon is under attack and going onto full alert, putting in all the lethal traps that they normally leave disabled to avoid killing too many tribesmonsters, or if they are losing too badly gathering all the loot and leaving for a new dungeon.

Jay R
2016-08-27, 02:01 PM
Yeah, it's more of a "resource usage guessing game" than it is actual "resource management".

The phrase "resource management (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_management)" is well-defined, and you can't re-define it. This is a partial information resource management game – like bridge, or hearts, or Civilization, or any game other in which you have to decide when to use what resource.

It's also similar to using a necklace of missiles, or the re-roll of a luck blade, or a scroll with a high-level spell.


You’re not supposed to go Nova you need to save the spells for when you need them?
How does a player know when he needs to use spells. Don’t use sleep here against these three goblins you might get a chance to use it against 4 goblins later ? Does the player have a reliable way of knowing that. Yeah it forces you to manage resources but are you given the tools to know how to manage them ?

You can never know for sure, of course, just as you can never be sure when you need to build another unit in Civilization. But you do have some knowledge which you can leverage. Specifically, don't cast the sleep spell if it seems likely that the fighters can beat the goblins without it. Throw your daggers instead, staying ready to cast sleep if the goblins start winning. This is not that different from deciding when, and how much, to bet in a poker game, based on your knowledge of your cards, the other cards you can see, and how the other players are reacting.


Others have said and I think its true these aren’t problems but it is things to be aware of when playing or running a game with vancian casting. There is work to do for both players and GMs that is never spelled out in the game books. Of course forums like this can give more insight but it just seems odd that none of this is in the rule books.

Of course. The rules of poker don't tell you when or how to bluff, and the baseball rules don't tell you how to decide whether to try to steal a base, or throw a curve ball.

Similarly, the D&D rules tell you how the magic works, not which spells to use when.


Of course that is not a complaint about the spell casting method just an observation about the game.

Yup. Discussing the effects of the rules is much more productive than simply trying to call those effects "problems".

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-27, 02:38 PM
Even when they are problems?

Regardless of how the word might be "acceptably" misused, it's not really management when you're just guessing.

Jormengand
2016-08-27, 02:51 PM
Okay, you can't be "Just guessing." You're not even allowed to ban divination, and if you were, you still couldn't ban rational reasoning.

SethoMarkus
2016-08-27, 03:35 PM
Speaking of resource management/resource guessing, I have never run out of spells on any csster I have played in 3.5, at any level of play, and I have never felt like I was not contributing to every encounter. I like the Vancian system. It makes me feel as though I am overcoming a challenge, not just in facing opposition, but a mental challenge in preparing appropriately. To me it is like going for a backpacking trip; if you know the terrain and environment/climate, you focus on that type of gear, but if you don't know, then you try to prepare for anything you might encounter. Sometimes you encounter a surprise situation that you didn't anticipate, but usually you can account for that with creativity and experience.

Part of the reason I was resistant to upgrade to 4th edition was that I did not like the "at-will" and "per encounter" abilities. It felt, to me, like there was no challenge if I could simply nova (or close to it) every encounter. I know that the balance is diferent in 4th and that you can't solve every situation that way, but javing a the ability to ignore resources, to a point, seemed like an overreaction to the "resource guessing" of 3.5.

I see no issue with disliking the Vancian system or with enjoying other types of magic systems/playstyles, but I don't like inferences that there are problems with the Vancian system. It os a system that is built a certain way. It works. If you don't enjoy it, there are alternatives.

Now, of there were a complaint, for example, about how preparing spells is inherently impossible following the rules because it requires more time than there are hours in a day, that would be different. But the resource management, educated guesswork, and preparation required by the Vancian system are very much (positive) features, to me.

Zombimode
2016-08-27, 03:42 PM
Even when they are problems?

Regardless of how the word might be "acceptably" misused, it's not really management when you're just guessing.

I'm getting the feeling that you are simply arguing for it's own sake or to talk smack on D&D. Haven't you said that you have not played D&D in a very long time? So what is your basis to make assertions like that players are unable to make informed decision when to cast/prepare which spell so that it comes down to a guessing game?

And yes, that is a assertion. Something YOU just assume as true.

But if that would be true, experienced players would face the same "problems" when playing casters in D&D as inexperienced players. You can see from the responses in this thread that this does not match peoples experience.

CharonsHelper
2016-08-27, 03:49 PM
I'm getting the feeling that you are simply arguing for it's own sake or to talk smack on D&D. Haven't you said that you have not played D&D in a very long time?

Actually - he's already stated in this thread that he doesn't like any current RPGs, not just D&D. And only ever liked 2 RPGs ever, both of which have more recent editions which he dislikes. (seems to scream rose tinted nostalgia glasses with maybe a bit of hipster distaste for the 'mainstream' - *shrug*)

Telok
2016-08-27, 04:27 PM
Regardless of how the word might be "acceptably" misused, it's not really management when you're just guessing.

You haven't worked under some of my bosses then. Heck, in one case just guessing was an improvement.

Jay R
2016-08-27, 07:30 PM
Even when they are problems?

They aren't problems for me. My experience is that they are not problems for anybody who plays spells as if they are limited resources.


Regardless of how the word might be "acceptably" misused, it's not really management when you're just guessing.

The phrase "resource management" has a specific meaning which is well defined. And that definition includes situations with incomplete information. No matter how much you don't like it, this is a resource management game,

When I play poker, I am using the information I have, recognizing that it is incomplete information, and bet based on my cards and my opponent's upcards, without knowing his down cards. Anybody who just guesses, or uses up all his money on the first few hands, doesn't yet know how to play poker well. Deciding when to use your resources is a challenge, not a problem, and is the essence of how to play poker well.

Similarly, I choose whether and when to cast a spell based on the information I have, recognizing that it is incomplete information. So far, nobody who actually tries to use resource management has written in to say that Vancian casting is a problem. This is a challenge, but not a problem, and is the essence of playing a caster with limited spells well.

I agree with you that emptying out your spells early when they are limited causes a problem. But some people with the same limited spells don't empty them all out early. And they don't have a problem. Therefore the problem doesn't come from the limited spells, but from emptying them all out early.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-27, 08:40 PM
There's a reason I don't enjoy poker, either, and why I find gambling, even in "skill" games, about as entertaining as watching paint dry... if watching paint dry randomly cost you money for nothing in return.

Making educated guesses is a "challenge" I have no interest in, and that frankly I don't much understand the appeal of.

Building a game around the controlled burn of "resources" just ends up with all the other issues with D&D... level-based progression, caster power bloat, hit point bloat, etc.

Plus, on the worldbuilding / "setting fluff" side, I've never come across an explanation for Vancian casting that doesn't make it sound worse.



Actually - he's already stated in this thread that he doesn't like any current RPGs, not just D&D. And only ever liked 2 RPGs ever, both of which have more recent editions which he dislikes. (seems to scream rose tinted nostalgia glasses with maybe a bit of hipster distaste for the 'mainstream' - *shrug*)

I've had very bad luck with the games that could be described as "hipster" as well... a lot of of gimmicky systems, or stripped-bare systems, or... whatever.

Meh.

Jay R
2016-08-27, 09:48 PM
Making educated guesses is a "challenge" I have no interest in, and that frankly I don't much understand the appeal of.

Fair enough. "I have no interest in" it or "I don't much understand the appeal of" it is a perfectly valid position, and a good reason for you to avoid it.

I find that a much more reasonable position that deciding something I enjoy and you don't is a "problem".

Tiktakkat
2016-08-27, 11:16 PM
There's a reason I don't enjoy poker, either, and why I find gambling, even in "skill" games, about as entertaining as watching paint dry... if watching paint dry randomly cost you money for nothing in return.

Making educated guesses is a "challenge" I have no interest in, and that frankly I don't much understand the appeal of.

Building a game around the controlled burn of "resources" just ends up with all the other issues with D&D... level-based progression, caster power bloat, hit point bloat, etc.

So . . . what exactly does that leave for you in the way of elements for games?

I mean, you do realize that using dice for random determination of success or failure is "gambling", right?
It is guessing about when the probabilities will fall in your favor, with some element of doing what you can to stack them.

And you also realize that any sort of character point-based character building is also "gambling" with "resource-whatever-you-want-to-call-it", right?
The points are a resource, and they are limited, and you must guess will be of the most use.

I'm at a loss for what that would leave to provide the base of the game, and where you would actually build from there.

Jay R
2016-08-28, 08:18 AM
So . . . what exactly does that leave for you in the way of elements for games?

I mean, you do realize that using dice for random determination of success or failure is "gambling", right?
It is guessing about when the probabilities will fall in your favor, with some element of doing what you can to stack them.

And you also realize that any sort of character point-based character building is also "gambling" with "resource-whatever-you-want-to-call-it", right?
The points are a resource, and they are limited, and you must guess will be of the most use.

I'm at a loss for what that would leave to provide the base of the game, and where you would actually build from there.

While I don't agree with him, his position makes perfect sense. He wants to play a certain way, which isn't how to play well with spells as limited resources.

He wants to pick the best option for right now, without worrying about what that leaves for the next encounter. That's what he enjoys. For you or me to decide that there's something "wrong" with that is the same sort of nonsense as people saying that Vancian casting causes a "problem", when the only problem is that we enjoy it and they don't.

Quertus
2016-08-28, 10:13 AM
The point of the wizard is not to use a spell every single round, or even every single encounter. They stand by and let the fighter do most of the fighting, until such a circumstance arise that warrants the use of a spell. THEN he steps in. A wizard is not supposed to throw spells left and right, they're supposed to use spells intelligently, the right one at the right time. In between, they mostly watch. And hit things with a weapon (like everyone else).

The "problems" you describe are actually features of the Vancian system. It's how things are supposed to be. Spellcasters get a limited amount of very powerful spells. That's the point. It IS working as intended, so there really isn't a problem.

You've described my signature wizard perfectly.


What IS 8 hours to them? Why do we need to assume you can just safely take 8 hours of rest, or that the GM couldn't change the narrative to make it as annoying to the players as it is to the characters (like detailing a lot of the rest, so the players gets bored)?

Annoying DM can be annoying. That doesn't make it a good plan, one that will make people feel that they played a good game.


Second-guessing the players' ability to properly roleplay their characters is a slippery slope I've found. It's best to avoid it.


Constantly keeping open communication, asking and answering questions about why a character takes a certain course of action, on the other hand, is something I've found to be wonderful.


Is having limited spells a balance to the spells being powerful?
At low levels when you only have 2 spells then yeah I guess it is, at later levels its far less so, the spells are still powerful but a lvl 5 wizard has loads more spells then a lvl 1 wizard. So is that balancing still working ?

When the wizard casts knock to open a door, then the rogue takes a 20 and picks the other 99 in the dungeon, is that balance working?

It's the wrong question.

The rogue can pick all the locks, but when, for some reason, you need a door opened now, the wizard can do it... once per day.

That balance works fine for me.


You’re not supposed to go Nova you need to save the spells for when you need them?
How does a player know when he needs to use spells. Don’t use sleep here against these three goblins you might get a chance to use it against 4 goblins later ? Does the player have a reliable way of knowing that. Yeah it forces you to manage resources but are you given the tools to know how to manage them ?


Even when they are problems?

Regardless of how the word might be "acceptably" misused, it's not really management when you're just guessing.

Wizard: "Yo, guys, you got this? Yes? 'K.(sits back and sips margaritas)"

Doesn't sound hard to me.

And, if the party "guessed" wrong, and can't actually take down 3 goblins without calling in artillery support, well, as long as he hasn't been hitting the sauce too hard, the Wizard can still choose to contribute with his spells.


Building a game around the controlled burn of "resources"

So, do you dislike most video games, where you are usually burning through health, ammo, healing potions, and, in at least one case, body parts to sell?


Plus, on the worldbuilding / "setting fluff" side, I've never come across an explanation for Vancian casting that doesn't make it sound worse.

Meh.

Yeah, Vancian casting makes about as much sense as hacking in most rpgs I've played. This is a sad case of gameplay mechanics trumping fluff.

Manyasone
2016-08-28, 10:32 AM
Just going to put these (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war) three (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed) links (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) right here...
This. I'm actually thinking of removing Vancian casting ever since SoP hit the spotlight

digiman619
2016-08-28, 02:36 PM
When the wizard casts knock to open a door, then the rogue takes a 20 and picks the other 99 in the dungeon, is that balance working?

It's the wrong question.

The rogue can pick all the locks, but when, for some reason, you need a door opened now, the wizard can do it... once per day.

That balance works fine for me.

Except that no other class can obviate the wizard's job, except through UMD and scrolls, which add up really, really quickly and the wizard can do that anyway.

Thrudd
2016-08-28, 03:21 PM
Yeah, Vancian casting makes about as much sense as hacking in most rpgs I've played. This is a sad case of gameplay mechanics trumping fluff.

Vancian casting is an example of an intersection of fluff and mechanics which is actually ideal for rpgs. It was a system borrowed from a book (pure "fluff") that just happened to be great for a game mechanic, too. The problem with it seeming nonsensical happens when people try to apply the specific magic system to settings it doesn't belong in. Of course it won't make sense if the setting describes magic differently than the mechanic portrays. The mechanical game problems happen when the magic system is divorced from the overall game system which it was built for. We see this in later D&D editions which have downplayed or removed the elements that limit the ability to rest and reduced spell preparation times.

Vancian casting belongs and functions well in the type of setting developed for original D&D, including the Basic and 1e AD&D lines. It doesn't work as well for other games and other settings. It won't make sense if you don't explain how it works in the fluff and try to force fit something to the mechanic.

Game mechanics and setting "fluff" should, ideally, intersect wherever possible. It aids immersion in the setting through play. You can't really place one above the other in terms of importance, in my mind, if the goal is an immersive RPG.

Tiktakkat
2016-08-28, 07:03 PM
While I don't agree with him, his position makes perfect sense. He wants to play a certain way, which isn't how to play well with spells as limited resources.

He wants to pick the best option for right now, without worrying about what that leaves for the next encounter. That's what he enjoys. For you or me to decide that there's something "wrong" with that is the same sort of nonsense as people saying that Vancian casting causes a "problem", when the only problem is that we enjoy it and they don't.

Yes, I understand that.
The thing is, that extends to more than just spells, which he has acknowledged.
Quibbling over Vancian magic is just that - a quibble. Even if you manage to "fix" the Vancian magic you are still left with all of the "other" system elements that involve resource management and success rate guessing.

Jay R
2016-08-28, 07:18 PM
Yes, I understand that.
The thing is, that extends to more than just spells, which he has acknowledged.
Quibbling over Vancian magic is just that - a quibble. Even if you manage to "fix" the Vancian magic you are still left with all of the "other" system elements that involve resource management and success rate guessing.

That's correct, of course.

But since we've successfully reduced the issue to what he enjoys, not what is a "problem", then it's purely based on enjoyment - whether he can explain it or not.

I certainly can't explain why I enjoy trying to find the best way to play under any set of rules I play under. I don't see why he should need to explain why he only wants to play under the rules that lead to the style of play he enjoys.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-28, 07:36 PM
Some randomness is necessary to avoid predetermined or fiat-based outcomes of task resolutions.

(Although I prefer something like HERO's fixed 3d6 with a known curve focusing results around the median, over either a 1dX linear distribution, or the wild swings of some dice pool systems.)

Tiktakkat
2016-08-29, 12:52 PM
I certainly can't explain why I enjoy trying to find the best way to play under any set of rules I play under. I don't see why he should need to explain why he only wants to play under the rules that lead to the style of play he enjoys.

Because . . . he has asked to discuss the issue?
It is rather difficult to offer commentary without knowing what the subject is. That includes clarifying specific elements.
For which . . .


Some randomness is necessary to avoid predetermined or fiat-based outcomes of task resolutions.

(Although I prefer something like HERO's fixed 3d6 with a known curve focusing results around the median, over either a 1dX linear distribution, or the wild swings of some dice pool systems.)

I experimented with using the HERO system for skill resolution back during AD&D days for that reason. (The AD&D skill system being an exceptionally weak kludge certainly contributed to wanting to try ANYTHING else.)

However, HERO system has a considerable amount of resource management, starting with character building, continuing to Endurance and Stun management, and ending with character design elements of Activation, Charge, and Battery limitations.

I haven't played it, but perhaps GURPS would be a more suitable base system, as I know it uses a fixed 3d6 system almost identical to HERO. (I have no idea how it controls the use of magic or similar elements.)

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-29, 03:53 PM
I experimented with using the HERO system for skill resolution back during AD&D days for that reason. (The AD&D skill system being an exceptionally weak kludge certainly contributed to wanting to try ANYTHING else.)

However, HERO system has a considerable amount of resource management, starting with character building, continuing to Endurance and Stun management, and ending with character design elements of Activation, Charge, and Battery limitations.

I haven't played it, but perhaps GURPS would be a more suitable base system, as I know it uses a fixed 3d6 system almost identical to HERO. (I have no idea how it controls the use of magic or similar elements.)


END and STUN come back fast, and very much only matter to the current combat/encounter, so they're not resource-management even as I've seen the term applied to D&D's hit points, spell slots, etc -- that is, once the encounter is over, they can be counted on to go back to full, rather than needing any sort of rest or reset.

BODY comes back slow without Powers-based healing or recovery, and if handled correctly models injuries that the character is trying to avoid, not a resource to be spent and recovered.

If everything from character points at creation, to END in combat, is "resource management", then IMO it's a very diluted term as being applied here.

kyoryu
2016-08-29, 04:14 PM
Some randomness is necessary to avoid predetermined or fiat-based outcomes of task resolutions.

Amber Diceless manages to avoid randomization. Mostly by assuming that a given outcome is certain if all things are equal - gameplay, at that point, revolves around making those things *not* equal.

There is a fair amount of fiat involved, however.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-29, 04:36 PM
Amber Diceless manages to avoid randomization. Mostly by assuming that a given outcome is certain if all things are equal - gameplay, at that point, revolves around making those things *not* equal.

There is a fair amount of fiat involved, however.

At least a fair amount.

Amber Diceless seems to fit the setting and tone of the Amber series, with its "Xanatos (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) Speed Chess (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosSpeedChess) Gambit pileups (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GambitPileup)", but for many other settings... not so much.

Tiktakkat
2016-08-29, 06:20 PM
END and STUN come back fast, and very much only matter to the current combat/encounter, so they're not resource-management even as I've seen the term applied to D&D's hit points, spell slots, etc -- that is, once the encounter is over, they can be counted on to go back to full, rather than needing any sort of rest or reset.

BODY comes back slow without Powers-based healing or recovery, and if handled correctly models injuries that the character is trying to avoid, not a resource to be spent and recovered.

I never saw anyone worry about running out of BODY.
I regularly saw everyone worry about running out of END and STUN.

If hit points qualify as "resource management", then STUN certainly does as well.
Even more for END and spell slots.


If everything from character points at creation, to END in combat, is "resource management", then IMO it's a very diluted term as being applied here.

If hit points are "resource management", and picking the right spell for the circumstance, then assigning skill points and even character points certainly qualify with no further dilution of the term beyond what has already been assigned.

SethoMarkus
2016-08-29, 06:36 PM
Not trying to be contentious, but a great "game" that lacks resource management but includes narrative and challenges (such as they are), is basic free form role-playing. I know it isn't really what is being discussed, but it seems to solve many of the issues with managing limited resources as well as solving issues with a lack of foreknowledge of what challenges to expect...