Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status

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Elements of Magic, Punishments, and Woman's Status

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Started 4 years ago by Tadeusz
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Tadeusz
Member

I've got a fall cold, and I'm taking meds so I may not be totally coherent.

Elements of Magic:

1. Code of Behavior
For some magic, you have to stay within the confines of a code of behavior, or the magic leaves you.

A. Paladins
B. Good Witches

2. Those sensitive to magic can sense you.

3. You use the magic for an improper use, and you get punished.

4. Balance of elements magic--you cast a laser spell, and shortly there after, you're surrounded by shadow.

5. The traditional time, body involvement, items, and speech.

6. Certain languages get a bonus.

More later...

Tue Oct 23 2007 5:37 pm #
Tadeusz
Member

The above is an attempt at starting a list of magic limitations that would be worth points in the skill roll. We need to move beyond #5.

Punishments is an attempt at discerning styles of punishment used by different deities in the mortal life. A poor attempt...

1. Nordic--Demonstrate your superior toughness, and leave the idiot in the dust.
2. The Creator--There is a divide between Capital Punishment and Loss of Privileges. The gripers of Korah???? in the OT had the Earth open under them, and they fell into a hole, and were squished. Moses lost the privilege of entering Canaan.
3. Greek--Hubris is a big sin. They strongly go in for defending their privileges, and for poetic justice which frequenly involves being transformed into a monster.
4. Infernalist--Allow the recipient to beg after a failure of competence since failures of morality are not usually a concern, and then give one more chance, or death in pain.

Status of Women:

1. Chattel: Somewhere between the worth of a goat and a horse is the value of a woman. Typical of many pagan societies.

2. Childbearer: Women are generally detested as boring, and of primary value as childbearers. In decadent Rome, where the company of men is preferred, the point of marriage is children to carry on the family name. One way around such a 'necessity' is to adopt a promising young adult male of no family as your heir. In such societies, the respect given to homosexuality tends to be high, and conversely the respect given to women tends to be low.

3. Unintelligent: A further step up on the scale to full humanity....in the days when women were first being invited to dinner parties which had not been the custom in England, a young woman sat down at the table. The man to her right informed her that he was deaf in the left ear, and could not talk to her. The man to her left informed her that he was deaf in the right ear, and could not talk to her.

The view is that women, although desirable, are not very intelligent, and rather boring.

4. Illogical: Women are allowed to talk, and sometimes dominate discussions. However, they are considered to be emotional and illogical, and their views may be safely set aside. This is to some degree true in part due to the corrupting effect of lack of responsibility. Power does tend to corrupt, but so does lack of power because then one can say and do any wacked out thing one wishes knowing that it will have no effect.

5. Spheres of Responsibility: The woman has the domestic sphere, and is responsible for running her house. The male has the outer sphere, and is responsible for running law, and the economy.

This divides into nightmare scenarios like 'Gothika' the Multiverser world setting and 'Fantastique' which is very pleasant.

One difference of the pleasant scenarios is that women have very high status. Indeed, they have higher status than most men. Only the Great and the Powerful among men have more status than a typical woman. A typical woman has no problem talking with the chieftain of a factory as they are of equal social worth. Her husband is several levels down.

A women in distress has only to yell for help, and receive instant aid from random males on the street who may well spend their lives to defend her. The difference between this and the woman who was attacked in NYC, and no one in the surrounding apartments so much as lifted the phone is striking.

These types of worlds tend to have the saying "Women and children first" when it comes to filling up lifeboats, or survival pods on space stations.

Also, the limits of the roles are not as painful for most as some think. They were able to get the attention of the leadership if they really wanted too by getting together a small group to complain. Consider how few males and females in America vote...its my contention that most people don't want to be bothered, but they do want the ability to make the Authorities listen when necessary, but otherwise leave them alone.

Its been argued that this system is effectively a Matriarchy.

6. Unpleasant Spheres of Responsibility as in the Multiverser world 'Gothika' where women's status is low, especially the poor women. They have no right to own items, and so they must use front men to own things and conduct business. And these front men frequently make off with the cash in the till to the unavailing protests of the true owner who cannot go to the Law since legally she cannot own anything.

7. Apparent Male Domination as in Japan where women walk two feet behind their husband in public, but in private they demand complete control of the paycheck to be spent as they wish. Extreme mysogyny as in manga comics which are read by adult males seems to be a common part of this system. So does excessive work hours followed by partying with the boys from the office.

Its a version of "I'm the Lord and Master of this House, and my wife gives me permission to say so."

8. Highly ambitious females seek to make their mark in the world. The problems are thus: 1) They are only interested in males who are equally or more ambitious and more successful than themselves which limits the pool of dates radically. The example is that of a millionaire female business owner who only dates guys with a hundred million in the bank. 2)In such a hyper-ambitious dog-eat-dog, rat race on crack society, there are few soft and tender people available to take care of children. Rates of child abuse and neglect tend to be sky-high. Frequently such a society is experiencing negative population growth. Typically, there is an underclass which takes care of the children, but it is poorly paid, and not respected, and tends to yield work based on such treatment.

9. In this world of rigid, high standards, women are allowed to take any job they wish. And males as well. Thus a minority of women and of men do gender-blending roles. Some men take care of children with skill and grace. Some women are jet fighter pilots. However, the standards for success are high, and unforgiving. Few women apply to be jet pilots, and even fewer have the physical, mental, and moral committment and skills to make it. There is no affirmative action. Anyone who gets a job got it because they were very, very good.

Most women, and most men follow traditional roles, but a respect for individuality is balanced against the reality that stereotypes are based on underlying facts which are generally true, but may not in certain specific people be true.

One of four of the top leaders of society is female. Perhaps 2% of the jet fighter corp are women.

There is some pushback for allowing lower standards for women, but the insistence on high standards is bred into the society. Failure is treated harshly.

10. I'll have to get back to this later....sick puppy is moi, and my brain has had enough.

Tue Oct 23 2007 9:32 pm #
M. J. Young
Moderator

Well, there are tons of magic limitations; you've only scratched the surface even of those already covered.

On women, you missed the Muslim view: women are necessary, but are the source of all evil and temptation in society, and need to be kept under strict control to prevent them from corrupting good and honest men.

--M. J. Young

Wed Oct 24 2007 1:06 am #
Tadeusz
Member

1. My brain was seriously fried for list one. Hopefully, tommorrow I'll flip through the Big Black Book to find more examples, and then come up with some more. I need Mana, and ability to do calculus for hermetics, and True Names (the thousand names of fire), and suchan rope magic...mebbe I can get fifty.

2. Thanks. Also Polygamy, and serial polygamy (divorce and marry trophy wives), and some others...I'd like to get up to 20 so I can do a nice d20 chart. Toss in Venetian courtesans, and extended families (like clans), and welfare queens as well.

Eric

Wed Oct 24 2007 1:44 am #
WilliamTWodium
Member

What about magical skill that is not under the control of the "skilled" user? The rules touch on this with Active By Caprice devices, but I feel like what can be done by device ought to be possible directly. I've been meaning to post up a giant question thread about various ways to deal with werewolves (there are scads of ways to rig up the mechanics, it's dizzying), and a skill that activates itself whether the user wants it to or not has to be worth something.

Wed Oct 24 2007 4:15 am #
Tadeusz
Member

List of Magical Limitations (This list may inspire a spell, or it may be rolled on to see which magic limitations are most popular in an indigenous world).

NOTE: My book is somewhere, and I'm not up to hunting for it right now so no numbers in this, and its off the top of my head.

1. Code of Behavior

For some magic, you have to stay within the confines of a code of behavior, or the magic leaves you. The stricter the code of behavior, the greater the bonus.

A. Paladins
B. Good Witches
C. Prophets
D. Good Kings

2. Those sensitive to magic can sense you. Ranges vary from on the same street to the same county, same state, same continent, same world, and same universe. A special category which is a separate bonus is nearby dimensions.

Thus Caitlin Saunders,verser, Demon Slayer, and former Accountant from Earth casts her spell of Disintegration against a Foul Minion of the Shadow. In a neighboring dimension, a Hellworld, the Demon Grz'lak'nik wakes up to the smell of Power, and starts to track the spoor with his Hellhounds.

A further limitation is that the smell of magic does not leave you immediately. While close physical proximity to the caster's once location is the typical default, again greater ranges are possible.

Grz'lak'nik arrives ten minutes later on Earth with his hounds cloaked in a veil of invisibility. His hounds pick up the spoor, and he spots the smear where a foolish Minion challenged a Demon-slayer. He cackles grimly. He believes in the virtue of ambush. Caitlin will not be so lucky later tonight as he stalks her.

3. You use the magic for an improper use, and you get punished.

4. Balance of elements magic--you cast a laser spell, and shortly there after, you're surrounded by shadow.

5. The traditional time, body involvement, items, and speech.

6. Certain languages get a bonus. While the use of any foreign language gains a bonus, the use of certain languages gains a larger bonus. Thus Spanish will benefit the native English speaker, but writing in Runic will be more beneficial, and speaking in Ancient Sumerian even more so.

Any language that has a status as a 'Tongue of the Angels' or 'Language of the Gods' has an even higher bonus.

7. For some magics, every use of magic reduces the amount of magic in the world. The proper expression of this is by the Arch-Magi Newton in the Second Law of Magicodynamics which states "All magical processes tend toward maximum disorder given time."

8. For others, each magi only has a certain amount of power. This is a physical limit. Magic learned under this school has a maximum usage number which is the typical set-up for a verser character (or my suggestion of the same).

Jacob Winters, Verser, Space Fighter Pilot, and former Video Gamer on Earth has learned the Sunbolt spell. He knows that he can cast it ten times in his quasi-immortal life. He's already used it four times, and he's facing off against a difficult Vampire named Gavin. He wonders to himself if this is the time to use it the fifth time...

A more difficult way to utilize this is to say there is a limited amount of magic in the world, and each user uses up some of it. This can be visualized better, perhaps, or at least more concretely, with the Mana needed for magic in "The Magic Goes Away" by Pournelle and Niven or the way that 'Defilers' drain life energy from plants and kill a circle of Earth about themselves when they cast spells in the Dark Sun setting.

9. Magic has an altering effect. For some types of magic, its toward evil which is the more commonly understood effect. For others, its toward good, and it makes the character unearthly. This is seen in C.S. Lewis's The Space Trilogy where the hero Ransom by Book Three is not completely of Earth anymore. And for others like the Mythos, the thin shell of sanity may be broken by the revelation of things Man Was Not Meant to Know (although its not certain Lovecraft meant that for everyone...for some of his characters might have survived just fine mentally, but with the difficulty of being eaten they did not prove that to be the case).

10. One effect is the gaining of things that are personal. This goes several directions at once. Certain magics, such as Voodoo, require personal items to make the spell. Others require the True Name of the target. The True Name can be one of two things--an innate name that something has, perhaps gifted to it by Adam when that something was nameless, or by some other Namer. Or it can be a secret name which is held closely.

11. Mana is a magic power field which may be gathered. There are various techniques for this gathering. A large number of spells require mana to be cast, and another huge amount require mana to spread the effect of the spell over a large area. Effectively in Multiverser terms, this is the creation of a spell that enables the later casting of another spell. In some universes, the mana may be held in an item. In others, it is gathered by will at the last moment, and then the spell is cast.

12. Some magic is Just Plain Unnatural, and so the usage of magic always rebounds to the detriment of the user.

Jonas Majeerle, verser, AC Tech, and Apprentice Mage opened the Black Book of Forbidden Spells while his master was out. He cast the first spell of entertainment and enjoyed a fine repast with beautiful waitresses, and the ghosts of famous men to converse with. Then he got up, and felt sick to his stomach.

He had a stomach flu.

Later as he ventured to the latrine, he tripped and fell down the hill.

Still later, he came in to see his master who was very angry with him. Inexplicably, he had forgotten to put up the Forbidden Book, and his master was aware of what he had done.

A bit humorous, but it gets the idea across. This is not 'no benefit to self'. Instead this is 'Magic is an aberration, and Nature hates it.'

13. No magic may be cast that is solely of benefit to yourself. You may cast a spell to destroy a demon because demons are a threat to one and all. You may not cast a spell to turn lead into gold to pay for your tab at the inn. If you do, you will find the Universe is messing with you....like having all the gold you touch turn to lead for the next week.

A more extreme version of this would only allow you to spell the demon if he was clearly a threat to another in the immediate future.

14. Roles must be respected: This is typically holy magic. The Prophet may not call down fire upon the Demon except in certain specific circumstances. Perhaps if the Demon manifests itself in its Hunting Form, a material killing machine, or if the Demon has been thrice rebuked by the Innocent, and it decides that instead of tempting the Innocent, that he will take the Innocent's cat hostage, then the Demon has stepped over his own boundaries, and may be dealt with by any means neccessary.

This is more common in worlds with strong codes of behavior and high magic, and potentially archetypical patterns are commonplace. It is a form of Armed Truce between the Host of Heaven and the Forces of Evil.

15. As Wodium says:

You can have Wild Magic which is not under the control of the user directly. Cast the spell, and then roll a GE roll. '21' or higher, and roughly what the player wanted, occurred. '27' or better, and something better occurred.

As a further wrinkle, you can have Wild Magic which activates potentially when the character is stressed.

Another wrinkle, mentioned by the Champions game is the idea...

You wake up in the morning...your hands are sore....your superhero costume is bloody...you don't remember anything....you see on the news....'ten gangsters bloodily dismembered last night in one of the most brutal....'.

And then there's Bink of Spell for Chameleon who has a magic talent which prevents him from being harmed. But he doesn't know how its going to operate. For this, you create a specified aim, and when certain conditions are met, the magic fires up...and goes off if the roll is successful, and the method the magic chooses is up to the referee's discretion.

Wodium, I'd be interested in seeing your 'Werewolf' post if you can come up with it.

Eric

Wed Oct 24 2007 5:31 pm #
Tadeusz
Member

Another one, similar to the Earth Giant spell Tad cast in a WAW with the atheist is that any disbeliever heightens the difficulty of a spell.

I find it intriguing that it is written that Jesus could do no mighty works in a certain part of the country because of their disbelief.

Eric

Wed Oct 24 2007 5:37 pm #
WilliamTWodium
Member

When I brought it up, I was thinking of the Bink scenario: a skill with no ritual which activates only when the referee says so - potentially according to rules and conditions laid out in advance (every full moon, anyone?), but not necessarily. The complete lack of ritual slaps an instant -25 SM on the skill, along with whatever damage you rack up in the time factor department, but the hope is that these penalties will be offset by the bonus awarded for the sacrificing the power to initiate the skill.

Also, I disagree with your most recent #6. Why should some languages be of more benefit than others? I'm sure each of them is "the language of the Gods" in some universe. Here you're steering toward the same treacherous waters as when you suggested making some things more or less "appropriate" than others, awarding more than +5 for appropriateness.

There are two reasons that players are bonused for using foreign tongues. In game, the mystical sounds of the incantation lead to greater expectation of magic. Out of game, speaking in tongues lets his opponents know that he's using magic, and the player should be compensated for that disadvantage. I suppose you could argue that using Ancient Sumerian builds greater expectation (although I'm not sure it does, you could argue it), but it does nothing to limit the skill any more than Spanish does; we have no out-of-game reason to increase the bonus.

And, I'm not sure #7 is a limitation. Try replacing it with something like this (I'm copy-pasting from my as-yet-unfinished work-up of the Dark Sun campaign setting from 2nd Ed. AD&D):

Arcane magic is more prevelant than holy, and is of two kinds: Preserver magic (harder and rarer), and Defiler magic (easier and more common). Defiler magic contributes to the ongoing holocaust on Athas by draining the life energy from the world at large and nearby inanimates particularly (+5 sit-mod, bonused by up to an additional +10 for surrounding plant life destroyed in casting). Preserver magic gains no such bonus, but the practitioners keep a clear conscience.

Here we have the life energy of plants employed as a material component. Notice that this skill definition can work in universes other than the universe of origin (which is an absolute must for Multiverser magic). Note also that if the verser enters a universe without plant life, his Defiler magic will cease to work altogether. The point is, unless there is some concrete requirement/limitation, the fact that a spell drains an infinitesimal amount from the magical potential of the universe really shouldn't provide the player with any bonus.

Wed Oct 24 2007 7:39 pm #
Tadeusz
Member

As to what you say about #7, I refer you to my opening header about being incoherent....:) Yes, your definition is well-written.

But the Defiler magic should provide another bonus....the great big, flashing sign that says "I'm EVIL--Kill me now!" is a disadvantage. It also makes them easy to track so much so that even a 1@1 tracker might be able to follow them. And lastly that 'great big sign' is a disad because they're going to have a hard time faking being of the Forces of Good.

Ancient Sumerian definitely builds greater expectation. And it is generally harder for a PC to learn. Now, if a PC came from Sumeria, then Spanish might be the uber-magic tongue to them. But not for modern day Terrans.

As to 'Tongue of the Angels', I am not talking of Arabic which is said to be the tongue of angels, but of a language that you have good reason to believe is the actual language used by angels at least in some circumstances. If Gandalf the White teaches you the language of the Valdar (gods or angels in Middleearth), you should have an advantage for the use of that language.

Thu Oct 25 2007 1:49 am #
Tadeusz
Member

In Champions they have an interesting bit about Flying with Energy Trails which some superheroes do.

They point out that it could be a disad, a minor one, or it could in other circumstances be an advantage. It could lead your enemies to you, or it could lead your friends to you.

Now me, I mostly see the disad.

So analyzing in light of that...

1. Being evil looking can be an advantage...but its primarily a disad. -1
2. Making yourself easy to track is primarily a disad. -2
3. Hiding your torch under a bushel is not hard if you don't use the spell, which is what you could say about #2 as well, but the #2 disad is persistent (people months later are going to see circles of dead earth and know that a Defiler was casting in teh area). -0

Thu Oct 25 2007 1:59 am #
Tadeusz
Member

Its probable that also a Tongue of the Angels would be more difficult for mere mortals to say. They would involve mind-bending precision, extreme beauty, and concepts that a poor sinful mortal would find hard to understand (much as an orc would find the chivalry of the High Elves incomprehensible).

One way around this is to make such a language a spell of its own.

Its interesting in Eragon that the True Names of an object can do magic that is not willed by the user. That is, if one means to say "Light the Arrows on Fire" in Ye Olde Anceitn Tongue of Magik, but really says "Light my eyebrows on fire" you get the second effect even if you didnm't know the word for 'eyebrows'. I'm not sure how to put that effect into Multiverser.

Thu Oct 25 2007 2:09 am #
Tadeusz
Member

More Women's Status:

1. Equality in Reserve: This occurs in settings of the 2050's (as described from 1970), and in high culture, low tech societies, and in others. Men and women are considered equal in all regards. This is accomplished in part because no one pushes themselves to the outer limits of their capabilities. The level of societal exertion and competence is such that a woman or a man is equally good for pretty much any job that happens. Its considered gauche to sweat, or otherwise exert oneself. A sedate gracefulness is the societal ideal.

One effect is a great deal of stability as Strength Held in Reserve=Reliability=Stability. Maximum efficiency is the enemy of reliability.

2. Women are the souce of corruption and temptation in society, and must be controlled to keep them from corrupting good, honest men. See Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim countries.

3. Women are saintly and never lie or do evil, and when it seems they do, its the man's fault. Thus when women shoot their husband in the back, while he sleeps, with a shotgun it because he was abusive, and she, poor, fragile shotgunner was scared. See modern feminism.

4. Women need to be taken care of by another source of funding. In some societies this takes the line of independent trusts, or dowries. In certain medieval situations, the woman may find herself with an independent income because she owns castles and lands given to her at her marriage by either her family, or her new husband.

5. In some societies, this independent source of funding is the government which with the best of intentions, and much good effect steps in to provide funding to the woman to take care of the children. This has advantages which are obvious. It has disadvantages which are not so obvious.

Frequently, the incipient 'welfare queen' looks forward to her sixteenth birthday, and 'independence day' because once she's sixteen and pregnant, she can leave her crowded apartment, and have an apartment of her own provided for by the government. To keep it she needs to keep having babies, and NOT get married.

The young men in this society have no power as they are outbid, and they have no wife to force them to be responsible. Its a perfect recipe for violence, crime, and thirty-five year old grandmothers.

6. Polygamy is beneficial to two groups. They are older, rich males and younger, not quite so attractive females. Everyone else loses. The successful male gets more time with multiple nubile females, and the not quite there girl gets time with a successful male.

Such a society depends on driving out the young males to alternative jobs (while not admitting this frequently), and keeping the young females around for the older, and richer males to charm.

If possible some sort of alternate male culture is created for the 'losers'. Either its an army that frequently makes war (and gets its people killed off), or its outlying farms far from civilization, or its a homosexual culture. Failure to create (perhaps due to lack of money) an alternate male culture yields a troublesome problem of the usage of backdoors into the Big Man's House. That is, adultery between the 'losers' and the 'wives' is common.

As regards woman's status, most women feel betrayed by the situation. They frequently school their male children to not do this to their wives when they grow up, and the male children agree since they love their mothers, and often dislike their fathers. But they tend to follow the same pattern anyways.

Another woman's status issue is covered by the Chinese symbol for 'trouble' which is 'two women under one roof'. Relations can be extremely poisonous, and vindictive between the females of the house. Typically an older wife is appointed 'dictator of the house' with the job to keep the noise down to a low roar.

7. Serial Polygamy or Trophy Wives: This modern custom allows one to marry a young girl, get a good job with her help, and then dump her for someone five-ten years younger. A number of cultures have even more extreme versions of the 'easy divorce'. In some cultures, its sufficient to say "I divorce you" three times to make it so. This is part of the reason for the wealth in jewelry that is worn by women in some cultures as this jewelry may be the only thing they are allowed to keep. In certain cyberpunk cultures, this has been revived with glittery bits of cyberware taking the place of ancient armbands of gold.

8. A Matriarchy (nice) has women in charge, and men as non-voting members with distinct rights. Usually these men are more timid, and less combative than most men. The women are noble, and brave and have a good balance of the open hand and the closed fist. They also tend to wear something similar to bikinis, but I don't think this is an essential element of that culture. In some cases, they are excessively warlike, but they rarely venture into true evil.

9. Matriarchy (not so nice): Sacrifices (men) must be made to the Mother Goddess who while she has her gentle side, most of the time resembles Kali than Gaia. Men are kept in the dark, and chained by superstition, and terror of their priestess wives. Its the War between the Sexes with the women adopting the tactics of the Ku Klux Klan. Poison and mob violence are primary ways of dealing with one's female rivals in the tribe. Troublesome men get harsh looks, then if that fails, they get abducted in the night and beaten by drug-using masked females while the rest of the tribe quakes in fear, and if that fails....well Kali needs a new skull.

10. The Rule of the Cold-Eyed Women: Pragmatism and survival define their methods. Their goals are to save as many of their 'children', or the people of the nation as possible. But they never weep in public over deaths because thats a sign of weakness, and that would invite more problems. They dazzle by turns, and charm by others, and never give an inch. Knives and daggers, spies, and deniable 'rogue' sea captains are their tools although they will raise an army if they must.

You're never sure how you stand with them, and thats how they want it. You're never quite sure what they're up to, except that its for the good of the Nation, and thats how they want it. But one thing you are sure of, and thats that you don't want to cross them.

See Elizabeth the First of England.

11. Women are honoured for their womanhood. They are allowed some breaks on behaviour because they are women, but then men are also allowed different breaks on behavior. However, a certain basic moral code applies to both.

They are trained as young girls to demand chivalry, and courtesy, and to spot the various character weaknesses in themselves and males. They are trained to show respect for their male friends, and to be gentle with the masculine ego. And the most effective techniques to gently deflate one.

Most women prefer traditional roles, but there remains a sizable minority which prefers other paths. This is generally understood by society.

Switching paths happens frequently as well with the understanding that if you switch, you start over at zero. That is, most companies have a 'mommy track' which allows the female employee more time off, and slower advancement. This is accepted as equitable.

Less than one percent of jet fighter pilots are female, but they are generally as good as the males. However, the War between the Sexes is a matter of witty jokes and puns, and men and women frequently laughing ruefully at their own foibles.

Thu Oct 25 2007 2:59 am #
WilliamTWodium
Member

I find it interesting that you say the Tongue of the Angels would be more difficult to say, but advocate a bonus making spells that employ it easier to use. Again, the problem is that the player, out of character, is not being limited by the supposed limitation. If the spell required that the character make a successful skill check with the language to operate, maybe you could justify the bonus - but I have serious misgivings about letting a 0@0 Psi skill provide bonuses to a 15@10 magical spell. Let's look at a couple of alternate mechanical systems to represent what you're going for.

a) The language of Valdar lends your spells power at the risk of catastrophe if you mis-speak:

What I want to do for this is to grant the skill a small positive sit-mod in exchange for a positive die mod every time they use the skill. The die mod effectively increases Relative Success on every successful use, but it disproportionately increases the chance to botch. An example -

A sorcerer lights arrows on fire with an ordinary spell: 67% chance of success, 3% chance to botch, RS ranges from 1-67

The same spell in the Valdar tongue (+10SM, +5dieM): 72% chance of success, 7% chance to botch, RS ranges from 6-77

You see? The thing to do is ask "what limitation am I applying?", and then rig the mechanics such that the limitation actually exists in the numbers. In this case, we're making the spell more powerful and successful more often, but also increasing the frequency and severity of the inevitable botches. (In both of the above spells, I'm assuming the +5SM for foreign language has already been factored in.)

Actually, I like that one so much that I'm going to skip thinking up a (b) for now and move on.
___

I don't think the fact that using Defiler magic marks you as a bad guy is necessarily worth a sit mod in and of itself. After all, in Athas, the bad guys are in charge - the place is a desert created by the magical wars of ancient defilers of ages past, many of whom live on as the Sorcerer-Kings (a.k.a. "Dragons") who rule the various City-States. Using Preserver magic marks you as an unambitious weakling (at best) or an anti-government subversive (at worst). You're right that the life-drain is detectable, though, and that's why I'm comfortable giving +5 even when there aren't any plants in the immediate vicinity. The killing of nearby vegetation is mandatory, by the way; the defiler can't just forgo the extra "material component" bonus in order to avoid leaving a brown stain.

Thu Oct 25 2007 3:05 am #
Tadeusz
Member

My understanding of the system is not that strong.

However, I was at one point talking about making it separate spells. One a power-up, and the other the actual spell. However, what you got looks interesting indeed.

And about my prior comment on 'mommy track', it does not totally reset to zero every time you take some time off. That just slows your advancement.

Thu Oct 25 2007 3:25 am #
WilliamTWodium
Member

Separate spells can certainly work; I meant to respond to that, actually, but I forgot in the middle of my post. If the point is to make the spells written in Valdar more effective, though, I feel like I should incorporate the blessing (1@4 Bonus Skill) into the same spell. If I do that, though, I run into temporal problems - if the spell succeeds, its chance of success was bonused, but if it fails without the bonus, it doesn't get it. Possible solution: incorporate the blessing into the skill, but design the blessing so that it affects relative success rather than simply adding a sit-mod. I'm not sure if that can be done (MJ?), but if it could it would go like this:

A sorcerer lights arrows on fire with an ordinary spell: 67% chance of success, 3% chance to botch, RS ranges from 1-67

The same spell in the Valdar tongue (includes a M1@4 blessing for a -10 SM): 57% chance of success, 4% chance to botch, RS runs from 21-77

Hmm. Actually, it occurs to me that a -10 SM can usually be traded for double the power in some aspect, so that may be a bum deal. Then again, if we assume that the RS bonus from the blessing is multiplied by skill level, that leaves us with +60 RS in exchange for the -10 SM once the caster reaches expert level . . . which still leaves us shortchanged, since by doubling the power we could effectively have had RS of 6-522 instead of 63-231. Bother. It seems like incorporating a recursive bonusing skill is ineffective no matter which way you frame it.

Still, with a separate skill, what you're saying is you speak a few words of Valdar and then whatever spell you cast next is bonused - no matter what language that spell is in.

Or could you get a bonus on the blessing by stipulating that it only applies to other spells written in the same language?

Thu Oct 25 2007 3:52 am #
Tadeusz
Member

I'll look at your numbers more tommorrow.

Evil in Evil Realms reply...

SM Stirling in Dies the Fire trilogy has the bad guy flying Sauron's Eye as a flag. A good guy leader explains to his followers...'even if I was set on becomeing a power-mad dictator in the ruins of America, I'd fly Old Glory. Because it would confuse people. This guy, up front is announcing that he's pschyo evil, that he will stab you in the back on his whim.'

Very few people actually like evildoers, including other evildoers who don't like them either.

Eric

Thu Oct 25 2007 4:34 am #
WilliamTWodium
Member

Problem being that part of the evil here is that they don't see these acts as evil. It's just plants, after all. I imagine the Defilers just think of themselves as wizards or sorcerers; it's only the good guys who use the "Preserver/Defiler" label. Imagine if the underground rebellion in your country used longbows instead of rifles because gun smoke was bad for the environment. (In reality, it's more like using TNT instead of piconukes, but that's not how the defilers see it.)

Of course, that's just with regard to this specific example. In general, you've made your point; things that make you look evil aren't doing you any favors.

Thu Oct 25 2007 5:03 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

What about magical skill that is not under the control of the "skilled" user? The rules touch on this with Active By Caprice devices, but I feel like what can be done by device ought to be possible directly.
I think it's also touched on in precognitive dreams; I know I've done that skill for some people in cons, who mention that they sometimes have dreams that tell the future, but they have no control over these.
I don't care whether the language is Valdar or Pig Latin--if it is a foreign language for the character, it is a magical language. In Bah Ke'gehn we make the point that it is possible for Bah spells to be in Bah, which would be a magical language for the character but not for the Bah, but also that they might be in English, which is a magical language for the Bah but not for the character. The argument that Sumerian is harder for a modern to learn is superfluous: a modern can learn it, and then it becomes no harder to use than any other language. Kyler's character has learned Oni, the language of Japanese demons. That's a magical language not because it's a language of demons but because it's one that he associates with magic and doesn't use in normal conversation. I think that's the key: if you use the language in normal conversation, it's not a magical language for you; if the language is something you use almost exclusively for magic, then for you it is a magical language. That does not mean you would never use it for conversation in special circumstances--the Wu Jen with whom Kyler studied undoubtedly used Oni to speak with Oni, and Kyler could do the same.

That is, if one means to say "Light the Arrows on Fire" in Ye Olde Anceitn Tongue of Magik, but really says "Light my eyebrows on fire" you get the second effect even if you didnm't know the word for 'eyebrows'. I'm not sure how to put that effect into Multiverser.
That would be a botch result--that is, if you roll a botch, one possibility if you are using that kind of element in your ritual is that you mispronounced a word getting a wrong result. Wrong result is already on the list of common mag botches, this is just a "color" explanation for why it happened.

I do like Scott's idea about the die mod, though.

What you're calling an RS modifier is usually called a damage modifier, because it's usually used for weapon or attack damage. It probably needs a better name; in noting it we usually say "plus points", so that's what I would use. (Someone remind me to include it in the new edition.) Thus your spell would be -10SM, +20points. You're right, though--you can get +DC for a -10SM, so you can probably double your power output that way. The idea of incorporating the blessing to get a bonus on RS hits the same obstacle: you get a stronger result for the same penalty a different way. We've got blessing spells that increase chance of success and those which affect degree of success only, but once you try to incorporate them they don't work so well--they're real advantages are 1) you can use them to bonus broad ranges of other skills and 2) if you're trying to figure out how to create a magic device with increased chance or degree of success (e.g., magic weapon), these are the skills to use.

Polygamy is rather common in warrior cultures, because there are not enough men to go around. We did something solid with this in Orc Rising, in which the wives and children of slain orcs are given to their companions. If the wars are bloody enough, there isn't a problem of lack of women for the unsuccessful males--unsuccessful in this case means dead.

--M. J. Young

Thu Oct 25 2007 7:01 am #
WilliamTWodium
Member

Could a language cease to be magical? Say my character becomes fluent in Spanish and spends some time in Argentina; would his spells lose the bonus on the grounds that the incantations are now in a conversational tongue?

Thu Oct 25 2007 7:19 am #
Tadeusz
Member

So the Athasian Defilers are bad because of a lack of understanding....interesting.

I'd enjoy seeing a SF weapon described and written up labelled 'piconuke' cause thats just cool. I also like the idea of LAW rocket armed guerillas of human origin vs. say alien invaders using piconukes. It creates an enviromental struggle, that I, a conservative who thinks much of enviromental concernsis bogus, could get behind quite enthusiastically. It could be an interesting world.

I like what you did with the Language of the Valdar with the +10+5. I think I mostly understand that.

MJ,
The arguement that a magical preparation is harder to do than another magical preparation is superfluous? Raises Perry Mason eyebrow....

Yes, I am suggesting that any lengthy endeavor to gain magical power offers a potentially permanent bonus. That is, the trip to find the Great Oak, and petition it for one of its branches, and then to carve it just right, and inscribe it with runes to create the perfect wizard's staff is valuable magically to the wizard for several reasons. 1)The staff, being a branch from a Tree of Worlds, is innately magical having certain powers and bonuses on its own. 2)The casting of the runic spells on the staff serves as a permanent bonus of probably several kinds to spellcasting. 3)The time and effort spent creating a specifically magic object even when this time was not spent casting runes counts toward a general bonus to the usage of magic.

I can go with the color explanation although with a Language of the Valdar, I'd make it a common botch covering several numbers on the botch chart with varying degrees of targetted area.

When I make the final rework of the list on Woman's Status, I'll include the bit about warrior cultures and polygamy to add greater detail to my bit about aggressive armies in polygamous countries.

Finally, consider the concept of Language as an Immaterial Device....I think the concept of Immaterial Magic Devices might be of use in other situations in magic.

Eric

Thu Oct 25 2007 1:49 pm #
Tadeusz
Member

Another 'Element of Magic Limits'--Bargaining.

My heroine in Worldwalker, Kara Wellington, promises the Powers Above unspecified service at a future date if they help her save a child from the North Wind.

Other promises are vague like the bad example in the Old Testament of the man who promised whatever first came out of his house when he returned from war or something.

Other promises are more specific.....

"I promise to spill a cup of the best wine, and slaughter a lamb and give it to the poor in your name, O Jupiter, should I return alive to the city of my fathers."

Sometimes the bargain is imposed on the human....

...You will have a son. The rules start with you when you're pregant because he's going to follow the Oath of the Nazarite from the womb. Don't cut his hair, don't let him touch dead things, and also don't let him drink wine....when he gets older, he will begin to rescue your people from your enemies....

Thu Oct 25 2007 2:37 pm #
Tadeusz
Member

I also remember reading one book by Name Escapes Me that was SF/Fantasy about a Yoga Master who ended up having to eat less and less, and eat weirder things, and have limits on what he ate as he perfected his body (which was his magic). At one point, he nearly kills himself by pouring cow's blood down his throat but forgetting the anti-clotting agent which then closes his throat with a giant clot.

I also remember reading Terry Goodkind who had his wizard warrior thinking that he had to stop eating meat to serve as the balance for his killing. But then he's starting to go off balance...and he eventually realizes its because his understanding of the rules of balance is wrong. Eating meat is fine for him because killing in self-defense is perfectly justified and not something that he should feel the slightest qualm about---I think Goodkind's case falls under Elements #1--code of behavior proscribed by a god or objective moral ideals. So that would be Code of the War Wizard.

--If you feel guilty for remorselessly slaughtering the wicked, and do not realize you were perfectly in the right doing so, then your magic will start to fail you, and you will sicken.

As you can probably tell, I'm not totally at ease with Goodkind's philosophy. However, it was fun to see him have his hero hack up a bunch of evil peace protestors.

Thu Oct 25 2007 2:46 pm #
WilliamTWodium
Member

The Branch from the Great Oak is an arcane focus (covered under 1@1 Operate Focus/Holy Symbol and 15@1 Create Focus/Holy Symbol), and can in theory be taken away from the character. Once a character knows a language, he can't lose it. For something to be a device - even an intangible device - it needs to be separable from the character.

So the Athasian Defilers are bad because of a lack of understanding....interesting.

Well . . . most of them also happen to be evil. The way the scenario sets it up, the Preservers and rebels are clearly in the right, so obviously anyone who doesn't understand that Life Is Sacred must be a callous, selfish individual with few if any redeeming qualities. Also, to some extent there is difficulty receiving the necessary training without patronage from another defiler, and since defilers who practice magic openly have the sanction of the Sorcerer-Kings (despotic megalomaniacal dragon-demons) . . . you see where I'm going with this. Very few people with conscience and integrity make it all the way to being full-blown defilers. (Some abandon ship mid-way and switch to being preservers - but they have to re-learn all of their magical skills.)

Of course, that doesn't mean that the public at large necessarily sees defiler magic as being inherently evil. They probably hate defilers, but that's for the same reason that they hate the templar and the army - they're in power, and your average citizen is not in power.

Thu Oct 25 2007 8:24 pm #
Tadeusz
Member

Its been a long time since my Mul lived for five minutes in Dark Sun. I find your interpretation of Athas to be interesting, and informative. Most of it, I already know, but you have a different slant, and you do remind me.

The Branch from the Great Oak is inherently magical. Now foci have no magic in them. I assume the squaring of the circle is that the Branch has magic, and is also a foci.

Also, one disagreement with MJ. In reading the foci rules, it says foci are not destroyed except in botches and something about skill checks. However, I've read stories where foci are burnt because too much power was funnelled through them.

It clearly was not a botch. I'm wondering if thats the skill check the rules were talking about.

Thu Oct 25 2007 8:49 pm #
WilliamTWodium
Member

I haven't actually read any of the source material or tried to run a game in the setting. My knowledge stems almost entirely from three novels and two ancient video games. I love the setting, though, despite or perhaps because of how little I know of it. I'm sure that if I bought the current incarnation of the setting from WotC I'd be sorely disappointed.

In reading the foci rules, it says foci are not destroyed except in botches and something about skill checks. However, I've read stories where foci are burnt because too much power was funnelled through them.

The skill check for the focus is only rolled if the skill as written does not specifically require the focus (that is, you can apply the focus to any arcane spell, but you have to roll a skill check if the spell wasn't designed to include the focus). Perhaps the user botched the focus skill check but not the spell? I could see a referee calling a focus botch "you get double the focus bonus, but it's consumed in the casting. Tough luck, but look on the bright side . . ."

Fri Oct 26 2007 5:00 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

Scott asked:

Could a language cease to be magical? Say my character becomes fluent in Spanish and spends some time in Argentina; would his spells lose the bonus on the grounds that the incantations are now in a conversational tongue?
This one's tricky, but the answer is no and yes (it's not yes and no).

Imagine for a moment that you're old Catholic; the Mass is in Latin. Every week you chant Credo in unum deum, pater omnipotentum, and the words are infused with magical significance made the more magical by the fact that they are in that magical language that nobody uses except for these rituals. You know what the words mean, but they're still magical.

Now you go to school, and you learn Latin, and you read many books in Latin, and hold conversations (at least in writing) with other scholars in Latin, and Latin becomes an ordinary language to you.

It is still infused with magical significance in those passages you knew before; but you can't use it for new magical passages once it becomes conversational otherwise. The expectation arises because at the time you learned those "spells" the words themselves were magical, and the mystery of the words themselves being magical still applies even though you've gotten past that in other contexts.

That, anyway, is my pseudo-rational justification for it; I would not strip someone of a bonus they had just because they have become more familiar with the language used.

I should caveat that it's possible even here that Latin would always be a "magical" language even for a scholar, for example if he were a priest, because although he communicated with other scholars through it, it is not the "vernacular"--literally, the "common language"--and is still that language dedicated to magical use. If the priest were a verser who spent years in ancient Rome, that still would not alter this, if his mental attitude were that this was the language of the faith, which happened also to be the language of these people.

Eric challenged:

The arguement that a magical preparation is harder to do than another magical preparation is superfluous? Raises Perry Mason eyebrow....
Maybe it's just because I'm so good at linguistics and so bad at languages, but my feeling is that once you've learned a language using it is using it--and my impression, too, is that it really is not harder to learn any language than any other language. I've learned smatterings of scores of languages, none of them with conversational facility, but I do not see Koine Greek as more difficult than French (the two I know best), despite being hundreds of years apart and in different branches of the language tree.

I also think that your idea leads to what might be a double benefit. If I spend years studying something that will help my magical abilities, does that not mean I spent years studying magic? I just feel like it means I'm going to get bonused because my BRA and SALs all went up, and again because I'm getting extra credit for something that isn't any problem for me.

The primary logic in your favor, if this can be considered a primary logic, is that the guy who has this benefit--he has learned a "special magical language" that would bonus him in any spell in which he uses it--will be better at a spell he has never tried before by using that language than someone who does exactly the same spell using an "ordinary magical language". I don't see that as a particularly desireable outcome. This benefit already applies to using a magical language, and sorting out the better ones is not a particularly useful task. Already you admit that for a Sumerian, Sumerian is not a special magical language; it probably isn't for his neighbors in Canaan, either. In the same way, Spanish is going to be a particularly magical language for some people--some of them French--simply because they associate it with magic. That is the only requirement to make a language "magical", and that's as magical as it gets.

You can still get bonuses from such things. For example, you can use variants of the Taboo concept: the wizard gets +10 on all of the spells in this category because he refrains from X, or carefully observes X, but if fails to do so he cannot cast any of those spells until he performs this particular atonement/purification spell to restore himself. Kyler's character has that: he may not imbibe alcohol, and all his spells are bonused as long as he does not do so, and impossible if he breaks that taboo. Your wizard might have to spend an hour in study of the ancient texts every twenty-four hours, or must perform a particular ritual every day, or whatever, to be able to cast any spells at all, but doing so bonuses all of them.

The staff from the Great Oak is already covered. It is a focus; you can either use it separately as a focus, or make its use a necessary component of any spell. Since it is a nearly unique object, it has a value of +10 (effectively doubling the power of any spell in one aspect)

The bargaining/condition aspect is interesting. I think, though, that I would treat it as a geas/quest sort of component--that's the only thing that really works in play. Follow my reasoning.

I come to this situation and promise that if the power does X, I will do Y. I have not done Y, and there is no way to know if I ever will; but I have indebted myself. I would create the bargain as a bonus to success which incorporates another spell within it conferring a bonus equal to whatever the value of that action would have been had it been done as part of the casting. (I might or might not include a penalty, depending on the nature of that bonus. For example, "I will spend a day in fasting and prayer" means some number of hours of deferred casting time, and I would penalize deferring casting time by -10; the promise to destroy a material component I would not penalize for deferral, because already it's not going to have so high a value as that.) That other spell hits the caster, a 1@8 curse (and this would only work in a curve of 9 or better for that reason). If the skill roll is successful, the desired effect occurs, but so does the curse; the curse ticks off the agreed timeframe, and if the promise is not fulfilled, it inflicts specific pains on the errant character (loss of attributes comes to mind).

Make sense?

The Branch from the Great Oak is inherently magical. Now foci have no magic in them. I assume the squaring of the circle is that the Branch has magic, and is also a foci.
Right, I did not really deal with the possibility that a focus could be made from something inherently magical. Part of that is that we don't really think of materials being inherently magical--because magic is not material, and not local, but always from another place. Thus a magic device might store magic from the supernatural realm, but the materials are ordinary. I'm inclined to think that the crucifix given to Chris by St. Peter is a unique object, a focus of high value, but not "materially magical". I'm inclined to think the same of the branch: its value is that it is very nearly unique, and comes from a supernatural realm and so connects to the supernatural realm. Using it as a material element in the creation of a magic device or focus would give a +10 value for material, which could be used to boost the success of the skill or transferred to the power of the device.

Also, one disagreement with MJ. In reading the foci rules, it says foci are not destroyed except in botches and something about skill checks. However, I've read stories where foci are burnt because too much power was funnelled through them.

It clearly was not a botch. I'm wondering if thats the skill check the rules were talking about.
Um--how is it not a botch, if the focus was destroyed?

There are two ways I can use a focus with a spell: I can use my skill at using the focus, roll it successfully, and get a bonus on the roll for the spell, or I can incorporate it as a necessary component of the spell, giving me a bonus with the spell but preventing me from using that spell if I don't have that focus.

In the former case, I have to make two rolls, and I'm pretty much committed to making both at the outset. So let's suppose I botch the first but succeed in the second. Why can't one of my botch options be, "Power surge, intensify spell effects but destroy focus"? That's an absolutely fabulous botch for that kind of spell. You can even use it if the focus is incorporated as a component of the spell, that the spell effects are intensified and the focus destroyed.

--M. J. Young

Footnote--it took over an hour for this post to post, which is why it duplicates some of Scott's stuff.

Fri Oct 26 2007 5:21 am #
Tadeusz
Member

As to languages...from what I've heard its extremely difficult for an English speaker to learn Japanese, and vice versa. Its supposed to be relatively easy to learn another of the Romance languages if you're already a speaker of one. Speakers of non-tonal languages are supposed to have extreme difficulty with learning tonal languages. And in WW2, there was this little group of people called 'Windtalkers'.....

I think this is a good time to say with an impudent grin....checkmate in three.

Thank you for the additional suggestions from your Taboo paragraph. Since I'm trying to come up with 'Fifty Magic Limits' thats about three right there. And it helps, in case you're wondering to have a specific list because it serves to jog people's memory. And some people have a very hard time reasoning from the abstract to the specific at least until you show them an example (I think thats most people actually.)

The geas/quest will work. I'm a bit iffy on it because essentially you're saying a devout character can make a promise to a deity with no ill effects if the bias is low enough. I'd in some ways prefer a GE roll for that to decide if your deity decides to teach you a lesson like by perhaps sending a "penalize morale" skill zinging at your head in a low bias world. In higher bias, we can go with lightning bolts on occasion as well, but while loss of attributes is good, one of my favorite would be "ill luck".

And Taboo for 'sins'....hmmmm that could work. The Code of the Good Believer has a number of ways for the PC to mess up. Fail, and he incurs loss of magic.---Just an aside tangentially related to the above paragraph.

I gave Donna the Sceptre of the Summer Queen which gave her a five percent sit mod on all magic. Something like that is in Multiverser not materially magical, but I guess its a permanent spell attached by artifice or by nature to an object. In the Staff of the Great Oak, its some sort of power boost which we don't need to go into detail on. So its a focus and its a magic boost at the same time.

That said, you could create a magic item that was a mere focus that had +10 for rarity, and so on. But I'm trying to explore the boundaries, and the uncommon.

The burning of the staff is not a botch because its a deliberate choice. Just like with a car. You're racing to the hospital. The engine is overheating. You have a choice. Smoke your engine, or stop the car, and drag your injured body to the hospital on foot.

However, I do like the botch suggestion. One other whole group of tables I'd love to see would be 'A Smoking Huge Collection of BOtDchezzs, err Botches." One of the joys of the Rolemaster system was the incredibly gory, and imaginative Critical Hit tables.

Fri Oct 26 2007 3:43 pm #
WilliamTWodium
Member

As to languages...from what I've heard its extremely difficult for an English speaker to learn Japanese, and vice versa. Its supposed to be relatively easy to learn another of the Romance languages if you're already a speaker of one. Speakers of non-tonal languages are supposed to have extreme difficulty with learning tonal languages.

From what I've read, a lot of that is hearsay and rumor (combined perhaps with varying strength of educational programs with regard to language and region). I'm not an authority, of course.

Fri Oct 26 2007 6:38 pm #
M. J. Young
Moderator

I, too, am going to quote and respond to

As to languages...from what I've heard its extremely difficult for an English speaker to learn Japanese, and vice versa. Its supposed to be relatively easy to learn another of the Romance languages if you're already a speaker of one. Speakers of non-tonal languages are supposed to have extreme difficulty with learning tonal languages. And in WW2, there was this little group of people called 'Windtalkers'.....
Granted that it is easier to learn languages which are more closely related to your own, this is only because you already know pieces of it. When I introduce people to Greek words used in the New Testament I will often point to English words derived ultimately from them, as it helps to cement the connection to the vocabulary.

Language is primarily three things: phonemes, syntax, and vocabulary.

What gets most people is phonemes, and it's the reason foreign speakers so rarely sound like native speakers. I note that my sister, who spoke English and French fluently, was able to pick up Chinese (Cantonese) so well that native speakers speaking to her on the phone would not believe she was not a native speaker. The trick is in the phonemes.

To save people a trip to dictionary.com, a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound to have meaning in a language--that is, it is the difference between moon and noon, tall and tell, sat and sad. Those are called minimal pairs, example words which prove that a difference in sound has meaning in a language. All infants in their first year of life learn how to make all the phonemes used in all human languages; they then proceed by process of elimination to forget how to make all the phonemes which are not used by those who speak to them.

Once you have eliminated a phoneme from your usage, it is more difficult to learn a language which uses it, for two reasons. The first is that you lack the experience using it--your mouth, throat, teeth, lips, or whatever parts of your speech organs are unfamiliar with that movement. You can learn to make a gutteral K or an African click, but it will take a great deal of practice to be able to do it smoothly. The second is that you are not accustomed to listening for it. French and German share a pronunciation of "u" that is simultaneously "oo" and "ee"; English speakers not made aware of this will often not hear the sound as it is pronounced, and so will reproduce one sound or the other. Castillian Spanish uses very soft dental touches in several letters (including "L" in some cases), which speakers of other languages (even some other dialects of Spanish) turn into T's or D's, because that is what they hear.

What happens in language instruction is that inadequate attention is given to phonemes. We give people an approximation and let them go with it. The Japanese do not have the phonemes we use for "L", so they substitute "R" for these--in part because the have never practiced saying the "L" sound, but in part because to them it does not sound different. Going the other way, English speakers use pitch for emotional content and some syntax markers (questions usually rise in pitch at the end); in tonal languages, pitch is a phoneme, and makes a difference to the meaning of a word. Careful attention to learning the phonemes of a language overcomes this.

Syntax can also be challenging, because people tend to think in their own language, and then try to make direct word-for-word translations to other languages. Fluency in a language fundamentally means that you are not doing that any longer--you are thinking in the language in which you are speaking. Languages can be analytic or syntactic. English is mostly syntactic--we understand sentence structure from the sequence of the words and the inclusion of helping words; the subject is usually at the beginning of the sentence, or there will be other words to identify it as the subject. Ancient Greek and Latin are considerably more analytic--the noun which is in the nominative case is the subject, no matter where it falls in the sentence; function in the sentence is coded into the words themselves.

As suggested already, vocabulary is easier in related languages because there will be at least some words that are derived from each other, or from a common ancestor.

All of which is to say, once you have learned the language, it is not harder to use it than any other language. You just have to really learn it.

The reason windtalkers were so difficult to crack was that Navaho was not related to any European or Asian languages, and so shared no similarities in syntax or vocabulary. It was not that the Germans would have had more trouble learning it than any other language, but that they had no reference books even to identify the language. It would not be easier to crack Welsh than to crack Navaho--unfamiliar phonemes, syntax, and vocabulary--but the Germans would have had access to books about Welsh, and could have learned the language from those.

Hey, I'm not very good at languages, but I got A's in Linguistics.

--M. J. Young

Sat Oct 27 2007 2:18 am #
WilliamTWodium
Member

It's a lot easier for me to pick up entirely new sounds - the guttural K's and Bantu clicks - than to master the tiny deviations from the sounds I know. Trying to de-aspirate my word-initial /t/s, /p/s, and /k/s is like trying to scrape grease off my hands using a stick of butter. I can't do it.

The way I heard it, in Japanese [l] and [r] are allophones, treated much like the "ed" at the ends of our past-tense verbs or the two /t/s in "top" and "pot" - that is, the same phoneme gets articulated as one sound or the other depending on the phonetic environment in which it appears. One of my professors tells of a friend (a native Japanese speaker) who has learned to pronounce the difference between "light" and "right" (well enough to fool native speakers of English), but who still cannot hear the difference between the sounds.

Sat Oct 27 2007 4:34 am #
Tadeusz
Member

A fascinating lecture, and very informative. I think you make a positive case for the worth of a really good teacher in a subject, the sort of person who can lay things out in crystal clear simplicity and definiteness with a logical order, and on the other hand, a negative case for how skilled and in-depth in understanding some language teachers are now.

The Key Question is: If a man were to deliberately study a language for the express purpose of magic, and he chose one that was harder than others (even if it was solely because he had bad teachers in that area, but he did not realize that was the problem) should he not be rewarded for his extra labor?

If this was too implicit in my earlier questions, then another bit of foreignism...mea culpa.

And as a side note, I forget if its Apache or Navajo or Arapahoe that I've heard described is almost impossible for a non-native speaker to pick up. Its concepts are said to be at odd angles, I guess you could say.

Eric

Sat Oct 27 2007 11:41 am #
WilliamTWodium
Member

The Key Question is: If a man were to deliberately study a language for the express purpose of magic, and he chose one that was harder than others (even if it was solely because he had bad teachers in that area, but he did not realize that was the problem) should he not be rewarded for his extra labor?

Nnnnnno? I'm going to sound stubborn or stingy here, but I'm going to go with "no." Not all courses of action are equally rewarding, and not all skills are created equal. Some martial arts, for instance, are simply inferior to others from a mechanical standpoint.

The problem is that the difficulty of the language in no way makes the language any more magical. Since the bonus is for using a magical language, and the difficulty is irrelevant to its status as magical, the difficulty of learning, using, or improving in that language is irrelevant to the bonus.

If you like, you can count time spent studying the magical language as practice time toward improving those magical skills that depend on it. [Edit: especially if it's holy magic of any kind, and time spent on the language can count toward a character's Religion or Occultism skill.] That's about as much as I'd be willing to give.

Sun Oct 28 2007 3:58 am #
Tadeusz
Member

You're right in reality that certain Martial Arts are inferior to others, but not in Multiverser because MJ wisely did not want to get into arguements with each and every Martial Artist Partisan who would tell you how great their art is compared to all the other feebs. Anyways, a lot of those 'my art is best' arguements come down to preconditions like 'if I'm allowed to do my art according the rules we do my art in, and not in another situation....'

In Starsong, I have a rather flavorless, but logical idea. No one learns an 'art'. Each and every person learns skills based on their goals, their committment, their physical bodies. The man with stork-like legs learns spinning high kicks, and the gorilla shaped guy learns grapples. Thus MJ is learning "Mark-Ryu" which is a martial art totally customized to him.

Now on to another magical limitation--Openness. There are a lot of little wrinkles I could express on this, but I'll skip that for now.

Its strongest, and most common form is for example: "Dark Mage Stinking Trout who under another name is a teacher a local high school cannot cast 'Unnerving Nightmares' or 'Beguiling Lies' on anyone who has not shown openness to the Dark. This could be that they read The Book of Nastiness, or they asked him for a magic spell to benefit themselves, or they engaged in a bit of deliberate and wanton cruelty like plotting to, and engaging in shoving another student down the stairs. The Dark Mage is always on the lookout for vicious predators to mentor them, and turn them into full-fledged Servants of the Dark so to corrupt the bucolic and unssuspecting farming town of Four Corners which is primarily known for its apple orchards."

However, one can show openness to the Host of Heaven as well. Deeds of unusual kindness or mercy given when undeserved can open you up to receive blessings.

Mon Oct 29 2007 12:48 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

I won't say that all martial arts styles are equal in Multiverser; an effort was made to avoid arguments about which was the best. The way the system is designed, you can design superior or inferior styles. However, it is much more a matter of deciding what you want a style to do, and making it superior at that at the cost of something else. A design which put everything into hitting hard and fast would be one in which you hoped your opponent never got the chance to hit back, because it would be nearly defenseless; on the other end, you can design a very slow defensive style which did very little damage but allowed you to keep going and going to whittle down your opponent while taking or avoiding everything he had to offer. Speed, power, and defense are thus set against each other, and it's impossible to build a style that does all three extremely well, although you can build a style that compromises and gives you moderate bonuses in all three.

I'm perfectly happy with designing a holy magic spell that works best on those of the same affiliation as the caster. I think that what I'd specify is +10SM on everyone of the specified affiliation at the cost of a -10SM on anyone else. That twenty point difference in probability of success would make a significant difference in how well it works, and would be a strong incentive for spell casters of that sort to look for people particularly susceptible.

It also creates a distinction between the character who read the book of vile darkness in search of knowledge of arcane secrets (affiliating himself with the anarch side in the process) and the character who read that same book seeking to understand the weaknesses in his enemy (who is already established as an alliance or neutral).

There are probably other ways to do it, but that's what comes to mind at the moment.

--M. J. Young

Mon Oct 29 2007 2:02 am #
Tadeusz
Member

One other major and some other minor Elements of Magic is shown in the following snippet I created...

Clarise took Rupert's money unwillingly. It was good gold, but Rupert wanted inside the dungeon to look in on the state of his cousin which was being held without habeas corpus in defiance of the law, but the Tyrant cared not for Law. However, he did keep the gallows busy, and the Skilled in the Art like Clarise had a disturbing tendency to get there very easily. It was as if the Tyrant wished to strip Power from the people to make his own throne unchallenged by any.

But Clarise put all this from her mind for the casting of spells requires a calm heart. She wrapped a shroud of invisisibility around the two of them, for magic would not go to someone else or somewhere else were not the caster there to carry it, and sustain it.

Halfway across town, Rupert mentioned that he had forgotten to 'get the key' from his uncle like he said he had. It was a transparent lie. His uncle would likely forbid such foolishness being a high noble, and Holder of one of the Gate Keys. Angry, Clarise began to remonstrate with Rupert, but as her concentration failed, and as her heart grew upset, the flow of magic began to be undone.

She stilled her lips, and found that unless she wished to abandon the quest, she must needs go with Rupert, and without arguing with him.

They stole the Key that let them into the Castle, and from thence scurried through the guards like a gusting wind until they were into the dungeon. And then she saw the thin frame of the young girl imprisoned. She was barely eleven.

Hot fury stormed through her, and the magic that shielded them evaporated. She heard guards coming even as the child conversed with Rupert. If only she weren't so angry, and yet so frightened at the same time, she might be able to reweave the web, and cast another spell....

....Casting requires calmness throughout, and emotional strains can cause checks to see if the magic fails...
....Casting requires concentration with a Difficult check at the beginning, and Simple checks at decision points along the way....
....Magic does not adhere to a target....
....All magic is touch magic....
....Casting requires that the mage place themselves into an altered state of consciousness where their willpower is temporarily reduced @5 thus making them suggestible....
....Casting requires one minute preparatory time....
....Spells may last as long as the caster likes, but for each five minutes of casting time the caster is required to make Simple Stamina check to continue. Failure may be blocked with a Difficult Willpower check.....

This magic is good for a dare I say it, female oriented story. This magic is subtle (and things like fireballs should be out of place), and very dependent on emotion, and on making oneself vulnerable.

Wed Oct 31 2007 2:10 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

...and this magic acts this way because it is what the caster expects, so the caster faces these limitations. Some spellcaster from another society, or another universe, would not face the same limitations even while visiting that world.

You would have to assess what bonuses the cast gets for those limitations, since the way the limitation system works is that the player accepts a limitation in exchange for a bonus. The character might be aware of this trade-off, might be dimly aware of it, or might believe that the only way to do magic is this way. For example, when I was in Haston, everyone in Haston believed that all magic had to be sung. It could not be true--if a verser brought magic from another universe, it would still work the way it had always worked--but it was true for the casters in Haston, and would remain true for them even if they left that universe, because it is what they believed. Thus Haston magic is bonused by virtue of being sung, and the casters accept the limitation that they must sing to perform magic, in exchange for which they always get that bonus--but in their minds there is no bonus, just the rule that magic is sung.

--M. J. Young

Wed Oct 31 2007 9:37 pm #
Tadeusz
Member

oh, indeed. I quite knew that.

I have the thought that not only would a list of Fifty Magic Limits be of use, but so would a set of examples of different ways to put them together in order to achieve different genre effects would be of interest as well.

I'm also interested in any thoughts on what these limits are worth, but I'll have a go at the list and see if I can answer most of them.

Eric

Wed Oct 31 2007 10:17 pm #

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