Do You Use Advanced Sorcery?

[Guest Vile Traveller]

What it says on the tin - do you make use of the different magic systems in the Advanced Sorcery book, and if so, how much do you use and how do you use it?

[NickMiddleton]

Arete is obviously a special case for me - and some of the underpinnings of that are essential parts of my general BRP toolkit.

As to the rest, I've made a fair bit of use of the rest to help round at the background of scenarios and settings but in general in MW games I've tended to avoid adding the full bore Summoning stuff "back in" and, much as I love the Deep Magic  system, the ratio of overhead vs in play back has never appealed. Necromancy, Advanced Sorcery, Herbalism, Rune Magic and the Fey magic are useful adjuncts that have helped me build scenarios - but none of them are what I'd call essential.

Cheers,

Nick

[Lloyd Dupont]

There is some cool new spell for sorcery that can be added as is to existing sorcerer!  

[rsanford]

A game @Nick J. is currently running uses Deep Magic and in a previous game I ran we used Deep Magic with The Second Way revisions.

[Nick J.]

As @rsanford says I have allowed Deep Magic for the past couple of Magic World campaigns I've run, but I'm not sure I'm sold on it. the player who pushed for it, also has a tendency towards power-gaming (which isn't a bad thing per se, since he's also a talented, role-player), but it's a headache more often than not when I feel like I'm constantly having to adjudicate it so it doesn't become too powerful/unbalanced with respect to the other PCs and the challenges they typically face.

As for the rest I think the Arete rules are the biggest addition to the game, and I use all of the other bits with Fey Magic restricted to they Fey (obviously), Rune Magic is the provenance of the dwarfs (who are more akin to Cornish knockers than Tolkien pastiches), and the rest is sprinkled around the rest of the setting as the mood takes me.

[rsanford]

@Nick J. what’s your opinion of the rune/tattoo magic in the book? I  like the idea but I think it would require a lot of development.

[Guest Vile Traveller]

Deep Magic seems to be the favourite, and of course the additional Sorcery. Arete, of course, but I kind of see that as an extension of the skill system rather than "magic". Herbalism is always useful. Given that I don't really like to allow non-human adventurers, I see most of the other systems as referee resources. I'm in two minds as to whether you need separate Deep Magic and Fey Magic systems.

2 hours ago, rsanford said:

@Nick J. what’s your opinion of the rune/tattoo magic in the book? I  like the idea but I think it would require a lot of development.

I've never used it with MW but I remember having the same difficulty when running RQ3 Vikings, it seems unfinished somehow. It's tempting to assign it to dwarfs, but I'm not convinced it's a good fit.

Necromancy I would prefer to roll into sorcery. It seems pretty specialised, if you go down this route there could be dozens of different spell systems of schools.

I do like Summoning, I always have since Stormbringer 1E. I think there is enough meat for it to be its own thing, if fact it could be greatly expanded. I wouldn't lump it with Sorcery, because Sorcery to me has always seemed an impersonal "scientific" magic which doesn't sit well with bargaining with supernatural beings. On the other hand, I'm not sure where to fit Summoning in the Southern Reaches setting, because I feel Fey are enough on the supernatural front without introducing demons (or elementals, really).

[Nick J.]

5 hours ago, rsanford said:

@Nick J. what’s your opinion of the rune/tattoo magic in the book? I  like the idea but I think it would require a lot of development.

Frankly, I don't know. On the one hand it allows for some long duration glyphs/runes that can be triggered long after they are etched (which means they might be suitable gifts from an NPC Runecaster to PCs without ready access to sorcery or other magic). On the other hand it seems like kind of an odd fit with the normal sorcery rules in place (at least insofar as it being an attractive choice for the average player). I assigned Rune Magic to the Coblynau (aka. knockers, aka "dwarfs") in the Dolmenwood game and since nobody has chosen to play a Coblynau (nor even encountered one yet) it's been a moot point. In retrospect I think it would have made a lot of sense to restrict it to NPC-only magic, but if you or anybody else decides to play a Runecaster I'll certainly allow it and see how it plays out.

I think a simpler solution would be to make all sorcery castable as runes (or scrolls, or whatever) that can be triggered at a later date by having a sorcerer spend a point of POW to bind that spell to the rune-etched surface. At whatever point the spell is triggered, the rune fades, and the spell runs its normal course and the point of POW returns to the caster.

[Questbird]

4 hours ago, Nick J. said:

I think a simpler solution would be to make all sorcery castable as runes (or scrolls, or whatever) that can be triggered at a later date by having a sorcerer spend a point of POW to bind that spell to the rune-etched surface. At whatever point the spell is triggered, the rune fades, and the spell runs its normal course and the point of POW returns to the caster.

I think that was the way it worked in Worlds of Wonder and it always made sense to me.

[NickMiddleton]

I rather liked that Rune Magic was somewhat distinctive, but the main use I had for it was as part of a rather gonzo "space fantasy" setting - so as a conceptual framework for part of my world building, not necessarily a player facing system...

4 hours ago, Nick J. said:

I think a simpler solution would be to make all sorcery castable as runes (or scrolls, or whatever) that can be triggered at a later date by having a sorcerer spend a point of POW to bind that spell to the rune-etched surface. At whatever point the spell is triggered, the rune fades, and the spell runs its normal course and the point of POW returns to the caster.

16 minutes ago, Questbird said:

I think that was the way it worked in Worlds of Wonder and it always made sense to me.

Ooh, really? I must re-read Worlds of Wonder - its been a while.

But in any event, that's a genius idea!

Edited April 28, 2020 by NickMiddleton
clarity

[Guest Vile Traveller]

6 hours ago, Questbird said:

I think that was the way it worked in Worlds of Wonder and it always made sense to me.

It's a bit vague, just a single paragraph:

Quote

CEREMONIAL MAGIC involves the use of ritual and days-long ceremony, usually used to compel other beings or work one’s will upon inorganic forces. Such magics are subdivided into Wizardry (binding demons), Necromancy (raising and otherwise controlling the undead), Enchantment (making magical items), and Alchemy (making magical substances).

Interesting that binding demons is called "Wizardry".

[Nikoli]

I think Advanced Sorcery is largely undercooked. With the additional rules posted by Chaot, the Deep Magic seems useable now. For me, although I loved the rest of it, on the whole MW was not especially magical, though it would suit a Conan feel. I wanted to recreate WFRP and also divine magic, which wasn’t possible as is. The BRP Magic Book was also too limiting and crunchy in parts (I had previously bought the deluxe Runequest 3rd edition and the magic system there gave me a headache - The Magic Book was, for me, still less than elegant and pretty much an identical headache), though the divine spheres (war, nature, etc) was nice and should have been in MW or Advanced Sorcery in some way in order to round out a key feature of fantasy gaming in a generic system. Magic World needed to be more magical, imo.

Personally, I’d just use Spell Law with spell lists as skills and new spells tied to advancement in those lists, similar to levels. Attack spells of certain levels do damage as per the demon power table in Advanced Sorcery. I feel a spell list approach is ideal for a percentile system generally. 

For me, the useful stuff in Adv Sor was the extra demon stuff and magic items. Deep Magic needs the extra rules posted by Chaot, imo. But they could be very cool with those additions. 

[Nikoli]

Basically, I couldn’t get my magical needs satisfied with MW or Adv Sor, but with some thinking and previous suggestions by Questbird, I was able to get the magic I wanted. I love MW as a system - I just needed more ‘magic’ for my ‘world’. 🙂 

[Guest Vile Traveller]

15 hours ago, Nikoli said:

Deep Magic needs the extra rules posted by Chaot, imo. But they could be very cool with those additions. 

I thought I saw these somewhere, but they don't seem to be in the Magic World Downloads section. 😕

[NickMiddleton]

These? 

 

[Nikoli]

3 hours ago, Vile said:

I thought I saw these somewhere, but they don't seem to be in the Magic World Downloads section. 😕

Nick above also posted a reformulated Deep Magic glyph and spheres table, if I recall. They were ordered in a more logical way, with more logical opposites and adjacent spheres. (I think I have the file as Deep Magic Revised.) I would also use that if using Deep Magic.

 

[Nick J.]

1 hour ago, Nikoli said:

Nick above also posted a reformulated Deep Magic glyph and spheres table, if I recall. They were ordered in a more logical way, with more logical opposites and adjacent spheres. (I think I have the file as Deep Magic Revised.) I would also use that if using Deep Magic.

 

I did. I can't remember if I did anything other than upload the revised graphic, but if anybody is interested I'm happy to upload my Deep Magic house rules (It's nothing special, just some minor tweaks that were inspired by @rsanford's Deep Magic revision). Also Ignore some of the fluff; it's strictly related to my Dolmenwood-Magic World game.

 

Deep Magic Revised.pdf

[tooley1chris]

I've always like variety in my games. I use at least parts of all the MW supplements and even some other compatible stuff. I see how keeping it simple is attractive but...

[RogerDee]

You know i have been wanting to run a kind of epic player adventure.

Premise, the beings from Legend Gigas Monstrum were just normal beings once, until they amassed great power to become immortals. So PC's would be able to tap into Divine, Arcane, Rune magic etc in their quest for godhood.