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Why Magic World Failed


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  • 2 weeks later...
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  • 2 weeks later...

I loved MW and still do. I never quite got on with the RQ idea of you, me your gran and misses Fig the squib out of Harry potter can all cast magic. If magic is universal then everybody has to be able to cast or they lose and that was never for me. I was never a great fan of Glorantha. I have spent many an hour or three reading endless texts about some tribe, god or some other thing, only to think "look, can I just be a dwarf and live in the Iron hills and carry an axe". 

I loved the power of the magic, the danger of the combat and the high ability scores. Do you remember OSR D&D where you could be a wizard and at level one had 1 spell that you could cast once per day and 1d4 Hit points and could roll a one.

I loved the high fantasy nature of MW and the game system worked. For me it had the original RPG feel with a really functioning game system.  The world was super simple, so I could refit it to my tastes. Of course it wouldn't be so "Bland and generic", if a particular game company we all know had bothered to support the product line. 

But sure, Chaosium had some problems back then and it's understandable that a nice game with low sales that didn't make much money got dropped. Why would you write for a game that didn't make much money when you could write for a much more famous one that did. 

I still play MW. I just keep going back to it. It was one of the easiest sells to my gaming group that I have ever had. In the first few sessions we travelled a bit, had a fight with some monsters, sacked a ruin, cast some magic and everybody said, "Hey this is great". It wasn't pretentious. It was simple good fun. 

 

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3 hours ago, NurgleHH said:

The last update at drivethru is from the July 17th, 2015. So I don't think that there happened a lot of correction.

I think the first release of the PDF was on 5/13/15 so the one you see would be the later revision. Also there was a 2 page errata document from December of 2014. Hopefully most of those corrections made it to the newer document.

Check out our homebrew rules for freeform magic in BRP ->

No reason for Ars Magica players to have all the fun!

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On 4/6/2021 at 12:40 PM, NurgleHH said:

The last update at drivethru is from the July 17th, 2015. So I don't think that there happened a lot of correction.

I bought a spare hard copy form Chaosium last year, and thus got an official copy of the latest PDF direct from Chaosium, which has the same created time stamp (17/07/2015, 17:48:35).

I think, but have not actually done a careful sweep, that there are some further typos and minor omissions that have come to light in the subsequent 6 years.

Big Jack Brass collated / saved for posterity Ben's original errata listing, plus some additional items IIRC, and I think most were included in the revised PDF.

One genuinely constructive thing those of us with access to the latest PDF (mine is called "magic_world_revised.pdf") could do is to comb our PDFs for all such typographical errors / oversights that other users might appreciated knowing about and compile a further errata list.

Such a comprehensive list of typographical errors could also be of use for Chaosium in prepping a PoD version, if that ever happens. It's hard to see they'd want to dedicate the resource to any substantive revision of layout / art, but simple typographical mistakes etc one would hope could be accommodated, and if there's already a robust list to work from it can only make that easier.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/9/2021 at 3:56 AM, NickMiddleton said:

 

I bought a spare hard copy form Chaosium last year, and thus got an official copy of the latest PDF direct from Chaosium, which has the same created time stamp (17/07/2015, 17:48:35).

I think, but have not actually done a careful sweep, that there are some further typos and minor omissions that have come to light in the subsequent 6 years.

Big Jack Brass collated / saved for posterity Ben's original errata listing, plus some additional items IIRC, and I think most were included in the revised PDF.

One genuinely constructive thing those of us with access to the latest PDF (mine is called "magic_world_revised.pdf") could do is to comb our PDFs for all such typographical errors / oversights that other users might appreciated knowing about and compile a further errata list.

Such a comprehensive list of typographical errors could also be of use for Chaosium in prepping a PoD version, if that ever happens. It's hard to see they'd want to dedicate the resource to any substantive revision of layout / art, but simple typographical mistakes etc one would hope could be accommodated, and if there's already a robust list to work from it can only make that easier.

That’s a good idea. That would allow some of the more egregious errors to be corrected.

Check out our homebrew rules for freeform magic in BRP ->

No reason for Ars Magica players to have all the fun!

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  • 1 year later...
On 7/23/2022 at 12:01 PM, Tentacled Whisperer said:

I keep hoping for foundry support for MW as it looks the most likely way to bring stormbringer to the foundry VTT with its lack of proprietry entanglements

That would have to be a real passion project for some coder (well beyond my feeble python and javascript skills).

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On 7/24/2022 at 2:01 AM, Tentacled Whisperer said:

I keep hoping for foundry support for MW as it looks the most likely way to bring stormbringer to the foundry VTT with its lack of proprietry entanglements

 

Roll20 has support for both Magic World and Elric! character sheets

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I am setting up a Magic World campaign on Roll20 (using the mechanics, not the specific game world). I wish I had rollable spells, monsters, weapons, etc. (like an actual compendium) but it is what it is. Any advice, good people? I am so fucking done with 5e. Chaosium's BRP is the best system out there, but it's not supported on Roll20. Because God hates me. 

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2 hours ago, GothmogIV said:

I am setting up a Magic World campaign on Roll20 (using the mechanics, not the specific game world). I wish I had rollable spells, monsters, weapons, etc. (like an actual compendium) but it is what it is. Any advice, good people? I am so fucking done with 5e. Chaosium's BRP is the best system out there, but it's not supported on Roll20. Because God hates me. 

I am starting a plan to update the M-W sheet so it can have rollable spells. May take a week or two to get done, then up to a week to be published. Is there any specific spell information you like to be able to record or display in the chat?

Good luck with your game, ask questions if you like.

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42 minutes ago, Imaginosmusic said:

I am starting a plan to update the M-W sheet so it can have rollable spells. May take a week or two to get done, then up to a week to be published. Is there any specific spell information you like to be able to record or display in the chat?

Good luck with your game, ask questions if you like.

That's fantastic. Since I play using Roll20 for a VTT, it's nice to have spells that we can just click on. With that said, MW/BRP spells are much easier to use narratively (vs. D&D, which is super tactical). MW is such a great game. I am a Chaosium junkie. Let me know if you want me to test anything, or if I can help in any way. I am not terribly technical, but I have enthusiasm!

🙃

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On 8/7/2022 at 6:29 PM, GothmogIV said:

 Let me know if you want me to test anything, or if I can help in any way. I am not terribly technical, but I have enthusiasm!

🙃

I can set up a game with the latest changes to the sheet and let you click and try to break things. I can also make a bunch of macros for you to copy to your own game. Let me know.

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