Too Many Spells?

[g33k]

51 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Ironically enough, GURPS Magic has, like, 800 spells or something? (and that's not counting GURPS Thautmaturgy's custom magic systems) So I'm not sure about this recommendation 🙂

GURPS is pretty up-front about its entire point-buy economy being based on _some_ assumptions about the world the characters are living in, and the kind of core activities they're going to do in it. These costs are meant to be modified by the GM if the game world is vastly different from these assumptions.

Hmm.  I haven't actually looked at GURPS in a trad-fantasy-ish setting (i.e. with lists of spells &c).

In the Hero system, you'd build (for example) a "Fireball" spell using the same rules you'd use to build a Star Trek phaser, or a 4-color-comic mutant's fire-powers.  The all-in-one "Fantasy Hero" book pre-builds such powers into some specific "spells" (for convenience), but they follow the DIY/self-build rules for general powers, and you're explicitly supposed to do more spells yourself, rather than expect more lists of spells from the publisher.

 

[Lordabdul]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

In the Hero system [...]

Some magic systems in GURPS work like that (like, say, the "magic as super/psychic powers" flavour), while others don't (like, say, the "schools of magic" flavour where spells are skills). Depends on the flavour, basically.

Frankly, the OP could ignore the spell lists in RQG and re-create everything from first principles:

1. Roll your Rune ability and if successful, describe something appropriate for your deity and roll for damage or narrate the outcome or whatever. Put some cap on it if needed.
2. Go and capture spirits (or ask a shaman or Rune Lord mentor to do it) and come up with whatever seems appropriate in terms of magic gained from it. Roll POWx5 to cast it. Put some cap on it if needed.

My guess is that between the PCs and NPCs, after a year or two of gaming, they'll end up with a spell list that's at least 3/4 of the rulebook list.

Edited March 2, 2021 by lordabdul