[Burning Wheel] Wild Magic

[Luke]

We recently switched from our Tiernikan campaign (european medieval fantasy) back to our main (and long running) Orphans game (korean/japanese/chinese with a dash of western fantasy).

The players are playing high ranking members of the government during a back-room power struggle and imminent war.

The prime enemy and focus of the current situation is a single sorcerer. He was in the position of manipulating the entire government until the players staged a coup and arrested the governing council and secreted away the imperial family. The wizard was left behind and has since been rebuilding a shadow government. He had deployed a company of samurai to destroy the General of the Center's barracks and compound while the General and his men were out of town for the day.

The General returns to news that his men are under attack and rushes to their aid. With him is his long time friend who also happens to be a sorcerer (and was once a student of the wizard they oppose).

And the unthinkable happened...

The young wizard cast an Abstraction of Turn Aside the Blade on the General. He failed to meet his obstacle, and the spell varied.

Rather than casting a rather minor spell of protection, the young (but reasonably competent) sorcerer conjured a permanent eldritch lightning storm covering nearly the entire country (200 miles in every direction from the capital).

Permanent. Magic. Lightning. Storm. (Arcana and White Elements, Creative Impetus, Personal Origin, Permanent Duration, 100s of Leagues Area of Effect.

After we got done laughing, we started crying. The some of the players crowed at the wizard player: "It's over, you've destroyed the campaign!"
And they all agreed that this spelled disaster for the country as they knew it. (pun intended.)

I agreed that disaster was the order of the day, but I completely disagreed that they had destroyed or ended the campaign. I really was quite pleased.

The mage didn't destroy it (though he could have!), but he did change it.

I reined the players in and calmed things down. Then I narrated a passage of time scenario where they all waited for the storm to abate, but it just kept growing.

Now they started to get into it, they started to play their characters. And in this case, nearly everyone at the table had the Superstitious trait. It's a cultural trait for the people of the country they are playing. Now these characters each started to freak out in their own individual ways.

The young Lt Inspector in charge of guarding the imperial princess thought of nothing except fleeing back to his master in a distant city. He was about to run when I reminded him of his duty to the princess, was he just going to leave her? He decided he would attempt to convince her to come, but he didn't have a Persuasion skill! Rolling his B4 Will, he spent artha (double dice, reroll failures and open end 6s) and managed to roll an amazing 12 successes (which was his obstacle!). He convinced the princess to flee with him, it was their only chance of survival.

The young wizard fled and hid himself in a cellar and tried to wait it out. When I asked if he would ever cast a spell again, he thought for a moment and then replied smiling, "Yes."

The antiquer (and gambler), also holed up with the Inspector and the princess, hid indoors calculating his odds of survival if he fled through the storm. He has the Rainman trait, and thus he's been logging every lightning strike and their frequency. I think he's going to go mad.

The General of the Center broke down and penned a letter to his enemy, the wizard, beseeching him for help!

The last character, a hovmodig (aka big white guy) volunteer into the imperial rangers regiment, doesn't have the Superstitious trait. He burst in on the General as he was writing the wizard for help and physically assaulted him for his cowardice. The ranger tore up the letter and convinced the General that now was the perfect chance to assassinate the wizard. He would be distracted and easily taken!

Since the spell involved two elements, Arcana and White (Electricity), the storm is dual-natured. I decided it would interfere with magic as much as it would with daily life. Not only would it make using the Sense, Second Sight or Celestial Sight impossible, but it would also increase the variance of any spells cast within it. I'm still debating on exact mechanics for that though.

The players also chimed in with their own input into the storm's effects: I announced that moving in the storm would be dangerous, Pete countered that doing so safely would require a Die of Fate roll. They also wanted the lightning to have possible magical effects. They wanted a chance of a spell cast every time a bolt struck. After we wrangled over the exact facets of such spells I agreed to their suggestions: Characters moving in the storm are struck on a DOF roll of a 1. The DOF is then rolled again, on a 4+ they are hit with lightning as normal, on a 1-3, they are hit with a Single Target area of effect spell. They just loved the idea that they might be hit by a lightning bolt and turned into a fish monster. Go figure!

Burning Wheel is very much a game about making choices --lifepaths, Steel test results, negative traits, and scripting-- so such a random event does seem a little out of place. But when I think about it, choice does not indicate control. You make your choices in Burning Wheel, but you never quite know what is going to happen. And I think that this makes for interesting, tense and fun games.

-Luke

[rafial]

The young wizard cast an Abstraction of Turn Aside the Blade on the General. He failed to meet his obstacle, and the spell varied.

Rather than casting a rather minor spell of protection, the young (but reasonably competent) sorcerer conjured a permanent eldritch lightning storm covering nearly the entire country (200 miles in every direction from the capital).

Combine this with unwanted summonings, and I'd have to think that after a few hundred years of experience, any world with a BW magic system would have a "shoot on sight" policy regarding sorcerers.

[Luke]

Yes. Some of my players are discussing just such a policy of extermination after Sunday's incident.

We've had many many minor mishaps over the years, but never anything so cataclysmic. What's amusing to me is that this is one of those straw men you set up in-game: Master sorcerers are always always council young sorcerers and the uninitiated on how potentially dangerous magic is; warning them sternly never to cast a spell unless completely necessary. Of course the players (and many NPC wizards) ignore this caveat and go right on having their tea boiled and served by spellcraft.

And then something like this comes along, and suddenly that scarecrow appears mighty real and frightening.

heehee!
like I said, I love it. It was a player-initiated action, and they are going to feel obligated to fix it. Reversing such a mighty spell will require a lifetime of work and sacrifice. Who could ask for better fodder for player driven games?!

-L

[johnzo]

Combine this with unwanted summonings, and I'd have to think that after a few hundred years of experience, any world with a BW magic system would have a "shoot on sight" policy regarding sorcerers.

Well, if the world was still habitable after a few hundred years of experience with a BW magic system, then it would.    :)

It does kind of mess with my worldbuilding instincts to present a world where permanent catastrophe was a slim possiblity on every magic roll--such a world would, given time, be damaged in very odd ways.  But shit, as a player, I'd think I'd happily suspend my disbelief if I got to play out that lifetime of work and sacrifice that Luke was talking about.

(rats.  should've made a wizard character for Tarshish.)

zo

[taepoong]

I played the General and I just want to chime in with my own perspective.

The evil wizard was clearly gaining the advantage. An army of men was marching from the North on the capital where we were holed up. An army of Giants was marching from the South and West. The wizard held the central tower and was untouchable. We were losing the PR war against him and soon I was to be declared an outlaw. Things were looking so bleak for our heros.

And then this little snafu occurs. The enemy armies are caught in the farm fields surrounding the tower - no escape from the lightning, especially 20ft giants in plate armor! The evil wizard and his peers are rent nearly useless because of the magic storm. I am sure our final conflict will be won by our side as they have no defenses now. So maybe this storm was a good thing in terms of finally defeating our most ancient enemies? Sure, an entire nation is turned into Mordor, but at least the bad guys are dead, right?

It's completely the wizard PC's fault. It was only base Ob 4 abstraction (so he needed 8 successes for no variation) - it should be fairly easy for 11 or 12 dice that he rolled. But he was a fool. He did not cast Patiently and Carefully, which is a must for Abstractions on the fly. This probably would've brought the base Ob to only 1, with 2 necessary for no variation! He also thought he could get away with a failed spell, even though he had the Artha to reroll those failures. He brought his own ruin and the ruin of the nation. This event did not have to occur.

With that said, as a player, I think was happened was brilliant. The story has completely changed now for those characters and I like that. Perhaps now our focus goes from defending the nation to finding a way to reverse this cataclysm?

The really amusing thing for me is that the characters involved in this event were our secondary characters. They were the students and apprentices to our main characters, who are in far distant lands. I can't wait to roleplay out my main character's reaction to the news!

[Lxndr]

Remember, REGULAR BW magic isn't nearly as catastrophic as this.  Most sorcerers cast spells that are, well, PRE-MADE, researched and stuff.  This is on-the-fly casting at its best.

So, the world is likely to still be habitable after a few hundred years with a BW magic system, assuming that the majority of spellcasters are willing to be patient and careful in their abstractions, and to do their utmost to cast non-abstract spells.

That said, I'm now wanting to run a game where ALL the PCs are abstract casters.  No exceptions.  This has sold me on moving Burning Wheel up in my "what to run" list.

[taepoong]

I am trying to think of other spell failure results in BW:

1) A Mage Sense spell permanently blinded the caster

2) Another Sense spell left a room in a tavern glowing with daylight... pemanently

3) I forgot the original intent of the spell, but its failure resulted in an NPC being drained of 3 Forte points... permanently!

4) A Breath of Wind spell failed and a Greater Demon surged forth from the caster's belly.

5) An enemy NPC wizard was interrupted during his casting and that resulted in the summoning of a Greater Imp which immediately possessed him!

6) A spell to create a permanent tunnel resulted in a 3 second blast of White Fire!

Looking back, I think we were really unlucky with all those "Permanent" results! :o(

[Mike Holmes]

I think that the habitability issue comes down to monitoring bodies. That is, these side effects are like pollution. If left to their own devices, I think that people using magic would soon make the world uninhabitable. But there are societal pressures involved similar to those that make us refrain from littering.

That is, people will use magic, but will only do so in ways that won't likely annoy the family, neighbors, etc. Now, this means that occasionally something will still go wrong. In that case, the level of control of that sort of random event is based on monitoring bodies. How well are these guys policed, and by what means? If they were held to OSHA standards they'd rarely be able to cast at all (you get what I mean). If there's very little controls on these folks then I think they will end up polluting a lot. Which means the eventual purges of them.

So, is there a Guild in your wizards neighborhood? If this is common, then I think that you can have long-term maintenece of relations. The occasional failure will be seen as accidental and something that they're working on keeping to a minimum. If, OTOH, wizards are all mavericks, then I think that they'll have to do it in secret, or risk being pursued by people who will likely only see these side effects as malicious.

Either way the world remains habitable.

Mike

[Luke]

hi mike,

i largely agree with you. It's pretty easy to insert some fluff that explains the problem away. But I decided to tackle this self same question in a bit more theoretical manner over at rpg.net.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=91910

based loosely on ralph's ranting, i'm saying that "the wizards" haven't destroyed the world because they aren't "the characters" and they aren't driving the situations.

Or maybe i've just lost it and am flamebaiting on rpg.net.

-L

[DaGreatJL]

You know, reading this kind of makes me wonder about how the common man might view things. So, a PC, who's opposed to the NPC wizard, casts a spell that JUST SO HAPPENS to decimate the wizard's army and make them unable to defend themselves, laying waste to the nation in the process. If I were a player, I'd worry about mobs with pitchforks and torches coming after me... good thing they won't dare go outside, weather being such as it is...

[Valamir]

I stopped reading that thread, Luke, when it became obvious that people weren't actually reading anything that you wrote.

"Ug...me big poster, me no read so good.  Abzu...him say setting suxxors.  Me think setting roxxors.  Abzu you SUCK!"

"Hi, I'm the self proclaimed 'voice of reason'.  My answer to everything is 'different strokes, can't we all just get along, everyone's opinion on everything is equally valid so there can be no right or better way for anything'.  I show up in every thread and say the same thing which amounts to nothing".

"I'm afraid I must disagree with you completely, and here's why...blah...blah...blah <stuff that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything you actually said> blah blah...so you see, you're wrong"

"Ug...Abzu...you stupid"


Whatever.  I lost interest in trying to parse out intelligent commentary somewhere around page 3.



In other matters, however, what a cool reason to have Damage Control Wizard Teams.  Sounds like something out of Harry Potter.  The Ministry to Fix Catastrophic Events, Magical Weather Division, Department of Lightning.

"Stay calm everyone, nothing to see here.  We'll have it right as rain in a jiffy...heh...'right as rain', sometimes I kill myself"

[Luke]

LOL

This is completely off topic...

Actually it got pretty interesting after page 3. A few other enlightened folk (who also happen to post on this site) started chiming in with some good dialogue.

I had some christmas presents to wrap and some fulfillment to take care of and then work so I lost track of it somewhere around page 10.

I'm not terribly handy with rpg theory -- i tend to get a little too zealous -- so my posts always come off as preachy and narrow, but it's never really intended that way. But I really enjoyed the discussion and I think it did serve to refine my ideas. I am planning on posting a "wrap up."

great fun, really.

btw, ralph, I LOVE the "setting+character = situation" equation. Farking brilliant.

-Luke

[Valamir]

btw, ralph, I LOVE the "setting+character = situation" equation. Farking brilliant.

-Luke

Yeah it is.

Which is why I stole it from Ron...:-)

[Ron Edwards]

At last, acknowledgment.

Guys? This really isn't the place to debrief discussions from other internet forums.

So, let's focus this thread on something-or-other to do with Wild Magic, or close it.

Best,
Ron