Question about Magical Aptitudes

[coffeestain]

What is the intention of having Magical Aptitudes and Items require only one Magic Token per session to activate, while Magical Effects require one token per use?  Is it to encourage specialization?

For example, in the example on Pg. 47 where Russel is the spellcaster, it's been previously established that he has a spell that allows him to summon a ghostly warrior.  So he'd have to spend a token every time he wants to summon his ghostly warriors.

However, if Russel had the Magical Aptitude "Spirit Summoner" and had previously established a fact: Spirit Summoners can summon ghostly warriors, he could summon them as often as he'd like for one magic token, as well as performing any other abilities inherent to his Spirit Summoner aptitude.

Is the difference that anyone knowing the spell can summon ghostly warriors in the first example, and that only Spirit Summoners can do so in the second example the difference?  Or am I missing something deeper?

Regards,
Daniel

[Brennan Taylor]

I think the example is just poorly worded. The example is meant to illustrate that if Russ' has the"spirit summoner" aptitude, and a magical fact has previously established that he can summon ghostly warriors, he must activate that aptitude with a magic token in order to have the ghostly warriors show up.

[coffeestain]

Ah, great!  So for the most part, magical facts will be tied to magical aptitudes, correct?

Though I could totally see someone coming up with a magical fact that applied to everyone in general, and I can think of some pretty cool examples.  But those would be pretty few and far between.

Regards,
Daniel

[Nathan P.]

I dunno. I would say its the other way around - most Magical Facts apply to every Magical Aptitude, unless the Fact is narrowly constrained, or there is a multiplicity of Magical Aptitudes in your game.

Magical Facts that are about the nature, scope or general effect of magic (like "all magic sucks soul energy out of its user" or "magic cannot harm a child" or "only normal people can see magic when its used") are global, in the sense that, hey, that applies to "magic" in general.

Now, "Spirit Summoners can summon ghost warriors" - I suppose if you have different kinds of magic workers, then this fact would only apply to those with the Spirit Summoner Aptitude.

[coffeestain]

Nathan,

The majority of magical facts I've seen as examples have been linked to an aptitude of some kind or another.  Can you show me some examples where this isn't the case?

Regards,
Daniel

[Nathan P.]

Hey Daniel,

Hmm. Well, in our game at DexCon, we established the following magical facts (among others)

Magic is the projection of emotional force, so in order for magic to work, strong emotion must be felt by the magic-worker. Pain and fear are the easiest and most reliable emotions to force onto a captive magic-worker. (So, we started calling magic-workers Projectors, and thats what I think the Magical Aptitude was called on people's sheets).

The magical effect created by a Projector stems from the emotion they feel when they create it (price: and this emotion resonates back into the handler, in the form of dreams).

A Projector can only physically create something if they have experienced that thing in the context of the emotion they feel when they create it. So, Alexander's character formed a wall of spiders - which meant that my character, as his handler, must have covered him in live spiders, or something, at some point in the past.

And so on. I suppose that, in a way, these are all linked to the Projector Magical Aptitiude - but we also established that magic works in this manner in the theme document. So, all declarations about "magic" applied to what our characters were using and doing. I suppose that someone could have used a Magic Token to establish that theres another way for magic to work, but I feel like thats outside the scope of Magic Token use as written (Brennan, your thoughts?)

So, I guess I should amend my comment to, in the absence of multiple magical aptitudes made possible by the theme document, most Magic Token use is "global."

Does any of that help, or make sense?

[Brennan Taylor]

And so on. I suppose that, in a way, these are all linked to the Projector Magical Aptitiude - but we also established that magic works in this manner in the theme document. So, all declarations about "magic" applied to what our characters were using and doing. I suppose that someone could have used a Magic Token to establish that theres another way for magic to work, but I feel like thats outside the scope of Magic Token use as written (Brennan, your thoughts?)

All magic using individuals in that game were projectors, and this was established by the theme document. Because of this, every fact that was created regarding projectors was universally applicable. In the Old Gods game, if you recall, each god had his own domain and could establish facts about that particular domain. Any other god sharing the domain was affected by the new fact, but other gods were not.

[coffeestain]

Thanks for clarifying, guys!  So it sounds like it's very dependant on the theme document and whether or not there are multiple, distinct magical aptitudes in play.

Regards,
Daniel

[RPL]

I've just finished reading Mortal Coil and I'm waiting for a chance to have a go at it with my gaming group, so I'm not really familiar with the system working in play and just to see if i got all this magical aptitude mechanics right could say if this is right:

Theme document
There are 2 types of magic the Light and the Dark side (lame but it works for the sake of example)

PC1 has magical aptitude: Use Magic of the Light
PC2 has no magical aptitude

PC1 decides do sacrifice a Magic Token to add to the Theme document that Magic of the Light allows its followers to heal people, the price is that he looses a day in his life by doing so.

So from here on end PC1 can commit a Magic Token each session he wishes to heal people via Magic of the Light, and then commit another token if he wishes to use another application of Magic of the Light.

PC2 decides he wants to heal people using magic also, does this means he has to buy the Using Magic of the Light aptitude or can he just buy Healing People With Magic of the Light aptitude, it seems kinda of a dumb question but I just want to see if I get every detail of this straight.

[Brennan Taylor]

Daniel,

You are very close to correct, here. Actually, PC1 can activate his Magic of Light Caster aptitude once, and then gain access to all of the abilities tied to this aptitude for the rest of the session without having to spend another magic token. He just needs to spend one initially to bring it in.

PC2 has no magical aptitudes, so he would need to learn one in order to access the magic available there. Magical abilities are always tied to magical aptitudes or items.

[coffeestain]

Brennan,

FYI, unless the above poster is also, coincidentally, a Daniel, I think you're answering the wrong person!  But that's neither here nor there, really.

As a followup question, is it your experience in play, then, that characters tend to sacrifice more Magic tokens than they spend?  It seems to me that you'd really only need to spend one or two per session (one to activate your Aptitude and maybe another to activeate an item).  Unless, that is, a character has a bunch of magical Aptitudes, which seems inefficient.

Regards,
Daniel

[Brennan Taylor]

Players should definitely sacrifice more tokens than they spend. However, there is a reason to keep some around as a resource during play as well, so players need to make sure they don't spend all of their magic tokens.

[coffeestain]

Cool, Brennan, thanks.

Regards,
Daniel