I am trying to make magic a bit more manageable in my campaigns, basically make it so that the magic using player doesn't end up as the solution to all the problems that it tends to be in my campaigns so far.


ex:

Player 1: I need to rescue that darn girlfirend who went and got caught again by that dastardly duke. But I need to find her room and the key.

Player 2: No problem, lets ask bob to use vision;

Player 3(bob): My character casts his formalized roving eye spell and reconoiters by remote

GM: The key to your girlfriends tower cell in in the far opposite tower around the dukes neck.

Player 1: now we just need to find a way to get in teh castle, steal the key, rescue her and sneak out.

Player 2: Bob, does your guy have movement?
Bob: yeah, level 2

Player 2: Use it to snag the key from the dukes neck and bring it to us?

Player 1: that will work but how do we get past the guards?

Bob: I can use conquer on them! or glamour! just give me some time to work up a good ritual spell or two that I can embed in these rocks.

Player 1: sweet!

Player 2: but bob,wont you age? Nah, I will use a few formalized spells or
cast them as spells of three or rituals using gestures and dialogue and then my familiar will soak some of the aging and as long as I dont go over 6 months its all good.

(this example stims from an actual scenario by the way)

End of example.

Now this might not be a problem for all gamers but its a pain in the buttocks for me, the magic user in the group becomes a human swiss army knife with a tool for every problem. He/she also tends to then dominate/marginalize the other characters and inevitably becomes the driver so to speak.

So, my solution can be one of two approaches or combo there of:

1- make magic more costly. My way to do this is to make every human sorceror have to take one wound distributed randomly(probably on the bludgeoning table) or using the generic table for each month aged. This represents what happens when a frail human body mishandles magic forces meant for teh fey alone yadda yadda. Whether I do this in conjunction with aging or instead of aging is not decided. I like this solution for its simplicity and ease of implementation. You dont really need to tinker with any of the other rules or character creation. Yet you still have the possibility of "aging" killing or maiming the mage. What player would risk letting his character be used as a swiss army knife left and right if a bad roll will end his life? This would get us back to the essay in the second print about sa's and magic.

2- limit magics scope and power. This can be done in many ways, one guy I know is making the vagaries split into 6 levels instead of 3 and thus slowing progression and power scope. Personally I am making magic more varied but narrower in scope. In other words, you may have a character who can do SOME of the vision effects but not others, and some of the glamour effects but not others etc. This requires a lot of tinkering though. And I mean a lot. thats re writing character creation and the entire sorcery section and character progression. Not that this might not be fun, but it will be time consuming.

I was hoping for thoughts, input, alternatives etc from the TROS community. Let me know if you have had similar problems and how you handled, or thought of handling them as well as what you think of my ideas. Thanks in advance guys!

This is what I call:

"Let's see what the magic user does syndrome"

Same experiences:

GM: This is the situatuion.... Blah blah blah etc.

PC's: The duellist, thief and noble all turn to Bob and say "what can you do?"

Highly annoying. The situation is exaserbated when you have a PC who made his wizard with lots of insight. Then all the players simply fall to a position of guarding the wizard as he makes all thier lives better.

I have also begun dividing the Prof levels into 6 levels instead of 3. This requires no other changes to the magic system, throttles down magic, and makes casting and ageing TN's a force to be reconed with in high power spells.

One of three vagarys I have finished (I just started) And please remember it's a work in progress...

CONQUER:
Implant:
1- an image
2- a simple emotion
3- simple words/thoughts
4- Complex thoughts strong intentions/desires
5- false memories short duration "you were here just a minute ago"
6- spirit/soul/demon/spell - long duration false mem "We spent the whole day together" "I am Legion"

Control:
1- simple reflex action - non threatening
2- speak short phrase - " "
3- performm simple deed - " "
4- As 1-3 but threatening or harmful
5- complex tasks and actions
6- Total Dominance "I am the puppet master!"

Repress:
1- recent images " i could have sworn I saw him somewhere before"
2- recent thoughts/memories "where did I put my sword"
3- recent occurance / 1 day "I was where?"
4- all info of a single person/place or thing
5- memories of entire singular events
6- Mind wipe - you are dealing with a clean slate.

EX: if you control someone you better implant a memory to make them think they willingly did it or repress the event because anything more than a reflex action and they'll start to wonder...

I think just boosting the levels to six, doubling the cost to raise them after chargen, and only allowing a sorcerer to learn new vagaries if he finds someone to teach him, would be more than enough.

Best of all you do not need to alter any other part of the TROS system. Character generation and the rest of the magic system stay exactly the same.

you could impose some sort of time limitation such that the sorcerer doesn't have time to develop rituals and use all the other minimization techniques...
don't formalized spells take weeks to develop?

for example: why did the duke catch the girlfriend? is she going to be around for the time it takes to formalize a spell? if the duke is so dastardly, why doesn't he just throw the girl off of a tall tower balcony when his key to her room goes flying out the window?

Does the duke have magical assistance of his own? if he doesn't, the first time that something like this happens why doesn't he get some? (assuming that he is as cavalier about magic use as the players are)

Perhaps the spell ctns are too low... for example for roving eye unformalized I get a ctn of 7 and formalized it is a 6 (T:0+R:3+V:0+D:1+L:2+1) Vagaries:Movement 2(speed 2, Maneuverability2), Vision 1(clairvoyance 1). meditation may reduce the ctn more but the dialog and gestures have no effect on rituals.

for the grab the key spell, I get a ctn of 9 (t:1+R:3+V:1+D:1+L:2+1)
Vagaries: Move 2 , vision 1. Doesn't sound like a minor risk to me and that is assuming that the target of the spell doesn't grab the key as it goes floating off. if you want to make it impossible to grab then the move becomes a 3 and D goes down to 0. If the duke is wearing the key, then I would require either sculpture 1 to break the chain or a volume of 2, target 3 to bring the duke with. not a trivial spell, just to grab a key.

You could also change it from 1, 2 and 3 to 1, 2 and 4. Insert soemthing about 3 being an unlucky number for Sorcerers reserved for witch's covens and holy trinities.

Oh and I nearly forgot. I am considering a rule for my Vagary re-write that any 1's rolled when a 3rd level hoodoo is invoked means that the spell has a complication. Check out the New Vagaries thread if you care to over at:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9191

Good luck.

deltadave wrote: you could impose some sort of time limitation such that the sorcerer doesn't have time to develop rituals and use all the other minimization techniques...
don't formalized spells take weeks to develop?

for example: why did the duke catch the girlfriend? is she going to be around for the time it takes to formalize a spell? if the duke is so dastardly, why doesn't he just throw the girl off of a tall tower balcony when his key to her room goes flying out the window?

Does the duke have magical assistance of his own? if he doesn't, the first time that something like this happens why doesn't he get some? (assuming that he is as cavalier about magic use as the players are)

Perhaps the spell ctns are too low... for example for roving eye unformalized I get a ctn of 7 and formalized it is a 6 (T:0+R:3+V:0+D:1+L:2+1) Vagaries:Movement 2(speed 2, Maneuverability2), Vision 1(clairvoyance 1). meditation may reduce the ctn more but the dialog and gestures have no effect on rituals.

for the grab the key spell, I get a ctn of 9 (t:1+R:3+V:1+D:1+L:2+1)
Vagaries: Move 2 , vision 1. Doesn't sound like a minor risk to me and that is assuming that the target of the spell doesn't grab the key as it goes floating off. if you want to make it impossible to grab then the move becomes a 3 and D goes down to 0. If the duke is wearing the key, then I would require either sculpture 1 to break the chain or a volume of 2, target 3 to bring the duke with. not a trivial spell, just to grab a key.

And as for not tossing the girl off teh balcony, would you throw the girl of your dreams off a balcony? Evil natured or not... and this guy was dastardly in teh selfish, self centered way, not random homocidal way.

yeah, you missed the point. Kinda the whole missed the trees because of the forest kind of thing.

Are you playing in Weyrth? If not, how is magic viewed in your world?

In the vein of your first solution, "make magic more costly," you could make some very strong political implications that turn casting spells into a fun game of intrigue.

This has the benefit of limiting the character not in a way that irritates them, but in a way that adds to the plot and enhances the game by adding more depth and nuance.

Some ideas on how magic might be dealt with:

A) People are superstitious and view all sorcery as the devil's work. Not only will overt displays of magic be regarded with shock and revulsion, but they will make the caster an instant outlaw of the worst sort to be hunted down and killed.

B) Magic may not be outlawed outright, but is still feared by the ruling class, and any magical acts performed against a noble will bring unreasonably harsh retribution.

In either of these cases, the duke (or his survivors should he die) can most likely easily make a case against the PC sorcerer for several reasons:

1) People are probably suspicious of the PC already because he carries strange objects and perhaps someone has seen him secretly performing the devil's chant (research or pre-casting spells into objects) in his residence. If authority is very loose, just looking like a sorcerer is likely more than half of the "proof" needed.

2) The trial can provide incredibly unfair methodology. Confessions can be extracted under torture, or the player can be put in a double bind - if he floats he's a witch, if he drowns...oops!

3) A duke is a very powerful person who's word is close in power to the word of a king. In fact, a given duke might possibly be even more powerful than his king depending on the politics at the time. Why does the duke need evidence? He *is* the law!

4) A duke can just have the sorcerer assassinated through intermediaries without dirtying his own hands and never get caught. No problem.

5) A duke is likely attended to constantly. Performing an act of sorcery on him without witnesses would be a true feat.

6) A duke has people lining up left and right to lie for him. For those who aren't lining up, that's what his immense coffers are for.

Now, if the duke doesn't know who did it, then we have a different situation, but if he knows that the players have reasonable motive to perform the actions, then really that's all a rat bastard duke needs for "proof." He can just use the situation to bump off one of his enemies. Whether or not it was the right one, the outcome was still good for him.

A duke has tremendous power, but it's not physical or magical. Have him use it. If the players want to monkey around with such a high profile person they had better keep a low profile. At the very least, the girl herself is likely a good enough way to trace the actions back to the party once it is over with.

Okay, here's what I'm doing in my game.

Whenever you do a spell that trips up a 3rd level thingie...3-Volume, 3 in a vagary, whatever, it means that the Sorcerer is using truly powerful and difficult magicks.

If in the roll for Sorcery Pool any dice come up with any 1's, there is a spell complication. You'd probably want to go through each Vagary and make a few complications for reach, keep 'em fresh. The spell won't fail and odds are, no PC's will die directly from a complication (unless the situation is truly precarious) but they could make the PC's lives a bit more difficult.

Any help?

I like that one paka.... I also came up with a novel solution to my problem, if one character wants to play a mage, ALL must play a mage! thus no one mage gets the swiss army knife treatment.

Ashren Va'Hale wrote: I also came up with a novel solution to my problem, if one character wants to play a mage, ALL must play a mage! thus no one mage gets the swiss army knife treatment.

the price to pay to play but I see your point. Of course I currently forbid all magic in my campaigns right now and the players haven't successfully lynched me yet.

Ashren Va'Hale wrote: the price to pay to play but I see your point. Of course I currently forbid all magic in my campaigns right now and the players haven't successfully lynched me yet.

do you at times have to beat your players away with sharp sticks too when you tell them no sorcery?

Ashren Va'Hale wrote: do you at times have to beat your players away with sharp sticks too when you tell them no sorcery?

Complications furthered. What if a sorceror sneezed during a spell because the stupid ass barbarian character let in a local stray dog, to which the sorceror was allergic? How would this affect spell-casting? Would the spell be less powerful? Would you consider the sneezing a 'fumble' of some-sort? What if a sorceror was in mid-spell and a rather sizeable spider came down in front of him? Etc.
Other shit like maybe having an intense itch or need to use the bathroom... in which case roll WP against a TN according to intensity of aforementioned sensation...

I'd like to see that explored a bit more, it would bring a bit of comedy to the table.. as well as some realism. Sorcerors are humans too, some of them anyways... so why would they not have humanistic behaviors to given stimuli?? Allergies, itching, fear, paranoia... etc.

-Ingenious

A different option than Paka's is to point out that when the PC's start throwing around magic it could bring them to the attention of magically aware creatures. The fact of their presence spreads like ripples in a pond. The fey and sidhe may not be common but they would defintiely want to know who is disturbing the neighborhood.

Another good one is to have the spirits of the dead flock to the magically active player. subtle but disturbing effects like seeing anguished faces out of the corner of your eye, finding small things moved from where you left them, cold drafts of wind wherever you go, shadows on the wall with nothing to cast them, etc. after a while other people will start to avoid you. I added up all the CTN's of the cast spells and when that totaled more than 20 this sort of thing started to happen, becoming more intense as the total went up. I also reduced the number by one in any week when the player used no magic...

Yet another option would be to have "soaked" aging stage down into something lesser, but which still has a price. Fatigue is the first thing that comes to mind. This might reduce the incidence of casting chains of spells, since the fatigue would affect the subsequent castings, but it's not a permanent impairment. Then again, I might also apply fatigue for when the aging roll is failed, too... I feel like there needs to be a bit more immediate consequence to suddenly aging a year.

One problem with this idea is that it will give an incentive for the sorceror not to go along with this group into dangerous situations, since casting spells is guaranteed to leave them weakened.

. . . . . . . -- Eric

I've just finished reading a book called "The Darkness That Comes Before" and I'm incorporating some of its ideas regarding sorcery into an upcoming game.

The first has already been mentioned: sorcery is considered wildly heretical and sorcerers are reviled and feared. Even consorting with a sorcerer is thought to put your soul in jeopardy. As a result, many would consider sorcerous solutions to problems to be the option of last resort.

The second is that there are items in the world called Chorae. They are small balls of iron engraved with sigils. They have two effects. The first is that they make any one who wears or bears one immune to sorcery. Magic just washes off them like water off a duck's back. The second is that a single touch from a Chorae will destroy a sorcerer, usually by starting a reaction the burns them from within in a matter of moments.