Topic: RMU and HARP

[MisterK]

I'm not trying to pick a fight over magic with you, simply stating that it really doesn't have to be explained in the books.

Actually, I have a different opinion as well, because any cosmology must be reflected in the rules, and that's especially true for magic as far as I'm concerned. In that regard, magic rules must always be driven by the setting.
The RM rules do constrain the setting. Quite a bit, as it is. The more you want to stray from the underlying (and, I must say, not that consistent, because of the valiant effort at genericity) cosmology, the more you need to change the rules - change the way people learn or discover magic, change the way people generate magical effects, change the way magic affects the world.
And RM provides much detail in how things work according to its underlying cosmology, but does provide very little detail on how to change the rules to fit another cosmology.

[katastrophe]

I’ll still go back to the basic issue of RMs spell system being an arbitrary constraint on some of the simplist magical effects having to be forced into a list structure that ultimately doesn’t make sense. As noted in my example, a magicians needs nearly 10 ranks of Fire Law to get a candle to ignite. While any mage with access to Fire Mastery can do it in 3 ranks. Why? Because there’s other things filling the list rank slot. I’m sure I can think of and find plenty other examples if I bothered to do.

I don’t think lists are inherently bad. But when they operate as straitjacket in a nonsensical way, they should be rethought. Updating a 40 year old game would have been the perfect opportunity to address what no longer makes sense in modern game design. Just because that’s how it was doesn’t mean that’s how it should be.

I still believe (my personal opinion and as someone that’s played a gazillion RPGs rover about 35 years) that a more intuitive and flexible approach would have been to strip out the repetitive spells and make the lists far shorter 8-15 spells in most cases. And then, since this is a skill based game, use spell mastery as the way mages add additional effects to the base effect.  An example might be

Create fire - this might be the basic slot 1 spell in fire law. Wall of fire, ball of fire and bolt of fire could very well be rote spells that get on the list of Fire Law spells.

Things like “ignite” would not need to be a rote spell but simply an effect under create fire with either a bonus or penalty to spell mastery.

Various shapes and sizes of Fire wall need not be rotes spells in the Fire Law list but circle or square or taller or wider would simply be Spell Mastery effects.

Split fire bolts and following fire bolts would be spell mastery effects.

It’s very silly ultimately that in the wind law list for instance there is a separate spell slot for what is a more effective and bigger version of stun cloud. Those should simply be mastery effects rather then additional rote spell slots.

What would the overall effect be by taking a more streamlined approach? Making spell law less dependent on repetitive spell to fill slots. Making spell lists make more sense. Make it less necessary to have 100s of spell lists which have a huge amount of overlap and rearrangement.

More importantly, it would Make spell mastery the defining skill which defines mages from archmages as Pures/Hybrids and would distinguish them further from semis at higher levels. It flips the skill system on which the game as based being the more important factor rather than simply how many spell ranks a character can build up.

Maybe when I have some time I’ll work on a magic companion for an alternate magic system that uses that principle. Do ya think the powers will allow that?

[5th Knight of Xar]

I think the spells and handling of the spell lists works great as they are now, no need to change or alter anything there.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Well since I'm apparently the only person whom cares about such things, I'll shut up now.

[katastrophe]

Well since I'm apparently the only person whom cares about such things, I'll shut up now.

You ain’t the only one. It’s just that in this forum (as it was in the beta forum), change wasn’t really sought. Ultimately all they wanted was a cleaned up version of their own house rules and sacred cows rather than relaunching the game for a new generation of players to come to the table.

[Barner Cobblewood]

Like the difference between using a mobile phone (tech with only practical knowledge), managing a network (tech with some theory letting you diagnose and fix the problem if it lies in the technique), and understanding the very nature of the universe (science) leading to new kind of tech.

If you're the guy who can create a phone from scratch with 99% reliability, it shouldn't be a mystery to you. More to the point, you should know what to watch out for and what steps to take to keep that bad 1% from turning up.

Maybe better examples would be using wands etc., casting spells, and researching new spells and lists. Agree a hundred per cent that in RM the last on the list is not at all up to snuff. But lots of folks don't really care, and there is no reason to insist they should.

But saying that a complete rule-system makes it unnecessarily difficult for GMs and players who want to do this is a fair and valid criticism of the system. As far as RMU is concerned we can wait for Spell Law to be released, but what I've seen in the beta doesn't make me think it will make the job any easier.

I guess the reason this is a pet peeve of mine is because it seems to me to be easier and fairer for the guys whose characters know nothing of magic to pretend ignorance even after they've read the books and know how magic works in the game, than for the guys whose characters supposedly know magic well enough to handle it casually on a daily basis to pretend knowledge that the game designers flatly refused to give them, because they wanted it to "feel magical."

Agree a hundred per cent. RM's magic theory isn't adequate for GMs to sensibly extend it through house rules, and for players to make sensible character decisions about how they want to interact with potential magic, without a lot of work, more than should be required.

Well since I'm apparently the only person whom cares about such things, I'll shut up now.

I think a lot of this would be addressed in a good setting, but maybe designing a good setting is harder than making a guideline rule-system, which is why there is a shortage of them compared with e.g. fantasy heartbreakers. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants a really good new setting for RM, and as long as that is not forthcoming it's hard for me to see how it will increase its player pool. My players come for the GM's work on the setting, not the game system. Those of us lucky enough to play with a good GM know Rule 0 is the rule that really matters. The other rules should be meant to help with that, not as tools for anyone to bash the players (including GM) at the table.

[GrumpyOldFart]

As noted in my example, a magicians needs nearly 10 ranks of Fire Law to get a candle to ignite.

To me this is precisely backwards. Using HARP as an example, if you want to be able to throw fireballs, you should (at a minimum) have had to learn the Ignite cantrip, and Arcane Ball should have been an "apprentice spell." Why? Because if you want to throw fireballs you have to first learn how to conjure fire and how to shape magical forces into a ball.

I can't say I care much for the RM list format, but one thing they have dead on the money is the idea that you can't learn the fancy, high powered stuff without first learning the basics.

And yes I agree, nearly 10 ranks before you can light a candle doesn't make any sense.

[Mordenkainen]

b) If you can't imagine "THAU 131 - Thaumatology 131, Fundamentals of magic use" in a university course catalog, then your magic system is a poor fit for your game system.

Still puzzling over what you meant by this. My brain just can't parse it.
My RM world just doesn't have magic courses with modern university-type names, because that doesn't suit the world. Using that nomenclature makes me think of Hogwarts-type institutions, with a safe and settled place in a structured society, rather than what I have in my world: ramshackle collectives of dangerous mages, often underground, with ad hoc teaching methods. That's all a matter of setting, not system.

[netbat]

Still puzzling over what you meant by this. My brain just can't parse it.
My RM world just doesn't have magic courses with modern university-type names, because that doesn't suit the world. Using that nomenclature makes me think of Hogwarts-type institutions, with a safe and settled place in a structured society, rather than what I have in my world: ramshackle collectives of dangerous mages, often underground, with ad hoc teaching methods. That's all a matter of setting, not system.

I think he is trying to get at the inverse of the idea "any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic". In your setting/world humans may not be there yet(no universities etc) but when they do advance enough to discover the rules of magic, you as GM should be able to imagine the university course and how it fits in with the rule system.
Even if your magic system is completely "magical" and every spell requires a random set of actions and preconditions as well as a random cost(from money to body parts to unborn children), at some point that would need to be codified and your rule system needs to fit it. The way magic works and the corresponding rules may be "magic" to the characters, and maybe even the players, but the GM needs to know how it works under the hood to fit it into the setting/cosmology and make sure it is consistent.

[GrumpyOldFart]

b) If you can't imagine "THAU 131 - Thaumatology 131, Fundamentals of magic use" in a university course catalog, then your magic system is a poor fit for your game system.

Still puzzling over what you meant by this. My brain just can't parse it.

What I mean is that if your world is one where practically everyone knows someone who can use magic, and practically every place larger than a village has at least one person living there who pays his bills by using magic, then it doesn't make sense for magic use to be mysterious and its presence to be shocking. If it's as or more common than college degrees in our world, it should be no more remarkable than college degrees in our world.

If practically every town with a population over 100 has a spellcaster living there, then it ain't rocket science, and that spellcaster shouldn't be treated by his culture as if he's a rocket scientist.

It's not terrifying or mysterious or shocking if it's 1 in every 50 people you meet. A blade of grass is exactly as miraculous as a baby or a tsunami, but you don't go around in awe of your lawn.

[jdale]

Every town has fire but they don't understand its chemistry. Every town has someone who can bake but they don't understand why yeast works (it wasn't identified as a fungus until the 1800's). People used the north star for navigation when they thought the world was flat and when they had no idea what stars actually were. You don't need to understand the underlying mechanics to use things, and for most of history people didn't. Scientific understanding is an anachronism in a fantasy setting. That's fine if it's the kind of setting you want to run, but it's absolutely not necessary, and it's certainly not medieval.

[sunwolf]

Seems to me their is an opportunity for someone to write and pitch a supplement with alternate ways magic could work in Rolemaster.
It could cover more HARP like spell lists but could also include other options as well such as using the rule of 3 or laws of sympathy and contagion

[tbigness]

I am working on my own list for this, 10 - 15 spells per list setup like Harp, adjustable with power infusion. This will be capped at the list level once the spell is learned. So if a list is at 10 ranks then a spell and adjustments must be equal or lower than 10 PP to cast. Spells can also be learned individually and capped at rank learned. This is great for incorporating minor cantrips into the game, may even get a 2 for cost of one spell rank discount and cannot be more than 2 PP to cast.  New spells can be researched and incorporated into current list as an additional spell or into a newly created list. This allows for unique spells that can be researched, learned by a mentor or discovered by scroll or book.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Every town has fire but they don't understand its chemistry. Every town has someone who can bake but they don't understand why yeast works (it wasn't identified as a fungus until the 1800's). People used the north star for navigation when they thought the world was flat and when they had no idea what stars actually were. You don't need to understand the underlying mechanics to use things, and for most of history people didn't. Scientific understanding is an anachronism in a fantasy setting. That's fine if it's the kind of setting you want to run, but it's absolutely not necessary, and it's certainly not medieval.

I agree, but that's not what I was saying. I'm saying that if magic use is as common as blacksmithing, then understanding of how it works, to the level typical of a journeyman or master blacksmith, should likewise be as common as such understanding is among blacksmiths. As I said in an earlier post,

"I have no idea what his formal knowledge of physics and metallurgy was, if any. But I am quite certain that there were techniques he used that were based on principles of physics and metallurgy, whether he was consciously aware of those principles or not. Maybe it was just along the lines of "If it's _____ color, it's ready to beat out. If it's _____ color, it's too hot, beating it out will cause _____ problem," etc. The point is that you at least have to know how it works, even if you don't know why it works."

The difference is that if the guy who plays the blacksmith wants to know something of how his character's skill works, he has endless amount of information that he can look up. The guy who plays the spellcaster, often as not, can either 1) make it up himself, 2) get the GM to make it up for him, or 3) suck it up.

My knowledge of sailing has made a life or death difference in a game more than once. Spellcasters don't get that option.

Seems to me their is an opportunity for someone to write and pitch a supplement with alternate ways magic could work in Rolemaster.

So far, it doesn't look to me like there's any market for it. I'm seeing more pushback than support.

[katastrophe]

The big RM setting, Shadow World, assumes the existence of Schools of Magic. That is exactly what the spell lists represent. To argue "in my home-brew setting" is the height of silliness. Almost all game modules and setting books for the RM system come from the Shadow World books which explains magic in exactly the way that "people learn from spell books", "mages get proper education", the actual professions and training packages support the assumption of spell colleges and formal learning. Gryphon College, the college at Sea Kai, the magic school in Norek. All suggest that magic is pretty common and almost everyone that casts magic is formally trained in magic just like a science.

I actually cant believe the argument that some of you making.

[MisterK]

There are actually at least two magical colleges in Haalkitaine - possibly/probably more than that, but at least two are referenced in the Haalkitaine book. It would make sense that there are others in the empire, especially in Lethys which is a larger city than Haalkitaine.

And about universities not being medieval - I would suggest checking the history of universities in Europe. Universities were not a *dark ages* thing, but they definitely were a medieval thing. If you add something like the printing press or any equivalent system (the printing press does exist in Shadow World, and magic can provide a similar service), then there is nothing to prevent the spread of knowledge and, as such, a convergence of efforts and ideas. Especially if there is no pushback from religious authorities.

[5th Knight of Xar]

I actually cant believe the argument that some of you making.

I think that might relate to the fact that many GMs have created their own fantasy settings, myself included, and designed how magic and more "works" in these settings. Don't be so upset because people don't agree with your views.

[Mordenkainen]

What I was pushing back against - perhaps idiosyncratically - is the idea of thumbing through a course catalog which contains "THA101". There is nothing wrong with this, it just doesn't gel with the way I have envisioned magic and played out magic learning for the last 35 years as GM. I envision more of an ancient (Athens) or medieval (early Oxford, not 16th C on) university setting. In this environment, you don't sign up for the course out of a prospectus. You go and see Old Aengus holding forth in the agora, and see if he will accept you in his inner circle after a while. In time, he may teach you the contents of some of his librams. That is the early university. And that does not preclude Old Aengus being part of a collective, even an officially licensed collective sanctioned by the state. It's all a bit ramshackle, but that's how it is. There's no marble counter where you ring the bell to pay your fee to the bursar. Or there may be, in the very biggest city, but that's not how most people learn magic.
Just my take, based on being a student of the ancient and medieval world. I always regarded RM (and any other RPG) rules as there to serve my imaginative vision.

[Merkir]

Putting aside Shadow World for a moment and talking more generally for any setting, the word college doesn't necessarily have to mean a physical learning location with a formal course. A perhaps less used definition of the word from the Cambridge dictionary is: "a group of people with a particular job, purpose, duty, or power who are organized into a group for sharing ideas, making decisions, etc."

This is the definition I've always assumed for fantasy rpgs, unless the setting overrides that definition with a more formal University-like approach.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I actually cant believe the argument that some of you making.

Perhaps I'm just showing my ignorance of the Shadow World setting.