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From: [e-mail] (Joseph Poirier)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Sorcery?  No dice.  |  continuation, part 1 (long)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 6 May 88 22:32:41 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Joseph Poirier)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 171

   For those readers who were interested in B. Burdick's magic system
posted earlier, here is more.  To help things out, he can be reached
at "[e-mail]" until late June.  That may save me some mail,
as I am posting his articles.  Note that my account it NOT [e-mail]...
However, I don't mind mail, either :-)

   -- Joseph

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I've gotten a few encouraging responses, so I'm gonna continue posting
things about this system.  Some questions I've gotten deal with the similarity
of this to Stormbringer's system, demonic personalities, and spell-effects of
demonic origin.  I'd like to deal with these, but first I want to talk about
a system of resolving contests of will, which has worked very well for me in
the past...

    1) narrator (my word for DM) takes a deck of cards and shuffles it.
    2) players involved alternately draw cards.
    3) the first one to draw an ace *loses*. -- this makes the contest
        like russian roulet.
    4) if the ace was an ace of spades, the loss was *really* bad.

    if one of the characters is as more powerful, the player of the weaker
    character draws some cards first (maybe the narrator rules that he
    draws N cards, maybe he must draw until he gets a card whose number
    is less than X...)

That's the type of thing I'll be referring to when I talk about contests of
wills.

for those who want to skip things, the Stormbringer thing is labeled 'ONE:',
the spell effects of demonic origin is labeled 'TWO:', and the demonic person-
alitiy bit is labeled 'THREE:'.  They're in that order, too.

ONE: ** this system compared to stormbringer **

1) why I think mine is better (or else I'd play Stormbringer's, because it's
   a pretty neat system, anyway).

    If you remember the first article, I gave some rules of thumb I used
    in coming up with this system and one of them was that the system had
    to be 'alive,' not a technology masquerading as magic.  well, I think
    that Stormbringer's system is a technology.  I like it better than
    spell-list systems, because it has an underlying consistancy, but it's
    consistancy is too consistant.

    what I mean is (pardon the lowercase sentence beginnings, please..),
    you draw a circle, pentagram, whatever, then you summon the demon
    which the player 'creates' (essentially) to his specifications, and if
    you win a Stormbringer-brand of contest of wills, he does whatever you
    want.

    I'm not saying this is bad.  but personally, I don't like all of the
    dice rolling and all of the reliability.  in my world, there are no
    pentagrams, circles, etc., and you don't control demons.  you must con-
    vince them, with nothing but your reputation and a good deal to pro-
    tect you.  But more on the rational behind this (and why the demon
    doesn't just kill you and leave), later.

2) if you're gonna still use Stormbringer's system (and you can substitute mine
   instead, if you want -- it will be compatable with the game), here's my 2-
   cents on what Stormbringer demons are like (roughly an exerpt (sp?) from a
   reply to Dave Martin at ucdavis -- I hope he got it..).

    a) cosmic flukes.  somewhere in The Chronicles of Corum, I believe,
       gods are explained as cosmic flukes.  These are the really powerful
       brand of demon.  they don't really seem to have and compassion or
       love -- they're more like insects or lizards emotionally.  They
       do seem to have goals, though (the chaotic ones, even).  They seem
       to try to achieve an image and warp their whole being towards this
       goal (Arioch only had two or three major forms in the Elric books
       and The Chronicles of Corum).

    b) ex-mortals.  these seem to be pretty pathetic.  They're powerful,
       but their souls are tortured and they have little volition of their
       own.

    c) aliens.  beings from other planes/planets.  they can have magic,
       but they're still mortal...

    d) that guy who guarded the beggar-king's treasure really bothers me.
       he doesn't seem to fit in with all of the rest.  maybe he was an
       alien... maybe I'm all wrong, I don't know.

that's maybe some idea of Moorcock demons, I'm not all that well-versed in
his works, so I can't be certain...

TWO: ** I'll talk about spell-effects of demonic origin here...

my friends-back-home and I came up with a spell-system based on demons, once,
but we busted it pretty quickly (system-busting is finding some loop-holes in
a system that result in disproportionately big characters, making it useless
after that, because it just isn't any fun anymore {here's one for all of you
GURPS players: try to make a beginning goblin mage with 40 pts of disadvantage
-- you can use albinism as one.. -- who can cast apportation of a reasonable
size at no cost, once a turn (every second!), create brute warrior at no cost,
once a turn, and create item at no cost, once a turn.  You can do it.  Then
take this character and be creative and see how many people think he's a god.})

however, maybe someone can use it anyway...
(this is a different system, and so it's a big tangent, search for 'THREE:' if
you want to skip this...)

each demon had a type of spell effect it could produce.  demons were grouped
into five classes:  piddley, small, average, big, and so-large-it's-silly.
a wizard had a level of skill, also a 1-5 scale. a wizard could summon a demon
and tell it to do a certain task when the wizard said a certain word (or when
the one wearing this-here ring said the word, for a one-shot magic item).  If
you 'bound' several demons to the same word, you could get really complex spell
effects.  If several wizards got together to summon a demon or five, their
levels multiplied (to simulate a synergistic effect).  We made a couple of
town-reckers, before we decided to try another system, but it was fun (we
trashed a whole castle and army with one spell that took a couple months to
make...)

anyway, that's an idea.  I posted it here, rather than replying to the one
who sent me mail (William K Karwin) -- I hope this helps in the idea.  Oh
yeah, only some of the demons are completely visible on this plane -- most
of them appear as the spell effects (some look like balls of fire, etc).
and it took time to summon a demon -- it had to run to the gate on it's own
plane when you summoned it, so it wasn't always good in a short fight...

THREE: ** finally I get to the point -- demonic personalities in my system **

all demons used to be alive at some time. even the big dude, himself, Santanos
(yes, it's an anagram).  Mortals use up their soul's energy feeding their
flesh.  Demons (who live in an energy-rich environment) have no flesh to feed
(and thus must posess people to feel the lusts and pleasures of the flesh), so
they grow in power faster than mortals (also, they don't ever completely die,
so if they manage to last for a few thousand or million years, they can get
pretty BIG.), although not that much faster.

when you lose your body, your form is determined by your thoughts.  So,
if your thoughts are weak, your body will be vague.  The more you stew in your
own thoughts (that is, the more other demons leave you alone), the stronger
and more defined those thoughts get.  Your self-image starts to give you a
form.  Theoretically, if a demon had complete control over his thoughts, he
could completely control his form, which is just a chunk of reality, so he
would be omnipotent within his own 'body,' which can be thought of as his
domain or territory (he could be a whole little world).

This is what Santanos has come close to.  He *is* hell.  His psyche is far
too big to be contained in the universe, so he 'popped out' and became his
own 'plane'.

So it is that demons have areas of speciality in their 'magic.'  Some demons
appear as insects or animals, or other earthly things, others have far more
chaotic-seeming forms, but there is an underlying reason behind a demon's ap-
pearance (unless he's *really* powerful), so by careful observation, one
might figure out his weaknesses and strengths...  One could also become very
frightened this way, if the demon is nearby...

it is usually best not to summon the *really* powerful demons.

I'm gonna end here and post another, so that the article isn't too long...

        -- Bill

=-=-=-=-=-=

   Bill can be reached at:  [e-mail]  -or-  h.cc.purdue.edu!sgj
      until late June.

   I can be reached at:

--
Joseph Poirier    UUCP  :   [e-mail]  pur-ee!i.cc.purdue.edu!ach
                  BITNET:   POIRIER@PURCCVM      PHONE:  [phone]