Scaling BW magic to fit setting -- possible solutions?

[Angaros]

I'm currently using BW in my Hârn campaign and it works like a charm. One thing that hasn't seen any use though is the BW magic system. This will change though as there are magic using baddies in the campaign. As it is, I don't think the BW magic system really fits Hârn. Magic is too powerful at low levels, takes too short a time to cast, and the failure system (when used with abstractions at least) can produce results that are just too whacky for my taste. My question is: Is there a simple way of scaling the system or would I be better off trying to write a new one? (please say I don't have to do that)

The Pvaric system of magic (Hârn's system) revolves around six convocations: Lyahvi (air), Peleahn (fire), Odivshe (water), Fyvria (earth), Savorya (spirit) and Jmorvi (metal or matter). Magi are usually attuned to only one of these elements, using spells that either deal with the realm of their convocational element or the realms neighboring them. The convocations are organized on a wheel. Magi can ascend though after many years of practice and become gray sorcerers. When they do so, they no longer suffer any modifications for casting spells from any convocations. Normally you get a bonus when casting spells from your primary convocation, and suffer penalties when you cast spells from your opposed convocations. The level of power is a bit difficult to assess IMO, but there is definately a great potential for the use of magic, but fresh magi (3-4 LP equivalents) aren't as skilled and powerful as those in BW.

I've been toying with an idea to make magic more about knowing the right kind of spell than knowing a spell powerful enough. I have no idea how to accomplish this though and it's not entirely in line with Hârn's magic, but it's an interesting idea. A Swedish rpg developer called Krister Sundelin thought of a concept where spells had a number of "unordered levels" which he called colours (to be able to work with the idea). If you knew "Open door" in the colours blue, red and green (three out of five colours), you would still not be certain to be able to open all kinds of doors since they could have been sealed with any other combination of colours. How this would work with spell used against non-magic targets I don't know, but it was an interesting seed he put in my head. :) Using 5 colours, you would be able to have 2^5 combinations of each spell. This means spells have to be fairly general or colours easy to learn, but that's a later issue.

[Kevin]

I suppose it depends on the result you're after.

A simple way to do it would be to take the various facets in the Abstraction rules and assign them to each convocation. Tack on a +2 Ob penalty (or whatever) if someone tries to cast a spell outside their convocation. If you have Grey sorcery skill you no longer suffer the penalty.

If only certain facets seem over-powerful, you can just boost the Ob on those.

I admit I'm not closely familiar with the details of the Harn magic system so these suggestions may not capture things quite right.

[Thor Olavsrud]

Hey Angaros, have you downloaded the sample Magic Burner chapters? Abstractions might be exactly what you're looking for. Using full Abstractions is a hell of a lot more difficult than casting distilled spells, and takes a lot longer, but it might do the trick.

Or you could go with Summoning. Summoning is the most freeform of all the types of magic available in Burning Wheel. Have starting wizards specialize in one type of spirit (Earth, Air, Fire or Water), or dabble in Named summoning if they don't care much about their souls. Summoning is very cool, very powerful, and very dangerous. In fact, summoners often are very careful about what they actually ask Spirits to do, since that determines the type of retribution the spirit is likely to seek.

So if you summon and bind a road spirit (Earth) to prevent Orc scouts from reaching a certain place on the road (say the castle gates), it will do so (and possibly for a very long time). But the summoner better be damn careful about using that road in the future, because if he steps onto it, he may not find his way off for an equally long period of time.

Better not to ask that Water spirit to drown your enemies, because you'll never want to go near that body of water afterward.

[luke]

Hi Angaros,

I'd actually suggest using Abstractions with the following tweaks:

• Characters must purchase facets, not set spells
• Double the rp cost of all facets
• No distillation
• Allow helping rules for casting and Tax
• Disregard spell variance rules
• Limit facets to taste

This'd create a ponderous, slow, yet freeform magic. It would be bluntly powerful magic that encouraged sorcerers to band together to create their effects.

By limiting facets, you can shape what certain schools know and what they don't.

I've never played Harn, so I have no clue what the actual feel for the magic is. I'm sure their system could be modelled more accurately but, in my ignorance, this is the best I can do.

-L

[Angaros]

That sounds very satisfying, especially the part about helping out. There is evidence, or at least rumors of a huge freak storm being made by a large group of mages from a kingdom known for it's high concentration of chantries (orders, like Ars Magica's covenants). An invasion fleet was washed up on a cape and half the ships were devoured by the sea.

Assigning facets to convocations seems like a good idea and I'll probably hand out Ob modifications depending on attuned vs. spell convocation. Casting spells from within your own convocation will grant a bonus (-Ob.), casting spells from diametriacally opposed convocations will be subject to a penalty (+Ob.). I'll do some writing and then post the results here.

[Durgil]

There is evidence, or at least rumors of a huge freak storm being made by a large group of mages from a kingdom known for it's high concentration of chantries (orders, like Ars Magica's covenants). An invasion fleet was washed up on a cape and half the ships were devoured by the sea.

Assigning facets to convocations seems like a good idea and I'll probably hand out Ob modifications depending on attuned vs. spell convocation. Casting spells from within your own convocation will grant a bonus (-Ob.), casting spells from diametriacally opposed convocations will be subject to a penalty (+Ob.). I'll do some writing and then post the results here.
Hey Jocke, I'm glad to see more people from Hârn find The Burning Wheel. :wink:

I really like your ideas about diametriacally opposed convocations and look forward to reading what you come up with.

[jc_madden]

Now correct me if I'm wrong but Harn is a setting only, devoid of mechanic? But there is a Harnmaster mechanic that can be used with it?

[Durgil]

Now correct me if I'm wrong but Harn is a setting only, devoid of mechanic? But there is a Harnmaster mechanic that can be used with it?
Holy crap, HârnMaster (http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/allharnitems.cfg) has four different versions of its game mechanics. I, II, 3, and let's not forget the author's cut, HârnMaster Gold (http://www.kelestia.com/), which I believe happens to be the most complete version. All versions happen to be pretty nice systems depending on your tastes (I and Gold are more gritty than II or 3), as far percentile dice systems go. :wink:

[jc_madden]

Gritty is good as can be seen by my love for BW. I play in a long running D20 game but that's only because I cant convince the other players to make the switch (hell they balked for weeks before letting me guest GM a session). The percental game that I wrote is VERY gritty, akin to BW in it's 1-hit-kills or "if that hit didn't kill you're hating life" rules.

[Kevin]

Harn is indeed a systemless setting (although I have the vague impression these days that most Harn fans use Harnmaster).

You can use Harn and BW together with little or no tweaking. If you're willing to make minor setting changes (stronger magic, longer-lived orcs) you can run BW with no mechanical work whatsoever, because it doesn't have the usual gnomes, halflings, etc., doesn't have a lot of magic items, and so forth.

Since most published settings out there are really for D&D, they tend to have a lot of things in them that are not really appropriate for gritter games like BW. With Harn it's easy.

(As a side note, I've been looking at Midnight as another possible setting for a BW game. It does have gnomes and halflings, but I'm finding that in most settings the Roden fill the same social niche and can be easily substituted).

[luke]

Fuck gnomes and halflings! Use Spiders, Wolves, Trolls and Roden instead!

[jc_madden]

Heineken? Fuck that shit, PABST BLUE RIBBON!

Name that movie

[Kudzu]

Movie = Blue Velvet (dir. by David Lynch, about 1985 or so). Do I get a prize?

I did a double spit take on those two posts above. Everyone around me (I'm at work) is now CONVINCED I'm nuts.

[luke]

Movie = Blue Velvet (dir. by David Lynch, about 1985 or so). Do I get a prize?

I did a double spit take on those two posts above. Everyone around me (I'm at work) is now CONVINCED I'm nuts.

::Gives Kudzu an oxygen ventillator::
http://www.myfuture.edu.au/services/images/lores/349111AP3.jpg

One thing i can't fucking stand is warm beer! It makes me fucking puke!

[jc_madden]

You totally get a prize. Satisfaction!

And unfortunately my coworkers already KNOW i'm nuts but they still give me glares when I giggle meniacly from behind my screen.

[Kevin]

Trolls, spiders and wolves make poor halfling substitutes. Although now that I think about I am tempted to try.

"OK, you ride into the bucolic village. You see pipeweed and mushrooms growing in the lawns of the little homes, with their round oaken doors. Off in the distance you hear the sound of happy, slightly drunken folk songs."

"Great, I knock on the closest door".

"OK, make a Steel Check...too bad. You stand and drool as the spiders swarm out of the cottage, dressed in comfortable tweed."

[Kudzu]

::: wraps the warm Satisfaction around his shoulders and shivers. It will provide much warmth against the icy winds howling out of the North this Winter :::


Of course, it might be worth taking the trouble of burning up some gnomes and halflings to throw them in the Arena with some Great Spiders and Trolls. :twisted:

Raymond: Do you want me to pour it, Frank?
Frank Booth: No, I want you to fuck it. Shit, yes, pour the fuckin' beer.

[jc_madden]

Man I love that movie.

[Kudzu]

::Gives Kudzu an oxygen ventillator::
http://www.myfuture.edu.au/services/images/lores/349111AP3.jpg


What's scary is, give that poor sap a beard and some glasses and he could pass for me, just about. abzu is all-seeing, all-knowing. :wink:

edited to correct a typo. "Pass" and "piss" are NOT the same word. :)

[Kublai]

That guy in the mask is nerd.template #001!

[Thor Olavsrud]

I think you can do Halflings quite easily with the Monster Burner (or even without). The Villager and Peasant settings from the LoM work quite well for Halflings. All you need after are a few common traits (these are for Tolkienish halflings, obviously): Short, Hair-footed, Nimble, Quiet, Bottomless Stomach, and Distrust of Water should be pretty sufficient.

If you really want to be accurate, lengthen the Born lifepaths by some years, and play with the age groups a little.

[Kudzu]

What's scary is, give that poor sap a beard and some glasses and he could pass for me, just about.
That guy in the mask is nerd.template #001!

That's what I'm sayin'! :)

[Thor Olavsrud]

One thing i can't fucking stand is warm beer! It makes me fucking puke!

How do you know?! You don't even drink! :P

[Kevin]

Yeah, I thought about putting together halfling rules by doing something like that. It's mostly that I'm not at all sure I want to. Halflings don't really do anything interesting in most settings.

Gnomes are trickier because there's no real definitive literary archetype for them unless you use the Dragonlance-style tinker gnomes.

[Kudzu]

I think you can do Halflings quite easily with the Monster Burner (or even without). The Villager and Peasant settings from the LoM work quite well for Halflings. All you need after are a few common traits (these are for Tolkienish halflings, obviously): Short, Hair-footed, Nimble, Quiet, Bottomless Stomach, and Distrust of Water should be pretty sufficient.

If you really want to be accurate, lengthen the Born lifepaths by some years, and play with the age groups a little.


Apparently, they (well, Hobbits, anyway) were discussed in some depth in this thread (http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=217) back Sep. 2003, and it was started by abzu, no less! :shock: :D

[Thor Olavsrud]

Gnomes are trickier because there's no real definitive literary archetype for them unless you use the Dragonlance-style tinker gnomes.

Gnome is pretty much another word for dwarf or goblin (which were also pretty much the same thing until Tolkien). In Norse mythology dwarves are just dark elves. The light elves come from Alfheim and the dwarves come from Svartalfheim.

Here's what the Encyclopedia Mythica has to say:
A race of small, misshapen, dwarf-like creatures that dwell in the earth. The name 'gnome' was given to them by the medieval scholar Paracelcus, in an attempt to describe the most important of the earth spirits. Gnomes live under the earth, where they guard treasures. According to Paracelcus, they move as easily through the earth as humans walk upon the ground. They cannot stand the light of the sun, for even one ray would turn them to stone. Some sources claim they spend the hours during daylight as a toad. They are in some way related to goblins and dwarfs.

[Kevin]

Yeah, but if you're trying to adapt, say, a D&D setting, real myth don't have much to do with anything if you know what I mean. Anyway, to get back to the original point I was making, this isn't even an issue in Harn.

My real goal is to find a BW-friendly setting that lets me use all the cool beans without having to write any rules because I'm lazy.

EDIT: Yeah, I know there's a post about settings that fit well with BW. I think Midnight should be added to it, but it has, you know. The G & H thing.

[Kudzu]

I've always wondered where the "standard D&D" gnome came from. Before that, I'd always thought of gnomes as the little garden dwellers found as statuary. I'm aware of the Norse origins that Thor cited, too. But I don't see the path to "D&D" gnomes from either source, really (though the "garden gnome" is a wee bit closer, I guess).

I don't think in 25 years of on-again-off-again gaming I've ever had anyone play one in a game I was in. Would they really be missed in most people's D&D settings converted to BW?

*I* don't miss 'em in BW. That's for sure.

[jc_madden]

"The World of David the Gnome" books and cartoons?