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 Post subject: Corruption with Magic
PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2015 4:00 am 
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Have you ever tried incorporating a magical corruption mechanic into your DW game? I'm thinking about something along similar lines to what DCCRPG does.

If you have, how did you do it and what did you think of the effect on your game?

If you haven't, and if this is something you think best avoided with DW, why do you think that?


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PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2015 4:04 am 
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maasenstodt wrote:
Have you ever tried incorporating a magical corruption mechanic into your DW game? I'm thinking about something along similar lines to what DCCRPG does.

If you have, how did you do it and what did you think of the effect on your game?

If you haven't, and if this is something you think best avoided with DW, why do you think that?


I haven't, but now that the idea has been mentioned, it intrigues me. Given that magic is seen in a lot of Legend as quite dark (see the new Players Guide for details!) I could see this working in a game quite well if people wanted to go there - especially as an extension of the Darkness Elementalist paradigm...

I think I'd be inclined to have some spells corrupt and some not.

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PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2015 4:11 am 
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I agree that it would seem to be a good fit for some DW games.

Off-hand, I can think of a couple of ways that a corruption check might be called for. First, one could require a d20 roll when casting. A 1 might be a critical success, providing some benefit (e.g., 1 less MP used, etc.) while a 20 might result in corruption or a corruption check of some kind.

Second, one could allow players to push their luck at the cost of running the risk of corruption. For instance, one might cast a spell for less MP than normal, with the difference being the chance on a d20 (or a d12, or whatever) that the character suffers corruption.

Thoughts?


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PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2015 9:51 am 
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For me, sorcery in DW is not the flash-bang artillery it is games like D&D and Warhammer, but should be more subtle and, more importantly, to keep it true to DW's roots in British folklore, come at a price.

The price in my game is Taint and a sorcerer's resistance to Taint is represented by their Magic Points. When their magic points run out, sorcerers can still cast spells, but each spell causes a number of points of Taint equal to its level. Indirect attack spells always cause Taint, which further discourages their use. And if your Taint score exceeds your Psychic Talent score, the Sorcerer starts to be corrupted (physically and mentally) by the blasphemous energies with which he played so irresponsibly...

The kinds of things that taint can cause are things like not being able to walk on hallowed ground, not being able to heal without magic, losing one's shadow, physical deformities, loss of attribute scores, minor physical mutations (tail, horns, scaly skin, change in eye colour/type, etc.) - and in the superstitious lands of Legend, the last thing a Sorcerer wants to do is stick out!

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PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2015 4:14 pm 
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Cobwebbed Dragon wrote:
For me, sorcery in DW is not the flash-bang artillery it is games like D&D and Warhammer, but should be more subtle and, more importantly, to keep it true to DW's roots in British folklore, come at a price.

The price in my game is Taint and a sorcerer's resistance to Taint is represented by their Magic Points. When their magic points run out, sorcerers can still cast spells, but each spell causes a number of points of Taint equal to its level. Indirect attack spells always cause Taint, which further discourages their use. And if your Taint score exceeds your Psychic Talent score, the Sorcerer starts to be corrupted (physically and mentally) by the blasphemous energies with which he played so irresponsibly...

The kinds of things that taint can cause are things like not being able to walk on hallowed ground, not being able to heal without magic, losing one's shadow, physical deformities, loss of attribute scores, minor physical mutations (tail, horns, scaly skin, change in eye colour/type, etc.) - and in the superstitious lands of Legend, the last thing a Sorcerer wants to do is stick out!

Yeah, those kind of effects are really great.

Do you have any method for reducing Taint?

Do you do apply these rules to Mystics and Elementalists?


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PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2015 4:33 pm 
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maasenstodt wrote:
Do you have any method for reducing Taint?

Nope! Rare potions; long rituals; but nothing game mechanicy and definitely nothing common. If sorcerers stick to their MP allocation and avoid indirect attack spells, they'll be fine... But where's the fun in that? :twisted:

The whole point of introducing Taint as a mechanic is that this is a permanent and irrevocable choice that the sorcerer makes. The use of sorcery should be the last resort for the sorcerer, not the first. Throw in a few non-magical sorcerous abilities (such as this: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=28&p=71&hilit=conan#p71) and rituals (to confer long-term benefits at low risk), and you have a profession that is more than his spells. If you're interested in exploring your own variant sorcerers, you could do worse than read this article on Dave Morris's blog: http://fabledlands.blogspot.co.uk/2010/ ... three.html.

maasenstodt wrote:
Do you do apply these rules to Mystics and Elementalists?

No. They do magic differently. One of the things that I don't like about the different magicker professions in DW is how samey they all are - I use my own homebrew professions in my DW game, each with their own distinct approach to magic. I still have a long way to go with them (and they've all come on from the versions posted in the Cobwebbed Forest, even) and still some play-testing to do, but I'll eventually get around to publishing them.

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PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2015 5:25 pm 
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Sounds like fun. Gives sorcerors more character. Bearing in mind you're manipulating energies that the human body didn't evolve to handle, could be like some 21st century aberrations, exposure to radiation, fertilizers, cause some of the effects like sterility, hair loss, pigmentation issues, digestive disorders and special nutritional needs. maybe stuff like extreme allergy to peanuts would apply. Stuff like that, and a few curse equivalent situations.

I'd say, for the sorcerer this would be acceptable. What makes some of those weird sorcerors behave like hermits? Sa'Aknathur might've been surrounded by masses of shapely succubi and totally disinterested like lesser humans would be to an excess of toilet paper supply...


Should make them reluctant to flash their powers needlessly. Maybe a longterm track of magic point use over time should be recorded. Those who use up their daily allowance on a regular basis start getting radiation damage symptoms, diarhoea, hair loss, sensitive skin, anaemia....

Perhaps this could be interpreted as a form of premature aging by too much flux use....

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 1:03 am 
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Cobwebbed Dragon wrote:
Nope! Rare potions; long rituals; but nothing game mechanicy and definitely nothing common. If sorcerers stick to their MP allocation and avoid indirect attack spells, they'll be fine... But where's the fun in that? :twisted:

The whole point of introducing Taint as a mechanic is that this is a permanent and irrevocable choice that the sorcerer makes. The use of sorcery should be the last resort for the sorcerer, not the first. Throw in a few non-magical sorcerous abilities (such as this: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=28&p=71&hilit=conan#p71) and rituals (to confer long-term benefits at low risk), and you have a profession that is more than his spells. If you're interested in exploring your own variant sorcerers, you could do worse than read this article on Dave Morris's blog: http://fabledlands.blogspot.co.uk/2010/ ... three.html.

I think there's a fine balance between making the use of magic consequential and making arcane magic something gaming groups wouldn't find enjoyable to have present in their adventuring parties. Certainly, that point of balance will be different for different groups. I find it interesting that, in a comment of the blog you linked to, Dave explicitly states that sorcerers are essentially not allowed in his games. That's well and good for him but, for my campaign, I want to introduce a degree of danger without killing the class off.

Here's another idea: each time a sorcerer pushes her luck, she changes. The change could be the aforementioned scales or antennae developing, or it could be a dark aura or some sort. This change results in a simultaneous gain and loss of a point of Looks. For the purposes of attracting people, her Looks are one point lower. For the purposes of intimidation, her Looks are one point higher. Whenever her negative Looks score reaches 0, she's become a monster, and her character is given over to the referee as a NPC. Thoughts?


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PostPosted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 8:37 pm 
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This is where the different spell lists come in and other things sorcerers can do (with rituals and the like), to balance that which might cost them. What you don't want is to make the only useful things sorcerers can do consequential because that then just makes them too afraid to use their powers and then end up as a torchbearer. One of the things you find with players of canon sorcerers is that they tend to save their Magic Points for the indirect attack combat spells (or healing spells, which is just as bad) because that's how they feel they will add the most value to the party. But sorcerers are never going to be able to compete with knights and the like for combat effectiveness, and nor should they. One of the things I really like in the Players' Guide is that none of the new sorcerer spells are indirect attack spells. A big step in the right direction, in my opinion.

And one of the things I definitely DON'T like is NPC-only rules/professions, so I'm in disagreement with Dave M that there should be rules for a profession that's NPC only. One of my design principles is that there should be nothing that NPCs can do that PCs can't (and vice-versa) - there's nothing about a player controlling a character that makes that character special - Dragon Warriors isn't a game where the characters play super-human heroes; they're just run-of-the-mill professionals, like everyone else...

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 10:42 pm 
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While somewhat less exciting than a supernatural corruption of the soul and body, I did at one time allow wizards to continue to cast spells if they had run out of magic points, but at the risk of permanent ageing (physical degradation).

After casting each spell, the wizard had to roll more than the number of magic points used in this way on a d20, or lose a number of randomly selected characteristic points equal to the die roll (including health, which neatly allowed a d6 to be used when deciding which characteristic was affected) . So if a level 4 spell was cast, a roll of 5 or more was required to feel no ill effects. Roll a 1, 2, 3 or 4 however...

It explained why many powerful wizards looked so old. :)


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