tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post5025588442382923375..comments2024-03-28T18:55:38.829+11:00Comments on Middenmurk: The Affairs of WizardsTom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-75007092276425635592014-10-20T00:12:50.861+11:002014-10-20T00:12:50.861+11:00You could go the Ars Magica route - everyone has t...You could go the Ars Magica route - everyone has two characters, one wizard and one "specialist" (ranger, thief, etc). An adventuring party contains one or two wizards and a bunch of specialists (plus assorted NPC hirelings). Wizards require a lot of downtime (all that research), so if Bob played his wizard during the Adventure of the Mandrake Root, next adventure said wizard will be busy in his lab and Bob plays his cleric character instead (allowing someone else to be The Wizard for an adventure).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-27032877220347288252014-09-05T10:06:07.648+10:002014-09-05T10:06:07.648+10:00Is there room on your peninsula for a few others?Is there room on your peninsula for a few others?Clinthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03504524022850709557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-86455992750940918112014-07-08T22:44:59.755+10:002014-07-08T22:44:59.755+10:00Sure, if fighters and thieves are not already enta...Sure, if fighters and thieves are not already entangled in their own kinds of strangeness. Tom Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-69099821515964042702014-07-08T20:58:20.198+10:002014-07-08T20:58:20.198+10:00Quite coinciently I started re-reading Brian Bates...Quite coinciently I started re-reading Brian Bates "Way of Wyrd" - his fictionalised reconstruction of pagan Anglosaxon opens with ritual magic as performance art (you can read it for free here: <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/122953423/The-Way-of-Wyrd-by-Brian-Bates-free-extract" rel="nofollow">http://www.scribd.com/doc/122953423/The-Way-of-Wyrd-by-Brian-Bates-free-extract</a> ) <br /><br />My concern with running this as game, is that it would lead to magic user characters dominating play - their need to get a dog to pull mandrake roots at midnight on a full moon as part of their training regime, might be fun for a one off, but is of little interest to the fighter or thief in the party who essentially become secondary character in the MUs story. Fine if everyone gets a turn in the spotlight, but it departs from the group dynamics of mutual murder-hoboism.<br /><br />Spot on the aesthetics of 5e being mainstream and uninteresting. zhu bajieehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08004498036257289234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-13794548530519334392014-06-29T11:34:11.996+10:002014-06-29T11:34:11.996+10:00Thanks!Thanks!Tom Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-29509910427664094682014-06-29T10:57:43.203+10:002014-06-29T10:57:43.203+10:00I thought this was a great post so I added a link ...I thought this was a great post so I added a link to it in my Best Reads of the Week! series. I hope you don't mind!<br /><br />http://dyverscampaign.blogspot.com/2014/06/best-reads-of-week-expanded-edition.htmlDyvershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06032957275132817602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-76910363626790421032014-06-25T05:21:44.442+10:002014-06-25T05:21:44.442+10:00You know, it has occurred to me that magic is esse...You know, it has occurred to me that magic is essentially a form of transgressive performance art designed to coerce the universe to your will. Of course it's going to be fucked up, it's 'orrible qualities are a function of the most iconoclastic parts of our imagination.Tom Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-33121279667607452852014-06-24T22:59:38.986+10:002014-06-24T22:59:38.986+10:00Your opinions on magic directly impacted my opinio...Your opinions on magic directly impacted my opinions on magic.<br />Between you and LotFP I'm all set for some horrible and evocative spell stuff, my players tend to act with suspicion and fear now upon coming across something blatantly magical in aspect. <br /><br />The Elves went down really well with some late edition refugees, too.James Younghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01728054107958411289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-1020068820837034052014-06-24T14:01:14.729+10:002014-06-24T14:01:14.729+10:00Excellent.Excellent.Tom Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-4334536441503479962014-06-23T16:40:26.084+10:002014-06-23T16:40:26.084+10:00I'm right there with you!I'm right there with you!Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00352968793565091524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-4986009807211509302014-06-23T12:43:03.409+10:002014-06-23T12:43:03.409+10:00Amen. For the past several years I've gone lo...Amen. For the past several years I've gone looking for that feeling in pre-Tolkien fantasy, and I've found it here and there. Yeah, it'll never imprint like when you're 12, but you can still have pleasure from it.<br /><br />Myth and folklore is definitely great for cherry-picking magic items and spells. A year or two ago I tried a nonfiction book about the bits of Norse religious practice that are known --- to my surprise there was enough to really use. Next up is myths from Iran.Alec Semicognitohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06507482266305964982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-83409524653892831742014-06-23T11:49:54.099+10:002014-06-23T11:49:54.099+10:00The weirdest thing about magic is that it is real,...The weirdest thing about magic is that it is real, real at least in the sense of having been and continuing to be an anthropological, cultural, human-behavioural phenomenon. My approach is usually to never read any fantasy ever (save Tolkien) and burrow instead through the subject matter that exist behind it all for things to steal. So that's where I'd like to import things from.<br /><br />I think the thing I have always been chasing is that feeling of cracking open the book for the first time and smelling the pages and having everything be new and fresh. I am not sure I have the neurochemistry I did when I was eleven but I like to think there would be some way to spark that thrill. I don't think more beholders and illithids can get me there.Tom Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-36594697932767085912014-06-23T03:01:09.309+10:002014-06-23T03:01:09.309+10:00I live on that peninsula too, my friend. Fantasy ...I live on that peninsula too, my friend. Fantasy should not be familiar and quantifiable, where you chart out the properties of 18 different kinds of gnome over a double trilogy. I don't even think it's old-school versus new-school, though the scale of those charts got bigger as the editions progressed. This was always the problem with D&D --- we'd all read the Monster Manual and the spell lists in the Player's Handbook and knew whether we were looking at a clay golem or a caryatid column and what to do about it. <br /><br />I think that if everything is new every time --- to the point where only the DM ever really knows what's going on, and the players are just scrambling to handle the uncertainties that face them --- that's just fine. It's more than fine.<br /><br />I like your weirded-out magic. One idea I've had for a quick weird-out is to import magic systems and magic-using character classes from other D&D-like games, so spellcasters encounter entirely different schools of magic like encountering aliens landing for the first time. Then if inclined they can struggle to gain spells/skills/whatever for themselves.Alec Semicognitohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06507482266305964982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-7115168605764481352014-06-22T23:40:39.014+10:002014-06-22T23:40:39.014+10:00Three words: Dungeon. Crawl. Classics.
You are n...Three words: Dungeon. Crawl. Classics.<br /><br />You are not alone, and the corner of the world you inhabit is as vibrant now as it has ever been.ravencrowkinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09315630554847698555noreply@blogger.com