Re: Unidentified subject!


Subject: Re: Unidentified subject!
From: Ari Miettinen (emiettin@hytti.uku.fi)
Date: Thu Aug 19 1999 - 18:42:51 EEST


Uhhuh. Why do you people use \"Word"\ thingies?

>>* say \'Blah\'  [The Word of Fire]
>>* wave your hand from right to left [Gesture of Creation]
>>* holding a ruby in your fist [Substance of Bolt]
>
>Another important point of our magic system is that all 
>spells should be \"doable\" with all the available component 
>types, meaning a person can use only words, only gestures, 
>only materials or whatever combination they choose. This, of 
>course, may be limited by the specifications of the magical 
>subsystem in the sense that words might be prohibited etc. 
I fully agree with this.

>>Also, the order of the spell casting procedure is not 
>>important, but the guilds have always taught their spells 
>>in those forms, so every member of the guild does the spell
>>in same manner.
>
>I would like to restrict the spellcasting so that every
>spell has to be cast in the scheme: technique-power-form.
>Consider it as a lexical rule in the language of magic.
I can live with what you are suggesting, but if there are
NPCs who teach some simple spells, the teacher should
be able to give the magic arts in whatever order the coder
wishes. In that way the players won't automagically know
that the first part of the spell is technique, the second
the form and the last the power part of the spell. This 
increases mystery of magic and that is good - imo.

>>* He grabs his Ruby [Substance of Bolt],
>>* Waves his hand from right to left [Gesture of Creation]
>>and * yells \'Blah\'! [The Word of Fire] and is quite happy
>>to see that the spell succeeded.
>
>If a spell is done in the incorrect order, I would prefer
>that it would fizzle or cause a random effect of some sort.
>Like we had in Majik4.
See above.

>>What if someone belongs to both guilds? (Healers would not
>>normally accept Fire Mages into their guild and vice versa, 
>>but nothing prevents an enterprising mage / healer from 
>>lying their way in to the other guild.
>
>Again, I would like to point out that not all magical arts
>are taught in \"guilds\". In my vision most magical arts are
>shrouded in mystery and secrecy and are not promoted in the
>form of some Organization for The Magically Handicapped 
>(tm).
I agree to some extent. What I called guild represents any
teaching system from which the players learn these magical
symbols. Of course, we could have a system in which every
aspect (\Word\, \Gesture\ or \Materia\) of a magical 
art (like \Creation\) should be learned from a different
part of the world, and none of the NPCs teach actual
\spells\.

--------------------------------------------------------
Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, 
	for they are subtle and quick to anger.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
	for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
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