Jimm.Iblis wrote:

@Blackadder: I get to build the world, come up with cool challenges, make players feel awesome...

An analogy is two toddlers playing blocks, sitting across from each other. One is carefully stacking the blocks into a tower. When--or maybe a little before--the tower is complete, the other child gleefully knocks the whole thing down.

Now, a cynical person might say that only the second child, the one knocking down the blocks, is having fun. But a more observant person says, "look at how the first child sorta feigns frustration before both children start laughing together." The first child begins building another tower, doomed as it is, knowing full well if he wanted, he could just play blocks alone.

We DMs build towers and we get to watch our friends knock them down. We get to cheer on their success, and maybe feign a little frustration at how unexpectedly easily they made it look or how hard you worked... just so they feel that much cooler and more clever. That's the role that's fun to me. If it wasn't, I guess I'd go write a book or something.

Thanks for taking the time to share your point of view. It's always interesting to see a different perspective.

I'm all for players using poison.  It's expensive and hard to get and using it is almost always an evil act (acts of survival against giant draco lizards aside), but I like the danger it brings to the game.

As for monster venoms, I can't say I've read every entry but it seems the ones I have read are consistent in that they do damage/some effect now and death some days later.  That, to me, is just adventure material.  The race against time for a cure while your buddy is puking his guts up every step of the way.  Yeah, poison's great for players and monsters alike.

I've grown to like the save or die nature of potent poisons, but before that, I ruled that it deals 1d6 hp damage per HD of the creature in total (1d6 per round/hour/day, depending on whether the poison in the rules would kill instantly, in a day, in a week, etc.).

WRT save-or-die: If a (good) player knows that it's a crap shoot if his/her character will die from a poisonous bite or sting, then that player should (will) look for other ways to overcome/bypass the encounter, instead of the usual "Bocephus! Hold my ale... I got this!".
 

Last edited by foxroe (12/26/2017 11:17 pm)

My house rules are: 

Hit Points 

Hit points are a measure of how much stamina and will to survive you bring to a combat situation. Hit points can be healed by rest or even a strong drink. Gain a hit die after drinking a flagon.

After a number of drinks equal to your Con bonus + 1 characters start to suffer from inebriation: -1 on all rolls except luck. This effect lasts until the character takes a long rest. 

When your hit points reach 0 you lose points from Con. These represent physical injury. When your Con reaches 0 you die. Taking Con damage can cause severe and permanent injury. Con points heal very slowly by bed rest, medical attention, or magic. When a character takes con damage they must roll on the major wound table. A major wound might be nothing or it might be a permanent scar, loss of an ear or a finger, or worse... 

Spells

I'm going to lift the DCC spells system entirely. Corruption and spell burn are fun and fit well with swords and sorcery. 

The idea that you can suffer a terrible permanent mutation from wielding magic is a great reason why not everyone does it everyday all the time. "Use the torch fool it's much safer!" 

The idea that you can learn a spell by seeing someone cast it says a lot about why wizards are not casting their spells out in the open. 

These two ideas make magic make a lot of sense. Plus, the randomness of the DCC system is really fun. I just wish there were more spells to choose from!
 

Last edited by cudgel (12/28/2017 1:16 am)

I honestly love the idea, I would like to try it out in a campaign. I can't think of any literary examples for this, but there is an example of this sort of thing in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. The wizard casts a spell and drops the city gate on their fool heads. His hand appears to age from his use of magic. 

I cringe whenever I hear a system has spellcasting corruption mechanic, or that it adds a "sword and sorcery" flavor.
If anything it's only relevant to very specific source material, and very rarely S&S.
I'm only grumpy about it because its been the bane of every official Conan RPG.
(I do like the corruption mechanic in Call of Cthulhu and the new Delta Green, but only for that specific setting)

Mabon - I can only speak from my experience, but in every RPG I've run that has a corruption mechanic, the casting character felt gimped. This is especially true in systems like the new 2d20 Conan where the spells are not all that powerful, but the corruption is character destroying. The only time this has been "fun" is in games of Cthulhu or Delta Green.

I think it was Chainsaw here who had the very valid point that it also has a side effect of making a wizard the only PC that is expected to destroy her character for the benefit of the party. "We really need you to cast that spell!"

As you said, it gives the characters a short life expectancy, which again doesn't really mesh with what we see in almost all S&S fiction. Thoth-Amon wasn't afraid to cast spells, nor was the Master of Yimsha.

For me corruption makes the idea of magic make sense. If there were no drawback everyone would be casting spells. If everything else in the world followed the rules that characters used you'd have wizards on every corner casting spells for profit. You'd have magical sweat shops with renting out first level spell casters for gold pieces. 

If casting spells was like playing with radioactive fire, it might burn you and cause cancer people would shun and fear it. Only the fool hearty or the insane would want to try it. Why cast light, and possibly have all of you hair fall out, when you can just light a candle?

I think the idea that wizards have fewer hit points and can't use armor or weapons feels very artifical. I'd rather make all characters fighters. Anyone can try and cast a spell, if they have seen someone else cast a spell, or read the instructions in a book. If you have a higher intelligence the more likely it will succeed without repercussions. 

My ideas have nothing to do with imitating sword and sorcery literature, and are more about making sense out of the premise of a world where magic exists, and answering the questions why is magic hated and feared and do wizards jealously guard their spells. 

Last edited by cudgel (12/28/2017 5:59 pm)

Blackadder23 wrote:

cudgel wrote:

For me corruption makes the idea of magic make sense. If there were no drawback everyone would be casting spells.

Unless only a small percentage of the population is capable of casting spells.

 
To me this feels like hand waving the idea to justify character classes and limit the number of wizards on the street.

I feel the same way about Vancian magic. It has the feeling of a rule to limit the number of spells a character has at their disposal in day. The idea that you forget the spell when you cast it and have to memorize it again is absurd.

The DCC magic system is far from perfect and has plenty of loopholes to be gamed. That said, for myself it is the most believable spell system I have played. It answers all of these questions.

Why do wizards guard their magic: other wizards might steal it if they see you cast a spell.

How many spells can you cast: as many as you know.

How often can you cast spells: until you run out of magical energies by botching your spell casting.

Why don’t wizards cast spells all the time: because of the risk of bad things happening.

Why can’t a powerful wizard cast a more powerful spell: they can! A powerful wizard casting the same spell casts a more powerful version, usually.

Magic is random and unpredictable why are spell effects always the same: they aren’t! Every spell has a range of effects every time it’s cast and each wizard casts it differently.

I think this also gives players more to work with. A first level mage, comes along for the ride until their sleep spell is needed then they hang out until they get a chance to rest. It’s much more fun if they can cast spells more often. Why let the fighters roll all the dice!