Re: Magic

Rich Skrenta (skrenta@blekko.rt.com)
Tue, 11 Aug 1992 19:01 EDT

Carl Edman:
> Please... despite what some ill informed players are trying to
> suggest nobody wants to turn this into a game which is totally
> dominated by mages.

Not sure who you are swiping at here...but you must be very careful
with magic. I definitely lean towards a more "realistic" magic than
fantasy magic. Even in Tolkien, Gandalf didn't go about scorching
the earth at every turn. Most of the magic used was subtle. Far-seeing
(the palantir and that seat on the mountain), nasty knives that hurt bad
monsters and glow when orcs are around, tricky locks, high stealth (the
elven cloaks & the ring), understanding languages, cryptic writings.

Very few fireball blasts. But there were a couple.

Better yet is Greek Myth. Good subtle magic there. Strong shields,
hats of invisiblity, pouches to carry medusa-heads around in, people
turned to stone, Hades and Death lurking around every corner, summoning
Shades with cthonian sacrifices so they can tell you stories from below.
Great stuff.

> Magic _should_ be hard to acquire, very expensive to learn, and
> dangerous to practice and the benefits should come late. But in the
> end the payoffs should be commensurate with the investment.

I agree with all of this. Don't consider the pathetic token magic
system current in the game finished. There should be zillions of
spells, but hopefully they will have more character than "strength +2".
I want spells that muck subtly with Olympian physics, like the weather
spells. But my physics isn't complete yet, and there are other things
to do at the moment.

BTW, I saw some great spell ideas in some of the spell files that
folks have sent to me. I will certainly use some of them, and I appreciate
the work that went into thinking them out.

Alas, I can only code so much at a time. And I still need to write
Gatecraft...

--
Rich Skrenta <skrenta@rt.com>  N2QAV


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