stop trying to make things D&D compatible, people

[deird1]

I really want to ring up my friends and family and complain to them about Worlds Without Number using Vancian Magic – but none of them would have the faintest clue what I was talking about, so I'm posting a rant here in the hopes that it will reach someone who understands.


Some Definitions

Vancian Magic: A magic system used in roleplaying systems, particularly of the D&D variety. Uses spell slots.

Stars Without Number: An awesome RPG, published by a guy who's far too enthusiastic about tables (of data; not the furniture), set in space.

Worlds Without Number: The new fantasy-setting RPG, published by the Stars Without Number guy. Still tonnes of tables.


A Brief Rant

Granted, Vancian Magic was an excellent system for using magic in wargaming, back when D&D was just beginning. Yep, as a wargaming tool it totally makes sense. And is even well designed.

Granted, the Worlds Without Number guy has actually done a reasonable job of justifying why Vancian Magic might make some sort of sense in-universe, which is more than Gary Gygax ever did.

BUT.

It only NEEDS justifying because Vancian Magic is an innately nonsensical system that no reasonable practitioner of magic would ever use. EVER.

Also? The stat+skill system along with using up a finite supply of mana was right there. It works perfectly well for RPGs, and makes sense in pretty much every universe you put it into. It's even customisable!

It's a good thing I like your books, Worlds Without Number guy. Because you're on thin ice with me right now.

Comments

[rahirah]

I cannot stand Vancian magic systems. They make zero sense.

While I'm at it, can I complain about the way tht the vast majority of magic systems can't handle characters for whom shapeshifting is a natural ability and not a spell that can only last x number of combat rounds?

[deird1]

Absolutely! It is rather ridiculous.

Honestly, having tried the magic system used in the BtVS RPG, I now usually import that directly into whatever system I'm running. It works really well.

[eleanorjane]

Ugh, yes, I am really unthrilled with the way people seem to want to use 5E as a toolkit for everything. It's not even a good system!* rargh.

* IMO, obvs. I know a lot of people love 5E, but the frustrations of the D20 system have bothered me a lot since 3E.

[deird1]

It's really not! I mean, I somewhat prefer it to 3E and 4E, but it's still unwieldy and rather weird.

(Currently waiting for my Cortex Prime handbook to arrive, so I can attempt a Stargate system that isn't 5E based.)

[lirazel]

I know less than nothing about this topic, but I enjoyed this post nonetheless. It's always fun for me to read people getting really emotional about their esoteric interests!

[deird1]

My goodness, my interests are "esoteric"? How cool.

:)

I can talk for far too many hours about RPG systems and game design. It's more complicated than it appears.

[lirazel]

Esoteric to me!

[eleanorjane]

I can talk for far too many hours about RPG systems and game design.

Please do! :)

[deird1]

Kinda like this?

[schneefink]

I hadn't heard the term "Vancian magic" - hadn't even considered that there would be one for systems like this, but of course there is. Yeah, in-universe it makes no sense.

[deird1]

Comes from the sci-fi writer Jack Vance. He published sci-fi books in the 1950s, and the magic system in D&D is directly pulled from them.

[contrarianarchon]

>>> It only NEEDS justifying because Vancian Magic is an innately nonsensical system that no reasonable practitioner of magic would ever use. EVER.

This seems to be a garbled interpretation of, like, how magic works? Magic is not *obliged* to follow the strictures of reasonability and common sense; rather it defies them by innate nature. You don't get to say that differential equations are a pile of bullshit and that no reasonable human would use them to characterize electrical circuits (as much as I'd like to); you have to deal with the universe as it functions.

There's an argument that given you want to emulate arbitrary fantasy stories you should have a system that handles thing as generically as posible but I don't really feel that any setting or story benifits from having a maximally generic magic system. Exploring the implications of a weird choice (even if it's one you came by for legacy reasons) is pretty much always more interesting.

[deird1]

An interesting perspective.

Is Vancian Magic your favourite system, or do you have one you prefer?

[contrarianarchon]

Hah, no, I'm not a huge fan of vancian magic, mostly because it *is* overdone and used in too many places (Also because the inclination of the people writing spellbooks for it is to write mostly combat magic and not interesting effects that could shape the worldbuilding or non-combat aspects of a game).

The idea of a favorite is a shaky one for me at the best of times, and esp with this, which systems I like and don't like is highly contextual, esp between mediums. Stories don't need to "balance" magic (which is a deep and complex subject in and of itself) and that lets them be much more flexible; the mistborn magic systems, for example, make for fascinating novels and the corresponding TTRPG incarnation is pretty awful. When it comes to TTRPGs, some magic systems I'm particularly fond of include the world-shaping miracles of the Nobilis/Chuubo's/Glitch family of systems (which emphasize creative use of powerful-but-specific capacities), the lab and spell creation systems of ars magica (which emphasize long-term thinking and having options to work in many directions, allowing for dozens of wizards using the same "system" to have totally different interests, capacities, and themes in a deep and engaging way), the systems of sorcerously advanced, which balance direct power against ability to direct the narrative on meta level to permit parties containing both powerful and weak sorcerers in the same group, and the charms of exalted, which emphasize building on mundane skill and thematic through-lines of the type of supernatural entity which you're playing as to design supernatural powersets that you get to engage with no matter what skillset you intend to work with (and which then has true sorcery, for if your target skillset is "breaking the fundamental nature of reality over your knee")

(I'll happily go into more detail about any of these systems and why I like them, if you're interested)

[contrarianarchon]

(One advantage of vancian magic that I do quite like, though, is that it encourages you to use a variety of effects rather than just sticking to offloading optimal powerful effects ASAP; there are other ways to do that but a 3.5-era wizard has to cast a pile of different spells of different power levels and relevance and that's good for the kind of wizard aesthetics I think are cool)