From: cipher@lacerta.unm.edu (Rev. J. B. Bell)
Subject: Real magick in RPG's
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 22:31:14 GMT
Organization: Universal Life Church of Secular Humorism
Followup-To: rec.games.frp

(This should probably be the last article to crosspost to alt.magick
and rec.games.frp.  If you're going to discuss theory, please followup
to alt.magick only.  If you're going to discuss how to work in stats,
when die rolls are appropriate, whether Diddling & Dithering is better
than BURPS, that should go to rec.games.frp.  {Actually the latter bit
should go to .advocacy, but anyway.})

In article <1992Jul21.170904.29698@henson.cc.wwu.edu> n8743494@rowlf.cc.wwu.edu (The Stranger) writes:
>In article <1992Jul21.042303.944@eskimo.celestial.com> victim@eskimo.celestial.com (Tony Garton) writes:
>>
>>The reference to D&D type magick does bring up an interesting question
>>since I am an avid RPG gamer.  Does any RPG exist that uses a magick
>>system confined to 
>>'real magick'?  My gamemaster allows one of our chars (a gypsy fortune
>>teller) to use a quabbles deck for divination in the game.  I think that
>>magickal rituals could be handled based on skill, time involved, work
>>involved in assembling components, etc.  I think a game of this type
>>might go a long way toward educating the gaming populace about real
>>magick.
>
>There is already several RPG that have such a system.  GURPS has a system
>where each spell is learned seperitly with seperit skill levels for each 
>spell.  Shadowrun has something simular.  They both do not had the spell-
>caster froget the spell after they cast it, more realistic IMHO.  However
>they both have a limiting facter on the spellcasters so one doesn't cast
>fireballs all day.  
>
>Personaly I am glad that some of these fantisy spells do not execst.  Can 
>you imagen a squad of spellcasters at the beck and call of a goverment?
>Not a nice imige.
>
>The Stranger
>

This is a pet project of mine, and for those who are interested, I
recommend _Real Magic_ by Isaac Bonewits.  Take it with a grain of
salt, of course, but as far as a "unified magick theory," including
gods and religion, this work is the best I've seen so far.  For more
detailed stuff I recommend _Magick in Theory and Practice_ by Aleister
Crowley and _Liber Null & Psychonaut_ by Peter Carroll.  These books
show what can be done when a mage is operating from the assumption
that all magick comes from a common source.

So far I have figured that magickal ability can conveniently be
reduced to three relevant statistics on which one can base die rolls
and additional, more specific skills:

1.  Attunement.  How "at one" you are with a god, the Universe or Tao,
Chaos, etc.  I recommend making it a very general stat, with
specialties for particular circuits like gods, religions, particular
magickal paradigms, etc.  This affects the power of magickal work, and
influences and is influenced by the personality of a mage.  (Or
priest, or whatever.  Can I please use "mage" generically?  Thanks.)
It is a general state of being.  It tends to manifest as luck.

2.  Focus/Lock/Meditate/Gnosis ability.  As is suggested by the
variety of terms, this also lends itself to specialization.  It
represents the ability to transcend ordinary reality and get into
contact or union with nonordinary states.  Ritual trappings help this,
and distractions like getting shot at would make for a penalty.  This
is "where" mages do their work.  People with an extraordinarly high
score in this stat have nonordinary states available to them at all
times, and may even integrate higher dimensions into ordinary reality,
allowing them to perform feats like bilocation, time travel, and so
on.  One would specialize similarly to Attunement.

3.  Ego/Personal Power.  This is the extent to which a mage is a
universe unto themself; it may alternately represent a mage's ability
to travel from one universe to another, depending on whether you
subscribe to the infinite universes theory or not.  Practically
speaking the difference is academic--are there an infinite number of
channels on irc, or do they get created by dint of our travelling to
them?  Who cares?  This power can be used more easily than that gained
by being very Attuned; the classic psychic of science fiction is not
necessarily Attuned, but may have a lot of ego power.  It is more
physically and mentally draining to use this power than to invoke
power from other planes or gods, and its effects are usually less
spectacular.

Now naturally these divisions are completely false; on top of that,
what I consider real magick tends to have probabilistic rather than
Newtonian effects, so working it into a game is tricky, to say the 
least.  A GM who is good at improvisation will be the best at reffing
this kind of magick, since the variables are almost beyond
comprehension.  The mage's desires need to be worked in with what the
circuits "want", and all meshed together in a bizarre web of
synchronicity which, properly done, is very, very funny, but not
usually to the character going through it.

In my experience, doing this within an ordinary system such as AD&D or
GURPS is next to impossible; but I do invite brave experimenters to
please share their results.

A caveat:  highly intensely done role-playing can have peculiar events
on the real world.  I suspect that putting very realistic magick into
an frp (or sci-fi or whatever) game could have some "spillover"
effects.  Discussion is also invited on this idea.

                                In experiment and humor,

                                --Rev. J. B. Bell

-- 
"Before you shoot off your mouth, try placing your foot in it.  At least
that way, you'll know _why_ you shot yourself in the foot."

           --Lefty (lefty@apple.com)