Twin Agate Dragons
Mongoose
alex_greene said:
Two guaranteed sales.
Traveller Magic
- Thread starter AndrewW
- Start date
Two guaranteed sales.
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Paladin said:
That is certainly one way to explain Magic in a traditional Traveller setting, use the Psionic Rules. I actually played in a fantasy game where that is what the Referee did. Used Traveller (CT) and psionics to make magic. It worked for a low magic game. We later found out that we were a lost colony and got rediscovered in the Great Rift and BOOM, we were in an OTU game with a bunch of Barbarians... The expanded abilities in PSION would flesh out a magic system quite nicely.
BUT, if you want a true Traveller Fantasy setting, and I think enough people would be interested in one to justify an OGL product or maybe even a Mongoose Publication, you need a different system than psionics.
It could use the same general idea, but it needs to be magic and have its own set of internal rules. These can deviate from hard science by as much or as little as desired for the setting and play, but it should be different.
I have seen a couple of different ideas for Magic presented here that would both work quite will in a Traveller game without breaking the power level of the characters. CaptainJack and Rust both have different ideas, but they could both work. It would be possible to make a D&D style magic system, with set spells and memorization etc as well. How balanced that would be is up to the author.
As I said upstream, I would love to see a Traveller: Magic book with several different ways to apply magic and then the Referee could decide which (or all or none) worked for his setting.
alex_greene
Guest
Psionics concentrates on the powers of the unfettered mind. The look and feel of psionics is scientific, akin to a refinement of the old early Nineteenth / Twentieth Century Spiritualist / Theosophical Society musings taken to its logical conclusion.Paladin said:
The phenomena which began with the first fumbling experiments with Ganzfeld cages and Rhine - Zener cards and Uri Geller's mutilation of cutlery that were so beloved of the Society of Psychical Research last century eventually become the full, formal curriculum of the Psionics Institutes. In all cases, the emphasis is on a scientific exploration of these Fortean phenomena.
Magic, as in sorcery, is more tied in with mythology, dream logic, the invocation and evocation of Archetypes, and the power of symbolism. Magic may also be able to tap into power sources that psionics cannot understand, and see entities that psions cannot possibly conceive.
I can't really describe the difference between magic and psi any further without delving into the most impressive stream of nonsense outside of a protracted burst of technobabble from an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, laced with pretentiousness of Anne Rice proportions.
Even D&D doesn't do the "memorized spells" thing anymore - the latest edition gives you powers that you can use either at will, once per encounter or once per day. In addition, you can perform rituals that may or may not include other mages and special material components, and take a while to execute but do more powerful sorcerous things like summonings and such.
I would rather see a Traveller magic system that work that way. Psionics is the power of your OWN mind, so the "only so many points" thing works fine. Magic is channeling other energies, so you're not supplying the power yourself and shouldn't lose END for a successful cast. (Though maybe certain failures could drain you, or maybe you could even spend END to get positive modifiers, throwing a bit of your own essence into the spell.)
Like Psi, you would have a set of "schools" that you could learn spells from, and ranks within those schools (skill levels). I imagine that Spells would be mechanically similar to Psyonics, where you choose a spell within a school you know and roll a skill check against the spell's difficulty. To be different, you should be able to TRY to cast anything in your school, but if your INT and SKILL bonuses aren't high enough, you might be meddling with forces you can scarcely comprehend, as it were.
The tricky part though is designing a good and balanced spell list.
I would rather see a Traveller magic system that work that way. Psionics is the power of your OWN mind, so the "only so many points" thing works fine. Magic is channeling other energies, so you're not supplying the power yourself and shouldn't lose END for a successful cast. (Though maybe certain failures could drain you, or maybe you could even spend END to get positive modifiers, throwing a bit of your own essence into the spell.)
Like Psi, you would have a set of "schools" that you could learn spells from, and ranks within those schools (skill levels). I imagine that Spells would be mechanically similar to Psyonics, where you choose a spell within a school you know and roll a skill check against the spell's difficulty. To be different, you should be able to TRY to cast anything in your school, but if your INT and SKILL bonuses aren't high enough, you might be meddling with forces you can scarcely comprehend, as it were.
The tricky part though is designing a good and balanced spell list.
Loz
Mongoose
Strontium Dog's sorcery has some similarities to psionics but considerable differences.
You have a pool of points to fund spell casting.
Spells fall into one of three 'schools'. As an option, you can have a Sorcery specialisation for a school.
Spells have a difficulty that mods your chance to cast it (like psionics)
And there's a bunch of other mechanics for recovery of spells, learning new ones and so on. The spell list is not exhaustive but can easily be expanded. The effects mirror those seen in various Strontium Dog and Judge Dredd episodes.
So there's a basis there but clearly more room for it to grow, and so I'll look at expanding the system into a generic thing for inclusion in Signs and Portents.
You have a pool of points to fund spell casting.
Spells fall into one of three 'schools'. As an option, you can have a Sorcery specialisation for a school.
Spells have a difficulty that mods your chance to cast it (like psionics)
And there's a bunch of other mechanics for recovery of spells, learning new ones and so on. The spell list is not exhaustive but can easily be expanded. The effects mirror those seen in various Strontium Dog and Judge Dredd episodes.
So there's a basis there but clearly more room for it to grow, and so I'll look at expanding the system into a generic thing for inclusion in Signs and Portents.
Patron Zero
Mongoose
I can see magic perhaps 'appearing' in an alternate Traveller Universe, say a side trip by way of a misjump placing characters in such. But as a fully canon inclusion to the collected rules, I thought that concept perished with Dragonstar.
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
hdan said:
<grumpyold fart mode on>That's where yer wrong.....D&D still does the memorized spell thing....'cause iffn it don't it aint D&D ! Jest superheros an' suchlike. Hmph. <GOF mode off>
captainjack23 said:
LOL - a diehard D20 man, or still calculating THAC0s?
I was pretty skeptical of 4th Ed too, and though it's fun enough I'm not sure if it's an improvement over 3.5. Or if it's even really D&D any more for that matter.
However, I think the 4E magic "powers" are closer in play to the way Traveller does things (you can try to do anything, but you may or may not succeed), so maybe it could serve as a loose model.
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
hdan said:
0e D&D all da way, noob. THACO is for tards who can't count backward from 9. (note-> :mrgreen: <-note)
Mainly, I'd like to se somthing non-d&d, any version -just cause its different, really. Traveller made good hay by not being D&D, why stop now ?
Twin Agate Dragons
Mongoose
captainjack23 said:
Really?
Care to explain what that is, then?
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
Twin Dragons said:captainjack23 said:
Really?
Care to explain what that is, then?
Sure. A nice picture of something that came out twenty years after what I was talking about ? It's d20 traveller, which I own, and enjoy; the values or flaws of which I am not going to get drawn into discussing.
Sorry if I wasn't clear about when. Believe it or not in its first decade (at least), "not being D&D" was a big selling point. helped bridge the gap between "real gamers" and "d&d players".
But really that's neither here nor there. All I'm suggesting is that a bog standard magic system is just that. Standard. And do we need another iteration of older D&D vancian magic, or newer D&D Champions based magic ? And, for the record, i'm not really commenting on any of the suggestions above - nor am I crapping on any of the existing FRP magic systems. I'm just commenting on the similarities that seem to run thru the main FRPG industry. Traveller was different from D&D and even the then available SF sytems (Class and level based, hit dice and etc. in fact: Star Rovers; Metamorphosis and Gamma wrld; a few others). So why not try for that again ?
I can see very clearly, at least to me lol that a magic system based on the psionics rules would work. Just basing the spells on a different power base then psionics. example for someone to cast a "Fireball" spell would need to have access to basically being a Pyrokinetic psionic individual. I dont want to start a flame war or anything, but for magic to replace technology it would have to be easier to perform magic then to build it. An example given above was if anyone could cast a light spell why would anyone make a lightbulb. Well if not everyone could cast a light spell or it was expensive to cast a light spell. But you could go and buy a lightbulb for less then you would have technologie and magic. In Traveller not everyone is psionic, in some fantasy settings magic users are scorned. Look at the new Merlin series on TV (not even covering how it blows a monster hole in the myth) the spellcasters are forced to hide magic.
Well for me I really don't have any issue with adding Magic into the Traveller game at all. Now speaking as a GM, I don't really see it as a issue, as 99.9% of my own campaign will NEVER see it. If a group of players happen to locate a world where Magic is in use, it will be a low tech world where the locals will not even know about life in the stars. The players will not be able to learn it, as it would take YEARS to learn "IF" they had the ability.
I guess it all comes down to a GM's ability to say NO to anything they do not want within their own game. So even if there is a Magic system in the game, one doesn't have to allow it to be put into play even if they don't want it to. So I would just say be the GM and say yes/no to it and don't worry about it if you don't want to. Stop trying to piggeon hole it, allow it to develope as it does. Lets see what Mongoose has come up with and then go from there.
Penn
I guess it all comes down to a GM's ability to say NO to anything they do not want within their own game. So even if there is a Magic system in the game, one doesn't have to allow it to be put into play even if they don't want it to. So I would just say be the GM and say yes/no to it and don't worry about it if you don't want to. Stop trying to piggeon hole it, allow it to develope as it does. Lets see what Mongoose has come up with and then go from there.
Penn
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
I don't see mixing a SF game and a Magic game.
BUT, using the Traveller rules to build a fantasy setting and play in it would be cool.
BUT, using the Traveller rules to build a fantasy setting and play in it would be cool.
FreeTrav
Cosmic Mongoose
Paladin said:
There's no easy way to answer this, IMO; likely, it would depend on (a) what you want each to do, and (b) what you want each to look like when they're being used.
As an example, if you've read The Belgariad/The Malloreon by David Eddings, the magic as practiced by the disciples of the Seven Gods (most notably those of Aldur) in that series is fundamentally "the Will and the Word" - visualize what you want, and speak to trigger the energy flow to accomplish it. That's essentially what happens in most psionics implementations, except that the allowed results of magic are broader than the allowed results of psionics, and psionics doesn't require the vocalization as a trigger.
If you choose a magic system like that, you might well not need to have separate rules for magic vs. psionics, except in that noncreative magic channels energy for its workings from the environment, while psionics and creative magic draw on internal sources.
In contrast, you might choose to have magic be a manifestation of the will of deity, and to "work" it requires propitiation and ritual. That would require a different ruleset from psionics, which would still have to be (essentially, by definition) a manifestation of innate power of mind.
(I don't tend to like Divine Will magic systems, nor Vancian (original D&D) style magic systems. But I said that before.)
Well for my campaign I don't really mix SciFi and Fantasy within a Traveller game. Now I might have Magic on some lone world that that the players might encounter as part of a plot. Maybe I would have some Ancients Ruins with some great prize (entombed) there as a Holy Icon and the "preists" can cast "Magic". Now there "God" would be false, but their "Magic" use would be real and according to the rest of the population is a gift of their God. Whole knows what the real reason or cause is...
Penn
Penn
alex_greene
Guest
Tell me about it. I got turbulence for daring to come up with a low tech skill like mathematics ("But you can use computers for that!" "Not in an Imperial Rome Setting!")Jame Rowe said:
Similar threads
