Digression: In-game Accounting

One of the big advantages of using a rules-light RPG system like Oe/1e D&D is simplicity of information tracking. The record sheet for an Oe character can easily fit on two sides of a 3x5 index card, though we usually use larger paper because index cards don't fit in laser printers and copiers all that well. 1e character sheets are a little more complex, since the rule set is a little larger, but still models of concision compared to the multi-sheet booklets needed to track all the various skill levels and other arcana associated with characters in later rule sets (3.5e being the most heinous example).

In an earlier post, I briefly mentioned my experience with the Ringworld game produced by Chaosium and based on their well-conceived Basic Role Playing (BRP) system. It works, it's comprehensive, and there's much to admire in Chaosium's system, but keeping track of a character's skills and various other possessions and abilities is laborious. The 4-page character sheets that come with the game are pretty, but complicated: a warning of tedium to come.

In-game accounting is a big deal.

I've just started the process of outlining my proposed mana-based magic overlay for the Oe/1e D&D rules, and now there are a bunch of additional numbers the GM and any spell-casting player will have to track during the course of play: especially basal mana and base cost to cast a spell at each level. This requires an accounting system that is simple, intuitive, and easy to use. If I simply rely on players to jot down numbers and try and keep track of them, this whole exercise isn’t going to work.

As an architect by trade, I am strongly inclined by professional training and personal disposition to prefer graphic communication as a means for condensing large amounts of information into a compact, easy-to-understand package. A list of numbers on a page isn't going to do any of us any favors here. We should defer to the wisdom of Edward Tufte. Here are some of his rules for communicating graphic information:

• Enforce Visual Comparisons - information shown should maintain a proportional scale illustrating comparative magnitude through space and time.
• Show Causality - if there are causal relationships in the information beings shown, they should be graphically represented.
• Try to Show Multivariate Data - more than two dimensions of inter-related information can be represented in a two-dimensional diagram.
• Completely Integrate Words, Numbers, and Images - Don't make the user work to learn your system (avoid codes and other obscure reference systems)
• Design Should be Content-Driven - the point of the diagram is the information, not the graphic itself.

Now, it's not practical for us to integrate sparklines into a table-top RPG. However, there are some examples that could be adapted to our purposes without too much trouble.

 

The first of these comes from computer interface design: the progress bar. A progress bar is a simple representation of a proportional relationship in percentage terms. When the bar is completely full, its value is 100%. Anything less than that gives a fast and accurate representation of the current scale-independent comparative level being measured versus its potential maximum. You see these everywhere in computer GUIs because they are easy and quick to understand. They're ubiquitous in computer games for good reason. In the heat of combat while running a level in a first-person shooter, you can't take your eyes off the action long enough to read your hit points as a number and calculate damage in your head. A health progress bar gives a fast, accurate, proportional read of damage and hit points.

 

Again, it's not practical to have continuously updating progress bars for a table-top RPG like we see in video games. It's trivial to implement when a computer is doing the work, but on paper it can become tiresome.

 

Which leads us to my second example. Back in my early gaming days, I was an avid player of Star Fleet Battles (originally by Task Force Games): a table-top war game involving ship-to-ship combat in space between Star Trek inspired fleets.

 

SFB is actually a somewhat complicated game to play, especially when compared to OD&D. Each player controls a fleet of starships with varying attributes and weapons systems, many of which have limited supplies of ammunition and the ability to carry varying payloads. Most of these ships are capable of covering vast distances in very short periods of time. You might even have "legendary officers" on board (scrupulously avoiding reference to beloved TV characters for licensing reasons), who give performance bonuses but can be killed in battle. Prior to each turn, the player has to allocate each ship's limited energy resources to ship systems (propulsion, shields, weapons, &c). Available energy resources are only rarely enough to power everything at once, so hard choices have to be made with limited resources ("All power to shields!"). Each turn is then divided into 32 "impulses" as fractional periods of time elapse during the action.

 

All of which sounds frighteningly complicated. It is, except that SFB uses a highly-graphical abstract accounting system to condense all of this information into a form that is easily understood and used in a free-flowing game session.  Every ship in the game is controlled and tracked using a single-sided record sheet called a Ship Systems Display (SSD). Here's an example for a fan-created Federation Destroyer SSD:

 

 Federation DXI Bullet Destroyer SSD for Star Fleet Battles

 

That's it. An entire starship with a crew of dozens and all of its core systems represented on one side of one letter-sized sheet of paper with lots of white space left over. In fact, the information is so simplified and condensed that there's room for several handy "to-hit" and damage tables for the player to reference without having to crack a rule-book. The SSDs that came with the original game were actually condensed to fit two on a page (cut the sheet in half or fold to use) without any loss of clarity or information.

 

The grid squares you see each represent one unit of system capability and damage capacity. How many energy points are available? Count the engine squares. How many hit points of damage can the shields take? Count the shield squares (which are also conveniently oriented by hex face). Handy reference numbers in the last square of each large block save the trouble of having to count lots of squares. On taking a hit, the damage is totaled up and hit locations determined on a simple chart. Then the appropriate number of boxes is crossed out to represent the damage. When repaired, the boxes are cleared.

 

For ease of use, we always put plastic covers on the SSDs and colored in boxes with china markers, but pencil on paper with a handy eraser works just as well if you don't mind a little mess. When all the shield boxes on a side are colored in, the shield is down and any further damage from attacks in that direction go straight to the hull and ship systems.

 

Thus, a very complicated game mechanic which requires detailed accounting is rendered simple and easy to understand through graphic representation. It's a model of concision, and this method for representation was used in Task Force Games' wet-navy simulation game, Battlewagon, as well.* Here’s an entire fleet on one 5 1/2” x 8 1/2” half-sheet of paper:

 

Battlewagon Generic Fleet SCSs

 

Tracking all of this spell-casting and mana stuff is adding complexity to my rule-set. To help both players and GM track it simply and easily, I’m going to revise the basic character sheet to include some graphic tracking elements. In my next post, we take a look at the results.

 

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* My favorite way to play Battlewagon was with 1:2400 miniature ship models (from GHQ) on the floor of my parents’ breakfast room/kitchen, finished with 2” blue hexagonal tiles. It’s a great way to spend a rainy afternoon. Incidentally, with some rule modifications for earlier technology, the Battlewagon rules are also a great way to quickly and easily simulate both small- and large-scale naval warfare in D&D campaigns.

Alternative Magicks: Mana (Scalars)

I my last post, I listed a set of guiding principles for the mana-based rules overlay I'm developing for the Oe/1e magic rules. The first major implementation issue to be addressed is that of scalars.

Huh? Scay-whats?

That's a fancy but precise way to address the quantitative and definitive answers to the following questions:

• how many "points" of mana does it cost to cast a particular type of spell or use some kind of magical power?
• how many "points" of basal mana does a character have available to use?

In other words, how (exactly and in detail) does this new mana thing work? Once we answer these two questions, all else is elaboration.

The two questions really need to be answered together, because a small change in one dramatically changes the application of the other. If a magic missile costs 1 mana point to cast, and a 4th level magic user has 100 points of basal mana to work with...well...watch out. Similarly, if it costs 100 points of mana to cast a magic missile, and a 4th level magic user doesn't have at least that much basal mana available at full reserve, then something is wrong with the rule set-up.

I've emphasized that I want the net effect of this new set of mana house rules to be roughly proportionate to the core magic rules in its effect. In the core rules, a 4th level magic user can cast two 1st-level spells and two 2nd-level spells, or a total of 6 cumulative spell levels, per day. However much mana those spells cost to cast and how much basal mana a 4th level magic user has should come out roughly equal to that power level.

We could just say that a spell costs as many mana points to cast as whatever its spell level is, and the level of basal mana available is equal to whatever the cumulative spell levels are. That would be simple. However, as we then try to address the basal mana supply, we'll discover that an approach like this will quickly make higher-level magic users vastly more powerful than they already are. For instance, under the core rules a 20th level mage can cast four 9th-level spells per day. That same mage also has a power level of 192 spell spell levels. 192 divided by 9 is 22. Higher-level mages are already ridiculously over-powered without being able to cast 22 Wish or Power Word Kill spells per day (or even 192 magic missiles).

If we set basal mana to be proportional to the highest level of spell available to cast (for instance, a basal mana of 36 would limit that 20th-level mage to high-level casting power equal to the core rules for her highest spell level, but dramatically reduce other spell-casting ability. That might work, except that the spell level progression chart does not follow a direct linear relationship which lets us have a smooth progression of basal mana levels along with experience level and casting ability.

For instance, at 20th level, a magic user gets to cast four 9th level spells, translating to a basal mana level of 36. At 19th level, it's three, for a basal mana of 27. At 17th level, a mage get the first 9th-level spell, suggesting a basal mana of 9. Yet at 16th level, the mage had a maximum spell-casting level of two 8th-level spells, suggesting that her basal mana was already 16. This quickly becomes a mess when we project it both backwards and forwards.

We could just say that basal mana is equal to the highest of the number of spells known at each level on the spell progression chart times that spell level. That gives us something that looks like this (with the highest multiple of spell level vs. spells available – shown bold - used as basal mana level):

Level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Basal Mana
1	1									1
2	2									2
3	2	1								2
4	2	2								4
5	2	2	1							4
6	2	2	2							6
7	3	2	2	1						6
8	3	3	2	2						8
9	3	3	3	2	1					9
10	3	3	3	3	2					12
11	4	3	3	3	2	1				12
12	4	4	3	3	3	2				15
13	4	4	4	3	3	2	1			15
14	4	4	4	4	3	3	2			18
15	5	4	4	4	4	3	2	1		20
16	5	5	4	4	4	4	3	2		24
17	5	5	5	4	4	4	4	3	1	28
18	5	5	5	5	4	4	4	4	2	32
19	6	5	5	5	5	4	4	4	3	32
20	6	6	5	5	5	5	4	4	4	36

This is simple, but there isn’t a whole lot of consistency or logic to the way the power levels increase here (which is actually a flaw in the original spell progression chart which is propagating forward into this analysis…but we’re trying to keep it anyway). Also note that although this keeps a spell caster from being able to cast more high-level spells than would normally be allowed, it doesn’t do so consistently either (a 17th-level mage would have 28 mana points and could could therefore cast more than one 9th level spell even though he should only have one). It also radically reduces the caster’s ability to cast both high- and low-level spells during the same day. We might want to limit that a little bit, but not so much. Nor can we increase the mana level to compensate without increase the cost to cast a spell.

Clearly, this approach isn’t going to work.

Conversely, we could say that the cost to cast a spell is the spell’s level times the caster’s level, which make high-level casting of high-level spells very expensive while making lower-level spells more accessible. Without even drawing up a chart, it’s clear that such a thing would require an exponential increase in mana at each experience level, further imbalancing the game. So scratch that idea too.

Finally, we could go with a deductive percentage system. A 9th-level spell takes 50% of whatever the basal mana level is or something like that. The proportionality of a percentage system is nice, but tracking it is cumbersome and doesn’t really allow for differing basal mana levels (for, say, a lich vs. a plain-old magic user).

What we really need is something in-between all these options.

One thing the simplistic approach does not do is take any account of the fact that as somebody practices something for a long time and gets good at it, it becomes much easier and more intuitive for them to do it. It should take less effort and energy for a 20th-level mage to cast a 1st-level spell than for a 1st-level mage to do it. Similarly, when progressing to the first spell of a new, more advanced spell level, it should take more effort and energy to cast than after mastering more or higher-level spells.

To calculate how much mana it should cost to cast a spell, we need to have a number that is both proportionate to the level of the spell and also proportionate to how many spells of that level are available to a character of similar experience level. That gives us an equation that looks like this:

				Spells Known at Level 20
Cost to Cast Spell	=	Level of Spell	x	----------------------------------
(in mana)				Spells Known at Current Level

Just as with the first approach, the mana required to cast a spell is directly proportional to the level of the spell. However, now I’m multiplying that number times a ratio of how many spells the caster knows at their current level versus a benchmark (in this case, the hypothetical maximum of spells known at level 20…more about that later).

So, for example, it would require six (6) mana points for a first level magic user to cast the 1st-leve spell magic missile (mana = 1 * 6/1), but only one (1) mana point for a 20th-level magic user (mana = 1 * 6/6). For the sake of simplicity in accounting (a subject I’ll cover in depth in a future post), the result of this equation is rounded up to the nearest 1/2 point.

Therefore we get a chart that looks like this:

BASE MANA COST PER EXPERIENCE & SPELL LEVEL

Level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1	6
2	3
3	3	12
4	3	6
5	3	6	15
6	3	6	7.5
7	2	6	7.5	20
8	2	4	7.5	10
9	2	4	5	10	25
10	2	4	5	7	12.5
11	1.5	4	5	7	12.5	30
12	1.5	3	5	7	8.5	15
13	1.5	3	4	7	8.52	15	28
14	1.5	3	4	5	8.5	10	14
15	1.5	3	4	5	6.5	10	14	32
16	1.5	2.5	4	5	6.5	7.5	9.5	16
17	1.5	2.5	3	5	6.5	7.5	7	11	36
18	1.5	2.5	3	4	6.5	7.5	7	8	18
19	1	2.5	3	4	5	7.5	7	8	12
20	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Lower-level spell casters have to spend more mana to cast spells, and the cost of casting a spell at a certain level goes down at higher experience levels. This matches our intuitive sense about how such a thing should work, and provides a proportionate cost at every level.

We might also add in another column here for so-called “level zero” spells (cantrips), stating that casting any cantrip costs 1 mana point up to level 10, and 1/2 thereafter. This provides a tidy mechanism for allowing cantrips to be used in an early-edition campaign without having them unbalance the spell casting.

Note also that even though this mana cost chart has been developed from the magic user spell progression, the same equation applies to all spell-casting classes. Toward the end of this, when I’ve finalized all the details associated with these house rules, I’ll provide a handy PDF of them which includes charts for each class.

The second question hasn’t been answered yet, though. Now that we have an idea of the relative costs of casting spells at various levels, how much mana should be available?

One thing we should make sure of is that for each point at which a caster’s experience level makes a new spell level available, the caster’s basal mana level should be less than twice the mana cost for that first spell at the highest available level. In other words, since a 17th-level magic user gains the ability to memorize and cast one 9th-level spell on attaining that experience level, he shouldn’t already have enough basal mana to cast it twice in one day.

Also, when a spell becomes available to a caster, there should be enough basal mana available to cast it. For instance, a 1st-level magic user wouldn’t be much of a spell-caster if he didn’t already have at least 6 basal mana points available at first level to cast his one spell per day.

Fortunately, except for the odd little bump down in cost for the first 6th-level spell to the first 7th-level spell (which is an artifact of the core rules’ spell progression table), the numbers follow a fairly linear progression upward. In fact, if we stick to multiples of three, we get a nice, simple progression that fills all our basic requirements.

Without going into the minutiae then, we can now state a couple of simple rules for basal mana levels at any experience level:

• The basal mana level for any standard human or humanoid (not including elves) at level zero is three (3).
• Through training and discipline, spell-casting classes gain an additional three (3) basal mana points per experience level.
• Non-casting classes gain an additional one (1) basal mana point per experience level, even if they do not have the ability to use it through spell-casting ability.

That’s it. If you’re a human or non-elf humanoid caster, your basal mana level is your experience level times three plus three. If you’re a non-caster, it’s your experience level plus three. Elves are a special case because they’re innately magical, and we’ll talk about them when we get into the implications of how this system works.

So, updating the base spell cost chart to include basal mana levels, we get this:

MAGIC USER

BASE MANA COST PER EXPERIENCE & SPELL LEVEL

Class	Spell Level									Basal
Level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Mana
1	6									6
2	3									9
3	3	12								12
4	3	6								15
5	3	6	15							18
6	3	6	7.5							21
7	2	6	7.5	20						24
8	2	4	7.5	10						27
9	2	4	5	10	25					30
10	2	4	5	7	12.5					33
11	1.5	4	5	7	12.5	30				36
12	1.5	3	5	7	8.5	15				39
13	1.5	3	4	7	8.5	15	28			42
14	1.5	3	4	5	8.5	10	14			45
15	1.5	3	4	5	6.5	10	14	32		48
16	1.5	2.5	4	5	6.5	7.5	9.5	16		51
17	1.5	2.5	3	5	6.5	7.5	7	11	36	54
18	1.5	2.5	3	4	6.5	7.5	7	8	18	57
19	1	2.5	3	4	5	7.5	7	8	12	60
20	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	63

Up next, a quick digression into accounting.

Alternative Magicks: Mana (Introduction)

If anybody was actually reading this thing, you might be wondering where I've been for the last week. There were all these posts and then: nothing. Sometimes life intervenes. I'm actually a somewhat busy person, and hobbies such as this one will always get bumped down the priority list when other obligations intervene.

However, since nobody seems to be reading, I'll just keeping going as I find the time.

Anyway, here we are: my thoughts on creating a mana-based overlay for the Oe/1e D&D rules. This is not a replacement for the core rules, but an extension and modification of them. As mentioned previously, we're going to keep most of how the core magic system already works. Casters can still only know those spells which they can hold in their memory at any one time, and those are limited by class and spell levels according to the current spell progression charts. No changes there.

Here's a change, though: once a spell is learned, the caster doesn't forget it by using it. In fact, forgetting it in order to learn another spell will require some substantial time and effort, becoming a lot more difficult (more about that later).

Instead of forgetting and re-learning, casting any spell under these rules requires the expenditure of a magical energy resource, which we're going to call "mana" in honor of Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away series of books.

There have been many rule sets created along these lines, and it's a popular way of running magic use in computer games (where the computer can keep track of it all for you). Most of them are designed from the ground up as "point-based" spell casting systems. Even the later editions of the D&D rules introduce entire point-based spell-like casting systems, the most well-known of which are the psionics rules (later retconned into a form of magic all to itself).

I don't want that. If I did, I'd just junk the core magic rules and replace them with psionics (a popular option for 2e, 3e and 3.5e rule-hackers). Or, I'd just chuck the D&D-like rules entirely and go back to something like GURPS or another full point-based system.

No, this is going to be an attempt to hybridize the two systems into something that retains the full flavor of Oe/1e Vancian magic (even enhances it in some ways) and yet introduces a new dimension of magic use diversity and flexibility.

Here are some of the working principles I'm adopting for this exploration: 

• All the core Oe/1e rules for magic use are retained, except that casting a spell does not cause it to be forgotten.
• The casting of any spell or use of any magical effect requires the expenditure of a magical energy resource called Mana.
• Every living thing generates its own mana as a function of its life processes. We're going to call this Basal Mana (sort of like basal metabolism, but for magic). Some creatures generate more than others or at faster rates.
• When used, basal mana will regenerate at a set rate that will vary depending on the creature's activity level (faster when resting, slower when active).
• The amount of basal mana a player character has available will be scaled to experience level so that the net effect of the number of spell levels available to cast will be roughly the same as under the core rules, though the player will be able to cast any known spell as many times as available mana allows. Memorizing multiple copies of the same spell will no longer be necessary for this reason (and inadvisable anyway, because of some of the Ultra-Vancian house rules we'll be throwing in here later).
• Magic use must typically draw in a mana source that is internal to the source of the magic (i.e. a caster, monster, or magic item/artifact). In other words, a spell-caster can only cast spells if he or she has enough basal mana available to power the spell. If the internal mana source is not renewable (as for a magic item), expenditure of mana can exhaust it permanently.
• Special spells, conditions, or knowledge may allow the source of a magical effect to draw on external mana sources, or transfer mana from one place or creature to another, but these will be rare and very risky.
• Cast spells and magic use will sometimes fail. When they do, bad things can happen. A caster can reduce the risk of spell failure by spending more mana on making it turn out right.
• Spell and magical effects can be magnified by spending more mana on them, but not in any other way. This will replace class-level-dependent spell effects entirely.
• Inanimate objects and areas have a Background Mana Level (sort of like background radiation, except not). In other words, some places are highly magical (boosting spell effects and making unusual things possible), most have a normal level of background mana, and some are like magical deserts (magic doesn't work very well there, if at all, and magical creatures find it difficult to survive). 
• High-mana environments will be sought after by highly magical creatures and others who use large amounts of magic (such as high-level casters). They will therefore tend to be hotly-contested territories.
• Arcane/Divine Beings are physical instantiations in our reality of extra-dimensional magical forces themselves, and thus draw all their power from background mana in the form of a direct connection to the plane of their origin through some means in our reality. This means that they have few limits on their magical powers and can be extremely dangerous. Without access to their mana source, however, they cease to exist or become severely weakened (at least here).
• Magical creatures have to expend some amount of mana simply to stay alive (part of their metabolism involves a magic-dependent process) in addition to fueling their magical powers, and will usually have higher basal mana levels and regeneration rates.
• Mundane creatures don't, but still generate some amount of mana anyway by virtue of being alive.
• Magic-using character classes gain increased basal mana levels and regeneration rates through training for each experience level, linking their life force with the arcane or divine mana reservoirs of the universe.
• Because they can't make their own, Magic Items must be recharged from external mana sources, sort of like batteries. This will be difficult, time-consuming, and involve some amount of risk.
• Magic Artifacts will be treated as quasi-living things, and thus do regenerate their own mana. Of course, they're rare, powerful, have wills of their own, and are extremely dangerous to handle.

There are a lot of juicy opportunities for diversity and flexibility in the way magic works entailed by all this, but it looks like it will be pretty complicated to implement. Next up, I'll explore some house rules to implement these principles in ways that don't add too much complexity and should be easy for both GM and players to work with.

Alternative Magicks: Ultra-Vancian

I'm sure my detractors will object to my ultimate intent of adding a Mana-based overlay to D&D spell-casting rules. I should stop violating the essential and dearly-beloved Vancian nature of D&D magic, and I should get off their lawn while I'm at it. Okay. Fair enough. One way to go with refining the magic system is to take the Vancian aspect and be thoroughly consistent in applying its logic. We describe the core D&D magic rules as being Vancian, but they are only selectively so. You can staunchly defend D&D's Vancian system against my incursions, but be ready to have me outflank you.

What if we turn the Vance up to eleven?

If you read the Dying Earth stories, there is a strong sense that a spell is a quasi-living entity: what we might call a memetic organism whose source of power is outside our reality. A meme in this sense would be a form of information that can exist independently and has the power to take over (or at least inhabit) minds and propagate itself under the right conditions. In a magical context, we must therefore presume that spells (as memes which can effect reality via supernatural forces) are manifestations in our dimensional plane of memetic entities existing on higher-dimensional planes.

There are several implications which follow. Spells must have wills and the ability to act on their own, and their own set of motivational parameters. Less sophisticated spells might be very simplistic in their powers and priorities (the equivalent of bacteria or flatworms): survival, propagation, growth, mind-share.

More sophisticated and powerful spells might even have intelligence and personalities of their own, following rules similar to ego defined in 1e AD&D for swords and artifacts. That little voice in your head? Yeah...that's not just an auditory hallucination, it's the Auditory Illusion spell you just memorized wanting to have a word with you about the Animate Dead spell throwing a party in the memory slot next door.

A really powerful and complex spell might be smarter and have more willpower than even the highest level caster. Trying to memorize and use such thing would be phenomenally dangerous, inviting possession and complete personality sublimation at the very least. A particularly malevolent spell could take over a caster's brain like a computer virus. It might even use its host to spread.

Magic User botnets? The wave of the future, man. Prepare to be assimilated.

(Note also that this gives a pretty good explanation for the behavior of some highly-magical monsters: they are physical thralls of powerful arcane forces which have completely colonized and changed them. Some may even be direct physical instantiations of magical forces in our reality.)

Similarly, we'd need to take into account the interactions between different spells as a caster gets them into her head. Memorize two Magic Missile spells, and unanticipated effects or an overdose might occur (much like mixing medication). The spells might not get along (put a conjuration-based spell in your head with a divination-based spell and create a memetic cage match in your brain) or could change one another with unpredictable results. More alarming still, they might start to reproduce.

Why would spell reproduction be alarming? After all, wouldn't that allow my Cleric to get infinite Cure Light Wounds by filling two spell slots?

Another reason a caster can only get so many spells into her head is that, like a pressure vessel, a mortal brain is rated to contain only so much magical force before undergoing explosive systemic failure. Exceed the maximum safety rating, and BOOM: meltdown. A 1st Level mage can certainly try to read or memorize that Trap the Soul spell he found on a scroll in the flea market, but his brain hasn't been strengthened to the point where he can safely contain it. The results could very likely be messy...and I'll just stand way over here while he reads it, thank you.

Even if he does somehow manage to get it in his head, safely getting it out again might not be so easy. 

A 2nd Level mage successfully memorizing two Shield spells may touch off a runaway Malthusian growth curve as they make new little Shield spells in the warm, dark boudoir of his cerebellum. A generation or three of reproduction, and KA-BLAM! At the very least, a runaway spell propagation in his head would be likely to over-write all his other memories and fill all his cognitive buffers with spell-related detritus. He'd be lucky to get off with simply going permanently insane. Death would be a mercy.

If there is one notion we should take away from extrapolating Jack Vance's fictional thoughts on spells and spell-casting, it is this: Magic is dangerous.

The core magic rules don't properly reflect that. Handling spells and magic should be treated like this guy treats flourine chemistry. Reading and memorizing a spell should require significant effort and precautions and even then will have the potential for catastrophic failure. The consequences of that failure should be proportionate to the power of the spell. More importantly, the consequences of succeeding might not be all that great either (once you've got a bunch of FOOF whipped up or Bigby's Crushing Hand itching at the door of your pre-frontal cortex wanting to get out, what do you do with it?). Careless casters wind up dead at the hands (figurative or literal) of their own spells. We hope the collateral damage isn't too widespread and the fallout plume blows out to sea. Scrolls and spellbooks should be treated like they contain nitro-glycerine or plutonium dust or chlorine triflouride...or worse. You certainly wouldn't want to casually carry one on your belt into a battle zone: REALLY bad things might happen to you.

All of which is perfectly true to the Vancian character of D&D magic. Some of this is not really usable in a game setting, or would be so complicated to administer that play would grind to a halt and we'd stop having fun. There are some interesting ideas for my core-rules-meddling to be found in this exploration, however. Let's list them:

1. Memorizing or praying for spells is a very dangerous and demanding task. It's not something to be done casually or in an uncontrolled environment. One does not simply whip out one's spellbook to re-memorize Meteor Swarm in Mordor (unless one happens to have one's protected stronghold there).
2. Spellbooks and scrolls are themselves very potent, dangerous, and volatile objects. Handle with care. A damaged spell book is a ticking bomb.
3. Even if conditions are right, there should be a chance for failure in learning a spell. The risks can be mitigated by lots of preparation and care, but never eliminated. Attempts that are careless, casual, or undertaken in less than ideal conditions have exponentially-increasing potential for failure.
4. If the attempt to learn a spell fails, something bad is likely to happen in proportion to how powerful the spell is and what it does.
5. A hard cap on the number and level of spells known is enforced by both a significant increase in time and effort to learn new ones and the threat of dire consequences if the limit is breached.
6. Casters will be forced to specialize in certain types of spells, since not all spells are compatible or interact in safe ways when known together at the same time.
7. There should also be a non-zero chance for any known spell cast to fail. The results will usually be unpleasant for everyone concerned. The chance for failure increases with spell level and contextual difficulty (such as combat conditions). It decreases with the experience level and ability stats of the caster.
8. Inexperienced or non-casters attempting to use higher-level spells and magic do so at very substantial risk to themselves and everyone around them, but there is the occasional (small) chance that something powerfully beneficial might result. You feeling lucky, punk?
9. Even looking at the text of a spell is enough to trigger some kind of effect, let alone reading it or trying to memorize it. Thieves in wizardly libraries had better be on their toes and keep their eyes from wandering. Nobody goes around promiscuously reading every text they find.

There are also some fun campaign ideas and milieu-flavor that might come from all this:

• Non-caster suspicion and fear of magic will be justified and very well-founded. Casters will not often be welcome among non-casters, even if alignments are shared and benefits are to be gained through the association. Even the well-meaning dabbler in the arcane or divine can cause very bad things to happen to innocent people by accident. Casters gone bad are so dangerous that they will likely be killed on sight if possible. As a result, casters will keep to themselves and take pains to disguise or downplay their spell-related activities unless they're looking for trouble. Anti-caster pogroms are not entirely unheard-of.
• On the flip side, casters who have a high-level mastery of magic and spell-casting will be legendary figures of awe and fear: much-sought-out as allies or enemies. Alliances will always be governed by convenience, not loyalty.
• There exists the potential for spell zombies: living beings who have been completely hijacked by and are now controlled by some spell or combination of spells. This would be a particular problem for schools of wizardry, which will have strong safeguards and magical hygiene policies to protect against it. Oh no, Harry! Hermione's been taken over by Wingardium Leviosa! Call Dumbledore before she levitates everything.

So, even though I'm going to be diluting some aspects of the Vancian magic system in the core D&D rules, I'm actually going to be making it more Vancian in some respects. The haters can chill.

Alternative Magicks: Base for Exploration

Having already said that I intend to come up with a resource-based rule refinement for the core magic system in old-school D&D-style rule systems, there are several ways in which this could be done. There are also other ways the rules could be tweaked to introduce more power balance and flavor to magic use in these games.

Let's lay some of them out on the table.

Before doing that, however, we need to specify what is Baby, and what is Bathwater. What in the core rules are we going to keep?

Number one on the list is the requirement that for a spell to be cast, it must be known in advance. This is a requirement is particular to D&D, is a large part of the game's unique feel, and requires players to give a lot of forethought to choosing spells and managing their spell-casting during play. We're going to keep this.

Number two is the necessity for having access to the spell the player wants to use. Spells aren't innate superpowers. Magic Users have spellbooks. If the spell isn't in their spellbook or written down somewhere where they can learn it, they can't memorize it and can't use it. Clerics either have a spellbook equivalent (like a psalter or something), or receive spells direct from a divine source. Either way, the same limitations apply. We're going to keep this too.

Number three, the number of spells a caster can have available to cast is limited by ability to contain them (governed by experience level, memory via INT, and/or discipline via WIS). This, we also keep.

Number four, there is a limit on the number of spells that can be cast during one day. Magic is very powerful, so we don't want casters able to throw magic around at will with no limits. There should be a cost and hard limits on magic use.

Number five, it takes time to regain the power to cast a spell once it has been used. In the core rules, when a spell is used it literally vanishes from the mind of the caster and must be replaced.

For these last two, the intent is sound but the core mechanics are awkward and inflexible. We're going to keep the result, but modify the rules by which these two are accomplished.

In fact, the only part of the core spell casting system we're not going to keep the need to re-memorize a spell once it's been cast. Other than that, the rest stays.

We could just stop here and say that we're implementing only one house rule in modification of the core magic system: known spells can only be cast once per day, but don't need to be re-memorized unless the player wants to change what's in the spell slot. There are many gaming groups who have adopted a rule exactly like or similar to this. I'm not stopping here, though, since I can't leave well enough alone.

Next up, we'll look at a couple of different ways to treat magic in the D&D universe.

Analysis of the Core Magic System

Following on my last post, in which I throw caution to the winds and announce my intention to monkey around with the core rules magic system despite experience telling me that messing with core rules is almost always a very bad idea, I first need to do some analysis of what it is I'm messing with and how it actually works. I want to refine and expand it, not break it or replace it.

How does magic in the Oe/1e rules really work in practice?

Definitionally, "magic" is a kind of reality hack describing a peculiar kind of cause-and-effect: specifically, one in which effects in our universe can be created via the application of forces from outside it. The dictionary gives a few different interpretations of the word, all of which are related:

1. An illusion or perceptual trick of some sort, usually effected through misdirection, legerdemain, and prestidigitation.
2. The creation of some sort of effect through the manipulation and control of supernatural forces: an extraordinary or mystic influence.

D&D focuses on the second definition far more than the first. Even illusion is treated as supernatural in D&D, with its own specialized character class and spell types. Later editions introduce skill levels, one of which is prestidigitation ("I take 14 levels in Three Card Monty!"), but that's for a future post.

Mystic simply means: I don't understand it. That's an epistemic statement about cause and effect, not an ontological one. It only tells us what we don't or can't know, not what the thing is.

Supernatural means beyond nature: something that exists outside of existence (never mind the inherent contradiction to that...it's a fantasy game). If the effects of an act of manipulation or control result from natural forces, we call that technology, not magic.

The sci-fi fans among you can take a moment now to quote Arthur Clarke's Third Law at me: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Maybe Excellent Prismatic Spray is just a high-powered laser pointer and Magic Users are simply applied quantum physicists with even weirder jargon and cool hats? The Blackmoor campaign setting ultimately goes down this path (viz. The "Rad"), and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks had a lot of fun with it in a contained setting.

Larry Niven, whose take on magic we'll be trying to adapt to the core D&D magic rules in the next few posts, argued (both contra and corollary to Clarke): "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."

This is to say that if your magical spells, powers, and effects are predictable, reliable, and clearly understood according to logical principles and empirical validation, then what you've really got is a special kind of technology, like solid state electronics but with wands and eldritch gestures.

Any game setting must necessarily go down this latter path, even games which revolve around explicit miracles (i.e. In Nomine). If they didn't, then literally anything goes and the only sort of meaningful structure you can bring into play is a draconian limitation on access to miraculous powers (in other words, none). Every spell winds up being a Wish spell. In practice, that tends to be both boring and directionless: no fun.

The only question for game mechanics, then, is what rules govern the technologies of magic? This is a significant question, because magic is inherently a kind of cheat.

In the original D&D rules, Gygax and Arneson adapted a magic and spell casting system he found in the fictional works of Jack Vance. In Vance's stories, the technology of magic works like this (from Rhialto the Marvelous):

A spell in essence corresponds to a code, or set of instructions, inserted into the sensorium of an entity which is able and not unwilling to alter the environment in accordance with the message conveyed by the spell. These entities are not necessarily 'intelligent,' nor even 'sentient,' and their conduct, from the tyro's point of view, is unpredictable, capricious and dangerous.

The most pliable and cooperative of these creatures range from the lowly and frail elementals, through the sandestins. More fractious entities are known by the Temuchin as 'daihak,' which include 'demons' and gods.' A magicians power derives from the abilities of the entities he is able to control. Every magician of consequence employs one or more sandestins. A few arch-magicians of Grand Motholam dared to employ the force of the lesser daihaks. To recite or even to list the names of these magicians is to evoke wonder and awe

(from The Dying Earth):

The tomes which held Turjan's sorcery lay on a long table of black steel or were thrust helter-skelter into shelves. These were volumes compiled by many wizards of the past, untidy folios collected by the Sage, leather-bound librams setting forth the syllables of a hundred powerful spells, so cogent that Turjan's brain could know but four at a time.

Turjan found a musty portfolio, turned the heavy pages to the spell the Sage had shown him, the Call to the Violet Cloud. He stared down at the characters and they burned with an urgent power, pressing off the page as if frantic to leave the dark solitude of the book.

Turjan closed the book, forcing the spell back into oblivion. [...] Then he sat down and from a journal chose the spells he would take with him. What dangers he might meet he could not know, so he selected three spells of general application: the Excellent Prismatic Spray, Phandaal's Mantle of Stealth, and the Spell of the Slow Hour.

Thus, in Vancian Magic, we have the following rules:

1. Magical effects are packaged into distinct spells; each spell has one fixed purpose with one fixed effect.
2. Spells represent a kind of quasi-independent "magic-bomb" which must be prepared in advance of actual use, and each prepared spell can be used only once before needing to be prepared again.
3. Magicians have a finite capacity of prepared spells which is the de facto measure of their skill and/or power as magicians. A wizard using magic for combat is thus something like a living gun: he must be "loaded" with spells beforehand and can run out of magical "ammunition".

It's clear from all this that when using Vancian magic, we are dealing with powerful forces that require significant effort and discipline to control. That's good, although the spells being thrown around in Vance's books are way more powerful than anything you'll normally see in a D&D game...particularly if you're playing with old-school rules.

As applied to the game mechanics of Oe/1e Dungeons & Dragons, the essence of Vancian magic is expressed in the following core rules:

1. Spells must be somehow installed in a caster's brain in order to be used (via memorization or dedicated prayer)...akin to loading bombs and missiles onto a fighter plane prior to taking off.
2. The number of spells a caster can have installed in his brain is limited by how experienced and skillful he is (by class level) and either how smart or wise he is (INT or WIS stat bonuses and penalties).
3. More advanced and powerful spells require more experience and discipline to learn and use, and are therefore only available to be cast by higher-level characters.
4. Once a spell is used, it leaves the caster's brain and has to be re-installed. This takes time and effort.
5. Because it takes time and effort to get these spells into a caster's head, available spells have to be memorized or prayed for prior when you might need them. Choosing spells therefore becomes a major strategic and tactical issue.

This makes for a very simple and easy-to-administer spell-casting system in a game setting. In fact, despite my earlier critique and desire to refine it, I don't have any fundamental objection to any of these core provisions. I like them (for the most part). They work well, and I intend to keep all of them except the first part of number 4 (forgetting spells). All I'm going to change how they are implemented in such a way as to add a little flexibility, flavor, and diversity while balancing out the whole magic part of the game a bit more.

How are these rules applied to the various spell-casting classes and what sort of power does it give casters?

Looking at the effects of standard spells at various levels, we start to see that most of them increase in power with level in a linear progression (as opposed to a logarithmic or exponential progression). While 2nd Level spells are often twice as powerful as 1st Level spells, 3rd Level spells do not typically double the power again. Most 9th Level spells (excluding Wish, which gets its very own category as truly miraculous Magic, not any sort of magical technology), are not 256 times more powerful than 1st Level spells. Power Word: Kill is nasty, but it isn't a 256d6 Magic Missile, either.

Without parsing each individual spell, we're going to operate with the intuitive assumption that spell power follows a one-level step progression along with the level of the spells. 9th Level spells will be, on average, nine times more powerful than 1st Level spells. Therefore, we can sum up the available spell levels for any character class and have a rough quantitative approximation of that character's magical power. A comparative chart of cumulative spell levels for the major casting classes in Oe/1e looks like this (without Bards, because...WTF Bards?):

Level	Magic User	Cleric	Druid	Illusionist	Paladin	Ranger
1	1	1	2	1
2	2	2	4	2
3	4	4	8	4
4	6	7	11	6
5	9	10	14	9
6	12	15	18	12
7	17	20	21	13
8	23	27	27	19		1
9	31	34	32	26	1	2
10	40	44	42	31	2	3
11	47	53	53	41	4	6
12	55	66	68	49	6	6
13	65	71	94	58	9	10
14	76	78	121	69	9	10
15	90	93		88	14	12
16	113	104		90	16	15
17	140	116		106	19	18
18	161	128		110	22	18
19	176	138		123	26	18
20	192	144		138	30	18

A few things immediately jump out from this chart (other than the fact that I'm way over-thinking this):

1. Clerics have marginally more spell-casting power than Magic Users until 15th level, at which point Magic User casting power increases dramatically.
2. Druids have more casting power at comparative level to any other class, though they top out early. This shows why 1e Druids have a reputation for being over-powered at their level (whether they are or not...though being able to change into a Cave Bear and still cast spells is kind of an advantage.).
3. Illusionists tend to be under-powered in comparison to other pure-casting classes, and still have all the armor & weapon limitations of Magic Users. This may partially explain why they're not a popular character class in 1e games.
4. Pure-caster classes have much higher cumulative spell ratings than mixed casting classes do.  This is very appropriate, since fighting classes have all sorts of powers of their own.

Note also that I have not included caster level effects in these spell level calculations. A Magic Missile cast by a 5th Level Magic User is three times as powerful (3d6) as that cast by a 1st through 4th Level Magic User (1d6). There's a reason I haven't included that (apart from the difficulty of doing it for every spell - which a caster may or may not have available - and averaging the different effects all out...so much for D&D magic system simplicity, eh?). That will become relevant later on.

These numbers give us a baseline comparison for any magic system rule tweaks I might be contemplating. Whatever changes I make, the net effect should result in a magical power level comparable or just slightly less than the cumulative spell levels seen above for each class. 

As we'll see, this is easier said than done.