How to RP Casting Spells?

[Tom]

I just went through a whole batch and rejected or accepted them, but there are many more remaining. I also made the GM backend slightly more comfortable, especially in the "help me find if there's a spell like this already around" department.

[Zakilevo]

oh active spells are now gone from the list.

[Tom]

yeah, I'm doing cleanups all around. Some day, you will at least receive a message when a spell of yours was accepted. And maybe a small "thank you" if you didn't get it added, maybe +1 XP  or something. Nothing big, just something that says we're happy you made the effort.

[Zakilevo]

What is this new feature 'class'? All spells are common for now it seems. Are we starting to diversify spells by dividing among different classes or something?

[Tom]

What is this new feature 'class'? All spells are common for now it seems. Are we starting to diversify spells by dividing among different classes or something?

I have 3 classes - public, common and rare. And yes, initially all spells are common. I don't yet know quite what to do with that, but one thing that I have on my mind is using class to determine whether or not the spell is included in the random initial packages or not.

Hm, I think I don't need to show the class until it actually means something. I'll hide it again.

[Zakilevo]

Maybe rare spells can be learned only within a certain council or something? If each council can have special spells or unique spells, that might be interesting.

[Tom]

Maybe rare spells can be learned only within a certain council or something? If each council can have special spells or unique spells, that might be interesting.

I got the idea of different classes when setting up the "inital spells package". I thought some spells should not be able to get there, and maybe some spells are either entirely public, or very easy to find.

[Zakilevo]

Public = pretty much known to everyone

Common = easily found

Rare = very hard to obtain

How are you going to separate spells between three groups though. Will it be the powerlevel that decides which spell go where? or is it going to be random?

What happened to adding the name of the creator for each spell? Are we just not going to give them any credit? It might be nice to just not have them.

[Morningstar]

So, when does roleplaying borderline on godmode-ing? Trying to get a feel for how open this should be in terms of letting people jump in mid-narrative. I've seen a number of posts already that have the PCs casting 3, 4, and as many as 7 spells in one fell swoop.  I realize that unless it's a certamen, turns don't really occur, but it seems a little much (at least in my opinion) to go that far without letting someone have the opportunity to come in and take part.

Thoughts or standards?

[Zakilevo]

Well... the spells we are casting at the moment are not the spells you might be thinking. Most of them cannot kill... and GMs will adjust if things are not believable.

P.S you will soon see how my character gets his ass kicked by Tom's characters...

[Tom]

There'll be no hard number on how many spells you can cast in a row, but basically, the game rules say that you have to give someone else a chance to play, too. So if you cast so many spells that really the other guy would have had more than enough time to get one of his own in, then you're overdoing it.

[Halden]

I'm still a bit confused on spontaneous magic. Does the spell still 'change' if it's well within your abilities? Like, if no shifts take place? And how are only a few shifts different from many? If I cast a spontaneous spell that only shifts twice, can it really get more messed up with 5 or 6 shifts? I understand that at some point the spell will just not work at all, or worse, kill you, but if other players are the one's who are supposed to decide that, then aren't you just dying because that's someone's arbitrary interpretation of what happened?

I'm not sure of how I feel about the initial spell package. Right after character creation, you really don't possess the skills to cast anything. In fact, when I made my character and tried to get my initial package, I got a message telling me that nothing fit my skill level so far. How are new players going to be able to jump in the game, even using low level magic, without using rituals taking hours to light a campfire or blow themselves up hunting rabbits with spontaneous magic?

[Indirik]

So long as there are no shifts, then spontaneous magic should generally do what you wanted it to do. The exact effects and manner in which it works may not be quite what you expected. Instead of a bolt of fire that incinerates your target instantly,  he may just burst into flames, or his head may melt, etc.

When you start casting stuff you don't have the power to cast, then things start to go wrong. The more shifts, the worse it could be. One shift may turn that bolt of fire intended to kill one person into something that give second degree burns to him and the three guys he's with. (Or the other way around, killing one person when you intended to incapacitate all four.)  With more shifts, the effects get more and more unpredictable. Instead of being able to communicate with one person mind-to-mind for the next hour, maybe everyone in the town becomes a shared hive-mind for two minutes.

If you start to get too many shifts, then the magic can start to "discharge". Brand new spells can be spawned that you never intended to cast. The more extra shifts you have, the worse these discharges can get.

Yes, it can be deadly. But that's why you need to be careful with what you cast. The system does tend to be unforgiving.

Not having started a new character lately, I have no idea what the "new player experience" is like, so I'm afraid I can't really help you with that.

[Tom]

So long as there are no shifts, then spontaneous magic should generally do what you wanted it to do. The exact effects and manner in which it works may not be quite what you expected. Instead of a bolt of fire that incinerates your target instantly,  he may just burst into flames, or his head may melt, etc.

Actually, if there are no shifts at all, the end result should be very close to what you wanted it to be, if not identical.

[Halden]

Ok. New Question. The Spellmaster site explains rituals, the skill needed, the time it takes, and how components can affect this. I tried to put one in a parser though, and it only gave me an error. How should one go about performing a ritual in an RP?