tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2600947515654238699.post6100881472826724154..comments2024-03-09T19:23:22.482-03:00Comments on The RPGPundit: Classic Rant: "Real Magick" in RPGs: SpellbooksRPGPundithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17267330191433119298noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2600947515654238699.post-57186462036470618242019-01-14T07:05:52.281-03:002019-01-14T07:05:52.281-03:00Sounds good! Sounds good! RPGPundithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17267330191433119298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2600947515654238699.post-53558931978672811292019-01-13T13:30:52.061-03:002019-01-13T13:30:52.061-03:00For my own vision of D&D-style magic, which in...For my own vision of D&D-style magic, which includes 2e style specialists as well as OSR spell casters, I have come up with this convention:<br /><br />Classic "magic users" have spell books exactly as you describe. They're written in the mage's own peculiar notations, and don't make much sense to anyone else.<br /><br />The Read Magic spell was developed to get around this issue. RM makes the spell book understandable to the caster, and they can then attempt to understand the spells written inside. (I use the "%chance to know spell" throw in this case as a "decypher spell" to figure out what each spell in the book does once RM has been cast. If the caster already knows the spell, they can recognize it immediately, and if the caster is a specialist, the usual modifiers apply.)<br /><br />But once (literal) schools of magic came around, standard notations were developed. The advantage to these standard notations is obvious - spell books become more organized, spells (slightly) easier to prepare, etc. But the problem is that the notations used to express, say, Enchantment can't be used to express their opposition school concepts at all, and are inelegant for expressing other school's spells.<br /><br />Specialist mages can also learn Read Magic (if they can do Lesser Divination casting) for deciphering random spell books or alien magics, but don't need to use it for books/scrolls written in their school's notation.<br /><br />Not earth shattering, but the idea that "specialists" came about as a result of someone developing a consistent notation appeals to my academic side, so I thought I'd share the concept.hdanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16748671444451280112noreply@blogger.com