If you know your History well you'd realize that DND Wizard is literally just Hermetic Alchemy, it's the exact same thing.So why don't Wizard work like Hermetic Alchemy?Here's the thing... you want to Level Up? You want to get Lv99 Wizard? You need Hermetic Alchemy. EVERY TIME!For Hermetic Alchemy you need rare ingredients, need to eat them, need to study and think real hard. Every time Wizard wants to level up, gotta do Hermetic Alchemy.Rare ingredients is Jewels and Plants and Monster Parts. Need to collect them, eat them, study and think really hard...Hermetic Alchemy is unpredictable, that's the very definition. If you don't study and think hard enough, all your body implodes... very painful! Have to do this 99 times to get Lv99...THAT's how you fix DND Wizard... make them pay!
>>98373677>How to fix DND WizardEvery spell needs a material component :)
>>98373677Wizards are actually western cultivators with less social skills or combat training, got it.Meanwhile my issues with DnD style wizards are>Gygax failed to comprehend the magic sustem he ripped off>this resulted in wizards being anime tier spellspammers>and their lists can just be whatever there's no real focus or path of learning beyond maybe that specialists are alightly better at one school but they still learn outside of it>all of this forces the game into a weird pacing where the party is required to have a ridiculous number of fights or puzzle encounters per day to run out all those spells>while wizards have an ever increasing repetoir of spells to bypass or negate encounters anywayI just hate running DnD or anything inspired by it because eventually so much of it is just an arms race with the magicians
>>98373849>Gygax failed to comprehend the magic sustem he ripped off>this resulted in wizards being anime tier spellspammers>all of this forces the game into a weird pacing where the party is required to have a ridiculous number of fights or puzzle encounters per day to run out all those spellsThat is more a result of WotC failing to understand the balancing mechanisms of earlier editions when it made 3e. Spell spamming and the "15 minute work day" only became a thing when many limits were removed.Spell memorization took an uninterrupted 10 minutes per spell level for each spell memorized and could only memorize spells after a restful night's sleep. Recovering low level spells (1 to 3) was pretty easy as a single hour of memorization could recover any combination of 6 spell levels.but any spell used above 4th meant dedicating roughly an hour or more to recover each spell. Quickly swapping out spells as also impossible as changing out a spell required expending it and then memorizing the new one.A first level Mage was ready to go 10 minutes after resting, a 5th level Mage needed about 2 hours (110 minutes) to fully recover their spells, a 10th level Mage would require 8 hours of uninterrupted rest and 340 minutes (5 hours 40 minutes) to memorize a full suite of spells and a 20th level Mage would require 1480 minutes (24 hours 40 minutes) to memorize a full suite of spells broken up by multiple 8 hour rest periods.These recovery times caused mid and high level spell use to be much more conservative and recovery limited mostly to safe havens.
>>98373677>DND>Hermetic Alchemy>Lv99No, Dungeons and Dragons Wizards have a loose pastiche of Jack Vance's Dying Earth as a foundation, not Hermeticism. Their in-setting functionality has more in common with Daoist ritualism and fucking Lovecraft than that, as well.The real constraint to fix things is making their spell access follow depth in field of study as a manageable proxy for breadth costing you, because the problems have always come primarily from the endless silver-bullets of the spell list having no functional rails between areas of competence. But that'd require ditching the eight schools, and after 4e any talk of dropping Brand Value like that is verboten. Just ignore how Forgotten Reams lore and AD&D mechanics have other paradigms of research bear other mechanically-significant categorization for spells...>>98374070Much more important than the time-gate on spell prep for most is the removal of cast-time stretching outside the turn by default for enemies to have a much wider opportunity for reacting and the introduction of Casting Defensively so even when the AoO analogue does come up it isn't a sure bet. Between these, a Wizard can actually get away from casting in a dragon's face with nobody between the two.
>>98374070The 15 minute adventure day is a white room myth.
>>98373677Or just reign in their BS
>>98374070This, the more I read about how magic worked in early editions, it seems perfectly balanced and magical and powerful, everything you want from your magic system, it literally was ruined in the later editions
>>98374126>Much more important than the time-gate on spell prep for most is the removal of cast-time stretching outside the turn by default for enemies to have a much wider opportunity for reacting and the introduction of Casting Defensively so even when the AoO analogue does come up it isn't a sure bet. Between these, a Wizard can actually get away from casting in a dragon's face with nobody between the two.That was another balancing factor that was removed, but it didn't really result in more spells per encounter. It made casting less risky, but the same spells would be cast in similar situations. The change from 10/min spell level per spell to 1 hour flat significantly increased spell quantity during an adventure. Pre-3e, spell quantity would gradually diminish over the course of a multi-day adventure while>>98374212It is a hyperbole, not a myth. It illustrates the extreme effects of extending the duration of spells such as Rope Trick from 10 min/level to 1 hour/level combined with quick spell recovery. Spells are not to be carefully rationed out over the course of multiple days as they can be quickly and fully recovered every day.
>>98374269If the scenario you're running just allows the players to take an 8 hour break whenever they want with no consequences, that's purely a you problem, and not a system problem.
>>98374282If the scenario you're running doesn't allow for the players to figure out how to navigate the shitty mechanics of the game you're running, its a railroad.
>>98374291>I know, I'll just complain about railroads over and over again instead actually addressing the point, that'll totally win the argument!You're a mental midget.
>>98374297Found the shitty gm, that was easy. Have fun forcing your players through your novel I'm sure its a great time!
>>98374070>>98374225>>98374269I think most significantly wizards were at the mercy of the DM for what spells they would find past 1st level. Players didn't get to choose spells to add to the spellbook as their character leveled up.
why hasn't this schizo been banned yet?
>>98374212No it isn't.
>>98374368If your player options are so badly designed that the game is ruined simply by the players being able to choose them, you have utterly failed at the simplest and most basic aspect of game design and should go back in time and murder your own parents.
>>98374498See>>98374291The 15 minutes adventuring day is white room theory crafting nonsense, completely devoid of the context of an actual game. Again, because you all seem to be slow: if your players, at any moment, can just stop what they are doing and sleep for eight hours without the world reacting or the situation changing in some way, you have failed as a referee. You're running a game with zero stakes.
>>98373677Post your rules.
>>98374282Lets consider a standard multi-day dungeon crawl. After every 90 10 minute dungeon turns (aka 15 hours of exploring) the players find a secure area and camp for 9 hours (8 hours to sleep and 1 hour for spell recovery). I hope you can agree that this is a reasonable possibility. Pre-3e that 1 hour of spell recovery allowed for the recovery of/or changing out of up to 6 total spell levels per adventuring day. Any spell cast beyond that amount diminishes the caster's spell power until they return to a secure location after which they can take full days to recover.Starting in 3e that 1 hour spell recovery period allowed for the recovery of/changing out of all spells. Every day a caster starts at full power.>>98374368Find yes, but spell research, spell scrolls and captured enemy spell books usually meant that they still had a solid selection.>>98374542>The 15 minutes adventuring day is white room theory crafting nonsense, completely devoid of the context of an actual game. Again, because you all seem to be slow: if your players, at any moment, can just stop what they are doing and sleep for eight hours without the world reacting or the situation changing in some way, you have failed as a referee. You're running a game with zero stakes.Actually it wasn't completely white room and devoid of context in actual game play. There have been and were campaigns that only had combat 1 encounter per day+. DMs who did this regularly complained about casters overwhelming "balanced" encounters by "going nova." When this issue was brought up it was quickly identified that similar issues could occur during dungeon crawls due to the duration changes made to the spells Rope Trick and Magnificent Mansion. Unless there was a time limit, it was hard to justify casters not having full access to their spells during major combat encounters.
>>98375331>Lets consider a standard multi-day dungeon crawl. After every 90 10 minute dungeon turns (aka 15 hours of exploring) the players find a secure area and camp for 9 hours (8 hours to sleep and 1 hour for spell recovery). I hope you can agree that this is a reasonable possibility.>Pre-3e that 1 hour of spell recovery allowed for the recovery of/or changing out of up to 6 total spell levels per adventuring day. Any spell cast beyond that amount diminishes the caster's spell power until they return to a secure location after which they can take full days to recover....With a spell level cleanly aligning on dungeon turns, I imagine there's a non-trivial amount of preparing a 1st or 2nd level spell after a fight while everyone else is combing over the room.>Starting in 3e that 1 hour spell recovery period allowed for the recovery of/changing out of all spells. Every day a caster starts at full power.Didn't Clerics already work that way? If I'm remembering that right, I can see it popping out of under-considered consolidation.>Unless there was a time limit, it was hard to justify casters not having full access to their spells during major combat encounters.And the loss of granularity removes the option of time-pressures that only cordon off high-level spells disruptive to the desired events.
>>98373677Super easy.Just copy Ars Magica.
>>98375362>I imagine there's a non-trivial amount of preparing a 1st or 2nd level spell after a fight while everyone else is combing over the room.Spell memorization/preparation can only occur after a full night's rest.>Didn't Clerics already work that way? If I'm remembering that right, I can see it popping out of under-considered consolidation.Clerics/Druids were limited by a combination of DM's Fiat and possibly a time of day constraint (spells being granted only at dawn, dusk, noon or midnight based on the god). Cleric spells were also more readily burned through each day as they were in many ways weaker than Wizard spells and much more niche.A 10th level Cleric w/ 18 wisdom could only cast 6 Cure Light Wounds (1d8, 4.5 average), 6 Cure Moderate Wounds (1d10+1, 6.5 average), 4 Cure Serious Wounds (2d8+1, 10 average) and 2 Cure Critical Wounds (3d8+3, 16.5 average) a total of ~139 hp worth of healing while a 9th level Fighter could have between 49.5 and 85.5 hp on average and a max of 90 to 140 hp.Spells like Slow Poison/Neutralize Poison tended to hog slots as well as you couldn't really wait until the next prayer time to cast them.
>>98375331What you're describing isn't a 15 minute adventuring day. It's an entire adventuring day. It's also assuming>There is zero time pressure on the heroes to finish what they are doing>The area they are in is 100 percent safe and there is no chance their rest will be interrupted.If you want spell management to be an ongoing issue, then make the situation as such that it is an ongoing issue.
>>98375551And, to add this this, if the area that they are staying in is perfectly safe, and there is currently no time pressure on the players, why is it a problem that they get all their spells back?
>>98375551>What you're describing isn't a 15 minute adventuring day. It's an entire adventuring day.As I said the 15-min adventuring day is a hyperbolic example of an extremely short adventure day caused by daily full spell restoration.Length of dungeon crawls pre-3e were naturally limited by the time limit of caster spell recovery. After casting a certain number of spell levels, staying in the dungeon severely limited a caster's ability to perform.Post-3e a dungeon crawl can in theory last an infinite length of time without loss of caster performance.>There is zero time pressure on the heroes to finish what they are doingA basic conceit of dungeon crawls is that there are no real time constraints on exploration of the dungeon external to the party's resources. >The area they are in is 100 percent safe and there is no chance their rest will be interrupted.The issue was the ability to manufacture perfectly safe areas anywhere with spells such as the 2nd level Rope Trick spell. Pre-3e the spell lasted 10 minutes/level to let characters hide for 30 min to a round 3 hours and 20 minutes. 3.X increased the duration to 1 hour/level allowing a level 9+ caster to create a perfectly safe area that allows a part to rest and get ready in perfect safety.>>98375565>why is it a problem that they get all their spells back?Most editions of D&D were meant to be balanced around resource attrition expecting around 6 combat encounters per adventuring day. Encounters tend to end really quickly when Casters can spam a bunch of save or die and save or suck spells especially if they can target opponents' weak saves.
>>98375651>A basic conceit of dungeon crawls is that there are no real time constraints on exploration of the dungeon external to the party's resources.If we're assuming just basic ass, contextless dungeon crawling, you've also got inventory attrition, encumbrance, and health attrition to deal with. There's also the fact that, in this theoretical infinite dungeon, they might also have to deal with outside elements coming in after them, or from the lower depths. Again, while they are taking their 8 hour break, the game state is changing around them. The world is not static. And, honestly, a contextless dungeon crawl with zero pressure and zero time constraints, where you're basically just fucking around underground for little reason, sounds incredibly uninteresting.
>>98375651>Encounters tend to end really quickly when Casters can spam a bunch of save or die and save or suck spells especially if they can target opponents' weak saves.Okay, but if they spam all their spells immediately, they don't have those spells. And, again, if they just nova immediately and then go sleep for eight hours, the game state changes while they sleep, because you can apply pressures other than how many spell slots the caster has available. Because the campaign isn't a contextless dungeon crawl. This isn't a new concept, even Gygax himself talks about the importance of the milieu.
>>98375729>If we're assuming just basic ass, contextless dungeon crawling, you've also got inventory attrition, encumbrance, and health attrition to deal with.Issues mostly dealt with by various spells and magic items as well.>Again, while they are taking their 8 hour break, the game state is changing around them. The world is not static.While this is how it should be ideally, there are loads of idiot DMs and designers who fail to do so and as a result there are players who end up abusing those blind spots.>And, honestly, a contextless dungeon crawl with zero pressure and zero time constraints, where you're basically just fucking around underground for little reason, sounds incredibly uninteresting.While it is not to your taste (or mine), it is to the taste of some. It is those DMs smf players who are the ones that discover these issues.>>98375740Yes, I understand that, but the designers of 3.X and a fair number 3.X DMs did not. That is why issues such as the 15 minute adventuring day appeared and 4e and 5e were designed the way they were.
>>98375651No, that is not a basic conceit of dungeon crawls. Who told you that?
>>98375819Resting costs one Supply point per character or hireling. Supply can only be purchased in civilized locations, and your maximum capacity depends on your pack animals. There is no other way to obtain Supply, and there is no way to rest without it.Every time you re-enter a dungeon, its Hostility increases, and its Peril may increase. Time spent within a dungeon also increases Hostility.This shit is so fucking easy lmao. How are D&D designers so incompetent?
>>98376033"External to the party's resources" is the key phrase, I think. That is, a "proper" dungeon crawl has no over-hanging plots with deadlines or intricate reactive factions of locals ratcheting up the "threat level", just a sprawling series of challenges to overcome piece by piece with some loose background "risks" popping in from time to time to stop you from just camping inside.>>98376047>How are D&D designers so incompetent?When did anything like anything you suggested and are probably riffing Darkest Dungeon on first appear in a TTRPG? Because a LOT of why D&D sucks is the rough edges left by what the first-pass of people literally ever writing rules for the subject set as the structural expectation, who being the first to do so had absolutely fucking nothing in the way of formalized game design to fall back on because that simply didn't exist yet.In D&D's "proper" handling of this, you track the rations and water supply by weight against hard poundage encumbrances as set by some loose approximation of some random source on hiking or whatever, while the dungeon's "reactivity" is mostly just Wandering Monster rolls attriting rather more obviously important resources like your HP.
>>98376074Ok, so what? How many decades have they had to figure this shit out, while other better games have left them in the dust since the 90s at least? What's their excuse?
>>98374488This one's actually funny. I'll take him over bumpfag and puckee any day.
>>98376047>How are D&D designers so incompetent?Because the WotC design team is the TTRPG equivalent of a big name rock band and people join the team by having the right connections rather than due to any actual design skill or ability.>>98376084The current WotC design team that did 5.5e? Less than 5 years and they were copying the notes of the previous team. The one before that? The skeleton crew had a decade of low activity after putting out something designed more to pander to nostalgia rather than to function. The team before that had everyone with lots of design experienced fired by the Hasbro execs because D&D didn't meet their insane profitability demands within 2 years of 4e's launch and the OG WotC started with such a flawed game that they released a 3.5 revision 3 years after 3e released.The WotC design team has actually had a lot of turn over during the past two and a half decades,
>>98374510Spell scrolls are just a type of magic item that could be used to add a spell to your spellbook. By those standards, magic items are badly designed because if you could choose them, you would just choose the most overpowered ones. This is why using random loot tables is good, and why having prices for magic items which starting gold can be spent on (like in 3e+) is bad.
>>98376084>What's their excuse?That they fundamentally CAN'T work it out "from scratch", because they have the documents on how that was tried for 4e and EXACTLY how much of a horrible mess that caused. "D&D" is stuck as a haphazard accretion never again to have a coherent vision.>>98376142In both cases, "just apply the nerf-bad to the centralizing outliers until it's all situational" is a valid answer. As is "yes some of these are must-haves, they're what the class is for", though that does need clear explaining.
>>98374510Most RPGs are designed in a way that allows GMs to add and remove gameplay options as desired. If that bothers you on a deeply personal level than maybe they aren't the kind of game for you.
>>98373677WRONG D&D wizards were vancian casters aka psychedelics who capture psychic entities and release them to use them as spells (basically one-time-use mental pokemon)
>>98375819So, your critique comes down to "it is possible for dungeon masters to ignore rules and structures of the game, there the game is bad and wrong." That's idiotic.
>>98375551Anon, if you have to take multiple different measures to counter a single spell, maybe the spell is actually a problem and should be addressed in a reasonable fashion.
>>98377023It's not about countering a single spell, that's never been the discussion. We're having a discussion about the 15 minute adventuring day, which is white room nonsense.
>>98377035No, it's a possibility that can indeed come about.That it is a possibility at all makes it something to be aware of, although I agree that it is spoken of more often than it actually appears.4e D&D dealt with the entire situation outright with a single sentence, so it is a problem with a specific system (that is widely known in this place due to the particulars of the audience).
>>98377042It's a possibility that can come about if you're a shitty dm who runs a shitty game.
>>98377057If you haven't run a game of 3e D&D, anon, just say so.Or you are attempting the needless contrarianism so popular on this site, especially now since gook moot wants people posting to make the site seem more active than what it is.
>>98377062You have zero argument. You're just going "nu-uh!" over and over again. I'll repeat it again, because apparently reading comprehension is rough for you: if your player characters are just allowed to take an 8 hour break whenever they want without the game state reacting in some way, you have failed as a game master.
>>98377068If you have to manufacture circumstances outside what would be native to the setting and situation because the players are doing something you do not like, you have failed as a game master.Not everything is as simple as you are trying to make it; at this point, you are either autistic or an engagement troll, and there is no point talking to creatures that lack the ability to understand nuance.You enjoy your ttrpg group.
>>98377093>manufacture circumstances outside what would be native to the setting and situation because the players are doing something you do not likeThis is insane logic. The world reacting to the players isn't "manufacturing circumstances outside what would be native to the setting and situation." You're assuming a setting and situation that is somehow completely static and contextless.
>>98377093So, by your logic:>Players always have infinite time to accomplish any task.>The players are the only beings in the setting with goals or motivations>Enemies, being without goals or motivations, only ever want to fight the players to the death>The players don't really have goals either, they just explore ruins to get loot.Sounds like a really engaging game.
>>98375534>Spell memorization/preparation can only occur after a full night's rest.Hmm... that's graduated too, at least in the AD&D 1e DMG's "spell recovery" heading. 4 hours for 1st-2nd up to 12 hours for 9ths. And lacks ANY language "pairing" it with the preparation period. So you can have 4-6 hours rest in with the watch schedule, recovering 2nd-4th level spell slots, then you can prepare spells into them later on as time permits.The respective Player's Handbook even appears to mention preparing spells fractionally (what else could using ten minutes to prepare a 1st or "half of" a 2nd mean?), which kinda wrecks trying to "gate" high-level spells by avoiding the required "block" of time.>>98376983The operant issue is that "the world changes while you rest" isn't actually a rule in itself, and the particular sub-set of ways needed aren't clearly guided toward. You're just asserting an expectation of "good" sessions as if the system utterly imploding in its absence due to having literally nothing to fall back on is perfectly acceptable, when it, uh, isn't for a system meant to cover intermittent-pressure overland travel, let alone the urban situations.>>98377106>>98377113It doesn't need to be "completely static" or for the players to have "infinite time". A single 8+1 hour recovery-and-preparation "window" slipping into the schedule causes a rather considerable inflection point where very basic assumptions about what players can do diverge very drastically, especially if the Wizard's gotten to pile up the spellbooks to REALLY leverage it, yet at the same time if the players don't take it you can't exactly be RELYING on the switch-up of options.
>>98376074Again. That is not a basic conceit of dungeon crawls. Whoever told you that it is, lied to you.
>>98376142Good job missing the point. I guess I need to spell it out for you.You don't have to include overpowered options that ruin the game. A game isn't any less ruined if the overpowered option is obtained via a random process.Stop writing bad rules. Instead, write good rules. And PLAYTEST YOUR FUCKING GAMES.
>>98373677How you fix DnD wizards is you make them actually have to specialize in only one or two schools of magic, rather than getting a menu of disparate spells to pick and choose from in order to optimize their builds.
>>98376333Wrong. It is the job of the designer to ensure that the game works properly under default conditions.
>>98377249Nope, you can still destroy the game by just picking conjuration or enchantment.
>>98376084>What's their excuse?Making garbage for idiots sells better and those idiots go on to join the design team. Its been like this for decades now in most nerd IPs. More an explanation than an excuse.
>>98377253If the default condition requires customization its working as intended. If you need the game to be 'complete' and are unable to add or change anything to suit your table videogames or mtg are your best bet.
>>98374070This sounds awful, holy shit>Sorry guys, we didn't spend 10 hours doing jack shit so all I got ready is shit spells and since my class also sucks using weapons, I'm totally useless this session!Glad they did away with that crap.
>>98377311Then the intent is wrong.
>>98377311My game works out of the box with zero house rules required, which is the bare minimum acceptable standard for any game. Why are you satisfied with incompetence?
>>98377699Ah yes the game you never post. Must be great. Why are you so satisfied with being a liar?
>>98377772That I've posted many times, you mean. Answer me immediately.
Wizards and Clerics are the same thingHermetic Theurgy, AKA highest wizardry, AKA high ritual/ceremonial magick, was a matter of petitioning the divine; becoming closer to the divine sphere
>>98373677>how to fix...1) Start playing games at all2) Don't start playing DnD
>>98377788Post it again tough guy.
>>98377690>can't adapt or create >can only consume Sucks to suck.
When making the setting, roll a d10. That's how many high-level Wizards there are. Every PC magic-user is either an apprentice to one of these Wizards, or they stole from them. Roll the Wizard's spell list randomly, those are the only known spells that PCs can learn. If they want something not on their master Wizard's list, they'll have to deal with one of the other Wizards. If they want a spell that's not on any Wizard's list, they'll either have to find that shit by adventuring (if it even exists at all) or do spell research.
I've always found it fascinating that these threads try for a whole bunch of various and stupid ideas of how to fix the wizard being a one-man army and tool system, especially in later editions. But none of them, absolutely none of them, ever touch on the power of the spells themselves. Its never about fixing the magic the wizard uses, but about fixing the class somehow.The problem with the wizard isn't the class, the class is fine and competently designed. Its the fucking spells that are the problem. But you touch the spells and the grogs and powerwankers will throw a shitfit. PF2e solved the wizard problem, and you've seen how many claim the wizard is complete shit in that edition (it isnt). They did it by nerfing the spells. It incidentally also solved CoDzilla.If you truly want to fix the wizard, you will need to look at the spells themselves and limit their power. 4e did it by moving all classes to an AEDU system and thus limiting the power of the wizards spells. PF2e did it by implementing restrictions on summons (sustain and action costs), restrictions on spells so that cant be "I win" buttons (Incapacitation), and by simply going over the power budget of certain spells and nerfing them.Voila! You've fixed the Wizard, along with the Druid and Cleric (though these need other nerfs too to really rein them in).>>98373677This is a whole bunch of schizo nonsense. And bad rules design. D&D wizards are based on Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, alongside a whole bunch of other fantasy, scifi, and pulp books.>>98377797>Wizards and Clerics are the same thingOn Earth, because magic wasn't real, so everybody needed to resort to vague bullshit about calling on gods that dont exist and how the magic might not work because they said no. In a fantasy world, the difference would become quite distinct, what with wizards utilizing secular and external magical knowledge while the priests pray their hymns and get blessings and miracles.
>>98377797Correct. Alchemy was the “key” to theurgical rites. To summon the gods you had to alchemically purify yourself. >>98377896>alongside a whole bunch of other fantasy, scifi, and pulp books.Most wizards in fantasy predating the modern had to do with higher powers not solely tugging at the strings of nature.
>>98377896>because magic wasn't real Low iq response. Even in a world of surreal fantasy a hard rationalist will come to the conclusion that it’s all a big set-up. A hypothetical higher dimensional alien who can see and assess everything inside and out won’t necessarily see it as such. God’s miracles aren’t miraculous to himself. Eventually the magic is deconstructed into its relative, root essences. Eventually magic isn’t magic. Magic is a position, not a thing. To the hard rationalist magic can’t even exist in fiction. Not outside of the brain. Magic is just a form of subjective perception. >In a fantasy world, the difference would become quite distinct, what with wizards utilizing secular and external magical knowledge while the priests pray their hymns and get blessings and miracles.Cool. Except all of that stereotypical fantasy tropey nonsense is inspired by real life, and these two fields (science and spirituality) were typically inseparable before the scientific revolution, which sought to repudiate. Utilizing external and secular knowledge WAS a matter of petitioning higher powers. Often the ability to perform magic or prophecy was a gift of the gods.
>>98377815>>98377788Well?
>>98377920>Most wizards in fantasy predating the modern had to do with higher powers not solely tugging at the strings of nature.And D&D wizards are modeled on far future geniuses who memorize living formulas that alter reality when cast. They are explicitly secular and lacking in divinity. But also most fantasy wizards are modeled off bad interpretations of Gandalf and his "wizardry". The vast vast majority of modern wizards, especially for the last century or so, have been secular people with no calls to divinity or ties to priesthood. In the last 50 years D&D has solidified this into making wizards absolutely not tied to priestly endeavors or godly matters in any fashion.The past is neat, and you can learn a lot from it, but time moves on and so does the ideas of what a thing is. Clinging to the past as if it's the right and proper way is how you get stagnation and collapse. >>98377950>Low iq response.And yet it is and will always be the truth. They did these things because they were lacking in understanding and didn't know their whole "science" of magic was simply ignorant pleading to made-up creatures their ancestors had dreamed up to explain the universe. They expected concrete physical material changes.>Except all of that stereotypical fantasy tropey nonsense is inspired by real lifeExcept when it isn't, of course. How much of Jack Vance's Dying Earth is tied to real life? How much of Tolkien's works is inspired by Renaissance magic? How much is pretty much any of the modern ideas of magic and wizardry tied to the actual historical ideas of magic? Very little, if at all. I get you're an autist about historical magic and all that jazz, but we all know and understand it. We know what hermeticism is. You aren't telling us anything we dont already understand.Modern magic is entirely a new thing with only the bastardized look of historical magic. We aren't stupid for rejecting your historical bullshit, we just dont fucking care to use it.
>>98378055>And yet it is and will always be the truthWhat is? That magic is just a psychological construct? Nothing truly more than that? Everything external is just a reinforcer of the internal? If you don’t know this you don’t actually know what magic is. You have to first see a thing as magic. Physics will exist without our perception of involvement but magic is precisely a consequence of biological life, or any form of life capable of philosophizing about reality.
>>98378055>How much of Jack Vance's Dying Earth is tied to real life?All magic is math, and magic was seen as a form of magic for thousands of years, all the way back to Pythagoras and his cults which thought they could manipulate reality using numbers. The (practically inhuman) wizard Pandelume tells you this. The one who masters math has mastered and unlocked magic itself. >How much of Tolkien's works is inspired by Renaissance magic? Tolkien based his magic on historical perceptions. The ancient Greeks. Goetia and Magia. Eventually higher learning replaced superstition.
>>98378055>But also most fantasy wizards are modeled off bad interpretations of Gandalf and his "wizardry". >The vast vast majority of modern wizards, especially for the last century or so, have been secular people with no calls to divinity or ties to priesthood.Gandalf is a fucking angel you idiot. He gets resurrected by god after fighting a demon.
>>98378055All magic in all fiction can be chalked up to “shit I don’t know well enough”. All of it. It’s all too conveniently crafted and constructed for the sake of the narrative. Yeah. A “set-up” as >>98377950 said. All fiction will break down the more you analyze it. There is no such thing as a perfectly crafted fiction that can fill in all the gaps.
>>98377920>>98377950>>98378109>>98378128>>98378158Hey look, its another thread where wonderfag rolls in, posts his insanity and stupidity because someone dared talk about magic.Do fuck off you rambling autistic retard whose idiosyncratic definitions and use of words make actually smart people cringe.
>>98378164I’m just going by basic psychology, anon. Not my fault you can’t recognize the color of the sky, lol. Magic has always been “magic”. “Magic” has always been more magical than MagicTM.
>>98373677>If you know your History well you'd realize that DND Wizard is literally just Hermetic Alchemy, it's the exact same thing.They're nothing alike, idiot. Any similarities are purely aesthetic.
>>98377258Transmutation was the one you'd want. Necromancy was also kind of low-key busted too.
>>98378180>I’m just going by basic psychology, anon.No, you are not. You are pseudointellectually posting your own inane ideas and connections that would make an actual psychologist who researches anthropological magic look at you like you belong in an asylum. They would understand the difference between game shit and real life because they have a functioning brain and not a wet meat sack that posts the same inane shit over and over.
>>98378207>No, you are notYes. I am. This is how magic and religion started. This is where the inspiration for fantasy comes from. Sorry you suck at understanding humans and history.
>>98378207I’m pretty sure anthropologists and historians would agree that magic and religion and whatnot is just the psyche filling in the blanks of reality. Fantasy, the imagination, were coping mechanisms for understanding the world. Even a fantasy world will have evolving perceptions of the world. In fact it might not be so fantastical to them, eventually, over time. The same way the stars aren’t fantastical to us, or at least not the same way they once were, back then.
I’m pretty sure God would understand himself scientifically btw
>>98378225I understand that you really do think you've cracked some code, that you're a true understander of magic and can see right through it all. But unless you've got accolades and academic accomplishments that go along with this supposed breakthrough and idiosyncratic "knowledge", your posts are worthless, inane ramblings.>>98378244The problem is that while most of this is true, wonderfag is an insane person who thinks that even in realms where magic is real, where the defintion "magical rites and incanatations" actually does things, its still all psychological and thus not real. That these worlds aren't doing magic, arent casting spells, arent living in a world where the premises and counterfactuals are different than ours, he thinks it would all still be some nebulous omnidefintion of magic as psychology.His arguments start vaguely sound and veer off into could cuckooland quite quickly. He is physically and mentally unable to distinguish fantasy from reality.
>>98378292>I understand that you really do think you've cracked some codeLOL. You really are a mental midget if you think understanding basic human psychology is something to be cracked.
>>98378292So you’re saying that magic and religion aren’t entirely psychological? Because that’s the alternative. Are you Christian? Do you believe everything in the Bible as fact?
>>98378292>even in realms where magic is real, where the defintion "magical rites and incanatations" actually does things, its still all psychological and thus not realI think his point is that if some alien were to analyze it, they might go “ah, it’s this and that”, rather than calling it “magic”. It’s also suspicious if the magic looks like hocus pocus, since that is a convenience that implicates a type of design, and a design that indicates a type of intelligence, even if it’s just the author beyond the fourth wall. Like, really ask yourself if evolution would conveniently take the shape of beautiful gorgeous big boobed red headed mermaids. It wouldn’t. They’d sooner be fat hairless blubbery carnivorous things that live in the cold depths. There’s too much intent in fantasy fiction for it to be anything naturally occurring, without any sort of grand design.
>>98373677The only correct way to fix dnd wizards is to remove spell slots completely, and instead replace them with a spell tree, where you need to learn a spell to learn the next one. Also give every single wizard a tomboy fighter girlfriend.
>>98378244>In fact it might not be so fantastical to themJust because it isn't fantastical to them doesnt mean it stops being magic. The ancient Egyptians bought magical amulets for any number of problems at the bazaar all the time. Their magical rites of the dead were known and common and unremarkable. Getting a spell cast for you was a simple transaction. Magic doesn't mean that it induces awe, or wonder, or any other feelings. Its just a way of dealing with the world. It can be common and unremarkable and still be magic.>>98378307You really dont understand psychology.>>98378312Why the fuck would I be a Christian if Im able to actually understand or entertain worlds that function differently from ours and could have actual usable magic and spells? This is an insane post from a literal retard.>>98378337Oh, its this retard again. God, I hate magic threads these days. We can't actually discuss magic, spells, or the worlds they exist in because a couple pseudointellectual autists and retards need to ramble about how it all isnt real and is stupid and you should stop talking about it right now, but also were super intelligent and smart and totally better than you simpeltons who totally dont understand magic or psycology or any number of other things were totally not going to need to look up on wikipedia.
>>98378377>You really dont understand psychology.Aw you’re cute. Religion is too much for you. I bet you’re an easy target for a cult. Hopefully it’s a cute one. You’re such a gem.
>>98378388Why do you troll threads that involve the topic of magic and feel the desperate need to post your inane ramblings? I see youve got the troll wojaks downloaded and ready. So why?
>>98378377So your idea of magic is something that will never be assessable? Got it. You’ve a major cognitive block. You cannot actually comprehend the idea that God might be able to scientifically assess himself, and thus not see himself as a god, or his miracles as miraculous. Or are you to assume God is is retarded and incapable of understanding himself?
>>98378399Because you are genuinely autistic and retarded and do not grasp how the human brain works. You apparently do not understand how piss easy the concept of magic and religion is. It’s just a fucking fad. All religion is a fad. Taylor Swift is a cult leader. Science today is indistinguishable from a religion by any other name. You’re dumb because you can’t identify the shared essences. You think a fish isn’t a fish because its name is Nemo.
>>98378401Ya know, I didn't realize I was dealing with a retard. God would assess himself in every possible way, he would consider his things scientifically, magically, and from every other possible viewpoint due to omniscience. The idea that God wouldn't see all possible points and all possible ways is the sign of a limited intellect who has never had to consider what actual omniscience would be like. He knows all and sees all, therefore, he considers his shit both magical and scientific and neither.>>98378419Thank you for your inane ramblings and pointless bullshit, it really does clarify why you troll these threads.
>>98378377>Just because it isn't fantastical to them doesnt mean it stops being magicYes it does. It’s no longer magic. You can’t just call some force “magic” and then expect everyone else to. The elves in Tolkien’s middle-earth aren’t fantasized by their own abilities and crafts. It’s not magic to them. Magic is a one sided affair. Gandalf isn’t a wizard back in Valinor either. Gandalf is magical to the elves the same way the elves are magical to men and hobbits. “When everyone’s super, no one is”. You have to go out of your way to retain that sense of fantasy, wonder and mystery. Which IS possible.
>>98378440God considering himself a god is the same essence as the human considering itself a god to an ant. This is why I find you Christians absolutely fucking revolting. You project on to God. You assume God is just a bigger human. “Made in his image” is literal to you. Good job assuming God is as hubristic and as prideful as his intentionally flawed creations.
>>98378440Actual omniscience would be mute and boring. When everything is magical, nothing is. The capital-w wizard is not a capital-w wizard to himself. The ultimate sage is the ultimate bore, to himself, not others.
Had a Christian waddled up to God and proudly told Him they took everything in the Bible as literal fact, do you REALLY think that God would be impressed? Do you REALLY think this?
>>98378445Hey, can you please tell me why none of these definitions seem to agree with your post? None of them talk about needing wonder or awe or any other feelings.1a: the use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forcesb: magic rites or incantations2a: an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural sourceb: something that seems to cast a spell : enchantment3: the art of producing illusions by sleight of hand>>98378467Its fascisnating that you think Im Christian. I am not and consider the religion utterly abhorrent, along with all of the Abrahamic faiths. But actually understanding the faith and the religion to properly assess why its abhorrent is lost on the intellectually limited. Also, your entire post is just projection of your own intellectual deficiencies.>>98378480Oh hey, its that tired trope born of a villain's monologue. Why do so many retards think his monologue was right or has any bearing on how things would actually be?
>>98378445ntayrt Are you going to take this to inane shit like >eberon and contemporary everyday magic in dnd isn't magic because its common >cantrips aren't magic because they're accessible or something silly like that that means you think everyone else is using the word wrong except you?
>>98378524>or something silly like that that means you think everyone else is using the word wrong except you?Yes he will. Guarantee it.
>>98378513Cool. All of those definitions point to certain implications which are easily answerable by using basic rationality. Even the Greeks did that. Yes, spells are hocus pocus and ritual based, with a vast assortment of arcane paraphernalia, but even those in antiquity questioned the logic behind them. People like Pliny the Elder assumed magic rituals only worked because there was some unseen force to reinforce their bullshit. There was no real logic or reason to them, since it was the equivalent of a stage magician enforcing a play, or game. ALL magic in fiction can be chalked up to this same logic. It’s all too convenient for the sake of it working at all. Magic has never not been artificial.
>>98378524That would be like calling a phone a magic rectangle. You’re not wrong, but it’s still silly.
>>98378513>1a: the use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces>b: magic rites or incantationsI can apply this definition to science and technology. Engineering. The word ritual comes from ‘proper working’ and we speak various commands to AI.
>>98378557So the everyday magic in eberon or cantrips is still magic?
>>98378513>an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural sourceI can also apply this to a time travellers [insert futuristic device here]
>>98378574Yes, because magic is about subjective perceptions, not substance. Drop a candy bar wrapper into the past, all shiny and chrome, and it may just start a religion or be considered a magical artifact. A wizard might not consider himself a wizard.
>>98378574Magic as a trademarked label isn’t really magic. What happens when something even more magical comes along? Is it suddenly not considered magic because the name has already been trademarked? Magic is more of a descriptor.
>>98378583Cool, so what are you even arguing about?
>>98378590>What happens when something even more magical comes along?This is particularly stupid. They're both still magical. You might be trying to talk about how the mundane or spectacular vary based on familiarity, but that doesn't have anything to do with if a thing is magical or not.
>>98378569>I can apply this definition to science and technology. Engineering. So engineering uses magical rituals which have noncausal effects, such as chanting an incantation that makes bricks lay themselves out for a building? There are charms (amulets and other magical jewelry) which have supernatural effects on the construction and building of various things? Please list them for me; I'm quite curious what you consider to be an engineering magical item that has supernatural power.Also, sophistry and the desperate desire to conflate things is a bad look and makes you sound like a retard.>The word ritual comes from ‘proper working’ and we speak various commands to AI.And now we get to not using the actual word but needing to instead use its roots as if they have any actual meaning to the way the word is used in modern definitions. Sophistry and desperation.Could you try using the actual definitions and words as they are and not try to be more clever than you actually are.>>98378593He doesn't know. It's entirely trolling to force any thread talking about magic into off-topic territory and disrupting any actual game talk. He's here to be an antagonist to any magic threads. What im curious about is what institute employs him and what his pay is.
>>98378627>So engineering uses magical rituals which have noncausal effects, such as chanting an incantation that makes bricks lay themselves out for a building? That’s not non causal
>>98378549>been artificialYou really do think you've stumbled on some hidden gotcha that makes all our talk about magic null and void, a useless topic to discard and never bring up. All I see is a retard who doesn't understand that one of the conceits of this board, one about games, is that everything we are talking about is made up, artificial, crafted specifically to play a fucking game.You are stating an obvious fact as if it's a revelation and not a basic rule we already all know and dont care about. Did you think we thought these things were real? That they just naturally arose and so we speak of them as if they were somehow an actual existing thing? Only a sub 80 iq retard or a severely brain-damaged individual would think such a thing. We are entertaining counterfactuals, untruths constructed as to play out hypotheticals using math rocks and roleplaying.Congratulations, you've discovered a basic fact about traditional games that everyone here already understood and doesn't care about. What other "stupendous" revelations will your "vast" intellect shower upon us next?I think I have now figured out why Wonderfag and his compatriots, Its All Artifical and others are the way they are: they are literally retarded autists unable to imagine things differently from what they actually are, an actual inability to consider untrue things as true for certain discussions. They are not merely pseudointellects regaling us with basic history and garbled psychology, but actual dyed-in-the-wool retards.
>>98378787>how’s the forecast?>the sky is kind of cloudy today->WELL AREN’T YOU SUCH A FUCKING GENIUS That’s you
I think they're just stuck on a weird reading of what substance and being is and getting caught up in if its fictional, a game world, or otherwise. Like in >>98378583 they don't seem able to differentiate in a game world where magic has and is substance, causal but not consistent in the way things would be irl. Its like a for real autism problem where they can't reconcile these differences existing simultaneously because they're unable to separate ideas from actual, or how game mechanics are not 1:1 representations of how the magic functions in the game universe. Might be something else in confusion about scientific method repeatable effects. Like the game mechanics for fireball explain how it works as an abstraction to play the game, but this combines with the contextual descriptions of casting the fireball (its green, they say prestocombusto, etc) which will vary in most cases unless someone is being very strict with material components, their requirements for all spells and insisting the results are uniform. Which I don't think I've ever seen someone run as a game. Allah help them if they ever had to deal with Mage the Awakening or something similar.
>>98378835No, its more like>This grass isnt grass> Yes we know, could you please catch that flyball.Its stating an obvious and pointless fact which has no bearing on the actual thing we are doing. You arent as smart as you think you are.
>>98378867No I’m pretty sure you’re having a meltie right now because you’re an adult coming to the realization that you misunderstood something extremely fucking simple growing up. Lol.
>>98378881ntayrt Can you explain in clear and concise terms what the argument you are having is about?
Just tweak the casting system if you hate it.Bottom text.
>>98378881The only one having a meltie here is you. Weve been trying to get you idiots to understand that all this talk about magic being artificial, or magic needing wonder and awe, or any of that other confused autistic shit is misplaced idiocy. And in every fucking thread you people throw shitfits about this stuff when all we're trying to do is talk about elfgames.You barge into these threads, drop your inane rehashed ramblings as if they're revelations from geniuses, and the rest of us look at you as if you've just escaped an institute for autistics. And when we push back on your ramblings, you post idiotic wojaks and smarmy holier-than-thou bullshit as if you're actually above it all when we both know you're getting angry and meltie about not being praised as a genius.Can you talk about elfgames and their magic without needing to ramble about the artificiality of it all, the lack of wonder and awe, or any other of the stupid shit your gaggle post, or is that the entirety of your ability to contribute to these threads? Can you talk about elfgames without trolling, basically?
>>98373677>f you know your History well you'd realize that DND Wizard is literally just Hermetic Alchemy, it's the exact same thing.It's not. >You want to get Lv99 Wizard?Ah. Nogames shitposting. Of course.
>>98376047>you can't rest without spending metacurrencySo your idea of making a better roleplaying game is to throw verisimilitude out of the window?
>>98379076Not everyone is looking for that.Different strokes/folks.
>>98378928This looks like retarded autism. Whatever AI made those rules should be turned off and never turned back on.
>>98377797There's still a gap even in the real-life traditions between doing so out of assumption of the powers for yourself versus asking of things that already have them. This does get blurry with summoning/calling spells, but the rough division between the actual clergy and the "other" mystics the Wizard/Cleric difference is keying to was a real thing no matter your retarded reductions.>>98377896>But none of them, absolutely none of them, ever touch on the power of the spells themselves.That's really time-consuming drudge-work compared to just setting structural assumptions that make it clearer and easier to wrangle outliers under them in the first place. And if your idea of doing that "right" is PF2e, you are a goddamn retarded, because it isn't merely "grogs and powerwankers" throwing a shitfit, it is people having any structural expectation of proactivity or that spells Just Do Their Thing from the niche that has literally always been the primary structural source of proactivity off of long lists of spells that Just Do Their Thing.Instead, proactivity is strictly policed and literally anything in a fight but shoving +numbers up a Fighter's ass having a remotely valuable success-rate requires basically all the metagaming horseshit to pry at like four layers of rock-paper-scissors, large swaths of this resting on an expectation explained nowhere of second or even third order effects of interfering with enemy action economy who's opacity compared to the OLD "save or you suck ass" spells feels awful. PF2e sure as shit got out the hatchet to bring down the ceiling, but Paizo continues to be hopeless about floor performance, so you get all the buildfaggotry with none of the reward of surpassing expectations and a terrible RoI on variety of options that mean anything.
>>98377950>Even in a world of surreal fantasy a hard rationalist will come to the conclusion that it’s all a big set-up.Incorrect. No matter how you mutilate the English language, it is valid for a hard rationalist with the counterfactual priors of a surreal fantasy world to come to conclusions counter to your own>Eventually the magic is deconstructed into its relative, root essences.And if the "root essences" are high-order very-visible functions that are fundamentally unquantifiable like relationships between qualia and output phenomena or the actions of literally non-material things imparting energy by impenetrably opaque processes because nothing CAN bring together a clear enough view of all the layers at once?>God’s miracles aren’t miraculous to himself. You have still yet to offer an explanation to why it is fundamentally invalid for Him to look at qualitative differences between His manner of action and our own and agree that the word "miracle" is appropriate to distinguish the objective qualitative disparity>Except all of that stereotypical fantasy tropey nonsense is inspired by real lifeWhich does not confine them to function like the real-world analogue>and these two fields (science and spirituality) were typically inseparable before the scientific revolutionAnd in elfgames where they are because the day-to-day Natural Law of the setting is clearly separated from the forces giving spirituality practical use?>>98378140NTA, but hence "bad interpretations of" and "wizardry" in quotation marks>>98378158>All magic in all fiction can be chalked up to “shit I don’t know well enough”. All of it.Only when projecting your worldview to the exclusion of any divergent priors>There is no such thing as a perfectly crafted fiction that can fill in all the gaps.It doesn't need to. There is this thing called "willing suspension of disbelief", where you engage with the fiction on its terms instead of your preconceptions about real life
>>98379529>That's really time-consuming drudge-workOhh boohoo. There are no structural ways of making the wizard less powerful without nerfing spells. Every way proposed in this thread is shit and you know it.>structural expectation of proactivity or that spells Just Do Their ThingIts more like people having gotten used to the power wank of 3.x not being happy they cant just blow up an encounter with a single spell. That's literally it. Ive played a wizard, (and several other casters and martials) and have had an enormously easy and fun time with the class. But my expectations of what I could achieve were set by what the system tells me I could, not what I thought it should be from the badly designed power wank of 3.x or the poorly worded mess that is 5e.And the spells do work, you can be proactive and the spells Just Do Their Thing. Do they work like 3.x, no. But just because you cant Sleep the BBEG who is 2 levels above the party doesnt invalidate the spell. It just means you cant power wank your way through the game using poorly designed spells.>none of the reward of surpassing expectations Oh no, the wizard cant be the savior of the party and invalidate at least one party member with a single spell!The system is quite clear "YOU ARENT THE HERO, YOURE PARTY IS THE HEROES". This idea that you can blow expectations away and be a singular god of X thing is the worst idea possible. You are meant to be a party of high level adventurers doing shit. Hyper focusing into a single skill is stupid shit. Your character should be competent in more than one thing, especially as a traveling murderhobo. If one class can break expectations with a bit of min-maxing and invalidate one or more of the party, that's extremely bad design, and that 3.x players need this or expect this is the big ol rotting heart of modern D&D.The game doesnt expect you to win at the character creation minigame, it expects you to make a competent adventurer to go adventuring.
>>98378180>I’m just going by basic psychology, anon.Assertions of complex reductions re-defining words to inject an adjective in place of a routine noun is not "basic psychology", nor is the smoothbrained comparative mythology, nor is anything else you spew.>“Magic” has always been more magical than MagicTM.Which has nothing to do with the meanings of the word "magic" that Elfgame rules are concerned with, because the adjective "magical" does not actually have a tight association with the meanings of the noun "magic", of which there are several and Elfgames routinely establish a precise jargon-meaning of for themselves for the sake of rules clarity.Study the valid English sentence "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" until you understand this. Your stubborn refusal to accept lexical ambiguity EXISTS with your PATHOLOGICAL insistence on reduction forces you into just repeating the same solipsistic gobbledygook ad nauseum, because you have woven yourself a unique-to-you jargon in which any other worldview is not just wrong, but definitionally invalid.>>98378244>I’m pretty sure anthropologists and historians would agree that magic and religion and whatnot is just the psyche filling in the blanks of reality.For real life. For Elfgame, those blanks were filled accurately by such, if they even existed in the first place given all the creationism.>In fact it might not be so fantastical to them, eventually, over time.They usually aren't in the first place.>>98378280Which demands he not use the word "miracle" why, exactly?>>98378312>So you’re saying that magic and religion aren’t entirely psychological?For my part, I'm saying they don't HAVE to be IN ELFGAMES. Because they're a separate context that can contradict our own on whatever they please, so long as a particular one does not contradict itself. And even that's genuinely debatable, just look at our bitching about retcons.
>>98378348That's removing the spell BOOK, not the slots. Access mechanic, not usage.>>98378388A critical feature in cult formation is the portrayal of all alternatives as illegitimate.>>98378401>You’ve a major cognitive block. You cannot actually comprehend the idea that God might be able to scientifically assess himself, and thus not see himself as a god, or his miracles as miraculous.No, it's the inverse, it's all about YOUR major cognitive block that you cannot comprehend the idea He may not as we keep trying to assert the validity of "may" statements to support a breadth of Elfgame settings engaged with honestly on THEIR terms instead of our own.>You’re dumb because you can’t identify the shared essences.Again, it's the inverse, you're dumb because you've blinded yourself to anything else with your malformed tautologies. So long as you cannot accept the setting context boundary, Elfgame shall forever remain incomprehensible to you, as no amount of asserting your priors over it make them valid within it. I, personally, am perfectly capable of holding the idea that the only thing real in OUR world is physical energy that due to repulsive forces occasionally takes up the form of matter, yet at the same time engage with a wide range of alternatives.>>98378445>Yes it does. It’s no longer magic. You can’t just call some force “magic” and then expect everyone else to.You can't just say "magic" has to adhere to the adjective "magical" and expect everyone to discard every other meaning of the word.>The elves in Tolkien’s middle-earth aren’t fantasized by their own abilities and crafts.Meanwhile the elves in Warhammer Fantasy would laugh in your face about all this shit because they are using "magic" to describe a very objectively demonstrable variety of energies, not your reduction of nonsensical superstitions from a world where there is no Polar Gate breeching the veil to let it in.
>>98378549>All of those definitions point to certain implications which are easily answerable by using basic rationality.But they are not YOUR implications as those draw much more from smoothbrain comparative mythology, nor is Elfgame required to take either such implication instead of others.>There was no real logic or reason to them, since it was the equivalent of a stage magician enforcing a play, or game.Rather undermining your point, there was a non-trivial argument for much of this period of whether logic actually had primacy in the first place. Frankly, that stretches through the tradition past Christianity snagging it into something like the 11th century, with a LOT of dumbassery from Islam being traceable to them taking the alternative that it doesn't with shit like retroactive editorializing of the Qur'an.But in a world where everyone's gods are clearly real actors who fuck with "natural" forces at enormous scales on a regular basis over their irreconcilable disagreements, a whole lot of that reasoning to get from "primitive superstition" to anything like your worldview just... Doesn't work. Nor is the idea that there's some "artificiality" at all a profound insight, because of course there's a guy behind the fertility rituals, he comes by in the fall and harvests a kidney if you screwed it up.
>>98379529>There's still a gap even in the real-life traditions between doing so out of assumption of the powers for yourself versus asking of things that already have them. This does get blurry with summoning/calling spells, but the rough division between the actual clergy and the "other" mystics the Wizard/Cleric difference is keying to was a real thing no matter your retarded reductions.Nope. They were literally inseparable. Magic and miracles were the same thing. The most wizardly, scientific and self cultivating tradition was as much about personal exp as it was about a personal relationship with the divine.Again, alchemy was explicitly the key to theurgia. Moses was a wizard as much as he was a cleric.
>nooo magic isn’t about fantasy or wonder or mystery reeeLol he’s still having a total meltdown
>>98379650He’s not incorrect. Atheists will legit throw a huge tantrum if you describe anything as magic, and people like Kevin Feige originally wanted a scientific explanation for everything in the Doctor Strange movie before being told “no, magic is a matter of approach”, and they were right, magic is entirely just a way of looking at a thing. A ghost is just a gaseous fart entity to the soulless atheist who doesn’t see anything wonderful in life. Or they chalk it up to some higher dimensional phenomena. In fact they might hate real life so much that they can’t stand having someone see it as wonderful. Similar to how sorcery and witchcraft were mostly pejoratives for things people didn’t like. A wizard might be so jaded he doesn’t see his magic as magic. Or he’s too humble. “The world is sick and full of disease, how is it amazing again!”.
>no you HAVE to call if magic. The wizard is WRONG about it not being magic. It will never NOT be called or seen as magic. Not even GOD can see it as not magic. Holy fucking cope
>>98379683>Ohh boohoo. There are no structural ways of making the wizard less powerful without nerfing spells....I repeat:>that make it clearer and easier to wrangle outliers under them in the first placeThe point is that explaining the specific spell list edits just doesn't work on 4chan, whereas broad overviews of shifting the foundations under it so it's much easier to lay them properly does.>Its more like people having gotten used to the power wank of 3.x not being happy they cant just blow up an encounter with a single spell. That's literally it.No, it is that navigating the multiple layers of rock-paper-scissors for an opaque action economy upside feels awful to people used to a roll against fat -numbers or "No, You Can't Do That".>Oh no, the wizard cant be the savior of the party and invalidate at least one party member with a single spell!Nor can he just really transparently be a Big Part of the win off of three spells without getting very lucky or being a really intense metagamer.>This idea that you can blow expectations away and be a singular god of X thing is the worst idea possible.No, it's making the mechanical complexity of buildfaggotry actually pay off system mastery instead of just introducing ridiculous skill-floor issues. If you're supposed to be straightjacketed to a treadmill, just make a fucking treadmill.>The system is quite clear "YOU ARENT THE HERO, YOURE PARTY IS THE HEROES".TTRPGs as a medium are far more drawn by "Your Party Are Heroes, Plural", rolling over "their things" and accomplishing even greater tasks by working together. The interdependency has LONG been glossed over for spotlight-shifting of far older ensemble cast concepts.>The game doesnt expect you to win at the character creation minigame, it expects you to make a competent adventurer to go adventuring.Then why have so much of the basic competence be in the minigame? If you're NEVER supposed to get above the curve, why make it so convoluted to reach?
>Enter thread about magic in RPGs>Find culture warrior LARPersWhat went wrong with /tg/?
>>98379879>Nope. They were literally inseparable.The people burning others for witchcraft would say otherwise. The numerous letters from the Vatican higher-ups telling the priests to stop meddling in all the occult crap would say otherwise. You are simply wrong, these past cultures did in fact have clearly-defined category boundaries for different types of what we'd call magic today.>>98379917I do not care if you are a taint-licker or samefagging, you get the same fucking shit.>>98379927Again, it is the inverse, the retard here is (You) insisting that it MUST be correctly viewable as "Not Magic" IN ALL CASES while we're insisting the option FOR A SETTING not to must be legitimate. Whether it is or not is on the particular Elfgame writer, not your "philosophizing".
>>98379987>The people burning others for witchcraft would say otherwiseYes, because historically the Church weaponized semantics, and priests and bishops would even practice legitimate demonology behind closed doors. They weren’t as dumb as the masses who killed people over superficial differences. They knew the irony. Not all peasants were like this, and there were even books on spells for the summoning of angels, by the peasantry for the peasantry. They didn’t not call or consider it magic. What is or isn’t magic was a very personal, even taboo affair. But the point remains. The most wizardly (ritualistic, scientific) tradition of magic in the west, Hermeticism, the contemporary of Taoism in the east, was as I said it was: it is as much about personal exp as it was about a personal relationship with the divine. inner, spiritual alchemy was explicitly the key to high theurgia. Wizards were their own priests. Hermetics sometimes don’t even consider it magic. It’s just a spiritual way of life. Also, religious historians note that Church practices are themselves indistinguishable from ceremonial magic, or group led theurgia, at the core of it. They simply use different words and names for it. The bible is arguably the most influential spellbook of all.
>>98379987>it is the inverse, the retard here is (You) insisting that it MUST be correctly viewable as "Not Magic" IN ALL CASESNo it’s not lol; he’s saying that anything can be magic if it’s magical enough, and the reverse is also true
>>98380065>Yes, because historically the Church weaponized semanticsNo, not semantics, actual structural assumptions of the worldview. They genuinely, honestly, and whole-heartedly believed in these distinctions, with their thinkers spending CENTURIES mulling over the minutia of how the category boundaries between them worked. Once again, you are Not Even Wrong because you cannot accept any priors but your own.>and priests and bishops would even practice legitimate demonology behind closed doorsAgain, the higher ups kept telling them to cut that shit out, because of the aforementioned worldview assumptions.>They knew the irony.There was none of what you call "irony", because that's a retarded projection of your worldview upon others. People do not spend multiple lifetimes building a church off things they do not believe.>The most wizardly (ritualistic, scientific) tradition of magic in the west, Hermeticism, the contemporary of Taoism in the east, was as I said it was: it is as much about personal exp as it was about a personal relationship with the divine. inner, spiritual alchemy was explicitly the key to high theurgia. Wizards were their own priests.Which is all very easily separated from the contemporaneous Church if you are capable of engaging with disparate priors, as is rather essential to discuss the matter in good faith.>Also, religious historians note that Church practices are themselves indistinguishable from ceremonial magic, or group led theurgia, at the core of it.Which has absolutely no authority over the internal context of their worldview that is what they acted upon. Somebody an age later putting it in the same box as another thing does not make it so. The same goes for a midwit insisting his smoothbrain comparative mythology supersedes the fucking author on what "magic" is in a given setting.
>>98380099Not with statements like this:>What is or isn’t magic was a very personal, even taboo affair.Explain to me how from his positions an Elfgame declaring this invalid In That Setting is acceptable. Because that is what I am arguing for, the option for a particular setting to bin ALL this gobbledygook in favor of just bluntly saying things like "this world works exactly like the intellectuals of 11th century Europe said ours did, materialists need not apply"
>>98378918well?
>>98379962/tg/ only stays on topic for anons that put in a ton of work. Threads tend to devolve into /his/ in ye Olde timesYou'd have to make an entire game to get fa/tg/uys to stay on topic.
>>98380128>the contemporaneous ChurchWho do you think the hermetics were? Who do you think were writing these books? It was the clergy. Christian clergymen and theologians were among the most pivotal figures in preserving, translating, and synthesizing Hermetic thought, and this was explicitly called ‘Christian Hermeticism’. Clergymen were the biggest wizards around during the church’s time. Even those clergymen who didn’t believe in magic rituals and weren’t at all interested in the hermetica (see people like Roger Bacon) ended up with reputations as wizards. It was out of their control, this perception. If you think wizards had nothing to do with the clergy, you’re dead wrong.
>>98380143That’s just magic for you? What is magic to one isn’t going to be magic to another; in fact you might be insulting them if you go and assume it’s magic
>>98380143>Explain to me how from his positions an Elfgame declaring this invalid In That Setting is acceptableThe ultra rationalist archetype suffices. These are ROLEPLAYING games, after all…
>>98380128>No, not semantics, actual structural assumptions of the worldviewWhether one used words like ‘magic’ or ‘miraculous’ to describe the authority of God really depended on the person and view.
>>98380189>here are specific contexts different from irl life >no those are just subjective options lmao you can't picture an apple in your head can you?
>>98380128>The same goes for a midwit insisting his smoothbrain comparative mythology supersedes the fucking author on what "magic" is in a given setting.An author is free to write in ignorance. An author can’t, for instance, write a fiction without math or causality, as it is impossible; without such things there would be no story/fiction to begin with. Thinking fiction, or the author, is omnipotent is a variant of believing in an omnipotent God by the way, you’ve just settled for the unreal over the real. But even the unreal depends on the real, as it is a projection based on the real. What is contrasted with what is real/allowed. We would not have epic mythological stories about what the stars are, if there were no stars to look up to.
>>98380238Aphantasia is a meme, buddy. That’s not how light works.
>>98380128>higher ups kept telling them to cut that shit outNot really. Numerous popes were accused of magic, and they argued that they weren’t actually doing anything wrong. Exorcism is a form of hallowed sorcery. A form of reverse engineered demonology. The church was a self prosecuting mages guild by any other name. Christian priests practiced black magic (called ‘nigromancy’ back then) to combat demons. Exorcism comes from this. There’s church sanctioned magic.
>>98380239... I already lmao but you beat it. Top notch wonderschizo.
>>98380276I’m quite literally not wrong. All fiction is a projection of the real. All of it. All fiction depends on real life logic.
The word miracle comes from a word meaning object of wonder
>>98380283Keep going its great.
>>98380181>Who do you think the hermetics were? Who do you think were writing these books? It was the clergy.And other parts of the "upper classes", AGAINST THE VATICAN'S ORDERS. >If you think wizards had nothing to do with the clergy, you’re dead wrong.I am denying only your insistence that they are inseparable.>>98380189>That’s just magic for you?No, that's setting a line in the sand for what "magic" means for a GAME with RULES. I do not have strong feelings that magic MUST be any particular thing, only AGAINST your retarded insistence that it can't, even in counterfactual fiction that goes to great lengths to establish it as such.>>98380203>The ultra rationalist archetype suffices.You are of course allowed to play a fool who insists the sky is shit-brown, but for your farcical conclusions to come from an ultra-rationalist requires you actually trace out what priors are reasonable to occur from the described setting then derive from them until they are reached. You can't just declare it true in a context that explicitly excludes your evidence.>>98380219>Whether one used words like ‘magic’ or ‘miraculous’ to describe the authority of God really depended on the person and view.They taxidermied an entire language to have the debates in for a reason! You are just a raving lunatic, logic and etymology do not FUNCTION the way your argument requires!
>>98380323>logic and etymology do not FUNCTION the way your argument requires!They clearly do not give a shit about that. They're simultaneously trying to hold hyperrationalism and total subjectivity. Its not going to be sane in the slightest.
>>98380323Who controls the Vatican? The same hypocrites who wrote and hoarded all the best spellbooks. Please re-read my post.
>>98380336You’re mad that they’re using logic? Lol. That looks pretty bad on you.
>>98380323>You are of course allowed to play a fool who insists the sky is shit-brownThat’s not a rationalist. A rationalist is the philosopher type who thinks God is some asshole who thinks he’s special but he’s not. A god is still just another lifeform.
>>98380239>An author is free to write in ignorance.Exclusion of modern monist physicalism, let alone your retarded version of it that doesn't understand what separates it from materialism or non-monist cosmologies, its just declaring alternative priors and following accordingly, not ignorance. This is in fact allowed in logic.>An author can’t, for instance, write a fiction without math or causality, as it is impossibleWhy is a hard definition of "magic" as an objective phenomenon on this level? Remember, every prior you draw from history is excluded by default. Literally of them. None of that exists in any form relevant to the counter-factual's internal context.>But even the unreal depends on the real, as it is a projection based on the real. No, that is not how logic or fiction work. I reject this prior, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to convince me otherwise, because a firm barrier between reality and fiction is UTTERLY essential to function with rather a lot of my interests.>>98380267>Not really. Numerous popes were accused of magic, and they argued that they weren’t actually doing anything wrong.The accusation would not be made if there was not scandal to it, and your citation is of the clergy more generally rather than substantiation of the Papacy proper. Which I don't actually respect, I just happen to be able to engage with its priors despite them differing from my own, like an ACTUAL rational person who's CAPABLE of good-faith debate instead of just screeching the same handful of canned solipsistic bullshit ad infinitum.>The church was a self prosecuting mages guild by any other name.No, it was not, because they literally taxidermized a language to preserve the names that the distinctions relied upon.
>>98380352You're trying to say >all things are colours so all things are red Wait until next summer after you've had another year of philosophy.
>>98380345>Who controls the Vatican? The same hypocrites who wrote and hoarded all the best spellbooks.It containing hypocrites differs from the fundamental foundations of it being in hypocrisy as your claims amount to and do nothing to substantiate.>>98380360>That’s not a rationalist.The point is that simply directly using your arguments as-is in a world where none of the underlying history exists because it actively runs on some permutation of such assumptions being visibly correct is catastrophically delusional.>A rationalist is the philosopher type who thinks God is some asshole who thinks he’s special but he’s not.In your worldview, regarding our world. Inside the derived counter-factual where the gods are actual beings who are in fact special and Just Do Shit that (You) genuinely, fundamentally, and utterly unavoidably cannot, it is the "rationalist" who is the asshole. And retarded. Again, of course there's a guy behind the fertility rituals, he comes by in the fall and harvests a kidney if you screwed it up.
>>98380352Give him some slack. He’s probably never come across fictional concepts like the Dwemer from Elder Scrolls. >>98380323Would a rationalist society of elves that don’t see magic as magic, or the gods as gods, be weird to you? The Dwemer: A race of elves so scientifically addled that they see the gods and the demons as just weird aliens they’re meant to defend themselves against. Magicka is just a variable in their machinery to them. Magic IS machinery to them. Their Mage sign is the Mechanistic. They’re (the Dwemer) are seen as particularly alien/magical by the rest of the setting PRECISELY because of how alien and transcendent their understanding of the world is. See >>98319131
At the end of the day, anon is mad that some hypothetical sufficiently advanced alien can dissect and deconstruct his magic system to the point where it’s no longer magic. Also this sufficiently advanced alien’s name is God.
>>98380409>Would a rationalist society of elves that don’t see magic as magic, or the gods as gods, be weird to you?Can you accept any that DOESN'T as legitimately knowledgeable of their universe? Do note that the reason the Dwemer no longer exist is because they were WRONG to do so, because the base-layer of their home cosmology is a schizophrenic dream. Water is memories, shadows can take you to alternate universes, duration is a thing Daedra put on for mortals, linear time has broken on multiple occasions yet the moons kept working as a calendar anyways, The Elder Scrolls is a HORRIBLE example for your bullshit because it is a whack-ass place fleshed out by an ACTUAL comparative mythology major using the whacky details to construct even more instead of just narrow-mindedly crushing it until it stops conflicting with his worldview then throwing in a pile of apparent contradictions just to rub it in.>>98380425>At the end of the day, anon is mad that some hypothetical sufficiently advanced alien can dissect and deconstruct his magic system to the point where it’s no longer magic.No, I am mad that you keep insisting there is no possible setting where they can't due to "magic" being a genuinely distinct set of processes that legitimately cannot be reduced to commonality with "ordinary" physics. Just rejecting this prior because it doesn't match YOUR definition of "magic" even in settings where (an analogue of) our world is an explicitly separate cosmology that only partially overlaps and all use of the English language is translation convention like subtitles in Anime is not "higher reasoning", it is solipsistic lunacy revealing a brainwashing far more thorough than most suicide bombing jihadis. Because at least they are capable of discussing SOME impression of what the infidel believes instead of responding to all mention of such with re-affirming about the Qur'an.
>arguing with wonderfag
>>98380425At the end of the day you're actually so mad you're unable to respond to posts repeatedly but keep coming back to the thread to demonstrate you can't imagine things. Its impressively autistic.
>>98377827yeah, for you.
>>98377862No.
>>98378193Conjuration and enchantment, rather.
>>98378307That's what you think, yeah.
>>98380742Says the person who can’t imagine an angle where magic isn’t seen as magic. YOU lack imagination. Lmao.
>>98381631swing and a miss.
>>98381678The Chinese start cults very easily. They killed each other over mangoes!
still can't think of anything related to the discussion? grim.
>>98380463>reee magic will always be magic in my setting reeeNot with the sheer amount of crossover autism it won’t!
>>98382129get a load of this faggot LOL
>>98381636Says the retard who can't imagine any angle where "magic" has any objective meaning.>>98382129Not if I do not engage in the crossover autism.
