Messing about with yet another spellcasting move for Wizard World (my Ars Magica hack). What do you think of this:
Spontaneous Magic
When you spontaneously and quickly use magic to solve a problem or overcome an obstacle, describe how you do it and roll. If you do it…
…by creating something, +Creo
…by perceiving, understanding or gathering information about something, +Intellego
…by changing the shape, size or other properties of something, +Muto
…by destroying something, +Perdo
…by controlling or moving something, +Rego
On a hit, fill in sections of an obstacle cycle equal to your mastery of the Form that is most appropriate to the target and situation. When the cycle is full, the problem is solved and/or the obstacle overcome. You may fill in extra sections of the cycle by suffering harm on a 1:1 basis.
On a 10+ the spell works perfectly. On a 7-9 the spell works but the GM will choose one appropriate to the situation.
– There is a flaw in your spell that causes a complication.
– The target proves resistant to your efforts; further attempts to use the same Form will not fill sections of the cycle.
– You suffer harm based on the situation (retaliation from the target, strain from the spell itself, or damage from something in the environment). The GM will tell you how much.
– You gain +1 Warping.
On a 6- you lose control of the magic – the GM will tell you what happens.
For example:
The problem I have is a bunch of angry dudes with sharp objects who want to perforate me. My solution is to create a fireball that will burn them all.
(My Creo is +2 and my Ignem is +3)
I roll+Creo and get a 9, so I can fill in 3 sections of a cycle (which my GM tells me is only 2 sections because these are just regular dudes). This means I bring an end to further perforatory plans but the GM says I suffer 2 harm from the situation as one or two of them got close enough to stab me before they were incinerated.
Oh I like using the Form to determine progress. That’s neat. Do you know the “cycle” segments before attacking a problem?
Aaron Griffin I think that would be best? Though I suppose there is also an argument for keeping it a mystery in the case of something powerful or surprising? My instinct is to keep everything as open as possible though.
Might be interesting to need specific forms – 2 segments Ignem and 3 segments Aquam.
Huh. I like the idea that Technique is the bonus to your roll and Form indicates power or effect or whatever. But I’m not super sold on the “cycle” mechanic. It feels at odds with the PbtA fiction-first framework to me.
Personally, I’d be more interested in something like Technique = roll modifier and Form dictates potential scope of power, either with a ranking system or by spending points on effect (like in Freebooters on the Frontier).
Jeremy Strandberg yeah I hear ya. I’ve actually been playtesting three variations of Form = scope (including a points/tags system most recently) without finding a balance that works. That’s what lead me back to the cycles. I haven’t looked at Freebooters yet but I will. Thanks!
I’m less a fan of cycles, and would definitely be more in favour of form = scope (or form gates particular effects). The mention of Warping makes me curious about how you’re handling Wizard’s Twilight? As something like AW’s harm move, triggered when you get Warping? Or as a 6- option?
E: should say I like the phrasing of the magic part of the move!
I’m curious about resistance to the concept of cycles. From my perspective they originate with AW harm clocks and continue throughout PbtA designs right up to Blades in the Dark where they are used to track almost every aspect of the game. Any thoughts on how/why they clash with a fiction-first framework?
Aside from considering them to measure progress in conflicts as mentioned here, Wizard World already uses cycles for harm, warping and for tracking progress on big projects like magic items or additions to the covenant.
To answer your question James Iles, Warping has three aspects:
1. An ongoing total that goes up each time you gain +X Warping.
2. A modifier for rolls that call for a roll+Warp, which is calculated as your warping total divided by 10, rounding down. So a warping total of 28 is Warp +2.
3. A cycle on your playbook that tracks the number of individual times you’ve gained +X Warping. When you fill the cycle, you experience a warping event which may lead you into twilight.
Ah, that makes sense!
For cycles… clocks in AW are GM tools. They mark down how a threat will escalate over time, with provisions for a few steps happening all at once.
I’m less a fan of their usage in Blades, mostly because I don’t like the feel in-play of accumulating ‘progress points’. I’d much rather have a task broken down into steps, and have an action concretely deal with a step. I know they’re very similar in effect, but the framing feels important to the fiction?
Basically, clocks (player-facing or not) to measure how close you are to bad things happening = fine.
Clocks to ration out the number of steps until you achieve your goal = uncomfortable.
I understand this is entirely gut feeling and not particularly reasoned, though – other opinions could very well differ!
That totally makes sense and aligns with why I didn’t go with cycles in previous iterations.
The challenge that keeps stumping me is how to maintain objectivity and provide concrete GM guidance on adjudicating a single spellcasting system that can handle resolving situations ranging from moving a boulder off a path to engaging multiple demon-possessed archmagi in a lethal spell duel.
With cycles, the GM makes two initial decisions (how big is the cycle and how much harm can the obstacle inflict) and can then focus on ensuring the fiction represents the mechanics.
So, for the boulder example, the cycle is 1 section and the obstacle would inflict a maximum of 1 harm from strain.
For the duel with the archmagi, the cycle could be 8 sections and they could inflict 4+ harm.
Will it work? I guess my next round of testing will tell me 🙂
Doesn’t Blades use clocks for measuring success?
Yep, and for pretty much everything else too. It’s a core part of John’s GM advice.
I’m not against the idea of cycles at first face, but (if we’re speaking in Blades’ language) how about mapping Form to effect, rather than to progress on a clock? If you’ve got Ignem +3, you’re going to have a Great effect in most circumstances, though Ignem’s effect won’t be Great when you’re using it to overcome [hypothetical anti-Ignem obstacle]. The level of effect hit is really easy to convert to progress on a clock/cycle, too.
Yeah, I think Niall O’Donnell’s solution would help a lot with my qualms 🙂
Niall O’Donnell and that just got me thinking that there’s a lot to be said about an Ars Magica hack of Blades.
Not just what you suggest, but the covenant could map pretty well to the Crew. The different factions could represent other covenents, the church, nobility, etc.
The progress clock idea would be pretty elegant for lab work. You might even be able to map “approaches” onto lab work.
(Sorry Jared Hunt. End threadjack.)
I think I perhaps mentioned an Ars Magica/Blades hack to Jared at some point in the past, though I wouldn’t put money on it. The concept of “the party as a character” is pretty congruent with Ars Magica, definitely!
No worries, Jeremy Strandberg, it’s a natural segway 🙂
I’ve actually got a pile of notes for an Ars Magica -> Blades hack and it will likely be the next thing I work on. The big difference will be that, unlike with Wizard World, I have no intention of staying true to the Ars Magica source material. My Blades hack will dive all the way into magic as a compulsion/addiction that must be managed.
Yyyyeeesssss.
YYYEEESSSSS.
Back to the cycles part of the discussion, let’s take the epic spell duel situation.
If a PC’s best Form score is +2, how would you adjudicate? +2 doesn’t seem like enough for an effect level that would “resolve” the situation in a single roll, so what can the player expect? How do we track the fact that the PC’s spell has some effect, but not enough to finish things?
“Represent it in the fiction,” is my gut reaction, but I’m just not sold on that as a complete solution.
A cycle seems like a natural way to mechanically track the fiction. “Your spell staggers the enemy magus, singing his robes and drawing a gasp of pain from his lips. Mark 2 sections of a 6 section obstacle cycle for the conflict.”
Any suggestions for a cleaner or more fiction-forward way to do this?
Yeah, from that perspective, I think you’re too close to suggesting that every challenging situation should be resolved via progress clocks. I think these work much better in the “longer-term project” context than as a way to model short-term progress.
If you feel like modelling conflict as an abstracted progress indicator is the best way to go forward, I would maybe paint these – especially something like a duel – as more of a “tug of war”; a “fair duel” cycle might be a five-segment bar which gets pushed towards one end or the other, depending on how player rolls go. A 10+ at Form +2 will push the bar 2 segments towards the player character’s end; if the five-segment bar starts in the middle, that means they’ve got complete control over the situation on a 10+ in a “fair” scenario, however that’s adjudicated.
Huh. It’s difficult to talk in specific terms about game elements like these which are core to play, without getting either vastly more or vastly less detailed about it!
I’m toying with the idea of linking base effect levels to the Form scores and then having the option to create cycles for especially big or complex situations.
I’d worry about being too specific in terms of the level that these things are written at. It makes sense to track large-scale effects with a cycle, but I also wouldn’t default to recommending that players just fall back on cycles if they can’t think of a fiction-first approach that suits. Obviously, the solution isn’t going to be worded in strictly that way, but I feel that player-originated cycles (or project clocks in Blades) are better suited to things that characters can contribute to in chunks over time, rather than things that happen moment-to-moment; you might end up with players worrying too much about the number of chunks left in a cycle, rather than the fiction the cycle is supposed to link to.
Jared Hunt could progress be worked into the 10+ and 7-9 results, via “pick X” results? And your Form vs. “difficulty” affects the number of choices?
E.g.
When you weave a spontaneous spell to solve a problem or overcome an obstacle, ask the GM to establish the Scope of the magic required and roll +Technique. On a 7+, your magic addresses the problem but pick 1 (on a 10+) or 2 (on a 7-9). If your Form surpasses the Scope, choose 1 less. If the Scope exceeds your Form, choose 1 more.
* It’s not completely addressed; ask the GM why. It’ll require an application of Finesse or Penetration to finish the job.
* There’s an unforeseen cost or complication from your magic
* Suffer 1 harm in the process (from circumstances, someone fighting back, the strain of the spell, etc.)
* Gain +1 warping
Jeremy Strandberg That’s a really elegant solution. It implies that there’s an obfuscated Scope value that correlates to Form somewhere in the GM’s head, but when you’ve got a limited potential set of values for Form (up to +3 max, I’m assuming), that’s pretty quick to adjudicate on the fly.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking… some basic scale like:
Trivial (-1) >>
Modest (+0) >>
Demanding (+1) >>
Formidable (+2) >>
Overwhelming (+3)
And if you went up against another mage, you could basically “rate” their Form from -1 to +3, just like a PC.
Scope is a great name for a value that the GM can assign to a challenge – whether it’s some dramatic environmental feature, the breadth or depth of an NPC’s powers, or the boringness of a research project. I like it a lot!
Jared Hunt I just stumbled on this post and I’d love to have a look at the other moves and playbooks. By any chance, have you already posted your drafts on some public website?
Guillaume Alvarez I don’t have anything I can share at the moment but I’ll definitely share with the community when I get a draft ready.