[TORG] Philosophy of Polymorphism

[Travis James Hall]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com 
> [mailto:torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com] On Behalf Of 
> Dominick Riesland
> Sent: Wednesday, 24 December 2008 5:28 AM
> To: torg at justintimeadventures.com
> Subject: Re: [TORG] Philosophy of Polymorphism
> 
> On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 5:35 AM, Travis James Hall
> <travisjhall at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> >
> > 1. Summon a demon.
> > 2. Bind the demon to your will (using a spell based on a 
> different AK).
> > 3. Turn off the first spell (possibly sending the demon 
> back from whence it
> > came).
> > 4. Summon the demon again at a time when you need its services.
> > 5. ???
> > 6. Profit!
> >
> > The operation requires three different spells (because you 
> need a different
> > spell to retrieve your bound demon to the original 
> summoning of the unbound
> > demon) from two different AKs, but can be done. I'd say the 
> spell binding
> > the demon to the mage's will would also be an excellent 
> link for purposes of
> > the Law of Contagion, too.
> 
> I can certainly see a magician attempting this, but it's not the
> guaranteed money machine that it appears.

Dude, the last two steps are just a mildly amusing internet meme.

> Besides,
> if most magicians are summoning from the same plane (quite likely,
> given how rare demonic planes are in the grand scheme of things), you
> may get your "summon the demon I charmed earlier" spell fizzling due
> to lack of target.

If a GM is doing this to a player other than very rarely, I really don't
want to be playing his game. It is possible for something to go wrong with
the scheme, yes, but if there are more than a very small number of demons on
that plane, it becomes very unlikely. That sounds like a GM looking for ways
to screw over his players.

The scheme is generally solid and requires the devotion of quite significant
resources to set up. It's effect is not out of line with the cost, and if
one is going to allow a demon-summoner character in the game in the first
place, one has to expect that he's going to want to summon demons. GMs
should be encouraging smart, reasonable schemes, not stomping all over them
all the time.

And there are a variety of counter-measures that can reasonably be employed
when warranted. It's not an instant-win button.

> > Synonymous arcane knowledges would come in handy for 
> demon-summoners, too,
> > as that would mean they wouldn't have to use more expensive 
> AKs to prevent
> > clashes in their spells.
> 
> Yeah, but synonymous knowledges are rare in and of themselves...

Any rare but known thing can and will be sought out by those who have a
specific need for it.

> There will be changes to most spells (I haven't found one yet that
> goes through completely unscathed), but the main reason I brought this
> up is so that the rules maintain verisimilitude and consistency with
> the expectations of what magic should be able to do at a given Axiom
> Level and so that there are reasonable guidelines for spell design
> backed up by spells that illustrate it.

The best way to maintain verisimilitude and consistency is to fix the spells
which are badly written, not try to retrofit a system around them.

> Exactly. So a spell that can transform someone into anything for which
> a vampire has an affinity has a different exclusion than one that can
> transform someone into anything for which a witch has an affinity, and
> is therefore a different spell.

And a spell which transforms someone into a wolf specifically is another
spell again. Of the three spells, the transform-to-wolf spell uses the
narrowest exclusion. Hence transform-to-wolf should gain a greater benefit
from the Theorem of Exclusion than the other two (all else being equal).

> I see it as great in theory but difficult in practice. The example of
> "knife blades, a subset of blades, which is a subset of metal" (Aysle,
> p. 61) is illustrative of the problem. Given a clever magician, it's
> possible to wrangle a myriad of sub-exclusions out.

I'm not seeing this difficulty you describe. I haven't suggested that the
Theorem of Exclusion be applied multiple times. It's nothing to do with how
deeply you can nest your subsets. You just have to look at how restrictive
the exclusion is and apply an appropriate modifier.

> I think we can agree that certain exclusions don't warrant the
> theorem. "You cannot use this spell to transform the target into the
> largest snapping turtle on the largest island of the Galapagos" is a
> throwaway exclusion and not worth the time to observe it.

Yes. Likewise, when applying the exclusions of "blades" and "knife blades",
the former provides no restriction beyond that provided by the latter, so is
ignored when determining how effective the exclusion is.

> However, a
> narrower exclusion is not always a worse spell. "Summon Library Demon"
> may be a proper and useful safeguard built in so that if the binding
> spell fails, you have less of a mess to deal with than you would for a
> normal Summon Demon. The annoyance of having a spell that only summons
> certain demons is balanced by the fact that you know in advance what
> you are getting.

So? I still don't have a problem with Summon Library Demon being slightly
easier to cast than Summon Demon.

> > The vampire chooses a single form at the time of casting. 
> Why is this so
> > different to choosing the plane from which a demon will be 
> summoned at the
> > time of casting?
> 
> Choosing the plane isn't exactly the same as choosing the form, unless
> each demon type has its own plane.

That's right, the latter is more specific. Nevertheless, it is a variation
of the effect chosen at the time of casting. I don't see any qualitative
difference that should make one permissible and the other not.

> > There is no requirement to build a contagion or vocal 
> component into a
> > spell. If you can summon a demon from a specific plane 
> using the Theorem of
> > Voice, you can also do it with without the Theorem of 
> Voice. It just costs
> > more.
> 
> So far, I'm leaning toward the idea that (at least up to Magic 18)
> theorems can be used to "select" an effect out of the available
> choices. If there is an example of a spell that allows for selection
> without a limitation requiring it, please point it out.

I'm not sure of the name, since I can't find the book at the moment, but I
hear there's such a spell on page 63 of The Forever City.

No, seriously, this whole discussion springs from you providing an example
of a spell which allows the exact effect to be chosen from a limited set of
possibilities, and asking whether this is appropriate under the Torg magic
system. Taking an example as proving validity of the concept would be
begging the question.

That said, there are other examples as well. Visual Aid (Pixaud's p. 43)
creates an illusory pattern of coloured light, but the exact shape and form
of the pattern is determined by the caster's will. Light Writing (Pixaud's
p. 28) specifically writes what the caster is thinking. Effects guided by
the caster's will are not unknown.

> >> with different results based on who is casting the spell. 
> That sounds
> >> like something requiring a higher Axiom Level than 18.
> >
> > The above said, I don't see an inherent problem with a 
> spell with an effect
> > that varies with the attributes of the target. "Turn me 
> into a form with
> > which I have an affinity" still seems pretty reasonable to 
> me. Then the
> > difference between this and a specifically vampiric version 
> would be an
> > application of the Theorem of Exclusion on the Pattern as 
> well as the
> > Result.
> 
> The pattern exclusion only applies if the spell can only be used by
> vampires. If you are doing that, then this necessitates separate
> spells.

Seriously, get off the "separate spells" kick. We know that each variation
we discuss is being built into a separate spell. Nevertheless, it remains
valid to compare the various different spells. I'm beginning to think that
this is something you throw out there whenever you are invited to perform a
comparison that would lead to uncomfortable results.

We now have several different forms of polymorph spell under consideration:
"Turn me into a creature to which I have an affinity"
"Turn me into a creature to which a vampire has an affinity"
"Turn me, a vampire, into a creature to which a vampire has an affinity"
"Turn me, a vampire, into a creature to which I have an affinity"
"Turn me, a vampire, into a creature to which I have an affinity as a
vampire"
"Turn me into a creature to which I have an affinity as a vampire"

The first would have the Theorem of Exclusion applied to the Result AK, the
exclusion being "creatures to which I have an affinity". (Possibly also the
Theorem of Contagion, using the caster himself as the contagion.) The second
would also have the Theorem of Exclusion applied to the Result AK, the
exclusion being "creatures to which a vampire has an affinity". The third
version has the Theorem of Exclusion applied to the Result AK, the exclusion
being "creatures to which a vampire has an affinity", and the Theorem of
Exclusion applied to the Pattern AK with the exclusion being "I am a
vampire". The fourth, fifth and sixth versions can be taken to indicate
different exclusions from the third, but in the end the spell is exactly as
restricted as in the third version, and so should come out the same in the
end.

> >> Both options yield possible spells, but at what Axiom Levels?
> >
> > Here, you're in the realm of new rules. You're writing 
> them, do as you like.
> > However, I don't see any reason for such spells to require 
> particularly high
> > axioms.
> 
> Wish-like spells are high axiom not necessarily because of the effect,
> but because of the discretion involved. A spell that can be used
> equally well for providing the fixings for an ice cream social or for
> striking someone with a heart attack requires a larger amount of
> ambient energy than one that can only do one of those things. That's
> an extreme, but it illustrates the reason I'm considering Axiom Level
> in this discussion.

The effects we are discussing are well short of the absolute discretion
provided by wish spells. We aren't discussing "spells of a generic nature",
and so the restriction on wish magic does not apply.

You can add a further restriction on lesser discretion being applied,
because you're the one doing the writing, but the existing axiom chart
certainly does not require you to do so.

Given how this discussion started, I'd suggest that the discretion allowed
to the original example spell be allowed at a magic axiom of 15, at a
minimum, but you can do what you like.

> >> At the point where your "standard polymorph" becomes 
> viable within the
> >> Magic Axiom, wherever that is on the chart, it is likely 
> to supplant
> >> all other transformational spells, except for those which only
> >> "transform" attributes.
> >
> > Now why should it do that? If it is costed appropriately, a 
> general-purpose
> > transform-to-other-creature spell should be considerably 
> more costly (in
> > terms of difficulty and backlash) than a 
> transform-to-specific-creature
> > spell. If it isn't, well, you haven't costed it 
> appropriately, have you?
> 
> At a high enough Axiom Level, it won't matter. But until then, it
> should indeed be more difficult to pull off the general purpose spell.
> However, the spell design system, if working properly, should generate
> the necessary cost differentials for spells. I believe I have that in
> place as it stands.
> 
> Bear in mind, though, that difficulty considerations aren't the only
> ones at hand. Conjuration magic is harder than alteration magic, but
> that doesn't make it acceptable for Core Earth.

And just what does this have to do with the concern you expressed, that more
flexible spells will supplant less flexible spells?

More flexible spells are more difficult to cast and/or result in the caster
taking more backlash. This effect prevents more flexible spells supplanting
less flexible spells. Axioms do not matter when addressing this particular
concern.

Travis Hall