[TORG] Is it worth maintaining the "Additional" state path cost?

[Phil Dack]

Much as I love the magic system, my view is that the whole thing is over-complicated and unplayable. The TRB used to talk of casting on the fly as if it were something you could do in-game, albeit at great risk. Aysle SB clarified this with a system that also meant it risked great physical harm to the player as the GM and other players got increasingly aggravated at the time it took!

If you really want to revise it, I'd strip it right back and start almost from scratch, but this might be outside the scope of what you're trying to do. If you want to work within the existing system, I'd keep it all in place. It all made sense to me when I threw my spell design spreadsheet together, although that was some time ago! 

I think it's right that every added complexity to a spell process is reflected in a more difficult design. Focusing is more complex than direct casting, Ward more complex still, Impressed more complex still. What I think is lacking from the system is some idea of how, as the axiom changes, spell designers are able to compensate for these added complexities. E.g. an M16 is much more complicated than a flintlock and is thus much harder to make. But this complication is mitigated by the benefits of high Tech (machine tooled parts, moulded plastics, etc.) and high Social (coordination of different organisations providing different elements of the final item). We don't have a very clear idea of how the magic axiom similarly compensates, e.g. with more powerful theorems, albeit it perhaps more restrictive, so they can only do one thing - e.g. a process theorem that only works for spells with Living Forces as a mechanism.





----- Original Message ----
> From: Dominick Riesland <rabbitball at gmail.com>
> To: torg at justintimeadventures.com
> Sent: Monday, 27 July, 2009 14:41:15
> Subject: [TORG] Is it worth maintaining the "Additional" state path cost?
> 
> As most of you know by now, I have been working for over a year to
> rehabilitate the magic system for Torg. For most of this process, I
> have been scouring the source material, trying to standardize the
> spells and effects to any written rules and adding rules only when
> needed. But recently I started questioning the rules themselves and
> how necessary they are.
> 
> The Aysle Sourcebook (and Pixaud's) state that spells that are
> impressed into someone or something other than the caster have an
> additional state path to impress the spell into the alternate
> location. Is this complication necessary? To begin with, any spell
> that is impressed into something other than the caster will almost
> always also be focused on that object (which provides a combined
> addition to the state path cost of 5), or else is a ward (which also
> adds 5 to the state path cost). The rules for building the additional
> path are confusing and seemingly contradictory (compare the
> description of adding a state path on page 73 of the Aysle Sourcebook
> with that in Page 80 which seems to incorporate the additional path
> into the main one). And the question of whether wards need the
> additional state path has never been answered. So an argument can be
> made that these actions are already more costly (though not as costly
> as this additional state path), and therefore the additional path is
> needlessly complext and punitive.
> 
> If there is a good reason to keep this added complexity, I am prepared
> to do so. But I am more than happy to remove this rule if it is more
> trouble than it's worth.
> 
> Dominick Riesland, aka Rabbitball
> Creator of the Cosmversal Grimoire
> "There are always possibilities, my sergeant told me. But he never had
> his possibilities torn away like wings from a fly."
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