Quote from: Teodrik;935682It is a very practical way mostly, if not very inspired. And that is my main problem with it. I does often not feel very thematic. In theory I do like more improvising with different magical aspects, situational conditions and paraphernalia with some other cost than just abstract magic points.

I kind of reached the same conclusion.... What I've concluded is there needs to be a higher tier of spells that requires macguffins... Or else you can't learn them through level advancement.... You need to collect spellbooks or something.  Or there's a certain power level that you can't exceed without getting certain magical items. Something to drive the plot forward, you know? Thematic?... Hard to say.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;935662So what does that mean then, "mana points" are stamina? Are they based on Con or Str? Do you recover them by sleeping? Can you spend them to stay up past your bed time,fight off fatigue, or win a marathon, outside of casting spells? Thats all I mean, I want the game to offer and sustain a logical consistency for the book-keeping procedures that reinforces the ties between the mechanics and gameworld.

Ohh spoken like a true warrior.  You wish to know why waving my arms about and muttering a few words is tiring my barbarian friend.  Do you not tire when you swing your sword, when you climb a cliff and yet less than most?  For you have trained your body to perform these feats yet even it has limits, and must rest.  So to use wizards, we train our mind and attune our soul to build up our ability to channel magic.  You call your physical prowess and ability stamina, we call our magical "stamina" mana.  Does the magical power come form us or somewhere else?  Well that is something many of us study, yet the truth remains each use of a spell drains us.  If one is not careful the spell will drain your very life force.  Some say as we increase in power the spells drain us less so we can cast more, others that we have more mana so we can cast more.  In the end it is the same.

How's that for handwavium fluff?  Also how is your need for an explanation for mana points any different for a need for an explanation for fire-n-forget spells?  The idea that those with magical or mystical powers either can use them all the time, or that they are draining is the real world history of magic.  But you don't forget them after use.  Fire n forget, that's the new kid on the block.

Well, there are real-world "practitioners" who do put psychic energy into their work, and get tired out by it. Not, as far as I know, generally on spells that take a few seconds to cast, and not, as far as I know, to the degree that they're physically utterly wiped out, but then they're also not generally generating effects like many RPG spells do.

On the other hand, I don't know of any real-world "practitioners" who have a handful of spells memorized and then forget them on casting. That always seemed rather bizarre to me, though I get there's the fictional Vancian tradition and explanations for it.

Quote from: Xanther;935750Ohh spoken like a true warrior.  You wish to know why waving my arms about and muttering a few words is tiring my barbarian friend.  Do you not tire when you swing your sword, when you climb a cliff and yet less than most?  For you have trained your body to perform these feats yet even it has limits, and must rest.  So to use wizards, we train our mind and attune our soul to build up our ability to channel magic.  You call your physical prowess and ability stamina, we call our magical "stamina" mana.  Does the magical power come form us or somewhere else?  Well that is something many of us study, yet the truth remains each use of a spell drains us.  If one is not careful the spell will drain your very life force.  Some say as we increase in power the spells drain us less so we can cast more, others that we have more mana so we can cast more.  In the end it is the same.

"And don't forget Bergun the Wise, oh brave barbarian. For it was he, lest you forget, who vanquished the Demon Lord Soth, and sent him screaming back to the Nine Hells, but drew too deeply. Yes, brave barbarian, in his last effort he drew too deeply and ruined his arcane body. Did you know he used to be called Bergun the White? They call him "The Wise" out of respect only. Those of us who Perceive the arcane dimensions see his withered, wasting body and know the terrible price he paid that day. It goes unsaid, but he is not only a source of wisdom for his advice, but also by way of counter example. No mage can look upon his rotting corpse of a magical body and not feel a combination of pity and disgust."

Quote from: Ashakyre;935758"And don't forget Bergun the Wise, oh brave barbarian. For it was he, lest you forget, who vanquished the Demon Lord Soth, and sent him screaming back to the Nine Hells, but drew too deeply. Yes, brave barbarian, in his last effort he drew too deeply and ruined his arcane body. Did you know he used to be called Bergun the White? They call him "The Wise" out of respect only. Those of us who Perceive the arcane dimensions see his withered, wasting body and know the terrible price he paid that day. It goes unsaid, but he is not only a source of wisdom for his advice, but also by way of counter example. No mage can look upon his rotting corpse of a magical body and not feel a combination of pity and disgust."

I do like that  In my mana point approach you can use HP to power spells in an emergency but they are lost forever.  Must have been what poor Bergun did.

Quote from: Xanther;935750How's that for handwavium fluff?  

It works, though just from a design perspective I find using HP to cast spells as a more elegant solution, with identifiable consequences that already parallel in-game conceptions. With the explanation provided, I still have the same questions, I just get the character's PoV. Which is very good, don't get me wrong, but as the system defines the reality of the setting, what the character is unsure of is something the game designer themselves should be able to answer, or in fact inadvertently answer by the design decision regardless.

QuoteAlso how is your need for an explanation for mana points any different for a need for an explanation for fire-n-forget spells?

Its not. I'm not championing Vancian magic. It was an easy solution Gygax came up with.

But Vancian magic doesn't have to justify extra book-keeping,which is its advantage.

Yeah, Xanther, we're looking for ways to fix flaws in Mana point systems.
 
I'm looking at Tristram's issues and your solutions and  realizing I have to up my game a little.

Quote from: Xanther;935759I do like that  In my mana point approach you can use HP to power spells in an emergency but they are lost forever.  Must have been what poor Bergun did.

I have some spells with variable Mana wagers / effects, but, if you go into negative Mana it's magical death, and as hard to reverse as normal death. Maybe harder.

I wish I was cool enough to design ways to power spells way beyond their design, but I'm thinking maybe you need a special artifact for that. (Double effect, triple Mana wager.)

Quote from: Ashakyre;935764I have some spells with variable Mana wagers / effects, but, if you go into negative Mana it's magical death, and as hard to reverse as normal death. Maybe harder.

I wish I was cool enough to design ways to power spells way beyond their design, but I'm thinking maybe you need a special artifact for that. (Double effect, triple Mana wager.)

In my game wizard spell-talents usually cost random amounts of mana, and you can link up spell-talents to get bigger effects out of them. For example, Evoker is a basic arcane blast that costs 1d4 mana, and for an extra 1d6 you can expand it to a 5-foot radius. When you use spell talents you drain your mana first, then hp. It's not a permanent hp drain, but the drain happens before the spell goes off, so you can't just be willing to go out with a bang and stack up a bunch of effects: it's possible to fall unconscious or even die by lumping too many spell talents together.

Something we've been tinkering with is magic focuses and wizard talents that can reduce the drain (either rolling twice and taking the lower result, or reducing the overall cost), and/or letting you do extra things (like, say, a staff of lightning giving your magic attacks lightning damage/adding a stun effect).

Quote from: Tristram Evans;935760It works, though just from a design perspective I find using HP to cast spells as a more elegant solution, with identifiable consequences that already parallel in-game conceptions.

I like the feel of this approach better myself.  It's very TFT.  In practice though I found it to lead to a much lower magic game than I want, but that is very, very good if that is what you want.  It also tends to make magic something that is chosen with very great consideration in a combat setting.  lastly, it makes healing potions the first things magic using players want to get.  None of these are god or bad things, just how I've seen it work.

QuoteWith the explanation provided, I still have the same questions, I just get the character's PoV. Which is very good, don't get me wrong, but as the system defines the reality of the setting, what the character is unsure of is something the game designer themselves should be able to answer, or in fact inadvertently answer by the design decision regardless.

I'm not really sure what you are after, it seem like an answer in search of a question, or something that feels right to you.  From a mechanical point of view you can describe limits to magic, but in the end it is magic, something you just made up so it inherently will have situations not covered by the rules.

QuoteIts not. I'm not championing Vancian magic. It was an easy solution Gygax came up with.

But Vancian magic doesn't have to justify extra book-keeping,which is its advantage.

I hope you don't think Vancian magic never had to justify itself.  It has been questioned since day one, and people that didn't like the answer(s) made spell point systems.

Justifying mana point bookkeeping is no different than explaining the thinking behind D&D hit points or armor class or any other abstraction used for a game.  The primary reason some people think mana points need extra justification are those who started with D&D type fire-n-forget spells.  I've never had to justify mana points to those who haven't played D&D.  I believe because it is within the common conception how magic works, historically and in the media, and it is the common way magic works in computer games.

In the end though, if adding a box labeled mana points next to hit points, and tracking them requires high levels of justifications and is perceived as more difficult than tracking if you used up a memorized spell then there is no argument I can provide to such a player.  I bet if you did a time motion study of it you'd find putting a "-1" next to mana points takes less time than finding a spell on your list and checking it off its use.

Speaking of bookkeeping, as a GM, I can say it is much easier for me to track mana points than spell use for creatures that have x spells per day.  Tracking fire-n-forget spells requires crossing off, a check mark (that hopefully doesn't get lost or obscured, accidentally erased etc.) or some other indication, the worse is erasure.  It is easier for me to just put a "-4" next to mana points.  Especially as I never print out the monster stats, I just jot down on a pad of paper the creatures HP and mana points and can track from there.  When I used fire-n-forget system I had to jot down the spells used.  Even with abbreviations this was time consuming and horrible to track if there were multiple spell using creatures.

My last point does revolve around game play. I and my players love the battle with dozens of participants, so abstraction tracking (points) is better than specific tracking (spell used).  We also like these massive battles to take about half an hour, which with the mechanics we use is easy.  More time is spent on PC strategizing than anything else; which is half the fun i think for the players; it also gives me time to get another beer

I'm kinda of strident about this as I see the bookkeeping part to be the least of the worries (when mana points function like hit points) and fire-n-forget to entail more bookkeeping.  Similar to accusations that man point systems lead to using the same spell over and over, that derives from player choice and how many spells you can memorize.  All other things being equal, mana points promote use of a wider variety of spells that fire-n-forget.  To me these are red herrings, or simply preferences seeking justification.  Not saying at all that mana point systems don't have problems, they do, they are just other problems.

Quote from: Ashakyre;935764I have some spells with variable Mana wagers / effects, but, if you go into negative Mana it's magical death, and as hard to reverse as normal death. Maybe harder.

I wish I was cool enough to design ways to power spells way beyond their design, but I'm thinking maybe you need a special artifact for that. (Double effect, triple Mana wager.)

I've pretty simple spell empowerment approach.  I'll use a hypothetical spell example, so don't get too hung up on actual numbers.  Here is "Magic Missile"  Level 1, Base Range: 20', Base Number/Effect: 1 missile, Base Damage: 1D4.
A first level spell cost 4 mana to cast, each effect can be increased by the base amount for 4 mana.  The last part makes it easy for remembering the rules.  I also highly recommend round numbers, 1, 2 or 4.  Ones that people have an easy time thinking in multiples of.

For example,  I spend 4 mana to cast the spell and 8 mana to increase it's power.  THEN I could triple the range to 60', OR I could send forth 3 missiles, OR I could send forth 1 missile for 3d4 damage, OR [I allow this following kind of "stacking"] I could send 2 missiles each 40' OR I could send 2 missiles each with 2d4 damage 20'.  There are other combinations of course.  

The devil is in the details.  The mana costs, the base effects and which spell components can be empowered.

Quote from: antiochcow;935774In my game wizard spell-talents usually cost random amounts of mana, and you can link up spell-talents to get bigger effects out of them. For example, Evoker is a basic arcane blast that costs 1d4 mana, and for an extra 1d6 you can expand it to a 5-foot radius....

I don't use random mana drain but see that if you did you could use dice type to great advantage.  One ability or class distinction is the die you use for mana drain (careful though you don't add in a geometric effect you don't intend like magic classes getter better dice AND more a lot more mana per level).  Different die for different classes, different situations (combat vs non-combat, cursed, under a spell, magic item etc.), different level of proficiency, a favored spell by your deity, a mastered spell, many more.

Quote from: Xanther;935780Speaking of bookkeeping, as a GM, I can say it is much easier for me to track mana points than spell use for creatures that have x spells per day.  Tracking fire-n-forget spells requires crossing off, a check mark (that hopefully doesn't get lost or obscured, accidentally erased etc.) or some other indication, the worse is erasure.  It is easier for me to just put a "-4" next to mana points.  Especially as I never print out the monster stats, I just jot down on a pad of paper the creatures HP and mana points and can track from there.  When I used fire-n-forget system I had to jot down the spells used.  Even with abbreviations this was time consuming and horrible to track if there were multiple spell using creatures.

I never considered this before.

Quote from: Ashakyre;935786I never considered this before.

I'm always first for ease of GMing  Everything I tend to speak of as doing have done for at least 10 if not 20 or 30 years, with several different groups.

The easiest way of resource management that I've seen is you have mana until you run out.   Usually you have mana until you get a "failure" then you have none.  Seen it with ammunition as well.  Very abstract, you have to really look at the odds to see if it works the way you want it.  Yet easy, either you're full or empty.  I personally don't like this for most things but it's another way to do it.

Quote from: Xanther;935796I'm always first for ease of GMing  Everything I tend to speak of as doing have done for at least 10 if not 20 or 30 years, with several different groups.

The easiest way of resource management that I've seen is you have mana until you run out.   Usually you have mana until you get a "failure" then you have none.  Seen it with ammunition as well.  Very abstract, you have to really look at the odds to see if it works the way you want it.  Yet easy, either you're full or empty.  I personally don't like this for most things but it's another way to do it.

I had already decided to do this for "powered" magical items, instead of tracking charges or "item mana." Instead I'll go for the Millennium Falcon effect: things always break when you need them most. More "techy," in my humble opinion. And in this way the tech guy is always carrying some piece of broken equipment, or some spares, so s/he needs extra item slots - which you can spend skill points to increase. Totally different feel than Captain Mana Battery.

Edit: Though I think having spell casting creatures use the full/empty method would be great for tracking. That would make things very easy for a GM.