Which do you like better? Player-constructed effects, or a laundry list of spells? Is there a reason why in spite of a lot of effort going into cool alternative systems, the latter still prevails in most games?

Freeform as in Ars Magica is cool, but a laundry list is best for those days when your brain just ain't juicin' with ideas.

Plus, freeform leads to munchkiny wrestles between player and GM to get the most bang for the buck vs not ripping the campaign to shreds.

A bit like freeform skills vs lists, really.

In reality Ars Magica is an "eat your cake and keep it too" case. It has a list of spells, rules for creating new spells, and freeform magic. It has it all!

Give me a list of spells with ways to customize the visual F/X to my character and allow me to alter the casting F/X as needed.  

Eldritch Ass Kicking is my favorite uber-free form RPG for spell casting.  

RPGs with point based spell casting like Rifts and T&T work well for me because as GM, I let the players know they can pump extra points into the spells to change the parameters.  

T&T has rather goofy spell names so I like to require Wizards to customize their spells with their own names and their own visual appearance of the spell.   This has always been a blast.

Give me a list of spells with very mutable parameters.

I prefer on the fly spell creation. Ars Magica, Talislanta 4E, and of course my own High Valor. However, examples are very useful and can be a basic list of commonly utilized spells.

I participated for the novelty of a poll.

Give me the tools or a list, just give me spells.

I like both. Lists of spells can inject a lot of flavour into a setting, hell in the case of D&D some spells are pretty much the iconic bits people remember of the setting. And some spells are so iconic and awesome, they are just cool to cast.

On the other hand, I love games where my character can make up new magical effects on the fly. There is no denying that being able to pull a imposable solution literally out of my top hat is very cool indeed.

So as with most things, I don't think there is an optimal solution, it depends on what game I want to play.

I prefer pre-packaged spells, as they are easy to run and rarely get into fuzzy, ill-defined territory (my main beef with freeform magic).

I can appreciate though slight flexibilitations, like the Power Stunts in MSH that allow to mimick a power that you haven't learned yet, or the Shadowrun spell construction system that allows to create new spells in downtime when you have actually the time to think and discuss through the fuzzy areas.

Freeform always runs the risk of destroying a campaign if just one asshole player realizes that he can do something, totally within the parameters of the rules but that the designers never imagined, that lets him build a spell that will completely unbalance the game.

RPGPundit

Quote from: GnomeWorks;343232Give me a list of spells with very mutable parameters.

This.  Broad spells with variables that can be tweaked as needed.

Quote from: Technomancer;343255This.  Broad spells with variables that can be tweaked as needed.

My preference as well and the system I use.  How do I vote then; special snowflake?

On freeform spells, I've never seen them work in play.  Either players dither and don't know what to do, they ask GMs to make lists, or you get uber unbalanced spells.

My system tends towards the laundry list of spells with spell costs in multiple disciplines, but players are allowed to create different versions of spells with different costings, as long as they can justify them.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;343232Give me a list of spells with very mutable parameters.

This more or less sums up my thoughts.

Quote from: RPGPundit;343254Freeform always runs the risk of destroying a campaign if just one asshole player realizes that he can do something, totally within the parameters of the rules but that the designers never imagined, that lets him build a spell that will completely unbalance the game.

RPGPundit

True, but isn't that in part what GM's are for, to say no to such things?

In High Valor, I worked hard to let magic wielding PC's do great things, at the same time the cost is INCREDIBLY high, as all magic has fallout that you will suffer if you don't take serious limitations on casting that magic.

Killing a dragon with a single spell is possible. (of course so is stabbing it with a single dagger blow.) It isn't easy or reliable, and we aren't talking about truly powerful dragons either. Just 'a hypothetical average dragon', of course if a GM is using such a thing he or she is probably doing it contrary to my handling of the game. Yet why should I care if they do take High Valor and let their warbands stomp all over everything in the book? It's their game session after all. It might not be fun for me, or truly how things are described, but well *shrugs* if they're having fun, then so be it.