Later editions, starting with 2e, had wizards that had different specializations; and then the later editions of course had multiple classes of wizard.
Even AD&D1e had the Illusionist as a separate wizard class altogether.
So, when you're running an OSR game, do you just want all your wizards to be the same, and distinguished mainly by what spells the Player chooses for them?
Or do you like an OSR game that has several distinct versions of the wizard, either in terms of specializations or separate classes?
Generally speaking, I prefer different magic-using classes. Wasn't a big fan of specialty wizards though.
I preferred stuff like:
The Black/White/Red robes of Krynn
The Shek-Pvar of Harn
The colour mages of Warhammer (more in theory than practice)
Probably the best OSR breakdown I like right now is AS&SH2.
It was one of the features of Ars Magica, when it first was released, that you had this game based around Wizards in which they had a real variety of styles and affiliation type. More recent versions of D&D have emphasised the differences of the schools, as well as new classes in the form of Sorcerers and Warlocks. Indeed, in 5E, almost every class has some sort of magical aspect or options to them. On the whole, I like this, although it does fix the implied setting towards being very high magic.
In terms of OSR, also, it really depends on the setting you are trying to create. I would actually like to see less casting classes overall, but take some of the options created in D&D and consolidate them as options within classes. So, for example, I could see the Sorcerer being merged with a Wizard, but developing an option for a more spontaneous caster as a Wizard style. I'd probably like to keep something akin to a Warlock - possibly renamed as a Witch - to provide an alternative tradition to Wizards in my game, in the same way that Druids provide an alternative to Clerics.
For the other Classes, including Bards, I'd try to reduce the spell casting options to a minimum in order to return magical primacy to the Wizards Class - but I'd try to develop a level-based system for choosing from a list of varied traits to allow you to customise Wizards (and Witches too, to a degree). If you want to play an armour clad Wizard, for example, you should be able to choose a trait for this at a certain level. If you want to specialise in a particular style of wizardry, then again, having traits to help define that would be workable. While choosing from a variety of spells with a particular theme, like illusions, is quite fun - I'd like to see this backed up with customising traits for the flavour too.
My literary background (As in I read too much when I was younger) I'm more of a 'specialist' type of wizard fan. Stories tend to have 'single school' wizards, typically called things like Necromancers, or Oracles (Diviners), Enchantresses and the like.
I love, love, love specialist mages. I feel they have so much more flavor.
Unfortunately, players seem to prefer generalists.
Im ok either way. Either a single all encompasing wizard you can make of what you will without rules in the way. Specializations can work just fine as long as they dont get too cumbersome. I thinl 5e D&D did an overall ok job of it. Some of the specialist perks seem a little... odd. But mechanically its not intrusive or restrictive. They just get a little extra boost in their chosen field.
I don't care for hard-coded class based distinctions or specialty versions, read just increased power levels. I'd rather the differences emerge form play and player choice. To me, the concepts in TFT are the most attractive.
BTW in AD&D we often just ignored the illusionist and might wrap some of those spells into Magic User.
For OSR play I use B/X where using specialist wizards seems besides the point although I was a fan of them in 2e. I agree with Ckruger about the setting specific white/red/black wizards of DL, one of the best additions in the setting.
I tend to prefer having just one class, and then having different magic-using organizations or schools or sects or what-have-you in the actual setting, that may modify how the class works.
I think the AD&D Illusionist is a great class, with a remarkable amount of unique flavour derived from only a few, relatively small tweaks.
AD&D 2E specialists are fine in principle, although less interesting IMO. The big drawback is they were an outlet for the philosophy that "the magic user is too weak and boring at low levels" and one of the early forms of damaging power creep.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1016525I tend to prefer having just one class, and then having different magic-using organizations or schools or sects or what-have-you in the actual setting, that may modify how the class works.
Such as the College of Magicians under Dokhon, or the necromancers of the rival College of Khan and their servants of living stone, the rockmen.
If you don't know what those are, you should ask yourself, ""What is Dungeons and Dragons?" Or ask John Butterfield and his pals.
Quote from: Vile;1016561Such as the College of Magicians under Dokhon, or the necromancers of the rival College of Khan and their servants of living stone, the rockmen.
If you don't know what those are, you should ask yourself, ""What is Dungeons and Dragons?" Or ask John Butterfield and his pals.
Post links or you are just being a duck.
Those do sound interesting though.
For a long time I had different orders of magic (http://www.batintheattic.com/wilderlands/magic.html) for the Majestic Wilderlands. When it came time to write this stuff of for OD&D in the form of Sword and Wizardry, I opted to handle it the differences by having different magic user classes.
My first major design principle was not to screw around with the spells themselves. There are dozens of spells and if I did something that caused me to have to touch each and every spells that would be a major downside for the supplement.
Second I decided that the memorization system was the pinnacle of magic among the mortal races like humans. All the alternatives are inferior in one way or another.
To this end I decided that the original form of magic was ritual magic. You hade a ritual book, could cast any spell out of it but at a cost of a ten minute ritual and a material component cost. 10d times spell level squared.
As Ritual Casters, known as Artificers, gained levels they could cast higher level spells as rituals. At 17th level they can cast ninth level spells as rituals. The only way to use spells in combat was through scrolls, wands, or magic items.
After the Uttermost War at the dawn of time the demon were imprisoned in the Abyss sealed in by the Chromatic Crystals placed by the Gods. The Cromatic Crystals took the ambient level of mana and channeled it to create the barrier seal and the. released back into the world in a concentrated form. This made memorized spells possible.
At first only clerics were able to take advantage of this. The first human civilizations were heavily theocratic so this was little room for any type of magic outside of the temples to exist. Those who did labored on as artificers and hedge mages.
The Elves however took advantage of the concentrated mana and learned wizardry which function much like 3.5 sorcerers. You "know" a limited range of spells but can pick whatever ones you like to cast through your spell slots. The downside is that while known spells could be changed it was a process of relearning that took decades. Not a problem for immortal Elves but a major downside for shorter lived races like humans.
Over the millenniums as civilizations developed variant ritual casters developed like the runecasters of the dwarves and their northern human allies. They used runes which allowed them to pack more spells onto a physical objec than a traditional scroll. Also an order Theurgists developed in service to the empire of one civilization. They could combine caster levels while ritual casting which served their empire well on the battlefield as support.
Magic User arose a few centuries ago after a major empire fell and its associated religion fell apart in civil war and collapsed. Freed from control of the temple hierarchy, arcane spell casters were free to experiment and combine the various magical traditions. The result was the memorization system of the magic user class. The focus on memorization meant that spell slots had to be memorized with specific spells and rituals casting could only be taught up to4th level spells. Or 1/2 of the highest level that can be memorized rounded down.
The upshot of all this means that a lot of flavor can be created for magic with only a few tweaks to the core rules. And also as long as one is willing to say fuck balance and focus on writing up how it looks like to an inhabitant of the setting and making the rules reflect that.
All of the details for this is in my Majestic Wilderlands supplement.
http://www.batintheattic.com/majesticwilderlands.php
This year I plan to release a follow up called the Lost Grimoire of Magic.
estar, that is some grade AAA metaphysics tied into your setting/game-rule conceits. Bravo. That is what I like about Earthdawn and the other games that bend the game-rules towards their setting/metaphysics. Well done. I should go and find an overview of the history of magic in Earthdawn...
Quote from: RPGPundit;1016525I tend to prefer having just one class, and then having different magic-using organizations or schools or sects or what-have-you in the actual setting, that may modify how the class works.
+1. Flavor trumps mechanics for me, though I really did like 2E specialist mages. These days, I treat them as something like clerics, in that each organization is devoted to different ideals, which directs the type of magic they use. It's much more evocative, I think, to be a wizard that belongs to the "Learned Uncles" (knowledge) or the "Red Temple" (war) than it is to just have the plain ol' Wizard. On that, I find having a single casting class preferable to the wizard/cleric division. If a player wants to be some sort of clericy type caster, then fine. Come up with the order's ideals, then we'll figure out what the spells should be.
Of course, I have had players who view magic as nothing more than a set of various "I win" problem-solving buttons. Take Invis, so they can be sneaky. Take Teleport, so they can negate the perils of travel, and so on. I find that, if you make magic risky in some way, this mitigates that view (especially when TP takes you through another dimension, that you might get lost in, in you're not careful).
Quote from: Headless;1016564Post links or you are just being a duck.
Those do sound interesting though.
Well, links defeat the object of testing people's memory (or at least Google skill), but okay - http://muffinlabs.com/2011/05/03/what-is-dungeons-and-dragons/
What is Dungeons & Dragons was a book popular in the UK in the early 80s for people trying to get into RPGs, specifically B/X D&D, without someone to show them the ropes. Butterfield and his Etonian co-authors introduced some interesting house-rules and a neat little sample dungeon. Colleges of magic-users were a feature, with two rival examples given. That has coloured my perceptions of D&D magic-users ever since, the ideas that there were formal institutions training magic-users, and that these were at least in competition, and possibly even deadly enemies.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1016525I tend to prefer having just one class, and then having different magic-using organizations or schools or sects or what-have-you in the actual setting, that may modify how the class works.
That is my preference. I don't have strong feelings on the matter, and specialty classes can have their uses in certain campaigns. I just think the basic magic-user offers a lot of interesting plot potential that is lost with narrower magic users.
If different types of magic users are purely a social construct, it means that there is potential for spell trading and spell theft between those social groups. A PC can attempt to gain the favor of a magic-user of another tradition in order to learn from them. Some traditions can be ruthlessly protective of their spells, seeking to kill other wizards using "their" magic, even if the wizard independently developed the spell that the tradition claims as their own.
You can even have variations of common spells from tradition to tradition. The eerie, green glow of the Light spell in the ransacked room suggests it was cast by an adherent of the Seven-Fingered Wisdom of the Soldaroon Tablet. Or was someone using a stolen version of the spell to implicate the sect?
Many of these emergent plots are less likely to happen in a campaign where wizards have different classes. Even with specialties in AD&D 2E, feeding the characters extra spells makes them less hungry for gaining spells.
I'm not really a fan of the underlying metaphysics of the AD&D 2E specialty classes. Necromancy is the opposite of Illusion magic? That doesn't make any kind of magical sense to me. It also removes the archetypal image of rotting wizard cloaking his true visage with magic. Divination and the opposite of Summoning is another odd one. A subtle wizard relying on divination and summoning seems such a natural pairing to me.
The explanation of magic that Estar gives above makes immediate sense to me, but the one for 2E specialist magic-users just seems arbitrary.
It also feels like a forerunner of the system mastery traps built into 3E. A generalist magic-user is ultimately able to have a wider range of magic with the potential power that implies, but when you are making your character, you are bribed with a free magic spell now if you are willing to throw away future versatility.
There really isn't any addition of flavor. You get a +1 to save against your school, and other get -1 to save against your school spells. You get a free spell per level. Those are mechanical benefits, but they don't really add flavor.
Once again, I think that specialist classes can be interesting in the right campaign. I just think that the default magic-user is more interesting in a general D&D campaign.
My old group played mostly 1e. We never really got into 2e, aside from setting stuff. When the Player's Option books came out though they were useful. I ran Psionics so Skills and Powers was a given. But we did get some mileage from Spells and Magic, which helped making reverse engineering of things like the 2e Druid and Wizard specialty schools much easier. I liked having the options. Prior to that many spellcasters were brought in from old Dragon Magazines.
That said, I do like the Sorceror and I am pretty fond of the Warlock from 5e. I'd certainly play an old school game that reverse engineered those classes. However, it would really be easier just to run 5e stripped down, maybe using the Basic Rules as a Base because of how much time it would save.
Quote from: Telarus;1016663estar, that is some grade AAA metaphysics tied into your setting/game-rule conceits. Bravo. That is what I like about Earthdawn and the other games that bend the game-rules towards their setting/metaphysics. Well done. I should go and find an overview of the history of magic in Earthdawn...
Thanks and I appreciated the compliment. I think what makes magic for games like Ars Magic, Earthdawn, and Harnmaster so flavorful is the sense of history behind them. However outside of Ars Magica I rarely seen that history expressed in the mechanics in the form of "historical" magic or alternate paths that went down a blind alley. Granted there are only so many pages for a book but still I would be interesting to have notes on how magic was in the setting "bronze" age compared to the present in the core book.
I am working on the Lost Grimoire of Magic which expands a bit on the magic sections no of the MW supplement. In this one I do mess around with spells mostly in the form of additional notes. For example the Order of Thoth has the Shield of Magic which makes them immune to spells that effect a person directly like sleep or charm. But not spells that deal damage by creating something like fireball or lightning bolt. In the supplement I just have a general guideline. In the Lost Grimoire. I explicitly note which spells are effected by the Shield.
Another addition builds on the Chromatic Crystals. Each of the surviving gods made a crystal that was used to seal the abyss. Mana that flows through a crystal is more attuned to specific spells as result. This manifests itself as an increased effect when one is specialized in a art associated with a crystal. I am not keen at the moment on the idea that you become less capable of casting spells of other arts and still mulling over how this actually works if I was witnessing mages learning and doing research. I am sure that for clerics that they get the boost for the art associated with their deity with no downside.
For me it really is setting specific. It can be enough for me just to have different lists of spells available to different schools.
Beyond the Wall divides magic into Cantrips, Spells, and Rituals with casters having access to different combinations of these. I like this because it makes different sorts of magic mechanically different This is in sharp contrast to old school D&D where Magic Users, Illusionists, Druids, and Clerics have different sell lists, but the magic all works on the same mechanics.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1016025So, when you're running an OSR game, do you just want all your wizards to be the same, and distinguished mainly by what spells the Player chooses for them?
All this time I thought characters were different and distinguishable based on how they were played and what they did rather than what stats were written on the character sheet. Just like we don't need 47 variations on fighter. No two wizards need be the same even if the ref is injuducious enough to pass out new spells and scrolls like favors at a child's birthday party. It's on the players to make their characters interesting.
We had some testing with custom classes for AD&D, but not many as almost the whole group was since the start heavily book/rule dependent. I think it was not even D&D but M.A.G.U.S. where I had fun with a mage based on the concept idea of a Time/Chrono Mage.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1016525I tend to prefer having just one class, and then having different magic-using organizations or schools or sects or what-have-you in the actual setting, that may modify how the class works.
I'm usually interested in elemental mages, but not fire or wind (electricity) ones. I started with AD&D but I don't remember any mage in any edition which would fit the image of a Water Wizard I had in mind. Clerics and Druids had some water related spells, other spellcasters barely any, and spells like one that would allow you to surround the head of an opponent to silence it and make it roll checks for underwater suffocation checks as time passes is unheard of. The closest I could get to it would either be an 'Ice-caster' arcane user, or a Priest (dividing water or walking on it, ect). I think there was something in 3.5 that allowed a blood manipulating caster to be made, which had some similar effects I had in mind. Do you know of any class in osr/ad&d that would work well for a Water Elementalist?
I know there were some rules on creating your own spells but none of my GMs agreed to work out new water-type spells, even when I offered that he himself fully decides on the spell stats and spell level based on a description. This was the case all up to 3rd Edition when I stopped trying to persuade anyone in my group. At that time I was basically the only GM and couldn't play a Water Elementalist myself anyway. There are a LOT of fire spells but I feel the lack of water ones disturbing.
No wizards, no magic, no monsters. I found (B/X-derived) ACKS is pretty serviceable for straight historical, as long as you manage levels appropriately.
I dislike magic users so never really spent any energy on it. If somebody wanted to play an Illusionist, though, I'd let them, since I've made the entire AD&D spell list available in my campaign.
Of course, other than your starting 1st level spells, all spells must be found or taught, so good luck...
I vastly prefer having a single wizard class, and then various in-setting styles of wizards.
Of course, in Lion & Dragon, magisters are all the same class, but they all end up differently because of randomized/selection-based advancement.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1016858I dislike magic users so never really spent any energy on it. If somebody wanted to play an Illusionist, though, I'd let them, since I've made the entire AD&D spell list available in my campaign.
Of course, other than your starting 1st level spells, all spells must be found or taught, so good luck...
This is me playing BECMI/RC D&D in Thyatis. Almost the entire campaign had little to no magic at all. I miss my Ochalean Thief. :D
Quote from: Krimson;1017141This is me playing BECMI/RC D&D in Thyatis. Almost the entire campaign had little to no magic at all. I miss my Ochalean Thief. :D
You should have defected to Alphatia.
Quote from: estar;1016575For a long time I had different orders of magic (http://www.batintheattic.com/wilderlands/magic.html) for the Majestic Wilderlands. When it came time to write this stuff of for OD&D in the form of Sword and Wizardry, I opted to handle it the differences by having different magic user classes.
My first major design principle was not to screw around with the spells themselves. There are dozens of spells and if I did something that caused me to have to touch each and every spells that would be a major downside for the supplement.
I concur, and this is similar as to how I made my guilds.
There is only one class, but each guild has a selection of spells that can be learned or discovered at half the research price. All spells, save a few, are available to all magicians. There are a small number of spells that are guild secrets. If you learn them, it is best to cast them discretely. Each guild also has a significant ability learned at 3rd level, such as the Magi of the Pearl Tower are able to know any general spell for a casting by sacrificing 1d3 + spell level in CON. If they really need
web or
polymorph right now, they can get it and cast it.
This allows for rivalries and mysteries that Vile and Baulderstone mentioned.
Quote from: Baron Opal;1017878I concur, and this is similar as to how I made my guilds.
Cool, the default spellbook mechanic and the need to copy spells from somewhere is a good way to add color without adding any new mechanics. You can inject a sense of history by making a basic chart of when certain spells were discovered. And the magic users living in the isolated uplands only just caught with previous century's spellbooks.
It doesn't entirely satisfy me, but I appreciate how the AD&D spell "knowing" mechanics meant that there were limits, in both total numbers and on particular spells. I'd rather have something like that than special classes or even fixed lists by specialists. But then I enjoy the image of the wizard that doesn't quite fully understand how magic works, and thus can run into spells that can't be learned.
I prefer wizard-types to be a single class, but I don't mind specialties to differentiate them, especially if setting-reinforced. D&D5e's Wizard is fine for my tastes, but 3.5e went too far with the distinct Warmage, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, etc.
OTOH, I dislike the way D&D5e does clerics as mostly the same with only a domain to differentiate them. I would have much preferred something more like the Specialty Priests of 2e where the choice of deity seemed to matter far more, even in terms of the base spells.
For me, wizards are about learning, and "arcane science" so all should share some basics, while clerics should each be radically different based upon the needs and whims of forces beyond mortal control.
In the new ACKS Heroic Fantasy Handbook I introduced a lot of ways to differentiate wizards.
Magic is now coded white, grey, and black, with corruption ensuring for some grey and all black spellcasting.
Magic can now be cast using spellsinging, spellcasting, or ceremonial magic.
Spellsinging uses spell points against a fixed pool, and offers the ability to extemporaneously cast spells that aren't in your repertoire (like Spontaneous Casting in Ars Magica). It simulates any sort of fluid magic, like faerie enchantments, or Earthsea wizardry.
Spellcasting allows you to use spell slots to cast spells from your repertoire (the standard ACKS system). However, the new spellcasting classes are each differentiated by a "path" or "college", so you have "wizards of lore" and "wizards of nature" and "sorcerers of domination" and "sorcerers of necromancy". (White/black caster types)
Ceremonial magic allows you to perform ceremonies with different chances of failure based on pace (1 round, 1 turn, 1 work-day). Each failure to perform a ceremony accumulates stigma, until you have so much you cannot do further magic and have to purify yourself. Ceremonial magic is divided into traditions, and each tradition has different implements for its use, and different types of mishaps for botched ceremonies. This is the closest to "real magick" as well as the sort of swords & sorcery rituals you see in pulp.
This is probably the one area where the 2E Player's Option Spells & Magic can be very rewarding. I like having spellcasters of all kinds with non-standard spell lists, restrictions and abilities. With PDFs, cut-and-paste and a decent printer it's fairly quick and easy to create your own oddball mage, cleric, druid or whatever in a way that both the player and DM have the same data.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1016525I tend to prefer having just one class, and then having different magic-using organizations or schools or sects or what-have-you in the actual setting, that may modify how the class works.
Take this with a grain of salt as I haven't played a D&D branded game in at least 13 years...
I would prefer this idea across the board. Get back to a handful of core classes, fighter, cleric, wizard, thief and then allow some mix and match options for each to give different flavors.
What difference is there really between a fighter, ranger, paladin and barbarian but a few unique abilities and color text, same goes for a thief and assassin. Perhaps allow a wildcard class to cover the odd ones like the Bard who are basically just a special a multiclass (this could also multiclass instead of having the awkward two or more classes to track). Dual class works for a character that changes career paths so that could probably remain.
When I do consider playing D&D it is the older less complicated versions that let me roll some dice and get to playing, not spend an hour flipping through the books deciding what niche class gives me what I want. When I consider playing D&D, that is what I want, not d20 GURPS which is what 3.0 and Pathfinder felt like to me. I'll play GURPS or HERO for that experience.
I am not against schools of magic / divine powers but that can easily can be handled unrelated to class restrictions, simply a spell list available to member of the organization. Any general mage who joins a school would be eligible to learn those spells. Individual organizations may require non-school magic not be practiced or allow it. A mage might leave the school and be fine, or receive a price on his head. Maybe other schools try and recruit members to gain access to those spells like a fantasy version of industrial espionage.
Divine powers of course may be subject to an on / off switch depending on how attached to a specific deity the powers are. Is it really just a spell or is it literally a deity (or powerful underling) going, "oh, you want that guy to feel better, ok, have some healing ", "you want that guy dead, here have a bolt of lighting".
Quote from: amacris;1017946In the new ACKS Heroic Fantasy Handbook I introduced a lot of ways to differentiate wizards.
Magic is now coded white, grey, and black, with corruption ensuring for some grey and all black spellcasting.
If done right that can be interesting. I liked the way wizards were handled in the D&D Lankhmar setting, for example.