Gaming Question Reduxious

[caraig]

So a pen-and-paper gaming question for anyone inclined.

In most RPGs, there's really no difference between 'secular' arcane magic and 'ecclesiastic' divine magic; the difference between the wizard and the cleric is really just the spell list and the cleric is better-armored. I'm trying to find a way to elegantly differentiate the two. Do any of y'all out there have favored ways of doing this, or favored systems, or just plain ideas?

Comments

[points.livejournal.com]

The idea to me always seemed to be that the cleric had more 'limitations' than the wizard, in reguards to being 'on call' to his or her higher power. Likewise, in many systems, there was some amount of 'devotional' time required to maintain powers, as well as much tighther alignment and action restrictions. On the other hand, they usually seem to have better armor, sometimes weapons.. and didn't need to carry around all sorts of expensive spell components. ;)

[caraig.livejournal.com]

Well, there was 'spell preparation' time for secular spell-slingers as well. I guess that there are 'meeble'-based differences, but what got me was that they both drew from the same spell lists of 'spells' more often than not. I was wondering if there are game systems out there that make strong differentiation ebtween divine and arcane magics. =)

[points.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I'd have to go digging, but in Talislantia, the divine magics were more of a description to the GM of the requested result, combined with the made up prayer. The GM was expected to take into account the difficulty of the boon, the standing of the player, and use that as the index into the single result table. Spellcasters, on the other hand, still had lists. However, my memory may be awry, and this may be simply how I had -my- players playing it. ;)

[(Anonymous)]

Arcane magic comes from The Weave, in the Forgotten Realms setting of D&D. The Weave is governed by Mystra, who ensures that everyone has access to the magic, and that at no time does good or evil greatly outpower the other, magically. This means that race, faith or creed, you'll always have access to the weave, even if you should slip from the halls of the hallowed to the depths of the damned. Arcane magic is a whore - unfaithful in every way, BUT always there for you when you need it, no matter what.

Divine magic is faith-based. You can NOT cast divine magic if you do not believe in a deity. You can NOT cast divine magic if you fall out of good graces with your deity. By good graces, I mean that if you act contrary to your diety's (and probably your) alignment, your deity will say essentially "You're a jerk", or "You're a goody-goody" and stop letting you eat from their fridge of spelly goodness. Even then, clerics who have run out of healing spells can substitute a casting of a spell and gain one casting of a healing spell of equivalent level. That is, "Cure Critical Wounds" or whatever for a good cleric and "Cause Critical Wounds" for an evil one.

Arcane casters either meditate on their spell selection for the day (Sorcerors) or study dusty tomes, preparing the words / preliminary magics in their head, (wizards) and saying the words and making the gestures and tossing around bat crap (or whatever) once they want to cast the spell.

Arcane and Divine spells are as different as science and faith. But, like science and faith, they both can be used towards the same end.

Damn it, I forgot to log in. Above post is mine. (nt)

[jhakhm.livejournal.com]

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Re: Damn it, I forgot to log in. Above post is mine. (nt)

[caraig.livejournal.com]

Well, that's the explaination in the Forgotten Realms setting, which after playing on an NWN server for several years is admittedly very well thought-out and quite descriptive! =) I was just trying to move away from the DND paradigm on the system side of things -- are there game systems that make a clear delineation -- mechanics-wise, not just separae spell lists -- for secular and ecclesiastic spellcasters?

This might, of couse, be a loosing battle. Historically, 'secular' and 'ecclesiastic' magic has often been much tightly tied together than most people realize. Even the most secular of 'mages,' John Dee and Roger Bacon, both invoked angels in their magicks; John Dee's entire Enochian system is based on angelic intervention. So even in the 'real world' it's hard to separate secular from ecclesiastic magic.

[ruggels.livejournal.com]

Depends on the system you use and the background. Thedre are plenty of ways for this to happen to differentiate them such as the source of the energy (Endurance cost> Body Pints to energy? or NO energy cost for Religious spells but due to indoctrination, the spell list is fixed in stone, and violated at the peril of soul, and /or membership status within the group. Also I can see the "themes of the spells being different: Sorcery as academic, and Clerical as Populist. I see the clerics as being more connected with the people/ culture than the non conformist elitist sorcerors, Some themes in that, perhaps? or reverse it? the Clerical magic being hedge magic,and the Sorcerors being the estabishment. Lost of possibilities but it should all fold into the theme.

Damn, I miss Pen & Ink gaming sometimes.

Scott

Scott

Divine Magic

[tamahori]

GUPRS gives you a bunch of different ways to do 'magic', though like anything else in that system it tends to be down to how the GM chooses to run things.

The 'quick' method in GUPRS, assuming they are using their magic system (which is optional, even if you do want to have mages in a fantasy game throwing fireballs around) is that arcane casters us the standard magic system, where by they can learn any spell they can track down a copy of (or research themselves) but have to get 'setup' spells for it first, so you need to know how to create fire before you can learn the ranged combat version, for example.

Divine casters in that can use a different version of 'I have magical powers' where they get a fixed set of spells which they don't need to know the 'basic' version of something before they learn the 'advanced' version, but only ever have that set list of spells to hand. Almost Sorcerer vs Wizard to put it in D&D terms.

To stretch that a little, you can have arcane types limited by the 'local mana level' system in GURPS, and have divine casters working off 'local faith level'. So the cleric can still fire off a spell while standing in a mana-dead wasteland, but can't even light a candle while inside a hostile god's temple.

Those methods still use the same spell list though.

To really shift it, another approach to 'spells' in GURPS, is to give the casters special innate abilities, the same way you'd design up the the innate abilities a superhero type has, or combat robot, or cyborg, or whatever. You can use this to entirely replace the magic system, and it does give quite a different feel to things.

So if I was trying to have divine and arcane casters as very different in a GURPS game, I'd have arcane casters using the 'standard' magic system, with it's spell lists and fatigue costs and it's 'did the spell work' rolls, and get clerics to buy 'powers'.

You'd have two very different feels and mechanical differences to the approaches. Your mages would be a lot more versatile, and could drag out stuff that's very very hard to do using the 'powers' approach, on the other hand, the clerics would have less abilities, but what they had would probably be a lot more reliable, as long as they didn't break any of their faith requirements, and do some things that's hard, or impossible, to replicate using standard spells.

I've tried to explain this in a way that you don't need to know much about how GURPS works, but I'm not sure I succeeded.

Basically, yes, depending on game system, you can make things very different from each other. Especially in GURPS which was almost built around the concept of 'there is always more then one way to skin a cat'.

-- Brett