--- RulingNations@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 1/19/04 9:00:31 AM Mountain Standard Time, > andrewdj54701@yahoo.com writes: > >--- RulingNations@aol.com wrote: > > > >>I assume Prevalence isn't just those individuals who actively > practice > >>magic? It also includes people who study it without practicing it? > In > >>the case of Exquaestio this would also include those who can > support > >>espiri without being able to focus the magic themselves? At > Terrible > >>(-3), between 2% and 6% of can actively work or support magic? > > > >My understanding has been that Prevalence wasn't a measure of how > many > >talented individuals there are in a society, or at least, it's not a > >direct measure. I've always understood Prevalence to be a measure of > >how ubiquitous Magic is in a society: low Prevalence means that > magic > >is a rare thing, performed only occasionally or in private, while a > >high Prevalence of magic in a society means that the use of magic is > >constant, public, and completely integrated into everyday life. > > So prevalence is a combination of integration, display, and access? > What > is the balance? Say, between private use (everyone has enchanted > lights and > magical firestarters) and public display (magics at the harbor mouth > keep hostile vessels from entering)? If magic is, in theory, > available > to everyone, but only the upper classes can, in actuality, afford it, > how does that affect the rating? What about societies where magic is > expected, but only on special occasions, like births, deaths, and the > like? I'd say that actual access to magic would be the most important factor. Looking back on what I wrote, I may have been mixing Prevalence and Tolerance in my mind. Of course, there's also the problem that the rules we use were adapted from Aria, and seem to be intentionally fuzzy on a lot of points. > >>Now what does Diversity mean? At Poor (-2) does this mean that > >>Exquaestio's magic covers between 7% and 19% of the potential > range? > >>Now, 24 "terms" cover the whole potential of espiri magic, so at > Poor > >>they should have access to 1 to 5 "terms?" (Oops, I wanted them to > >>have access to 6.) Rohain, on the other hand, have only 10 "terms" > and > >>so should use only 1 to 2 of them? How does the range of ability > >>within each "term" work out? > > > >Diversity refers to how many different approaches to the use of > magic > >your society allows/teaches/tolerates. > > In relation to what? Mirrish hostility to Onagir shamanism doesn't > seem > to reduce their magical diversity (Superb). They seem to restrict > necromancy and diabolism as well, and I imagine there are religious > practices they don't approve of either. How can this lead to Superb > Diversity? > >To use Exquaestio as an example, Poor Diversity probably means that > >*only* the espiri and rohain styles of magic are taught/tolerated. > High > >Diversity in magic means that a great range of approaches to magic > use > >are common in the society. > > So diversity doesn't apply within a magical style, only between > magical > styles? Why is this different from the other determinants? How many > new > magical styles would have to appear to decrease everyone's Diversity > in > the game? Could it be simply a single style with enormous potential? Well, there *have* to be a minimum of two styles, given that all spells are either Authority or Essence. And then, of course, you have the magic-users who use both types of magic in varying degrees. There may be a Grand Unified Theory of Magic, but I don't think that such a theory is anything that people on Celandra are ever going to discover. Not that they're incapable of discovering a G.U.T. of magic, but if anyone ever got close, I suspect Someone would intervene. That may have been part of what happened to Alatta during the War That Wasn't between Mir and Rian a'Avaerrand. But that's just me. > >>The big problem is Sophistication. What can be accomplished with a > >>Fair (0)? What sort of Guidelines are there? If an espiri can > gather > >>100 people and move 7.3 metric tons at 1.0 kilometers per hour for > an > >>entire work shift is this Fair Sophistication? What about moving > 3.6 > >>metric tons at 10 kilometers per hour for one minute? How does the > >>limited number of people who can actually do this (as opposed to > >>something else) fit in? > > > >Sophistication determines the depth to which your society has > explored > >the magical techniques available to them under their Diversity > >determinant. Again, using Exquaestio as an example, a Fair > >Sophistication would probably mean that, in the fields of espiri- > and > >rohain-style magic use, your society has a moderately advanced > >understanding of the techniques and principles involved, and your > >magic-users are capable of producing moderately complex effects. For > >comparison, if the Sophistication of magic is, say, Poor, the magic > >users in that society may only be capable of producing very crude or > >very broad effects, and they don't really have much understanding of > >*why* their spells work, just that they do. On the other hand, in a > >society where the Sophistication of magic is Superb, only a few > secrets > >of their schools of magic remain undiscovered by the society's > mages, > >and they are capable of producing very, very complex and subtle > >effects. > > This doesn't make sense at all. First this says that Sophistication > is > relative to the magical styles in use. This would means that > sophistication means different things in different cultures. A > culture > with a Miserable Sophistication might be able to do more than a > culture > with a Legendary sophistication! Also, Mirrish sophistication is > Legendary. Does this mean that there's nothing of magic left for them > to > discover? Yet are balanced in power with cultures of less magic. No, that's not really what I meant. Sophistication, to my mind, is a measure of your society's ability to control and direct the magic it knows of. Culture A with Miserable Sophistication would not be able to *intentionally* do more than Culture B with Legendary Sophistication, because the mages in A have next to no understanding of the how and the why of their magic, whereas the mages in B have a nearly complete understanding of the how and why. To put it another way, Miserable Sophistication in magic would imply that all spells are accidental discoveries; some desperate mage discovers that if he chants certain words while making certain gestures, he can make a charging boar drop dead. He doesn't know why it works or how it works, he just knows that it works. As Sophistication increases, so too does understanding, and thus also the potential power and complexity of possible spells. A mage from a Miserable Sophistication society would only be able to, say, destroy a city with a single spell by chance; and with the poor understanding of magic that Miserable Sophistication implies, he probably wouldn't be able to repeat the spell. Indeed, if a mage from a Miserable Sophistication society casts that kind of spell, he was probably trying to do something else. On the other hand, a mage from a society with Legendary Sophistication very likely would know both how to cast a city-destroying spell on purpose and how not to be destroyed by his own spell. As for Mir, their Legendary Sophistication, to my mind, simply means that out of all the cultures on Celandra, they are, if not the most advanced in understanding of magic, then certainly they are in the top 5%. This does not mean they know everything there is to know about all forms of magic(although Jason Todd Heaps might disagree); as you pointed out, there are styles and schools of magic they ignore, disdain, or actively try to supress. Even those schools, however, they do understand very well--in some cases, that understanding is the reason they avoid certain magical practices. There are, however, mysteries that even the Mages of Mir do not know or understand, mostly questions relating to the Dreaming and its inhabitants, and the motivations of those inhabitants. To rephrase it, Mir's Legendary Sophistication doesn't mean that they know *everything* about magic, it just means that they know more than anyone else. I guess, in the end, the thing to remember is that in this game, most of the stats are "fuzzy" and cover a range of possibilities. My approach has always been to not sweat the details, and rely on the GM's judgment. However, both Celandran societies that I've played, Keland and Cedonia, have been Societies where Magic was not well-tolerated. Indeed, in some areas of Keland, anyone caught using magic, or even anyone accused of being a magic-user, would face a swift, fair trial and then have a date with a bonfire. So I may not be the best person to talk about the game mechanics of magic, since it's never been a big thing for me as a player. Andrew Janssen > Jefferson (Exquaestio) > http://www.picotech.net/~jeff_wilson63/rpg/ > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
