Material components
Jan. 13th, 2018 09:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI started reading the spell list in AD&D 2e Player's Handbook, which I haven't used to play since the 90s but still have. It puts a lot more words into material components. GURPS has options for them, on account of having options for everything, but it don't much mind about them. And I don't think I ever played 2e with a group that bothered that much about the accounting. But...
A wizard carrying all those things? Even for level one spells? Would need more pouches than 90s Liefeld.
And they would be carrying so much rich stuff. So much. Diamonds and silver dust and goodness knows what else. Even if you leave out one off spells that require 1000 gold pieces worth of parts, mugging a wizard would get you so many shiny things, as well as epic quantities of weird and slightly nasty ones.
So now I'm imagining those wizard robes with the requisite number of pockets and it's like so many pockets. So many. They'd look like elizabethan slashed sleeves, only everywhere.
Wizard fashion, it would be distinctive.
I can see the point of limiting the use of certain spells by requiring stuff, but then if the GM doesn't give it then they just have whiny players? And it's not like this is for fancy artefacts or enchantments, this is just spells stuff in general. And if you don't want to deal with a particular spell, why give it?
So I can see the theory, but in practice, who wants to wander around picking up supplies for any significant length of time? Once or twice maybe, but mostly it's just one more thing to keep track of.
I don't see it being much good.
Of course having said that I can now imagine using it to restrict, for instance, zombie summoning, or to make some legality classes of spells actually trackable via shopping list, and that has a point.
I just... I guess in real world magic I figure material components are all common and swappable or skipable if you put enough concentration into it, so it don't feel hardly helpful in a game to make them required.
Which isn't relevant, but. Still.
Requiring fancy bases for enchantment, has a point. Requiring anything except concentration for day to day spellwork? Fiddly and likely to be boring.
Nobody wants to go on a quest for new bullets.
... almost nobody except post apocalyptic types, probably.
... okay, somebody somewhere has that gaming group where they keep track of every consumable and look forwards to going and restocking, but.
Hmmm, actually, I just realised minecraft is mostly that. SO. In some styles of games people very much do want?
... in story rpgs it seems like it'd just get in the way.
... but anything can be made into story.
... more thinking required.
A wizard carrying all those things? Even for level one spells? Would need more pouches than 90s Liefeld.
And they would be carrying so much rich stuff. So much. Diamonds and silver dust and goodness knows what else. Even if you leave out one off spells that require 1000 gold pieces worth of parts, mugging a wizard would get you so many shiny things, as well as epic quantities of weird and slightly nasty ones.
So now I'm imagining those wizard robes with the requisite number of pockets and it's like so many pockets. So many. They'd look like elizabethan slashed sleeves, only everywhere.
Wizard fashion, it would be distinctive.
I can see the point of limiting the use of certain spells by requiring stuff, but then if the GM doesn't give it then they just have whiny players? And it's not like this is for fancy artefacts or enchantments, this is just spells stuff in general. And if you don't want to deal with a particular spell, why give it?
So I can see the theory, but in practice, who wants to wander around picking up supplies for any significant length of time? Once or twice maybe, but mostly it's just one more thing to keep track of.
I don't see it being much good.
Of course having said that I can now imagine using it to restrict, for instance, zombie summoning, or to make some legality classes of spells actually trackable via shopping list, and that has a point.
I just... I guess in real world magic I figure material components are all common and swappable or skipable if you put enough concentration into it, so it don't feel hardly helpful in a game to make them required.
Which isn't relevant, but. Still.
Requiring fancy bases for enchantment, has a point. Requiring anything except concentration for day to day spellwork? Fiddly and likely to be boring.
Nobody wants to go on a quest for new bullets.
... almost nobody except post apocalyptic types, probably.
... okay, somebody somewhere has that gaming group where they keep track of every consumable and look forwards to going and restocking, but.
Hmmm, actually, I just realised minecraft is mostly that. SO. In some styles of games people very much do want?
... in story rpgs it seems like it'd just get in the way.
... but anything can be made into story.
... more thinking required.