Magic As Written

[talysman]

After a couple threads here and an email discussion with waysoftheearth, I wrote a couple posts about what the LBBs actually say about magic, versus how everyone, including Gary and Dave, have ran magic.

What the LBBs Imply, Part I
What the LBBs Imply, Part II

The important part (my point) is this list of rules:

1. Spellcasters of any sort have books. If they lose their books, they can't choose spells on their next adventure.
2. They do not, however, forget how to cast their spells. The books just enable spellcasting in some way, and do not contain spells except maybe as notes on how to use the tools in the books.
3. Spellcasters are limited to a certain number of spells every adventure, based on level. The backstory on why is up to the GM or group.
4. Scrolls are a way around this limit, but are expensive. They also allow casters to cast spells they couldn't otherwise use.
5. Read Magic allows you to use a scroll. You can't normally use scrolls without it.

This is not to say that's how Gary or Dave played -- we know they didn't -- or that everyone is playing wrong. What I'm saying is that the basic magic system is way simpler than what we use, and that is intentional: you are supposed to add to it if you want more detail. Define Magic-User prep as memorization (and set a time to memorize one spell) and define Cleric prep as prayer. Establish costs for adding found spells to a spellbook. Define how many pages each spell takes to describe. House-rule what happens if a worm eats half your spellbook. House-rule what happens when you read a spell from a book. And so on. You can make magic more complicated, but the rules as written are just a minimum needed for a "fantasy treasure hunt" game that almost resembles a board game.

[Stormcrow]

I see a lot of overthinking in these posts. "If something in the books is vague, the broadest possible interpretation is correct."

As you point out, you're supposed to add to the system. But instead of a set of rules that can be changed, you have a set of ideas that can be turned into rules.

[oakesspalding]

Well, what do you think of Gygax's treatment of magic in the 2nd Strategic Review?

Spells: A magic-user can use a given spell but once during any given day, even if he is carrying his books with him. This is not to say that he cannot equip himself with a multiplicity of the same spell so as to have its use more than a single time. Therefore, a magic-user could, for example, equip himself with three sleep spells, each of which would be usable but once. He could also have a scroll of let us say two spells, both of which are also sleep spells. As the spelIs were read from the scrolls they would disappear, so in total that magic-user would have a maximum of five sleep spells to use that day. If he had no books with him there would be no renewal of spells on the next day, as the game assumes that the magic-use gains spells by preparations such as memorizing incantations, and once the spell is spoken that particular memory pattern is gone completely. ln a similar manner spells are inscribed on a scroll, and as the words are uttered they vanish from the scroll.

I think it was you that made the important point that some of Greyhawk was actually used by Gygax during the time of the original publication of the little brown books, but was left out for the sake of simplicity or space. So what's the point of fixating on the exact wording of the text in the original if we know that it was simply slightly inaccurate shorthand for more precise interpretations of what almost everyone (including Gygax and Arneson) were actually using?

(I don't mean to sound too snarky here. I think investigations such as this are extremely useful and interesting. Your questions are particularly so. I'm just partially playing the Demon's advocate.)

[Zenopus]

Strategic Review #2 is essentially contemporary with the Greyhawk Supplement. The Acaeum has the dates 2/75 for Greyhawk and Spring 75 for SR#2, though I believe the SR#2 issue mentions GH going to print. Talysman is not considering the GH supplement changes/clarifications here, so it makes sense to also ignore anything from SR#2.

I think the general idea is to look at the kind of game that is taught only in the rules as originally published in 1974; i.e., if you picked up the LBBs then and started playing the game without having any other info.

[talysman]

That's true. I'm ignoring both Strategic Review and Greyhawk, even though according to Michael Mornard and Rob Kuntz, Greyhawk represents actual rules that were already in use before the publication of the LBBs, but had to be cut to save space.

What I'm saying here is that the skeleton rules above aren't just an accident, but were simply the best minimum version of what was actually in use. So, even though "memorization", for example, was already established before publication, it's left out because you *could* play without any assumption about what the magic-user or cleric does to renew spells at all.

Similarly, although there's a cost to replace lost spellbooks or make duplicates, there's no details on the process of finding, adding, and keeping one or more spells in a spellbook, or how a spell in a spellbook compares to a spell on a scroll. You could house rule that spells in spellbooks are exactly like spells on scrolls, making them usable as emergency scrolls (with spells fading if used that way,) and making the cost to add one found spell to a spellbook identical to scroll creation costs... or, you could house rule the way I do and assume that spells in spellbooks are recipes, while spells in memory or on scrolls are actual instances of what the recipes create.

The lack of detail on how spells work seems deliberate, to me. It's part of "decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way!"

[cooper]

I'm more inclined to believe that the rules on scrolls are meant to evoke fritz Lieber and Vance's cudgel and that spell books and spell casting were modeled from Vance as well.

My point being, they were probably thinking everyone else was also familiar with those two contemporary writers and that further clarification was unnecessary. I do not believe that his vagueness was meant to hint at some underlying structure as he was adapting literary sources to a game and not designing game rules per se.

[aldarron]

Sept 19, 2013 23:45:17 GMT -6 talysman said:

That's true. I'm ignoring both Strategic Review and Greyhawk, even though according to Michael Mornard and Rob Kuntz, Greyhawk represents actual rules that were already in use before the publication of the LBBs, but had to be cut to save space.....

Uh, no to part the second. The rules of Supplement I were not "cut to save space". They were not included for varying reasons, some because they arose later in the process and were being refined during ongoing play-testing, some because they were too unique to the Lake Geneva campaign and not part of the original Gygax/Arneson collaboration.

[aldarron]

Sept 19, 2013 18:02:13 GMT -6 talysman said:

....The books just enable spellcasting in some way, and do not contain spells except maybe as notes on how to use the tools in the books.

I don't think the second part of this sentence can be deduced from the given rules. I take it that you derive this idea from the Read magic description, which does not specifically mention spellbooks. Here is what it says:

"The means by which the incantations on an item or scroll are read. Without such a spell or similar device magic is unintelligible to even a Magic-User. It is otherwise like the Read Languages spell above."

Read Languages says the following: "The means by which directions and the like are read, particularly on treasure maps. The spell is of short duration (one or two readings being the usual limit)."

So there are two hurdles of ambiguity you have to jump to get to the idea that spell books must contain only notes. First the rules don't specify whether spell books are magical or non-magical, either could be true. Second, depending on the extent the phrase "It is otherwise like the Read Languages spell" is to be understood, Read Magic could well be taken to be "The means by which the incantations, directions and the like are read", which would certainly include spell books of even the notes and recipes sort.

So if spell books are magical, or if Read Magic includes directions to create magic, both of which could well be the case, then Read Magic is required to understand a spell book, at least a Magic-users spell book, which means the rules are entirely silent as to whether spellbooks contain whole spells or merely recipes for spells or something else entirely.

[talysman]

Sept 20, 2013 8:39:56 GMT -6 aldarron said:

Sept 19, 2013 18:02:13 GMT -6 talysman said:

....The books just enable spellcasting in some way, and do not contain spells except maybe as notes on how to use the tools in the books.

I don't think the second part of this sentence can be deduced from the given rules. I take it that you derive this idea from the Read magic description, which does not specifically mention spellbooks. Here is what it says:

"The means by which the incantations on an item or scroll are read. Without such a spell or similar device magic is unintelligible to even a Magic-User. It is otherwise like the Read Languages spell above."

Read Languages says the following: "The means by which directions and the like are read, particularly on treasure maps. The spell is of short duration (one or two readings being the usual limit)."

So there are two hurdles of ambiguity you have to jump to get to the idea that spell books must contain only notes. First the rules don't specify whether spell books are magical or non-magical, either could be true. Second, depending on the extent the phrase "It is otherwise like the Read Languages spell" is to be understood, Read Magic could well be taken to be "The means by which the incantations, directions and the like are read", which would certainly include spell books of even the notes and recipes sort.

So if spell books are magical, or if Read Magic includes directions to create magic, both of which could well be the case, then Read Magic is required to understand a spell book, at least a Magic-users spell book, which means the rules are entirely silent as to whether spellbooks contain whole spells or merely recipes for spells or something else entirely.

Actually, it's not Read Magic, but the rules on spellbook duplication. If:

- The cost of duplicating a spellbook does not depend on
the number of spells therein, and
- Spellbooks can be completely replaced if lost, without
any need to track down a copy of each spell in the book,

Then spellbooks probably don't contain literal spells, at least in the sense of "instructions that must be followed for each individual spell, and which cannot be followed without the written instructions". "Notes" may actually be the wrong word, here; that's how I envision spellbooks, but my point is that the rules don't specify the contents, only that they are needed.

The Read Magic quote is something I've pondered, but the only conclusion I've derived from it in regards to the barebones magic system in the LBBs is that there's no specification that Read Magic is needed to use a spellbook.

[Lord Cias]

Sept 20, 2013 11:28:57 GMT -6 talysman said:

Actually, it's not Read Magic, but the rules on spellbook duplication. If:

- The cost of duplicating a spellbook does not depend on
the number of spells therein, and
- Spellbooks can be completely replaced if lost, without
any need to track down a copy of each spell in the book,

Then spellbooks probably don't contain literal spells, at least in the sense of "instructions that must be followed for each individual spell, and which cannot be followed without the written instructions". "Notes" may actually be the wrong word, here; that's how I envision spellbooks, but my point is that the rules don't specify the contents, only that they are needed.

The Read Magic quote is something I've pondered, but the only conclusion I've derived from it in regards to the barebones magic system in the LBBs is that there's no specification that Read Magic is needed to use a spellbook.

Weird. On page 34 of my copy of Men and Magic there is a section called "Books of Spells" which then goes on to say, "Characters who employ spells are assumed to acquire books containing the spells they can use . . ." The logical assumption here is that these are books that contain spells. How you can arrive to the conclusion that spell books don't actually contain spells just because the exact details for how individual spells get/fit into a "book of spells" doesn't make much sense.

The reason the cost to duplicate a spell book does not depend on the number of spells is because in OD&D magic-users were assumed to have ALL spells of a given spell level in his book automatically; i.e. a 1st level magic-user starts with a book that contains all 8 of the 1st level spells and when he reaches 3rd level he is "assumed to acquire" a book that contains all of the 2nd level spells and so on. This is why if a spell book is lost the magic-user doesn't have to track down a new copy of each individual spell, it is assumed that the cost to duplicate the book also includes re-acquiring copies of all of the appropriate spells from the same source that the magic-user got them from the first time around.

[aldarron]

Sept 20, 2013 11:28:57 GMT -6 talysman said:

....Actually, it's not Read Magic, but the rules on spellbook duplication. If:

- The cost of duplicating a spellbook does not depend on
the number of spells therein, and
- Spellbooks can be completely replaced if lost, without
any need to track down a copy of each spell in the book,

Then spellbooks probably don't contain literal spells, ......

Hmmm, that's interesting, but I still don't see that as being unambiguous regarding what is in a spellbook. The cost of the spellbook is the base cost or researching a spell. Presumably that means enchanting a book with spells the MU already "knows" well enough to write into the book. That can still be the whole spell, with certain additional enchantments needed to make the book "live" so to speak. There's any number of open interpretations.

Edit: Here's a ferzample along these lines: Gary Gygax wrote "Direct casting of a spell from a spellbook destroys that spell.....A permanency spell, for instance, would not prevent the spell form "disappearing" even though writing might remain on the page, that writing will no longer be magical in nature." Now this quote is from the Unearthed Arcana (p80), and I certainly don't mean to suggest that UA, or anything concerning AD&D magic is grounds for interpreting OD&D, but the thing to note is the idea that a written spell and it's magic could be separate things. The writing is only magical when the enchantment is in it.

[Zenopus]

I'll point out that it's actually ambiguous whether the spell book replacement costs are per spell or per book:

BOOK OF SPELLS: Characters who employ spells are assumed to acquire books containing the
spells they can use, one book for each level. If a duplicate set of such books is desired,
the cost will be the same as the initial investment for research as listed
above, i.e. 2,000, 4,000, 8,000, etc. Loss of these books will require replacement
at the above expense.

Since the cost of research is per spell, the duplicate/replacement costs can be read as being per spell in the books. Some read it this way, for example, Mr Reaper recently at Dragonsfoot in this thread.

[Deleted]

I prefer the Eucharistic theology of Richard Hooker:

"The sanctification of elements occurs somewhere between "The Lord be with you" and "Amen."

IN other words, don't slice the d**n words too finely. Just make up some sh*t you think will be fun and play the f*cking game.

[zeraser]

Sept 20, 2013 16:29:44 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I prefer the Eucharistic theology of Richard Hooker:

"The sanctification of elements occurs somewhere between "The Lord be with you" and "Amen."

IN other words, don't slice the d**n words too finely. Just make up some sh*t you think will be fun and play the f*cking game.

I noticed on the forum's home page that gronanofsimmerya was the last person to post in this thread. "Huh," I said to myself. "I wonder if he's going to talk about making up some sh*t one thinks will be fun?"

Lo and behold.

That's great advice. It's probably the only advice one really needs in order to play the game and have a terrific time. The best thing about it is that it's always true and never needs to be said.

[talysman]

Sept 20, 2013 16:29:44 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I prefer the Eucharistic theology of Richard Hooker:

"The sanctification of elements occurs somewhere between "The Lord be with you" and "Amen."

IN other words, don't slice the d**n words too finely. Just make up some sh*t you think will be fun and play the f*cking game.

Exactly.

What a lot of people aren't getting from my original post is that I'm not advocating slicing those words finely, but pointing out that, if you don't try to read too much into any particular statement, it really all boils down to a very simple set of magic rules. Everything we believe about D&D magic is built on top of that.

You can distinguish between magical writing -- scrolls -- and writing about magic -- spellbooks -- if you want. Or not. But all the rules say is that you need a spellbook, whatever a spellbook may be. You can say that casters memorize spells beforehand, or not. Or change the spell prep to making little packets of magical ingredients which are used up when you say the magic words. Or whatever. But all the rules say is that you can only cast X spells of a given level per adventure.

Making stuff up is fun, which is why the rules make up as little stuff as possible; that would deprive you of fun.

[Deleted]

Exactly.

And thanks for the clarification. Sometimes it's easy to lose the thread of thought or get confused about whether it's a matter of "Here's an alternative that might be fun" versus "This is what the rules really mean".