Magical impact on land usage

[Thelandrin]

The point still stands though, Matan, that you cannot make all sorts of predictions about what Birthright was "supposed" to be and then decry others for sticking to what is actually in the book.

Canon, by its very nature, cannot evolve without either everyone (including this site, in lieu of TSR) agreeing it so - otherwise, it is simply a large collection of house-rules, however brilliant or logical it may be.

While I also believe in the interconnectedness of the various game settings, I also try to rationalise each setting's individual rules within the greater whole. BR's only transitive plane is the Shadow World, but that's hardly a problem. Dark Sun is only connected through the difficult-to-access Grey. The new Faerûn's planar system doesn't match the Great Wheel, but does parallel it, so there are still distinct links. One does not need enormous amounts of additional data to synthesise them all together - it might help enormously, certainly, but you don't need it.

[ShadowMoon]

Since this discussion is rather pointless; one argues against written rules and designers intent to justify his interpretation of the setting; so I'll just ignore it...

One thing tho; if Birthright was Magic unlimited like most childish fantasy games (aka Forgotten Realms/Eberron/whatever fairytale goodnight story), I would play only Stardrive/Dark Matter/whatever semi-realism simulation instead...

<snip due to splitting threads, belatedly>

[irdeggman]

I was there, so respectfully I don’t think it was to be as restricted as The Book Of Magecraft seems to have been trying (unsuccessfully) to make it.

So was I and many others here. Looking at the posts from the "creators" it was also what they intended it to be. (thanks for the link AndrewTall). So "our" opinions on what they intended are in fact moot since they have made it pretty clear what they had wanted it to be.

The elves in most of the settings have the ability to use High Magic (in groups) so it is easy to see in this setting that the elves (and elvish) blood are tapped to be the magic using part of the Cerilia Setting. They would also be the group I would go to if trying to tap divine/world magics. Especially if a single creature was going to try to attempt to harness them.

As to the Shadowspawn and the Sie…..I could easily say that they were a type of Shade (See the monster) that is brought about by the melding (thinning of the barriers) with the Shadow World/Plane. It would certainly freak out the elves and halfings by seeing and evil counter self spawned from the thinning of the barrier with the Shadow Plane…er I mean Shadow World.

Except for nearly everything written in Bloodspawn on the subjects.


The Shadow World/Cerillia split did not occur because of Deismaar (see also the interviews posted for the "creators" notes on the subject). The Sie split to the sellie faeries and elves before Deismaar. The events of Deismaar started the Shadow World's turn towards it's evil orientation. I won't bother to post again (since I have done it numerous times in the past) the relevant portions from bloodspawn since you seem to "dismiss" everything there as being "wrong" or not consistent with the known cosmology. The Sie were masters of all magic (both clerical and wizardly) - when they split (and there is a one-to-one correlation between seelie-faeries and elves) the seelie-faeries inherited the mastery of clerical magic while the elves got the mastery of wizardly magic. The faerie Queen is also the only one left who "knows" what happened - a pretty obvious statement that even the oldest elf is not one of the original ones.

Also, as I pointed out the Shadow World is much smaller than the Shadow Plane and is exactly parallel and equivalent to Cerilia. They were both parts of the same whole, unlike what the Shadow Plane is. The Shadow Plane is more like a mirror image, warped reflection than a part of the same whole (you know like the seelie faeries and elves are part of the same whole {i.e., Sie}).

First I see it as a kit (a specialization kit). I would also say that it was less a class of magic change, and more a warping of magic that fit in with keeping the game less magic user driven, and alleviating problems with PC’s & NPC’s as powerful as regents. It is really unnecessary though.

It really didn’t offer very much in the way of unique playability or atmosphere…it simply limited the types of magic and who could use what they errantly wanted to interpret as some limitation on the magic system.

Since the used the same spells, schools, magic system, and really didn’t beef up the spell selection or come up with the Lesser Mage Class or the True Mage class; they certainly weakened any argument about this system having a great amount of difference in the magic systems that other TSR settings offered. As I mention above the Magician & Seer could easily be a specialization kit.

The whole Magician & Seer kit descriptions could easily be integrated into any game as a type of specialist “Kit”, specializing in their own brand of magic without lessening their reputations in magic by calling them lesser mages.

Hmmm let's see what did magicians get that is "different"?

Double specialization benefits.

Cantrip mastery

Proficiency list included that on the Rogue's list

Wider selection of weapons

So pretty much more than other "kit" benefits, although still in general a "weak" class, IMO, but not a "kit".

The idea of True Mages didn’t even have the contrivances of the Magician & Seer. They were simply blooded or elvish blood spell casters who could use the arbitrary distinction of true magic. Where is there class distinctions, where are the kits?????

BoM - see Royal College of Sorcery for some benefits of those who studied there (pretty much equivalent to a "kit") (wizard and magician both are included)

BoM contains several magician "kits" - which is necessary since that is a "new" class.

BR Rulebook pg 14 lists authorized kits and several of them are wizardly oriented. Academician, Mystic, Patrician, Peasant Wizard, Witch, War Wizard.

I want consistency in the magic systems of a large number of their campaigns.

Then it appears you really wish that all other settings were in fact "undiscovered" continents on Faerun. It has already been determined that magic works differently on Athas (Dark Sun) and that was acceptable, but it appears that in every other "setting" it would not be so.

What they offered here is not so much an abomination, as it is a arbitrary & weakened version of magic that has no real reason to exist!!

Except of course in a world that was "designed" to have fewer true wizards and have true magic be of significant impact because of it.

[AndrewTall]

Honestly. The illusion magic does a great deal with sound, and I have mentioned before shadow magic mimics real magic (even if they mention some type of limitations on it, which I couldn’t find readily at the time of posting….I did look though).

Illusions can have tactile sensations, phantasms have animating forces that simulate if not outright mimic life. A mage can impress his current psyche on an phantasm with the right spells though.

If you want to be a purist and ignore the entirety of illusion and diviner magic then that is you decision as a DM. I would of course argue that the Grand Coulee Dam might be needed to power some illusions though…..easilly!!!!!!!!!!!

My point - which you appear to have missed - is physics based. Sound, light, the sensation of touch, perception - all of these require little energy - that is RL physics energy i.e. joules. Lifting, creating mass, changing temperature, etc as evident in evocation, conjuration, transformation magic etc take orders of magnitude more energy. I know that some folk dislike the concept of mixing physics and magic, but to me it's natural - and I note that the energy needed to make even an illusion a hundred miles across pales in comparison to the energy needed to make a single kilogram of matter...

This is once again a matter of DM style. Some people have more information and understanding of issues in magic. In my own experience there is a counter spell for every spell or affect, and if you integrate it into the system, then you need to recognize your NPC’s have access to the counter measures.

I recognised all of that and stated as such. For the defender to have the spells you list as counters he needs to have the wizard. So you need to have both many mages and powerful 'fighting' magic in your game or few mages and little 'fighting' magic - the limitation on travel magics with the Shadow world was an attempt to reduce the wizard=gunship issue without stopping all fighting magic by reducing the ability of a mage to pop in, blast, and run before they run out of spells imo. You cannot have a coherent world with non-mages ruling realms if you have a few wizards with powerful fighting magic and no flight restrictions - the few wizards present inevitably wind up emperors - the other regents warnings from a court magician does a non mage regent little good if the regent can't then stop the mage slaughtering them, or massacring their people - I wasn't aware we disagreed on this point.

It is not unique…it is just another setting even to its creator.

All settings are unique, some more so than others. If you want to remove the 'inconsistencies' between settings then you perforce remove the uniqueness. In which case don't bother with the setting at all and just play the generic game either in a world you make or in FR/Greyhawk.

BR was designed, like other settings to be different to the existing standard, its uniqueness manifested in changed cultures, limited cultures for humans with depth, different monster types (vast legions were removed), enhanced political aspects to the game and substantial changes (for the time) to the magic setting - although many of the changes were taken up to a greater or lesser degree in later settings.

It copies many other systems in so many ways that it really lacks it’s own merits unless you as the DM see it that way and want to be a purist.

On the contrary, I see the merits of the setting clearly - however whereas you seem to see the village archmage syndrome of the Forgotten Realms as not merely an advantage to the game but an outright necessity whcih requires correction if absent; I see the syndrome as a severe even terminal drawback. Like all settings BR draws on a number of sources, like all settings whether the resulting blend is better or worse than the norm depends on the skill of the creators and the taste of the user. I think that the mix in BR is exceptional - which is why I have stayed with it for a decade since it ceased, if you don't like it, don't play it - FR and Greyhawk are already generic without the need for you to modify their 'errors'.

But yes, to preserve the individual merits of the settings you do need to be a purist and retain the aspects which make it different...

This means you want it different from the interconnected settings produced by TSR. More power to you and those like you. Your games and ideas are just as valid as mine in the bigger picture.

Indeed all games are valid (if enjoyed) and indeed I want BR to stay different - if I wanted to play one of the interconnected 'generic' settings you so clearly love I would do so; I don't so I play BR instead. But as you are posting in a forum dedicated to the specialist BR setting; not one dedicated to the generic inter-connected settings why waste time trying to convince us to change the specialist setting to the generic one because you think that the setting will be better that way? Go post on Gleemax about the stuck in the mud dinosaurs who like old settings and systems and don't see how 4e Ebbaron is going to be the best thing ever - far better than their antique crud?

No TSR lacked leadership. Which is why when Gary came back from Hollywood, he found that his ex and some backers had seized control and shut him out……..

One interpretation, imo the leadership was too inwardly focused, dominated by people without an understanding of the industry, pitiful at organising an efficient supply chain and risk averse to the point that TSR was almost inert. these failings had the predictable result that TSR suffered an abrupt and substantial loss of income when a minor company exploded across the US with a card-game that drew away a large number of TSR's core audience for a year or two crippling TSR's cashflow and profitability (anyone else remember Dragon stuck at the printers for want of payment?) this failure nearly killed the company - and the game.

Be grateful to WOTC, without them we might be posting on a board dedicated to DnD lamenting the passing of a hobby and arguing whether the similarities to Palladium or White Wolf are coincidental, or were planned by the writers.

Apologies to all and sundry if in splitting these threads I inadvertently killed their post, or changed something. Apologies to Arjan for the array of redirects cluttering his forums.

[ShadowMoon]

Thank You...

[MatanThunder]

Thanks for the split...that is why I mentioned the original post in my last salad of thread additions!!!

<edit: snip to split threads>

Also with all respect how did this make it into this thread???

<edit: it hid, with great cunning, skill and guile>

One thing tho; if Birthright was Magic unlimited like most childish fantasy games (aka Forgotten Realms/Eberron/whatever fairytale goodnight story), I would play only Stardrive/Dark Matter/whatever semi-realism simulation instead...

Except that I don't think it is any more childish than any other Fantasy Game setting. I unfortunately see the ongoing purist & higher level game bashing as a systemic problem that is helping in the overall decline of Paper & Pen gaming vs MMORPG's..

I intend to start another thread about the issue in the forum this weekend if I can find the time!!

The basics of it are this. From what I can see from at least 20 sites there are a cadre of DM's out there that for whatever reason, can't or won't allow their games evolve to higher levels. They will go to any lengths to keep it that way.

I conjecture that the reason so many find the MMORPG phenomenon so alluring is that they don't run into this human road block element that seems to arise from the low level gaming in Paper in Pen gaming. The sheer number of the MMORPG gamers dwarfs the current Paper & Pen game settings.

If you have an opinion you might save it for this weekend....I don't want to make the mods split off another thread anytime soon if I can avoid it.

Later

[kgauck]

[Birthright] copies many other systems in so many ways that it really lacks it’s own merits.

Lacks its own merits? Glad you like the setting so much.

This means you want it different from the interconnected settings produced by TSR.

The interconnectedness of settings was an option, and a distinct minority option. The only books you have ever needed to play are the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Monster Manual. Everything else is optional, including any setting, anything on cosmology, or anything on travel between planes. To pretend that it is the default approach to the game is simply arrogant.

To not recognize that it lacked the possibilities that it had those connections flies in the face of game facts and details that I have presented from that system and time frame.

The only possibilities that a closed BR cosmology loses is the possibility of travel to other settings and the introduction of non-BR characters and character designs to Birthright. In exchange for this small sacrifice, you get all the benefits of strict adherance to the BR setting, including rare magic, character designs made for the setting and far less liable to bust the setting, and a game that focuses on politics, not spellcraft.

This flies in the face of no facts presented, and no details offered. Just as you have contempt for the setting that has brought us here and sustains our community, we here have no interest in stripping away every part of the setting which makes it distinct.

Since you obviously don't like the BR setting, and feel the need to insult the community:

This is once again a matter of DM style. Some people have more information and understanding of issues in magic

Why are you here?

[MatanThunder]

This is once again a matter of DM style. Some people have more information and understanding of issues in magic

Why are you here?

How rude..........You make me laugh

With all due respect I could ask you the same question?????

To try to make the entire community see it your way?????

All I am doing is refering to the game in a way that you don't want others to see, and now you revert to plain rudeness....how droll!

More to come

Later

[ShadowMoon]

To try to make the entire community see it your way?????

Most of us think that way or very similar...

[kgauck]

To try to make the entire community see it your way?????

All I am doing is refering to the game in a way that you don't want others to see, and now you revert to plain rudeness....how droll!

I don't need to make the community see how much the BR setting has merit. This is a community that has assembled by itself on the idea that the setting is already pretty good as it is.