Did Gygax actually prefer Arneson's Spell Point system?
Jul 20, 2017 18:11:48 GMT -5
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Post by Cedgewick on Jul 20, 2017 18:11:48 GMT -5
Dave was once asked:
To which he responded:
In Adventures in Fantasy, Arneson used a spell point (rather than Vancian) magic system:
Now here's something interesting. In Alarums & Excursions #1, a D&D player in 1975 complained about magic-users getting to cast only 1 spell:
Gary responded with:
I think Gygax's choice of phrasing here is interesting: he doesn't say that he came up with it, but rather that he was "aware of" it "since the first." I think he may have been referring to an Arneson spell point system, and not only that, at this early point (1975), Gygax is willing to admit that Arneson's spell point system was actually "a better solution." Thoughts?
Greg Svenson mentioned in his account of the first dungeon adventure that you and some of the other players (but not Greg) had been running adventures of some sort in and around the town of Blackmoor. Do you have any recollection of those pre-dungeon scenarios, what sorts of activities were featured, and the rules you used? Thanks!
The major changes were lack of 'well defined' character classes, if you made your saving throw you suffered NO damage, And magic was handled more like is was in Adventures In Fantasy. There were many other details but these were the biggies.
INTRODUCTION
The magic system established for these rules is an effort to recreate, as simply as possible, the actual manner in which Sorcery was thought to be accomplished. Sorcery is the art of manipulating, manifesting and USING the forces whose influence and rivalry dominates the environment. The powers of the sorcerer are his to use on agreement with forces to whom the power of the greatest sorcerer is but that of a more or less noisesome fly. Can you kill a god? Yes, on the day that you can powder a mountain with a dagger. Without further diversion then, it is my hope that you find this system as intriguing as the fact on which it is based truly is. It is in no way totally realistic but it is playable and as close as you can get it, short of a 250 page book.
MAGIC POINTS
Master you are apprenticed to must be higher than level 8 EIGHT. Normal magic points represent your basic innate ability to perform magic as determined by your intelligence.
INTELLIGENCE MAGIC POINTS
01-42 NONE
43-54 1
55-67 3
68-80 5
81-95 6
96-100 8
101 + up 10
Experience modifies the number of NORMAL MAGIC POINTS. The number of points listed in this left hand table is the number that you gain per increase in level as a magic-user.
In example, your character has an intelligence score of 68. At level ONE you would therefore have a NORMAL MAGICAL ABILITY of FIVE MAGIC POINTS. As you increase in levels this will increase such that at level 2 you have TEN, level 3 FIFTEEN, level 4 TWENTY and so on. Normal spell points are used for casting non-alignment or alignment spells. In addition the Faerry, and any humans who manage to make the proper connections to learn it use these points for the casting of FAERRY MAGIC. Above points represent the MAXIMUM number that you may cast in one day.
The magic system established for these rules is an effort to recreate, as simply as possible, the actual manner in which Sorcery was thought to be accomplished. Sorcery is the art of manipulating, manifesting and USING the forces whose influence and rivalry dominates the environment. The powers of the sorcerer are his to use on agreement with forces to whom the power of the greatest sorcerer is but that of a more or less noisesome fly. Can you kill a god? Yes, on the day that you can powder a mountain with a dagger. Without further diversion then, it is my hope that you find this system as intriguing as the fact on which it is based truly is. It is in no way totally realistic but it is playable and as close as you can get it, short of a 250 page book.
MAGIC POINTS
Master you are apprenticed to must be higher than level 8 EIGHT. Normal magic points represent your basic innate ability to perform magic as determined by your intelligence.
INTELLIGENCE MAGIC POINTS
01-42 NONE
43-54 1
55-67 3
68-80 5
81-95 6
96-100 8
101 + up 10
Experience modifies the number of NORMAL MAGIC POINTS. The number of points listed in this left hand table is the number that you gain per increase in level as a magic-user.
In example, your character has an intelligence score of 68. At level ONE you would therefore have a NORMAL MAGICAL ABILITY of FIVE MAGIC POINTS. As you increase in levels this will increase such that at level 2 you have TEN, level 3 FIFTEEN, level 4 TWENTY and so on. Normal spell points are used for casting non-alignment or alignment spells. In addition the Faerry, and any humans who manage to make the proper connections to learn it use these points for the casting of FAERRY MAGIC. Above points represent the MAXIMUM number that you may cast in one day.
Now here's something interesting. In Alarums & Excursions #1, a D&D player in 1975 complained about magic-users getting to cast only 1 spell:
However, on a larger subject, I am a supporter of the slogan "D&D is too important to leave to Gary Gygax." Gary has produced other games in the past. The problem has been that they are not interesting in their full form. They tend to be flawed by simple, bad solutions to complex problems. Thus, in Gary Gygax's game, A MAGIC USER GETS TO USE EACH SPELL ONCE A DAY.
If a first-level magic user gets to charm one person a day with no other magical acts permitted, Gary's version of the spell is entirely appropriate. As is the "No saving throw against sleep," the lack of restrictions on how often a character can be healed, etc. (The rule can be found, vaguely, in book three, and explicitly in Gary's magazine, #3.) As I said, Gary has trouble telling which rules are so completely obvious that he doesn't need to explain them. Welcome, brother heretic, or were you planning to do it that way? This problem, how to limit the magic users, is second only to the question of what are the characters doing as defining the games. Gary Gygax says that a Medium has one spell a day, a seeress gets to cast to a day, etc -- and they are all out on a treasure hunt. It's a simple solution, but I don't like it.
If a first-level magic user gets to charm one person a day with no other magical acts permitted, Gary's version of the spell is entirely appropriate. As is the "No saving throw against sleep," the lack of restrictions on how often a character can be healed, etc. (The rule can be found, vaguely, in book three, and explicitly in Gary's magazine, #3.) As I said, Gary has trouble telling which rules are so completely obvious that he doesn't need to explain them. Welcome, brother heretic, or were you planning to do it that way? This problem, how to limit the magic users, is second only to the question of what are the characters doing as defining the games. Gary Gygax says that a Medium has one spell a day, a seeress gets to cast to a day, etc -- and they are all out on a treasure hunt. It's a simple solution, but I don't like it.
Gary responded with:
We allow magic-users to employ the number of spells shown on the table, so a 1st level m-u gets exactly one 1st level spell to use once before he must go back to his books and prepare to use the spell once again -- or a spell once again. To allow unlimited use of the spell is to make the m-u's too powerful. There is a better solution, of course; one I have been aware of since the first. That is to utilize a point system based on the m-u's basic abilities and his or her level. Spell cost is then taken as a function of the spell and the circumstances in which it is cast and possibly how much force is put into the spell. All that would have required a great deal of space and been far more complex to handle, so I opted for the simple solution.
I think Gygax's choice of phrasing here is interesting: he doesn't say that he came up with it, but rather that he was "aware of" it "since the first." I think he may have been referring to an Arneson spell point system, and not only that, at this early point (1975), Gygax is willing to admit that Arneson's spell point system was actually "a better solution." Thoughts?