Re: (TFT) How come magic gets industrial disease?

[ErolB1@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/3/2003 5:08:05 AM Central Standard Time, 
rsmith@lightspeed.ca writes:

>    Ignoring cannon entirely, a question to the list
> in general.  If you were going to rebuild the TFT
> magic item enchanting system / chemical and alchemical
> potions system, what would allow:
> 
> 1)    PC wizards to make magic items.
> 2)    Not suffer from ind. dis.
> 3)    Hopefully be simpler than our current system.

Not a system, but three things I try to do to make magic less "industrial" 
are: 

A. Introduce diseconomies of scale. Write house rules in a way that 
discourage scaling up. Make it more efficient for a dozen cottagers to raise 
snakes as a cottage industry, rather than for one guy to set up and run a big 
snake ranch. 

B. Favor "personal" magic. Make it easier for a wizard to create items that 
only work for himself or his own household, than to make items that can be 
sold to and used by laymen. IMO, it's less "industrial" and more "magical" if 
one can immediately identify the village wizard's cottage because it's the 
one with magical lighting. 

C. Make "tradition" a source of magical potency. In my campaign, I use the 
principle that magic simply works better when it follows traditional 
patterns, when it allows people to keep doing things the way that they've 
always done them. Thus, it's much easier to enchant a carrage so as to make 
it easier for a horse to pull, or so as to enhance the horse pulling it, than 
to make a magical "horseless carrage."

-- 
Erol K. Bayburt
ErolB1@aol.com
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