Re: (TFT) Critical Spell Failures

[Peter von Kleinsmid <pvk@oz.net>]

As I mentioned, I like unpredictable spell backfires, or at least the 
chance of greater backfires than losing 1 fatigue.

Erol has clearly had some bad experiences with this, and I'd certainly 
agree that it could be done poorly, and that extreme backfires for simple 
spells, or for people trying to get extreme effects through mis-casting, 
should only be done when that's specifically wanted. But I'd consider those 
a different option. That is, there are several ways to handle it.

A very tame extension to the TFT effects would be that on a badly-missed 
roll, you use all the energy but it has no effect.

Another, as Erol mentioned, is to apply it to some spells but not to 
others. Adding a small but relevant chance of losing all the fatigue when 
casting a Gate spell would at least provide a reason not to cast the spell 
every day for camping or looting convenience, just because there's no good 
reason not to. Such things seem like over-use and situation-breaking 
effects that can remove a lot of the potential for interesting challenges 
in a game world. It can also shift the focus of the game to high-powered 
magic tricks and hoarders of magic items and so on, overshadowing and 
rendering largely irrelevant people without the toys, etc. The only way to 
challenge players with too many powerful and reliable toys is to have them 
noticed by other toy collectors and have to think about what the world 
power structure of toymasters is, and who's attention the player is going 
to attract. This can lead to games where things are decided by who has what 
toys, who's friends with which arch wizards, and so on. Many high-magic 
elements, though, tend to remove areas of challenge and interest from the 
game. Fighters get to be irrelevant when 14-myrmidon summons and 
high-powered lightning bolts and Heat Armor are common. Non-fatal wounds 
get to be irrelevant when magical healing is simple, easy and risk-free. 
Skills start to be irrelevant when there are too many magic items. Economy 
starts to be irrelevant when there is too much gold, or too many ways to 
get it. Travel and geography start to be irrelevant when there are too many 
travel-facilitating magics. Ordinary squads of fighters tend to be 
irrelevant when you have a self-powered Diamond Flesh ring. Walls, castles, 
and jails get to be irrelevant when you have easy enough Insubstantiality 
or Teleport. Etc.

On the other hand, you can indulge in a bit more magic without breaking the 
whole campaign, if magic is always limited by things like difficulty, risk, 
uncertainty, rarity, using up rare ingredients, etc.

Of course, some games may want the near-complete certainty of power that 
riskless high-power magic brings. Some players sometimes (some always I 
suppose) quite enjoy playing with reliable super-powers and exploring the 
things that can be done with them, and aren't really interested in dealing 
with chances of unexpected setbacks from their powers themselves.

So I guess it's both a question of style and preference.

Personally I generally like the GURPS Magic suggestions for breakdowns 
(which basically says GM discretion with guidelines, though it offers some 
generic tables as backup or for unimaginative GMs), when handled by a 
skilled GM with a good sense of proportion. Blowing a simple Fire spell by 
a lot would be most likely to just try to set fire to some random nearby 
location, or make a bunch of smoke with no fire, or heat something up, 
rather than causing a huge explosion. One of the guidelines is that a 
backfire should just about never do what the caster really had in mind.

PvK
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