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Re: (TFT) Magic, Magicians, numbers and power



I like the idea of a Wizard hunting thing going on...
On Oct 6, 2011, at 10:34 AM, gem6868 wrote:

I'm uncertain how long "absurdly short" is in real time, but they are the standard 1 turn/ST usually. However, it's not so much the duration as the time when you use it that matters.

Personally, if I was nobility and these guys started to crop up, I'd just have them all killed as too destabilizing for society. This is another thing that people don't factor in when they want their world to be "realistic". If it's really possible for people to wander around manipulating everyone easily, then the peasants will kill everyone they think is Dr. Frankenstein / steen in a frenzy of panicked bloodshed. Also, if daily life near Frankenstein / steen's castle becomes that terrifying, all the peasants would flee to other locales. The only way for such persons to survive is to hide their abilities and use them subtly, effectively becoming their own self- inhibitor.

-----Original Message----- From: Sgt Hulka
Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2011 10:41 PM
To: tft@brainiac.com
Subject: Re: (TFT) Magic, Magicians, numbers and power

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but don't those seemingly powerful spells have absurdly short durations?

And was it Advanced Wizard where they codified gestures and chants? Again, I may be misremembering, but on the upside I think you could canonically get some of the things you're talking about by casting at a higher IQ level. Like if you have IQ 12 and you cast confusion you don't need to use gestures or verbal components, so you could indeed mess with contracts.

--- On Wed, 10/5/11, gem6868 <gem6868@verizon.net> wrote:

From: gem6868 <gem6868@verizon.net>
Subject: (TFT) Magic, Magicians, numbers and power
To: "The Fantasy Trip Brainiac List" <tft@brainiac.com>
Date: Wednesday, October 5, 2011, 8:51 AM
Soooo, Ibm reading bWizardb as part
of my basic journey in bThe
Nostalgia Tripb.  Ibve been working on Melee for
several weeks, and now am
prepared to start reading Wizard and prepare for arena
duels to re-acquaint
myself with the system.  A nice side benefit is that
Wizard adds a few basic
rules (Crawling) and clarifies others.  Anyway...

One of the things that struck me is how powerful even an
ordinary Wizard is.
Transpose that person into pre-gunpowder Western culture
(as an example) and
you have someone who is primed and ready to become the next
Sauron / Saruman,
especially if theybve a subtle mind (actually, like the two
examples given).
It doesnbt take long in the IQ range to acquire the power
to affect some
pretty powerful political events.  IQ8 = just spells
that duplicate skilled
fighter abilties.  IQ9 you get bConfusionb which if
used say while signing
a contract...might end up with a nobleman in a tight spot
(legally).  IQ10 is
more practical adventure spells, but IQ11 adds sleep.
In the hand of clever
characters, used in the corridors of power at the right
time...dangerous.
Most nasty?  IQ13 bControl Personb.  Wouldnbt
take long for someone to
ingratiate themselves into the courts of the powerful and
then use this to
insert their own bWormtongueb into the staff and exploit
their advantage.

To offset this, one can argue that powerful people ALL have
Wizards of their
own.  However, this soon makes magic a mundane clash
between those who want to
bkill the VIPb v. the bbodyguardsb, and about as
interesting as any
security detail (for those whobve been on them).

It seems to me that the most useful brake on wildly
powerful Wizards is a
bself-brakeb, something that they are afraid of that can
hurt them.  In
some writerbs worlds, itbs the unleashing of demons that
makes magic a
dangerous field of endeavor.  In Vancebs world, altho
the stories are
suffused with magic, there is reference to them being on
the run from powerful
ethical gods / religions.

Anyway, just some things I was considering as someone was
cranking the numbers
and coming up with 60 wizards in a major city.
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