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Critique on Fire-and-Forget
The Fire-and-Forget Magic System, whereby casters memorize spells in order to cast them, losing the knowledge to cast them and thus the ability to cast the spell again, was first presented in Jack Vance’s Dying Earth series. Gary Gygax used Vance’s work for a number of sources in the early days of Dungeons and Dragons, but he decided to use a Vancian magic system for two reason:
- It’s easy to balance for game play.
- It has no resemblance to any real world mythology or occult belief system.
At the time, both reasons were very good. Dungeons and Dragons was almost always under scrutiny in the beginning, due to the various beliefs and legends of ties to devil worship or some other such nonsense.
Today, however, neither reason is necessary. Numerous games have demonstrated a number of ways to balance spell casting systems without resorting to a Vancian system, many by simply introducing mana or an equivalent stat. In addition, role-playing has become much more mainstream, and with information available many myths are dispelled. Some organizations, like The Escapist, exist solely to address these myths and educate the public.
It is, however, the second reason which disturbs me the most. I cannot think of a single Fantasy book which has used Vancian magic since Dying Earth, excluding the novels which are based off of RPGs. What am I supposed to model and emulate when presented this situation? The images and archetypes that I am constantly surrounded with are replaced by more constricting ones.
While it is true that in more recent editions of Dungeons and Dragons the Sorcerer has somewhat fixed this problem, though exclusively for arcane casters, if one does not go searching beyond the core books.
For me, this has always been a problem not just of game mechanics, but of disconnect from everything I’m familiar with outside of gaming, and I feel unable to bring a lot of that into the game with systems that use Vancian magic.
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I feel the same way about Vancian magic, and so do most people… apparently, even the guys at Wizards. In the D&D podcast, Dave Noonan and Mike Mearls have already stated that in 4e Vancian magic will be “mostly” gone.
And not a moment too soon. It’s amazing that such a popular roleplaying game could pretentd for thisrty years that this system made sense. Imagine if the same sort of thing applied to fighters? “Oh, crap, this is my seventh use of ‘wield sword’ for the day. My mind is tired from using this maneuver, so I forget how to swing a sword until I rest.” Seriously.
I hate the “Vancian” system. Oddly, I’d never heard it called that before a couple months ago and now I see that term in numerous places.
I was really, really disappointed when the Wheel of Time game (D&D/D20 in Robert Jordan clothing) didn’t have a new magic system altogether, but instead tried to adopt the D&D style fire-and-forget spells to RJ’s world. It was completely unfit for the flavor of magic in the novels and an opportunity lost to try a new d20 magic system outside of the traditional D&D canon.
In any event, I tried for a long time to find/create a balanced spell-point system for D&D and never found anything that really made me think “Yes! This is it!”. I like how GURPs magic is fairly low powered, but I’ve never been able to model a similar system for D&D without it feeling like mages have too much power at lower levels.
I *really* love how Dragonlance 5th Age (SAGA) did magic. That system is a thing of beauty, but again, it’s hard to translate because that system also does away with D&D-type hit point inflation. A modification of that spell system would have been a fantastic fit for the Wheel of Time game… but alas.
Glad to hear I’m not the only one who feels so strongly about the Fire and Forget-style of magic.
I’ll also be making a point of checking out the Fifth Age Magic System, thanks for the heads up, Marty!
Unfortunately, it’s gotten harder to find the original DL5A box set, but the gist of it is that there are no spell lists!
The Narrator (GM) and players come up with their own spells on the fly (or you can plan them in advance, but on the fly can be fun). The spell’s point cost is based on 5 different factors (area of effect/number of opponents, damage or other physical effect, range, duration, etc). Simple spells can cost a low as 5 points, but quickly grow in cost as they grow in size/effect.
The number of spell points a character has is based on the square of their stat (Reason or Presence). Spell casting characters are likely to have an 8 - 10 in their primary stat, so the average is between 80 - 100 spell points for most characters.
Unfortunately, because DL5 stats are 1-10 and it doesn’t have advancing “levels” like D&D (you have completed Quests and gain Reputation instead), it’s hard to balance spell points for a D20 equivalent. The closest I could come to modeling a point progression for D20 would be something like Stat + level^2. So a level 1 character would start with around 15+ spell points. Sometimes it seemed like too little, sometimes too much.
The other problem is that D&D spells varied wildly in their effects so some 4th level spells might cost 20 points while others cost upward of 50 if you tried to model them and I never really got the opportunity to playtest my ideas.
I may revisit it sometime if I find a group that wants to experiment. It’s hard to get people to play the 5th Age rules as-is because they’re diceless, but I really like the system in general.
Hey Daniel.
A friend sent this article through stumble, so I figured I’d respond here in case someone else finds this useful.
If one is looking for a game with strategic level; for example, to raid an entire dungeon as quickly and safely as possible, there is certain point to Vancian magic, especially if the most powerful spells can only be used very few times a day. They are a powerful resource, so the question is, should they be used now or later? Preparing certain spells encourages scouting and divinations; a mage prepared for a specific opponent will be a devastating force. If some opponent is too tough, retreating and coming back is a viable option. All kinds of interesting strategic stuff.
There are other ways of achieving the same, but fire and forget is an easy and familiar one.
If one wants tactical level to matter more, F&F becomes annoying. Sometimes the spell selection is worthless and nulls any interesting tactics, sometimes it makes an encounter all too easy. Neither is particularly fun in the long run.
People who don’t want to play for tactics or strategy are better off with other games (IMO). Vancian magic is neither particularly beneficial nor particularly harmful on the general level. In specific cases it often is. It does hurt almost all attempts at genre emulation, as Daniel mentioned in the blog post itself.
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