I agree with Lance and Ran. In D&D type systems,
where there's only one style of magic, what I have
always seen happen is a near complete homogenization
of wizards. Everyone knows exactly the same spells,
everyone memorizes exactly the same spells, everyone
casts exactly the same spells. Hell, even when they
memorize "different spells", its really just
variations on the same damn spells. There's a minor
tip-of-the-hat towards specialization, but all it
meant in AD&D was a "necromancer" had memorized one
extra necromancy spell. Once combat started, guess
what spells he's casting at your party: fireball,
chain lightning, finger of death, magic missile, etc.
Exactly the same spells you're tossing at his minions.
Oh, maybe he made some zombies in there somewhere
too. But, know what, your wizard probably could have
too, if he'd wanted. Yawn.
I do, however, agree with the statement that there are
few (if any) references in literature to "colleges" of
magic. Usually, each set of stories has one idea of
what magic is and can do, and all mages in the stories
are drawing from the same source of power, as it were.
I think that misses the point, though. If you think
about all the -different- book series you've read,
every single one had a different kind of magic from
the others. It all depended on the author's
particular vision of what magic was. So, considered
as a genre, fantasy literature probably contains
hundreds of different "colleges". It was that aspect
of "magic" that the DQ designers were, in my opinion,
deliberately addressing.
Would you like to play a Merlin-esque wizard? Here,
we have the College of Enchantments and
Ensorcellments. Would you like to play a cackling hag
consorting with dark powers? Here, the College of
Black Magics. Have you read the Deryni series by
Katherine Kurtz and would like to play one? Here, the
College of Mind Magics. Etcetera.
In the Arcane Wisdom supplement's development notes,
they explicitly state that each of the colleges
presented was based on a different literary source.
To answer Ran's query, yes, the designers explicitly
state that Mind Magics is based on the Deryni series,
Naming Incantations on Earthsea, etc. Hell, fire
magics, earth magics, and to some extent necromancy
were meant to be nods to Gandalf, Rhadagast, and
Saruman from LotR respectively. Once I read that, the
whole colleges idea crystallized for me. They were
trying to capture the -flavor- of each different
series or myth or whatever with each college.
Now, as to the question of limiting the versatility of
player mages? Somewhat, yes, but more no. Certainly
no college was meant to be able to do -everything-,
hence justifying the existence of many colleges. It
was probably the reason every party I ever played in
had more than one wizard, each of a different college.
But I always felt the system was, in spite of this,
more versatile than a system where you "memorize"
spells for a day (leading to the same list every day
anyway and the homogenization problem). You didn't
have to be a psychic to know which spells you would
need, whatever you knew, you could in principal use
when needed. They replaced the long-term uncertainty
of "What spells might I need today?" with the short
term uncertainty of "Will the spell I need work right
now!?". It felt like a good trade-off to me, ymmv,
although being an apprentice mage is pretty painful...
Coming back to that versatility issue... what the
system as published lacked was the ability to expand
and modify magic, create new spells or even new
colleges. Of course, that lack was supposed to be
addressed with the Arcane Wisdom supplement, but we
all know what happened before that got published.
Thanks goodness we, as a community, got our hands on
the unpublished material.
My own fire mage character was developing spells for
teleportation through fire and other little ideas
towards the end of his career, expanding on the
potential of the college. About the only restriction
my GM imposed on fire spell research was "no healing
spells", which I agreed would ruin the flavor of the
college. When you include the potential for spell
development, I think issues of constraint, while not
vanishing, certain thin out a lot.
I will admit that "colleges" are a pretty radical idea
for fantasy RPGs, and you don't see it very often to
the extent DQ presented it. I think there is a
tendency among people who play wizards to want to be
damned near omnipotent. However, my own experience
suggests that versatility in terms of being able to
know every spell in a system doesn't work out that
well. The truth is, the 200(?) spells in AD&D 3rd
edition aren't liberating so much as they are
paralyzing and overwhelming, never mind the hundreds
subsequently. I felt DQ encouraged focus on what you
had and -clever- use of it.
Admittdly, it's nothing more than personal preference.
I just can't agree with the bald statement that
colleges are "limiting". It's too naive.
Mort
Hm. I see the danger of only posting to this list
once every few months. Once I get started writing, I
can't shut up...
--- Lance Dyas <
lance@dyasdesigns.com> wrote:
> The colleges gave magic style in a world where the
> main rpg magic was bland
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