From:	Achille Autran aautran@*************.fr
Subject:	Spells above Force 6
Date:	Mon, 19 Jun 2000 07:11:41 +0200

From: "Phil Smith" <phil_urbanhell@*******.com>

> Actually your point is justified even with designing a spell because even
> once the spell is made, it's creator does not automaticly know how to cast
> it, only that it works (MITS pg48, Using the formula "once you have a spell
> formula, you can use it to learn the spell...")
>
> I have found that designing spells is one hell of a lot easier than learning
> them; you are allowed to take your magic attribute away from the design
> target number (the drain modifiers almost never go higher than your magic
> attribute and therefore it is easier than learning as spell so long as you
> have a suitably high spell design skill).

Strictly separating design and learning seems quite artificial,
especially for "freelancers" like shadowrunner mages. I mean, let's view
spell creation as creating a computer program, an analogy that seems to
fit. Finding the formula would be like sorting out formal algorithms and
a decisionnal tree for the program, without taking any little bit of
coding into account. Then learning the spell (and thus adding one's
signature to it) would be the coding part, with signature being the
programmer's tricks, habits and 'user interface'. However, design and
coding are often conducted in parallel, with tries and misses strategy
added to pure theoretical concepts. Also, when you design say a complex
algorithm, you're likely to have a profound understanding of it, that
will greatly help when coding it. Designing a formula should similarly
ease learning.
So, what about this (Tada !) Genuine Untested House Rule:
Intertwined spell design and learning: the mage makes a design test as
usual, and a learning test with a target number reduced by twice the
number of successes (more, less ?) achieved on the design test. Design
and learning times are added. The formula obtained is however somewhat
customized for the designer, and any other mage learning it suffers a +2
on her learning test target number. The author can still streamline his
work in half the base time, to get a proper formula for sale. At GM
discretion, the mage may 'field-test' his unfinished work, with either
higher drain, lower efficiency and (most probably) spectacular fumbles.

Oh yeah, I used the word mage, it should work as well for other
traditions. So, what do you think of this ? Makes sense ? Utterly stupid
?

By the way, I was wondering about magic research. How is it performed,
has magic theory a big theoretical background as are mathematics for
physics, or is it more a kind of art ? What do students in the MIT&T (or
a similar college) actually learn ? MitS states that mages "draw on a
vast library of cultural symbols and ideas". I have trouble figuring out
what symbolism/paradigm a 'generic mage' from MIT&T uses to grasp the
magical world. Any opinion will be gladly welcome.

Achille

P.S.: this has an interest in my game, where the 'generic mage' is quite
frustrated of lacking a nice magical background as his Tir-na-nOg
friends have.