From:	Luke Kendall <luke@********.CANON.OZ.AU>
Subject:	Re: SR's Magic System!
Date:	Tue, 13 Jun 1995 00:39:51 +1000

Jani Fikouras <feanor@**********.uni-bremen.de> wrote:

> They are not moving away from anything, WYTIWYG is nothing new or
> revolutionary. Imagine magic as a whole as the Harware at your disposal
> (the hardware represents here the maximum potential). And then imagine your
> own worldview as the Software (the software is the potential left over when
> the operating system is through with the hardware).

A reasonable metaphor.

> BUT this does not mean that the hardware isnt capable of supporting
> a totally different OS (better or worst).

True, but FASA haven't separated out what parts of the system are
determined by the hardware, and what by the software (to follow your
example). So you can't disentangle them to actually go any further
with the concept.

You'd just have to leave it up to each GM to make it up. The decisions
about what's a real impossibility and what's just a mental block would
just be arbitrary. The Belief Effect doesn't get you anywhere, because
it just says that everything might be possible.

Why don't you try to convince me by using this Belief Effect idea
to `explain' some problem areas in the magic system.

Give me two or three concrete examples. This argument is just too
vague to go anywhere, at the moment.

luke