| From: | "Robert Pendergrast (Tom)" <3011_3@***.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Gradual Initiation (was Re: SR Comp Comments) |
| Date: | Sat, 7 Dec 1996 10:55:30 -0700 |
> > karma. Under your system, 315 karma. Hmm...one of the guys in my group
> > has been playing the same character for three years and he just barely
> > passed 300 total karma.
> A magician going from not being an initiate to being a Grade 4 or 5 in
> just 3 years is IMHO something incredibly rare -assuming game time equates
> to real time. To do that I would suggest that you'd have to be studying
> almost exclusively on the magical arts and under the constant tutelage of
> a very powerful magician.
Garth, my brother's grade 10 hermetic, (~with 450 total karma), was
played for 9 years of game time ('50-'58) and 3 times a week for two
years, (4-5 times a week during summers and x-mas). It *can* be done, it
just takes a long time and a lot o' karma.
> > So you have made it so if the mage wants to
> > initaite to any level, he won't improve any skills or get any new spells.
> > I thought that was the opposite of what your aim was.
Yup. While Garthy-boy was busy initiating, my Pistol kept going up and
up. (Having pistols-14 is REALLY nice when you can hardly ever use
anything heavier than a HP.)
> Like I said my intention is to prompt teh players to think of other ways
> to make their magician powerful.
There are lots of other ways, just none quite the same as initiation.
Sammies get there alpha/beta toys, there new guns, whatever, and mages
get initiation and metamagic, etc...
> > If you want your
> > player's characters to be more rounded and more skilled in all of the
> > magical arts rather than just initiating, you can do that. Just say when
> > they try to initiate again "It feels that your lack of understanding in
> > the theory of magical manipulation is preventing you from gaining further
> > insight into the manipulation of metaplanar energies." They will get the
> > point.
Do something like make them raise one of their magical skills: (Sorcery,
Mag Theory, etc.) every time they initiate. That's what we did. And He
couldn't raise the same one twice in a row, to count for initiating, either.
> > But by raising the cost of initiation, all you have done is make
> > the magical characters much more difficult to run.
>
> You don't have to be an initiate to run a magical character, even
> beginning magicians are incredibly powerful.
Yeah, but mages do get dicked on the karma... (No, I am NOT trying to
start up that thread again!!) Besides, it has ben my experience that
mages don't get so much more POWERFUL by initiating, so much as they get
more VERSATILE.
> > Besides, its kind of
> > weird to compare mages initiation to sams skill raising. There not the
> > same. Sams get to improve themselves with bioware and cyberware. Mages
> > can't without extreme cost to themselves. Are you going to double the
> > price of cyberware and bioware to balance out the sams with the mages?
Exactly-
> Well again this all comes down to my view on the atmosphere I want -I keep
> the money at a low stage as well, so sammies with Wired 2 aren't all that
> common.
How 'bout this: instead of raising the costs for initiating, simply make
a group virtually unavailable. Make you mage self-initiate. That shoudl
solve your cost probs quick.
> > If
> > you disagree with 0 initaite mages getting access to all of the metaplanar
> > powers, don't let them.
> Hence my suggestion of an alternate gradual initiation process allowing
> players to choose how fast they go up in grades, traded off by the number
> of meta magic powers they learn.
IMO, getting all the metamagic powers at Grade 0, ISN"T that powerful...
most of the powers require other skills or are dependent on you grade to
work well... (No I'm not starting that thread either!)
> > Give them to them one at a time or force they to
> > go research them or travel deep into the metaplanes and learn them from
> > great and ancient spirits or what ever.
> I do this too and I always try to get across teh fact that initaition
> despite the literature written by academic mages is still a relatively
> vague subject area and characters wouldn't know the specifics of it all.
(See skill raising, above)
<snip>. As a final comment, instead of raising the cost of initiating,
try making other skills so vitally important, that the mage has to
pick them up instead of initiating. We did this in my group, and Garth
picked up Stealth(6) eventually, and athletics, and a couple of others...
-Tom-
