Refurbishing Magic (Was: Schools of Magic)

New Skills:

Theoretical Magic (Mental/Hard)                          IQ-6, Occultism-1*
     This is the fundamental skill for properly-trained magicians
of all sorts.  Theoretical Magic necessarily includes theories of
how the physical world works, how humans think and interact, and
how magic works, and thus has elements of philosophy, physics,
psychology, sociology, and so forth.  However, its prime thrust
is a description of how mages work magic.  Magery is not a
prerequisite, but the level of magery is added to the skill (as
with spells) except at default level.
     This description typically becomes the central tenet of a
school of magic.  Since interpretations of how magic works vary
from GM to GM, how this skill works is also left up to the GM.  A
GM may decide that Theoretical Magic is a general skill, which
all magicians of whatever school share.  Alternatively, each
school may have a different Theoretical Magic Skill.  Perhaps the
best option is to say that mages may or must specialize in their
own school of magic, but have non-specialty skill in other arcane
traditions.
     The chief effects of the skill are a) to add a bit of color,
used as the basis for the creation of several competing schools
of magic, and b) that a mage may substitute his skill with
Theoretical Magic for his IQ when researching new spells.  The GM
may decide that any of several optional effects are also
produced:
     1) Skill with counter-magic is based on Theoretical Magic
skill.  If this is true, the GM may have mages roll against
theoretical magic to recognize a spell before countering it, or
may give a bonus to counterspells for high skill levels in
Theoretical Magic.
     2) Spells that interact with other spells generally are
dependent on Theoretical Magic.  Like counter-spelling, the GM
may decide that spells which reveal magical auras or identify
spells placed on a person or object require a theoretical magic
roll in advance, such a roll afterward (to understand the spell s
results), or gives a bonus to the spell.
     3) Theoretical Magic limits spell knowledge.  A mage may
learn no more than, for instance, (magery x Theoretical Magic
skill) spells.  Or, a mage may learn no more than this number of
spells at skill less than 20 (that is, spells known at 20 or
better are exempt).
     4) Theoretical Magic is required for teaching.  This is
particularly effective in combination with multiple ThM skills or
required specialization and:
     5) Spells may be learned only from mages and books that
share the same Theoretical Magic skill/specialization.  Note the
difference between #4 and #5!
     6) Theoretical Magic is a prerequisite for learning spells. 
Mages may not learn spells if they do not have the Theoretical
Magic skill.  Since ThM has an IQ default, this is not a great
barrier; everyone has the skill at default level.  It is thus
most useful in conjunction with #3 above.
     7) Theoretical Magic is not a prerequisite, but without
points in it, mages learn spells more slowly (this simulates the
scattered approach taken by someone without a good fundamental
understanding of what they are doing).  This option is strongly
recommended.  The easiest way of doing this is to penalize mages
who do not have the ThM skill -1 to -5 or more on spells learned
without theoretical grounding.
     8) Theoretical Magic is a prerequisite for (and perhaps
provides a default to) Alchemy.
     9) No spell skill may be higher than Theoretical Magic
skill.  This is an extremely restrictive condition.

* In fact, Theoretical Magic replaces Occultism.  However,
Occultism is Mental/Average, Theoretical Magic is Mental/Hard, so
in the case of a plane-traveller from a non-magical world
appearing in a magical one, the Theoretical Magic skill defaults
to Occultism at the level it would be at if the appropriate
points had been spent on it instead, minus the magery bonus. 
This gives mage-gifted occultists from non-magical worlds strong
motivation to learn how magic works.

Minor Alchemy (Type) (Mental/Hard)                      Theoretical Magic-4
     Minor alchemy permits various schools of magic to teach the
production of potions, elixirs, and so forth.  It differs from
Alchemy in that it does not teach alchemical fundamentals; no
character with only Minor Alchemy may research new formulas.  On
the other hand, it also has defaults, which is how it is
typically used--that is, a character with a high Theoretical
Magic skill may make any number of useful alchemical substances
using default skill.  Minor Alchemy is a separate skill for each
potion or elixir.  GMs should not allow Alchemy to default to
Minor Alchemy.

Optional Rule: Schools of Magic

     Using the two above skills, the GM may construct one or more
 schools  of magic, to provide color and coherence to the game
world.  The chief reason for this optional rule is to avoid the
 RPG magic  syndrome.  GURPS = Generic Universal Role Playing
System.  As a generic system, it is right that the spells
described in Magic be generalized, not traceable to any one
tradition or trilogy.  In a specific campaign, however, lack of
guidelines in the rule book for  customizing  magic leads to
games in which the stripped-down spell versions presented in
Magic are treated as the only possible magical system, with a
resultant loss of flavor.  While Spell = Skill is a useful
paradigm, it does not take into account the ambience of wizardry
-- it fails to provide the smell of fatty candles and incense. 
The following rules are meant as a  construction set  for
creating unique campaigns, the kind of campaigns that make it
difficult for (for instance) a plane-travelling wizard to adjust
to the conditions of a new world, where nothing works the way it
is supposed to, the way he has been taught.
     A GM may decide that since magic  really  exists, it has
been properly studied and there is only one understanding of
magic (this doesn t rule out different schools with different
traditions of restraints, for example, but makes the differences
between them less important).  Alternatively, he may decide that
magic is unknown or even unknowable, and different, mutually
contradictory systems of magic BOTH work (this provides excellent
grounds for making Theoretical Magic many different skills, and
for restricting the teaching and learning of magic).  In the
first case, the Theoretical Magic skill may be ignored, if the GM
wishes; in the latter, it becomes a fundamental skill for mages.
     The first step, before creating a school or schools, is to
decide whether the ThM skill is to be used, and which if any of
its optional effects are produced.  Note that in worlds in which
there are many possible understandings of magic, it is possible
that different ThM skills produce different results--that is, in
one school it provides a default counterspell, in another it
restricts the number of spells knowable.  Even before deciding on
ThM, therefore, the GM ought to decide how magic  really  works,
or if it works in many different ways.

Creating a School.
     There are 6 elements involved in creating a school of magic.
     1) Metaphysics of magery: how magic works.
     2) Bonuses and restrictions arising from the understanding
of magic (taboo skills or spells, bonuses to skills or spells,
the optional effects of ThM).
     3) Bonuses and restrictions arising from the moral and
ethical teachings of the school (reputations, vows, taboo skills
or spells, bonuses to skills or spells).
     4) Bonuses and restrictions not arising from any of the
above, but from GM s fiat or the school s tradition.
     5) Outward signs of the school (including how spells are
cast, uniform or preferred clothing, symbols, and so forth--
color).
     6) (Optional) The school s program and spell lists.

Metaphysics and magery.
     This is the foundation of the school in most senses; it
represents the school s consensual understanding of how magic
works.  There are a number of possibilities:
     Magic is the result of disembodied spirits (good, bad, and
neither).
     Magic is the physical manifestation of a higher spirit or
god.
     Magic is the physical manifestation of an antipathetic
spirit (Devil s work).
     All magic is illusion.
     Magic is scientific, law-based.
     Magic is the manipulation of hidden energies via the mage s
energy.
     Magic is the manipulation of the physical world in
conformance to the magician s will.
     Magic is psionics misunderstood or disguised.
     Magic is the conscious application of astral/ethereal/ you-
name-it harmonics, conditioned by the magician s person and
circumstances.
     All magic is a single great spell.
     Others . . .
     Each of these explanations carries with it certain
consequences.  For example, a mage who has been taught that he is
a conduit for astral and ethereal forces will probably believe in
and have studied astrology, and is likelier than most to be
aspected.  A magician who sees the world spirit-filled will
probably find working with elements and living things easier than
working with humans.  The magician who is taught that all magic
is illusion is likelier to be a sorcerer or illusionist, but
could easily learn any spell, under the impression that it works
so long as the victim/beneficiary THINKS it works.  In a similar
fashion, the magician whose school trains him to believe that
magic is based on innate powers of the mind is likelier to be a
psi rather than a true mage--but there is no reason that he could
not be a mage under the mistaken impression that he is a psi, or
vice versa.

Bonuses and restrictions, part I.
     From the way in which magic is defined, a number of bonuses
and restrictions can be activated.  These are, first, any of the
optional characteristics of ThM peculiar to the school, and
second, bonuses or restrictions natural to a magician of that
particular world view.  For example, a magician who has been
taught the Laws of Similarity and Contagion is less likely to be
able to create chaos, less apt to study destructive spells, more
likely to be a mage of knowledge and repair.  Conversely, the
spirit mage--and even more so, the mage dedicated to a dark
spirit--will be both more likely to study and of a higher
aptitude for spells of destruction and chaos.  The spirit mage
may be unable to work magic without the aid of spirits, or may be
able to use his own spirit in working limited amounts of magic. 
All of this may be simulated by giving mages bonuses or penalties
of one point in certain skills or spells, or by making certain
skills or spells taboo, or by making them required, or by
changing prerequisites.
     One of the more interesting ways of restricting mages of a
particular school is by modifying the time taken to cast spells. 
Certain schools might not teach spell-casting, for instance, but
demand purification in advance and spell-casting only by ritual. 
Or it might be that to call spirits, it is first necessary to
speak with, to bargain with them, in which case spells might take
ten times as long to cast--but perhaps have no cost to maintain.
     Another interesting modification: classic witchery has
dozens of spells to achieve roughly the same purpose with
different ingredients (available at different times of the year)
or simply depending on the phase of the moon or the season.  A GM
may decide that if a mage fails when casting a spell for the
first time in a particular season/month/phase of the moon/etc.,
then he or she does not know the spell for that season/etc. 
This, of course, demands a certain amount of record-keeping, but
it provides an interesting alternative to the normal spell-
failure rules.  Further castings of the spell in that season/etc.
will always fail, until the mage increases skill with the spell
(at which time the next casting during a previously failed
season/etc. is treated like the first casting).

Bonuses and restrictions, part II.
     Completely apart from the school s teachings based on its
understanding of magic is a series of moral and ethical
teachings.  These teachings may well be influenced by the
conception of magic, but are not part and parcel of them.  That
is, while the set of restrictions above is relatively rigid (no
mage in the school can break them without  breaking  his
Theoretical Magic skill; he does not believe it possible to do
x), the moral and ethical restrictions are relatively flexible.
     For one example, take a school that teaches that all magic
is illusion, which works because the targets believe that it
works.  Mages of this school are certain to be skilled
illusionists, but may be able to produce the effects of other
spells, at least in seeming.  This implies that the mages must
permit their targets to resist with IQ (or common sense), no
matter what the spell, and is a rigid restriction, based on the
understanding of magic taught by the school.  However, it is
possible that this school, in bringing illusion to an extremely
high art, has also lost its faith in human nature.  Mages of this
school are generally cynics, their motto:  Never give a sucker an
even break,  and  There s one born every minute.   Lying, after
all, is encouraged.  However, this should not restrict the mage
from having the detect lies skill, nor should it be impossible
for a mage of this school to be a true naif, wandering through
the world to cast pretty illusions and ease the lives of the
common people.
     Take a second example: mages of a school which teaches that
all spells are fundamentally one.  Such mages should be able to
generally ignore prerequisites, tapping into The Spell from
different angles according to their need and desire.  This is a
rigid bonus; all mages of this school should be so endowed.  Such
a school could well teach a certain moral relativism: since all
spells are one spells, all persons are one person, everything is
one thing [a warped sort of Zen magic].  This could give them, to
continue the example, a reputation as brainless bubble-heads. 
However, not every mage of the school need believe in the more
outre of the teachings, some may have a very strong sense of self
and the separation of self from other, and may even, due to their
relative prominence in a group of generally vague thinkers, have
a reputation for outstanding brilliance (perhaps even if their
intellects are no more than average).

Bonuses and restrictions, Part III.
     The GM may arbitrarily assign bonuses and restrictions to
the members of a school, based not on their understanding of
magic nor on their moral and ethical teachings, but simply on the
tradition of the school or his own fiat.  For instance, a GM
could easily do away with prerequisites, perhaps replacing the
system with a system of apprenticeship and restricted
distribution of spell-books.  The mages in his game would then
learn the spells he was willing to let them learn.  Here s an
example based on a school s traditions: The Winter Frost school
of magery, which is founded on a belief that all magic is
accomplished by a delicate balance (or deliberate imbalance) of
four elements, refuses to teach any true fire spells (although it
teaches fire resistance, heat, and so forth).  The reason for
this goes back several centuries, to an age when the most
prominent mage of the school was a fire mage, and one of little
moral fiber.  He became a scandal, finally dying spectacularly in
a self-inflicted firestorm.  Over the next few years, the
school s chief learning center, including its valuable library,
burned to the ground in a fire started by a lightning bolt in a
freak thunderstorm on a hot summer day, and other minor centers
suffered an outbreak of fire-based vandalism and accidents.  Use
of fire, except as a balance to water or cold, became extremely
unfashionable, the more so as none of the fire-magery books were
recovered from the ruin of the library, though a few of each of
the other three elements were.  Consequently, over a twenty-year
period, the school developed the tradition that fire had a
temper, and disliked being manipulated, and stopped teaching any
of the offensive or more blatant techniques; these techniques
eventually dropped completely out of the school s repertory.

Outward signs.
     Though this is pure color, it can add considerably to the
enjoyment of a game.  The School of the Loquacious Hermit (also
known as the School of the Gelded Soprano), for example, teaches
that all spells must be cast in a language spoken now extinct
non-humans whose voices were an octave above humans, and whose
language was both polysyllabic and tonal.  As a result,
Loquacious Hermits take longer to cast all their spells (a semi-
rigid restriction) and act complete fools as they do so, singing
nonsense in high falsetto.
     A more typical tradition is that wizards wear robes.  In all
but the most extreme cases, this is a simple tradition, based on
the robes worn by scholars and hearkening back to the days when
scholars and magicians were one and the same, yet it could serve
at the time of the campaign as an identification.  Magicians who
study astrology might decorate themselves with astrological
symbols.  Outward symbols serve a dual purpose: they identify the
mage and to the uninitiated, they may appear to be magical
defenses.  In one historical school of magic, for instance, all
spells were cast by means of  magic squares  of letters, which
were folded, burnt, or placed under the hat.  This produces the
rather wonderful image of a wizard s duel in which one of the
combatants sings in a constant high falsetto, while across the
meadow his opponent scribbles industriously, folds up the papers
he has written, and shoves them under his pointy little hat.
     Not a dignified spectacle.
     The GM should give each school at least some identifying
characteristic, perhaps one that is well-hidden, or that is only
seen when the magician is working magic, but something to provide
color to the school.

Program and spell lists
     This is purely optional.  By this time, if the GM has
thought about the school being created, it has a great deal more
depth and character than most campaigns.  However, if a player
character will be enrolling in the school, he might consider
drawing up a more rigorous program, both to make things clear to
the player and to save later arguments.
     To do so, the decisions made under the first five elements
should be codified and written down, as clearly and precisely as
possible, especially in regard to restrictions and bonuses.  The
GM may then sit down and draw up the school s  standard  course
of study: which spells are learned first (and perhaps why), what
skills all apprentices are expected to have, and perhaps (if he
is feeling patient enough to do so), a complete list of the
spells known to and taught by the college.  He may add variant
spells, or make the only version of a certain spell known to a
college an odd variant.  Prerequisites can be added, subtracted,
or changed; casting times and costs can be changed in a non-
formulaic manner ( twice as long for all spells  is a formula;
 twice as long for fireball, half-time for illusions, one day for
divination  is not).