Dragon Warriors

Are there any spells in the game that you find problematic? Or any that you really like? Or for that matter any that you think are too powerful and unbalanced?

I've always had a slight issue with the unreliability of Oracle and Divination, and tend to give them a 90% accuracy as opposed to 75%. Generally when my players are using them, I'd prefer they get accurate information rather than being mislead.

On a related question - what do you think of the mechanic of the Spell Expiry Roll? I like the idea that magic is unreliable (yes, I realise that is a slight contradiction in some ways of what I said about Oracle and Divination a moment ago) and you don't know how long a spell is going to last until it expires, but I have a player who seems to hate it. He feels (at least this is my impression based on what he has said) that magic should have reliable durations - he's even gone so far as to say that he can't understand why anybody would design a spell that doesn't have a set duration - why would they bother (my personal answer to that is that they do it because it's the best they can do - it's like asking why the early pioneers of flight bothered to design planes that crashed easily). He really seems to hate this mechanic - whereas as I've said I like it. It's lead to some interesting events in games at times - he once brutally slaughtered some people he had just cast 'Transfix' on, and was surprised that I regarded that as out of character for anybody who wasn't a psychopath - he saw it as just the logical action given that the spell could have worn off at any moment (true enough - but with only a 1 in 36 chance of it wearing off each round, I would have thought it more normal to try tying them up - in my games, I try to get away from the idea of killing if you can reasonably avoid it, especially in the middle of a city - anyway, that's a side issue. The question is what do you think of the mechanic?)

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Life and Death Are Only a Dice Roll Away!

Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide

I love SERs.

Luckily most of my players tend to be non-sociopaths.

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co-author Fury of the Deep
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide
co-author Cold Fury
co-author Cadaver Draconis
co-author Ordo Draconis 1 and 2.

I'm sure my players are non-sociopaths. Some of the player-characters on the other hand...

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Life and Death Are Only a Dice Roll Away!

Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide

Yes....slight mis-type there.

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co-author Fury of the Deep
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide
co-author Cold Fury
co-author Cadaver Draconis
co-author Ordo Draconis 1 and 2.

The funny thing is, this is exactly how a sociopath would see it: of course it is logical from one point of view, but there is also these things called empathy, compassion, conscience, and responsibility which are often not logical!

Anyway, I always loved Dishearten, just for its darkly humorous nature, and some of my players waaaay back in my high school gaming era even came up with alternatives like Disbrainen, Disskeletonen and Disballen, which I happily allowed (teenage boys, what do you expect?).

Cheers,

-Kyle

Should be a big difference between telling the future and telling about the past. Can you use ORACLE to tell the future?

Maybe with more space guidelines could be made. If you reach a spirit of a freshly deceased corpse and ask about events that happened, maybe you can ask more than 3 questions. And get better answers. In the same way asking about ancient events from centuries back should be less reliable.

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Speech!





And so the show begins!!!
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/dwp ... ssages/640

I don't like indirect attack spells - for me, the flashy incendiary spells are the province of high fantasy systems like, well, almost all of them except DW. Better are the subtle, insidious effects of direct spells and those that defile the weak minds of non-magickers with doubts about the reality in which they live.


Magic shouldn't be a science - there's no crisp, neat cause-and-effect with magic. The constraints of DW being a game pretty much mean that there has to be a repeatable framework in which spells can work, but it doesn't mean the players should expect the same spell cast the same way by their characters to operate the same way every time. The GM's role is to convey the majesty and mystery of magic, representing the visceral chaos that seethes in every spell, and reinforcing how the fickle forces the magicker strives to summon will always elude the caster's complete control.

Sadly, neither the spell descriptions, nor the game mechanics of spellcasting, necessarily support the GM to do this, and only a few spells have a cost - Doppelganger, Hecatomb, etc. Magic is then reduced to being just another tool, like anything in their backpacks; but magic should be a last resort of the desperate, and the decision to summon forth the shadows of the Otherworld to give them power in our realm should weigh heavily on anyone that would profess to be a hero.

I probably went a bit off-topic there...

So, yes, anything that introduces uncertainty into spellcasting gets my vote!

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Cobwebbed Dragon (Lee)

https://www.cobwebbedforest.co.uk/
https://www.dragonwarriors.uk/
https://twitter.com/CobwebbedDragon
Now on YouTube!

This is exactly the kind of flavour that I like. 'Just' being able to cast a spell to find answers is pretty mechanical, but having to find the unmarked grave of the ancient knight that first slew the immortal baron the adventurers are trying to overthrow before being able to cast this spell to find out how he did it could be an adventure in itself. And maybe, even after they accomplish this near-impossible feat, part of the skeleton is missing - do the adventurers waste more time trying to complete the skeleton (potentially allowing the undead baron more time to assemble his forces, or consolidate his control, or begin a lengthy ritual, etc.), or do they try the spell with an incomplete skeleton, knowing that angering the spirit with such an insult could bring dire consequences of its own...? Such dilemmas are exactly the type of thing adventures in DW should include - it's not all hacking through endless tunnels filled with indentikit goblins .

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Cobwebbed Dragon (Lee)

https://www.cobwebbedforest.co.uk/
https://www.dragonwarriors.uk/
https://twitter.com/CobwebbedDragon
Now on YouTube!

Yes, I would agree that the reliance on static spell lists/effects is a valid criticism of the DW system.

This limitation is unsurprising given the creation of DW as an answer to DnD 1st Edition.

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Show me the mythic legends, mighty heroes and mysterious faerie creatures!

If anyone wants to read what Dave Morris had in mind for magic in a Dragon Warriors 2.0, he wrote about it here:

http://fabledlands.blogspot.co.uk/2010/ ... three.html

I do like that Faith becomes a measure of magical defence - such things are much more in keeping with folk lore than some purely psychic ability as represented by the rules at the moment. And Faith could be something that changes in-game - failing to attend religious services, fulfill religious duties, complete religious rituals, etc., or behave in an ungodly manner, all reduce Faith, making you more vulnerable to magic...

Sorcerers, of course, would be able to add their rank to the Faith to represent their skill with magic as a defence, rather than protection from their deity. Some areas would also have a Faith score (such as consecrated ground), which would make it difficult, or impossible for Sorcerers to cast spells in certain areas (another reason for Sorcerers to move to wilderness areas away from the churches that dominate most settlements).

And as for spells costing an attribute point to cast, well that would really make a player think before treating magic like a Swiss army knife... Although I actually think in practice, there would have to be some things the sorcerer could do without this sacrifice, otherwise they just become a bit like scholars in Conan, which are very hard to play well as player characters.

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Cobwebbed Dragon (Lee)

https://www.cobwebbedforest.co.uk/
https://www.dragonwarriors.uk/
https://twitter.com/CobwebbedDragon
Now on YouTube!