Alternity S&S Magic Hazards

Compulsion
Magical power is an addictive thing. Once tasted, the lust for it never goes away. Any time a caster’s power or ability increases the player must make a Compulsion Check. If this check fails, the character’s Compulsion modifier, which begins at 0 increases one step.
If the character is ever faced with the opportunity to increase his prowess, and the player wishes to pass on the opportunity, a Compulsion Check is made against the character’s WILL. If this check is unsuccessful, the player must attempt to obtain the object of the Compulsion. This could be a spellbook, enchanted object, rare ingredients, or magical formula. Anything that could result in the character being more powerful is fair game.
Note that fulfilling the Compulsion is not a suicide mission. If the object of desire is well-guarded or otherwise inaccessible, the character will plot and scheme ceaselessly until he works out a plan for acquiring the object. It is an obsessive Compulsion, though, and will dominate his every thought until he owns it.
Corruption
Magical power was never intended to be wielded by men. It is corrupting, damaging to a caster’s very humanity. Too much contact with the forces of magic will eventually render the caster a twisted, mad creature, no longer human.
 Casters have an additional Trait, Humanity. It starts at one-half WILL. Each time a casting roll attempted, successful or not, the player must make a Corruption Check, against the character’s WILL. This roll is always made with the Control Die only. Each time it is failed, the next roll is made with a +1 per failure. If the roll fails, the character’s Humanity drops by 1. If the sum of the roll + modifier is 20 or more, the character has acquired an Arcane Taint, selected from the following list:
Negative Aura*
Animals and children react negatively to such a character. Animals and children will never react favorably to such a character and may react very negatively.
Disfigurement**
 One of the character’s normal physical features becomes disfigured. It is disturbing and discomfiting to look at, but not supernatural or unnatural. Affects Interaction Broad Skill.
Distrusted
 The character finds it very difficult to win the trust of NPCs. Affects Culture, Interaction, and Leadership Broad Skills.
Broken**
 The character’s physical being is becoming weakened by constant exposure to magic. Affects all Strength Skills, plus Endurance.
Mutation**
An unnatural form of disfigurement. This could take the form of a cloven hoof replacing a foot, an obnoxious odor, eyes of unnatural hue, claw hand, or anything else that isn’t natural about the human body. Affects all Personality Skills.
Odious Personal Habit*
The character develops a personal habit that is so bad it negatively affects his interactions with others. Some examples could include arguing with oneself very loudly, refusing to bath, “nervous" speech patterns, insistence on neurotic behaviors, etc. The possibilities are endless. This affects all Personality Skills.
Nocturnal
 The character has become a creature of the night. Any activity undertaken in daylight suffers a +1 Step penalty.
Mad
The character has become insane. This is difficult to nail down and should be worked out on an individual basis. No matter what, though, it is bad.
Each time an Arcane Taint is gained it causes a +1 Step Penalty to the associated ability.

Odious Personal Habit
The character develops a personal habit that is so bad it negatively affects his interactions with others. Some examples could include arguing with oneself very loudly, refusing to bath, “nervous" speech patterns, insistence on neurotic behaviors, etc. The possibilities are endless. This affects all Personality Skills.

Nocturnal
The character has become a creature of the night. Any activity undertaken in daylight suffers a +1 Step penalty.

Mad
The character has become insane. This is difficult to nail down and should be worked out on an individual basis. No matter what, though, it is bad.

Each time an Arcane Taint is gained it causes a +1 Step Penalty to the associated ability.

Alternity for S&S: Initial Thoughts

(I wasn't going to post this, and just keep these notes here as a back-up. I think, though, that I will post them. If I keep them as back-ups I'll delete them and this design history will be lost. I find it very beneficial to trace the genesis and development of these things, especially when I get off track or need inspiration. Please forgive me if these "designer's notes" are a little more stream-of-conscious than usual. That's just how I roll.)

Broad skills for the types of magic as in ZeFRS. They are "free", point-wise, but each comes with Compulsion. This is not a Flaw in the traditional sense, and does not grant bonus points. I'm not sure what it is, beyond the cost of learning magic. At any rate, Every time a sorcerous character increases in magical power (such as improving his broad skill, learning a new spell, unlocking the mysteries of an enchanted item, etc), he suffers a permanent one-step penalty to the roll. Compulsion checks against WILL whenever the character is presented with an opportunity to increase his power and ability.

Spells should be pre-defined rituals, except for Summoners. They command demons to their bidding.

The Cost of Doing Business I want to study up on the cyberpsychosis rules to see about using them as a model for how sorcerers lose their humanity as a result of trucking with dark forces.

All spells are rituals, to some degree. Some are relatively quick, some may take days, but none are able to be cast in combat. Sorcerers employ a variety of tricks and tactics to bring magic into combat, but no matter how the trappings may differ, mechanically, it all comes down to the same thing:

Foci
A Focus is an item enchanted to be a receptacle for spells. There are an endless variety of Foci. Some examples are:

• Knotted ropes
• Wands
• Staves
• Corked jars
• Flash paper
• Rings of power
• Crowns or helms
• Crystals

Pretty much anything, as long as it is of sufficient quality can be enchanted to hold at least one spell of modest power.

As a general rule, the more spells that are attempted to be placed into the focus, the more likely it will be destroyed in the attempt. Each spell increases the chance of failure, it isn't some flat rate. The relative power of the spell also has an effect.

Obviously, combat is not the only instance where a sorcerer may need to bring magical power to bear in short order. There are many other foci, such as those used in divinatory magic, that are designed for uses other than combat.

That's it for preliminary thoughts. I don't want to reinvent the wheel, so I want to keep the core systems as intact as possible, reskinning where necessary.

A Brave (Savage) New World

My, it has been a while. I see I have another follower now. Welcome, Josh, if you're still here. The delay in posting was caused by my house burning down. My wife and kids are safe, but pretty much everything else was lost. That is a much better arrangement than the alternative.

Anyway, if you take my last post, add in a healthy dose of time (4 months since the fire), you get my mind onto another game. GURPS is too much like 3.5/Pathfinder to me, in that there are highly detailed rules for everything that could possibly come up. Great fun to read on a rainy afternoon, but a nightmare to keep track of at the table. Plus the fact that no matter how much I love GURPS on paper (which I do), once it comes time to develop settings/adventures, or decide on published ones, I can't get rid of the vanilla taste. So GURPS is no longer on my mind or my shelf.

I had a serious thing going with Swords & Wizardry Core. Then, I decided I wanted me some good old sword-and-sorcery style gaming. Despite my 35 year love affair with D&D, and Mr. Gygax's obvious affection for the works of REH, D&D is not suited to s&s, out of the box. It requires a complete re-tooling of magic and magic-users. There are virtually no "cleric" in s&s literature, and absolutely none of the "combat medic" sort that D&D clerics are. So, my mind continued to wander. . .

There was a stop with Barbarians of Lemuria. A cool little game, most definitely. Characters are broadly defined, mechanically, leaving the players' imagination fee reign. But, the setting (which is tied somewhat loosely to the rules) didn't excite me. It was a little too alien and unfamiliar.

There was Jaws of the Six Serpents. Incidentally, you can't read about BoL in forums without running into posts about JotSS, or vice versa. Jaws is wide-open, as most narrativistic designs are. The problem for me is that (in my opinion) narrativistic games actively encourage a disconnect between player and character. I don't want anybody wigging out like Tom Hanks in Mazes and Monsters but I do want my players snuggly wrapped in character. When rules encourage (mechanically) players to use their characters to manipulate the direction of the "story", they lose me.

Enter Savage Worlds. I've dabbled with the Explorer's Edition for about a year now. Then I discovered a little gem called Legends of Steel: Savage Worlds Edition, which is a swords&sorcery setting for SW. Coincidentally, a brand new edition of SW just came out. So, I'm in.

OK, this is long enough. I'll go a little more into SW next time. For now, if you're interested: http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Worlds-Deluxe-S2P10014-Hensley/dp/1937013049