Mercurial Magic - Who uses it?

[Exedor]

...MM is too much to manage; we tried but kept forgetting it....

I'm curious -- what makes it too much to manage?

It seems to me, once you've determined it, it's just a note on your spell print-out or character sheet. And after a bit of use, just becomes what the spell is.

Just getting my wizard to find the spell in the rulebook takes long enough. Nor is he quick with the crawlers companion. It's just how he plays and what his focus is on. MM doubled the time it took to cast a lot of his spells. Instead, we focus more on the wheeling and dealing with supernatural forces. There are so many rules to work with that I tend to grab onto the aspects of the game that move the story and interest the players.

[GnomeBoy]

Gotcha. Sounds like the right way to do it, then.

[Tortog]

I love both Mercurial Magic and Spell Manifestation results and use them all the time, but I'd have to agree with jozxyqk and Exedor... as fun as these spell tweaks are they can be more than some players are willing to deal with. I think the most consistent comment I've heard from several players now is that applying both to each spell seems a bit redundant. Many of the players seemed to like one or the other, but rarely both, especially when they get stuck with a MM or manifestation result they don't like. After a while I can usually get them more excited about the idea of a spell that causes problems for them. It takes a fair bit of work, but most of them eventually start to enjoy the challenge of making the "broken spell" work for their character.

I wish I could blame WotC on this, but the simple truth is that for most of the last couple of decades magic (as portrayed in D&D at least) has been fairly reliable, steady, and predictable for players. It's been a while, but as I recall i 1st edition spells just happened and then everyone rolled a save. Unless the DM was using some form of 'wild magic' a player with a wizard character could look at their notes and form a good idea of the character's strengths and weaknesses. It's not meta gaming to do any of this, at least no more so than looking at your character sheet, noting that it has a STR of 5, AGIL of 4, and PER 17 and deciding it's going to be a Cleric. DCCRPG throws all that certainty out the window, and some players have trouble adjusting.

It's not that you can't do some of these assessments with DCC wizard characters, if for example, casting one of the spells causes someone they know to die; the player needs to know that and be allowed to decide how that will affect the character's attitudes. Does the player want to run the character as a heartless bastard, or do they want to play a character that would refuse to use the spell on moral grounds. There's a huge potential for RPG wrapped up in just that one little detail, and even ardent role players can get overwhelmed by the avalanche of potential that even a small DCC spell list can provide.

If I ever find myself in a situation where the players simply do not want to deal with both, I've already decided that I will opt to keep the spell manifestations because the need for them is easier to explain.

[aesdana]

When I read that thread, I thought about this one and wondered if one could use those MM tables to help design unique magical items (instead of spells being cast).

MM effects could be interesting side effects for magical items, don't you think so ?

[GnomeBoy]

MM effects could be interesting side effects for magical items, don't you think so ?

Jinkies! That's genius.

[Skyscraper]

When I read that thread, I thought about this one and wondered if one could use those MM tables to help design unique magical items (instead of spells being cast).

MM effects could be interesting side effects for magical items, don't you think so ?

Very neat idea. I sometimes decide to create a magic item on the spur of the moment because I find that the story would fit, this will help me a lot!

[Raven_Crowking]

You'll see me stealing this idea as well.

[DM Marcus]

MM effects could be interesting side effects for magical items, don't you think so ?

Jinkies! That's genius.

Love that idea too! Gonna use that in our game!

[aesdana]

GnomeBoy, Skyscraper, Raven_Crowking & DM Marcus : thanks guys (or gals) !