Goodman Games

goodmangames wrote: Now mix into all of this what I call "mercurial magic." To quote the manuscript:

The firstborn son of a witch hanged at trial wields black magic adroitly. An orphan raised by satyrs is a precocious student of druidry. Cosmic caprice determines skill in magic: birth order, family lineage, horoscope, and matters even more abstruse have as much influence on a wizard’s spellcasting as his hard work and native intelligence.

And this is where it gets even more fun. Every wizard, for every spell, has a randomly determined "side effect," so to speak. Luck scores come into play here...a wizard with a higher Luck typically has more beneficial side effects. Side effects can vary from random toadstools sprouting nearby whenever the spell is cast, to loud noises or energy bursts. So that same magic missile in the hands of two different wizards will not only vary based on their casting power, and not only vary based on whether one of them calls to a greater power for aid, and not only vary based on the inherent variability in the table...but will also vary because they each get a slightly different effect when casting it.

I actually had a really fun playtest at one con where a player had a spell that was useless in combat (I forget the exact spell, but it was something like comprehend languages) but it had the mercurial side effect of causing freezing, damaging cold whenever he cast it. So he would up casting that spell frequently, solely for the side effect, while in combat. It was fun. That is a little more extreme than I originally intended the results to be, but you get the idea...spellcasting varies from caster to caster.