Conceptual Magic: Delays and Triggers

I’ve been doing a series of posts on conceptual magic, linked below:

• conceptual vs. mechanistic magic,
• further explanation (skippable,)
• nearly-permanent spells,
• areas of effect,
• range.

My boilerplate “too long, didn’t read” definition for the series has been:

“[Conceptual Magic] treats spell duration, range, area of effect, and other details not as stats, but as concepts: the spell lasts as long as a candle remains lit, or is cast at the point where a thrown talisman lands, or affects everyone who hears the magic words.”

So far, I’ve covered duration, area, and range. What other spell stats are available for conversion?

There’s spell level and saving throws, of course. But I consider these to be GM-facing mechanics, not player-facing mechanics. One of my design principles is that players should not be requesting classes, races, magic items, or spells based on what mechanics they’d like, but based on what they want to happen in the fantasy world.

“I want a spell that gives me a +5 to hit”

versus

“I want a spell that makes my hands as sharp as knives.”

So my inclination is not to let players research spells with better saving throws or lower than normal spell level, but instead set these details based on what the spell actually does or uses.

Another traditional stat is casting time. This may also be in the same category as spell level and saving throws, but to some extent casting time can be shortened based on other concepts being used in the spell, for example a circle of protection has a casting time that is partially governed by the time needed to draw the circle. This is a topic I’m still thinking over.

But there is one conceptual area similar to casting time that seems very player-facing: delays and triggers. If a spell caster wants a spell to take effect later instead of immediately, spell components could be used to tie the spell either to an event that acts like a timer or a condition that acts like a power button.

A lot of the same concepts used for spell duration would be useful for timers as well. A spell could be set to begin when a candle burns out, or when a flower blooms. Linking a spell to an egg could delay a spell until the egg hatches. A spell caster could even cast a spell on some kind of Rube Goldberg device, such as a flame burning through a rope to drop a packet of incense into a brazier so that the spell is delayed until the smoke fills the room.

Triggers would work basically like magical traps. The condition that triggers the spell becomes a tripwire. See the conditions for nearly-permanent spells as examples that could also be used to trigger the start of the spell effect, instead of the end. A 6th level spell, then, could have a total of six conditions total, which can be split between spell delay and spell dissipation, although some components of spells may naturally affect both.

The most used trigger is Magical symbol, glyphs, and runes, which can be used for 1st level spells and affects both the delay and the duration. Seeing or touching the symbol triggers the spell effect. The method of creating the symbol affects the duration:

• Symbols are written with ink on paper, vellum, or other material, and will end when the ink fades or the material bearing the symbol is destroyed.
• Glyphs are written with paint, but usually on a more durable surface, like a stone wall or floor. The spell ends when the paint peels, but the surface itself will probably last much longer than a piece of paper.
• Runes are etched into a surface, usually wood or stone, and must be scratched or chiseled off to dispel the effect.

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Conceptual Magic: Range

I’ve been doing occasional posts in a series about “conceptual magic”, which treats spell duration, range, area of effect, and other details not as stats, but as concepts: the spell lasts as long as a candle remains lit, or is cast at the point where a thrown talisman lands, or affects everyone who hears the magic words. These are the previous posts on conceptual magic:

• conceptual vs. mechanistic magic,
• further explanation (skippable,)
• nearly-permanent spells
• areas of effect.

How would range be determined in a conceptual spell?

The base range is the caster’s self, a held object, or a single target within reach. Hostile magic requires a touch, but other magic only requires a gesture and glance towards the target. Concepts can effectively alter either the distance, the method of selection, or both.

Some of the area of effect concepts affect the range as well: incense or smoke can reach anyone in the same room, liquid sprays or splashes or smoke bombs affect targets within throwing range, candlelight/torchlight reaches to the edge of the illuminated area.

• Cast a spell while throwing a pebble (or other object.) Similar to throwing a smoke bomb or flask of liquid, but instead of the spell affecting multiple people touched by the smoke or splash, it affects one person touched by the thrown object, or in rare cases more, for example throwing a blanket that can cover two or more people.
• Cast a spell while reflecting a beam of light with a mirror. Similar to using a bare candle or torch, but using a mirror (or a shuttered lantern) a beam of light can be directed to a precise target over a longer distance.
• Cast a spell while ringing a loud gong or bell. All targets who can hear the bell are affected, which could mean a fairly long range.
• Cast a spell into the wind, on a river current, or under sunlight or moonlight. A very long range spell, but it requires other components to direct it. For example, allowing the wind to blow sand from your palm allows the spell to target someone standing on sand up to a league away.
• Cast a spell using a simulacrum of the target (doll, portrait.) May have a very long range indeed, but the figure uses to target the spell must include something that belongs to the target (piece of clothing, blood, hair) to make it effective. The more components involved, the greater the possible distance, but also the more times the spell must be cast; a spell cast on a target many league away might take hours or days to cast.
• Cast a spell on a specific distant location. Requires something that belongs to that location, for example topsoil from a farm, or a piece of something deliberately placed at that location, for example half of a talisman the caster has created.
• Cast a spell using the target’s true name. This can be used with short range conceptual components like candles or smoke to narrow the spell to specific targets, or it can be used with a simulacrum to extend a long range spell.

I’ve hinted at casting time being connected to distance for some spells, but I haven’t specified how yet. It’s something that needs to be worked out, but I’m thinking that for long-range spells, one league means one hour of casting time.

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Conceptual Magic: Area of Effect

Delta’s blog had a post recently about the Massmorph spell analyzing the way the spell stats and description have changed over the various D&D editions. Fine detective work, but it got me thinking again about what I’ve called “conceptual magic”, defining spell duration, range, area of effect, and other such details not as stats, but in terms of concepts: the spell lasts as long as a candle remains lit, or is cast at the point where a thrown talisman lands, or affects everyone who hears the magic words. If that summary is too brief, feel free to check out these other posts on conceptual magic:

• conceptual vs. mechanistic magic,
• further explanation (which might be skippable,)
• nearly-permanent spells.

Anyways… Delta is more concerned with a very mechanistic wargames approach to magic, so it’s very important that the number of people turned into trees by Massmorph should match the area of effect. If 100 people can’t fit into the radius of the area of effect, that’s a serious flaw.

How would area of effect be determined in a conceptual spell?

The base area of effect is either the caster’s self or one person or object the caster can see and gesture towards. Hostile spells would specifically require a touch unless the range is modified (something I’ll have to think about for a future post.) To broaden the area of effect, the caster needs to use a concept that describes a larger area:

• Cast a spell while marking a circle using sand or charcoal. When the circle is complete, everything within the circle is affected. Larger circles affect more targets, but take longer when casting the spell.
• Cast the spell while burning incense or something that produces a lot of smoke. Everyone who breathes or is touched by the smoke is affected. Larger areas of effect require larger fires and more material to burn.
• Cast a spell with a spray of oil or wine. This could be done either by opening a flask and flinging its contents out, or with a brittle gourd or a hollowed-out eggshell filled with liquid. Only those splashed by the contents are affected.
• Cast the spell while throwing a small incendiary device, like flashpaper or a smoke bomb. Basically, a cross between the smoke option and the spray/splash option. Only those a few paces from the explosion would be affected.
• Cast the spell while brandishing a torch or candle made of special material. Affects everything the light touches. Hostile magic requires a magical ingredient, like a candle made from the tallow from the fat of a unicorn. Non-hostile magic only requires mundane ingredients, like sprinkling the torch with common powders prepared in advance by the magician before lighting it.
• Cast the spell while shouting through a horn or trumpet. Only those in front of the caster within the range of the sound are affected.

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Behind the Scenes: Pamphlet Changes

Just a note on the status of nuts-and-bolts RPG materials for this blog: It may be obvious that I’ve switched the blog focus more towards general RPG discussion, links to blog posts or other resources, and non-RPG media reviews. This doesn’t mean I’ve stopped working on useful RPG support materials, but I did find that working on that material over a series of blog posts involved a lot of effort and ate up a lot of time. And not just personal time, but also time spent on larger RPG projects I’ve been promising for a long time. Cranking out maps every week prevented me from finishing the random wilderness generation system and the Undead Neighbors/Infernal Neighbors supplements, for example. It just seems wiser to write lighter blog posts and do the hard work offstage.

One thing I’m working on behind the scenes is a refactor of the Liber Zero player and GM reference sheets. I think the leaflets are a pretty good idea and I like a lot of things about them, but I’ve seen a lot of room for improvement. Three of the goals I set for myself were to make the materials Fiction-Focused, Dice-Neutral, and Modular. There’s probably way too many tables in the leaflets if the goal is to keep players focused on the fiction first, possibly even ignoring rules. Where rules are mentioned, they should stick to dice-neutral references which get the basic idea across for the players, while allowing the GM to substitute their preferred table for handling that. And some of the optional material included in pamphlets should be moved into their own leaflets, fitting the modular goal.

I’m still working on rearranging some of this, but I may have some replacement pamphlets next month. The old pamphlets will still be available unless their contents become obsolete.

Looking Forward: 2020

There was a lot of experimentation in 2019, and a lot happened that will feed into my plans for 2020. One thing I had been looking at was possible commercial products. A few of my blog readers have suggested that I do this, but I wasn’t sure if it would be worth it. So, I started a regular publication schedule, promoted my PDF releases more regularly, and tracked the results of my efforts.

The results weren’t encouraging.

I do get positive feedback from a few people, but the reality is that few people actually checked out the PDF links. Even map PDFs, which get a lot of attention, don’t really make much of an impact. And they require the most effort: I tried to maintain a weekly schedule for releasing maps, then reduced to bi-weekly, then eventually monthly. Map Mondays was never really that popular, and maps take up so much time that they basically destroyed my weekends and prevented work on other projects, blog-related and otherwise.

So, the current plan is to abandon commercial attempts, including Map Mondays. There will still be maps from time to time, but I’m thinking only a couple a year, with no set plans. Product schedules are being dumped. I have a couple big projects in mind, but they will be done when they are done. There won’t be regular product releases.

There will still be a Monday/Thursday post schedule, but the content of blog posts is changing. I’m thinking there will be much, much less analysis, very few rules-oriented posts. Most of the things that needed saying have been said, and I should really focus creative efforts on the remaining PDF projects rather than in blog posts. One exception, however, is that I want to do more posts about my setting. These will be short and descriptive, but infrequent.

So what will I be posting about twice a week? One thing I want to do more of is linking to other people’s blog posts. I’ll be doing less commentary on other people’s posts, maybe a few sentences, but more re-directing to things I found interesting.

I also plan on expanding the focus of the blog. It’s been almost exclusively tabletop RPG-related for more than ten years now. I’ve talked before about doing reviews of non-RPG stuff I read or watch. Still mostly fantasy adjacent, or nonfiction that ties into fantasy, but as time goes on, you’ll be seeing more stuff that has no real connection to pseudomedieval D&D fantasy. Also, I may have some things to say about a couple video games. I am not really into video games that much, but the few I do play, I play a lot. I may want to talk about them.

There may actually be a few other non-RPG topics I may blog about. I’m just warning everyone now: 2020 will be mostly RPG, but not completely. So don’t be shocked when 30% of the posts turn out to have no relevance to D&D.

End-of-the-Year Maintenance and Plans, 2019

I took a spur-of-the-moment vacation from blogging this week, and have in general not had much time or energy for many projects, for a variety of reasons. The main issue is that there is just too much going on in November and December to allow me a good chunk of uninterrupted design time. As a result, I did not complete any of the tasks I set myself for November: no maps, no reference sheets, no player’s guide.

I’m not expecting things to get better in December. Lots of stuff going on. I will, however, work on the Liber Zero player reference sheets and maybe get started on GM reference sheets. If I can, I may squeeze in a map, but the chances of that happening are not looking good.

(The difference between the two, for those wondering, is that I’ve thought and written a lot about Liber Zero over several years and already have what are essentially rough drafts scattered throughout various posts, so it’s mostly a matter of tracking things down, tweaking a few rules, then rearrange and rewrite, whereas map work requires actually making something new from scratch. It takes hours just to make the maps for a pamphlet dungeon, and that doesn’t even include coming up with the ideas or writing up the text. A larger dungeon takes at least five times as long. That’s a huge disparity in the amount of creative effort needed to make a map versus making an LZ reference sheet.)

The Assembly of Ill-Formed Flesh and the LZ Player’s Guide will probably be delayed until next year. Also, I’m mulling over changes to my blogging. There will be a full report in my annual retrospective and planning posts.

October 2019 Blog Maintenance, November Plans

Just noticed that my previous maintenance/todo post mistakenly said it was for September/August instead of September/October. That caused me some problems when I tried to look it up for reference on this maintenance/todo post.

Blog maintenance completed in October:

• started using blog topic graphic links at the end of map and PDF posts
• updated links to new dungeon expanders and Liber Zero reference sheets
• ran tests on the effectiveness of my blog promotion activities… will have more to say on this around New Year’s.

I promised one or two small Map Monday releases and one large one. Wound up doing just the two dungeon expanders. Also promised more LZ reference sheets and delivered two. Still more are on the way.

I did not complete The Assembly of Ill-Formed Flesh, for a variety of reasons, mostly because of other non-blog-related matters. Things get pretty hectic here from time to time.

Plans for November:

• Two Map Monday releases:
  • one or two small maps, probably pamphlet dungeons.
  • The Assembly of Ill-Formed Flesh, if possible, or a geomorph set, if not.
• More LZ reference sheets, probably the Hybrid Class and some GM references.
• Possibly the LZ Player’s Guide, if I get enough of the player references done.

Blog Topic Icons, version 3

Work continues on the blog topic icons. Most of the icons are done. Well, all of the icons that are done are done, if that makes sense. A full explanation below, for those interested, although this post mainly exists for my own benefit, so that I can upload the icons to the blog and grab the links.

What the blog topic icons are for:

You may remember that I made a bunch of badges in the style of the merit badges Stuart at the Strange Magic once proposed. At one point, I said I was planning to use them as topic icons, and added a few that only made sense as blog topics.

The main reason for these topic icons was so that almost every post had a related picture that could show up when shared to places like Facebook. Also, they provided a quick visual queue on what the post would be about. Tags or Labels do the same thing, arguably, but they are small and at the bottom of the post, as opposed to near the top.

I didn't use them as much as I should have, for various reasons, the most relevant one here being they didn't look as good as I would like. I like these new icons better.

Also, I plan on adding quick visual category links to the bottom of some posts, mostly those involving downloads, so that people can find related material.

PDF Downloads

Map Downloads

Any post with a PDF download will have that icon at the bottom of the post with a link, probably just to the PDF label, so that people can quickly find other PDFs to download. If the PDF is specifically a map, there will also be a Map Download icon with a link to the Maps page, so that people can find just maps. The PDF Download icon is a pic of the kinds of things available for download: a pamphlet and a stack of books. The icon for Map Downloads is, of course, a map. It might be a little ridiculous to create a 3d model of a piece of paper with frayed edges to use as a map, but hey, I like the end result.

Subcategories of Maps:

Adventure Maps

Geomorphs

Modular Dungeons

The Adventure Maps icon is a treasure chest with a map behind it, slightly tweaked compared to the previous version... I tilted the chest to make it more obvious what it is. Geomorphs shows building blocks, Modular Dungeons uses puzzle pieces, but honestly I could have swapped the pics. The concepts are very similar.

Pamphlet Maps:

Tower Dungeon
Pamphlets

Town Map
Pamphlets

Dungeon
Expanders

I might have to make another icon for town and city maps that aren't in pamphlet form.

Liber Zero

LZ Reference
Pamphlets

Liber Zero has its own page. It's more of a true topic icon, because I do write LZ posts that don't include downloads. Thus, I did not add the "download arrow" to the icon. Any LZ post will have a link to the Liber Zero About page. The LZ page will have links to any PDFs available, including the LZ Reference Sheets (pamphlets,) which get their own icon. When used at the bottom of a post, the Reference Sheets icon will link to the lzref tag/label, so that people can find other reference sheets.

Not every topic icon will be for downloads. For example, each of the four main character classes will get its own icon, for posts where I talk about variant rules or support tables. These three are for Fighter (and Combat,) Magic-User (and Magic,) and Thief. I haven't made a Cleric icon yet, because I'm still figuring out how to illustrate the idea. Can't think of a cleric-specific hat. May do a pope hat (mitre,) or maybe a halo.

Fighters
and
Combat

Magic-Users
and
Magic

Thieves.
Just Thieves.

Other topics still need icons. Monsters, Spells, Psionics, maybe generic Wilderness. The Last-Minute Gamemaster and 9 and 30 Kingdoms Setting topics need icons. So do big projects like Our Undying Neighbors. A lot of these, I just haven't come up with good visual ideas yet.

Fall 2019 To-Do List

Here’s an update on my to-do priority list, with an emphasis on what I should be doing for October through December 2019:

1. Our Undying Neighbors(undead PDF)
2. Mix of four to six small dungeons (pamphlet, one-page, or geomorph) or urban geomorphs (pamphlet)
3. One sizable dungeon, tentative title The Assembly of Ill-Formed Flesh.
4. Liber Zero Player’s Guide PDF
5. Our Spiritual Neighbors (cleric + ethereal spirits PDF)
6. Last-Minute Wilderness (wilderness generation PDF)

I definitely want to finish Our Undying Neighbors this season. It’s been delayed for too long. If I’m lucky, I can finish it in time for a Hallowe’en release, but I’m thinking a Thanksgiving or Christmas release is more likely.

I added the LZ Player’s Guide because it’s not going to be that hard to do. Most of the text will be collected from the pamphlets, edited, and expanded in a few places… but one of the aims of Liber Zero is to not bother players with the rules, so it will be a pretty light-weight booklet.

I will also be doing Phase II of the ongoing blog revamp. Phase I was editing all the existing pages and updating the links. Phase II will involve some change of appearance and making the blog more “engaging”, as they say… by which I mean more people will look at other stuff besides the post of the day.

September 2019 Blog Maintenance, August Plans

Time for my end-of-month update! Blog maintenance completed in September:

• created blog topic graphics for an upcoming blog makeover
• added blog topic graphics to Maps page and Liber Zero page
• updated links to new urban geomorphs and Liber Zero reference sheets

I promised two Map Monday releases, intending that to be two maps. Wound up doing four urban geomorph maps. Also started a little work on the upcoming October dungeon, tentative title The Assembly of Ill-Formed Flesh.

Also promised more LZ reference sheets and delivered six of them. More are in the works.

Didn’t get much else done, other than behind-the-scenes improvements in my map-making and illustration techniques using SketchUp. Created a LOT of little props for the urban geomorphs and the reference sheet cover illustrations.

Plans for October:

• Two Map Monday releases:
  • The Assembly of Ill-Formed Flesh
  • one or two pamphlet dungeons or urban geomorphs, not sure which.
  • If there is a third Map Monday release, it will probably be more pamphlets.
• More LZ reference sheets, hopefully including the Magic class and a beginner’s spell list.
• Maybe an LZ Player’s Guide, too? We’ll see.

Blog Topic Icons, Version 2

I found a way to keep those blog topic icons more uniform. Very tedious, but it works. And so, here are the (final?) versions of the first batch of icons and their meaning.

Adventure Map Downloads

For larger adventures, for example the Hag Pits of Viper Marsh and Green Bard of the Twisted Wood. This will be the graphic on a new page for adventure maps, with basic descriptions of the adventures.

Dungeon Pamphlet Downloads

For any adventure in the pamphlet dungeon format, for example the dungeon expanders and the Watchtowers of the Golden Hills dungeons. These will be collected on a pamphlet dungeon page.

Geomorph Collection Downloads

For all the geomorphs. I haven't quite decided yet whether the geomorphs will get their own page, or whether I'll just put this graphic in the geomorph section of the current Maps page. I might create a separated page if I do some more geomorph experiments.

Liber Zero Reference Sheet Downloads

For the Liber Zero Player and Gamemaster Reference Sheets, of course. Currently, those are all pamphlets, except for some unlinked strays, but if this changes, I'll keep them all on the same page, which may be the main LZ page.

Map Downloads

For all the maps of any kind: the big adventures, the one-page dungeons, the pamphlet dungeons, the town maps, and the various geomorphs. I will be adding this graphic to the current Maps page.

Modular Dungeon Downloads

This is for a series I started once which I may get back into again: rooms and dungeon features meant to be plugged into an existing dungeon, almost like a keyed geomorph. Unclear yet whether this will be on its own page.

PDF Downloads

For PDFs. So, pretty much all the downloads, unless I started doing something else? I may do a PDF page, but it would basically just have links to the more specific pages. However, I do have some other plans where I might need this.

Tower Dungeon Downloads

For the Watchtowers of the Golden Hills dungeon pamphlets, of course. This graphic will be on the pamphlet dungeons page, when I create it. I doubt I'm going to split the tower pamphlets off into their own page.

Town Map Pamphlet Downloads

For both the Instant Village pamphlets and the Urban Geomorph pamphlets. I'm tempted to make another icon for town maps that aren't in pamphlet form and use both icons on a single Town Maps page.

Sneak Peak at Blog Changes in the Works

No Map Monday this week. I’ve already hit my goal for the month for small maps (although I might do one more…) Instead, I spent part of the weekend working on a larger map with a tentative release for mid-October.

But I also did something else: new illustrations for my blog. I’m calling these “blog icons”, although obviously they are way too complicated and large to be icons. They are more like topic markers. These are part of some blog updates I’m going to try.

These might not be the final version of the blog icons/topic markers. I might rearrange or enlarge some scene elements. And I have more to do…

August 2019 Blog Maintenance, September Plans

I’m taking a break from Map Monday this week, although I’m creating a few things in the background for next week’s map. Blog maintenance completed in August:

• Added an urban tag for the new urban geomorphs
• Added an lzref tag for Liber Zero Reference Sheets
• Added a Liber Zero page

The tags might help some people out, but really they are for my reference. I’ve had so much trouble tracking down old features I did that I’ve decided to create unique tags for every series of posts I do. The Liber Zero page is still under construction, but basically explains what LZ is about and will collect the links to the reference sheets and eventually the expansion projects. I started up on Liber Zero again not only because of the recent discussion about its status, but also because I’m going to need the reference sheets for the big non-Liber Zero projects like Our Undying Neighbors (which is still behind schedule, just to let you know.)

I completed one pamphlet dungeon and two urban geomorph pamphlets in August. Technically, I said I would do 2 to 3 pamphlet dungeons, but that was before I decided to do the urban geomorphs, which also count as pamphlet maps, so I hit that goal. I also completed the first pamphlet-sized Liber Zero Reference Sheet, which was not originally part of my plans, but… well, see the previous paragraph.

Plans for September:

• Two Map Monday releases
• Behind-the-scenes work on a larger dungeon for October
• A couple more LZ reference sheets (already have one almost finished, so expect that this Thursday)
• Writing on the big project(s)

Can I make Our Undying Neighbors a Hallowe’en release? I wish I could promise that, but I won’t. I’ll give it a try, though, because a PDF about the undead would certainly fit the season.

Using Urban Geomorphs

Here are some designer notes on the new urban geomorphs and future plans.

Urban Geomorph Types
I kind of addressed this briefly in a couple posts, but should address it formally, so that people can see what I have planned. I divide urban geomorphs into three basic types:

1. Residential. Mainly meant as background for parts of impromptu adventures: thieves planning a robbery, fugitives looking for a place to hide, locals for crime scenes, or just adventurers wandering around knocking on random doors.
2. Commercial. Can be used the same way, but mainly meant to be destinations for PCs to purchase goods, services, and lodging. The keys provide background for NPCs the adventurers will deal with regularly. This will also include temples (basically, shops where you buy holy water, blessings, and healing,) guildhalls (where you hire experts,) and government offices like the captain of the guard (probable “quest givers”.)
3. Special. Meant to be actual mini (or major) adventures, or at least something to entertain the players for a while.

Geomorph Practices
I mention on the back of the pamphlets “If rows/columns are wider or taller than 40 paces (100 feet)…” without really explaining those measurements. Each geomorph is a 100 foot by 100 foot city block, the same measurements as what has become the standard dungeon geomorph. This makes the blocks smaller than most modern city blocks and even some ancient city blocks (I believe I’ve read somewhere that classical Roman blocks were 300 feet in at least one dimension.)

This is why the pamphlet directions talk about rows and columns wider or taller than that measurement. One of my intentions is that you can use other people’s city maps, such as the ones Dyson Logos makes, replacing a cluster of buildings with a 100x100 urban geomorph. Other people might not be using blocks of that size, or might have some irregular blocks.

The indexing process described on the back of the pamphlets is meant to allow replacing buildings on a map regardless of the size of the target block. Start with one corner of the map as (0, 0). Number the top of the map from 0 to 9, dividing it into ten equal width columns. Do the same to the side of the map to divide it into ten equal width rows. You now have 100 “city blocks” numbered 00 to 99 that can potentially be replaced. If these resulting blocks are larger than 100x100 feet, mentally divide each block into quarters or into a tic tac toe pattern and number those 1-4 or 1-9 so that you can use three digit numbers to identify a specific block. Reserve the 0 as the final digit for general description of the larger area (the “superblock” that contains the other blocks.)

Other Potential Urban Geomorph Projects
Aside from continuing the pamphlet series or possibly compiling them into a more traditional book form at some point, one of my plans was to create at least one “geomorph-ready” city map. Not necessarily a full-color map, like the one for Lankhmar, but definitely something with empty square for geomorphs. But I also had a discussion with Scott Anderson in the comments about unlabeled geomorphs, for example page-size geomorphs to be used as visual aids for players. I also mention 3x3 inch geomorphs, printed six-up in a book. My idea there is that these could be cut out and attached to index cards with encounter notes on the card, so that a GM could pull a card at random.

Future Posts
I still owe Andreas Davour a post about running city adventures. I have different ideas on how to approach that, so it will take a week or so to write it up.

Nearly-Permanent Spells Using Conceptual Magic

Last time I talked about changing the way spell stats are handled, I focused on spell duration. By default, spells would be very short, only a few minutes (determined by a random roll.) To extend the spell, a spell caster would include something to bind the spell duration to. Some examples:

• Bind a spell to a candle. When the candle burns out, the spell ends. Duration is several hours.
• Cast the spell at sunrise, binding it to a flower that closes at sunset. Spell lasts until the sun sets.
• Cast the spell over several days, binding it to a chicken egg. Delays the spell until the chick hatches. Spell lasts as long as the chicken is alive.

These all extend the duration of a spell, they offer tactical choices for PCs facing spell-casting opponents. Snuff out the candle, destroy the flower, or kill the chicken to end the spell early. It also has the benefit of explaining “weird” rooms in dungeons. A room full of candles with no explicable purpose is sustaining one or more spells. Extra candles make it difficult to end a specific spell.

Along the same lines, consider some of the ways fairy tale spells are broken, like being awakened by a prince’s kiss, or killing the bird that hatches when you break an egg hidden in a chest buried beneath an ancient oak on a distant island. What’s the reason behind things like that? Why would a magician even specify how a spell can be ended?

Magicians set odd conditions for ending a spell to make the spell last a very long time.

This is why I call conceptual magic “conceptual”. Tying spell durations or counterspells to concepts, like “being kissed by a prince”, rather than numbers, like “12 turns”.

There’s have to be some rules to something like this, of course. For one, the number of conditions would be tied to either spell level or spell caster level. Sixth level spells could have a chain of up to six conditions:

1. Break a mirror
2. On an iron anvil
3. While ringing a bell
4. On a burning barge
5. On a mist-covered lake
6. When a nightingale begins to sing

Each of these conditions would require spell components. Some obvious, like the mirror and bell. Some linked conceptually to the desired condition, such as a piece of rotted timber from a shipwreck. Some may require creating “fake” versions of the desired condition, such as constructing a “lake” in a basin and blowing a cloud of incense over it.

If any generic item fitting a spell condition will do (break any mirror, on any anvil, ring any bell,) then the spell caster can likewise use any ordinary item. Any time a specific item must be used (this mirror, this anvil, this bell,) the caster must make the item themselves, or personalize it with some ritual.

Binding spells to things with an obvious duration (candles and chickens) requires some care, but usually doesn’t require supernatural ingredients. The spell caster might have to make their own candles and mix herbs into the tallow, for example. Binding spells to things like breaking a mirror requires the inclusion of magical ingredients, like the blood, fur, feathers, or bones of an enchanted creature, or rare roots and leaves collected under unusual circumstances. These help bind the condition desired to the spell.

More work needs to be done on this, of course. For example, extraordinary conditions need to be sorted into types… at the very least, conditions that seem logically impossible must be harder to bind than those that can be duplicated by almost anyone. But there are enough details here to be able to improvise at least a few such conceptual bindings.

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The Concept Behind Conceptual Magic

I’d like to work more on spells based on conceptual magic, but I have a feeling that people don’t get exactly what I mean by “conceptual magic” vs. “mechanistic magic”. So perhaps I should explain that.

I sometimes use the term “conceptual” to mean “based on ideas, rather than on measurable quantities”. I seem to remember that I described astral travel as conceptual, meaning that the “distance” to a place is based on how well you know it or how “close” it is to you on an emotional or psychic level. Places you’ve been to many times are very “close” and easy to get to, places you’ve vaguely heard about or that are unlike anything you’ve ever experienced are very far away.

In the same way, a conceptual approach to magic would be based more on things like the laws of sympathy and contagion rather than on hard numbers. For example, touching someone is the shortest possible range, not because the measured distance is short, but because of the physical contact. Close visual range would be a little farther, using a possession or piece of the target would allow spell casting over greater distance, and you might need a being’s true name to have any hope of casting spells across enormous distances.

“Mechanistic” magic, in contrast, is what I’m calling the AD&D approach, where everything has hard numbers, and higher caster levels means greater range, more weight affected, larger areas, and longer durations.

Somewhere in between these two extremes is what I call “abstract spell stats”: ranges and areas affected are expressed in terms like “everything in the room”, “everything within reach”, “everything visible” or “everything on the same level”.

I will probably still use “mechanistic” stats on the low end for many spells, such as those give in the spell stat table. And some of the effects of conceptual magic will overlap with the “abstract” stats approach. But the maximum ranges, areas, and durations would be truly conceptual, and the conceptual approach would be the only way to extend the range, duration, or other stats. No “Extension I/II/III” spells, no 5th level “Long-Range Fireball” spells, no metamagic feats.

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Which Way for Liber Zero?

In the comments on my top 5 OD&D fixes, FrDave asked about my plans for Liber Zero. Long-time readers probably remember that I was working on a project to clone OD&D, because at the time the only only OD&D “clones” were Swords & Wizardry White Box, the Labyrinth Lord base rules modified by the Original Edition Characters supplement, and Microlite 74, based on Microlite 20. These all have the feel of OD&D, to one degree or another, but aren’t very close to the rules, and have significant omissions.

Since I started, a couple more attempts to clone OD&D came out, the most significant probably being Delving Deeper. Even that veers away from OD&D in unexpected ways, but it’s still a crowded field, plus the original rules are available from WotC again, so Liber Zero became a low priority. Still, at least a few people are interested and want to know what’s happening, so I thought I’d open discussion about it.

Let’s start with this quote from FrDave:

I would love to have a reference document similar to the Holmes Reference Sheets from Zenopus Archives. You’ve come up with some really useful ideas and to have them all gathered into one document (even if it isn’t a complete game) would be a genuinely awesome and welcome addition to my library.

That’s sort of what my current plans are. Not exactly the Holmes Reference Sheets, more like the Judges Guild Ready Reference Sheets. Something that people could use in a pinch to run a game without a rulebook. But more of a reference document or series of documents, mainly for my own reference as I create support materials. There would be a focus on design aids rather than re-writing monsters and spells. I actually have an incomplete build-a-monster document I’ve been using to design monsters for the pamphlet dungeons and other adventures I’ve written this past year, so things aren’t completely stalled.

But what I’d like to know is: what are people actually expecting from Liber Zero at this point? What is it people need that isn’t in one of the existing clones? What do people want to see done differently?

Conceptual Magic vs. Mechanistic Magic

Delta’s blog has a post about Gygax on scale. Worth a read, but mostly about grid combat and thus too quick to dismiss the 1-minute round and “the infamous and rather absurd defense of the scale as highly abstracted action” when doing theater-of-the-mind combat.

But it leads into my thoughts on spell range, duration, and area of effect. Where they apply at all in OD&D, they take a precise approach, which gets more precise in every subsequent edition as the game moves more towards grid combat. But that doesn’t match up with magic in fiction or legend, which frequently doesn’t talk about measurements, but instead talks about concepts. You bewitch people by catching their eyes, not by being within 60 feet. You hear things whispered into the wind within your domain, like Math son of Mathonwy. Spells last until some condition is met, either simple and unavoidable (until the sun sets) or tied to some trigger (until touched by cold iron, or the kiss of a prince.)

A more recent Delta post on blind spell casting gives an example of an issue caused by over-reliance on “mechanistic magic” over “conceptual magic”. Can a spell-caster cast a spell on someone they can’t see? Later editions say no, but some spells in earlier editions or in Chainmail seem to break that rule, or at least there’s no obvious reason why they should follow that rule. A caster points a finger and a magic projectile flies a certain distance, then explodes as a fireball. Why does the caster need to see the target? A spell like Cure Light Wounds requires touch. If so, why would the caster need to see the target?

This is still something I’m mulling over, but I’m considering making magic very short-range and short duration by default and not having higher-level spell variants that extend range, duration, or other factors. Instead, that’s one of the things you use spell ingredients and spell research for: to create specific instances of that spell that last longer, affect more people, or have a longer reach. I will only cover one example in this post: extending spells that only last 2d6 minutes. A spell like that normally fades by the end of a combat, but what if you want it to last longer? A spell caster would use something in the casting that has a longer duration, for example a torch or candle. When the torch or candle burns out or is snuffed out, the spell ends. Longer-lasting spells might take longer to cast: for example, to make a spell last for years, one approach would be to bind the spell to an animal, like a chicken. Cast the spell on an egg, repeating the ritual every day until the egg hatches, at which point the spell takes effect. When the chicken dies, the spell ends.

I have other ideas on things like “permanent” spells, increased spell range, and the other spell stats in a conceptual magic system, but they will have to wait.

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Summer 2019 To-Do List

Here’s an update on my to-do priority list, with an emphasis on what I should be doing for July through September 2019:

1. Our Undying Neighbors(undead PDF)
2. Six to eight small dungeons (pamphlet, one-page, or geomorph.)
3. Prep for one sizable dungeon, which won’t actually be finished until early next season.
4. Our Spiritual Neighbors (cleric + ethereal spirits PDF)
5. Last-Minute Wilderness (wilderness generation PDF)

… Etc. The rest of the list matches the order of my Spring 2019 priority list and I’m unlikely to get even that far along in one season.

As explained elsewhere, I have a lot more to do in the summer and it’s had a negative impact on creative work. Work on Undying Neighbors seemed to be going along pretty fast for a while, then June hit and it almost stopped. My old plan of three large dungeons per season had problems from the start, then tanked comically as I got close to summer.

I’ve improved the workflow on the pamphlet dungeons. Instead of one dungeon every weekend, I want to group all the tasks of the same type. Avoiding switching tasks multiple times may have sped up my process a tiny bit.

Still, I think I should scale back my dungeon work, at least a little, if I want to have a hope of finishing one of the major projects. This is why I changed my blog plans to only two Map Mondays every month, instead of four.

A thing about both the “large dungeon” and Undying Neighbors. Hallowe’en is coming up quick. I haven’t decided what to do for the large dungeon yet, but have several ideas that would thematically fit the month of October, which is why I talked about prepping a large dungeon this summer and finishing it up early to mid October, just in time for Hallowe’en. In the same vein, I’d really like a Hallowe’en release for Undying Neighbors, because it would fit perfectly. Not sure I will make that deadline, but it’s a minor goal.

I’m not going to make any other deadlines for the summer. Already saw how that worked out, so I will try to take that as a lesson and lighten the load.

Semi-Random Maps

No Map Monday this week, because I took the weekend off. Thought I’d take the time to talk a little about someone else’s maps, and some ideas I had related to it.

Dyson Logos had some posts last month about geomorphic halls. These are dungeon level maps with 1 to 3 blank squares where geomorphs can fit, the idea being that each GM using one of those maps would have a unique dungeon, because of the geomorphs, and the geomorphs could change each time the dungeon is revisited. I believe Dyson actually posted maps like these a couple years ago as well, and traces the idea back to the City of Lankhmar TSR product which had unmapped squares on the city map and a booklet of city block geomorphs.

I’d wanted to do something similar for a while. It was part of the idea behind the mega-dungeon plug-in modules on the Maps page. The difference there is that I was imagining a more generic tunnel map with a few “empty” rooms added, then you’d plop down one or two plug-in modules somewhere on the map and change the empty rooms to the indicated “support” rooms.

I had a similar idea related to the “Watchtowers of the Golden Hills” pamphlet dungeons. Before I did the pamphlets, I had been thinking of a sort of interlocking set of dungeon modules based around towers. The PCs would be searching for a particular dungeon, but wouldn’t know exactly where it was, only that they’re looking for an old ruined or abandoned tower as the entrance. I had some geomorph tricks or other random dungeon gen tricks in mind so that each GM’s version of the tower dungeons would be different. The inspiration for this was more or less the Judges Guild Frontier Forts of Kelnore module.

I may still do the tower thing. At least, my current plan is to make a couple more tower pamphlets and 1 to 3 larger modules with tower entrances so that GMs can run a quest in a similar way, letting players explore ruined tower entrances trying to find the “real” dungeon.

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