Pseudobot - Added some more critical failure tables

Added all the critical failure tables from the back of GURPS Thaumatology to the critical miss/failure command. No more flipping through books. Roll that Spirit table.

Source

Review: Thaumatology

Cover art that takes up over
50% of the cover!

This is a long, pretty important book. It's pretty useful for anyone that cares about magic of any kind in their adventures and campaigns, and it is big. That is redundant but true. It's also a pretty entertaining read for people that like reading over mechanics, but it is a bit like drinking straight from the hose. Reviews try to answer a few hard subjective questions about whether a book is "good" or "important" or whether the reviewer would "recommend" the book, and my answers to those questions, Re: Thaumatology are somewhat nuanced. I think the book is a very dense exploration of a lot of topics, and for people that like reading manuals, it has a lot to pick through and ruminate over. In terms of application however, I personally haven't found it fundamental to my games or mechanical navel-gazing; there are a few extraordinarily valuable gems of worth hidden inside, but for myself, I had this feeling that the book deep dived often on things that were superfluous, and when it reached a place where it got interesting, it was disappointingly shallow. Finally, despite that, I think it is worth recommending, but specifically if one has already found a magic system that they like and want to fine tune it; the tools only help slightly for spinning something up brand new whole-cloth, and personal opinion, many of the standalone systems in the book are easily eclipsed by the regular Magic from Basic Set in terms of huge catalog; Sorcery for a semblance of "balance," or Ritual Path Magic for solid fundamental mechanics for a flexible system (with a slippery power curve.) However, if you have found a system you like, this book can help fine tune them into something that matches your specifications and expectations even better. Let's take a closer look then.

Review: Pyramid #3/13 - Thaumatology

Cover... art!

November 2009, this was almost seven years ago, ok? This issue is named Thaumatology and I believe is the start of a series in Pyramid. This issue goes over some Thaumatology stuff, some Dungeon Fantasy and Imbuements stuff, and some generic stuff, let's take a look.

Review: Thaumatology - Urban Magics

An illustrated cover!

I bought this on an impulse a few weeks ago, and I was really surprised at how enjoyable it was and how many good ideas it gave me, and how much mechanical benefit it had. You know, I am pleasantly surprised so often, I wonder if I have a right to be surprised anymore? Like, I mean "wow, this book is better than it sounds," can only fly so many times, right? But here I am again, accidentally getting more than the *shrug* amount I paid for, and acting like this is not the norm. You shouldn't be surprised anymore if books keep being way better than the low bar you set! Maybe I need to adjust my expectations up? Who knows! Oh well, with that introduction out of the way, let's dive in.

Review: Pyramid #3/66 The Laws of Magic

Good issue.

This issue of Pyramid, from April, 2014, speaks a lot to Ritual Path Magic and to a few bits of updated mechanics from the 3rd edition of GURPS, and little bits of odds and ends that deal with, of course, magic systems. The RPM content alone makes this issue a must-buy for fans of that system, but the rest of the content is a decent bonus too. Let's take a closer look.

Review: Thaumatology - Ritual Path Magic

2013 seems like the
start towards the
"more words than cover art"
trend.

I've done subjective comparisons of the Ritual Path Magic system before, but I haven't ever spoken directly to the book in which it is contained. I think the system is one of the best alternatives to the vanilla magic system, (though, right tool for the right problem, right?) The book does have a lot of things I think it does well, and a lot of things I think it could do better, but overall, that's meaningless in the face of how awesome the system is underneath all of the physical trappings of the writings therein. Let's take a closer look then at this supplement and see what I like about it.

Review: Thaumatology - Magical Styles

Unique art style.

So, yesterday I reviewed GURPS Magic, the fundamental tome for GURPS. Besides that book, Magical Styles is a critical expansion that adds some interesting detail, flavor, and mechanics to the otherwise overwhelming list of spells. It takes the concept of martial arts styles from the Martial Arts book and modifies it to work with magic instead by massaging the framework to accommodate large lists of spells instead of oodles of advanced techniques. This book comes in handy if you, the GM are looking for guidance on directing a magic-using player's character growth by putting some limitations in place. The book comes in handy for you, the player, if you have a focused image of what your magic-using character should be, and would like some system support in building that character efficiently and being rewarded for sticking to a plan. Let's take a closer look at this supplement for GURPS Magic.

Mechanics: Syntactic Magic

Magic!

The final post in my on-going series at looking at different magic systems and mechanics in depth. This time, I am looking at a system that is somewhat of a horse of a different color. Syntactic Magic is a very open-ended system. It is not constrained to any feeble spell lists or monkey business like that. If you can imagine it, and it makes sense that a wizard with your skills can do it, then you can try it. That doesn't mean that it is free-form willy-nilly either. There are a lot of complexities rules of thumb and subjective judgement required to make the system work right, so let's see what Syntactic Magic is.

Mechanics: Energy Accumulation Ritual Path Magic and Effect Shaping Ritual Path Magic

Main book needed

Required for Effect Shaping
Highly Recommended for
Energy Accumulation

Similar to yesterday, this is a deep dive into two flavors of ritual path magic that I found interesting and worth exploring on a mechanical basis. The previous posts featuring these systems were an information light overview meant to communicate feel and complexity and give you infossrmation to start researching a desired system, whereas today, the focus is to provide interested people with a deeper look at two of the systems.

Mechanics: Vanilla Magic and Threshold-Limited Magic

First not-so-scary and on-topic
GIS result for vanilla and overload.

Earlier this week I did a very shallow look at various magic systems I either actually used and like or pontificated they would be good systems to run. Today, I'll discuss the similar, but different default systems and the threshold-limited system from Thaumatology. The systems do have some big differences that make them interesting enough to definitely consider them two different things, but they share so much, I'd probably be copying and pasting paragraphs if I did this twice. Now that we've seen things in very broad strokes I am going to drill down into more mechanical explanations. Hold onto your coats and mittens, as we enter the wild world of rules rules rules!

Comparison: Other Magic Systems

Aside: Fun book

Yesterday-ish.... three hours ago I wrote about the main three magic systems for GURPS. Note, these systems aren't the only popular ones. Indeed, there are a few very important ones I left out.GURPS Thaumatology is the handbook for customizing magic as you see fit for a campaign and a lot of the systems straight from that book are in use. Let's take a look at a few of the ones I find interesting.