[gurps] On subjects and objects in GURPS magic (and how I'm going to handle them)

[Topi Linkala]

This is a rant on GURPS magic's subject vs. object categorization.

Some base information on me (as a GM) and my campaigns and players.

We've played from early eighties using AD&D first edition rules. The 
players are basicaly scientists. I got two mathematicians, one 
philosopher who's expertice is logic, two chemists and one physict. I'm 
a mathematician myself. When we started we of course were just students 
but time makes differences. I'm now 46 years old unemployed telecom 
engineer studying electric engineering and chemistry.

 From the composition of the players you should get the idea that 
bullshitting is not a viable way to GM things. So from the start I made 
some house rules:

1. Universe (or planes as the AD&D parlance goes) hopping is ok and time 
travel is ok but only towards more entropy. What this means that there 
are magical ways to preserve a body or prevent aging but all travel 
takes time (c is maximum) and no way you can travel back in time. You 
might want to check Larry Niven's essay 'The Theory and Practice of Time 
Travel'.

2. No resurrection but soul exits. Gods exit but you don't have to 
believe in them. So when you die there are two possibilities, if you are 
an atheist your soul vanishes, if you serve a god (voluntarily or 
involuntarily) your soul ends into that god's domain. There are also 
ways to annihilate anything which includes total destruction of a soul. 
Now there are two types of gods: ones that would let the soul depart of 
their domain and ones that won't. On the other hand the domain of those 
gods that would let a soul depart is such that no soul would like to 
depart. Thus no resurrection as the soul is not available.

I had one campaing thou, where one of the player's character died and as 
his beliefs were toward a particular god but his actions were against 
the god's wishes his soul ended up in the 'hell' of that god. Later the 
other player characters heard that the guardian of that 'hell' didn't 
follow the repentation pact (`a la Dante). So they went and twisted his 
arm so that the soul of the died character could end in the 
'puragatory'. (Piers Anthony stole this idea for his book 'On a Pale 
Horse' ;-)

3. Anything that is physically possible is magically possible but magic 
is bounded (physics aren't, they're universal). So it's possible to 
'open' a magical portal by excavating around of it, but if it's a 
magically sealed sphere (sphere here is a nickname to any topological 
bounded surface that gan divide the universe) then you can only break in 
with magic.

4. Magically possible doesn't respect physical differences. Wall of ice 
can be cast where ever you are even if water doen't exit there (see next 
point).

5. There is no permanent magic eg. even thought magic breaks some 
physical laws they don't break the thermodynamical laws 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_laws_of_thermodynamics). Eg. magical 
items need recharging, continous light is named so as it's duration is 
days (vs. light which is minutes) etc. Created materia and energia comes 
from somewhere; time used on casting enlarges the possible volume (c is 
max).


Now my players want to change to GURPS. One of them got hold on GURPS 
Illuminati and wanted to start a new campaing in a illuminated world. So 
after a bullsession with my players we ended up with a world that is 
technologically advanced (to which extend nobody can tell) and where 
magic (if you can find it) still works.

I bought the GURPS magic, read through it and found several problems:

1. The book defines subject to be whatever is the target or recepient of 
the magic:

Subject:  The person, place, or thing on which the spell is cast.

The 'thing' is not elaborated at all and further more the word object is 
used (but not defined) as definition of a target of a spell in the spell 
definitions.

2. There are animal spells and plant spells but no fungus spells and 
animals doesn't cover persons (their word. See the definition of subject).

So the system divides the targets of spell into categories that aren't 
easily grasped. Can I cast a area spell on stomach lining of a best that 
has swallowed me?

Why is there different spells for animal control and person control. The 
spell mammal control states that it works on mammal with IQ less than 8. 
If I first cast foolishness spell on person that lowers the IQ of that 
person to 7 can I then mammal control her? One says no as mammal control 
is an animal spell, another says yes.

Some questios:

1. Can I use animate plant on a toadstool? (Toadstools are not plant 
they are fungi.)

2. If I animate a plant can I then posess it and if so what is the spell 
to use?

3. Could I cast a spell that targets objects to a integral structure of 
a intelligent vehicle? (I'm Job within the whale and I know continual 
light spell: Can I cast it on the whale's stomach lining?)


I've decided that in the illuminati campaign that I'm writing there is 
only improvisated magic (I'm though revamping the words and nouns a lot 
and I might add revamped runemagic in) and my target schema is based on 
the following:

Area type spells work on any dimensional space not depending of the 
nature of that space.

Missile spells can target anything. I've already had the discussion with 
my players on what medium is considered opaque for a missle to travel so 
we use the same rules (viscosity tables are nice here).

Pure biomaterial objects are fauna, flora and fungi.

Semibiomaterial objects are either intelligent or not.  Intelligent 
semibiomateials are mechanically enhanced biomaterial objects (human 
with a pacemaker) or biochemically enhaced mechanical objects 
('cyborgs'), nonintelligent semibiomaterial objects are something where 
biomaterial is used mechanically to perform a function (algae based 
airpurifier), mainly flora or fungi attached into mechanical device.

Nonbiomaterial objects are also either intelligent or not. Intelligent 
robots (R2D2) and all the rest (my boots, but especially a vacuuming 
robot that knows when to recharge it's accumulators and knows how to 
connect into a wallsocket and can find one is just preprogrammed object; 
no IQ).

Dead (?) biomaterial (wood, leather) belongs to the last category.

Human heristics are used to categorixe boundary items

Resistance to a spell is divided in three subparts:

Notice. If the target has no senses this fails, otherwise the check is 
made against relevant senses.

Analyze. Only possible if noticed. An IQ check. => No IQ automatic failure.

Resist. Only possible if analyzed. Based on relevant statistic or ablity.

Total resitances is just that; the spell has no effect (control mind 
against a bed).


To test if an object is intelligent players should use the Turing test, 
but this is not as easy as it sounds.

Comments?

Topi
-- 
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are
always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
- Bertrand Russell
"How come he didn't put 'I think' at the end of it?" - Anonymous