Hullo, Erevos,



The energies of Sorcery can, as the book points out, "create constructs out of solid Weave energy, ranging from simple walls and tools to semi-sentient servants and beasts to protective shields and cages." I would argue that Sorcery cannot pull a fire spell through the Weave, as that's a matter for Elemental magic, but I can argue that a sorcerous blast could be made to look like fire with GM permission, or perhaps by adding 1 to the Difficulty for an "appearance" modifer.

The key with the magic Traditions as they exist in Desolation is the fact that each Tradition's write-up defines it in terms of what it can and cannot do. Sorcery taps into the magical Weave to create a variety of effects. The bit on page 147-148 gives some good guidelines of what Sorcery can and cannot do. Elementalism is not Sorcery, and its powers and limitations are well-defined. Furthermore, Humans can't use Elemental Magic, only Elves can. And Elves can't use Sorcery, only Humans can. If one goes by the book, of course.



I'm still not convinced that the game world for this system needs a Bardic magic Tradition, although I could one being done. That said, I would be certain to be careful in how I go about setting up the spells and effects for the Tradition, given some of the material on various Magic Traditions already in the game.

Hullo, Erevos,



Not per se, no, though I don't think it would be difficult to add a Divine Magic system to the game (which doesn't really fit into the mindset of Scondera, I don't think). And for the record, I detest Divine Magic and Clerics in roleplaying games, and am glad that Desolation doesn't have them in the game per se.

As far as miracles are concerned, I would argue that the Blessing, Divine Intervention, Higher Faith, Prayer Circle, and True Faith (all the others are dependent on having the True Faith one) Talents all constitute a Miracle system of sorts. I think it also depends on how you define Miracles, too.

Btw, Jamie, or whoever's paying attention on the part of the folks at Greymalkin Designs, this religious elements thread needs to be split out of (the main discussion here of the new magic Traditions, and given its own thread in one of the forum folders.)

@ JohnK

Again I was talking about the home-brew world options.I can see you are a purist John
Oh well we'll see how it goes,for now I will prepare the Desolation universe adventure path from 'the Before' supplement. We 'll gather to play in a week or so
Its better to test it in its own setting before you incorporate/remove elements.I guess I was eager to use it for my World because it seems so cool and looks like it could work.
We'll see...

PS: when I said fluff it wasn't in a dismissive way.
I love fluff,actually I used to love it so much, that when I first head of the term; I didn't like it.
It's that I wanted to get the rules before the setting this time

PS2:Yes maybe religion needs another thread...

I agree I never liked priests-though I might be somewhat biased as I am an Atheist- the problem here is you have to give people what they want.
If I am making a system and a world that is ours to play..I need to have a cleric sort, since 50% of my players love them.I can't dismiss it because I personally prefer mages.
Its 0k for Desolation where part of the mythology explains it...but you cant do it all the time and with every game

Hullo, Erevos,



Actually, I am a purist in the sense that the game world of Desolation is just so interesting and unique in itself in so many ways, that running the game using the Scondera setting is perfectly fine with me. (Yes, I've added new material to the setting for my campaign, like everyone else probably has*.) I have considered running a post-apocalyptic game using the game mechanics and some of the basic ideas, but have too many other games - SPACE: 1889, PRIMEVAL, and SHADOW, SWORD & SPELL - to run as it is.



Look forward to hearing from you how things go, and what happens.



I think it could work, to be honest. When it comes right down to it, unless you're designing the game mechanics around the world material that you've created, no game world survives a set of game mechanics without some form of alteration. So bear that in mind.



See, for me, game setting is more important than the game mechanics and rules. If I can't get into the setting of the game at all, there's no point my even looking at the rule system (although in the case of Desolation, I already knew the rule system from HOLLOW EARTH EXPEDITION). For me, as I read the material in the chapters on the Before, the Night of Fire, and the After, I had ideas for adventures and creatures bursting out of my head! That's how I knew that Desolation was one of the games that I *had* to run.


* If anyone else is actually running the game, since it seems to be pretty dead around here these days. And the game doesn't seem to get the
attention, let alone the respect, that it deserves.

Hullo, Erevos,



It's not a matter of liking or disliking priest-type characters. (And for the record, I am Atheist myself these days.) Too many folks have the rpg bias about having priests and clerics the way they are portrayed in D&D. For my taste, religion should definitely play a role in the game one is playing (after all, faith in the gods/goddesses/whatever is a powerful thing), but I don't like rpgs where priests/clerics have divine magic of some sort. I do like Miracles and systems that use them, but there aren't that many around. (The best Miracle system I've ever seen was the one for the old DRAGONQUEST fantasy rpg from SPI, but the Miracle system never came out; I'm just glad I got to playtest it.) Having priestly and clerical types in a roleplaying game is fine, as long as they fit the campaign.

In the case of your gaming group, it really comes down to what elements of the priest/cleric type the players like. That said, I could see you running a game using a whole party of characters from Nascency, or having a group with a couple of Divine Mother worshippers in it. Heck, a party of dwarves, all of who are worshippers of the Five Pillars could make for an entertaining, annoying (to others at least! <g>) time.



I don't know about that. If you've got a pantheon and established set of religions for a game that you like, that can be included in the game. This is part of the game background and world setting. The mythology and history of it all. It's just a case of whether your players like rpgs that have religion and religious elements in them, really.

(And yes, the Religion posts from this thread need to go into a new thread on the subject, for sure.)

Well some things are different in Cyanea and I want it to be closer to my original vision-as I already had to compromise with 3.5E dnd-but I know what you mean.
But its a world we ve been experimenting on and off for a few years now and some things have been established -not to mention loved- by the players.
This version of Ubiquity is very close to what I had in mind in most aspects and since I dont have the time-or the experience maybe yet- to finish my own system, we will stick with it for now.We were going to try Fantasycraft(as its basically a toolkit) but after I introduced the players to rules lite systems they don't want to go back to d20-style systems



In my world priests are priests, the magical healers are actually a Mage order and I have some Miracles introduced but they are sparse.Its very ambiguous if Gods actually exist(it could be the Gaia hypothesis but for magic as well)
But my players like dnd type priests(battle-priests) so I will let them play a mage healer who wears Armour etc(thats where a new tradition comes in)



I meant that you cant ignore religion in fantasy that much

Was that for Desolation or Dragonquest?

The first part, about gods actually existing, is mentioned in the Core rulebook. They don't 'walk around' like the greek and roman pantheon's gods, infact they have never been seen. People just believe. Very much on the same path as your own world.

Also, due to the lack of a class system as the one in D&D, anyone can wear any type of armor. For example, I've created an NPC Legionnaire who wears full plate and weilds a two-handed hammer, but also uses Sorcery to counter the magics of Kar'Danon. To the extent of my memory, there are no ill effects on magic while wearing armor.

Granted, if you followed the book exactly, you would only be allowing for Human (Necromancy), Dwarf (Blood Rune), Orc (Blood Rune) and Loranthian(Animism) priests/clerics. Necromancers could easily be explained as controling both light and dark, with powers to both heal and harm (granted most healing has a price), and as a roleplaying option players could chose to follow one of those paths, or remain neutral. They would operate very much like the traditional Cleric of RPGs.

Personally, I enjoy the fact that if you chose to heal someone magically, you chose to harm something else. While it may not work for your world in particular, I think it adds a nice touch the the weight of the situations in Desolation.

I always meant for skills to distinguish characters,not classes...and spell-casters should have Armour.One of the reasons I was drawn in the whole -maybe this could work for my world too-idea




Like the equivalent exchange in FMA(granted its probably based on the various real-world alchemy traditions they drew inspiration from,but I cant remember which..well probably also thermomechanics )

never mind that...fever made everything foggy

Hullo, Erevos,



In that case, I guess it's a matter of fitting the stuff that's been established about the game world and that the players have come to love into the game mechanics somehow. As long as it's not fitting a square peg into a round hole, you shouldn't have too many problems as the Desolation game is pretty flexible in this regard, I have found.



The key for me with the Ubiquity system and Desolation rpg in particular is that the game is rules lite for the most part, and doesn't interfere in the telling of good post-apocalyptic survival stories in a fantasy world. I've also found it pretty easy to add some of my favourite post-apocalyptic fantasy elements to the game world and stat it out using the Ubiquity system, and that's been a big plus for me.



What do you mean above, when you say "priests are priests"?

How does your game world treat magic, in terms of the reasoning behind it and the way magic works?



I hate mage-healer types in fantasy campaigns, for the record.

[/quote]

Actually, you can. I've seen a ton of fantasy roleplaying games that ignore the element of religion in them, and I've seen way too many GMs who don't like having religion in their game worlds, fantasy or not. Remember, there's that old adage about not discussing politics or religion, so perhaps the mindset comes from there. My $0.02.

That was meant for Desolation. And yes, I could see where you might have been confused about which game we were talking about there.

Hullo, Mannik,



I have always considered faith to be an important element or aspect of post-apocalyptic rpgs, regardless of the genre of said rpg. A lot of the time, faith (and hope) are all that keep people going after traumatic events, and an apocalypse certainly qualifies!



No, there are no ill effects on magic while wearing armour in the game, but that's due to the nature of the Weave here, as opposed to the origins and nature of magic in other game systems.

Any chance of seeing this Legionnaire character you created? Sounds interesting, and I'd like to see how you statted him out.



That's only true of Necromancy, not so of the other Tradition that allows you to heal. And why it is that everyone tends to forget there *is* a Medicine skill in the game? Sure, one may not have the materials that one needs to do surgery or whatever, but using Medicine is a much safer way in some ways to heal people, and magic is tougher to use in the After.

Hullo, Erevos,



It's important to remember that Desolation is not a class-based system to begin with, it's a skill-based one. That makes for an important difference in terms of how one goes about creating characters, at least from the game mechanics aspects. But in my experience, skill-based systems also make it tougher to create the equivalent of "multi-classed" characters, such as warrior mages, mage healers, etc..

[/quote]

One of the things I've considered over the years that I've been running Desolation now is to have an actual Alchemist type of character with some sort. There is an Alchemy Talent in the Survivors book, but it seems to be oriented around Gnomish alchemy. Ah, well, perhaps at some point when I have a bit more time... <g>