Gamemastering Ritual Path magic can be slightly taxing for new users of the system. Despite it’s nuts and bolts approach to magic and its balanced nature it does require one thing to work well: GM knowledge of the system. Considering that the original system was published in eight freaking pages (GURPS Monster Hunters 1: Champions) […]
Continue readingCategory Archives: Boil and Bubble
Boil and Bubble: Cthulhu Mythos Spells, Part I
I’m a fan of the Mythos (which you probably know), thanks to Chaosium’s license, even though the Mythos is up for grabs to be used (most of H.P.’s stories are public domain) – it’s not for RPGs. Since I tend to use them (or a variation of them) in my games I figured I’d share […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Personal Greater and Lesser Effects
One of the more interesting mechanics of Ritual Path Magic is the “Lesser vs. Greater” effect. Basically, if it’s a “realistic” magical effect then it’s probably a Lesser effect – otherwise it’s a Greater effect. Now, what is and isn’t a Greater effect depends on the campaign…but what if it were dependent on the caster, […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: My Thoughts on the Social Implications on Ritual Path Magic
Ritual Path Magic is the new kid on the block as far as popular magic systems go. It’s got a lot going for it: flexibility, self-consistency, ease of use, well you get the idea – I’m a fan. But I’m also a advocate. For every person who says “No, this doesn’t work because I can […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Ritual Path Magic Material Enchanting
Sean Punch’s The Material Difference from Pyramid #3/66: The Laws of Magic is an exciting new system looking at a common videogame trope: “Resource Farming.” Though the article is geared toward the basic magic system it could be easily adapted to Ritual Path Magic. The Basics First, a few assumptions. Let’s assume that enchanter’s work […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Magical Styles – Spellslinger
Whoa, Black Betty, bam-ba-lam Black Betty had a child, bam-ba-lam The damn thing gone wild, bam-ba-lam Said it weren’t none of mine, bam-ba-lam – Black Betty, Ram Jam It’s a pretty established fact that I produce more GURPS material than I can possibly get published – there is only so much space in Pyramid and […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Using Magic to Target Hit Locations
Targeting hit locations with magic is fairly straightforward in most cases: If the damage type of the spell can’t target the location – then the spell can too. But what if you want to target a hit location with a spell that doesn’t allow it or specify a damage type (like many spells in GURPS […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Spell Kits For Casters – The Necromancer
“In glamoury that necromancer held his hosts of phantoms and of wandering ghosts…” – The Lay of Leithian, J. R. R. Tolkien In a previous post, I talked about various “wizardly” archetypes and how you might create them using RPM. In this post (and successive ones if it continues to prove popular), I’m going to […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Ritual Path Magic, Wishes, and Permanently Granted Traits
Inspired by +Peter V. Dell’Orto‘s posts about Wishes (you can read them, here, here, and here), as well as this post and this thread (which ultimately didn’t pan out for the reasons I discussed in there), I got to thinking: What would a “wish” spell look like in Ritual Path Magic? It almost certainly would require […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Beginner’s Ritual Path Magic
I’ve done a ton of blog posts on Ritual Path magic…because, well, I like it and there is a demand for it right now. So hey, give the readers what they want. Monster Hunters covers what fairly large spells and competent casters might look like, but what about less-competent characters? Everyone has to start somewhere […]
Continue reading