Japanese sorcery or mahō (which means “evil spirit rites”) has a long and sordid history in Japan. Those who could bend the elements to their command (Earth, Fire, Water, Metal, and Wood) were called mahōtsukai or “magic bearers” and were feared and distrusted by most of the populous… …if you’d like to read more, consider […]
There were a couple of interesting topics recently on the forums about Ritual Path magic and sacrifices for energy. Some were about how much energy you could give or how much you could gather from a stadium of people or my personal favorite: summoning a demon and then forcing it to give you energy or be […]
Ritual Path Magic is one of the more flexible magical systems GURPS 4th edition has yet to produce. It’s got its share of perceived woes (lack of “power stones” or an enchantment system that conforms to how the system itself functions), but it also can shine brilliantly in just about any genre with the right […]
Anders sent me a PM the other day and asked a pretty simple question: What do skill levels mean for Ritual Path magic casters? You’ve got your shiny copy of GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic and you’ve just bought GURPS Template Toolkit 1: Characters…but now what? You’ve got your skill level description from p. 12 […]
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) […]
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 […]
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 […]
Writing Alternative Ritual Path MagicIf you’re not a writer or game designer, you might not understand the following sentence (or at least not all of it): That article nearly ate my soul and stole my sanity. It started small, honest, four thousand words, but it started to grow. It was like a thing alive. I […]
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 […]
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 […]