Codex Duello was one of those things that came out of a “I wonder if I could…” after a conversation that started in Pyramid Write Club and degenerated into a off-list email conversation with +Douglas Cole. Doug thought that Control Points from GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling might be more broadly applicable elsewhere. I just happened to […]
I had a burst of inspiration hit me (thanks O Lady Muse) over the weekend regarding the kind of campaign I wanted to run for my face to face game. I got my players involved and they’re game for it. Originally, I wanted to run a full on high-powered supers game. Force blasts, people changing […]
Recently a poster on the forums asked: “I was wondering how someone would model soul stealing spells and creating soul gems (that function basically the same way as Mana-stones). I don’t see any spells, besides maybe soul jar, that represent ripping the soul of of a being and converting its energy into a Mana-stone.I was also […]
As a poster pointed out in this thread, Pointless Monster Hunting was a huge piece with a large word count (though I admit – I just submit and let the editor decide what he wants to do). It was easily as large as Alternative Ritual Path Magic and as information dense. Luckily, I got to work off […]
Ritual Path magic is already pretty flexible. You can do just about any sort of spell you can visualize and it really doesn’t take that long to perform the spell itself. So what is a “jack-of-all-mages” in such a system? First, the Jack is less about being able to cast a specific group of spells […]
Behind Ritual Path magic, Sorcery (from Pyramid #3/63: Infinite Worlds II) is probably my second favorite magical system out there. It seamlessly blends two things that I like about GURPS: flexibility and power builds. There have been many powers-based approaches to magic using modular abilities before – but I think PK nailed it perfectly with his […]
Look…I like necromancy magic, okay? It’s not a addiction or anything, I can quit whenever I want. I recently got to play Diablo III and after my typical Barbarian run-through I fired up a Witch Doctor…man that was fun. Now, I’ve already created some Ritual Path magic spells for the Necromancer from Diablo II…why not […]
This is one of my favorite articles (so far) that I’ve written. I felt a little iffy about it first just because I was more or less taking a idea another author had wrote and expanding it out of proportion of the original scope. But I did it anyways because like everything I write – […]
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, […]
Writing The Old Ways The Old Ways was perhaps one of my favorite articles to date. I’d been writing pretty steadily at that point, but I previously had a gap where I didn’t submit anything or had written anything noteworthy. The last issue I appeared in had been Pyramid #3/49: World Hopping and I’d gotten […]