Re: [dq-rules] Idiot-Savant Assembly Line Wizardry

[Steven Wiles <mortdemuerte@yahoo.com>]

Most of William Hough's comments on the "Magic Shop
situation" I thought were very good ones, and can be
summarized as follows: don't forget that your Shaper
isn't operating in a vacuum.

I thought I might add a few comments of my own. 
First, the "magic shop principle" wouldn't work for
the type of campaigns my group runs, which are
definitely magic low.  I think that the nature of the
DQ system encourages and functions best when the
amount of magic items are reined in.  Having said
that, I don't necessarily think that you couldn't have
a DQ world that was magic item intensive.  However, it
would be a very different world that the usual fantasy
world.

To us, the idea of an assembly line is very natural. 
We live in a post-industrial world.  However, it was a
-highly- revolutionary concept when first introduced. 
I see two possibilities here.  One, your campaign
world has included the idea of an assembly line for
making magic items for several generation.  However,
the logical extension of that idea is a game world
currently undergoing its Industrial Revolution with a
technology based on mana.  Two, you have a character
who "invents" the assembly line process.  The
consequences of that for the character I think were
nicely explored by Mr. Hough.  Most societies react
badly to revolutionaries of any sort.  People fear
change.  Recall the Luddites.  Fuedal societies, the
stock society of the fantasy RPGs, REALLY hate change
and react VERY badly.  Of course, if your Shaper
survives, he becomes a towering historical figure who
changed his world forever. :)

This question also got me thinking about the assembly
line grunts.  Let's assume this guy (or gal) has just
been hired and trained to cast a spell.  He probably
has a low MA (10 would be human average, and judging
by the non-mages in adventuring parties, more like 5).
 People genetically gifted with high MA's, I feel,
would either be actively recruited or tend to
naturally gravitate to become Collegiate Adepts.  In
feudal societies, becoming a wizard is one of the few
means of upward mobility.  Anyway, this already put
our workman at a severe casting disadvantage Base
Change-wise.  And since he only knows the spell at low
Rank, he probably has an abyssmal cast chance.  This
means that said workman is going to be backfiring
relatively frequently.  So, I would have to add to the
cost to train this fellow the continuing cost of
"medical care" for when he and the rest of the staff
inevitably curses themselves, backfire results on each
other, etc.  I may be midjudging the magnitude of this
as a problem, I'd have to really study the magic item
creation rules again.  But it seems to me another
legitimate issue.

Small point:  large population centers are low mana
areas, and are very bad for crafting items.  This
implies the assembly shop needs to be located quite
some ways from town.  Isolation=vulnerability, and
shipping expenses just increased.

As a final point, some comments regarding an Adept
training people in the use of only a couple of spells.
 Whether a GM should allow this depends a lot on his
interpretation of what it means to belong to a
College.  Adepts loose all knowledge of spells from
one College when they learn another, and part of being
an Adept is a mindset that is very particular to that
College and mutually contradictory to others. I
-think- that's stated in the books.  Having that
mindset is necessary to casting the spells of the
College.  Any spells.  My interpretation then, is that
the time necessary to become an Adept involves not
just learning the spells, like you'd memorize an act
of Hamlet or something, but also learning to think as
an Adept, becoming thoroughly indoctrinated to the
philsophy.  So, in other words, you can't cast spells
'til you learn the mindset, and you learn the mindset
by learning to cast the GK spells.  Thus, my
interpretation is that learning the General Knowledge
of a College is an all or nothing proposition.  That's
purely a GM interpretation, however.

Gosh, this was a good question!  It really got me
thinking about what my idea of an Adept and a College
really is.

Another thought.  I would also say that even if I
allowed non-Adepts to know one or two General Knowlege
spells, they couldn't learn any Special Knowledge
spells.  That would require knowing all General
Knowledge first.  Flooding the world with items that
-only- invested GK spells would, I think, definitely
be less dangerous than if SK items were being mass
produced.

Damn.  That was quite a thought provoker.


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