The difference between Magic and Miracles - part II

HE WHO TRIED TO ACCOMPLISH THE IMPOSSIBLE THROUGH THE DARK ARTS

But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: ¹⁰to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the great power of God.” ¹¹And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. ¹²But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. ¹³Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done. ¹⁴Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: ¹⁵who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: ¹⁶(for as yet he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) ¹⁷Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. ¹⁸And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, ¹⁹saying, “Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.” ²⁰But Peter said unto him, “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. ²¹Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. ²²Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee, ²³for I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.” ²⁴Then answered Simon, and said, “Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me.”<sup>[7]


At last the sorcerer claims to be able to do the same as the Lord, that is, to resurrect from the dead. With this, he is pushing the concept of Magic to its extreme boundaries. Let's read:

Until he came to Rome also and fell foul of the Apostles. Peter withstood him on many occasions. At last he came [...] and began to teach sitting under a plane tree. When he was on the point of being shown up, he said, in order to gain time, that if he were buried alive he would rise again on the third day. So he bade that a tomb should be dug by his disciples and that he should be buried in it. Now they did what they were ordered, but he remained there until now: for he was not the Christ.[14]

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The successor of Simon the sorcerer was Menander:

Menander, [813] who succeeded Simon Magus, [814] showed himself in his conduct another instrument of diabolical power, [815] not inferior to the former. He also was a Samaritan and carried his sorceries to no less an extent than his teacher had done, and at the same time reveled in still more marvelous tales than he.
2. For he said that he was himself the Saviour, who had been sent down from invisible æons for the salvation of men; [816] and he taught that no one could gain the mastery over the world-creating angels themselves [817] unless he had first gone through the magical discipline imparted by him and had received baptism from him. Those who were deemed worthy of this would partake even in the present life of perpetual immortality, and would never die, but would remain here forever, and without growing old become immortal. [818] These facts can be easily learned from the works of Irenæus. [819]
3. And Justin, in the passage in which he mentions Simon, gives an account of this man also, in the following words: [820] "And we know that a certain Menander, who was also a Samaritan, from the village of Capparattea, [821] was a disciple of Simon, and that he also, being driven by the demons, came to Antioch [822] and deceived many by his magical art. And he persuaded his followers that they should not die. And there are still some of them that assert this."

4. And it was indeed an artifice of the devil to endeavor, by means of such sorcerers, who assumed the name of Christians, to defame the great mystery of godliness by magic art, and through them to make ridiculous the doctrines of the Church concerning the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the dead. [823] But they that have chosen these men as their saviours have fallen away from the true hope.</sup>

The Difference bewtween Magic and Miracles (Introduction)

There is a limit to what Magic can accomplish. Almost nowhere is explained in fantasy rpg's the dramatic difference between enchantments and pure miracles, that is, the actualization of the impossible.

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Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded. He raised his staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck the water of the Nile, and all the water was changed into blood. 21The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water. Blood was everywhere in Egypt.

22But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh’s heart became hard;

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Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the streams and canals and ponds, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt.’”

6So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land. 7But the magicians did the same things by their secret arts; they also made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.

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Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the ground,’ and throughout the land of Egypt the dust will become gnats.” 17They did this, and when Aaron stretched out his hand with the staff and struck the dust of the ground, gnats came upon men and animals. All the dust throughout the land of Egypt became gnats. 18But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not. And the gnats were on men and animals.

19The magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.”
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Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from a furnace and have Moses toss it into the air in the presence of Pharaoh. 9It will become fine dust over the whole land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on men and animals throughout the land.”

10So they took soot from a furnace and stood before Pharaoh. Moses tossed it into the air, and festering boils broke out on men and animals. 11The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils that were on them and on all the Egyptians.

A fantasy magic system which is capable of ensorcelling me

What i have been seeking for a long time, the jewel i am always after whenever i stumbled upon a new game in my life.

The greatest delusion, insurmountable- is represented by AD&D magic system, totally devoid of fascination (because how can a human being throwing balls made of fire all around be an enthralling vision?)

But that Magic is rooted in what is enchanting seems a particular that has been completely forgotten.

Magic in AD&D is little more than a weapon, it is shallow, and it lacks a grounding reason (from where Magic comes? Why it exists?)

Again, that Magic is a mystery seems a particular that has been completely forgotten.

It should be the most important and delicate aspect of a fantasy rpg (otherwise, why would we call it a FANTASY game?) but instead it ends up being an uninspiring subject.

Thank Heaven, other minds came to regard Magic in a different way than Gygax and Arneson, and all this was portrayed in later games, some of which i might be talking about one day.

But today i had to write down a few phrases. I spent part of the afternoon in an gigantic library this afternoon, and i had in my hands some old books, i looked upon some words which inspired me a little bit and a couple of thoughts were born.

Fantasy role play made easy (1985), again

NEW INFO:

Includes Star Trek races as player characters.
Halflings are known as hobbits and have Infravision.
Character generation has the standard six attributes plus Size and Build, which determine carrying capacity. The number of dice rolled for each attribute depends on race, with some races only allowed to roll 2d6 for certain attributes while others get 4d6 for certain attributes.
Characters have a randomly generated background through use of a "heraldry" table.
Armor class is ascending.
Includes critical hit charts as a default in combat.
Muskets are available as a weapon.
There are rules for spell modifications.
Turning undead uses a clunky formula instead of a chart.

If i was to write a new "old-school" fantasy rpg

I'd call it like this.

I really love the name of this ultra-obscure fantasy rpg from 1981.
The only thing i know about it is that it was not a complex, convoluted one (the kind that i like), that's why i'm not interested to buy the copy on ebay (which is likely to be one of the few in existance).

"Swords, Sorcerers and Sirens" sounds to me like the perfect name for a fantasy rpg. It conveys almost everything i think of whenever i find myself thinking about fantasy in general. But 300 dollars is too much now, alas.

"Swords, Sorcerers and Sirens" is composed of:

Wraparound cardstock cover
one folded green cardstock landscape map
two folded blue cardstock dungeon maps
customer order card
one 8.5 x 14 folded rule sheet (races, professions, monsters and spells, and game mechanics) 
There are sections, like paragraphs, for races, professions, monsters, spells, and game mechanics. It's very basic. A character advances by capturing enemies, which grants the character a magic item. 

Maybe my favourite illustrator

has been this woman, called "Anna Re" about whom i know nothing about.

I don't even recall how this magazine came into my hands, nonetheless i found it again recently, so i thought that scanning it was a good idea.

Ironhedge (1987) by Empire Wargames

Thanks to David from There's dungeons down under who first introduced me to this game i had never heard about, and who kindly provided the link for the actual download of it.

DOWNLOAD HERE

The Complete Warlock - Balboa games (1978)

LINK1

LINK2

LINK3

LINK4

A remedy for the AD&D malady

I'm not dead.
After almost three weeks of silence, i come back to this blog. It's good to have a pause, you see everything differently after a pause.

What is the greatest benefit for the future generations of players, the greatest benefit that may come from us- so called grognards?

It would be to give them the chance to choose, the chance to examine and EXPERIENCE every fantasy rpg ever published. But that is impossible to achieve today, sure there are some of them which are constantly popping up- i recently heard about the re-release of Wizards'world (which i offered on this very blog some months ago), and then maybe Heroes by Millard is going to be republished again, so something it's moving.
But there is still too much to do.

My blog is, among the other things, a little and humble effort to shed light on some of these forgotten rpg's.

Recently i wrote i was going to write about the ten most "spellbinding" fantasy rpg ever, and i didn't forget about that.

Will we ever get free from the Dungeons & Dragons malady? I don't think so, but even so there must be people around to counter that, and talking about the other fantasy rpg's which are lying in the dark will suffice, because the aim the goal here is not the impossible (and futile) one, that is: to try to destroy AD&D.

 Why? I hold it in great esteem, it is a beautiful fantasy rpg, the only problem is that it overshadows not just one, but MANY fantasy rpg which in several respects are more beautiful ( i say agan, more "spellbinding, enchanting") than AD&D.

And again, i find myself thinking about the future generations. What i would like to see accomplished?

I would like to see a community on the web dedicated to each fantasy rpg of the past, giving the chance to the guy of the future to download all the books pertaining to that rpg for free. Much as it already happens with the Powers & Perils website.

In that case i would cease writing.

A remedy for the D&D malady can be achieved, at least partially. More to come.

Role-playing games' official timeline

The line that matters most to me is the "Complex fantasy system" line.
I am obsessed with complex fantasy rpg's, otherwise- i obviously would not be playing Powers  & Perils.

According to the timeline, no complex fantasy system existed before 1977.

If you want to abandon blogspot

This is a good alternative, at least they don't ask you your mobile number in order to open a blog...

http://mesmerizedbythesiren.blog.fc2.com/

maybe i'll migrate there someday, once and for all. Who knows

FC2 blogs: check them out.

If we were immortals, no one would pray and go to church

From which it logically follows that almost no-one goes to church and prays just to thank God for being in existence, but rather he/she goes there in order to beg Him to be preserved in existence.

In our Powers & Perils campaign priest/clerics don't exist, i didn't allow them.
Honestly, there is no such class in the core rules,but Mr. Snider later thought he made a mistake and in a subsequent article appeared in Heroes magazine he introduced the possibility of playing the priest class.

To tell the whole story, in P&P there could be thieves (assassin), it's a skill you can pick (in theory) but i don't allow it as well. In fact, even Richard Snider later realized it was too potent a "class".

But absolutely no priests in my game, for the simple reasons that they just can't have the powers ascribed to them. How many priests in our world see their prayers heard and answered in terms of powers granted to them? Only a few saints happened to have similar powers bestowed on them. In this respect, only Ed Simbalist wrote words of wisdom about the priest class in the past.

To sum it up, in P&P you could theoretically play a priest, a thief, a generic adventurer (let's call it a "would-be warrior"), and a magician. Only for magicians there actually are dedicated chapters in Powers & Perils boxed set, but as i said earlier playing such a character is difficult. Magicians in P&P could lose their own lives when they cast spells.

Which old school game you want to see reprinted

I just finished reading the post at Grognardia and apart from being pleasantly surprised in stumbling upon this:

"I'm going to to out on a limb and say Powers & Perils. I started gaming with wargames, so I was able to decipher the presentation of P&P, and to me it was very evocative. I think the designer had a clear vision, but he didn't convey it well, and in places, didn't execute it well. With some retroclone rework, though, that could be an awesome system."

which made me think how great would be a P&P reprint for the new generations-
it seems that a lot of guys out there want to see this back.

I admit i never played it, i just made a cursory reading, since i own the boxed set scanned in PDF. But i noticed something cool in it, can't say what it was but it was there among the pages. Maybe i'll post something about that in the future, as- moreover- i realized that it's one of the few boxed set i still miss in their original format.

Adventures in fantasy (new video, this time fixed)

Powers & Perils: really as bad as they say?

People who stumble on this blog might think that, since i planned to write about the ten "most spellbinding" fantasy rpg in the history of the hobby, i will surely put "Powers & Perils" in the first place for the very reason that i have talked a lot about it recently.

Well, this is not the case. That is not automatic. I hold in high esteem P&P, but even if i wrote hundreds of posts about it that does not necessarily means i will put it in the first place.

One of the virtues i think i have is that of being able to shift perspective, and this applies heavily on rpg's as well, this capacity enabled me in the years past to be able to evaluate and TASTE many different fantasy rpg's of the past - add to this that i personally dislike fixation on just one game, that's why i have always condemned and despised the multitude of guys around me who just couldn't move their eyes from AD&D to point them anywhere else.

Grognardia recently wrote here about the different old school traditions. Nothing truer than that.

Some days ago i noticed that on Amazon website, in the entry about Powers & Perils there is just one comment and it is a very positive one, even arguing for a reprint of the game:

One of the Best RPGs out there, ever...should even be brought back into print

There have been many games that I've seen come and go. Fantasy games. Science Fiction games. You name it, someone's put it out. P&P is one of the best games out there, above the multitudes of games that you see on the market today (most of which, sigh, combine themselves with the D20 system instead of striking out at new territories). If you want a rich, detailed, and well-developed setting and rule work, then you need to pick this game up now. It is hard to find. It is an old game. But it is worth every penny to buy it. I've worn out several of my box sets myself due to heavy use of the rulebooks (which, sadly, are paper bound ... which is the only negative thing about this game). The rules are modular, you can put in or take out what you want, you the GM and you the players are in control. Most of the time, you'll end up using D100 style rolls. The magic system is grandiose and spectacular. And if you can find it, the Perilous Lands setting is one of the wealthiest settings alive. Get this game and have a blast. Flush the D20 systems down the toilet.

Also, i recently found an interesting (and long) thread about the worthiness of Powers & Perils on RPG.NET forum, here. Check it out.

Enough for today.

One of the most complex fantasy rpg ever?

This is the last comment, left 4 months ago, on Grognardia's retrospective on Powers & Perils:

I've played a lot of role-playing games in my life. Like many others, I teethed on AD&D. I took a gamble on Powers and Perils and was glad I did. It is'nt a game that you can merely flick through. You have to read it and then play it. The game is complex tis true, but for good reason... It has a versitile system where generating a character makes it nigh impossible to come up with identical characters, an extremely diverse and solid magic system and a game where the players can feel their character developing as they play.

James wrote that Powers & Perils feels far more sterile, as if it were an exercise in "Ivory Tower" game design divorced from actual play.

I picked my copy of Heroic worlds, and looking for P&P entry we read:

POWERS & PERILS
Exceedingly complex fantasy system,with skill-based character abilities and a spell point magic system. There are five rulebooks: [...]

So everyone here seems to consider Powers & Perils terrifying complex, but that is not true in my opinion. I think many persons out there lack a virtue called patience, first of all. Secondly, a lot of players crave for immediate entertaining, of the kind a game like D&D can bestow.
I would like to make posts in the future where i create characters (also magicians), and i 'd like to talk about combat and other things as well.

Also, i found this today.

But how wrong is James' review of Powers & Perils whenever i read it: surely no one would feel the urge to try this game if he based his opinions solely on what James wrote in that (quite brief) post. It's virtually impossible to list all the subtle details of this game in a few pages, how could he do it in a couple of sentences?

I am articularly struck by phrases such as these:
...it's a poorly organized and unnecessarily complex design given that it contains so little that's genuinely new or imaginative.

(so little that is genuinely new or imaginative?) The combat alone is aeons far ahead that found in AD&D, just to make an example...

another phrase:

..There's very little to recommend it over almost any other significant fantasy RPG of its era (or before), because it brings almost nothing unique to the table.

again, what? almost nothing unique to the table? Are you cognizant of the immense list of unique attributes not to be found in other fantasy games, or the magic system, or the skill system (i love it so much), or the experience system which is a work of genius?

Powers & Perils is not so complex as they say, there are tons of tables that Richard Snider put in those books to help the reader find the appropriate values immediately.
I think i will explain P&P a little bit to the masses in the future.

Adventures in fantasy (by Dave Arneson and Richard Snider, 1979)

I should be in love with this game, considering that it was written by Dave Arneson (which i always deemed superior to Gygax) and Richard Snider (another hero of mine, creator of Powers & Perils) together!

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9185
http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=blackmoo

I have an original boxed set copy, but i was wondering- how many old-school players out there are aware that this game is floating on the WWW in pdf form?

(if you want to know more of this game, go here).

Behold a group of Powers & Perils fantasy rpg nowadays!

Here we are. The only photos on the WWW of a real group of human beings playing Powers & Perils in 2012!

Yes, the game is not dead, and we are in good company.
Long live Richard Snider's wisdom and his legacy! There are two players missing in these photos, maybe i'll add them later.

Rig is engrossed in the character creation process (in order to choose skills, he has to take into account starting level, NEL -new expertise level-, and maximum skill level. For a couple of minutes he was perplexed :))

James, for the first time dealing with P&P skills.

Please do not disturb Rig now. He is deeply thinking.

James is perusing the optional P&P skills (as published in Heroes magazine). Is he going to choose the eroticist skill? Possibly so.

Your humble Game master

Thoughts about old-school fantasy rpg's and P&P

I received this long comment by Phineas Cromwell divided in two parts, as a reply to this post of mine.

I thought the best thing is to publish it in its entirety as a separate post, because i deem it quite interesting. It deal about Powers & Perils, complex old-school fantasy rpg's, Gygax, Arneson, Richard Snider. Check it out.
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PART ONE: Powers And Perils, like ALL fantasy roleplaying gaming systems, is directly rooted in the breakthrough development represented by Dungeons And Dragons. The essence of this evolutionary development is basically twofold: the breathing of literal character-life into its precursor form, i.e., the strategic wargame venue, and the enhancement (to potentially infinite degree) of a narrative dimension. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson (and a few others) are forever memorialized for bringing this evolution to us, and that is as it should be. Now what is fascinating about the history of FRPGs is how, virtually immediately, a sort of friendly 'revisionist rebuttal' began against D&D. When D&D first came out (the '0th' edition), gaming groups were wondering how to handle an ever-expanding potential of new ideas; they needed to develop, in other words, their own mechanics for dealing with the newer aspects and concepts they wanted to add to the game. It was out of this 'tinkering, tweaking and tuning' that eventually gave birth to entire gaming systems. Because we are taliking about Powers And Perils, we are talking about the 'Complex Tangent Line' of FRPG history, as opposed to any 'rules-lite' orientations. The complex line often gets bashed by those of the lite and moderate orientations, mainly because of preferential reasons rooted in the subjective. I happen to be an ardent supporter of the complex 'school-of-thought'. Personally, I appreciate and am fascinated by so-called 'crunchy' systems; I feel they add to the 'art & the craft' in their own way. Chivalry And Sorcery and RuneQuest are two of the first entries in this historical line of development, with C&S being more on the crunchy end and RQ sort of straddling the fence between complex and moderate. As for P&P, its development occured somewhat later in this early era, but its roots tie in directly with those responsible for D&D. P&P's author, Richard Snider, was an extremely enthusiastic player (Arneson's words) in Dave Arneson's developing Blackmoor campaign world (the so-called "First Fantasy Campaign"). Arneson split from Gygax and TSR over creative differences concerning the direction of D&D. Simply put, Arneson had ideas to advance the game in a more sophisticated direction, e.g., lifting it above its 'character-as-gamepiece' feel (something 4E, by the way, has devolved into more than ever). Gygax, in retrospect, suffered from a myopic limited vision concerning the game that was mired down in the traits of D&D's grand-daddy, strategic wargaming. He was resistant to players modifying the rules, because he had a 'tournment rulings' mentality at the time, and felt that he had worked long and hard on the mechanics to finesse them into (his conception of ) playability and game balance. As for myself, despite the fact that I always respected Gygax for his critical part in the creation of something that I loved, I still held his limited views against him (in a friendly kind of way, that is). HOWEVER: this all changed in the early 90s when he came out with a game called Mythus. As I leafed through the corebook of this new game, I experienced an amazing revelation. To sum it up, Gygax had EVOLVED beyond his former self, and had assumed a more advanced, sophisticated orientation regarding FRPG systems, and what i held in my hand was essentially Gygax's version of ... POWERS AND PERILS.

PART TWO: Now, at that point, I had already been deeply acquainted with P&P for quite a few years; it was a game that represented my personal 'philosophy' or 'school-of-thought' as I sometimes like to call it. When I was reading Mythus (which is a masterpiece), I was seeing the same ESSENTIAL principles that P&P was built upon. For me, that is significant, and speaks of the importance of P&P as a system. P&P barely had a published lifespan to be evolved in an 'official' capacity. No extensive playtesting from an official staff publishing their corrections and modifications. No sourcebooks. There was some support, but it was dictated by the era, and budget, and was almost entirely from Snider. But what was ther was very significant, for it was a very strong base, a foundation, that was unusually sound. The core of the systems, the rationale behind them, just make sense. P&P provides a great FOUNDATION to develop on. The whole long-winded point I am trying to make here is basically one of Coming Full Circle. Richard Snider's vision was kind of ahead of its time, I think (back in the early 80s). He and Arneson shared a certain kind of spirit in gaming; Gygax, for the time being, had won out. But Gygax changed after his personal debacle with the TSR experience, and his change was oriented toward what is represented by Powers And Perils. P&P is similar to Chivalry And Sorcery: they are two truly great games that got bad press because the 'majority' were intimidated by their complexity. These kinds of systems, simply put, are not for everyone. But for those they are made for (the 'art & the craft' types), their greatness and importance are understood and cherished. Actually, it is a mark of honor that they get bashed because of this preferential disavowal; but it can be unfortunate when the very existence of the game does not come to the attention of those who would deeply appreciate it.

Powers & Perils RPG by Avalon Hill (a video)

the video stops abruptly at the end of minute one until 1.45
and from 3.0 to 3.49, so you have to skipe those parts, sorry. i don't know why that happened, i recorded it with the youtube feature "my webcam" so it's not my mistake.