At 10:24 2001-10-24 -0400, David Rouse wrote: >On Monday, October 22, 2001, at 04:31 AM, Artovil wrote: > >>Especially for magic use, does any company have the copyright for the >>spell >>circle/spell book/reagent system used in various games such as Ultima >>and >>others? Or can I safely use a similar system as long as I write my own >>code >>and mechanics? > >Speaking specifically on the magic system, D&D's own system was >more-or-less taken from Jack Vance's "The Dying Earth" stories. Older >D&D books even mention this and give other references, I wonder if they >still do? As long as you use more-or-less Vancian mechanics for spell >casting, I don't think anyone can say you are taking from TSR -- oops -- >WOC. That's what I was thinking. I will just make something up and try to stay in the middle somewhere so as not to step on anybody's toes. >There should be ways to implement the Vancian mechanics that don't end >up looking like the D&D system. You could have difficulty ratings to >memorize each spell and set a maximum number of of total ratings that >could be memorized based on level -- that would allow a wizard to >memorize more lower difficulty spells or fewer high difficulty spells, >an idea that appears in his stories. This is an excellent idea! I think I will try to do something like this when I am finished with my skill tree. I have planned to make a spell system that uses memorization and reagents, and possibly some kind of personal spellbooks that can be used to write customized "spontaneous magic" or rituals in. >Personally, I think a magic system that used some kind of Earthseaian >mechanics would be interesting -- although difficult to pull off in a >mud. Would you like to define "Earthseaian mechanics?" Kind regards, Torgny -- +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | FAQ: http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~fletchra/Circle/list-faq.html | | Archives: http://post.queensu.ca/listserv/wwwarch/circle.html | +---------------------------------------------------------------+
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