Blehhhhhhhhhhhh.
Took four more bags to the used book store, but got almost two bags back. On the one hand, I am starting to scrape the bottom of things they want, but on the other hand, I think the new buyer both rejected more and paid less for what they did take compared to what the regular buyer would have done. Not sure if I should bring these books back when the regular buyer returns, or just store them with the rest to dispose of in some other fashion.
Started reading The Horror From the Hills (Frank Belknap Long) while waiting for my books to be processed, because it’s allegedly an important Cthulhu Mythos work, but it was so horrifying racist I did not want to spend even a couple of bucks on it.
Also shopped for groceries and read Katalepsis and got sweaty and stupid.
Watched (anime): Delicious in Dungeon 22-23: Senshi’s backstory, at long last! Also mushroom transformation shenanigans.
Read (manga): When the Villainess Seduces the Main Heroine vol 2 (Kasai Fujii): Our loving couple continue to be absolutely mad for each other, and also meet a couple of other beautiful women who incidentally have beef with them. Still ridiculous.
Read (novel): Dungeon Spiteful (Melissa McShane): LitRPG from the perspective of a local companion of the isekai’d Earthling, who at least also has her own stuff going on with getting a class that everyone thinks is useless. She figures out its utility in just a few chapters, which makes me think the people of this world are not that bright overall. First book of a series but I doubt I care.
Written (game design): 404:
So magic, what does it even? Or rather, since we’ve established
that there is no distinction between magic and non-magic, what does
an adept get in exchange for falling out of sync with the universe,
or abrading their soul, or whatever? It’s definitely how they can
slice a giant tree in half with a single sword stroke, or absorb
the impact of any fall by rolling once, or walk on new-fallen snow
without leaving footprints, or any of that stuff. What about wizards
(spell-casters? magicians? sorcerers?)? We don’t need them to throw
death rays or fireballs, at least not primarily, since we have guns
and bombs and aren’t even measuring a character’s worth by whether
they can meet the damage-per-round quota. (At least, I hope we’re
not, but perhaps that’s wishful thinking.)
Even setting aside damage-dealing spells, most D&D spells are for
casting in combat, taking just a single eye of newt and a few seconds
of abracadabra and lasting for seconds or minutes (maybe hours if
we go back to 3E). Some buffs, mostly to combat power; lots of
debuffs likewise; reshaping the battlefield (durations mostly too
short to be useful otherwise); healing both HP and statuses;
transportation; and utility spells to get rid of obstacles (locked
doors, darkness, uncooperative NPCs, etc). How much of this noncombat
stuff we want available to PCs affects all the earlier blather about
resource limits: when a wizard can duplicate the effects of any normal
tool with magic, allocating inventory slots to tools is less
interesting.
Are we starting with already too many assumptions? Do we want wizards
who cast discrete spells, each with a specific effect? Or ones that
have more free-form control over an element? Summon creatures to
do things? Nothing but telekinesis? Only enchanting objects, nothing
on the fly? Do we want them to do it with a quick abracadabra or
harsh look, or full magic circles with candles and lunar phases?
Digressing because there are too many options for wizards and I
can’t pick one or even a finite number: is “adepts” a good name for
people who can spend MP? It reminds me of Earthdawn, which uses it
pretty much exactly that way, so could be either good or bad.
“Magic-users” is taken, alas. “Initiates” since being initiated
into a magical society is the socially-acceptable way of becoming
one?