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Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 07:39:10 +1300
Subject: Re: Shell of Silence
From: flamis@pop.ihug.co.nz (Jacqui Smith)
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>While it may be true that music is ordered sound, there is no need to
>assume that magic based purely on sound is appropriate to the Bardic
>college. That is a non-sequitur. 

I think the argument was more that the vast majority of sound-based magics
could be phrased in terms which were purely musical. It's just a matter of
semantics. 
 
>I dislike it, and the idea of 'sound' magic, because the effects owe more
>to science and technology than they do to magic and mysticism. Magic often
>becomes a technology with a different flavour, and we often seem to end up
>creating a kind of magical technology, but there seems to me no
>particularly good reason to make technology the basis of your magic. In the
>best of all possible worlds, I prefer magic that looks and behaves in some
>mysterious, arcane fashion, perhaps owing more to chaos than to order, but
>having a more 'artistic' feel to it than technological one.

I suspect that the real source of argument here has to differing styles of
thought, and that as a result of educational background. So sue me, but
I've been taught to think logically and to look for system in the world
around me. Or worlds, as the case may be...

Personally I see DQ magic (and indeed the magic of most FRPGs) as far too
codified for the approach you suggest. It cannot be especially mysterious
or arcane when at the same time it must be consistent enough to be played
not just in a single GM's game, but across a multi-GM campaign. 

>I don't know who wrote this, and I don't know who suggested this plan to
>the writer, but it has to be one of the most poorly thought out plans I've
>ever come across. Surely, if you don't like something, you vote against it.
>If you do like it, you vote for it. What possible purpose would be served
>by voting for something you dislike, because you believe it will fail
>later? This cunning plan is far too cunning for me, I'm afraid.

I agree entirely...

>I would rather see the college gone utterly, however, than have a college
>whose magic is really technological effects dresses in the words 'magical
>spell'. By and large, a spell may be described in many different ways and
>yet maintain almost exactly the same characterisitics as other spells of
>it's ilk...bolt spells, for example. It is in large part the description of
>the effect that determines the flavour of such a micro-rule. If little
>effort is made to describe the spell in terms more resonant of the
>wondrousness of magic, then there is little to engage the attention. One is
>forced to deal only with the gross results of such magic.

What you suggest is true of almost the entire DQ magic system - and of
Bardic less than most Colleges. The Mind and Celestial Colleges, in
particular, are rife with technological references. I'm almost inclined to
think that it's part of the "flavour" of DQ. 

>This is something that could be said of any magical design, it's true. The
>Bardic college suffers markedly from what I believe to be poor craft in the
>actual description of the effects. Some spells were hideously tough, and
>that was probably more of an oversight than any other reason. Some of the
>magic that was trashed was very good, albeit powerful, like 'The Sound of
>Trumpets', and I don't know why they went.

You had the opportunity to comment at the workshop stage, which is where
spell descriptions can most easily be thrashed out.
 
>The distinction between Echosense and The Sound of Trumpets is that
>Echosense is just a weird sense that would have a marginal right to exist
>in a fantasy campaign, whereas The Sound of Trumpets has associations which
>give it some greater right to our acceptance as magic. We can point to the
>story of Joshua at the Battle of Jericho and say this is appropriate to a
>fantasy setting. 
>You could argue that the Bard was generating intensely powerful subsonic
>sound waves at just the right pitch and volume that they cause structures
>to collapse, but that would be a technological rationalisation. Or, you
>could say that walking x number of times around a building playing a
>trumpet conjured otherworldy forces that twisted the fabric of reality and
>shattered stone...Ultimately, the latter rationalisation does not seek to
>explain the actual mechanics of the effect. But who cares. The important
>thing is that if 'feels' like magic, and we understand what it's effect is.
>Which brings me back to sound and music. Magic does not need any other
>rationalisation other than it be resonant with the idea behind the college.
>Music is resonant of what bard's might be said to do...But everyone can
>make a lot of noise.

Maybe different things "feel like magic" to different people.

Jacqui




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