![]() Magic-Users can obtain spells by stealing or copying them from other Magic-Users. Essentially, if you had three spell slots and you prepared Sleep, Sleep, Magic Missile, you'd be able to cast Sleep twice and Magic Missile once, as opposed to modern D&D where you just prepare Sleep and Magic Missile and then you can cast Sleep, Sleep, Sleep, or Sleep, Magic Missile, Magic Missile, or whatever other combination of the two you want. ![]() For those who started playing D&D in 4e or later, this may not be a familiar concept, but for most of D&D's lifetime, spellcasting operated on the premise that each spell slot could hold a single spell- "preparing" or "memorizing" spells was like loading a gun, and once the spell was cast you would not be able to cast it again. if anybody wants to add to my list or make corrections based on things revealed later in the series, feel free to do so!)īoth have the "fire-and-forget" system. I'd love to read the other books in the series, but they're very hard to get a hold of i've checked every local bookstore and can't find them anywhere. (a caveat- I've only read The Dying Earth. I haven't actually bothered doing that (there are too many D&D editions and derivatives to be able to come up with a universal " real Vancian magic" adaptation that would fit all of them), but in case anyone is interested in, I'll enumerate the similarities and differences between D&D's Vancian magic system and Vance's actual magic system here: ![]() That being said, reading the original made me wonder about the viability of a more "faithfully" adaptation of the magic system for gaming. I don't begrudge the original D&D designers their right to put their own personal touches on the system, and D&D's magic system functions admirably (if a bit bizarrely to people not already familiar with it). Second: it's interesting in what ways D&D's Vancian magic, even from its earliest days, has diverged from Vance's original vision.ĭon't get me wrong- that's not a bad thing. Some of the dialogue is a bit overblown, and it subtly but noticeably reflects the gender norms of its time, but it's also wonderfully atmospheric, chock-full of awesome ideas and settings, and excellent stuff to chew on when thinking up ideas for games. So I finally got around to reading The Dying Earth by Jack Vance (which, for those not in the know, is the first book in the seminal weird-fantasy series that inspired a lot of D&D, chiefly its magic system, which to this day is called "Vancian" because of that), and I was struck by several things.įirst: it's really goddamn good.
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