The Vancian Wizard in DCC RPG

I chance to read this excellent post over on The Evil GM, today. Given my proclivity for all things DCC RPG, it drove me to reflect on the magical mechanics of that particular system. It seems to me that magic in DCC RPG, while still "Vancian" in flavor, has been altered sufficiently to ameliorate some of the problems associated with that sort of system. Here are a few of the "fixes" I've noticed:

The Dice, The Dice, Oh, Lord, the Dice!

I must begin with the most important difference: The role (roll?) of chance in the DCC RPG magic system. Those already familiar with my work know that I love dice and the chaos they bring to this game, for good or for ill. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the magic system.

Scaled Randomization of Spell Results

First of all, unlike D&D and its various clones, casting a spell doesn't succeed automatically. And, even if it does succeed, saving throws are still possible. DCC RPG creates the possibility of spell failure through the Spell Check mechanic. Here, the wizard rolls a d20, modified by Intelligence and by Caster Level. At the lower levels, the caster must achieve a "12" result on the die roll for a bare success. Higher results, as I'll discuss presently, mean better (more powerful) outcomes. At higher levels, the caster must achieve higher results for the bare success (18 for 5th level spells). This sort of scaling of the randomized results makes it easier for high level wizards to succeed with lower level spells, but preserves the difficulty logically following from the idea that it is a higher level spell.

Every Wizard is (potentially) a Nuke

Even more interesting, even a low-level wizard is capable of amazing successes. For example, a first level wizard could, with an 18 Intelligence, achieve a result of up to 24 on a spell check roll. Let's look at Magic Missile.

With a "12" result (bare minimum success) he or she would get the following result:

The caster throws a single missile that does 1 point of damage. He must have line of sight to the target. The missile never misses, though it may be blocked by certain magic (e.g., magic shield).

With a "24" result (maximum without Spellburn or Luck Burn), he or she would get this:

The caster throws a single powerful missile that does damage equal to 4d12 + caster level. The missile must be aimed at a single target to which the caster has line of sight, at a maximum range of 1,000’. The missile never misses, though it may be blocked by certain magic (e.g., magic shield). (Both results, DCC RPG Core Rules, p.145)

That's a pretty kick-ass result, comparatively, and some of the ones in between are pretty amazing as well.

So, any wizard, from 1st level to 10th, has the potential to demonstrate amazing arcane abilities. He or she also can augment those abilities with sacrifices of various sorts.

Spellburn and Luck Burn

Sometimes, sacrifices must be made to ensure (to the extent possible) success. In DCC RPG, the character can do this by two mechanics: Spellburn and Luck Burn. Spellburn allows the wizard to sacrifice Strength, Agility, and/or Stamina to increase his or her casting roll. Those losses are real, though temporary. The lost abilities can be healed at a rate of one point per day of rest. In the mean time, any rolls relying on those abilities would be at an adjusted modifier for the ability in question. For example, a wizard who burns 3 points of Stamina might go from 10 to 7. The new modifier would be a minus-1. The result would make his or her Fortitude Save somewhat less likely. So, the Spellburn mechanic allows wizards to burn vital essence to achieve supreme results, but at a cost.

Depending on what happens later, early use of Spellburn might turn out to be a very, very bad idea. The wizard may find him or herself handicapped significantly in a save-or-die situation. On the other hand, Spellburn might be the thing that turns the tide when things start to go to shit. This, I must say, is one of the best things that this approach makes happen: The noble sacrifice of the wizard can turn a can't-miss TPK into a resounding victory for the party. The wizards Formerly Ian and Jerkal the Blazin' (RIP) have provided good examples of that, in the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad campaign.

Also, a natural "1" roll (a fumble) while using Spellburn, has additional consequences:

Any magic-user who rolls a natural 1 on a spell check while using spellburn suffers the loss of ability points and the associated corruption (see below), and also loses 1 point of ability score permanently (DCC RPG Core Rules, p. 108).

Luck Burn, on the other hand, is something that any character class can use. It is, simply, sacrificing points of Luck (permanently, in most cases) to add to a Casting Roll. Luck gets used in a lot of ways, though different judges may have their own eccentricities in this regard. I, for example, have taken to using Luck to determine who will be attacked first, when there is such a determination to be made. Luck also may be used to see if characters notice things, or whether they find more or less treasure, or whether their mounts will bolt or stand their ground when startled. There are lots of reasons to need high Luck, not the least of which is the Recover the Body mechanic:

If a character reaches a dead ally’s body within one hour, the dead character may make a Luck check when his body is rolled over. On a successful check, the dead character was badly injured but is not permanently killed, and the ally is able to keep him alive. The “dead” character was simply knocked out, stunned, or otherwise incapacitated. (DCC RPG Core Rules, p. 93) 

With a low Luck score, the chances of surviving a Recover the Body check decrease. Low Luck can mean you are Dead, Dead, Dead, pal. Tear up that character sheet, buddy. Better luck with your wizardry next time, champ.

Spell Failure and Spell Loss

When the casting roll doesn't succeed, there are a couple of different things that can happen. The first is simple failure. The spell didn't have an effect. On top of this, the caster will usually lose the use of that spell. This is about the same thing that happens in the "traditional" Vancian spell casting. You use it, you lose it. In DCC RPG, however, the caster may Spellburn to keep a spell that has been lost via a failed casting roll. "If a wizard expends a lost spell’s level in ability score points, he can cast the spell as if he still had it. For example, a wizard could burn 2 points of ability scores to cast a level 2 spell he had lost for the day" (DCC RPG Core Rules, p. 108). Spellburn, though, as I've already suggested, has its own associated problems.

Misfires and Corruption

One of the things I love to see as a DCC RPG judge, is a natural "1" result on a Casting Roll. This means that something fun is probably going to happen. If it does, the wizard (and his or her party) may find themselves, as the bard said, totally fucked.

The wizard in question must make a roll to determine what happens on a natural "1" result. A misfire is an unintended effect. On a Sleep spell, for example, the misfire might result in the wizard (or entire party!) being put into a magical slumber. A Magic Missile might result in untargeted creatures (including the wizard) getting hit by the spell.

Misfires are fun. Misfires can be hilarious. I love, love, love misfires. Then again, I rarely play wizards.

Corruption is another matter entirely. Corruption is when the spell has the unintended effect of altering the wizard. It also, sometimes, could end up altering others in the area of effect of the corruption. In a word, if you mess around with magic, Son, don't be surprised if you get bit. By a viciously toothed maw. The maw that just appeared on your forehead. Look at the little children run away from the hideous freak wizard. Look at the villagers with their torches and pitchforks. And, Lo! Is that a hangin' tree? Is that a rope? Run, wizard, run!

Corruption is also fun. Yay, corruption!

Supernatural Patrons

Finally, wizards have access to supernatural patrons, and these patrons also can grant the wizard new spells (and new corruption results--i.e., "patron taint"). This unnatural congress will (of course) cost the wizard. One doesn't traffic with Angels, Daemons, and Beings Between without an associated risk that it will cost, and maybe cost more than one can bear.

The wizard will rack up obligations to his or her patron(s). The wizard be corrupted into the patron's image. The wizard may, ultimately, become puppet to the patron, with all that implies. These are not nice people. They want just (or even unjust) recompense. They will have it, whether or not the wizard can bear it.

Wizards, of course, are not the only spell casters in the game. Elves function pretty much as wizards do. Clerics, though, have another system entirely. They don't have spell misfires or corruption. They accrue Deity Disapproval. Such disapproval may obligate the cleric (as to a patron) to accomplish particular goals for the deity. It may strip the cleric of particular powers, or make it more difficult to access them.

I will not, at this time, go into the disapproval mechanic for clerics. It's beyond the scope of the current post.

Conclusion

DCC RPG's magic system, while ostensibly Vancian, takes "Vancian" to mean something different than D&D did with its magic system. In fact, one could argue that the DCC RPG magic system is far more explicitly Vancian than the D&D counterpart. Overall, I think it's my favorite system of the two. I embrace the risks and rewards. I like the way that supernatural patrons are incorporated. I appreciate the corruption rules that change the wizard in manner and/or appearance. These features, among others, make the DCC RPG "Vancian" magic system a close approximation of what is suggested by the Vancian literature.

Zappadan, Day 6: The Black Page and Vancian Magic in DCC

I wanted to delve a bit further into the nature of magic in Dungeon Crawl Classics, and of music as a metaphor for Vancian magic. But first, to get a sense of how I imagine this, assume (as I've suggested before) that doing magic is made possible by finding language complex enough to encompass it, yet simple enough that a mere mortal is able to comprehend it. I've also suggested that music is one such language, as is mathematics, though musical notation perhaps really is just a special case of mathematical notation.

In music, complexity is wrought through pacing, density, distances between one note and the next, and so forth. Now, I'm not a musician, at least not one worth the title, nor a music theorist. I can't read music. I didn't go to band camp. I really don't know HOW music works, I just know that it DOES work. It amazes me (being easily distractible) that someone could play a complex piece of music flawlessly, every single time it's played. How is that even possible? My brain just can't do it.

One particularly amazing composition from Frank Zappa's oeuvre is The Black Page (parts 1&2). It is an incredibly complex piece, born out of the idea of unconquerable complexity.

Part 1

This is just the drum part, mind you. When put together with a variety of other instruments, it becomes almost incomprehensibly complex, and each part must be precisely synchronized with all of the others, or it dissolves into pure chaos.

Part 2

Still, this is only scratching the surface of the theoretical complexity of Vancian magic, the underpinning of the magic system in DCC. It explains why Vance's descriptions of mage's abilities were in terms of how many such compositions his or her head could hold at once, and how, once in the mind, they sat heavily, uncomfortably. Given that composers and musicians who work professionally probably know hundreds of songs, and can play them pretty much on command, the idea of a "professional" wizard only being able to hold three or four spells in his or her head speaks to a level of complexity that is truly staggering. It is the equivalent of the wizard playing even something relatively "simple" like this, on all of the instruments at once, solo. One missed note and the spell fails, shocking your mind. One dropped or reversed measure and you're growing a second head out of your ass and a tentacle where your wang used to be. Bad Things happen when you fuck it up.

So, yeah, magic is so incredibly dangerous that it makes juggling canisters of nitroglycerin seem like a child's game in comparison.

Summoning magical energies is arduous, expensive, and dangerous. No wizard does it lightly. As a result, there are no mundane magics, no spells used simply to light a corridor, for example. Use a torch, fool; it is much safer! (DCC Core Rules, p. 106)

Zappadan, Day 5: The Torture Never Stops

I've got no gaming wisdom about this particular piece, except as analogy: A great band leader can teach us things about what it's like to be a wizard.

Zappa wasn't just a musician. He was in large part, especially at the end of his career, one of America's premier band leaders. He was known for having an incredible work ethic, which he expected his band members to have as well.

Here's a description of same from a former bandmate, Arthur Barrow. This guy:

He said:

RehearsalsRehearsals were grueling and wonderful. We rehearsed at least 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for about 6 weeks or so before a tour. Rehearsals usually got started around mid-afternoon, with the Clonemeister [see below] leading for the first half of the day, then Frank would arrive and take over for the remainder of the day. Once I was in the band, Frank instructed me to purchase a cassette recorder and a lot of blank tape to record the rehearsals, which I did. As a result, I own many hours of often interesting Zappa rehearsal recordings.

We usually rehearsed in big Hollywood "sound stages" - gymnasium sized buildings with high enough ceilings to set up the PA and lights. In 1980, however, we did rehearse for a while at the Zappa warehouse building now called Joes' Garage.Though mentally and physically very demanding, it was also among the most rewarding time to be spent in the band.

Rehearsal was where Frank was at his most creative, often writing new material on the spot. He seemed to love to see how far he could push the envelope of what the band could do technically. I improved as a musician in that circumstance far more than I could ever have done no matter how much I might have "woodshedded" on my own. When I was there with Frank and all those other fine players, I didn't want to be the one to mess up, so I worked hard at it. Because Frank was often writing "on the band", this meant that he changed his mind a lot, which can really twist your head up when you are dealing with so much information to process. I would leave rehearsals sometimes feeling like my brain was convulsing inside my scull. But it was all worth it to be able to be part of the process and really get inside the way his musical mind worked. Sometimes, of course, he would come in with written music for us to play which was another great way to see the way his music worked. Sometimes we would learn a few short but complex notated pieces, then insert them into songs he would write later on. Examples of this would be in "Wet T-shirt Nite" and "Jumbo Go Away".

"Wet T-shirt" also contains a small quote from "Mo's Vacation". At the end of my first set of rehearsals in LA, summer of 1978, Frank handed me a bass part titled "Mo's Vacation" and asked me to learn it. He said it was a duet for bass and drums for Vinnie and me to play. I was thrilled - it was the first really challenging part that he had given to me that was something brand new - and it was VERY challenging! (In fact, there are parts of it which I find to be impossible, to tell the truth.) But I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into it.  I remember working on it like mad in my hotel room in Munich during the time we were there rehearsing and filming at the Circus Krona. During a little break at rehearsal one day, I asked Vinnie if he wanted to try to play it together for the first time. He said he had not yet had a chance to look at it, but we went ahead and had a go at it. The amazing Vinnie proceeded to sight read the extremely difficult drum part almost perfectly, while smoking a cigarette and eating sushi at the same time! I was floored - I could not believe he was already playing it better than I was after all my practicing! Later that evening at a club, I was sitting with Frank, and he seemed pretty impressed that I had learned it so quickly. He asked how long it had taken me to learn it - I guessed  about 15 hours. (Of course "Mo's" was not part of the regular show, but once in a while, usually at a double show (2 shows in one night) he would (without warning) turn around and say "Mo's Vacation!", and we would have to try to play it (from memory, of course) after not having done it for a month or so!)

http://home.netcom.com/~bigear/Zappa.html#Rehearsals

So, when we think about FZ, we also have to remember that, despite the silliness of the lyrics, this man wrote some serious music, took it very seriously, and expected everyone else to do so as well. In addition, the notion of the "Clonemeister" is an interesting one. Here's the person who is supposed to be Zappa (at this point, let's just sort of assume that FZ is a wizard in this context) when Zappa is not there. He's the wizard's apprentice:

ClonemeisterThis was Zappa's term for the reheasal director. I guess the term "clone" in the word "Clonemeister" refers to one aspect of the job which was to transcribe from the albums and perfectly teach to the band the songs that Frank wanted to perform. Rehearsals lasted 8 to 10 hours a day, with the Clonemeister runnning things for the first half or so and Frank taking over when he arrived for the second half. I still had to worry about my own bass and vocal parts, but as clonemeister, I had to know everyone else's parts as well. It was a quite a difficult job, especially when I first took over. I had a portable cassette recorder and taped the parts of rehearsal when Frank was there. At night, after rehearsal, I would listen to the tapes and make notes or transciptions of what Frank had come up with that day. The next day I would drill the band on the previous day's changes and additions. Frank changed his mind a lot, so it was hard to keep up with all of that constantly shifting information.

On the first day of rehearsals for the last tour I did, Frank brought in a list of about 200 songs that he wanted us to learn. I knew right away that it would be impossible for us to learn that many songs in the amount of time we had. I also knew from past experience that when Frank called for us to play a tune from the list and it sounded bad, he would often remove it from the list. If the tune in question happened to be one that the band liked and wanted to continue to work on, the band would be begging him to please give a little more time to work on it some more and get it right. I think he used it as a threat to try to motivate the band. Bearing all this in mind, I decided to rehearse the band on only those songs which were my personal favorites, and never bother with my less favorite ones. That way, we ended up with a body of work to perform that were all my favorites! I wonder if he ever knew...  

http://home.netcom.com/~bigear/Zappa.html#Clonemeister

The wizard's apprentice is expected to know everything the wizard wants him to know. He takes charge of the household in the wizard's absence, and spends long, long hours learning the spells the wizard chooses to share with him. Here's a guy who's expected to learn (and to master) 200 or so often complex songs. If we sort of used the bardic interpretation of spells I talked about yesterday, then we're dealing with some pretty high-powered wizardry via mastery of this music.

Think of it this way: When a wizard is casting spells, he stands before the very gods and the pillars of certainty and the fabric of every reality. He is a nexus for all of the forces he brings to bear. To fuck up on such a stage would be Something That Is Noticed. The preparations a wizard goes to in order to avoid such an eventuality are long, difficult, and incredibly tedious, but to go through them makes the wizard someone who stands above other men.

If we think of this in terms of the difference between the common person and a powerful wizard, the power differential is just staggering. This goes for the other classes as well, of course. So, when you look at how few characters actually survive to achieve high levels in DCC, you have to understand how hard it is, and how few are willing to put in the time to master the work, even if they weren't constantly in danger from external sources (i.e., enemies bent on their destruction). Such a person would be something to be reckoned with, make no bones about it. If, on top of this, the person was a wizard... well, you'd just have to remember that a wizard's mind is different. It doesn't work like everyone else's. It can encompass spells that rend and warp reality and allow communion with other powers and planes of existence. They are warped in the process, as well, often in ways that are not readily apparent. This explains why they are, as one wag put it, "subtle and quick to anger." Do not cross a wizard, my friends. You will ever regret it.