[3.P] Freeform Magic

[Psyren]

@ffone:

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I didn't say MP was high bookkeeping, I said it was error prone

This is anecdotal at best.

Also, it should be noted that discussing MP by itself is very different from MP + building blocks, and this thread is sort of blurring between these issues.

Your statement ("Vancian is easier to keep track of than the MP popular in CRPGs/JRPGs") does not mention building blocks at all. If you meant "it's less complicated than MP + building blocks" then you should say so. (I still disagree, but less so than I do with a comparison to MP alone.)

Apples to apples has got to be one of the most overused phrases this year. When I was speaking about spont casters, I made it clear I was speaking about spont casters like the sorcerer VS an MP system, not that they were the same, in fact I made a comparative point about the 3 at one point. I brought up Sorcerer type casting, but it's relevant to the discussion.

Sorcerers are partially Vancian at best and thus not representative of your argument. A sorcerer that thinks he only needs one Invisibility in a given day can still cast more than that (provided he has the necessary unused 2nd level+ slots.) A wizard is either hosed, or must employ inefficient tricks to regain the used slot/cast it via another means. "Vancian casting" means needing to predict not just which spells you need for your adventures, but how many of each you need daily.

In some ways it's more complicated, since you have 3 things to keep track of:

1. Class spell list
2. Today's spells
3. Today's remaining slots

How is that different from Vancian?

It's uninteresting to compare bookkeeping without a notion of

1. Balance
2. Time a typical player spends making their decision during real-time play

#1 has no relation to bookkeeping. #2 does, but even folks who are bad at math go everywhere with a calculator these days. (i.e. their cellphone.) And the math is no harder than tallying up modifiers or netting bonuses/penalties like any player would have to do.

No need to erase and rewrite what you converted it to, just cross out what you originally prepared and converted.

...And then erase and rewrite it next morning, just like you would with anything else you crossed out during the previous "day's" adventure. SP casters do not have to do this, or at the very least do it less (for the prepared ones, who don't need to record a given instance of a spell more than once.)

Non sequitor. I didn't say MP/PP were error prone b/c people weren't already familiar with the concept.

If that's not the reason for being error-prone with it, then what could it be? Unfamiliarity is the only hurdle I can see.