Why I like Sorcery and Magic-as-Powers in general

Why I like Sorcery and Magic-as-Powers in general

GURPS, being a generic and modular system, gives us a lot of options, and magic is not an exception. It's safe to say that the main three magic systems are Magic-as-Skills, Magic-as-Powers, and Ritual Path Magic and its derivatives. I've used them all, either separately or combined in my games. Eventually, I dropped RPM first, then Magic-as-Skills too, keeping only Magic-as-Powers. Why? I'll try to explain why I like it so much.

I love GURPS Magic for its extensive grimoire of spells, be they combat-oriented or just simple spells that can be used in the everyday life of a wizard. I think that these everyday spells create a lot of flavor and are a very nice touch in general. D&D, being a mostly combat-oriented game, clumps most of them under prestidigitation, but GURPS is generic, so it goes into much more detail. However, if you play with GURPS Magic, a.k.a. Magic-as-Skills, you will soon notice that the wizard is paying significantly fewer points for things that should cost more, according to the advantage system. Why does this secondary system even exist, when you can build identical effects with advantages? Many people say that powers/advantages cost too much, but I believe that the problem is that magic-as-skills does not cost as much as it should've. Sure, a wizard built via advantages/powers will seem weaker, and he probably will actually be weaker, but that's absolutely okay. I will not explain why, but will link Mailanka's post on this topic that describes my exact point of view. He is much better with words than I am.

Many people claim that Sorcery/Magic-as-Powers is inflexible in a sense that you only have a small set of fixed abilities to use because you have no points to get more. While somewhat true, when compared to such flexible systems as Ritual Magic or Ritual Path Magic, this problem is circumvented via improvisation (for Sorcery) or hardcore improvisation (for Sorcery; but it is just an application of Using Abilities at Default from GURPS Powers). If speaking of flexibility as of the ability to create your own spells and effects (like in RPM), then things become very subjective. In my opinion, unlimited flexibility sucks out the creativity and fun out of the game. Again, I will link another Mailanka's post on this topic that goes into detail and represents my opinion very well (although, that's not all my gripes with RPM). And again, he's better with words than I am. I will just add that I do believe that unrestricted Sorcery is not a good idea - giving it a scope limitaiton and/or other limitations seems better. And it does feel better in practice, in my experience.

I've also seen a lot of people think that if you use Sorcery, you have to use it exactly as written. But what I like about powers and Sorcery is their high customizability. By applying modifiers and optional rules (there's a lot of them in GURPS Powers) you can create the exact flavor you're looking for. And since everything is based on advantages, things will be more balanced internally than if using different systems. What is the mechanical difference between the wizard and the sorcerer in D&D? Are their mechanical differences related to their difference in flavor? Yes, but not very much. With magic-as-powers, you dictate how spells are used, learned, and how flexible they are, and such things can form spellcasting traditions ("classes") in your game world. In my games I use "spellcasting classes" from D&D and Pathfinder. While they all are based on the same magic-as-powers/sorcery chassis, they all feel quite different from each other because of the imposed limitations and special rules. For example, take a look at what Rindis did to Sorcery to accomplish the old-school D&D feel.

I think that's the end of my rant.