Designing Sorcery Spells vs. Designing Psionic Powers

Designing Sorcery Spells vs. Designing Psionic Powers

Both Sorcery and Psionic Powers are worked frameworks of magic-as-powers. This means that the basic building blocks are the same - you have advantages and modifiers. You might think that designing spells and psionic abilities is almost identical then, but my experience tells me that it really is not. In this short, rambly post, I'm going to explain the differences that I have encountered.

Designing Sorcery Spells

On one hand, spell design is easy - magic is a power with a very broad scope, and almost any ability can be made into a spell. However, there are some things that you have to keep in mind. First, the spell must be generic. The term "generic" here has two meanings.

The first one is "in-universe generic" - the spell must be something that you could imagine being written in almost any spellbook, something any sorcerer could cast. Fireball is fine, but a Burning Attack with Area Effect that has Accessibility, Only vs. death knights that serve Sandro the Lich King, -80% is not. When you create a spell, you should think "Would anyone ever invent such a spell in the setting?" If the answer is "no," then you have to make something else. (This is one of the reasons I advise GMs to create a grimoire of spells available in the game and limit the players only to those spells. The book itself says that this "genericness" must be enforced, but many simply overlook this statement.)

The second one is "mechanically generic." Sorcery assumes that each spell takes one second to cast and costs 1 FP. The book says that this is done to decrease bookkeeping, and this is true - this does decrease bookkeeping. This also serves another purpose - you create a "base" spell that can be modified in whichever way you see fit for any magical tradition of your game world. Some spells in their "base" form might be suboptimal in terms of character point cost - in that case, why not modify it? Casting time and casting cost are one of the simplest limitations that can make a spell affordable. Costly material components are both effective at bringing down the cost and enhancing the flavor. You don't have to strictly follow the 1 FP/1 second rule all the time, this is mostly a rule for writers and readers, so that all spells have the same casting parameters to avoid confusion. Don't be afraid to limit spells with longer casting times, higher FP costs, or additional requirements - this is a great way to personalize a spellcasting tradition.

When designing sorcery spells, you can also design situational utility spells (or, what people usually call them, "useless spells"). I've seen complaints about such spells many times. "Why would one ever waste 15 points to learn No-Smell? This is dumb." But here's the thing - you don't have to. When playing a sorcerer, you never learn such spells, you cast them via hardcore improvisation. You still have to design a generic spell that can be improvised, so don't get mad at the writers. The existence of these utility spells makes grimoires big - sorcerers have many more spells to choose from than psis.

Designing Psionic Powers

I found that designing psionic powers is a much more difficult process that requires much more brainpower. However, the process is also more fun and satisfying. Here, you have to consider the following things:

    1. How does this ability interact with other abilities of the power? Should it even be a separate ability? If you noticed, some abilities in GURPS Psionic Powers have the same psionic skill not only because they use the same base advantage, but also because they aren't really much different. Sometimes, it might be more appropriate to make one ability a technique of another ability instead of making a new one.

    2. What is going to be the base ability? This is often a headscratcher. With the power technique framework in mind, you really have to think what should be the base ability and how it is used without any techniques. Sometimes, you might want to "nerf" a certain enhancement by turning it into a technique, and sometimes it might be appropriate to give the base ability a drawback that can only be mitigated with a technique.

    You should also keep in mind that most psionic abilities come in levels. Think about what drawbacks  should be bought off with levels, and what drawbacks should be bought off with techniques. This is important - while a sorcerer usually improves his capabilities by expanding the spell repertoire, a psi usually improves the abilities he already has. If I had to make an analogy, I would say that a sorcerer might have a car at the start and then buy new cars, while a psi might want to buy several skateboards, then improve them to bicycles, then to motorcycles, and then to cars. A sorcerer gets a fully-functional final product, while a psi has a product that is still functional, but is not in its final form yet.

    3. Would you ever take this ability as a player? Psis cannot improvise abilities! (Unless they can, in some games using abilities at default for psis may be appropriate.) An ability should be fun, affordable, and shouldn't be too situational. Certain situational uses could be made into techniques or even perks. All "unfun" abilities belong to the "Additional [power name] Abilities" section. You do not have to make them mechanically generic, as with Sorcery spells, so feel free to impose as many flavorful limitations as needed to have the ability become affordable (but still usable!).

    4. Does it fit the flavor? (But Eggplant, GURPS has no fl-) For example, check out the Weapon Afire ability. Does it feel pyrokinetic to you? To me, it does not; I included it only because the D&D pyrokineticist has it. This is basically the Flaming Weapon spell, and as a spell it feels okay. Say what you want, but GURPS psionics has flavor. This makes "populating" the ability roster of a psionic power significantly more difficult. I could come up (and did) with many more fire spells, but I could not come up with any more pyrokinetic abilities.