So, a few years ago I got to write a few lines on the DCC Dying Earth RPG. Now, I have to be honest: Dying Earth isn’t really my bag. It’s roots and history and important to know for me, both as a general gamer and game designer - but it’s not something I return to again and again for my own enjoyment. That aside, the biggest contribution Dying Earth made to D&D is the magic system. We literally call it Vancian Magic.
But in the Dying Earth novels, you don’t so much memorize a spell as cram it forceably into your brain. Moreover, it reads like the spell itself wants to get out. There’s a semi-sentient element to it. And you know what? That’s freakin’ cool and D&D does nothing with it.
So, what if you took your boring old magic-user and actually did something with it? Magic is often described in fiction and gaming as a kind of living energy, so what if we take that literally? What if magic spells are semi-sentient. You read the scroll and the text wiggles, shifts, or whispers to you in your head. Once you’ve got that damn spell crammed in your head, it wants to get out. It wants to be cast.
So now you’ve got this magic-user who literally hears whispers in their head, feelings in their heart, and twitches in their body that are the magic trying to get out. What does it do to a magic-user’s mind if the spell doesn’t get out? Do they go insane? Does the spell eventually consume them (they explode as the target of their own Fireball, a la spontaneous combustion or you drown on the Darkness that oozes out of your brain through your ears and mouth.) That’s creepy, evocative, and super cool.
I’m gonna have to do something with that in a future White Box supplement, I think.
and....different strains of tobacco dampen the intrusive effects of different types of spells. it's why wizards studying different schools of magic always smell different. seems like a very easy way to explain why wizards smoke pipes all the time...