Magic & Sorcery Archives : Page 2 of 3 : Untold Realms

Ceremonial Magic in The Fantasy Trip – Part II

This is the second part of a two part series on ceremonial magic. (If you have not read Part I of this article, please do). Now that we have the foundation for ceremonial magic in The Fantasy Trip, we can put it all together. Part II of this series does just that.

Common Daily Non-Combat Spells

One of things that has been on my mind as I flesh out my own campaign world is how magic is used in the daily world. Those questions led me down the road to look for non-combat spells that could be used outside of the adventure, for just daily life.

Mind Control Spells for TFT

Some of the cornerstone enchantments in fantasy tales are those of enchanting other people's minds, making them do things they do not want to do. Dark spells. Evil spells. The Fantasy Trip has a number of mind control spells to do this, but here are a few more...

Some Interplay Spells

A very nice friend sent me a PDF of the old Metagaming magazine, Interplay. I had always meant to go dig those up or find them on the interwebs, and this inspired me to go find the rest. I did not get a chance to read them back in the day, which is a shame--they are fun reads. One of my goals was to republish info from them--and here you go...

Fire Magic

Fire magic is a very popular kind of magic in fantasy RPGs, and it is a personal favorite of mine. When I first started playing The Fantasy Trip, I wanted the fire spells like Fireball to go into combat. As I have grown "older" I have come to appreciate many more subtleties to the art of fire magic.

Converting Spells from GURPS to TFT

One of the fun things about getting into The Fantasy Trip again is fleshing out the spell list from the wealth of resources available today. Admittedly the spell list in Advanced Wizard was more of a starting point for wizards, not a complete end-all listing. Spells need to be "borrowed" from sources... And here is some help converting spells from GURPS to TFT.

More Interplay Spells

Even though the Metagaming house organ Interplay only lasted for 8 issues, there was some pretty neat stuff in there. That includes spells provided by the writers and by readers. Here are some more of them...

Ceremonial Magic in The Fantasy Trip – Part I

This is the first part of a two part series on ceremonial magic. One of the things that always intrigued me about The Fantasy Trip was the ability of groups of wizards to work together to cast big spells. The canon rules only covered creating magic items, but the possibilities were so much more. Here is my attempt at proving ways to take group-based spell casting to the next level.

Familiars in The Fantasy Trip

Familiars are an interesting thing in The Fantasy Trip. They get mentioned, but nothing is said about how to get them or defines their game play effects. Well, here are some suggestions on how to use them in TFT.

Talents, Spells and IQ Levels in The Fantasy Trip

One of the common problems debated in the community is that of IQ levels in The Fantasy Trip. The tie between the number of spells and talents and that of character IQ often leads to super-genius characters--characters that are supposed to be well, dumb.

Magical Styles in The Fantasy Trip

In a previous article, I wrote about some suggestions for fighting styles in The Fantasy Trip. As with fighting styles, there can also be magical styles as well. Magical styles can cover a wide range of game effects, but I want to suggest a use similar to that of fighting styles: something to add color and background flavor, treated much like a talent.

Sorcery is More than You Think

Sorcery! Ever since I read the Master of the Five Magics in high school, I fell in love with the idea that magic had different aspects and properties. If you look at the real history of magic, plus what else has been written in the modern era, you can really see this in practice. Sorcery is one aspect of magic that is particularly useful.