From: lro@melb.bull.oz.au (Liam Routt)
Subject: Elric! and the Books
In-reply-to: V1.7 Comments on the Elric! Preview
System: Elric!

First of all, I should admit that I have only read one Elric related book, "Stormbringer," and that I cannot remember it clearly enough to make any statements about the genre. On the other hand, I talk regularly with the editor for Stormbringer/Elric! and some of the prime writers (in particular Richard Watts, who did a lot of work on Sorcerers of Pan Tang and other recent books).

Despite Ken St. Andre's sterling work on Stormbringer, I get the impression that the game really missed a lot of the world of Elric. Those involved with writing material for the game have commented that a lot of the material presented in the rules simply does not gel with any kind of close reading of the books. I know that they have approached the writing of the new rules with the aim of starting from the books to a much greater extent. They have looked at the current rules and their relation to the literature, and have attempted to improve on it.

I guess it is important to indicate here that as far as I am aware, the aim for the new Elric! rules was not to create a RQ-like game with the same setting, but to create a better reflection of the Elric world...

Here are some details on magic from a draft of the Elric! rules:

The first thing that I noticed is that there is a minimum POW 16 requirement for people to be able to use magic. From the way it is written, that seems to indicate that with less than POW 16 one cannot cast any magic at all... Given the chracter generation (which is based on 2D6+6 rolls), that would mean that a large number of characters would not be able to use any magic at all.

In the background section, each suggested occupation has been described with a set of three possibly appropriate spells (the third one of which seems to almost always be "another spell chosen as a personal speciality"). They point out, however, that magic is seen as a tie to the reign of the Melniboneans, and as such is a chaotic taint that repulses much of society. You gain a Chaos point for each spell you take in your background, and you should justify it. It seems pretty clear that spells are not required, or even intended for use by most characters.

Back to the Magic section. There are four types of magic described, and hints that there could easily be other types of magic (for example "to the East") that have not been detailed. The four types are: spells, summonings, invocations and enchantments.

Spells are related to those times when minor magics are required that do not call upon the powers of a greater being. There is a definite similarity between them and the Battle Magic of RuneQuest. However they do have a better set of atmospheric descriptions and uses, it seems (Buzzard Eyes, Flames of Kakatal, Liken Shape, Rat Vision, are some examples of names that are more interesting than Disruption, Healing and Shield).

Summonings are powerful things, it would seem. The rules state that such activities should be significant and potentially dangerous - the rules are provided precisely so that people can play out the whole process and by so doing enhance the flavour of the game. Preparing, defining the demon, negotiating, binding, dismissing, rebinding, the needs of demons, some breeds, abilities, elementals, beast lords, and discussions of True Names and the like are all included. I do not know to what extent these things differ from the Stormbringer rules, but on a preliminary reading they seem to do a good job of describing the whole process in a way that would be both playable and atmospheric. This is not a minor part of the rules.

Invocations do not get as much space as the prior two types of magic (at least not in this draft). The rules are described very much through their relation to the stories; the times when Elric used invocations rather than summoning are described, and the limits of such invocations are indicated in an imprecise, andecdotal way. While this does provide a handy framework, I expect that the final rules will contain more system related details (like the POW cost and chances of success). Still, in a relatively small space they have succeeded, for me, in making invocations seem different and interesting. They are like spells in that they are minor, and do not call upon a creature to manifest itself, however their abilities are more tied to the being invoked, and there is a direct link or tie that is established to the being. That can be dangerous...

Enchantments are given even less space in this draft. Basically, things can have powerful magics placed into them, freeing the user from the knowledge of the magic. They indicate that enchanted items should be one-of-a-kind things with special abilities. This differs from the mass-production rules for enchanting that many games have ("Let's put another 2 points of armour and a fireblade in this..."), but does move the burden onto the GameMaster or scenario writer. There is also a section of rumored items that are not described in the draft, but probably will be in the final manuscript (although the items might be simply described in general, rather than with system details).

Well, that's all that I can glean, with a cursory glance, from the magic rules as described in this draft. I stress again that this information is all from a draft, and has been (mis)interpreted by me. I do not purport to know what I am talking about, or the intentions of the designers here. But, if you have any other questions I can certainly try to find the answers (or ask someone who would know)...

Just a final note. Even in draft form I am impressed by the game that they are trying to create. From what I read of the Stormbringer rules, the Elric rules are set to be a lot more closely tied to the stories and to a certain sort of "mature" roleplaying. There is less of a feel of cheap mechanics in the draft than I might have expected. Maybe that is a function of the fairly terse presentation, or maybe it is an indication of the overall feel of the game. They do not cop-out by simply providing a heap of background and no system, but I think that they avoid making they system a cheap excuse for not following the tone of the books... But maybe I'm just talking through the purple side of my brain!

Liam Routt
Darcsyde Productions