Thoughts about Mentalism
Well, how many of you think that the Mentalism Wave Magic is hard to get a grip on? Let me ensure you, you are not alone.
I understand Mentalism better than anyone of you. But to be frank, it’s hard to make a good explanation or description of how it really works. When I try to think in the terms I’ve learned by my dreams a Mentalist should think, it gets fuzzy.
I’ve been writing on a document on how to conceptualize and create Mentalist spells. And guess what… it’s too complicated to make it into a system. Mentalism works in my mind, and I know it can work in reality too. The snag is that it gets to complicated to be acceptable. It’s like inventing your own laws of physics just for one aspect of another aspect. Too damn hard, and too damn complicated for anyone to really get involved to.
So what is the solution to this?
Well… I’ve been thinking and I’ve got two options. One; I simplify things a lot. But in the same process I have to decrease the freedom of Mentalism, even more. And two; I change the principles of Wave Magic and make a completely new system.
Both are possible, and both have their ups and downs. The up side with alternative One is that you can make a lot of spells and suddenly it becomes like a mixture of Elementarism and Animism. This though will decrease the possibility for own ideas and improvisation with the magic.
Alternative Two is very attractive too; this will make it possible to experiment more, and to make your spells more concrete in your mind. The downside is that the whole conceptual idea of the workings of Mentalism will be gone. You’ll need to relearn it and start over with new base spells, and everything.
I’m not sure what to do in this case. I could do either, but I’m very tempted to actually ignore both and instead remove the whole element of creating your own spells with Mentalism until a decision has been made and the system is ready for use again. This would mean right now that Daniel and Thaethilis will never be able to create his own spells but only request a spell which I create for him and just give him an cost which he’ll need to spend AP on to gain the spell.
Well, everyone have a say in this, even though Daniel’s opinion weighs more since he’s the one that right now will be most affected by it.
Well, honestly I have been quite consumed to get a hang of animism which I think is “difficult” in other ways than mentalism.
But from what ive heard and such it seems like the hardest thing have been to actually get the transition from base to combo spells in a good way.
Well I think the biggest problem is the one you mention, that it simply gets abit too complicated.
Well, I think option two would be better in the long term since to me it seems like option one is more the..”easy/lazy” option.
Well I have thoughts about other things regarding to magic but this was a mentalism post mostly so.. I rather have you make a new post or talk about it sometime =).
I’m not sure about easy/lazy, but it sure would make it easier to get the concept of mentalism and rulewise it would make it possible to make your own spells and make a system of improvement.
It’s on its way.
I’m a bit torn on this matter, on the one hand, according to my ‘normal’ preferences you should be able to create and use your own ideas. On the other hand though, as you said things are very complicated and that in itself feels limiting.
How would this decrease the ability to improvise? Improvisation feels pretty much nonexistent at the moment anyway, I’ve got my combo spells and that’s pretty much it in my mind. The base spells are never used by themselves and rather feel like a marker of knowledge on the formula.
Also, why would it make ideas of my own unuseable? (Or less useable?) It would be preferable to me to just discuss the spell conceptually and work it out between us rather than having to mess with the hard to grasp concepts of mentalism in any direct way.
On the basic level (without the reservations you made) of simplifying vs a complete overhaul I prefer the former. However it all depends; if I come up with a cool idea I would like to be able to use it obviously.
All that said, I don’t mind alternative two at all. It just seems more apropriate to use all the stuff you’ve already created (the workings of mentalism) and simply making it easier in a technical sense. I like the mystique and complexity surrounding the ‘school’, but I really see no reason for that to reflect in practical gameplay (rulewise).
Improvise in this aspect I mean like making taking a spell and enhance it or doing something completely different with it than it was supposed to do.
Say you have this Lift Person spell. Improvisation of that spell and use it other that it was specifically made to do, will be harder if I use the first alternative.
Well, I mean that you will have less influence over things this way. It will be more like you ask for something or something else. And things that isn’t in the “lists” or “system” will just be plain and simple “impossible”.
Right now I must say that Alternative Two is very, very appealing since it will make things a lot more manageable and it will create a funnier system which is less limited than alternative one.
Alternative one practically means I’ll have to list things and everything not on the list, will not be possible for any normal person to do. In short, you cannot create completely new spells with this.
Then I do not want option one, impossible is not a pleasant word to have hanging around too much. Especially not coming from ‘ingenting är omöjligt’ Oskar.
Additionally I really don’t want the spells to get even more rigid, if anything I would like more flexibility in spell functionality 😛
Well, to do this I must make a new system, or rarefy even the possibility to make spells for Mentalists.
Thus making the whole “make-your-own-spellset” useless for you.
Well as I previously stated I prefer to discuss spells on a conceptual level anyway, this is possible, yes?
It is, but it will be very inefficient and slow. And hard to make an actual rule-based and game-based system on.
*Sigh* Why must it be bad? I don’t get it….
I can see how it’d be hard to make a system for it, but what’s wrong with arbitrarily (at least for the time being) deciding how stuff will or should work?
In the end, I will accept what you give me but it feels like you are trying to discourage me to create my own spells.
Taethilis having (unique) spells of his own is a very appealing way to create individuality.
I cannot decide anything. I can give you spells, based on a discussion, as I mentioned as a third alternative but not really an alternative, but as I said, it will be slower than a new system to create spells.
I think you misunderstand me. The whole point of this post is that it’s TOO hard for you to make your spells on your own. This is the actual problem.
Indeed.
Let’s discuss this later, I think that we might both be misunderstanding eachother.
Indeed.