So as I get very near with the new version of the rules, here’s another thing I am wrestling with – Common Rune Magic.
Now my original intent of creating Common Rune Magic was to encourage people to make more use of the “meta-spells” like Extension, Multispell, etc., and give everyone access to the generic spells like Divination, Heal Wound, Sanctify, Spirit Block, etc. My thought was these spells are useful but not exciting, so give people access to them for free and they won’t have to choose between an interesting spell like Path Watch and a useful spell like Extension.
And for some people that was definitely the case – especially with those groups that understood how useful they were (primarily groups with one or more experienced RQ players).
But here’s the price – for new players, Common Rune Spells was an info dump. That’s a dozen abilities to try to keep track of. Few players seemed to even be aware of their existence unless reminded by experienced players – and relatively few new game groups really go over them. The initial three Rune spells were easy for players to track, along with the three or four initial spirit magic spells. That seemed a manageable number of starting special abilities. But adding a dozen to that seemed to be too high a burden.
Meanwhile in play testing, I noticed that if players had to acquire such spells in play, they remembered them and made them part of their character. They used them more often because they were aware of the spell and they made the choice to acquire it.
So what do you all think? Should we keep. Common Rune Spells as the default, or just start with three Rune Spells? Now although I am interested in your thoughts, remember this is not a democracy – I’m curious about folk’s feedback, but I’ll write what I write.
