Abracadabra
For those dozen people or so who don’t know Doctor Faustus, it’s a play by one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Christopher Marlowe. It is short and a treat to read, so if you haven’t read it, you’d be better off reading it instead of this column. Of course, you can do both. There are two versions, and I’ll give you the shorter (and possibly more authentic) at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/779.
OK, you’re back? You may wonder what a 16th century play based off a German legend has to do with a bunch of friends sitting around a table rolling dice? Well, these days, not much. But think of the opportunities.
Go forward Faustus, in that famous art
Wherein all nature’s treasure is contained.
Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky,
Lord and commander of these elements!
Traditional d20 has characters killing monsters to raise their level, which means raising their skills and ability to cast more spells. Most RPGs do this, either through XP or character points. But what if Gygax took a page from Elizabethan literature instead of war games? Raise levels by selling your soul. Sounds like a Dark Dungeons piece? Just wait.
Some players like power, and it can be easy to tempt them with a simple task. GURPS and other point-based systems encourage this – get 10 points to spend for spells, and take a 10 point disadvantage. But if you tempt players long enough, especially if you start off with small, possibly neutral issues. In Nomine has a whole devilish type that does this – tempt people with greater and greater things, and punishing people that don’t agree. AD&D tried to work this in by making crazy quests for material components, but that’s assuming the spells themselves are public knowledge. But the material components are either vicious monsters or gems you can purchase at the local bazaar. But what if the material component is the blood of a virgin? Six quarts, from the same person. Yes, you can wait several days, or you can get it quickly all at once. Force the players to go the slow and steady or quick and powerful. Of course, this all depends on the type of players. Some people won’t blink twice before doing a murderous deed. And as GM, you can cackle and make the pay at the end.
Or, you can make them suffer in-game. For each spell, they lose one strength and one constitution and one charisma. Make their body show the sacrifice they make.
Of course, you can go whole hog on this idea. The only type of magic is demonic magic. This makes identifying the evil person in the group quite easy. It also sets up the David versus Goliath battle that people tell stories about. Then again, while David can win, your safe money is on Goliath; you need some way to even the odds, or at least make the game more exciting than Bambi vs. Godzilla. Perhaps true faith or purity can offer some type of spell resistance. Or, the player characters are your world’s versions of Merlin Ambrosius, the son of the devil who turns good.
When I behold the heavens, then I repent
And curse thee, wicked Mephostophilis,
Because thou has deprived me of those joys.
There’s also the technical aspects. And I get to play the old guy in the rocking chair. Back in my day, I played a game called The Arcanum by Bard Games. Copyright 1984. The game is a D&D knockoff, but they tried to get closer to “real” mythology and alternative races. But, one of the things they did right was their occultism chapter. A few things they did right: 1. The Inscriptions. Summoning beasts wasn’t a spur of the moment spell. You had to take a long time creating summoning circles. A good GM could build the feeling that summoning was dangerous and mysterious. Magical. 2. Offerings. These aren’t simple material components. You could pledge yourself to service to whatever you summon, sacrifice people or items, or threaten the summoned creature with harm or imprisonment. Basically, your technique wasn’t just rolling dice, but an extension of your character. 3. The True Name. Arcanum resurrected the idea of the True Name, the secret name that can be used to bind spirits. Finding the true name could be an adventure in itself. 4. Results. If the circle wasn’t drawn successfully, then the caster had a problem. If the offering didn’t please the summoned, then further negotiations need to continue.
In short, the magic wasn’t a mechanical way to achieve a goal. It was an adventure in itself. You could build a campaign out of some of these spells. You could create Faust.
How am I glutted with conceit of this!
Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please?
Resolve me of all ambiguities?
Perform what desperate enterprise I will?
There’s another facet to this. Faust goes from, in RPG terms, a 0-level student (and what other level is there) to at least Level 17 (minimum to cast wish). He gets this power, and what does he do? Most PCs would ask to raise a level (can’t do), raise stats (can do, only +1 per wish), or get extra gold (can do, up to 25,000gp). Faust starts out this way, but his wishes become more and more banal. While a lot of the action is offstage, the moaning and groaning that Faust goes through at the end suggests that whatever he did with Helen, it wasn’t worth it. He didn’t get his money worth.
Finally, there’s all the amount of tales that come from Faust. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_which_retell_or_strongly_allude_to_the_Faust_tale. Or you can play the other side – I had a GURPS exiled demon with a skill of 24 in Law (specialty in Contract Law) who had a side business in reviewing contracts for her business associates. And, as stated before, In Nomine makes a regular career of dealing with good and evil. You can’t get much more powerful and epic than fire and brimstone.
So, what’s more powerful than demons? Gods! Next month is the column for clerics and paladins.
Spell Name: Detect Loophole Components: V, S, M Casting time: 10 minutes per rule Duration: 5 hours Range: 1 rule / caster level Description: This spell allows the spellcaster to increase any one action by +5 or -5, finding any and all loopholes in the rules to alter reality. Material component: five splatbooks.
