Free Magic Movement

[Blue_Lion]

My point is that anyone can be taught to fire a gun, but they won't necessarily be good at it. Then there are all the safety issues that people screw up with enough to cause far more accidental gun deaths than there are murders involving firearms; and that's a tool that doesn't really require belief to use. Magic is in some ways trickier when you think about it from the standpoint of someone in the game world, but to the player it's just a set of rules.

I know the comparison isn't perfect, but they're both potentially lethal tools. Guns much easier to use but taking training courses doesn't make you a competition shooter. however with magic in Rifts, if you know a spell you know a spell. You can't exactly miscast it, which i think something like the Free Magic Movement would create a chance for when dealing with non-trained magic users.

If they are haing accedental deaths they where not taght right to begin with. Accedental deaths from guns happen because they do not know fire arm safty. Good is a relitive term, I can teach almost any one reguardless of skill to hit a target with a gun at least 23 out of 40 shots at a range. It was my job for the army for 2 years. Reguardless of accuracy accedental fire arm deaths are caused by lack of good fire arm safty. If you teach every one fire arm safty and make shure they know they will be held accountable for neglenence the number of accedental gun fatalites goes down. In over 12 years of military servis only 2 casses of accedental discharges happened in companies I served in. Both times there was 0 fatalaties/injuries.

So your stance here is flawed by not knowing the facts about witch you speak. There are hard satistics out there on the effectivness of fire arm safty. Take miltary personal serving in Iraq/Affganastan they have verring levels of profiscency with fire arms and carry them every day. So let me ask you this have more people been killed by murder or fire arm accendents in Iraq/Affganstan?

Infact this is the second time you used blantly wrong facts to try to support your stance.

Earler it was said that plans for nucler weapons where on the internet and that nucler materal was widly avaible. Then why do countries need programs to develop nucler weapons when you are shocked that almost every one has not tried it. OH wait that maybe because somehting is missing in the online plans, or they are just the basic concepts, and not full set of instructions, and nucler materal for weapons is not readly avaible.

[flatline]

First off the words on a scroll do not disapear when read, they disapear when read aload. It whould be easy mater for any literate mage to read the scroll then write down what he just read. That whould not cause the words on the scroll to disapear. So that totaly undermines your belife that the dificulty in learning from a spell is because the words disapear.

Perhaps you should re-read the description of scroll conversion and the description of Create Magic Scroll.

--flatline

[42dragon]

This sounds like a great idea for your game, and will clearly create many plot devices to push the story forward. Nice idea.

Personnaly, I am with the group that thinks this wouldn't really work. Now I am working from memory here at work, so my numbers may be a bit off, but per canon doesn't it take like 8 hrs per spell level of instruction with a teacher to learn a spell (in most situations). Creating opensource spell guides and training even for simple spells is going to be much more indepth than cookbook recepies or youtube instructional videos. Each spell training instruction would most likely have to be double or triple in length to make up for the fact that you don't have an instructor there to answer questions, or make subtle corrections to what you are practicing (think Harry Potter between Hermione and Ron discussing the inflections of "Leviosa", i think it is implied in any Palladium setting that Palladium spells are more than single word spells). That means even a level one spell will probably take a weeks time to make a proper instructional video with decent production values to make learing the spell as near to 98% as possible.

I would also think the flawed and defective spell rules from Through the Glass Darkly would come into play almost everytime you tried to learn a spell this way.

[Killer Cyborg]

I would also think the flawed and defective spell rules from Through the Glass Darkly would come into play almost everytime you tried to learn a spell this way.

THAT is something that I meant to mention earlier, but forgot to.

[Alrik Vas]

Blue lion,.we aren't talking about putting guns in the hands of people who will be trained properly. Free magic is the equivalent of putting guns into the hands of people without professional supervision so they can't get the proper training you reference. Sorry if there was confusion, I did state previously that accidental gun deaths occur from poor safety training, the same would be true of magic.

[Blue_Lion]

First off the words on a scroll do not disapear when read, they disapear when read aload. It whould be easy mater for any literate mage to read the scroll then write down what he just read. That whould not cause the words on the scroll to disapear. So that totaly undermines your belife that the dificulty in learning from a spell is because the words disapear.

Perhaps you should re-read the description of scroll conversion and the description of Create Magic Scroll.

--flatline

Learning a spell from scroll page 191 of RUE only says it disapears when read aloud. There is a clause the spell discription that says it can not be transfered or coppied. So I missed the clause about not beeinig coppied. Sorry about that.

But under learning magic pg 190 RUE it list things such as magic shops, adult or anchent dragons and elder masters of magic(9th lvl or higher.) And that places of magic have schools/colledge that teach spells.

Now let me see if I understand what is beeing said. Highly skilled and or specialst is requrired to help you learn magic. Is that not accuate. A mage has to be 9th level to teach a spell. So no it is not a mater of finding the instructions, but expert tutalage that allows you to learn a spell. So his assumtion that it whould be easy for members of this group to pass on magic knowledge is agaist cannon. The only cannon from any books I can find on learning from written form quickly are from a scroll or the class Wu-shin witch was a expert on such. Now there may be some artifact or special spell books that are difrent. But the fact that a expert on learning from writen form has a low chance and that it requires a 9th level mage to pass on magic tells me that learning spells is damn hard without help. If you have something that says difrent please give book and page.

I rember seeing the ammount of time it takes to learn spells. If I rember right it was on MadmanMikes GM screen, and was listed as taking days. Not shure if that is cannon but think it was accepted as such by PB.

[Cybermancer]

If I were a guild mage the first thing I would do is clutter this method of dissemination of my precious knowledge based power with fake spells or harmful spells or spells that didn't work as advertised (usually to the detriment of the caster).

But that would just be the first step.

Step two would be virus spells that do slow and insidious damage to the caster each time they use that spell formula/recipe. Permanently burn one PPE or SDC or hit point or PE point or IQ point. Each spell would burn something else each time cast and they would always be attached to very attractive spells to use. Heck, attach it to high cost PPE spells so you nail groups of mages. For extra fun, the siphoned points become my points.

Step three would be malware spells that let me know when you cast that spell and where you are when you cast it. And of course who (true name) you are.

Or maybe every time you cast my spell, your alignment and philosophy moves ever so slightly towards views compatible with mine.

And then there's the fun times to be had with making spells addictive.

If you're going to use an internet analogy for data sharing, be sure to include all the possibilities.

[Galroth]

A mage has to be 9th level to teach a spell.

Where is this particular rule at?

[flatline]

A mage has to be 9th level to teach a spell.

Where is this particular rule at?

As I recall, it was added in RUE.

But it should be ignored if only because it's so easily bypassed using Create Magic Scroll.

Let me demonstrate. A 1st level Temporal Wizard with Create Magic Scroll (one of his spell picks) and Dimensional Portal (part of his starting spell list) wants to teach his buddy Dimensional Portal. The rule says he can't teach anyone any spells until he's 9th level, so he and his buddy squat on a Ley Line, create a scroll of Dimensional Portal, and then his buddy attempts to convert the scroll to learn the spell.

Off the top of my head, I seem to remember the scroll conversion success rate being 10% + 2% per level, so if his buddy is also first level, his conversion rate will be 12%. He has roughly a 50% chance of learning the spell using 5 or fewer scrolls and they can keep trying for as long as they have access to the ley line.

--flatline

[Galroth]

A mage has to be 9th level to teach a spell.

Where is this particular rule at?

As I recall, it was added in RUE.

But it should be ignored if only because it's so easily bypassed using Create Magic Scroll.

Let me demonstrate. A 1st level Temporal Wizard with Create Magic Scroll (one of his spell picks) and Dimensional Portal (part of his starting spell list) wants to teach his buddy Dimensional Portal. The rule says he can't teach anyone any spells until he's 9th level, so he and his buddy squat on a Ley Line, create a scroll of Dimensional Portal, and then his buddy attempts to convert the scroll to learn the spell.

Off the top of my head, I seem to remember the scroll conversion success rate being 10% + 2% per level, so if his buddy is also first level, his conversion rate will be 12%. He has roughly a 50% chance of learning the spell using 5 or fewer scrolls and they can keep trying for as long as they have access to the ley line.

--flatline

If it is in the R:UE I cannot find it.

[torjones]

That said any magic society has some sort of magic trading/earning system in place that is half the reason people join them to begin with. But to teach any spell to any one who wants to know it no question asked, with some of the upper level spells is not going to happen. Best case scenario is mages join learn basic low level spells from the group at the groups expense (time is valuable.) then leaves. No one with any real power to share would stay long, just imagine being in a guild and having people constantly come up and ask for you to teach them spell X it gets annoying fast. I feel that magic is to subtle and complex to be taught over the Internet (except for maybe TWs) I can teach you to shoot a gun in 5 seconds but mages have to spend years to learn to cast spells and then it takes more time to learn a new spell from a mentor.

Sorry, but I'm going to skip the big block of ignorant negativity and reply only to the thread stuff. I'll just say that if you want to know the truth, it's out there.

As to the actual point of the thread, I don't see the big problem you've got with it. This isn't Joining a Guild and having someone constantly coming up to you asking you to teach them Firebolt. This is I learned Firebolt, and produced a tutorial on how you can learn it as well. That tutorial will likely contain video, sure. Everything in N.A. is mostly video anyway given that nearly everyone in the coalition states are illiterate. People learn other very complex subjects that way, so I have no difficulty in believing that they could learn spells that way.

Again, a lot of people said that the free software movement would never go anywhere. They didn't believe that anything significant would ever come of it. well, every mac out there currently runs it's operating system based out of the free software movement. Mac OS X is a Linux derivative.

You don't believe that it would ever work. That's fine. In games you run, Free Magic would never work. History however would like to disagree with you.

And the forum comes with spell-check, please use it.

[torjones]

If I were a guild mage the first thing I would do is clutter this method of dissemination of my precious knowledge based power with fake spells or harmful spells or spells that didn't work as advertised (usually to the detriment of the caster).

But that would just be the first step.

Step two would be virus spells that do slow and insidious damage to the caster each time they use that spell formula/recipe. Permanently burn one PPE or SDC or hit point or PE point or IQ point. Each spell would burn something else each time cast and they would always be attached to very attractive spells to use. Heck, attach it to high cost PPE spells so you nail groups of mages. For extra fun, the siphoned points become my points.

Step three would be malware spells that let me know when you cast that spell and where you are when you cast it. And of course who (true name) you are.

Or maybe every time you cast my spell, your alignment and philosophy moves ever so slightly towards views compatible with mine.

And then there's the fun times to be had with making spells addictive.

If you're going to use an internet analogy for data sharing, be sure to include all the possibilities.

And when that sort of behavior happens today, people know to look out for files uploaded by specific users. Those users wind up getting banned from the archives. Some of the better sites, the ones you pay for access to, require a server-side virus scan before hosting the torrent. If you gain a reputation for uploading junk spells that don't work, everyone associated with the Free Magic movement would know about it, and ignore your shares. It's not worth their time to bother with your garbage. Then you start sharing "Virus" spells, well, I don't see it being very effective after the first few victims and those who setup the Free Magic movement move to purge all your data from the archives, de-centralized though they would surely be. Should any one group continue to do deliberate harm to their fellow magic users, I could easily see those in the Free Magic movement getting fed up with it and sending some MERCs or adventurers after the troublemakers. It's what I'd do in game after all, If I didn't go kill the SOBs myself.

[Cybermancer]

If I were a guild mage the first thing I would do is clutter this method of dissemination of my precious knowledge based power with fake spells or harmful spells or spells that didn't work as advertised (usually to the detriment of the caster).

But that would just be the first step.

Step two would be virus spells that do slow and insidious damage to the caster each time they use that spell formula/recipe. Permanently burn one PPE or SDC or hit point or PE point or IQ point. Each spell would burn something else each time cast and they would always be attached to very attractive spells to use. Heck, attach it to high cost PPE spells so you nail groups of mages. For extra fun, the siphoned points become my points.

Step three would be malware spells that let me know when you cast that spell and where you are when you cast it. And of course who (true name) you are.

Or maybe every time you cast my spell, your alignment and philosophy moves ever so slightly towards views compatible with mine.

And then there's the fun times to be had with making spells addictive.

If you're going to use an internet analogy for data sharing, be sure to include all the possibilities.

Lets not forget if it get's to that point you will also have magic security experts that help make sure spells are clean in competing groups each competing to create spells faster and more efficiently. They would be necessarily building of each others work and so the guild mages trying to hamper the progression of this would be reliant on it to outpace the collaborative work of the people there fighting against. Also anything they ad to a spell for malicious intent can be reverse engineered any they have again added to the overall to spell knowledge as a whole. But I like all of these ideas and the back and fourth would work to rapidly advance the state on knowledge about magic.

I'm afraid your view is overly optimistic. The guilds have something to lose in this and will be willing to expend time and resources to prevent that loss. These supposed security experts will either be volunteering their time or else be hired by those supporting the movement (which means the movement can no longer afford to be free or they will fall behind). The economy of effort heavily favors the guilds. Furthermore, the knowledge of magic need not be advanced at all. Existing spells are simply modified based on known and existing magical principles. Nothing new or innovative is created and the result is negative for the user. The only thing that will become refined is how carefully the hostile magic is concealed.

Further, once you introduce experts and screening, it ceases to be open. It can either be wide open and dangerous for the user or limited and filtered. Screening, in addition to taking up far more resources, slows down how quickly it can be made available to the public.

There are plenty of examples of this sort of thing on the net already. One example is torrent downloading. Sure you can get stuff for free but you might also be getting spyware, malware, viruses and so on. It wouldn't be any different on a set up like this.

Not only is there no such thing as a free lunch, once you start cutting into the lunches that other people paid for, things are going to get dirty.

By the way, I'm all for a group from New Lazlo attempting this sort of collaboration. I'm just saying that the result won't be what they expect. Idealism is far too often hijacked by those who are cynical or have their own profits in mind.

[Galroth]

If I were a guild mage the first thing I would do is clutter this method of dissemination of my precious knowledge based power with fake spells or harmful spells or spells that didn't work as advertised (usually to the detriment of the caster).

But that would just be the first step.

Step two would be virus spells that do slow and insidious damage to the caster each time they use that spell formula/recipe. Permanently burn one PPE or SDC or hit point or PE point or IQ point. Each spell would burn something else each time cast and they would always be attached to very attractive spells to use. Heck, attach it to high cost PPE spells so you nail groups of mages. For extra fun, the siphoned points become my points.

Step three would be malware spells that let me know when you cast that spell and where you are when you cast it. And of course who (true name) you are.

Or maybe every time you cast my spell, your alignment and philosophy moves ever so slightly towards views compatible with mine.

And then there's the fun times to be had with making spells addictive.

If you're going to use an internet analogy for data sharing, be sure to include all the possibilities.

Lets not forget if it get's to that point you will also have magic security experts that help make sure spells are clean in competing groups each competing to create spells faster and more efficiently. They would be necessarily building of each others work and so the guild mages trying to hamper the progression of this would be reliant on it to outpace the collaborative work of the people there fighting against. Also anything they ad to a spell for malicious intent can be reverse engineered any they have again added to the overall to spell knowledge as a whole. But I like all of these ideas and the back and fourth would work to rapidly advance the state on knowledge about magic.

I'm afraid your view is overly optimistic. The guilds have something to lose in this and will be willing to expend time and resources to prevent that loss. These supposed security experts will either be volunteering their time or else be hired by those supporting the movement (which means the movement can no longer afford to be free or they will fall behind). The economy of effort heavily favors the guilds. Furthermore, the knowledge of magic need not be advanced at all. Existing spells are simply modified based on known and existing magical principles. Nothing new or innovative is created and the result is negative for the user. The only thing that will become refined is how carefully the hostile magic is concealed.

Further, once you introduce experts and screening, it ceases to be open. It can either be wide open and dangerous for the user or limited and filtered. Screening, in addition to taking up far more resources, slows down how quickly it can be made available to the public.

There are plenty of examples of this sort of thing on the net already. One example is torrent downloading. Sure you can get stuff for free but you might also be getting spyware, malware, viruses and so on. It wouldn't be any different on a set up like this.

Not only is there no such thing as a free lunch, once you start cutting into the lunches that other people paid for, things are going to get dirty.

By the way, I'm all for a group from New Lazlo attempting this sort of collaboration. I'm just saying that the result won't be what they expect. Idealism is far too often hijacked by those who are cynical or have their own profits in mind.

You are overlooking how difficult and dangerous to come up with new spells as is. So unless these guilds have books jammed with spells that slowly kill their casters it will take them much longer to do these sorts of things than you are making it out to be. Let alone who in their right mind is going to try out these spells to see if they really do sap some of your life force or intelligence?

[Nightmask]

If I were a guild mage the first thing I would do is clutter this method of dissemination of my precious knowledge based power with fake spells or harmful spells or spells that didn't work as advertised (usually to the detriment of the caster).

But that would just be the first step.

Step two would be virus spells that do slow and insidious damage to the caster each time they use that spell formula/recipe. Permanently burn one PPE or SDC or hit point or PE point or IQ point. Each spell would burn something else each time cast and they would always be attached to very attractive spells to use. Heck, attach it to high cost PPE spells so you nail groups of mages. For extra fun, the siphoned points become my points.

Step three would be malware spells that let me know when you cast that spell and where you are when you cast it. And of course who (true name) you are.

Or maybe every time you cast my spell, your alignment and philosophy moves ever so slightly towards views compatible with mine.

And then there's the fun times to be had with making spells addictive.

If you're going to use an internet analogy for data sharing, be sure to include all the possibilities.

Lets not forget if it get's to that point you will also have magic security experts that help make sure spells are clean in competing groups each competing to create spells faster and more efficiently. They would be necessarily building of each others work and so the guild mages trying to hamper the progression of this would be reliant on it to outpace the collaborative work of the people there fighting against. Also anything they ad to a spell for malicious intent can be reverse engineered any they have again added to the overall to spell knowledge as a whole. But I like all of these ideas and the back and fourth would work to rapidly advance the state on knowledge about magic.

I'm afraid your view is overly optimistic. The guilds have something to lose in this and will be willing to expend time and resources to prevent that loss. These supposed security experts will either be volunteering their time or else be hired by those supporting the movement (which means the movement can no longer afford to be free or they will fall behind). The economy of effort heavily favors the guilds. Furthermore, the knowledge of magic need not be advanced at all. Existing spells are simply modified based on known and existing magical principles. Nothing new or innovative is created and the result is negative for the user. The only thing that will become refined is how carefully the hostile magic is concealed.

Further, once you introduce experts and screening, it ceases to be open. It can either be wide open and dangerous for the user or limited and filtered. Screening, in addition to taking up far more resources, slows down how quickly it can be made available to the public.

There are plenty of examples of this sort of thing on the net already. One example is torrent downloading. Sure you can get stuff for free but you might also be getting spyware, malware, viruses and so on. It wouldn't be any different on a set up like this.

Not only is there no such thing as a free lunch, once you start cutting into the lunches that other people paid for, things are going to get dirty.

By the way, I'm all for a group from New Lazlo attempting this sort of collaboration. I'm just saying that the result won't be what they expect. Idealism is far too often hijacked by those who are cynical or have their own profits in mind.

You are overlooking how difficult and dangerous to come up with new spells as is. So unless these guilds have books jammed with spells that slowly kill their casters it will take them much longer to do these sorts of things than you are making it out to be. Let alone who in their right mind is going to try out these spells to see if they really do sap some of your life force or intelligence?

So basically the irony that to create such a weapon you'd have to basically destroy yourself in the process and maybe not even survive to be able to disseminate it to harm anyone? Seems unlikely that anyone would create such a weapon or even be able to.

[Cybermancer]

If I were a guild mage the first thing I would do is clutter this method of dissemination of my precious knowledge based power with fake spells or harmful spells or spells that didn't work as advertised (usually to the detriment of the caster).

But that would just be the first step.

Step two would be virus spells that do slow and insidious damage to the caster each time they use that spell formula/recipe. Permanently burn one PPE or SDC or hit point or PE point or IQ point. Each spell would burn something else each time cast and they would always be attached to very attractive spells to use. Heck, attach it to high cost PPE spells so you nail groups of mages. For extra fun, the siphoned points become my points.

Step three would be malware spells that let me know when you cast that spell and where you are when you cast it. And of course who (true name) you are.

Or maybe every time you cast my spell, your alignment and philosophy moves ever so slightly towards views compatible with mine.

And then there's the fun times to be had with making spells addictive.

If you're going to use an internet analogy for data sharing, be sure to include all the possibilities.

Lets not forget if it get's to that point you will also have magic security experts that help make sure spells are clean in competing groups each competing to create spells faster and more efficiently. They would be necessarily building of each others work and so the guild mages trying to hamper the progression of this would be reliant on it to outpace the collaborative work of the people there fighting against. Also anything they ad to a spell for malicious intent can be reverse engineered any they have again added to the overall to spell knowledge as a whole. But I like all of these ideas and the back and fourth would work to rapidly advance the state on knowledge about magic.

I'm afraid your view is overly optimistic. The guilds have something to lose in this and will be willing to expend time and resources to prevent that loss. These supposed security experts will either be volunteering their time or else be hired by those supporting the movement (which means the movement can no longer afford to be free or they will fall behind). The economy of effort heavily favors the guilds. Furthermore, the knowledge of magic need not be advanced at all. Existing spells are simply modified based on known and existing magical principles. Nothing new or innovative is created and the result is negative for the user. The only thing that will become refined is how carefully the hostile magic is concealed.

Further, once you introduce experts and screening, it ceases to be open. It can either be wide open and dangerous for the user or limited and filtered. Screening, in addition to taking up far more resources, slows down how quickly it can be made available to the public.

There are plenty of examples of this sort of thing on the net already. One example is torrent downloading. Sure you can get stuff for free but you might also be getting spyware, malware, viruses and so on. It wouldn't be any different on a set up like this.

Not only is there no such thing as a free lunch, once you start cutting into the lunches that other people paid for, things are going to get dirty.

By the way, I'm all for a group from New Lazlo attempting this sort of collaboration. I'm just saying that the result won't be what they expect. Idealism is far too often hijacked by those who are cynical or have their own profits in mind.

You are overlooking how difficult and dangerous to come up with new spells as is. So unless these guilds have books jammed with spells that slowly kill their casters it will take them much longer to do these sorts of things than you are making it out to be. Let alone who in their right mind is going to try out these spells to see if they really do sap some of your life force or intelligence?

I didn't overlook anything. Making a spell that doesn't work is by its very nature easier than one that works the way it should. And benchmark spells already exist to accomplish what the guilds would want. Familiar link, Summon greater familiar and various scrying spells already exist. Benchmark spells and the modification of existing spells is easier than creating a spell from scratch. And like I said, they have the motivation and resources to proceed. As for testing, they have all these people looking to get free magic to test their spells on. If it doesn't work, they've lost very little and their target has gained nothing. They try again and the next individual looking for a free spell gets to test it for them. And every explosive failure works in the favor of the guilds.

This should also address Nightmasks comment.

[Nightmask]

I didn't overlook anything. Making a spell that doesn't work is by its very nature easier than one that works the way it should. And benchmark spells already exist to accomplish what the guilds would want. Familiar link, Summon greater familiar and various scrying spells already exist. Benchmark spells and the modification of existing spells is easier than creating a spell from scratch. And like I said, they have the motivation and resources to proceed. As for testing, they have all these people looking to get free magic to test their spells on. If it doesn't work, they've lost very little and their target has gained nothing. They try again and the next individual looking for a free spell gets to test it for them. And every explosive failure works in the favor of the guilds.

This should also address Nightmasks comment.

Except you aren't talking a spell that doesn't work you're talking a spell that does work but has a hidden aspect to it that harms the caster with each casting, and to create such a spell you still have to intentionally work on designing it that way and do the research yourself you can't dupe anyone into doing the research for you since they can't be tricked into creating a spell that harms them in such a fashion. So you have to offer up the completed spell to others and they've every opportunity to look the spell over and realize that it's harmful to them in some fashion (provided you survived the research to even offer it up, or had someone willing to do so after you've killed yourself or left yourself too stupid to do anything more).

[Cybermancer]

I didn't overlook anything. Making a spell that doesn't work is by its very nature easier than one that works the way it should. And benchmark spells already exist to accomplish what the guilds would want. Familiar link, Summon greater familiar and various scrying spells already exist. Benchmark spells and the modification of existing spells is easier than creating a spell from scratch. And like I said, they have the motivation and resources to proceed. As for testing, they have all these people looking to get free magic to test their spells on. If it doesn't work, they've lost very little and their target has gained nothing. They try again and the next individual looking for a free spell gets to test it for them. And every explosive failure works in the favor of the guilds.

This should also address Nightmasks comment.

Except you aren't talking a spell that doesn't work you're talking a spell that does work but has a hidden aspect to it that harms the caster with each casting, and to create such a spell you still have to intentionally work on designing it that way and do the research yourself you can't dupe anyone into doing the research for you since they can't be tricked into creating a spell that harms them in such a fashion. So you have to offer up the completed spell to others and they've every opportunity to look the spell over and realize that it's harmful to them in some fashion (provided you survived the research to even offer it up, or had someone willing to do so after you've killed yourself or left yourself too stupid to do anything more).

Go back to my first post in this thread and you'll see that I am also talking about spells that don't work. And like I already said, no need to test the spell yourself. Just put it out there and let others try it. It can be tracked by a variety of means in a place like Rifts. Anything from hackers to see who is downloading what spell to use of scrying magic or psionics.

So no, no risk for researching it, only for trying it. That's how the rules work. The mage can just put the recipe together without ever trying it themselves and then sit back and watch what happens.

In fact this opens up a new possibility of danger for this system as canny mages throw untested magic out there to see what happens.

I wouldn't touch this system of gaining magic anymore than I would risk downloading a torrent. At least malware in a torrent only hurts my computer.

[flatline]

A mage has to be 9th level to teach a spell.

Where is this particular rule at?

As I recall, it was added in RUE.

But it should be ignored if only because it's so easily bypassed using Create Magic Scroll.

Let me demonstrate. A 1st level Temporal Wizard with Create Magic Scroll (one of his spell picks) and Dimensional Portal (part of his starting spell list) wants to teach his buddy Dimensional Portal. The rule says he can't teach anyone any spells until he's 9th level, so he and his buddy squat on a Ley Line, create a scroll of Dimensional Portal, and then his buddy attempts to convert the scroll to learn the spell.

Off the top of my head, I seem to remember the scroll conversion success rate being 10% + 2% per level, so if his buddy is also first level, his conversion rate will be 12%. He has roughly a 50% chance of learning the spell using 5 or fewer scrolls and they can keep trying for as long as they have access to the ley line.

--flatline

If it is in the R:UE I cannot find it.

I just flipped through RUE to where I thought it would be and didn't find it. I think I've seen it recently, but don't remember where. Perhaps someone else can give the source.

Sorry!

--flatline

[torjones]

I'm afraid your view is overly optimistic. The guilds have something to lose in this and will be willing to expend time and resources to prevent that loss. These supposed security experts will either be volunteering their time or else be hired by those supporting the movement (which means the movement can no longer afford to be free or they will fall behind). The economy of effort heavily favors the guilds. Furthermore, the knowledge of magic need not be advanced at all. Existing spells are simply modified based on known and existing magical principles. Nothing new or innovative is created and the result is negative for the user. The only thing that will become refined is how carefully the hostile magic is concealed.

Further, once you introduce experts and screening, it ceases to be open. It can either be wide open and dangerous for the user or limited and filtered. Screening, in addition to taking up far more resources, slows down how quickly it can be made available to the public.

There are plenty of examples of this sort of thing on the net already. One example is torrent downloading. Sure you can get stuff for free but you might also be getting spyware, malware, viruses and so on. It wouldn't be any different on a set up like this.

Not only is there no such thing as a free lunch, once you start cutting into the lunches that other people paid for, things are going to get dirty.

By the way, I'm all for a group from New Lazlo attempting this sort of collaboration. I'm just saying that the result won't be what they expect. Idealism is far too often hijacked by those who are cynical or have their own profits in mind.

I'm sorry but your view still doesn't take reality and history into account.
Allow me to point out how effective the record labels, Book Publishers, and Movie industries are at squashing file sharing through torrent today. Sure, they smack down on one or two groups a year, but that doesn't stop millions of people world wide from downloading the latest songs, movies and books, some of which are out being shared for free days before the official release.

Those selling the Free Magic tutorials, likely to be the black market, aren't going to put up with a bunch of uppity guild mages trying to raid their markets just so that they can crush a bunch of Free Magic hippies. (Don't forget that there really isn't any internet outside of the mega-cities, so the distribution media isn't free) (Still, all they'd be paying for is the distribution media itself. I figure usually 5 credits. That's what it used to cost for a CD-R of whatever you wanted burned to disk and mailed to you.)

[torjones]

Actually that is fundamentally flawed way of thinking. Pointing them at instructions is the same as learning from scrolls low success rate. Learning spells requires tutelage in other words a teacher spending time. To get high success rate you want they would need to spend time teaching. Other wise there would be no magic mentors/schools just ley line walking for dummies. Passing along magic knowledge is only really effective with direct interaction. Taking knowledge from print only allows for misunderstandings that a teacher can fix. Like if I told you the rock says there is only one kind of pie. If you do not get the reference you will misunderstand it. The more abstract a concept the easer the misunderstanding would be, a teacher can test and correct misunderstandings that the text can not.

Cyborg are not most mages that can learn spells by instruction literate unlike the rest of rifts?

I don't see magic being any more complicated than studying Psychology or Medicine or Engineering. These are all very complicated subjects which are typically learned via Video-disk tutorials, as far as I can tell from the books. Psychology is wishy-washy enough that there are no real hard and fast rules, and understanding takes experience. Engineering also takes experience, as do a lot of the other skills in the book. The only time a tutor is required in the books is if you are trying to learn a second OCC.

Ley Line Walkers are not literate by default, but shifters and TWs are.

[torjones]

Just like you shoot your NG-45LP, and assuming you get a 5 or higher, totally hit your target.

Just as a reminder, for ranged combat, the shooter needs an 8 or better. (R:UE p361)

[Blue_Lion]

A mage has to be 9th level to teach a spell.

Where is this particular rule at?

RUE page 190 under heading of learning magic it was listing things that can teach magic.

[Blue_Lion]

A mage has to be 9th level to teach a spell.

Where is this particular rule at?

As I recall, it was added in RUE.

But it should be ignored if only because it's so easily bypassed using Create Magic Scroll.

Let me demonstrate. A 1st level Temporal Wizard with Create Magic Scroll (one of his spell picks) and Dimensional Portal (part of his starting spell list) wants to teach his buddy Dimensional Portal. The rule says he can't teach anyone any spells until he's 9th level, so he and his buddy squat on a Ley Line, create a scroll of Dimensional Portal, and then his buddy attempts to convert the scroll to learn the spell.

Off the top of my head, I seem to remember the scroll conversion success rate being 10% + 2% per level, so if his buddy is also first level, his conversion rate will be 12%. He has roughly a 50% chance of learning the spell using 5 or fewer scrolls and they can keep trying for as long as they have access to the ley line.

--flatline

First off the 12% is not added like your math sugest for multiple attempts he does not have have a 60% chance with 5 scrolls but 5 chances at 12% still perty hard to do. Second page 191 clearly says learning from a scroll is difrent because it includes magic in it. It is your opion to ignore a rule but the rule is still cannon.

[Blue_Lion]

That said any magic society has some sort of magic trading/earning system in place that is half the reason people join them to begin with. But to teach any spell to any one who wants to know it no question asked, with some of the upper level spells is not going to happen. Best case scenario is mages join learn basic low level spells from the group at the groups expense (time is valuable.) then leaves. No one with any real power to share would stay long, just imagine being in a guild and having people constantly come up and ask for you to teach them spell X it gets annoying fast. I feel that magic is to subtle and complex to be taught over the Internet (except for maybe TWs) I can teach you to shoot a gun in 5 seconds but mages have to spend years to learn to cast spells and then it takes more time to learn a new spell from a mentor.

Sorry, but I'm going to skip the big block of ignorant negativity and reply only to the thread stuff. I'll just say that if you want to know the truth, it's out there.

As to the actual point of the thread, I don't see the big problem you've got with it. This isn't Joining a Guild and having someone constantly coming up to you asking you to teach them Firebolt. This is I learned Firebolt, and produced a tutorial on how you can learn it as well. That tutorial will likely contain video, sure. Everything in N.A. is mostly video anyway given that nearly everyone in the coalition states are illiterate. People learn other very complex subjects that way, so I have no difficulty in believing that they could learn spells that way.

Again, a lot of people said that the free software movement would never go anywhere. They didn't believe that anything significant would ever come of it. well, every mac out there currently runs it's operating system based out of the free software movement. Mac OS X is a Linux derivative.

You don't believe that it would ever work. That's fine. In games you run, Free Magic would never work. History however would like to disagree with you.

And the forum comes with spell-check, please use it.

Because it is inposible with rules as written to creat a tutoral to teach spells. Mages need to be 9th level with rules as writen to teach magic. Scroll is a special case. In other words you are the one beeing ignorent, the only way to pass on spell knowledge whould be a dedicated effeort by some one in the socity. If it was so easy that a turtoral could pass it on whould not take days and whould not require high level specialist.

This is something totaly difrent than sharing soft ware over the internet, because 1 rifts does not have a world wide web, 2 magic requires speclist/high level instructors.

[flatline]

A mage has to be 9th level to teach a spell.

Where is this particular rule at?

RUE page 190 under heading of learning magic it was listing things that can teach magic.

Ah, thanks!

"Practitioners of magic can sometimes purchase spell magic from magic shops, adult or ancient dragons, and elder masters of magic (9th level or higher)".

Of course, strictly speaking, that just says you can't purchase magic from someone less than level 9, it says nothing about who can actually teach, but that interpretation is just as ridiculous.

My recommendation is to ignore it entirely. It's arbitrarily limiting and ignores the fact that in all fields, students help other students learn.

--flatline

[Blue_Lion]

I'm afraid your view is overly optimistic. The guilds have something to lose in this and will be willing to expend time and resources to prevent that loss. These supposed security experts will either be volunteering their time or else be hired by those supporting the movement (which means the movement can no longer afford to be free or they will fall behind). The economy of effort heavily favors the guilds. Furthermore, the knowledge of magic need not be advanced at all. Existing spells are simply modified based on known and existing magical principles. Nothing new or innovative is created and the result is negative for the user. The only thing that will become refined is how carefully the hostile magic is concealed.

Further, once you introduce experts and screening, it ceases to be open. It can either be wide open and dangerous for the user or limited and filtered. Screening, in addition to taking up far more resources, slows down how quickly it can be made available to the public.

There are plenty of examples of this sort of thing on the net already. One example is torrent downloading. Sure you can get stuff for free but you might also be getting spyware, malware, viruses and so on. It wouldn't be any different on a set up like this.

Not only is there no such thing as a free lunch, once you start cutting into the lunches that other people paid for, things are going to get dirty.

By the way, I'm all for a group from New Lazlo attempting this sort of collaboration. I'm just saying that the result won't be what they expect. Idealism is far too often hijacked by those who are cynical or have their own profits in mind.

I'm sorry but your view still doesn't take reality and history into account.
Allow me to point out how effective the record labels, Book Publishers, and Movie industries are at squashing file sharing through torrent today. Sure, they smack down on one or two groups a year, but that doesn't stop millions of people world wide from downloading the latest songs, movies and books, some of which are out being shared for free days before the official release.

Those selling the Free Magic tutorials, likely to be the black market, aren't going to put up with a bunch of uppity guild mages trying to raid their markets just so that they can crush a bunch of Free Magic hippies. (Don't forget that there really isn't any internet outside of the mega-cities, so the distribution media isn't free) (Still, all they'd be paying for is the distribution media itself. I figure usually 5 credits. That's what it used to cost for a CD-R of whatever you wanted burned to disk and mailed to you.)

You are not taking the rifts setting into account it does not have a open world wide web. That means you whould be smaking down things in over 1 or two cites. Allot easer to do than tring to stop something that can happen any where in the world.

Also read page 190 rue on learning magic I dont see internet on the list of things that can teach.

[Blue_Lion]

Actually that is fundamentally flawed way of thinking. Pointing them at instructions is the same as learning from scrolls low success rate. Learning spells requires tutelage in other words a teacher spending time. To get high success rate you want they would need to spend time teaching. Other wise there would be no magic mentors/schools just ley line walking for dummies. Passing along magic knowledge is only really effective with direct interaction. Taking knowledge from print only allows for misunderstandings that a teacher can fix. Like if I told you the rock says there is only one kind of pie. If you do not get the reference you will misunderstand it. The more abstract a concept the easer the misunderstanding would be, a teacher can test and correct misunderstandings that the text can not.

Cyborg are not most mages that can learn spells by instruction literate unlike the rest of rifts?

I don't see magic being any more complicated than studying Psychology or Medicine or Engineering. These are all very complicated subjects which are typically learned via Video-disk tutorials, as far as I can tell from the books. Psychology is wishy-washy enough that there are no real hard and fast rules, and understanding takes experience. Engineering also takes experience, as do a lot of the other skills in the book. The only time a tutor is required in the books is if you are trying to learn a second OCC.

Ley Line Walkers are not literate by default, but shifters and TWs are.

Wait bending realty with the power of your will is no more complicated than psychology or medicine or engineering. The fact that you are changing realty with you will seams way more complicated. Does a docotor need to be 9th level to teach medicine?

[Cybermancer]

I didn't overlook anything. Making a spell that doesn't work is by its very nature easier than one that works the way it should. And benchmark spells already exist to accomplish what the guilds would want. Familiar link, Summon greater familiar and various scrying spells already exist. Benchmark spells and the modification of existing spells is easier than creating a spell from scratch. And like I said, they have the motivation and resources to proceed. As for testing, they have all these people looking to get free magic to test their spells on. If it doesn't work, they've lost very little and their target has gained nothing. They try again and the next individual looking for a free spell gets to test it for them. And every explosive failure works in the favor of the guilds.

This should also address Nightmasks comment.

Except you aren't talking a spell that doesn't work you're talking a spell that does work but has a hidden aspect to it that harms the caster with each casting, and to create such a spell you still have to intentionally work on designing it that way and do the research yourself you can't dupe anyone into doing the research for you since they can't be tricked into creating a spell that harms them in such a fashion. So you have to offer up the completed spell to others and they've every opportunity to look the spell over and realize that it's harmful to them in some fashion (provided you survived the research to even offer it up, or had someone willing to do so after you've killed yourself or left yourself too stupid to do anything more).

Go back to my first post in this thread and you'll see that I am also talking about spells that don't work. And like I already said, no need to test the spell yourself. Just put it out there and let others try it. It can be tracked by a variety of means in a place like Rifts. Anything from hackers to see who is downloading what spell to use of scrying magic or psionics.

So no, no risk for researching it, only for trying it. That's how the rules work. The mage can just put the recipe together without ever trying it themselves and then sit back and watch what happens.

In fact this opens up a new possibility of danger for this system as canny mages throw untested magic out there to see what happens.

I wouldn't touch this system of gaining magic anymore than I would risk downloading a torrent. At least malware in a torrent only hurts my computer.

I would have to assume if the method of distributing the information is partly video based learning then the person passing along the information isn't going to be able to do so without casting the spell himself. Or at least this would become a warning sign very quickly that the video it's a fake video.

I download torrents pretty often and if you take precautions it's not an issue at all.

It's too bad that there's no way to trick someone or fake something on video.

Oh wait, they've been doing it for decades.

Bottom line is that there is going to be lots and lots of bad magic out there and people aren't going to necessarily know about it until they try it and it blows up in their face.

[Blue_Lion]

A mage has to be 9th level to teach a spell.

Where is this particular rule at?

RUE page 190 under heading of learning magic it was listing things that can teach magic.

Ah, thanks!

"Practitioners of magic can sometimes purchase spell magic from magic shops, adult or ancient dragons, and elder masters of magic (9th level or higher)".

Of course, strictly speaking, that just says you can't purchase magic from someone less than level 9, it says nothing about who can actually teach, but that interpretation is just as ridiculous.

My recommendation is to ignore it entirely. It's arbitrarily limiting and ignores the fact that in all fields, students help other students learn.

--flatline

That is your opion when I read the whole section it seamed to me they where putting a limit on who can teach. If any one could teach then it whould say from other practioners instead of elder 9th level. However every thing listed shows high level of power or specializing. You might think it is a arbitary number but that is a point at witch tradionaly mages in RPGs can teach other mages, dating back to D&D. If they did not assine what a absulte number that you feel is arbiatary then it whould make it harder to determine who could be used. Any rule that assines gains abilties linked to level could be said to be arbitary but in a level impovement game that is often what links when you have the skill to do somethng.

Also Magic is like no other field of study other students may not have the abilty or understanding to help with you learn. (also other students do not always help teach other sutendts learn, infact they can be an absticle to learning. Your statment making it look like a fact that is what absulatly hapen is in itself not true.)

But given what I see that A magic learning comes from powerful specialized sorces, and the time needed to learn spells, learning threw a insturctional video would not fit the spirt of the rules as written. In other words to pass on spells you whould needed dedicated teachers.

[Subjugator]

I'm sorry but your view still doesn't take reality and history into account.
Allow me to point out how effective the record labels, Book Publishers, and Movie industries are at squashing file sharing through torrent today. Sure, they smack down on one or two groups a year, but that doesn't stop millions of people world wide from downloading the latest songs, movies and books, some of which are out being shared for free days before the official release.

Allow me to point out that in a world of exceedingly limited government you're not ever going to see simple lawsuits over stuff like this. This is particularly true when most "governments" are limited to the geographical area in which they specifically reside. Also consider that what government there is stands a good chance of being afraid of magic and doesn't want people teaching others.

This happened OUTSIDE of the city limits? Gosh, that's too bad! Oh...it was TEN FEET outside of the city limits? Did ya notice that word, 'outside'? I have a new word for you son! That word is 'jurisdiction', and that means we don't give a crap what happens outside here unless it's causing something bad in here. In this case, I see the 'something bad' happening out there as being your friend spreading around secrets we weren't meant to know!

Personally, I think it's a fine thing that one of our citizens took care of that clear threat to our safety!

On top of that, add in that if they are NOT hostile to or afraid of magic, they are likely to protect the local mage guild and their interests.

Let me see if I understand this. Your complaint is that one of our city fathers took issue with a friend of yours not following local guild protocol and took action to address it. When confronted your friend became violent. In response to this violence, our city father...a pillar of the community, a man whose integrity is beyond question, who has done more for the poor and needy than any ten others I know...rightly defended himself, and in so doing ended a threat to the city. This somehow upsets you? Son, I'll be glad to tell you all about this...we have no problem whatsoever with our local guilds monitoring their own business, and when they are attacked for doing so, we certainly don't oppose them defending themselves!

The proposal is just simply unrealistic.

Those selling the Free Magic tutorials, likely to be the black market aren't going to put up with a bunch of uppity guild mages trying to raid their markets just so that they can crush a bunch of Free Magic hippies. (Don't forget that there really isn't any internet outside of the mega-cities, so the distribution media isn't free) (Still, all they'd be paying for is the distribution media itself. I figure usually 5 credits. That's what it used to cost for a CD-R of whatever you wanted burned to disk and mailed to you.)

This is incredibly unlikely. The black market is out for profit, and sickeningly high profit at that. You're not describing something that's likely to result in sickeningly high profit, because most people are too poor to give them money in high enough quantities to make it worthwhile and there's no repeat business on the sale of a spell disk; in fact, following your logic, the person would copy the disk and give it to others freely! I mean, weapons need maintenance and replacement. Armor gets shot up. Spells? If you have it, you have it, and you don't have to recharge e-clips or anything! There's no long term profit margin in selling for five credits a pop.

Also, it's not like magic is something you can learn with a correspondence course. There are a few that are inborn, some that are learned through meditation (e.g. Mystics), and others that are learned through focused apprenticeship, but I seriously doubt one could learn magic by simply sitting and watching a video.

I also don't think it's as simple as learning it from a video if you're talking about existing mages learning new spells. Let's assume that it is and they can though. The Black Market would not ever sell them for 5 credits each. They'd sell it for whatever the market would bear and do so at a sickeningly high markup if they did it at all. It'd be closer to 50,000 per spell than it would be 5. What motivation would they have to sell them for 5 credits when their market (mages) would be fully able to pay thousands AND would only need to learn it once to use it as often as they like for the rest of their lives?

Sorry, but the black market would OPPOSE this movement. They'd certainly not participate in it. Right now you CAN get magic spells through the Black Market. Let's assume they cost only 5,000 credits per spell (something I see as unlikely, but let's assume they are). They'd need to find 1,000 new clients to match every SINGLE client they have right now. Each and every one of those single clients would never again be a client for that spell.

...or they can sell them as one-off sales without having a storefront that has people in an out all day, putting you at greater risk with each transaction while at the same time greatly limiting your market.

Sorry, but this model doesn't work.

/Sub

[Blue_Lion]

I'm sorry but your view still doesn't take reality and history into account.
Allow me to point out how effective the record labels, Book Publishers, and Movie industries are at squashing file sharing through torrent today. Sure, they smack down on one or two groups a year, but that doesn't stop millions of people world wide from downloading the latest songs, movies and books, some of which are out being shared for free days before the official release.

Allow me to point out that in a world of exceedingly limited government you're not ever going to see simple lawsuits over stuff like this. This is particularly true when most "governments" are limited to the geographical area in which they specifically reside. Also consider that what government there is stands a good chance of being afraid of magic and doesn't want people teaching others.

This happened OUTSIDE of the city limits? Gosh, that's too bad! Oh...it was TEN FEET outside of the city limits? Did ya notice that word, 'outside'? I have a new word for you son! That word is 'jurisdiction', and that means we don't give a crap what happens outside here unless it's causing something bad in here. In this case, I see the 'something bad' happening out there as being your friend spreading around secrets we weren't meant to know!

Personally, I think it's a fine thing that one of our citizens took care of that clear threat to our safety!

On top of that, add in that if they are NOT hostile to or afraid of magic, they are likely to protect the local mage guild and their interests.

Let me see if I understand this. Your complaint is that one of our city fathers took issue with a friend of yours not following local guild protocol and took action to address it. When confronted your friend became violent. In response to this violence, our city father...a pillar of the community, a man whose integrity is beyond question, who has done more for the poor and needy than any ten others I know...rightly defended himself, and in so doing ended a threat to the city. This somehow upsets you? Son, I'll be glad to tell you all about this...we have no problem whatsoever with our local guilds monitoring their own business, and when they are attacked for doing so, we certainly don't oppose them defending themselves!

The proposal is just simply unrealistic.

Those selling the Free Magic tutorials, likely to be the black market aren't going to put up with a bunch of uppity guild mages trying to raid their markets just so that they can crush a bunch of Free Magic hippies. (Don't forget that there really isn't any internet outside of the mega-cities, so the distribution media isn't free) (Still, all they'd be paying for is the distribution media itself. I figure usually 5 credits. That's what it used to cost for a CD-R of whatever you wanted burned to disk and mailed to you.)

This is incredibly unlikely. The black market is out for profit, and sickeningly high profit at that. You're not describing something that's likely to result in sickeningly high profit, because most people are too poor to give them money in high enough quantities to make it worthwhile and there's no repeat business on the sale of a spell disk; in fact, following your logic, the person would copy the disk and give it to others freely! I mean, weapons need maintenance and replacement. Armor gets shot up. Spells? If you have it, you have it, and you don't have to recharge e-clips or anything! There's no long term profit margin in selling for five credits a pop.

Also, it's not like magic is something you can learn with a correspondence course. There are a few that are inborn, some that are learned through meditation (e.g. Mystics), and others that are learned through focused apprenticeship, but I seriously doubt one could learn magic by simply sitting and watching a video.

I also don't think it's as simple as learning it from a video if you're talking about existing mages learning new spells. Let's assume that it is and they can though. The Black Market would not ever sell them for 5 credits each. They'd sell it for whatever the market would bear and do so at a sickeningly high markup if they did it at all. It'd be closer to 50,000 per spell than it would be 5. What motivation would they have to sell them for 5 credits when their market (mages) would be fully able to pay thousands AND would only need to learn it once to use it as often as they like for the rest of their lives?

Sorry, but the black market would OPPOSE this movement. They'd certainly not participate in it. Right now you CAN get magic spells through the Black Market. Let's assume they cost only 5,000 credits per spell (something I see as unlikely, but let's assume they are). They'd need to find 1,000 new clients to match every SINGLE client they have right now. Each and every one of those single clients would never again be a client for that spell.

...or they can sell them as one-off sales without having a storefront that has people in an out all day, putting you at greater risk with each transaction while at the same time greatly limiting your market.

Sorry, but this model doesn't work.

/Sub

I see black market charging at least the rates listed on page 190 of RUE if not 2-5 times as much. Meaning level 1 spells start at 5000cr.

[Subjugator]

I see black market charging at least the rates listed on page 190 of RUE if not 2-5 times as much. Meaning level 1 spells start at 5000cr.

Yeah. See, I'd assume 2-5 times as much for level 1, 4-10 times as much for level 2, 8-20 times as much for level 3, and so on. I'd put a limit in there somewhere.

Maybe.

Kinda.

/Sub

[torjones]

Because it is inposible with rules as written to creat a tutoral to teach spells. Mages need to be 9th level with rules as writen to teach magic. Scroll is a special case. In other words you are the one beeing ignorent, the only way to pass on spell knowledge whould be a dedicated effeort by some one in the socity. If it was so easy that a turtoral could pass it on whould not take days and whould not require high level specialist.

This is something totaly difrent than sharing soft ware over the internet, because 1 rifts does not have a world wide web, 2 magic requires speclist/high level instructors.

You should have just said that you're following rules as written in the first place, and it would likely have been pointed out "we are talking about an alternate setting, where that game rule apparently doesn't apply, but thanks for reminding us about it."

[torjones]

Wait bending realty with the power of your will is no more complicated than psychology or medicine or engineering. The fact that you are changing realty with you will seams way more complicated. Does a doctor need to be 9th level to teach medicine?

I'm sorry, but since when did real life have levels? I would certainly hope that the doctors that they have teaching would have at least a few years of experience on them, and not be fresh out of the program that they're teaching.

I'm making a comparison between two rather complicated topics. I know that those three subjects are complicated and difficult for the average person to wrap their minds around to get a good grasp of the subject in real life. In the game world, those subjects seem to be taught by video-disk-tutorial, kinda like those "Learn at Home" courses published at the back of some magazines. (at least that's how I see them anyway) So, if we ignore the rules on who is or is not allowed to teach others magic, or simply add "Video-Disk-Tutorials" to the list of allowed teachers, oh my, it's suddenly possible again. Except at your table. You know what? I'm fine with that. Go. Be Happy. Play the Rules as you see fit.

Personally, I think it's a wonderful idea that's very creative. If it gets played, I'd love to hear how it turned out in that game, as I may just use it myself in my next campaign. I applaud the OPs creativity in thinking up this curious idea, and it also makes me wonder why it wasn't thought of sooner.

And please, use the spell check feature built into the forum. It's occasionally difficult to figure out what you mean to say when I have to run everything you type through spellchecker before I can read it.

[Blue_Lion]

Wait bending realty with the power of your will is no more complicated than psychology or medicine or engineering. The fact that you are changing realty with you will seams way more complicated. Does a doctor need to be 9th level to teach medicine?

I'm sorry, but since when did real life have levels? I would certainly hope that the doctors that they have teaching would have at least a few years of experience on them, and not be fresh out of the program that they're teaching.

I'm making a comparison between two rather complicated topics. I know that those three subjects are complicated and difficult for the average person to wrap their minds around to get a good grasp of the subject in real life. In the game world, those subjects seem to be taught by video-disk-tutorial, kinda like those "Learn at Home" courses published at the back of some magazines. (at least that's how I see them anyway) So, if we ignore the rules on who is or is not allowed to teach others magic, or simply add "Video-Disk-Tutorials" to the list of allowed teachers, oh my, it's suddenly possible again. Except at your table. You know what? I'm fine with that. Go. Be Happy. Play the Rules as you see fit.

Personally, I think it's a wonderful idea that's very creative. If it gets played, I'd love to hear how it turned out in that game, as I may just use it myself in my next campaign. I applaud the OPs creativity in thinking up this curious idea, and it also makes me wonder why it wasn't thought of sooner.

And please, use the spell check feature built into the forum. It's occasionally difficult to figure out what you mean to say when I have to run everything you type through spellchecker before I can read it.

Real life does not but, there are doctors in rifts. My point was that passing allong other skills does not have the same requirment.

[Blue_Lion]

Because it is inposible with rules as written to creat a tutoral to teach spells. Mages need to be 9th level with rules as writen to teach magic. Scroll is a special case. In other words you are the one beeing ignorent, the only way to pass on spell knowledge whould be a dedicated effeort by some one in the socity. If it was so easy that a turtoral could pass it on whould not take days and whould not require high level specialist.

This is something totaly difrent than sharing soft ware over the internet, because 1 rifts does not have a world wide web, 2 magic requires speclist/high level instructors.

You should have just said that you're following rules as written in the first place, and it would likely have been pointed out "we are talking about an alternate setting, where that game rule apparently doesn't apply, but thanks for reminding us about it."

I have said several times that as written the game rules do not allow it. This is the first time I have seen you mentioning a alterante setting ignoring rules. The rules as written are cannon and generaly defuult disctions about thigns are based off of Cannon.

but even without that because of finacual issues from groups like the black market the action whould probaly meet heavy resistance. The black market does not need to use legal channels to stop you. You cut into there turf they send people to kill you.
Guilds may not fallow the laws and use less legal methods as well. Goverments not getting their task or having a say in who you teach may also crack down.
Without the world wide web with muliple groups beeing aposed to it with the abilty use leathal force and other tatics not used agaist informational piracy today. It is likely to be shut down before it ammounts to much.

[Subjugator]

Torjones: I've pointed out why this wouldn't work outside of the fact that one cannot learn magic from a disk. Even if one assumes that a person could learn magic from a disk, there's no way in hell the mage guilds wouldn't kill people for doing it, the Black Market wouldn't see any profit in it, and the mage guilds would have the approval of almost every single government out there.

This idea wouldn't work. You can put whatever you want in your world, but this is GROSSLY unrealistic.

/Sub

[Nightmask]

Because it is inposible with rules as written to creat a tutoral to teach spells. Mages need to be 9th level with rules as writen to teach magic. Scroll is a special case. In other words you are the one beeing ignorent, the only way to pass on spell knowledge whould be a dedicated effeort by some one in the socity. If it was so easy that a turtoral could pass it on whould not take days and whould not require high level specialist.

This is something totaly difrent than sharing soft ware over the internet, because 1 rifts does not have a world wide web, 2 magic requires speclist/high level instructors.

You should have just said that you're following rules as written in the first place, and it would likely have been pointed out "we are talking about an alternate setting, where that game rule apparently doesn't apply, but thanks for reminding us about it."

I have said several times that as written the game rules do not allow it. This is the first time I have seen you mentioning a alterante setting ignoring rules. The rules as written are cannon and generaly defuult disctions about thigns are based off of Canon.

but even without that because of finacual issues from groups like the black market the action whould probaly meet heavy resistance. The black market does not need to use legal channels to stop you. You cut into there turf they send people to kill you.
Guilds may not fallow the laws and use less legal methods as well. Goverments not getting their task or having a say in who you teach may also crack down.
Without the world wide web with muliple groups beeing aposed to it with the abilty use leathal force and other tatics not used agaist informational piracy today. It is likely to be shut down before it ammounts to much.

You afford the Black Market, guilds, et al with way too much omnipotent power with such declaratives of how such a thing is simply impossible and could never work because 'The Men In Black will get you.'. None of these groups individually or collectively have the might to prevent people from sharing spell knowledge around and giving free training in whatever spells that they feel like or creating the means to do so. Given there is no way for instantaneous propagation of information as you note many of these groups wouldn't even have a clue someone was doing such until they'd already had their own competing group and wiping out competition is not so easy as you think it is especially when trying to target mages.

It's a common trope in fiction where even supposedly destroyed groups somehow always manage to hide away a section that survives and rebuilds while everyone else thinks them extinct.

The rejection of the idea seems to come way more from just not wanting to deal with the radical shifts in the game setting the idea would cause rather than it being so impossible to pull off.

[Subjugator]

Nightmask: The Black Market wouldn't deal in it, because it'd ruin their economic advantage for their current method, and they won't find 1,000 or more buyers for every buyer they have today.

/Sub

[Hot Rod]

Nightmask: The Black Market wouldn't deal in it, because it'd ruin their economic advantage for their current method, and they won't find 1,000 or more buyers for every buyer they have today.

/Sub

The Black Market would sell as many spells as they could as it is 100% profit off each and every purchaser. Whatever the teacher is, Black Market Mage or tutorial book (loaned with a large deposit).

Guilds practicing terrorism (virus attacks, false spells designed to cripple caster, physical/magical attacks) are unlikely as they are unlikely to know who to target. Someone wanders into a town, teaches a couple spells, gets a couple in return and leaves... 2 happier mages, no guild involvement at all.

I find spells are way too rare for most mage classes. Many GMs worry about a spell overbalancing their game much more than the tech gear they allow in. You wouldn't believe how many say "but you can take away a gun." but do they? I have never seen a GB pilot lose his GB & keep playing that character... Not once. Nor have I seen a 2d6x10 MDC gun taken away from a (8 million dollar) 'borg even though the best spell the mage had was L3 Energy bolt...

HR

[Subjugator]

The proposed price is 5 credits.

There's no way on ANY earth they'd sell them for 5 credits when each sale is a 1 shot deal that they'd never get back and that the owner would then sell to others when he was done with it. This is particularly true when they're getting, at a MINIMUM, 5,000 credits for the same spell already.

Again, they would have to make 1,000 sales to equal the sale price of ONE sale under their current system, and far more to equal the value they derive from the current sale (since right now the scroll is only going to be used once, the guy probably doesn't have scribe scroll as a spell, and probably won't just give it to someone else for the hell of it. Also, the current system doesn't include the cost of a disk for every sale made...instead, it's a scroll, and the piece of paper (parchment, or whatever) that goes into that scroll as a percentage of the cost of the item in the current model is tiny!

You think guilds don't have access to psychics, stoolies, spies, and mind control? Really? Have you seen the spell list lately?

...and this isn't being proposed as, "Someone goes into town and teaches a couple of spells."

It's being proposed as, "The Black Market mass produces THOUSANDS of these and sells them for five credits each."

/Sub

[Killer Cyborg]

Nightmask: The Black Market wouldn't deal in it, because it'd ruin their economic advantage for their current method, and they won't find 1,000 or more buyers for every buyer they have today.

/Sub

The Black Market would sell as many spells as they could as it is 100% profit off each and every purchaser. Whatever the teacher is, Black Market Mage or tutorial book (loaned with a large deposit).

Key word being "sell."
Which means that anybody trying to give knowledge out for free, or for less than the current black market value, would be undercutting the Mafia.
Which they don't take kindly to.

Guilds practicing terrorism (virus attacks, false spells designed to cripple caster, physical/magical attacks) are unlikely as they are unlikely to know who to target. Someone wanders into a town, teaches a couple spells, gets a couple in return and leaves... 2 happier mages, no guild involvement at all.

Sure.
It's not like organizations with hundreds of 11th+ level mages can scry or anything, or have any other unusual means of detecting and tracking people.

I find spells are way too rare for most mage classes. Many GMs worry about a spell overbalancing their game much more than the tech gear they allow in. You wouldn't believe how many say "but you can take away a gun." but do they? I have never seen a GB pilot lose his GB & keep playing that character... Not once. Nor have I seen a 2d6x10 MDC gun taken away from a (8 million dollar) 'borg even though the best spell the mage had was L3 Energy bolt...
HR

Most of our GB pilots ended up running around in EBA after their GB was destroyed.
Though I agree that a lot of GMs are fairly stingy with spells.

[Blue_Lion]

Nightmask: The Black Market wouldn't deal in it, because it'd ruin their economic advantage for their current method, and they won't find 1,000 or more buyers for every buyer they have today.

/Sub

The Black Market would sell as many spells as they could as it is 100% profit off each and every purchaser. Whatever the teacher is, Black Market Mage or tutorial book (loaned with a large deposit).

Guilds practicing terrorism (virus attacks, false spells designed to cripple caster, physical/magical attacks) are unlikely as they are unlikely to know who to target. Someone wanders into a town, teaches a couple spells, gets a couple in return and leaves... 2 happier mages, no guild involvement at all.

I find spells are way too rare for most mage classes. Many GMs worry about a spell overbalancing their game much more than the tech gear they allow in. You wouldn't believe how many say "but you can take away a gun." but do they? I have never seen a GB pilot lose his GB & keep playing that character... Not once. Nor have I seen a 2d6x10 MDC gun taken away from a (8 million dollar) 'borg even though the best spell the mage had was L3 Energy bolt...

HR

Acutaly giving the limited abilty to use networks and the fact that most mages involved are not use to cyber threats, it whould be easy for some one to learn of it and track down the ones uploading and down loading it.
They do not have the level of abilty to hide in the static that we do today. Heck send a high power demon after them when you learn where they are and go to a party while they are killed.
In a setting with a fully devolped world wide web such as night bane or HU, if you over look the rules stoping it might work there. In Rifts it whould not work so well, you lack the abilty to pass the information on in cd roms threw distubution. (do you realy think the black market will not check what they are transporting.) You do not have a masive network to pass it on electronicaly. You will cut into profit margins of realy nasty guys and with it beeing open the word would spread about it fast. The group will get accused of training terrorst and known crime figures, may even be rightly so.

At best it whould be only a group of low level mages passing on lo level spells then leaving while devolping a bad name for the group. Most those that hang around whould be leaches not putting into the pot. Even good mage guilds whould fund things to make it hard for the group, less honorble mages whould activaly hunt down and destroy its data network and members sharing to maintain the profit margin or prevent real secertes of magic getting out. You also over look that protecting magic secrets whould be ingrained into the mage socity that many young mages whould learn it along with the skills.

[Nightmask]

Nightmask: The Black Market wouldn't deal in it, because it'd ruin their economic advantage for their current method, and they won't find 1,000 or more buyers for every buyer they have today.

/Sub

The Black Market would sell as many spells as they could as it is 100% profit off each and every purchaser. Whatever the teacher is, Black Market Mage or tutorial book (loaned with a large deposit).

Guilds practicing terrorism (virus attacks, false spells designed to cripple caster, physical/magical attacks) are unlikely as they are unlikely to know who to target. Someone wanders into a town, teaches a couple spells, gets a couple in return and leaves... 2 happier mages, no guild involvement at all.

I find spells are way too rare for most mage classes. Many GMs worry about a spell overbalancing their game much more than the tech gear they allow in. You wouldn't believe how many say "but you can take away a gun." but do they? I have never seen a GB pilot lose his GB & keep playing that character... Not once. Nor have I seen a 2d6x10 MDC gun taken away from a (8 million dollar) 'borg even though the best spell the mage had was L3 Energy bolt...

HR

Acutaly giving the limited abilty to use networks and the fact that most mages involved are not use to cyber threats, it whould be easy for some one to learn of it and track down the ones uploading and down loading it.

You woefully overestimate the ability of people track down cyber-threats for one, as well as overestimate the ability of anyone to learn of what was up in the first place. There's also the incentive of people to cooperate with such spell-sharing since, you know, they get to acquire powerful spells for free. Kind of like how the file-sharing networks are so successful because there are so many who like the idea of getting stuff free, with the only cost to them of sharing what they've already got.

They do not have the level of abilty to hide in the static that we do today. Heck send a high power demon after them when you learn where they are and go to a party while they are killed.

Right, because everyone's got high powered demons handy and all other mages are helpless morons without any defenses whatsoever and can be snuffed at the whim of these hypothetical super-enforcers who can unerringly detect people sharing spells and without fail track them down and bring inescapable force against them.

In a setting with a fully devolped world wide web such as night bane or HU, if you over look the rules stoping it might work there. In Rifts it whould not work so well, you lack the abilty to pass the information on in cd roms threw distubution. (do you realy think the black market will not check what they are transporting.) You do not have a masive network to pass it on electronicaly. You will cut into profit margins of realy nasty guys and with it beeing open the word would spread about it fast. The group will get accused of training terrorst and known crime figures, may even be rightly so.

No the Black Market doesn't check everything it transports, no more than we can check every single package someone ships because the manpower needed is implausibly high (and you'd have to have living beings doing the inspections because AI can't be programmed with the level of ability necessary to handle such a task).

At best it whould be only a group of low level mages passing on lo level spells then leaving while devolping a bad name for the group. Most those that hang around whould be leaches not putting into the pot. Even good mage guilds whould fund things to make it hard for the group, less honorble mages whould activaly hunt down and destroy its data network and members sharing to maintain the profit margin or prevent real secertes of magic getting out. You also over look that protecting magic secrets whould be ingrained into the mage socity that many young mages whould learn it along with the skills.

Not every mage is from such a secretive setting, heck Tolkeen was set up as a magic-friendly society it'd hardly make sense for them to maintain a 'gee don't be sharing anything' policy that they couldn't even enforce anyway. It'd be as ridiculous as trying to tell everyone they couldn't trade cars if they wanted to, or houses, or what have you. Really it requires an implausible amount of success on the part of the anti-sharing groups you posit to really be acceptable.

[Blue_Lion]

Nightmask: The Black Market wouldn't deal in it, because it'd ruin their economic advantage for their current method, and they won't find 1,000 or more buyers for every buyer they have today.

/Sub

The Black Market would sell as many spells as they could as it is 100% profit off each and every purchaser. Whatever the teacher is, Black Market Mage or tutorial book (loaned with a large deposit).

Guilds practicing terrorism (virus attacks, false spells designed to cripple caster, physical/magical attacks) are unlikely as they are unlikely to know who to target. Someone wanders into a town, teaches a couple spells, gets a couple in return and leaves... 2 happier mages, no guild involvement at all.

I find spells are way too rare for most mage classes. Many GMs worry about a spell overbalancing their game much more than the tech gear they allow in. You wouldn't believe how many say "but you can take away a gun." but do they? I have never seen a GB pilot lose his GB & keep playing that character... Not once. Nor have I seen a 2d6x10 MDC gun taken away from a (8 million dollar) 'borg even though the best spell the mage had was L3 Energy bolt...

HR

Acutaly giving the limited abilty to use networks and the fact that most mages involved are not use to cyber threats, it whould be easy for some one to learn of it and track down the ones uploading and down loading it.

You woefully overestimate the ability of people track down cyber-threats for one, as well as overestimate the ability of anyone to learn of what was up in the first place. There's also the incentive of people to cooperate with such spell-sharing since, you know, they get to acquire powerful spells for free. Kind of like how the file-sharing networks are so successful because there are so many who like the idea of getting stuff free, with the only cost to them of sharing what they've already got.

They do not have the level of abilty to hide in the static that we do today. Heck send a high power demon after them when you learn where they are and go to a party while they are killed.

Right, because everyone's got high powered demons handy and all other mages are helpless morons without any defenses whatsoever and can be snuffed at the whim of these hypothetical super-enforcers who can unerringly detect people sharing spells and without fail track them down and bring inescapable force against them.

In a setting with a fully devolped world wide web such as night bane or HU, if you over look the rules stoping it might work there. In Rifts it whould not work so well, you lack the abilty to pass the information on in cd roms threw distubution. (do you realy think the black market will not check what they are transporting.) You do not have a masive network to pass it on electronicaly. You will cut into profit margins of realy nasty guys and with it beeing open the word would spread about it fast. The group will get accused of training terrorst and known crime figures, may even be rightly so.

No the Black Market doesn't check everything it transports, no more than we can check every single package someone ships because the manpower needed is implausibly high (and you'd have to have living beings doing the inspections because AI can't be programmed with the level of ability necessary to handle such a task).

At best it whould be only a group of low level mages passing on lo level spells then leaving while devolping a bad name for the group. Most those that hang around whould be leaches not putting into the pot. Even good mage guilds whould fund things to make it hard for the group, less honorble mages whould activaly hunt down and destroy its data network and members sharing to maintain the profit margin or prevent real secertes of magic getting out. You also over look that protecting magic secrets whould be ingrained into the mage socity that many young mages whould learn it along with the skills.

Not every mage is from such a secretive setting, heck Tolkeen was set up as a magic-friendly society it'd hardly make sense for them to maintain a 'gee don't be sharing anything' policy that they couldn't even enforce anyway. It'd be as ridiculous as trying to tell everyone they couldn't trade cars if they wanted to, or houses, or what have you. Really it requires an implausible amount of success on the part of the anti-sharing groups you posit to really be acceptable.

The low level spells are generaly for sale in a magic comnity. But there maybe be some groups that selling to is not allowed. But they re generaly sold or earned, not given away to strangers.

I think you underestimate the lack of cyber secerty among the mages in your group. If a person does not know how to hide his locaton it is easy to use the information they post to track them down. Slightly harder with modern internet because they are so big but location a user in a city sized network is fairly easy. Locating the groups members with magic/psi whould also be easy. Our goverment curntly has the abilty to track down cyber criminals from the internet. The problem is with international servers, and need to aquire evedience to convict along with the number of sites/computers to go threw they are understaffed or it is out of jurisdiction. Such issues whould not be the case with small city wide networks, pluss they could much easer remove stuff from the network.

Also the movment will not grow if the word does not spread. Thus the people whos profit margin you are cutting into whould hear about it.

The implausiblity is that A a socity that has rules to protect its secertes whould just start giving them out for free. That if you atempted to start such a large scale movement the goverment and people making money of the staus quo whould not step in.

That said group of friends if able to might share there spells, but a large scale mass share group mindset does not fit in rifts. Any atempt to orginize one whould meet such stiff restance. Merc compaines might teach mages if they can what they require the fundemental spells to do what they where hired for, other spells may be rewarded to members.

I do not think you should not have access to learn spells but that access should not free you whould have to earn/buy it. Kinda like thinking if you have no way to recharge your e-clip that you can't get it charged for free.

[Nightmask]

The Black Market would sell as many spells as they could as it is 100% profit off each and every purchaser. Whatever the teacher is, Black Market Mage or tutorial book (loaned with a large deposit).

Guilds practicing terrorism (virus attacks, false spells designed to cripple caster, physical/magical attacks) are unlikely as they are unlikely to know who to target. Someone wanders into a town, teaches a couple spells, gets a couple in return and leaves... 2 happier mages, no guild involvement at all.

I find spells are way too rare for most mage classes. Many GMs worry about a spell overbalancing their game much more than the tech gear they allow in. You wouldn't believe how many say "but you can take away a gun." but do they? I have never seen a GB pilot lose his GB & keep playing that character... Not once. Nor have I seen a 2d6x10 MDC gun taken away from a (8 million dollar) 'borg even though the best spell the mage had was L3 Energy bolt...

HR

Acutaly giving the limited abilty to use networks and the fact that most mages involved are not use to cyber threats, it whould be easy for some one to learn of it and track down the ones uploading and down loading it.

You woefully overestimate the ability of people track down cyber-threats for one, as well as overestimate the ability of anyone to learn of what was up in the first place. There's also the incentive of people to cooperate with such spell-sharing since, you know, they get to acquire powerful spells for free. Kind of like how the file-sharing networks are so successful because there are so many who like the idea of getting stuff free, with the only cost to them of sharing what they've already got.

They do not have the level of abilty to hide in the static that we do today. Heck send a high power demon after them when you learn where they are and go to a party while they are killed.

Right, because everyone's got high powered demons handy and all other mages are helpless morons without any defenses whatsoever and can be snuffed at the whim of these hypothetical super-enforcers who can unerringly detect people sharing spells and without fail track them down and bring inescapable force against them.

In a setting with a fully devolped world wide web such as night bane or HU, if you over look the rules stoping it might work there. In Rifts it whould not work so well, you lack the abilty to pass the information on in cd roms threw distubution. (do you realy think the black market will not check what they are transporting.) You do not have a masive network to pass it on electronicaly. You will cut into profit margins of realy nasty guys and with it beeing open the word would spread about it fast. The group will get accused of training terrorst and known crime figures, may even be rightly so.

No the Black Market doesn't check everything it transports, no more than we can check every single package someone ships because the manpower needed is implausibly high (and you'd have to have living beings doing the inspections because AI can't be programmed with the level of ability necessary to handle such a task).

At best it whould be only a group of low level mages passing on lo level spells then leaving while devolping a bad name for the group. Most those that hang around whould be leaches not putting into the pot. Even good mage guilds whould fund things to make it hard for the group, less honorble mages whould activaly hunt down and destroy its data network and members sharing to maintain the profit margin or prevent real secertes of magic getting out. You also over look that protecting magic secrets whould be ingrained into the mage socity that many young mages whould learn it along with the skills.

Not every mage is from such a secretive setting, heck Tolkeen was set up as a magic-friendly society it'd hardly make sense for them to maintain a 'gee don't be sharing anything' policy that they couldn't even enforce anyway. It'd be as ridiculous as trying to tell everyone they couldn't trade cars if they wanted to, or houses, or what have you. Really it requires an implausible amount of success on the part of the anti-sharing groups you posit to really be acceptable.

The low level spells are generaly for sale in a magic comnity. But there maybe be some groups that selling to is not allowed. But they re generaly sold or earned, not given away to strangers.

I think you underestimate the lack of cyber secerty among the mages in your group. If a person does not know how to hide his locaton it is easy to use the information they post to track them down. Slightly harder with modern internet because they are so big but location a user in a city sized network is fairly easy. Locating the groups members with magic/psi whould also be easy. Our goverment curntly has the abilty to track down cyber criminals from the internet. The problem is with international servers, and need to aquire evedience to convict along with the number of sites/computers to go threw they are understaffed or it is out of jurisdiction. Such issues whould not be the case with small city wide networks, pluss they could much easer remove stuff from the network.

Also the movment will not grow if the word does not spread. Thus the people whos profit margin you are cutting into whould hear about it.

The implausiblity is that A a socity that has rules to protect its secertes whould just start giving them out for free. That if you atempted to start such a large scale movement the goverment and people making money of the staus quo whould not step in.

That said group of friends if able to might share there spells, but a large scale mass share group mindset does not fit in rifts. Any atempt to orginize one whould meet such stiff restance. Merc compaines might teach mages if they can what they require the fundemental spells to do what they where hired for, other spells may be rewarded to members.

I do not think you should not have access to learn spells but that access should not free you whould have to earn/buy it. Kinda like thinking if you have no way to recharge your e-clip that you can't get it charged for free.

So you're basically basing your position on the idea that everything should have to cost something and that no one ever does anything for free is that it? Because that's majorly flawed reasoning, even demons will give stuff away free if they feel it will further some agenda. You also use 'society' there implying that there's some type of monolithic and overarching group that all mages belong to and that somehow ALL mages without exception are somehow brainwashed with insane loyalty to the group and the idea that spells are never to be traded or given away and must be paid for. Really, if you think that's plausible you need to recheck the definition of what plausible and implausible means because even if all mages were part of some single society (which they most certainly aren't) you could never see such an insane level of commitment from everyone to not share spells freely.

[Killer Cyborg]

Really, if you think that's plausible you need to recheck the definition of what plausible and implausible means because even if all mages were part of some single society (which they most certainly aren't) you could never see such an insane level of commitment from everyone to not share spells freely.

As a rule, people in power tend to hoard their powers, not share them.
It's basic human nature.
Yes, there are some exceptions to the rule, but another rule of human nature is that people in power tend to destroy those who would remove them from power.

[flatline]

Really, if you think that's plausible you need to recheck the definition of what plausible and implausible means because even if all mages were part of some single society (which they most certainly aren't) you could never see such an insane level of commitment from everyone to not share spells freely.

As a rule, people in power tend to hoard their powers, not share them.
It's basic human nature.
Yes, there are some exceptions to the rule, but another rule of human nature is that people in power tend to destroy those who would remove them from power.

Without knowing what pressures exist in support of the movement, it's premature to say that these selective pressures will crush the movement.

--flatline

[Nightmask]

Really, if you think that's plausible you need to recheck the definition of what plausible and implausible means because even if all mages were part of some single society (which they most certainly aren't) you could never see such an insane level of commitment from everyone to not share spells freely.

As a rule, people in power tend to hoard their powers, not share them.
It's basic human nature.
Yes, there are some exceptions to the rule, but another rule of human nature is that people in power tend to destroy those who would remove them from power.

Without knowing what pressures exist in support of the movement, it's premature to say that these selective pressures will crush the movement.

--flatline

Plus all one has to do is look around and see human nature isn't so oppressive or at least isn't/can't be so successful at it otherwise we wouldn't have all the advances we have today. If people actually hoarded information and power to the extremes some suggest most people would still be living in caves and eating raw meat and the top dogs would be the few who were able to keep fire and stone-headed clubs to themselves.

You can't really have a magic-friendly society without some measure of sharing of spells going on, particularly when you have people working together trying to advance magic as they have to be sharing spells and spell knowledge in order to get further than they could on their own. You can't expect a magic-oppressive society to be able to suppress magic where it doesn't exist either, the Black Market doesn't deal with sharing magic around in general so it has no motivations to try and suppress magic and the CS isn't going to be stopping people in places it doesn't even have a token presence from sharing magic. It can't even stop mages and super-natural creatures hanging out in the Burbs on their effective doorstep let alone stop free sharing of magic.