Free Magic Movement

[Nightmask]

No you are not getting it clearly or flatly ignoring what I said.

You are tring to insert something that has no plausable way to be in the game so that PC can get for free what is charged for curntly. Yes there are ways to get spells for free, such as doing a favor for demon or magical group. But they will always get something for what they give you.

No I did not imply a overling group orgnize by mabes that is entirly made up by you. Socity as in the culture that mages are broght up in, not as some masive oversized oginzation.

The reson I say and think it will not work is because of less than honorble people making a example of its members early on.

I'm not trying to insert anything into the game only responding to the original poster's suggestion, and no something is not free if you're getting it in return for doing someone or something a favor that's still a cost. Inserting something that has no plausible way of existing is when someone argues that powerful killer mage guilds cover the planet and no rivals could ever come into existence because they kill them all.

No I did not imply or suggest any overly large mage groups, someone else was suggesting implausibly large numbers of mage groups.

Mages are brought up under a wide range of societal upbringings, they're also individuals and society simply cannot make everyone behave in the same fashion or accept what society says is normal as what's normal. If that were the case we'd still have slavery because no one would have accepted it as being wrong because society said it was right and you would find no women in muslem-ruled countries trying to change things so that they're no longer treated like animals or furniture.

You have insufficient justification for 'less than honorable people' going around murdering members of the 'free spells!' movement as well as for how it's such a certainty that even if such occurred that it would prevent such a movement catching on or growing.

[Ed]

I haven't bothered to read any of his post but you simply do not have a credible argument when you insist that there are powerful, killer mage guilds covering the entire planet that ALL have an agenda to kill rival guilds (except inexplicably each other JUST the guilds trying to share spells for free) and will level what amounts to nuclear weapons to destroy what you keep claiming are basically helpless sheep incapable of defending themselves OR being a threat to anyone.

That's where you're wrong. This whole free spell sharing thing only works where there are large concentrations of spell casters. Coverage of BFE isn't necessary because there are no people there to share spells with. Further, places like FoM are innately hostile to the free exchange of power (magic) and will kill on general principals. That leaves in NA: Kingsdale, Lazlo, New Lazlo, Tolkeen, and the Colorado Baronies. Plus any parts of the Pecos Empire organized enough to amount to a hill of beans. The 158 members of the Guild of the Gifted to cover each of these targets and have plenty of firepower to spare.

There are communities all over the place on Rifts Earth that go along quite fine without others even realizing or caring overmuch that they exist since they're scattered all over, which is the CANON setting for Rifts Earth.

Yes, there are. And do you know what else these communities have in common? They're small. And isolated.

By the books there simply is not anywhere close to the kind of coverage of the earth as you claim by ANY group.

Again, don't need it. No one cares if the Free Magic Movement reigns supreme in Bugtussle. But good luck finding spells to share.

If you want to invent completely implausible killer mage groups with an impossible coverage of the planet for your games you can do that but there simply aren't any such things in the books and again insisting that they do exist in the books just undercuts your credibility. Don't confuse your game setting and your ability to create phantom organizations for the sole purpose of keeping your players from doing something no matter how much the setting doesn't actually support it with the actual game books and setting, they aren't the same.

There have been at least four such organizations mentioned, multiple times. I submit my credibility is well established.

No that really isn't a given, nor is this guild of spell-sharing mages required to be just a 'random collection of like-minded strangers', if they're a group working to share spells for free they've as much entitlement to the option of teamwork as the others.

The Iraqi army had just as much entitlement to the option of teamwork as the Americans did in GW I and II. How'd that work out for them?

Again that's not a given, they've just as much reason to be divided and at each others throats as long-term association has them trying to edge each other out and gain more power for themselves (since your high-powered, ubiquitous killer mage guilds by your own statement regarding them are amoral, ruthless, and all about money and power and not likely to work well together). Meanwhile the younger group has the unifying feature of youthful idealism and fanatic devotion to 'the cause', and as all the suicide bombers can attest there is no shortage of fanatical devotion and drive to take out a more powerful foe in the lower level sorts.

LOL. I've seen, first hand, plenty of fanatical suicide bombers suddenly get a whole lot less fanatical when the guy next to them got his head blown off. Something tells me youthful idealism will have the same reaction in Rifts as it did in the Sandbox.

You simply can't win your argument because it depends too much on absolutes and things that simply aren't plausible for the setting. There can't be if you're even remotely going by the books powerful killer mage guilds all over the place covering every community on the planet.

Again, they don't have to be "all over the planet"; all they need is for Benny the Line Walker to get pissed about people messing with his money. Even if he isn't a member of a guild, he probably knows a guy, who knows a guy. Word will get around.

You don't want PC mages having the chance of setting up a spell-sharing network so they can get powerful spells free you're free to do that in your games you're running, but don't make the mistake of trying to claim that the actual setting works like that because it doesn't.

Contraire. Magic is a closely hoarded resource. That's canon.

There are no omni-present organizations in Rifts and none capable of the level of ruthless and insanely successful suppression campaigns you insist exist. Such organizations would completely change the nature of the setting and be impossible to not see some mention of somewhere and just because a line of fluff-text (that should never have been included in the first place) likes to claim mages are secretive that doesn't mean they go around killing mages that aren't. Anyone doing so would be an exception (a very rare exception) rather than a rule or standard of conduct, there certainly isn't any text stating 'mages, being secretive, ruthless hunt down and kill no matter their alignment any mages that are not' nor any text even remotely implying that.

I suggest you read the description of the Guild of the Gifted and rephrase the above statement.

[Killer Cyborg]

At this point, is it just Nightmask that's in the "this movement wouldn't have any problems taking off" school of thought?

[Nightmask]

I haven't bothered to read any of his post but you simply do not have a credible argument when you insist that there are powerful, killer mage guilds covering the entire planet that ALL have an agenda to kill rival guilds (except inexplicably each other JUST the guilds trying to share spells for free) and will level what amounts to nuclear weapons to destroy what you keep claiming are basically helpless sheep incapable of defending themselves OR being a threat to anyone.

That's where you're wrong. This whole free spell sharing thing only works where there are large concentrations of spell casters. Coverage of BFE isn't necessary because there are no people there to share spells with. Further, places like FoM are innately hostile to the free exchange of power (magic) and will kill on general principals. That leaves in NA: Kingsdale, Lazlo, New Lazlo, Tolkeen, and the Colorado Baronies. Plus any parts of the Pecos Empire organized enough to amount to a hill of beans. The 158 members of the Guild of the Gifted to cover each of these targets and have plenty of firepower to spare.

You're making things up out of whole cloth Ed, inventing things simply to cover your 'I won't allow free spell sharing in my campaign' mindset and make it out as if that's something actually in the books and that's just not the case. Do you actually realize just how large the US is? Do you realize just how utterly unrealistic it is to try and argue that the guild you keep going on about could cover the entire continent? Or how unrealistic that argument is because it requires the entire organization devoting itself to hunting down these 'free spell' groups leaving them no time or ability to actually do anything that actually would be of importance to them?

There are communities all over the place on Rifts Earth that go along quite fine without others even realizing or caring overmuch that they exist since they're scattered all over, which is the CANON setting for Rifts Earth.

Yes, there are. And do you know what else these communities have in common? They're small. And isolated.

Small is relative, given the setting there is room for quite a few good-sized communities including magic-using ones (it's even a feature of the city-building rules to have a magic-community). If a group set about building a spell-sharing community there is very little anyone could do to stop it from happening.

By the books there simply is not anywhere close to the kind of coverage of the earth as you claim by ANY group.

Again, don't need it. No one cares if the Free Magic Movement reigns supreme in Bugtussle. But good luck finding spells to share.

Except that's been your assertion, that such a group couldn't exist because no where they set up would be outside the range of some killer guild. Now you're shifting your goalposts around trying to argue 'well okay they can exist but couldn't do anything important', so now you're conceding they can exist. Well until you respond and shift the posts again.

If you want to invent completely implausible killer mage groups with an impossible coverage of the planet for your games you can do that but there simply aren't any such things in the books and again insisting that they do exist in the books just undercuts your credibility. Don't confuse your game setting and your ability to create phantom organizations for the sole purpose of keeping your players from doing something no matter how much the setting doesn't actually support it with the actual game books and setting, they aren't the same.

There have been at least four such organizations mentioned, multiple times. I submit my credibility is well established.

Not when you're trying to argue those organizations have nothing better to do than kill anyone trying to set up a free spell-sharing organization, making them out to be little more than puppets with nothing to do but eliminate such groups because you personally don't want players having the option of setting up a free sharing organization to gain spells for free. You paint them as 2-dimensional groupings with nothing better to do but hunt spell-sharing groups and as being capable of always discovering and eliminating such groups which just isn't a credible position.

No that really isn't a given, nor is this guild of spell-sharing mages required to be just a 'random collection of like-minded strangers', if they're a group working to share spells for free they've as much entitlement to the option of teamwork as the others.

The Iraqi army had just as much entitlement to the option of teamwork as the Americans did in GW I and II. How'd that work out for them?

Apples and oranges, the Iraqi army for one wasn't equipped with the same gear as the US had unlike groups of LLW would be.

Again that's not a given, they've just as much reason to be divided and at each others throats as long-term association has them trying to edge each other out and gain more power for themselves (since your high-powered, ubiquitous killer mage guilds by your own statement regarding them are amoral, ruthless, and all about money and power and not likely to work well together). Meanwhile the younger group has the unifying feature of youthful idealism and fanatic devotion to 'the cause', and as all the suicide bombers can attest there is no shortage of fanatical devotion and drive to take out a more powerful foe in the lower level sorts.

LOL. I've seen, first hand, plenty of fanatical suicide bombers suddenly get a whole lot less fanatical when the guy next to them got his head blown off. Something tells me youthful idealism will have the same reaction in Rifts as it did in the Sandbox.

You clearly have issues if you're being so dismissive of youthful idealism, it's been a great deal more effective throughout the ages than you're willing to admit to. Although I guess you think all those student protestors who've been beaten and jailed and stood firm somehow don't qualify since they undercut your 'youthful idealism is worthless and always folds' position you're holding to here.

You simply can't win your argument because it depends too much on absolutes and things that simply aren't plausible for the setting. There can't be if you're even remotely going by the books powerful killer mage guilds all over the place covering every community on the planet.

Again, they don't have to be "all over the planet"; all they need is for Benny the Line Walker to get pissed about people messing with his money. Even if he isn't a member of a guild, he probably knows a guy, who knows a guy. Word will get around.

I swear you just toss that stuff out just to disagree no matter how unrealistic it is. Do you have such a cynical and coldhearted view of people that you think everyone goes around arranging people's deaths because they thought they lost out on some money? Do you think all LLW are somehow insane and greedy for cash and power and arrange to kill any that look like they might have cost them money? Because you keep coming up with such unrealistic scenarios it's difficult to credit them with being serious attempts to discuss a point.

By your reasoning no union would have ever formed because the first time the strike busters came in and beat and killed unionizers everyone would have folded and quietly gone back to being slave labor in hellish conditions yet what do you know unions formed and cleaned up those hellish work conditions and it took the younger people who hadn't been worn down by time to make it happen. The evil 'kill them all' sorts you keep positing don't have a monopoly on determination and a willingness to stick to making their ideas come true, if you think that you've a horribly negative opinion of humanity that you think only evil is strong and good to be weak and that only ruthless, power-mad killers have determination and tenacity and everyone else will fold when confronted by them with none standing up against it.

You don't want PC mages having the chance of setting up a spell-sharing network so they can get powerful spells free you're free to do that in your games you're running, but don't make the mistake of trying to claim that the actual setting works like that because it doesn't.

Contraire. Magic is a closely hoarded resource. That's canon.

Clearly that's not so, all the material in the books makes it quite evident that magic's all over the place and clearly not being hoarded by anyone. Not only could there not be anywhere near the number of mages we see around in the books and in general population figures if that were so but you couldn't have had a citystate like Tolkeen form as it was founded on being a magic-biased society. You can't very well have a magic-based society AND hoard magic at the same time.

There are no omni-present organizations in Rifts and none capable of the level of ruthless and insanely successful suppression campaigns you insist exist. Such organizations would completely change the nature of the setting and be impossible to not see some mention of somewhere and just because a line of fluff-text (that should never have been included in the first place) likes to claim mages are secretive that doesn't mean they go around killing mages that aren't. Anyone doing so would be an exception (a very rare exception) rather than a rule or standard of conduct, there certainly isn't any text stating 'mages, being secretive, ruthless hunt down and kill no matter their alignment any mages that are not' nor any text even remotely implying that.

I suggest you read the description of the Guild of the Gifted and rephrase the above statement.

I have no need to, my statement is valid as it is.

[Subjugator]

You're making things up out of whole cloth Ed, inventing things simply to cover your 'I won't allow free spell sharing in my campaign' mindset and make it out as if that's something actually in the books and that's just not the case. Do you actually realize just how large the US is? Do you realize just how utterly unrealistic it is to try and argue that the guild you keep going on about could cover the entire continent? Or how unrealistic that argument is because it requires the entire organization devoting itself to hunting down these 'free spell' groups leaving them no time or ability to actually do anything that actually would be of importance to them?

No. It's directly stated in perfectly clear text that is absolutely canonical that mages jealously guard their spell knowledge. It is you that is inventing things.

Small is relative, given the setting there is room for quite a few good-sized communities including magic-using ones (it's even a feature of the city-building rules to have a magic-community). If a group set about building a spell-sharing community there is very little anyone could do to stop it from happening.

Killing them would do a lot to stop it.

Except that's been your assertion, that such a group couldn't exist because no where they set up would be outside the range of some killer guild. Now you're shifting your goalposts around trying to argue 'well okay they can exist but couldn't do anything important', so now you're conceding they can exist. Well until you respond and shift the posts again.

No. None here have argued that five guys cannot get together and share their spells. We've argued that it cannot be done on a large scale.

Not when you're trying to argue those organizations have nothing better to do than kill anyone trying to set up a free spell-sharing organization, making them out to be little more than puppets with nothing to do but eliminate such groups because you personally don't want players having the option of setting up a free sharing organization to gain spells for free. You paint them as 2-dimensional groupings with nothing better to do but hunt spell-sharing groups and as being capable of always discovering and eliminating such groups which just isn't a credible position.

They can do more than one thing at a time. It is you that is making them two dimensional.

Apples and oranges, the Iraqi army for one wasn't equipped with the same gear as the US had unlike groups of LLW would be.

Let me see if I understand this.

Your assertion is that a high level mage...one, maybe even TWO...would gladly share all of their magic knowledge with others and that between those TWO PEOPLE, they would have as much magical knowledge as the guild of the gifted?

I swear you just toss that stuff out just to disagree no matter how unrealistic it is. Do you have such a cynical and coldhearted view of people that you think everyone goes around arranging people's deaths because they thought they lost out on some money? Do you think all LLW are somehow insane and greedy for cash and power and arrange to kill any that look like they might have cost them money? Because you keep coming up with such unrealistic scenarios it's difficult to credit them with being serious attempts to discuss a point.

It is you that is ignoring economic, psychological, and canonical reality.

Clearly that's not so, all the material in the books makes it quite evident that magic's all over the place and clearly not being hoarded by anyone. Not only could there not be anywhere near the number of mages we see around in the books and in general population figures if that were so but you couldn't have had a citystate like Tolkeen form as it was founded on being a magic-biased society. You can't very well have a magic-based society AND hoard magic at the same time.

It has been quoted...repeatedly...that magical secrets are closely guarded. That is canonical.

/Sub

[Alrik Vas]

At this point, is it just Nightmask that's in the "this movement wouldn't have any problems taking off" school of thought?

Pretty sure.

[Nightmask]

You're making things up out of whole cloth Ed, inventing things simply to cover your 'I won't allow free spell sharing in my campaign' mindset and make it out as if that's something actually in the books and that's just not the case. Do you actually realize just how large the US is? Do you realize just how utterly unrealistic it is to try and argue that the guild you keep going on about could cover the entire continent? Or how unrealistic that argument is because it requires the entire organization devoting itself to hunting down these 'free spell' groups leaving them no time or ability to actually do anything that actually would be of importance to them?

No. It's directly stated in perfectly clear text that is absolutely canonical that mages jealously guard their spell knowledge. It is you that is inventing things.

Until you can point to where it says all mages are insane with their insanity being 'jealously guards spell knowledge and never shares' then it is you who are inventing things to insist that all mages insist on hoarding spell knowledge and never share and that they can't decide to share freely.

Small is relative, given the setting there is room for quite a few good-sized communities including magic-using ones (it's even a feature of the city-building rules to have a magic-community). If a group set about building a spell-sharing community there is very little anyone could do to stop it from happening.

Killing them would do a lot to stop it.

Which again requires an impossible degree of coverage of the landscape by killer mage guilds that all have an insane level of secrecy driving them that they kill all mages because they would HAVE to be killing all mages that aren't guild members without question. If they're so insane as to be going around killing people for trying to set up a free-sharing community because they see them as competition then they'd see ALL mages as competition to be killed.

Except that's been your assertion, that such a group couldn't exist because no where they set up would be outside the range of some killer guild. Now you're shifting your goalposts around trying to argue 'well okay they can exist but couldn't do anything important', so now you're conceding they can exist. Well until you respond and shift the posts again.

No. None here have argued that five guys cannot get together and share their spells. We've argued that it cannot be done on a large scale.

Which is nonsense, the very killer guilds being tossed out share spells amongst the members so what they kill themselves? If they're so determined to hoard power and magic you couldn't buy spells because they wouldn't be willing to sell them to anyone, and if they're going around killing people they make themselves targets for other people. This is not some kind of vacuum, if some mage guild was going around murdering like you suggest it WOULD draw the attention of people, people who'd take exception with it. Powerful people. There are a lot of powerful things running around Rifts Earth and a mage guild is not on the higher end of those things.

Not when you're trying to argue those organizations have nothing better to do than kill anyone trying to set up a free spell-sharing organization, making them out to be little more than puppets with nothing to do but eliminate such groups because you personally don't want players having the option of setting up a free sharing organization to gain spells for free. You paint them as 2-dimensional groupings with nothing better to do but hunt spell-sharing groups and as being capable of always discovering and eliminating such groups which just isn't a credible position.

They can do more than one thing at a time. It is you that is making them two dimensional.

Given the argument's been how these killer guilds go around expending large amounts of resources to find and kill mages trying to set up a free spell sharing guild network so they can't possibly exist it is most certainly you making them out to be two-dimensional with them devoting all these resources to people who aren't hurting them and not even likely to even be anywhere that they can plausibly know that they even exist.

Apples and oranges, the Iraqi army for one wasn't equipped with the same gear as the US had unlike groups of LLW would be.

Let me see if I understand this.

Your assertion is that a high level mage...one, maybe even TWO...would gladly share all of their magic knowledge with others and that between those TWO PEOPLE, they would have as much magical knowledge as the guild of the gifted?

I have no idea where said guild is written up nor do I care, said guild can't possibly have the resources or the power to make it impossible for other mages to group together to freely trade spells. To have that kind of power would rate them with even more plot armor than the CS has (and that's saying quite a bit), and all those people in the sharing guild have resources of their own, and family, and friends. Oh right in order for them to be easy victims you're considering all the free-sharing members to all be nobodies with no resources and no contacts or alliances that would retaliate if they were killed, because that's only available to your NPC killer guild right?

I swear you just toss that stuff out just to disagree no matter how unrealistic it is. Do you have such a cynical and coldhearted view of people that you think everyone goes around arranging people's deaths because they thought they lost out on some money? Do you think all LLW are somehow insane and greedy for cash and power and arrange to kill any that look like they might have cost them money? Because you keep coming up with such unrealistic scenarios it's difficult to credit them with being serious attempts to discuss a point.

It is you that is ignoring economic, psychological, and canonical reality.

Given your claims no you are definitely the one ignoring all those issues. You have these organizations having murderous intent towards anyone who shares spells and going around killing people over it when there is no economic benefit to them at all, and making it out that if you're a LLW you're mentally disturbed with an insane need to kill anyone who tries to set up such a sharing network, mental issues that clearly are NOT canon to ley line walkers and if they can agree to share in smaller groups they can certainly agree to share in larger groups because again it's not canonical that all ley line walkers are insane and will without consideration of alignment kill or arrange the deaths of other LLW that decide to trade spells freely. Indeed the fact that they CAN do it clearly shows there is no such insanity and nothing to your argument that it's impossible for mages to share spells on a large scale.

Clearly that's not so, all the material in the books makes it quite evident that magic's all over the place and clearly not being hoarded by anyone. Not only could there not be anywhere near the number of mages we see around in the books and in general population figures if that were so but you couldn't have had a citystate like Tolkeen form as it was founded on being a magic-biased society. You can't very well have a magic-based society AND hoard magic at the same time.

It has been quoted...repeatedly...that magical secrets are closely guarded. That is canonical.

/Sub

And I've pointed out repeatedly that clearly that is not canonical, there is simply too much evidence to the contrary that such a claim of magic secrets being closed guarded is false.

Really, as I've noted before the real reason all the ridiculous claims keep being made for why such a guild is impossible is because those making them have an outside-the-game mindset that PC should always have to pay for everything and especially have to work for every spell the PC mages get so will invent a wide range of simply unsupported things to shoot the idea down. You want to run your games like that fine but don't go mistaking your personal idea of how a game should be run with how the actual game material is, and killer guilds ruthlessly ensuring a PC has to always pay for his spells simply aren't part of the game material and are individual GM creations.

You can pretend I never mentioned the elephant in the room if you like, pretend I never pointed out the real reason for your arguments, but it won't change the fact that your arguments are flawed for all the reasons I've extensively laid out already. Including the fact that as the one who decides what spells can even enter into the network even such a network in a game will never get a PC a spell you as the GM don't want him to have. As the one who determine what NPC get into the network and what spells they have it never changes with regards to what spells they can acquire, it just is cheaper for them. You really should stop being so limited in your thinking and instead of knee-jerk shooting it down see how the idea could add to your campaign instead of just dismissing it out of hand.

[Nightmask]

At this point, is it just Nightmask that's in the "this movement wouldn't have any problems taking off" school of thought?

Pretty sure.

You'd be wrong, the rest just gave up responding seeing how determined the 'this could never ever happen no matter what' crowd was to ignore anything and everything that undermined their arguments.

[flatline]

At this point, is it just Nightmask that's in the "this movement wouldn't have any problems taking off" school of thought?

I replied to this last night but can't find it. I must have canceled it by mistake so I'll try again.

I think that such a movement could gain a fair amount of momentum before it showed up on the radar of those who would want to stop it. Once it showed up on their radar, I don't think we have sufficient details to determine if it could survive the response. Also, assuming it survived, without having more details about the social pressures driving the movement, I don't think we can determine if the movement would stay true to its roots or transform into something else.

It is also my opinion that this thread is mostly composed of speculative guesses declared as if they were sure things.

--flatline

[Mech-Viper Prime]

Any canon supporting this freedom magic movement?

[Subjugator]

Until you can point to where it says all mages are insane with their insanity being 'jealously guards spell knowledge and never shares' then it is you who are inventing things to insist that all mages insist on hoarding spell knowledge and never share and that they can't decide to share freely.

The requirement isn't that they be insane. See, that's YOU adding to it. It specifically says they ALL guard their spells.

Which again requires an impossible degree of coverage of the landscape by killer mage guilds that all have an insane level of secrecy driving them that they kill all mages because they would HAVE to be killing all mages that aren't guild members without question. If they're so insane as to be going around killing people for trying to set up a free-sharing community because they see them as competition then they'd see ALL mages as competition to be killed.

Not insane. Just guarded.

Which is nonsense, the very killer guilds being tossed out share spells amongst the members so what they kill themselves?

They don't do it on a large scale.

What word don't you understand?! We are saying, "Selling spells for five credits each will get you killed."

You equate that to, "If you ever give a spell to another you will be killed."

There is an OCEAN of difference between the two.

Given the argument's been how these killer guilds go around expending large amounts of resources to find and kill mages trying to set up a free spell sharing guild network so they can't possibly exist it is most certainly you making them out to be two-dimensional with them devoting all these resources to people who aren't hurting them and not even likely to even be anywhere that they can plausibly know that they even exist.

It's not just them. I've given you LISTS of people who would oppose this, but you've steadfastly ignored that.

I have no idea where said guild is written up nor do I care, said guild can't possibly have the resources or the power to make it impossible for other mages to group together to freely trade spells.

1. There's more than one guild.
2. It is not just they who would block this.

To have that kind of power would rate them with even more plot armor than the CS has (and that's saying quite a bit), and all those people in the sharing guild have resources of their own, and family, and friends. Oh right in order for them to be easy victims you're considering all the free-sharing members to all be nobodies with no resources and no contacts or alliances that would retaliate if they were killed, because that's only available to your NPC killer guild right?

Actually, you're bending this into a paper clip trying to give your favored idea more WAY plot armor than is rational (to the tune of several orders of magnitude).

Right now, the black market can sell a basic level 1 spell for 5,000 credits (or more). A high level spell (say...10th level) can sell for millions. If someone else comes out and starts selling them in bulk for five credits each, they're GOING to intervene. Every single level 1 spell distributed in such a way is a loss of 5,000 credits. If it's done to 10th level spells, it's a loss of millions. Do they care if it's done one at a time? No. Do they care if it's done like one is printing books? Hell yes.

Given your claims no you are definitely the one ignoring all those issues. You have these organizations having murderous intent towards anyone who shares spells

BZZT!

That's lie number 1.

We have not EVER posited that anyone who shares spells will be killed. We said people who share spells in mass quantities for negligible cost would be killed. That is something you have added as a straw man.

and going around killing people over it when there is no economic benefit to them at all

BZZT!

That's lie number 2.

They derive a LOT of economic benefit from spells and spell casting being rare. That is something you are adding as a straw man.

and making it out that if you're a LLW you're mentally disturbed with an insane need to kill anyone who tries to set up such a sharing network, mental issues that clearly are NOT canon to ley line walkers

BZZT!

That's lie number 3.

None of us have ever posited that it requires that one be mentally ill. That is something you are adding as a straw man.

and if they can agree to share in smaller groups they can certainly agree to share in larger groups because again it's not canonical that all ley line walkers are insane and will without consideration of alignment kill or arrange the deaths of other LLW that decide to trade spells freely.

It is canonical that all mages guard their spells jealously.

And I've pointed out repeatedly that clearly that is not canonical, there is simply too much evidence to the contrary that such a claim of magic secrets being closed guarded is false.

Show me text where it specifically says that mages do not guard their spells jealously? You are using conjecture and calling it canon. We are using the direct and specific words of the text and calling it canon. There is a VAST difference between the two.

Really, as I've noted before the real reason all the ridiculous claims keep being made for why such a guild is impossible is because those making them have an outside-the-game mindset that PC should always have to pay for everything and especially have to work for every spell the PC mages get so will invent a wide range of simply unsupported things to shoot the idea down. You want to run your games like that fine but don't go mistaking your personal idea of how a game should be run with how the actual game material is, and killer guilds ruthlessly ensuring a PC has to always pay for his spells simply aren't part of the game material and are individual GM creations.

We are the ones quoting the actual game material. You have not quoted ANY game material where it says that ANY mages EVER share their spells freely. If that were the case, being a shifter for the bonus spells wouldn't be so popular. If that were the case, then EVERYONE in ALL of the FoM would have the same spells, because they'd SHARE THEM.

They don't. Even the conjecture is against you, but my side doesn't have to use conjecture, because we have the direct canonical words of the game that say so (as KC has quoted).

You can pretend I never mentioned the elephant in the room if you like, pretend I never pointed out the real reason for your arguments, but it won't change the fact that your arguments are flawed for all the reasons I've extensively laid out already. Including the fact that as the one who decides what spells can even enter into the network even such a network in a game will never get a PC a spell you as the GM don't want him to have. As the one who determine what NPC get into the network and what spells they have it never changes with regards to what spells they can acquire, it just is cheaper for them. You really should stop being so limited in your thinking and instead of knee-jerk shooting it down see how the idea could add to your campaign instead of just dismissing it out of hand.

You should stop ignoring the direct and explicit words of the text.

/Sub

[Killer Cyborg]

At this point, is it just Nightmask that's in the "this movement wouldn't have any problems taking off" school of thought?

I replied to this last night but can't find it. I must have canceled it by mistake so I'll try again.

I hate it when that happens!

I think that such a movement could gain a fair amount of momentum before it showed up on the radar of those who would want to stop it.

I'm not sure.
In order for a movement to take off, there has to be a lot of underlying social elements that both push for the movement and nurture it.
As logical as it might seem to us, living in our modern and mundane world, for mages to hand out spells to each other freely, the inhabitants of Rifts Earth have grown up in an environment where hoarding magic is simply what you do. It's how it's "always been."
Going against the guilds wouldn't occur to most people, and if the idea were proposed, they'd probably think that you were crazy.
They might well even think that you're immoral, simply because you're wanting to do things in a different way.

Most movements of change require large numbers of people with a certain amount of privilege, and a certain amount of free time on their hands. They have to be comfortable enough with their lives that they're looking for something to do, looking for a cause... but not so comfortable that they're complacent.
Some cities, like Lazlo, might well be the kind of place where those people would exist in large numbers, but it might not.
The current state where there's been an influx of refugees from Tolkeen might spark a kind of "brotherhood of mages" line of thinking that would encourage people to share... but the significant upswing in crime that came with the refugees might well decrease trust of one's fellow man.

Once it showed up on their radar, I don't think we have sufficient details to determine if it could survive the response.

I think that it's pretty clear that it wouldn't survive unless some extraordinary things happened.
For one thing, the idea of simply sharing spell knowledge for free wouldn't be a NEW idea. It's probably been around a long time, and there have probably been other people in the past with the bright idea of undercutting the guilds and giving out free or cheap spell knowledge.
The fact that the Guilds are still standing demonstrates that they're capable of dealing with this kind of thing. Or, at least, that they have been capable of it so far.
And from what glimpses we've had of the guilds, they're both powerful enough and amoral (or immoral) enough to deal with upstarts.

Which isn't to say that it's impossible for a group of determined people to change things, just that there's a lot of inertia against them, as well as a lot of very powerful forces.
If a GM wanted to make this movement the focus of a long-term campaign, I could see a LOT of potential there.
If the GM wanted to handwave away the established setting, and simply declare that everybody up and decides to join this movement with little to no real problems... that seems incredibly unrealistic.

Also, assuming it survived, without having more details about the social pressures driving the movement, I don't think we can determine if the movement would stay true to its roots or transform into something else.

That is a very good point.

It is also my opinion that this thread is mostly composed of speculative guesses declared as if they were sure things.

--flatline

That seems like a sure thing, declared as if it were speculative.

[Killer Cyborg]

Clearly that's not so, all the material in the books makes it quite evident that magic's all over the place and clearly not being hoarded by anyone. Not only could there not be anywhere near the number of mages we see around in the books and in general population figures if that were so but you couldn't have had a citystate like Tolkeen form as it was founded on being a magic-biased society. You can't very well have a magic-based society AND hoard magic at the same time.

That's like saying, "You can't have a money-based economy AND hoard money at the same time."

Again, we know that Tolkeen's universities SELL spells. It's mentioned right there in the books.
That's not giving anything away for free.
And if you read the rules on gaining new magic, it doesn't list "somebody teaching you for free" as one of the options.
It mentions paying for your knowledge in a variety of ways, from joining a guild, to bargaining with demons, to paying credits.
Each of those things supports the idea that magic is hoarded.
-IF magic were not hoarded, then people would have no incentive to pledge loyalty to the Guilds, and to work for the guilds, in exchange for magic spells.
-IF magic were not hoarded, then people would not be willing to bargain with demons in order to learn new spells. That'd be like somebody selling their soul for a public school science class.
-IF magic were not hoarded, then the cost of purchasing magic spells would not be so high. Also, spells would be more commonly for sale, and more spells would be available.

Nothing in the books actually supports your notion of "how things are" in the world of Rifts when it comes to magic and spell-sharing.
Many things in the books outright conflict with your notion.
You can claim that the books are wrong, or that they're stupid, or that you don't like their face... but that doesn't really change anything: the setting material is pretty clear and consistent.

[Killer Cyborg]

At this point, is it just Nightmask that's in the "this movement wouldn't have any problems taking off" school of thought?

Pretty sure.

You'd be wrong, the rest just gave up responding seeing how determined the 'this could never ever happen no matter what' crowd was to ignore anything and everything that undermined their arguments.

Source?

[rat_bastard]

In the game I am playing in, certain spells (Globe of daylight, create water, detect evil, and certain healing spells) are found in our public library, simply because we believe that to world is better off when people know these spells. Also if a mage signs up with us, they tend to get taught a high level spell we choose for free, and often get access to other spells, but they work a long 20 hours a week helping cast those spells on demand for our military. This has provided us with lots of Ironwood buildings, amulets and talismans. That said, we would never universally give out magic.

[Mech-Viper Prime]

At this point, is it just Nightmask that's in the "this movement wouldn't have any problems taking off" school of thought?

Pretty sure.

You'd be wrong, the rest just gave up responding seeing how determined the 'this could never ever happen no matter what' crowd was to ignore anything and everything that undermined their arguments.

Each Mage would have their own reasons for not doing this.
Would a good Mage teach a rapist, teleportation spells? Or someone who wants to destroy the coalition the wither spell? No, not really.
Are powerful mages handing out spells of legends they know to every Mage they see?
No knowledge is power, I might share some of the lesser spells but you going to be my personal servant for years and years.
Then add in every other organization, each with their reasons for not letting this happening.

[Blue_Lion]

No you are not getting it clearly or flatly ignoring what I said.

You are tring to insert something that has no plausable way to be in the game so that PC can get for free what is charged for curntly. Yes there are ways to get spells for free, such as doing a favor for demon or magical group. But they will always get something for what they give you.

No I did not imply a overling group orgnize by mabes that is entirly made up by you. Socity as in the culture that mages are broght up in, not as some masive oversized oginzation.

The reson I say and think it will not work is because of less than honorble people making a example of its members early on.

I'm not trying to insert anything into the game only responding to the original poster's suggestion, and no something is not free if you're getting it in return for doing someone or something a favor that's still a cost. Inserting something that has no plausible way of existing is when someone argues that powerful killer mage guilds cover the planet and no rivals could ever come into existence because they kill them all.

No I did not imply or suggest any overly large mage groups, someone else was suggesting implausibly large numbers of mage groups.

Mages are brought up under a wide range of societal upbringings, they're also individuals and society simply cannot make everyone behave in the same fashion or accept what society says is normal as what's normal. If that were the case we'd still have slavery because no one would have accepted it as being wrong because society said it was right and you would find no women in muslem-ruled countries trying to change things so that they're no longer treated like animals or furniture.

You have insufficient justification for 'less than honorable people' going around murdering members of the 'free spells!' movement as well as for how it's such a certainty that even if such occurred that it would prevent such a movement catching on or growing.

So lets see what it takes for this movement to work.
1 ignore cannon rule on sources of learning new spells.
2 ignore cannon stating that mages gaurd high level spells.
3 ignore the probility that eviel less honorable guilds often destroy upstart guilds that they think may one day threaten thier power.
4 ignore that one of the families in the black marked specizes in providing magical servies whould be a major seller of spells away from open magic comunites, and whould fight to hold on to their turf agaist the movement.
5 Ignore the fact that for open sharing group to grow word about it whould spread.

Basicaly your whole stance is a opion that defies cannon.

Look at the groups that whould see it as a threat and rival
The Vanguard (secerate mage socity that protects CS intrest.)
The Black market
Any magic accadimy whos bisness you may be stealing
CS
Any goverement that has a problem with your spell sharing tactics or training their rivals.
FoM you are tring to build a rival sorce of magical power.
The guild that controls the city or area where you set up shop or spread to, generaly cannon listing of cities only have 1 major guild for mages of a type if not one guild at all. Why do you think that is? They work to keep compition off their turf.
Random demonic/vilian that sees your group as a pawn or a threat to its pawns. Or even a source to steal power from.

Now then how many of those groups whould be highly likly to devote resorces to stop your movment.
The Vanguard well only on days that end in a Y

The black market step on their turf get swim with the fishes.

Magic accadmy may resort to slightly more leagual stuff or legal pursictuion

CS-lets just ask tolken about that.

Goverments that see tax collection from spell sales drop or you start training thier threats whould make shure you disapear, or whould try to drive you from thier terrory.

FoM well once he gets every thing he can from you.

The local guild-yes they will take action to prevent a upstart from setting up on their turf. But if you set up in a area they have no intrest and pose no threat to them they whould leave you alone but a mass spell sharing network whould often be veiwed as a threat.

Random demonic/vilian yep and as your guild whould be lower level than the existing ones whould be easer target.

So given all that I see such a group as beeing unlikly to get big, as I said at best it whould be low level mages sharing thier starting spell list, and leaving when they get real power.

[Blue_Lion]

Until you can point to where it says all mages are insane with their insanity being 'jealously guards spell knowledge and never shares' then it is you who are inventing things to insist that all mages insist on hoarding spell knowledge and never share and that they can't decide to share freely.

The requirement isn't that they be insane. See, that's YOU adding to it. It specifically says they ALL guard their spells.

Which again requires an impossible degree of coverage of the landscape by killer mage guilds that all have an insane level of secrecy driving them that they kill all mages because they would HAVE to be killing all mages that aren't guild members without question. If they're so insane as to be going around killing people for trying to set up a free-sharing community because they see them as competition then they'd see ALL mages as competition to be killed.

Not insane. Just guarded.

Which is nonsense, the very killer guilds being tossed out share spells amongst the members so what they kill themselves?

They don't do it on a large scale.

What word don't you understand?! We are saying, "Selling spells for five credits each will get you killed."

You equate that to, "If you ever give a spell to another you will be killed."

There is an OCEAN of difference between the two.

Given the argument's been how these killer guilds go around expending large amounts of resources to find and kill mages trying to set up a free spell sharing guild network so they can't possibly exist it is most certainly you making them out to be two-dimensional with them devoting all these resources to people who aren't hurting them and not even likely to even be anywhere that they can plausibly know that they even exist.

It's not just them. I've given you LISTS of people who would oppose this, but you've steadfastly ignored that.

I have no idea where said guild is written up nor do I care, said guild can't possibly have the resources or the power to make it impossible for other mages to group together to freely trade spells.

1. There's more than one guild.
2. It is not just they who would block this.

To have that kind of power would rate them with even more plot armor than the CS has (and that's saying quite a bit), and all those people in the sharing guild have resources of their own, and family, and friends. Oh right in order for them to be easy victims you're considering all the free-sharing members to all be nobodies with no resources and no contacts or alliances that would retaliate if they were killed, because that's only available to your NPC killer guild right?

Actually, you're bending this into a paper clip trying to give your favored idea more WAY plot armor than is rational (to the tune of several orders of magnitude).

Right now, the black market can sell a basic level 1 spell for 5,000 credits (or more). A high level spell (say...10th level) can sell for millions. If someone else comes out and starts selling them in bulk for five credits each, they're GOING to intervene. Every single level 1 spell distributed in such a way is a loss of 5,000 credits. If it's done to 10th level spells, it's a loss of millions. Do they care if it's done one at a time? No. Do they care if it's done like one is printing books? Hell yes.

Given your claims no you are definitely the one ignoring all those issues. You have these organizations having murderous intent towards anyone who shares spells

BZZT!

That's lie number 1.

We have not EVER posited that anyone who shares spells will be killed. We said people who share spells in mass quantities for negligible cost would be killed. That is something you have added as a straw man.

and going around killing people over it when there is no economic benefit to them at all

BZZT!

That's lie number 2.

They derive a LOT of economic benefit from spells and spell casting being rare. That is something you are adding as a straw man.

and making it out that if you're a LLW you're mentally disturbed with an insane need to kill anyone who tries to set up such a sharing network, mental issues that clearly are NOT canon to ley line walkers

BZZT!

That's lie number 3.

None of us have ever posited that it requires that one be mentally ill. That is something you are adding as a straw man.

and if they can agree to share in smaller groups they can certainly agree to share in larger groups because again it's not canonical that all ley line walkers are insane and will without consideration of alignment kill or arrange the deaths of other LLW that decide to trade spells freely.

It is canonical that all mages guard their spells jealously.

And I've pointed out repeatedly that clearly that is not canonical, there is simply too much evidence to the contrary that such a claim of magic secrets being closed guarded is false.

Show me text where it specifically says that mages do not guard their spells jealously? You are using conjecture and calling it canon. We are using the direct and specific words of the text and calling it canon. There is a VAST difference between the two.

Really, as I've noted before the real reason all the ridiculous claims keep being made for why such a guild is impossible is because those making them have an outside-the-game mindset that PC should always have to pay for everything and especially have to work for every spell the PC mages get so will invent a wide range of simply unsupported things to shoot the idea down. You want to run your games like that fine but don't go mistaking your personal idea of how a game should be run with how the actual game material is, and killer guilds ruthlessly ensuring a PC has to always pay for his spells simply aren't part of the game material and are individual GM creations.

We are the ones quoting the actual game material. You have not quoted ANY game material where it says that ANY mages EVER share their spells freely. If that were the case, being a shifter for the bonus spells wouldn't be so popular. If that were the case, then EVERYONE in ALL of the FoM would have the same spells, because they'd SHARE THEM.

They don't. Even the conjecture is against you, but my side doesn't have to use conjecture, because we have the direct canonical words of the game that say so (as KC has quoted).

You can pretend I never mentioned the elephant in the room if you like, pretend I never pointed out the real reason for your arguments, but it won't change the fact that your arguments are flawed for all the reasons I've extensively laid out already. Including the fact that as the one who decides what spells can even enter into the network even such a network in a game will never get a PC a spell you as the GM don't want him to have. As the one who determine what NPC get into the network and what spells they have it never changes with regards to what spells they can acquire, it just is cheaper for them. You really should stop being so limited in your thinking and instead of knee-jerk shooting it down see how the idea could add to your campaign instead of just dismissing it out of hand.

You should stop ignoring the direct and explicit words of the text.

/Sub

Actualy sub their is game materal that says mages share materal freely he just has not braght it up. Back in the time of RMB KS talked about how a mage/PC might share low level spells with a friend/party member but often whould be less inclined(not going to) with his high level. That is cannon that says it might/does happen on small scale maybe 2-3 people with low level spells.
There is also refences from around the same time that TW share information on TW devices. Probaly why there is such a large pool of common TW items that at the time any TW could make. May even be still. Given the technical nature of TWs they could and whould be verry likly to have informtion/plans stored on electronic media and be able to share swap. But that was for TW devices not the spells.

I can't rember what pages or even witch books are in off the top of my head but I am not going to bother looking for them from my mound of books as it does not acutaly prove this movment is likly to happen. Pluss as RUE superseeds them in priorty making any diffrence in cannon in RUE corect they can not justly prove this movement is posible and can be iggnored by cannon.

[Blue_Lion]

At this point, is it just Nightmask that's in the "this movement wouldn't have any problems taking off" school of thought?

Pretty sure.

You'd be wrong, the rest just gave up responding seeing how determined the 'this could never ever happen no matter what' crowd was to ignore anything and everything that undermined their arguments.

Each Mage would have their own reasons for not doing this.
Would a good Mage teach a rapist, teleportation spells? Or someone who wants to destroy the coalition the wither spell? No, not really.
Are powerful mages handing out spells of legends they know to every Mage they see?
No knowledge is power, I might share some of the lesser spells but you going to be my personal servant for years and years.
Then add in every other organization, each with their reasons for not letting this happening.

The wither spell refrence is because althou most mages dislike the CS, the CS is by cannon the main source of food in north america. Some short sighted mages whould over look this and attack the CS crops. The CS has stores to last for its people untell they can restore food production and abilty (and ecuse) to given such an attack to target and steal other smaller food sources. Resulting in lots of non Cs people and debees starving.

[Mech-Viper Prime]

At this point, is it just Nightmask that's in the "this movement wouldn't have any problems taking off" school of thought?

Pretty sure.

You'd be wrong, the rest just gave up responding seeing how determined the 'this could never ever happen no matter what' crowd was to ignore anything and everything that undermined their arguments.

Each Mage would have their own reasons for not doing this.
Would a good Mage teach a rapist, teleportation spells? Or someone who wants to destroy the coalition the wither spell? No, not really.
Are powerful mages handing out spells of legends they know to every Mage they see?
No knowledge is power, I might share some of the lesser spells but you going to be my personal servant for years and years.
Then add in every other organization, each with their reasons for not letting this happening.

The wither spell refrence is because althou most mages dislike the CS, the CS is by cannon the main source of food in north america. Some short sighted mages whould over look this and attack the CS crops. The CS has stores to last for its people untell they can restore food production and abilty (and ecuse) to given such an attack to target and steal other smaller food sources. Resulting in lots of non Cs people and debees starving.

yes....
This is what I have said before about good mages not letting this happen.

[Blue_Lion]

I know but some people tend to ignore that information. That Is why I was highlighting why a good mage whould not allow it to happen. Heck most eveil mages that know that whould not do it. But hey even magic can have living brain doners.

[Subjugator]

Nightmask: The one ignoring what the books say is you. We have provided direct quotes. You've provided...nothing.

[flatline]

What is the motivation behind the movement?

Teaching spells to allies for free improves your security.
Selling spells to strangers makes you richer.

Teaching spells to strangers for free does neither. Do these mages have some reason to believe that the world is a better place just for having more capable mages in it?

--flatline

[Galroth]

What is the motivation behind the movement?

Teaching spells to allies for free improves your security.
Selling spells to strangers makes you richer.

Teaching spells to strangers for free does neither. Do these mages have some reason to believe that the world is a better place just for having more capable mages in it?

--flatline

The original post said the idea was to spread knowledge in order to increase the diversity of available knowledge. So by spreading known spells around for free, more mages have more spells to work with in order to create new spell variants, basically. Like open source code helps coders write new programs, is I believe the intent of this movement.

[Mech-Viper Prime]

I know but some people tend to ignore that information. That Is why I was highlighting why a good mage whould not allow it to happen. Heck most eveil mages that know that whould not do it. But hey even magic can have living brain doners.

Most mages with common sense wouldn't do that, just because of the backlash of it. I bet there all type of back room deals when dealing with coalition.

[flatline]

What is the motivation behind the movement?

Teaching spells to allies for free improves your security.
Selling spells to strangers makes you richer.

Teaching spells to strangers for free does neither. Do these mages have some reason to believe that the world is a better place just for having more capable mages in it?

--flatline

The original post said the idea was to spread knowledge in order to increase the diversity of available knowledge. So by spreading known spells around for free, more mages have more spells to work with in order to create new spell variants, basically. Like open source code helps coders write new programs, is I believe the intent of this movement.

Hmm...I had a character that had a similar philosophy (although it was more selfish). He figured that the more people he trained as mages, the more people there would be who would search for rare spells, which means there would be more people who know rare spells, which means there would be more people who could potentially teach him those rare spells.

It might sound silly, but it's based on sound economic reasoning. More mages creates more demand which attracts more suppliers. Especially considering that any of those mages demanding spells can, at no cost to themselves, become suppliers for the spells they already know.

This is the same reasoning that says that the most in demand spells (like Talisman) will also be the most common and most affordable just because there will be so many potential teachers undercutting each other in order to be paid to teach you the spell.

The economics of spell knowledge is an interesting thing.

Relevant story: a radiologist friend of mine was "forced" to retire by his partners. So he started his own company and, since he already had all the money he needed, undercut his old partners to steal their business. When they adjusted their fee structure to try to keep the hospital's business, he simply dropped his prices again. And again. And when his old partners finally went out of business, he gave his company away and retired.

Spreading rare spells far and wide doesn't require a movement. It just requires a small number of dedicated individuals who can stay one step ahead long enough for those spells to lose their exclusivity.

--flatline

[Mech-Viper Prime]

What is the motivation behind the movement?

Teaching spells to allies for free improves your security.
Selling spells to strangers makes you richer.

Teaching spells to strangers for free does neither. Do these mages have some reason to believe that the world is a better place just for having more capable mages in it?

--flatline

I know my Mage is very caution when teaching spells to complete strangers.

[flatline]

What is the motivation behind the movement?

Teaching spells to allies for free improves your security.
Selling spells to strangers makes you richer.

Teaching spells to strangers for free does neither. Do these mages have some reason to believe that the world is a better place just for having more capable mages in it?

--flatline

I know my Mage is very caution when teaching spells to complete strangers.

My mages are cautious even with their allies.

--flatline

[Mech-Viper Prime]

What is the motivation behind the movement?

Teaching spells to allies for free improves your security.
Selling spells to strangers makes you richer.

Teaching spells to strangers for free does neither. Do these mages have some reason to believe that the world is a better place just for having more capable mages in it?

--flatline

I know my Mage is very caution when teaching spells to complete strangers.

My mages are cautious even with their allies.

--flatline

that too, made that mistake once.

[Ed]

I'm not sure.
In order for a movement to take off, there has to be a lot of underlying social elements that both push for the movement and nurture it.
As logical as it might seem to us, living in our modern and mundane world, for mages to hand out spells to each other freely, the inhabitants of Rifts Earth have grown up in an environment where hoarding magic is simply what you do. It's how it's "always been."
Going against the guilds wouldn't occur to most people, and if the idea were proposed, they'd probably think that you were crazy.
They might well even think that you're immoral, simply because you're wanting to do things in a different way.

Most movements of change require large numbers of people with a certain amount of privilege, and a certain amount of free time on their hands. They have to be comfortable enough with their lives that they're looking for something to do, looking for a cause... but not so comfortable that they're complacent.
Some cities, like Lazlo, might well be the kind of place where those people would exist in large numbers, but it might not.
The current state where there's been an influx of refugees from Tolkeen might spark a kind of "brotherhood of mages" line of thinking that would encourage people to share... but the significant upswing in crime that came with the refugees might well decrease trust of one's fellow man.

The concept you're looking for is called post-scarcity. Something has value only to the degree it is useful or scarce. In Rifts magic is valuable precisely because it is both highly useful and extremely scarce, at least for high level spells. The FMM would make magic valueless by eliminating its scarcity. In essence, it's asking each of its members to commit economic suicide. While there are individuals, groups even, who are willing to commit suicide, they are definitely not common. And they often get their wish.

[Ed]

Hmm...I had a character that had a similar philosophy (although it was more selfish). He figured that the more people he trained as mages, the more people there would be who would search for rare spells, which means there would be more people who know rare spells, which means there would be more people who could potentially teach him those rare spells.

It might sound silly, but it's based on sound economic reasoning. More mages creates more demand which attracts more suppliers. Especially considering that any of those mages demanding spells can, at no cost to themselves, become suppliers for the spells they already know.

Except that spell sharing doesn't create more mages.

This is the same reasoning that says that the most in demand spells (like Talisman) will also be the most common and most affordable just because there will be so many potential teachers undercutting each other in order to be paid to teach you the spell.

The economics of spell knowledge is an interesting thing.

Relevant story: a radiologist friend of mine was "forced" to retire by his partners. So he started his own company and, since he already had all the money he needed, undercut his old partners to steal their business. When they adjusted their fee structure to try to keep the hospital's business, he simply dropped his prices again. And again. And when his old partners finally went out of business, he gave his company away and retired.

Spreading rare spells far and wide doesn't require a movement. It just requires a small number of dedicated individuals who can stay one step ahead long enough for those spells to lose their exclusivity.

--flatline

The fact is the Relevant story could only have occurred under a set of economic, social, and legal conditions that are unique in history. Your friend could only do what he did because the judicial and regulatory apparatus of the US protected him and allowed it to happen. A microscopic change in the legal background and the events you describe would have not been possible. Needless to say the Rifts setting is about as far as one can get from 21st century US.

[Subjugator]

Hmm...I had a character that had a similar philosophy (although it was more selfish). He figured that the more people he trained as mages, the more people there would be who would search for rare spells, which means there would be more people who know rare spells, which means there would be more people who could potentially teach him those rare spells.

It might sound silly, but it's based on sound economic reasoning. More mages creates more demand which attracts more suppliers. Especially considering that any of those mages demanding spells can, at no cost to themselves, become suppliers for the spells they already know.

Except you're forgetting the reason for the demand for more spells...it's because people will pay for those spells to be cast. The more suppliers of those spells being able to be cast reduces the value thereof.

This is the same reasoning that says that the most in demand spells (like Talisman) will also be the most common and most affordable just because there will be so many potential teachers undercutting each other in order to be paid to teach you the spell.

The reason it's wanted is because talismans are incredibly valuable. They don't want others having the secret. If what you were describing were true, then no trade secrets would exist in today's world...but they do...and they exist for a reason. The mages want to be the ONLY ones selling talismans, and more people able to make them means lower sale prices for them.

The economics of spell knowledge is an interesting thing.

Especially when you apply it correctly.

Relevant story: a radiologist friend of mine was "forced" to retire by his partners. So he started his own company and, since he already had all the money he needed, undercut his old partners to steal their business. When they adjusted their fee structure to try to keep the hospital's business, he simply dropped his prices again. And again. And when his old partners finally went out of business, he gave his company away and retired.

This illustrates why they will NOT give the spell away. They don't want to be undercut.

Spreading rare spells far and wide doesn't require a movement. It just requires a small number of dedicated individuals who can stay one step ahead long enough for those spells to lose their exclusivity.

It wouldn't be all that long. Lots of mages are psychic. Other very powerful beings would also be mad about it. You know...those ones you've ignored every single time they've been mentioned. Like Splynncryth, Inix, and so on and so forth? Or the fact that you've ignored the fact that that little known nation called the COALITION STATES would be out gunning for the group creating more mages than any other?

Easy to 'win' your argument when you ignore canonical rules and the arguments of your opponents.

/Sub

[Subjugator]

The fact is the Relevant story could only have occurred under a set of economic, social, and legal conditions that are unique in history. Your friend could only do what he did because the judicial and regulatory apparatus of the US protected him and allowed it to happen. A microscopic change in the legal background and the events you describe would have not been possible. Needless to say the Rifts setting is about as far as one can get from 21st century US.

Yeah. If his former co-workers could send armed thugs over to braid his legs together, this story would be a lot shorter.

/Sub

[Nightmask]

I'm not sure.
In order for a movement to take off, there has to be a lot of underlying social elements that both push for the movement and nurture it.
As logical as it might seem to us, living in our modern and mundane world, for mages to hand out spells to each other freely, the inhabitants of Rifts Earth have grown up in an environment where hoarding magic is simply what you do. It's how it's "always been."
Going against the guilds wouldn't occur to most people, and if the idea were proposed, they'd probably think that you were crazy.
They might well even think that you're immoral, simply because you're wanting to do things in a different way.

Most movements of change require large numbers of people with a certain amount of privilege, and a certain amount of free time on their hands. They have to be comfortable enough with their lives that they're looking for something to do, looking for a cause... but not so comfortable that they're complacent.
Some cities, like Lazlo, might well be the kind of place where those people would exist in large numbers, but it might not.
The current state where there's been an influx of refugees from Tolkeen might spark a kind of "brotherhood of mages" line of thinking that would encourage people to share... but the significant upswing in crime that came with the refugees might well decrease trust of one's fellow man.

The concept you're looking for is called post-scarcity. Something has value only to the degree it is useful or scarce. In Rifts magic is valuable precisely because it is both highly useful and extremely scarce, at least for high level spells. The FMM would make magic valueless by eliminating its scarcity. In essence, it's asking each of its members to commit economic suicide. While there are individuals, groups even, who are willing to commit suicide, they are definitely not common. And they often get their wish.

You seem to have developed a flaw in your reasoning there, you admit to how useful magic is yet declare that it becomes valueless if not scarce which simply isn't true. Knives do not stop having value simply because there are a lot of them, people still want them and make use of them, same with forks and spoons. Spells simply aren't going to stop having value because they're readily available and has been pointed out before there are other factors involved rather than economics, factors with equal or greater weight.

Trying to reduce it to just a matter of economics is a grossly inaccurate oversimplification in any case. Market demand for useful items frequently drives the cost down (look at how much VCR and Microwaves cost when they first came out compared to now). What you're trying to argue is along the lines of a price-fixing scheme, whereby mage guild X attempts to prevent non-guild members Y and Z from giving away their product and insist that they must charge for it so they can keep the cost of the product far higher than the market pressures would allow for it to be. Such a scheme however can't be successful if it's impossible for them to actually prevent people from giving the product away freely, and they can't. Due to the nature of the scheme they couldn't allow anyone to give it away, they'd have to ruthlessly hunt down and kill all mages caught sharing because all such instances would undercut their prices, and if one is going to insist that it's purely ruthless robber baron economics motivating these people there can be no acceptance of the occasional mage sharing because all those instances take money from them, yet we know mages do share spells freely so such ruthless and amoral behavior isn't in play.

[Subjugator]

You seem to have developed a flaw in your reasoning there, you admit to how useful magic is yet declare that it becomes valueless if not scarce which simply isn't true.

You're right - it doesn't become valueless, but its value is GROSSLY reduced.

Knives do not stop having value simply because there are a lot of them, people still want them and make use of them, same with forks and spoons. Spells simply aren't going to stop having value because they're readily available and has been pointed out before there are other factors involved rather than economics, factors with equal or greater weight.

If there was one source of knives who charged thousands per knife, and then suddenly there were thousands of sources of knives that charged a pittance for knives, the price of the knives would drop dramatically, and those who had knives or access thereto would no longer control a precious commodity, but simply a useful tool.

Trying to reduce it to just a matter of economics is a grossly inaccurate oversimplification in any case. Market demand for useful items frequently drives the cost down (look at how much VCR and Microwaves cost when they first came out compared to now).

At the time, the cost of manufacture was very high, and the demand was actually low because of the ready availability of substitutes that were much less expensive.

What you're trying to argue is along the lines of a price-fixing scheme, whereby mage guild X attempts to prevent non-guild members Y and Z from giving away their product and insist that they must charge for it so they can keep the cost of the product far higher than the market pressures would allow for it to be.

Well, no. That's what IS in place.

Such a scheme however can't be successful if it's impossible for them to actually prevent people from giving the product away freely, and they can't.

Yes they can. They can kill people for doing it, and since the motivation of those incredibly few who wish to give the spells away is not greater than their desire to not risk their lives, they'd not do it.

Due to the nature of the scheme they couldn't allow anyone to give it away, they'd have to ruthlessly hunt down and kill all mages caught sharing because all such instances would undercut their prices, and if one is going to insist that it's purely ruthless robber baron economics motivating these people there can be no acceptance of the occasional mage sharing because all those instances take money from them, yet we know mages do share spells freely so such ruthless and amoral behavior isn't in play.

Once again:

WE ARE ARGUING THAT LARGE SCALE DISTRIBUTION IS WHAT WOULD TRIGGER THE PROBLEM.

Why do you ignore those words and all of the arguments stating why this won't work (even more specifically, the particular words in the book that say this would NOT happen)?

/Sub

[Killer Cyborg]

Spreading rare spells far and wide doesn't require a movement. It just requires a small number of dedicated individuals who can stay one step ahead long enough for those spells to lose their exclusivity.

In order to teach rare spells far and wide, they'd need to be teaching them TO somebody. To lots of somebodies, presumably.
These somebodies would need to be interested in at least accepting the teachings.
So you'd need a large number of people interested in the same thing, and acting on their interest.
That's a movement.

[Nightmask]

You seem to have developed a flaw in your reasoning there, you admit to how useful magic is yet declare that it becomes valueless if not scarce which simply isn't true.

You're right - it doesn't become valueless, but its value is GROSSLY reduced.

Only if you behave as if it's only value is monetary, which is certainly not the case. The value of Teleport: Superior based on what it can do and how useful it can be to someone doesn't change because more people know it, it's only affecting the MONETARY value with regards to those who want to charge for it, now it's actual value.

Knives do not stop having value simply because there are a lot of them, people still want them and make use of them, same with forks and spoons. Spells simply aren't going to stop having value because they're readily available and has been pointed out before there are other factors involved rather than economics, factors with equal or greater weight.

If there was one source of knives who charged thousands per knife, and then suddenly there were thousands of sources of knives that charged a pittance for knives, the price of the knives would drop dramatically, and those who had knives or access thereto would no longer control a precious commodity, but simply a useful tool.

Except that there is no single source of spells, no single guild governing magic or spellcasters, and in the end spells are in fact useful tools whether you charge an insane amount or nothing for them.

Trying to reduce it to just a matter of economics is a grossly inaccurate oversimplification in any case. Market demand for useful items frequently drives the cost down (look at how much VCR and Microwaves cost when they first came out compared to now).

At the time, the cost of manufacture was very high, and the demand was actually low because of the ready availability of substitutes that were much less expensive.

Right, and just what substitute did people have to VCR? Or for that matter why do you think market demand didn't result in the lowering of prices on either product? The suppliers of those products improved the production process and reduced costs because it was more profitable being able to sell to a lot of people rather than a few.

What you're trying to argue is along the lines of a price-fixing scheme, whereby mage guild X attempts to prevent non-guild members Y and Z from giving away their product and insist that they must charge for it so they can keep the cost of the product far higher than the market pressures would allow for it to be.

Well, no. That's what IS in place.

Prove it, outside of the books giving suggested costs for guilds selling spells nowhere does it say there is a price-fixing scheme in place or that there are enforcement teams going around killing people who violate the scheme.

Such a scheme however can't be successful if it's impossible for them to actually prevent people from giving the product away freely, and they can't.

Yes they can. They can kill people for doing it, and since the motivation of those incredibly few who wish to give the spells away is not greater than their desire to not risk their lives, they'd not do it.

No, they really can't, and you're tossing out your own unsupported opinion that all these mages who want to share spells wouldn't because they're too timid and fearful to ever share spells. Given we know mages can and do share spells for free your opinion is proven to be in error.

Due to the nature of the scheme they couldn't allow anyone to give it away, they'd have to ruthlessly hunt down and kill all mages caught sharing because all such instances would undercut their prices, and if one is going to insist that it's purely ruthless robber baron economics motivating these people there can be no acceptance of the occasional mage sharing because all those instances take money from them, yet we know mages do share spells freely so such ruthless and amoral behavior isn't in play.

Once again:

WE ARE ARGUING THAT LARGE SCALE DISTRIBUTION IS WHAT WOULD TRIGGER THE PROBLEM.

Why do you ignore those words and all of the arguments stating why this won't work (even more specifically, the particular words in the book that say this would NOT happen)?

/Sub

Nothing in the books states that such a thing can't happen, nothing. Why do YOU continue to insist that it's utterly impossible for all these free-willed mages to decide on such a thing and make it happen? Because all your arguments for why it can't work have an underlying foundation that is completely untenable, and you refuse to admit to: that you simply don't care for that kind of thing happening in your game and you'll invent anything you have to to say it's impossible and shoot down anyone who suggests it is possible.

'All you have to do is kill some and people will always give up on an idea' (to paraphrase your earlier statement), except that for that to be true then the US must still be a colony of the British Empire, since once the soldiers started killing colonists they should have promptly said 'freedom isn't worth it we surrender'. Unions wouldn't exist and businesses would still hold employees as slave labor because once the hired thugs started killing them they'd have promptly given up because 'well everyone values his life more than any values or commitments he may have'. Slavery would still exist because once you killed a few slaves the rest would quickly cave in, and so on.

Human nature says you're wrong. The world has been shaped by people who've rated their beliefs as more important than their lives, and for good or ill by people who would risk death for what they desire. People have proven time and again that someone insisting 'oh that'll never happen' were wrong, whether it be freedom from one's former country, the creation of unions and cleaning up of workplace hazards, or ending slavery. So when you make such a declarative statement that 'that can never happen, they could never have what it takes to make it happen' you're simply wrong because it certainly could happen. Except in your games of course since you've declared that all people value their lives more than risky ventures so never strive to achieve or adventure because it's too dangerous.

[Killer Cyborg]

Prove it, outside of the books giving suggested costs for guilds selling spells nowhere does it say there is a price-fixing scheme in place or that there are enforcement teams going around killing people who violate the scheme.

Do you know what a guild IS?

[flatline]

Spreading rare spells far and wide doesn't require a movement. It just requires a small number of dedicated individuals who can stay one step ahead long enough for those spells to lose their exclusivity.

In order to teach rare spells far and wide, they'd need to be teaching them TO somebody. To lots of somebodies, presumably.
These somebodies would need to be interested in at least accepting the teachings.
So you'd need a large number of people interested in the same thing, and acting on their interest.
That's a movement.

The movement this thread is proposing is about sharing spells on a large scale. If one person happens to teach Talisman to 1000 people, that's not a movement. It becomes a movement if the people he teaches are also recruited to teach others like he has.

But for spells that are in high demand, regular economic pressures are sufficient to drive prices down without the need of any ideological movement behind it.

Since Talisman can be sold for $1M+, there's a strong incentive for those who know Talisman to sell it and make themselves rich. However, the number of potential buyers is extremely small with the price set so high, so the seller is pressured to reduce his selling price in order to expand the pool of potential buyers. As long as the number of sellers remains constant, the price will be set where the sellers think they can maximize revenue. But since every sale increases the the number of potential sellers by one, the more successful you are at finding buyers, the larger the seller pool becomes which means that for a particular seller to maximize their potential revenue from selling the spell, they have to either be better at finding buyers (which probably means advertising...which is potentially dangerous for all the reasons you guys have pointed out) or reducing his price to make more sales to the potential buyers he already has access to ("hey buddy, I don't normally do this, but since I like you so much, I'll give you a great deal! Just don't tell anyone...").

This is why I feel the high prices for highly useful spells is unsustainable. No ideological movement required.

--flatline

[Alrik Vas]

I'm having a hard time with the logic in this thread.

Okay, if there was really a movment like this, as in, there were say, a hundred thousand mages involved (and i'm pretty sure some of these mages would be guild members, looking to get in on the free shwag), it would attract some attention.

Do we disagree with this? Would it remain a secret?

Pretty sure 3 men keep a secret if two are dead...

Say a senior guild member learned that one of his lackies got involved in the "movement", so he dominates him and after a long enough time (probably a few weeks) he learns where some of these movement people are based, he goes to them and makes an offer.

"Join my guild and follow it's rules, ceasing all free magic distribution, or face the consequences."

Where do you go with that? Honestly.

[flatline]

I'm having a hard time with the logic in this thread.

Okay, if there was really a movment like this, as in, there were say, a hundred thousand mages involved (and i'm pretty sure some of these mages would be guild members, looking to get in on the free shwag), it would attract some attention.

Do we disagree with this? Would it remain a secret?

Pretty sure 3 men keep a secret if two are dead...

Say a senior guild member learned that one of his lackies got involved in the "movement", so he dominates him and after a long enough time (probably a few weeks) he learns where some of these movement people are based, he goes to them and makes an offer.

"Join my guild and follow it's rules, ceasing all free magic distribution, or face the consequences."

Where do you go with that? Honestly.

It all depends on the people involved.

For instance, I've played characters that would have meekly apologized and then disappeared to another region or dimension. Dealing with a small regional power more trouble than its worth unless you have interests that tie you to the region.

I've also had characters that would have interpreted the offer as a declaration of war and responded accordingly.

It would be interesting to learn the rules and benefits of guild membership.

--flatline

[Alrik Vas]

I know what you're saying, so let's address some of it. There are some things we can realistically assume from the sitaution. I think, anyway.

Like, the movement mages have an operation to tend to. The spell knowledge, contacts, distribution methods and other things have to be kept up. They likely have friends and family as well.

These things represent their interests. These are all things the guild mage could threaten.

They aren't offering to allow you to apologize and forgive you. It was join the guild and stop this free magic movment, or suffer blah blah...

If you see it as a declaration of war, that's good. Because he's asking for your surrender. Glad you didn't miss that part. A senior guild mage wouldn't show up to a party without being prepared to dance all night.

So given that, what do you say?

[Blue_Lion]

Spreading rare spells far and wide doesn't require a movement. It just requires a small number of dedicated individuals who can stay one step ahead long enough for those spells to lose their exclusivity.

In order to teach rare spells far and wide, they'd need to be teaching them TO somebody. To lots of somebodies, presumably.
These somebodies would need to be interested in at least accepting the teachings.
So you'd need a large number of people interested in the same thing, and acting on their interest.
That's a movement.

The movement this thread is proposing is about sharing spells on a large scale. If one person happens to teach Talisman to 1000 people, that's not a movement. It becomes a movement if the people he teaches are also recruited to teach others like he has.

But for spells that are in high demand, regular economic pressures are sufficient to drive prices down without the need of any ideological movement behind it.

Since Talisman can be sold for $1M+, there's a strong incentive for those who know Talisman to sell it and make themselves rich. However, the number of potential buyers is extremely small with the price set so high, so the seller is pressured to reduce his selling price in order to expand the pool of potential buyers. As long as the number of sellers remains constant, the price will be set where the sellers think they can maximize revenue. But since every sale increases the the number of potential sellers by one, the more successful you are at finding buyers, the larger the seller pool becomes which means that for a particular seller to maximize their potential revenue from selling the spell, they have to either be better at finding buyers (which probably means advertising...which is potentially dangerous for all the reasons you guys have pointed out) or reducing his price to make more sales to the potential buyers he already has access to ("hey buddy, I don't normally do this, but since I like you so much, I'll give you a great deal! Just don't tell anyone...").

This is why I feel the high prices for highly useful spells is unsustainable. No ideological movement required.

--flatline

That is your opion and overlooks the high desire to protect magic secerates. Witch is cannon, there are more important things than money to a mage.

The cost of spells is high for the same reson the cost of diamonds is high, people control the supply to keep it high. They do not want to sell their preses knowledge to just any one and when they feel you earned the right to learn it they may make you pay for it. And quite well to seams how learning a new spell is a rather involved task for both teacher and student.

In WA state in the 90s farmers did not think they where getting enofe for the milk they sold, the dairy companies did not want to pay them more so the farmers dumped all the milke they produced instead of selling it. Now they get paid more for their milk. Economics can be affected by lots of outside intrests, so there are many things that can factor in to the cost.

[Blue_Lion]

I'm having a hard time with the logic in this thread.

Okay, if there was really a movment like this, as in, there were say, a hundred thousand mages involved (and i'm pretty sure some of these mages would be guild members, looking to get in on the free shwag), it would attract some attention.

Do we disagree with this? Would it remain a secret?

Pretty sure 3 men keep a secret if two are dead...

Say a senior guild member learned that one of his lackies got involved in the "movement", so he dominates him and after a long enough time (probably a few weeks) he learns where some of these movement people are based, he goes to them and makes an offer.

"Join my guild and follow it's rules, ceasing all free magic distribution, or face the consequences."

Where do you go with that? Honestly.

It all depends on the people involved.

For instance, I've played characters that would have meekly apologized and then disappeared to another region or dimension. Dealing with a small regional power more trouble than its worth unless you have interests that tie you to the region.

I've also had characters that would have interpreted the offer as a declaration of war and responded accordingly.

It would be interesting to learn the rules and benefits of guild membership.

--flatline

I magine the rules verrry from guild to guild. But the general impreasion is they want you to be loyal to them, and not be in another guild.
Benifits-The yare verry good sorce of spells, and by working for them you whould get new spells. Help further some cause the guild supports. They have the power to protect the members, think about it you are some upstart mage whould you want to pick a fight with some one that has hundreds of friends lvl 11+? If you fight a guild member the guild could see you as a treat or challenger and they whould use their combined power to cruch you. Most mage guilds have been doing magic reserch for years, they may posess uniquic uncommon spells that no one else knows.

[flatline]

Spreading rare spells far and wide doesn't require a movement. It just requires a small number of dedicated individuals who can stay one step ahead long enough for those spells to lose their exclusivity.

In order to teach rare spells far and wide, they'd need to be teaching them TO somebody. To lots of somebodies, presumably.
These somebodies would need to be interested in at least accepting the teachings.
So you'd need a large number of people interested in the same thing, and acting on their interest.
That's a movement.

The movement this thread is proposing is about sharing spells on a large scale. If one person happens to teach Talisman to 1000 people, that's not a movement. It becomes a movement if the people he teaches are also recruited to teach others like he has.

But for spells that are in high demand, regular economic pressures are sufficient to drive prices down without the need of any ideological movement behind it.

Since Talisman can be sold for $1M+, there's a strong incentive for those who know Talisman to sell it and make themselves rich. However, the number of potential buyers is extremely small with the price set so high, so the seller is pressured to reduce his selling price in order to expand the pool of potential buyers. As long as the number of sellers remains constant, the price will be set where the sellers think they can maximize revenue. But since every sale increases the the number of potential sellers by one, the more successful you are at finding buyers, the larger the seller pool becomes which means that for a particular seller to maximize their potential revenue from selling the spell, they have to either be better at finding buyers (which probably means advertising...which is potentially dangerous for all the reasons you guys have pointed out) or reducing his price to make more sales to the potential buyers he already has access to ("hey buddy, I don't normally do this, but since I like you so much, I'll give you a great deal! Just don't tell anyone...").

This is why I feel the high prices for highly useful spells is unsustainable. No ideological movement required.

--flatline

That is your opion and overlooks the high desire to protect magic secerates. Witch is cannon, there are more important things than money to a mage.

Yet it is also canon that I can purchase spell knowledge with no mention of guild membership as a prerequisite.

Any mage with a basic understanding of math knows that if he can purchase a spell for $X and then teach it to someone else for $X, that he effectively gets the spell for free. If he can sell it to Y people for more than $X/Y, then he makes money.

Are you trying to say that according to canon no mage would do this? The simple fact that that canon lists prices for spells would seem strong evidence against such a position.

The cost of spells is high for the same reson the cost of diamonds is high, people control the supply to keep it high. They do not want to sell their preses knowledge to just any one and when they feel you earned the right to learn it they may make you pay for it. And quite well to seams how learning a new spell is a rather involved task for both teacher and student.

If anyone who knows the spell can sell the spell, how does anyone control the supply short of killing of controlling everyone who knows the spell?

--flatline

[Blue_Lion]

Spreading rare spells far and wide doesn't require a movement. It just requires a small number of dedicated individuals who can stay one step ahead long enough for those spells to lose their exclusivity.

In order to teach rare spells far and wide, they'd need to be teaching them TO somebody. To lots of somebodies, presumably.
These somebodies would need to be interested in at least accepting the teachings.
So you'd need a large number of people interested in the same thing, and acting on their interest.
That's a movement.

The movement this thread is proposing is about sharing spells on a large scale. If one person happens to teach Talisman to 1000 people, that's not a movement. It becomes a movement if the people he teaches are also recruited to teach others like he has.

But for spells that are in high demand, regular economic pressures are sufficient to drive prices down without the need of any ideological movement behind it.

Since Talisman can be sold for $1M+, there's a strong incentive for those who know Talisman to sell it and make themselves rich. However, the number of potential buyers is extremely small with the price set so high, so the seller is pressured to reduce his selling price in order to expand the pool of potential buyers. As long as the number of sellers remains constant, the price will be set where the sellers think they can maximize revenue. But since every sale increases the the number of potential sellers by one, the more successful you are at finding buyers, the larger the seller pool becomes which means that for a particular seller to maximize their potential revenue from selling the spell, they have to either be better at finding buyers (which probably means advertising...which is potentially dangerous for all the reasons you guys have pointed out) or reducing his price to make more sales to the potential buyers he already has access to ("hey buddy, I don't normally do this, but since I like you so much, I'll give you a great deal! Just don't tell anyone...").

This is why I feel the high prices for highly useful spells is unsustainable. No ideological movement required.

--flatline

That is your opion and overlooks the high desire to protect magic secerates. Witch is cannon, there are more important things than money to a mage.

Yet it is also canon that I can purchase spell knowledge with no mention of guild membership as a prerequisite.

Any mage with a basic understanding of math knows that if he can purchase a spell for $X and then teach it to someone else for $X, that he effectively gets the spell for free. If he can sell it to Y people for more than $X/Y, then he makes money.

Are you trying to say that according to canon no mage would do this? The simple fact that that canon lists prices for spells would seem strong evidence against such a position.

The cost of spells is high for the same reson the cost of diamonds is high, people control the supply to keep it high. They do not want to sell their preses knowledge to just any one and when they feel you earned the right to learn it they may make you pay for it. And quite well to seams how learning a new spell is a rather involved task for both teacher and student.

If anyone who knows the spell can sell the spell, how does anyone control the supply short of killing of controlling everyone who knows the spell?

--flatline

Hmmm... wait what is this lets see the listed source of spell knowledge, elder mage (9th level) are those not rare outside of guilds? So it is not a fact that any one that knows a spell can teach a spell. That is your opion once again ignoring what is writen in the book. You are also ignoring the cannon rulling that mages protect the secerates of magic they do not teach just anyone.

So you are ignoring the book to say that the knowledge should drop based on your personal feelings on econmics. There are many complicated issues at work witch you are ignoring in your statements.

[Killer Cyborg]

Spreading rare spells far and wide doesn't require a movement. It just requires a small number of dedicated individuals who can stay one step ahead long enough for those spells to lose their exclusivity.

In order to teach rare spells far and wide, they'd need to be teaching them TO somebody. To lots of somebodies, presumably.
These somebodies would need to be interested in at least accepting the teachings.
So you'd need a large number of people interested in the same thing, and acting on their interest.
That's a movement.

The movement this thread is proposing is about sharing spells on a large scale. If one person happens to teach Talisman to 1000 people, that's not a movement. It becomes a movement if the people he teaches are also recruited to teach others like he has.

If one person happens to teach Talisman to 1,000 people, then that's 1,001 people who are willing to buck traditions (and in some cases laws), to go against the guilds, and to do something different from the standards of their society.
It's getting into semantics, but I count that as a movement.

Also, it takes 2 days per spell level to learn a spell as a rule (BoM 22).
So it takes 26 days to teach one person the Talisman spell. If you teach those 1,000 people one at a time, that's going to be 26,000 days, or 71.23 years of non-stop teaching, without taking a day off.
Of course, it might be possible to teach people in groups... but once the group is large enough, you effectively have a school, one that's dedicated to buck tradition, possibly break the laws, undercut the guilds, etc. Which, again, I'd consider to be a "movement."
Again, though, this is semantics.

But for spells that are in high demand, regular economic pressures are sufficient to drive prices down without the need of any ideological movement behind it.

Generally, yes... but one thing that guilds have always done historically is to artificially interfere with the free market for their own profit.

Since Talisman can be sold for $1M+, there's a strong incentive for those who know Talisman to sell it and make themselves rich. However, the number of potential buyers is extremely small with the price set so high, so the seller is pressured to reduce his selling price in order to expand the pool of potential buyers. As long as the number of sellers remains constant, the price will be set where the sellers think they can maximize revenue. But since every sale increases the the number of potential sellers by one, the more successful you are at finding buyers, the larger the seller pool becomes which means that for a particular seller to maximize their potential revenue from selling the spell, they have to either be better at finding buyers (which probably means advertising...which is potentially dangerous for all the reasons you guys have pointed out) or reducing his price to make more sales to the potential buyers he already has access to ("hey buddy, I don't normally do this, but since I like you so much, I'll give you a great deal! Just don't tell anyone...").

This is why I feel the high prices for highly useful spells is unsustainable. No ideological movement required.

--flatline

I'm guessing that Subjugator and Ed will be able to get into a lot of the economics of it.
For me, other than the guilds, one factor is that I'd say that it'd be killing the golden goose.
Unless you need CR 1,000,000 right NOW, it'd be short-sighted to sell the spell itself instead of simply selling your talisman-making services.
Precisely for the reasons that you're talking about: the more you sell the spell, the less that spell is worth to you. You're decreasing your own profitability by increasing your competition.
You might make a million creds NOW, but you'll be potentially losing out on millions.

Also, I think a lot of your perspective depends on how common all the factors involved are.
Talisman, for example, is a 13th level spell. While any mage with the PPE can cast the spell if they know it... I don't think that a lot of mages would actually know it.
Any mage wishing to pay somebody to teach them that spell would first have to find a seller that actually knows the spell to begin with. According to RUE 190, there's only a 10% chance of a magic seller even having that spell available, and that's only out of the shops/colleges that deal in high end spells at all.
Because (and I quote) Most magic shops and even colleges do NOT offer the full range of spells (levels 1-4 are most common) and many shops will not be able to teach spells at all.
And ...it is the rare community outside of the Magic Zone that even has a magic shop of any kind; most wilderness towns do NOT. On the other hand, there is likely to be 1d4 magic shops of some kind (perhaps mobile; and probably only a couple dozen spells from levels 1-4) in one or two of the CS Burbs.
So you're not going to learn Talisman in the Coalition States territories. You're not going to learn it in a wilderness community or town.
You might have a change in the Magic Zone, in a large community... but only a chance.
And there aren't all THAT many major magical communities in the Magic Zone. With only a 10% chance of each place even having Talisman, it's actually possible for a mage to travel the entire magic zone looking for that spell only to discover that NOBODY there has it for sale.

Perhaps the character will look for somebody he can trade with for the magic, but I suspect that the same scarcity issues would be involved. Especially since the actual text under the "Trade For Magic" section of RUE 190 reads:
Much more common than purchasing invocation for credits is trading one's services (or the service of the group) in exchange for a couple of mid or high-level spells (levels 5-9). The more powerful the spell, the more dangerous the work.
Notice that level 10+ spells aren't even mentioned as an option here. There's not even a 10% chance that anybody would trade this spell. There MIGHT be exceptions, of course, but just wanting to know the spell doesn't mean that you could find anybody who had the spell for trade. And even if you do, you have to remember the more powerful the spell, the more dangerous the work."
And the spell you're looking for is 4 levels more powerful than the "high level" spells listed as being available.
You can also try to trade with demons for the spell, if you can find demons who know the spell... but there are plenty of reasons why this isn't all that popular of a method of learning magic.
You can learn spells as boons and grants from kingdoms, guilds, priests, and gods... but, again, it doesn't sound like it'd be that common to find high level spells this way. Also, the opportunity to have a god teach you a spell is probably not too common.

Then there's the Guilds, which is perhaps the most reliable way to learn magic. In which case, you have to pledge your loyalty, and do work for the guild, generally over a long period of time, as they determine how loyal and trustworthy you are.
And, again, that's mostly stuff under level 10:
[i]Spell knowledge is power, thus it is guarded jealously by most mages. Even in the friendly and open magic societies like Lazlo, New Lazlo, and (the former) Tolkeen, there are some spells that are guarded secrets, rarely taught. These generally include most spells above level 10. The easiest spells to find are levels 1-4, followed by levels 5-7. Beyond this, the secrets of magic are just that, secret.
The only official chance you have of a Guild teaching you Talisman is (assuming that the Guild knows the spell at all), an incredible act of heroics or self sacrifice, which can earn you 1d4+2 spells from levels 1-6, OR any one spell from any level beyond six.
So IF you're a guild member, AND you make an incredible act of heroism or self sacrifice in order to help the guild, THEN you might be able to learn Talisman.
But, being a Guild member, you have made oaths of loyalty to the Guild, and have to abide by Guild laws and price regulations.... so undercutting their prices wouldn't be a realistic option, unless you're willing to break your word, get kicked out of the guild, and probably killed.
If you're NOT a guild member, then the best you can get out of a guild by performing heroics on their behalf is a couple spells from levels 1-5.

[flatline]

Also, it takes 2 days per spell level to learn a spell as a rule (BoM 22).

And this is where Palladium's cognitive dissonance about learning magic spells becomes glaring.

In one fantasy book, there's an adventure where the players find an open book. If a mage reads the page the book is open to, he learns Fly As The Eagle. No instructor, no assistance, simply reading the spell written on the page and he now knows the spell. I can't provide the source, but it's come up multiple times in the forums, so I trust that it exists. If someone can provide the citation, that would be appreciated.

Scroll conversion takes a similar amount of time to learn the spell. There's a chance of failure, but again, no instructor, no assistance, and no re-reading the spell since it disappears, yet you can learn the spell from it.

Yet with a teacher actively instructing you in a new spell takes 2 full days per level of the spell? The only way this makes sense is that it takes a few minutes of instructions to teach the spell and 2 full days per spell level of practice and study to internalize the spell until it can be cast normally. If that's true, then I would expect the same amount of time would be required with scroll conversion and reading the spell from a book.

When a mage "figures out" a new spell as part of leveling up, how long does that take?

--flatline

[Blue_Lion]

Also, it takes 2 days per spell level to learn a spell as a rule (BoM 22).

And this is where Palladium's cognitive dissonance about learning magic spells becomes glaring.

In one fantasy book, there's an adventure where the players find an open book. If a mage reads the page the book is open to, he learns Fly As The Eagle. No instructor, no assistance, simply reading the spell written on the page and he now knows the spell. I can't provide the source, but it's come up multiple times in the forums, so I trust that it exists. If someone can provide the citation, that would be appreciated.

Scroll conversion takes a similar amount of time to learn the spell. There's a chance of failure, but again, no instructor, no assistance, and no re-reading the spell since it disappears, yet you can learn the spell from it.

Yet with a teacher actively instructing you in a new spell takes 2 full days per level of the spell? The only way this makes sense is that it takes a few minutes of instructions to teach the spell and 2 full days per spell level of practice and study to internalize the spell until it can be cast normally. If that's true, then I would expect the same amount of time would be required with scroll conversion and reading the spell from a book.

When a mage "figures out" a new spell as part of leveling up, how long does that take?

--flatline

The book in quesiton seams like a magic artifac as such may have power to do things not normal.
Scroll convertion again says it is special because it contains magic. (By the way I see nothing in the section from converting from a scroll that says it disapears when you do so, it dispears when you read it aload but if you learn a spell from it then recipt the spell from memory does that count as reading aloud? I may have missed something thou.)

So you are complaining about magic beeing able to do things that can't be done without magic.
Your examples are on magic being involved to change the normal process, that in itself does not show a cognitive breakdown in how you learn magic.
Now On leveling up it is a kinda magical breakthrew, that also bypasses the normal process of getting the spell. However PB never says how long it takes to level up, it could be you have a break threw in your mind and spend days on it. Getting the Exp to level up inself generaly takes longer than 4 days per level.

[Alrik Vas]

Indeed. Many GM's handle leveling up differently. Some of then let you level when the adventure is over and put a few weeks between the climax of the last one and beginning the new one. Other's would allow you to level up during the middle of a fight and suddenly POOF you know the spell you need for the situation.

Other's say "You need to decide what you want when you level ahead of time, and you need to roleplay spending time trying to develope the spells or you don't get any."