The "High" price of magic

[Ed]

There's nothing monopolistic regarding spell instruction, if you're a spellcaster of a class that can learn and teach spells you can do it and it's been argued ad nauseum in that regard as well as the strong incentives to NOT restrict supply.

Argued at length but not persuasively supported by ANY canon or historical examples.

Again, no that's just wrong. Learning spells is analogous to someone teaching you that 2+2=4. Spells are knowledge, they aren't electricity or power armor suits or any other flawed analogy you wish to make. While spells have uses so does math, both are just information.

The critical difference being, knowledge of arithmetic does not confer an ability to manipulate reality.

As I've also pointed out repeatedly you need to stop reducing everything to economics, particularly simplistic and idealized markets because they don't exist. An apt example actually comes from the movie 'Back To School', where the protagonist is in a business class and the stuffy uptight teacher is discussing the idealized model for a business only for the protagonist who's actually lived and made his fortune as a businessman asks about all the things he's leaving out and the teacher behaves as if the reality of business is unrealistic when hearing about it from an actual businessman.

Until you can produce a predictive or explanitive model better than Rodney Dangerfield doing the Triple Lindy OR an actual Ley Line Walker to provide evidence, I'll stick to "simplistic and idealized markets" or as most people like to call them; the Laws of Economics.

Many things of value we have are the result of people producing or learning how to do them to help others, the marketability of these things wasn't a motivating factor for them (even if those funding them may or may not have been motivated by it). The development of the Polio Vaccine was a result of doctors horrified at what the disease was doing as it reached pandemic proportions, not because they looked around and thought 'wow if I can come up with a way to prevent this I can make a fortune selling the vaccine to people'. The same goes with transplant surgery. Spell knowledge and the teaching thereof is just as subject to these other factors as everything else is, where economic factors via with other factors and may lose out against them.

Strange, I've never seen pictures of Dr Salk begging on street corners to support his research, but I admit I've no more than a passing knowledge of his life.

Economic models measure cost and benefit. Monetary values are nothing more than a convenient measurement.

[flatline]

It doesn't matter whether or not you approve of my hypothetical motivations. What matters is that I may choose to act on them whether you think it's a good idea or not.

And please, preview your posts before submitting them to make sure that quotes appear properly.

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

So we can conclude one or more of the following:
1. the prices given in RUE for purchasing spells are too low
2. the prices charged for "spell services" are too high
3. two days per spell level is a vastly inflated amount of time required of the teacher to teach a spell to a student

I'm quite comfortable concluding all three, actually.

--flatline

How do we come to these conclusions?

[Ed]

So we can conclude one or more of the following:
1. the prices given in RUE for purchasing spells are too low
2. the prices charged for "spell services" are too high
3. two days per spell level is a vastly inflated amount of time required of the teacher to teach a spell to a student

I'm quite comfortable concluding all three, actually.

--flatline

How do we come to these conclusions?

They have to be accepted as givens before the Free(er) Magic Movement could be a reality.

[Subjugator]

So let's see if I understand this correctly.

If it costs 1,000 credits to do something with technology and 500 credits to do it with magic, magic still costs too much?

Sorry, I'm not buying it. One needs evidence to make such a claim and have said claim be taken seriously.

/Sub

[flatline]

So we can conclude one or more of the following:
1. the prices given in RUE for purchasing spells are too low
2. the prices charged for "spell services" are too high
3. two days per spell level is a vastly inflated amount of time required of the teacher to teach a spell to a student

I'm quite comfortable concluding all three, actually.

--flatline

How do we come to these conclusions?

They have to be accepted as givens before the Free(er) Magic Movement could be a reality.

That doesn't even make sense.

Look at #1. If we conclude that the prices for purchasing spells are too low, how does that support the Free Magic Movement?

--flatline

[flatline]

So let's see if I understand this correctly.

If it costs 1,000 credits to do something with technology and 500 credits to do it with magic, magic still costs too much?

Sorry, I'm not buying it. One needs evidence to make such a claim and have said claim be taken seriously.

/Sub

Who are you responding to?

--flatline

[Nightmask]

There's nothing monopolistic regarding spell instruction, if you're a spellcaster of a class that can learn and teach spells you can do it and it's been argued ad nauseum in that regard as well as the strong incentives to NOT restrict supply.

Argued at length but not persuasively supported by ANY canon or historical examples.

The fact you accept no evidence that disputes your claims does not make it cease to exist, .

Again, no that's just wrong. Learning spells is analogous to someone teaching you that 2+2=4. Spells are knowledge, they aren't electricity or power armor suits or any other flawed analogy you wish to make. While spells have uses so does math, both are just information.

The critical difference being, knowledge of arithmetic does not confer an ability to manipulate reality.

Absolutely irrelevant (an inaccurate, people manipulate reality thanks to math every day, albeit through other tools than spells), knowledge is information and one cannot equate possession of or transferring it to another like one transfers a tangible good or service.

As I've also pointed out repeatedly you need to stop reducing everything to economics, particularly simplistic and idealized markets because they don't exist. An apt example actually comes from the movie 'Back To School', where the protagonist is in a business class and the stuffy uptight teacher is discussing the idealized model for a business only for the protagonist who's actually lived and made his fortune as a businessman asks about all the things he's leaving out and the teacher behaves as if the reality of business is unrealistic when hearing about it from an actual businessman.

Until you can produce a predictive or explanitive model better than Rodney Dangerfield doing the Triple Lindy OR an actual Ley Line Walker to provide evidence, I'll stick to "simplistic and idealized markets" or as most people like to call them; the Laws of Economics.

Strange, you seem to be tossing out something completely irrelevant (Dangerfield's unrelated diving event) as if it has some importance which it does not. You also don't get to stick to 'simplistic and idealized markets' because no market is, people are not idealized objects and do not react based purely (and often not at all) on the Laws of Economics and as long as you refuse to accept and acknowledge that fact you're going to keep being flawed and just plain wrong in your arguments. People are not governed by anything but their individual values and motivations (i.e. The Law of Human Behavior) and can't even remotely be treated as idealized objects in their reactions. They will drive themselves into bankruptcy in order to spite someone else even if they'd profit too, push something because they think it's pretty and keep trying to sell it no matter how much the market obviously doesn't want it, and so on.

Many things of value we have are the result of people producing or learning how to do them to help others, the marketability of these things wasn't a motivating factor for them (even if those funding them may or may not have been motivated by it). The development of the Polio Vaccine was a result of doctors horrified at what the disease was doing as it reached pandemic proportions, not because they looked around and thought 'wow if I can come up with a way to prevent this I can make a fortune selling the vaccine to people'. The same goes with transplant surgery. Spell knowledge and the teaching thereof is just as subject to these other factors as everything else is, where economic factors via with other factors and may lose out against them.

Strange, I've never seen pictures of Dr Salk begging on street corners to support his research, but I admit I've no more than a passing knowledge of his life.

Economic models measure cost and benefit. Monetary values are nothing more than a convenient measurement.

Strange I've yet to see anything where Dr. Salk was an amoral sort who cared only for money or that he took up the research for the Polio Vaccine because he was sure he could profit from it. Just because he was getting paid a salary doesn't mean he was just some profit-driven thing and indeed if he wanted to find a cure he HAD to take the money and work for them, plus often researchers (especially back then) had contracts where anything they discovered belonged to their employer negating any profit-driving motive to work yet they work anyway.

Economic models that you keep improperly applying, you keep bringing things down to monetary values only and dismissing all motivating factors for why someone would do something that wasn't financially profitable for them. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who did anything purely based on 'how much money can I make off of this?', you find plenty of people who stay with poorer paying jobs because of non-economic reasons or who give things away even though it brings them no benefit. There are factors that would push for a reduction in the cost of spells, because again people are people and do not all think and respond in the same way. Someone who hates you (generic use of 'you') likely isn't going to have much trouble handing a baseball bat to someone looking to hurt you rather than try and charge the guy for it. Same deal someone who is a mage who hates a particular group or person isn't going to have problems making it easier for mages out to target that group or person to acquire useful spells for the task.

If you leave out the human element you're always going to come to a wrong conclusion regarding things, no matter what the field might be. You leave out the emotional and insist everything reacts with pure logic (which is what you're insisting on by insisting that only an idealized and simplistic economic model be applied) and you're going to get surprised a lot at how often the real answer is different than your prediction. All mages aren't of one mind but of many individual voices, one is simply going to fail by insisting that they all react based on monetary principles (especially given there will be those that care nothing at all for money), so until you bother to factor in the free-will aspect of things you're always going to be wrong when it comes to insisting that only economic rules are relevant.

[Nightmask]

So we can conclude one or more of the following:
1. the prices given in RUE for purchasing spells are too low
2. the prices charged for "spell services" are too high
3. two days per spell level is a vastly inflated amount of time required of the teacher to teach a spell to a student

I'm quite comfortable concluding all three, actually.

--flatline

How do we come to these conclusions?

They have to be accepted as givens before the Free(er) Magic Movement could be a reality.

That doesn't even make sense.

Look at #1. If we conclude that the prices for purchasing spells are too low, how does that support the Free Magic Movement?

--flatline

I believe he's confusing threads, thinking this is the 'Free Magic Movement' thread rather than the 'do spells cost too much?' thread.

[Nightmask]

I would say in the end whether or not the guideline prices for spells are too high, just right, or too low really depends on the individual game and what difficulties if any the GM places in the path of PC spellcasters that have to learn spells (like Ley Line Walkers and Techno-Wizards) to learning new spells. A GM that keeps his PC group half-starving will never have money to spare for learning spells (or at least nothing above low level), one that's particularly generous and doesn't block access to suitable sources of learning will see the prices of spells seen as okay or even cheap.

[Alrik Vas]

A month to learn a 15th level spell? Seems legit to me.

[flatline]

So we can conclude one or more of the following:
1. the prices given in RUE for purchasing spells are too low
2. the prices charged for "spell services" are too high
3. two days per spell level is a vastly inflated amount of time required of the teacher to teach a spell to a student

I'm quite comfortable concluding all three, actually.

--flatline

How do we come to these conclusions?

If you can make as much money selling a spell as a service in just a couple days as it takes to pay for purchasing the spell, then everyone would want to know the spell so that they could sell it as a service. After the first couple of days of selling the service, you've covered the cost of buying the spell and so for the rest of your life, any income you get from selling the spell as a service is profit.

Who wouldn't want in on that?

So with the incredible demand that must exist, the prices for purchasing the spell knowledge would go up as the teachers attempt to maximize their income. Similarly, as more people learn the spell and begin to sell the spell as a service, they will be competing with each other which will push the spell service price down.

As you demonstrated in your post, the price ratio of spell service and spell knowledge is too small for the current prices to be sustainable. The ratio can be adjusted in the proper direction by reducing the service price, increasing the teaching price, or both. Hence possible conclusions #1 and #2.

#3 follows as such: if the teacher can make more selling the service than he can teaching the spell in the amount of time that it takes to teach the spell, then that either means he needs to charge more to teach the spell (thus supporting conclusion #1) or he must be able to teach the spell in less time than you've suggested (2 days per spell level).

There has to be a balance between service fee, teaching fee, and time to teach that makes sense, and as your post so nicely pointed out, the current numbers do not achieve that balance. For the record, I feel more strongly about #2 and #3 than I do #1 (although I still think #1 applies for high level spells).

--flatline

[Alrik Vas]

I would say in the end whether or not the guideline prices for spells are too high, just right, or too low really depends on the individual game and what difficulties if any the GM places in the path of PC spellcasters that have to learn spells (like Ley Line Walkers and Techno-Wizards) to learning new spells. A GM that keeps his PC group half-starving will never have money to spare for learning spells (or at least nothing above low level), one that's particularly generous and doesn't block access to suitable sources of learning will see the prices of spells seen as okay or even cheap.

Money isn't so much the issue as availability. true, with money you can pay people to track things down for you, but it takes time. Essentially, the GM can stymie all he likes regardless of a PC's resources. It's just a matter of being fair about it after taking the game's circumstances into account.

[Subjugator]

So let's see if I understand this correctly.

If it costs 1,000 credits to do something with technology and 500 credits to do it with magic, magic still costs too much?

Sorry, I'm not buying it. One needs evidence to make such a claim and have said claim be taken seriously.

/Sub

Who are you responding to?

--flatline

You, when you said the price for spell services is too high.

/Sub

[flatline]

So let's see if I understand this correctly.

If it costs 1,000 credits to do something with technology and 500 credits to do it with magic, magic still costs too much?

Sorry, I'm not buying it. One needs evidence to make such a claim and have said claim be taken seriously.

/Sub

Who are you responding to?

--flatline

You, when you said the price for spell services is too high.

/Sub

I didn't actually say that. I said it was one of three possible non-mutually exclusive conclusions that could be drawn.

Do you have a specific example in mind where something costs $1000 to do via technology but only $500 via magic that we could consider?

--flatline

[Nightmask]

So let's see if I understand this correctly.

If it costs 1,000 credits to do something with technology and 500 credits to do it with magic, magic still costs too much?

Sorry, I'm not buying it. One needs evidence to make such a claim and have said claim be taken seriously.

/Sub

Who are you responding to?

--flatline

You, when you said the price for spell services is too high.

/Sub

I didn't actually say that. I said it was one of three possible non-mutually exclusive conclusions that could be drawn.

Do you have a specific example in mind where something costs $1000 to do via technology but only $500 via magic that we could consider?

--flatline

I simply don't see why there are people who think you said spells are priced too high, nothing you've said reasonably supports such a conclusion. Your posts suggest the opposite if anything.

[Killer Cyborg]

So we can conclude one or more of the following:
1. the prices given in RUE for purchasing spells are too low
2. the prices charged for "spell services" are too high
3. two days per spell level is a vastly inflated amount of time required of the teacher to teach a spell to a student

I'm quite comfortable concluding all three, actually.

--flatline

How do we come to these conclusions?

If you can make as much money selling a spell as a service in just a couple days as it takes to pay for purchasing the spell, then everyone would want to know the spell so that they could sell it as a service. After the first couple of days of selling the service, you've covered the cost of buying the spell and so for the rest of your life, any income you get from selling the spell as a service is profit.

Who wouldn't want in on that?

Well, the Coalition.

So with the incredible demand that must exist, the prices for purchasing the spell knowledge would go up as the teachers attempt to maximize their income. Similarly, as more people learn the spell and begin to sell the spell as a service, they will be competing with each other which will push the spell service price down.

All else being equal, sure.
BUT all else is not equal.
For one thing, I'm not sure how much demand there is. The spell "Cleanse" costs CR 300-600, but I'm not sure how often that spell would be purchased in comparison to tech cleaning methods.
Even dry cleaning is a lot cheaper than that, in modern prices anyway.

More importantly, there's the guilds. While guilds generally share some traits with unions, they're really cartels; they're an association of suppliers that maintains prices at a high level and restricts competition.
So the normal rules of supply and demand don't apply; the guild would keep prices at an artificial high.

[quote[]As you demonstrated in your post, the price ratio of spell service and spell knowledge is too small for the current prices to be sustainable. The ratio can be adjusted in the proper direction by reducing the service price, increasing the teaching price, or both. Hence possible conclusions #1 and #2.

#3 follows as such: if the teacher can make more selling the service than he can teaching the spell in the amount of time that it takes to teach the spell, then that either means he needs to charge more to teach the spell (thus supporting conclusion #1) or he must be able to teach the spell in less time than you've suggested (2 days per spell level).[/quote]

Ideally, yes.
But it might simply be that the demand for learning that spell is lower than one might expect.
OR, more realistically, the benefit of the spell might be lower.
The guilds would, as a rule, prevent non-guildsman from practicing in their territory, and they might well demand a cut of guildsmen's profits. So the gross that I listed might well not be the net.
Also, there's the cost of the storefront/shop to operate out of. Again, I was listing gross... but not net.
There are a lot of factors in economics.

There has to be a balance between service fee, teaching fee, and time to teach that makes sense, and as your post so nicely pointed out, the current numbers do not achieve that balance. For the record, I feel more strongly about #2 and #3 than I do #1 (although I still think #1 applies for high level spells).

--flatline

Long story short, the numbers listed are probably not complete.
The overall point was simply that it seems more beneficial to sell spell services than to sell spell-capability to competitors.
And I think that this would apply as a rule.

[Shark_Force]

Long story short, the numbers listed are probably not complete.
The overall point was simply that it seems more beneficial to sell spell services than to sell spell-capability to competitors.
And I think that this would apply as a rule.

i would say that probably depends a great deal on what it is.

you mentioned that purchasing fly as the eagle or armour of ithan are possibilities... thing is, neither of those strike me as being the sort of spell someone wants cast in the middle of a shop.

it is quite likely that the person buying those services is going to want you to spend a great deal more than 1-2 actions in travel time alone, and the 50% "difficulty" surcharge may apply, but the increase in time spent is much much much more than 50% i would suspect.

combined with the higher selling price for combat spells, i would actually think those sorts of spells are the ones a mage is most willing to sell knowledge of since if you're a shopkeeper, you'd probably much prefer to be casting instant non-combat spells, or fairly long-lasting non-combat spells (like sustain).

and of course, there are some spells that are good for combat, but which don't require you to be there... like making scrolls or talismans of combat spells, or making fire globes.

but yeah, honestly, i doubt you see very many people coming in to buy a casting of cleanse at all. there's much cheaper ways to clean stuff.

[Nightmask]

Long story short, the numbers listed are probably not complete.
The overall point was simply that it seems more beneficial to sell spell services than to sell spell-capability to competitors.
And I think that this would apply as a rule.

i would say that probably depends a great deal on what it is.

you mentioned that purchasing fly as the eagle or armour of ithan are possibilities... thing is, neither of those strike me as being the sort of spell someone wants cast in the middle of a shop.

it is quite likely that the person buying those services is going to want you to spend a great deal more than 1-2 actions in travel time alone, and the 50% "difficulty" surcharge may apply, but the increase in time spent is much much much more than 50% i would suspect.

combined with the higher selling price for combat spells, i would actually think those sorts of spells are the ones a mage is most willing to sell knowledge of since if you're a shopkeeper, you'd probably much prefer to be casting instant non-combat spells, or fairly long-lasting non-combat spells (like sustain).

and of course, there are some spells that are good for combat, but which don't require you to be there... like making scrolls or talismans of combat spells, or making fire globes.

but yeah, honestly, i doubt you see very many people coming in to buy a casting of cleanse at all. there's much cheaper ways to clean stuff.

You make some very good points.

[kaid]

Learning spells is analagous to becoming a utility. There are significant barriers to entry in terms of cost and legal/competitive. So the presumptive spell instructor has to clear a very high, and growing, hurdle to teach others spells. For example, the "easiest" way to learn the Talisman spell is to become a Temporal Wizard; that takes years of slavery to a other dimensional demon. So a 1st level temporal wizard would be quite willing to sell the output of the spell but not to teach the spell itself. And other temporal wizards, or those who know the spell, have a tremendous incentive to prevent him from widely teaching it outside the small circle of people who already know it.

You're assuming that all mages have the same motives.

Yes. I am. Mages seek to maximize their personal benefit (however defined) and minimize their personal cost (however defined).

If my motive is to make money selling Talismans, then the fewer people there are making Talismans who can compete with me, the better.

Plain enough. Number of competitors is a given determinant of supply. KC did an excellent write up on the cost-benefit structure of selling the output of spell casting verses teaching/sharing the spell.

If my motive is world conquest for myself and my allies, and I find that my plan for world conquest requires lots of Talismans to be available, I'm going to teach Talisman to as many mages as I need to get the supply level that I require. If this angers some guild, then my plan had better account for it.

Two problems come immediately to mind:

1. There is no in-game way for you to tell which guild(s) are going to be angry, how angry they will be, when they will get angry, or what form their anger will take. There's no way to account for that many unknowns without meta-game knowledge. If your actions angered the Pacifistic Guild of Fluffy Bunny Huggers (PGFBH) the reaction would take one form. If you pissed off the Guild of the Gifted, the reaction would be orders of magnitude less survivable.

2. Given the alignments involved how does the plan account for one (or more) of the recipients of your largess being a violent proponent of the me-first attitude you describe in the situation above?

If my motive is to make enough money to live comfortably without having to work hard, then selling the Talisman spell to a handful of mages is my best bet since I don't care if they undercut me later. I've already made my money.

Several problems here too. Though some are more technical than others.
1. How do you prevent the type of deflationary death spiral you believe should occur to spell prices? In other words, what's to stop student number 1 from immediately undercutting your next sale?
2. See KC's spell casting income write up. It's possible to live extremely well off the income from spell casting with trivial amounts of time spent working.
3. Time value of money: there's no marketing or selling period in this plan, given the high cost of the spell it's doubtful you will be able to find enough people willing and able to simultaneously purchase Talisman at your full asking price. You'll be forced to either discount or wait to acquire new customers and the longer you have to wait the less valuable your payment becomes and the more likely you are to offend other spell merchants.
4. Finally, in order to quick sale like you plan you're going to have to enter the market at the clearing price, meaning since the demand curve slopes downward towards the quantity axis, each sale will be for less money than the one before. You won't have to worry about being undercut by your students, you'll do it to yourself.

And that's just scratching the surface.

True.

--flatline

[/quote]



One thing to note about things like talisman is unless you are making them in a protected building on a nexus or a leyline the cost to create these is non trivial energy wise so you there is no way to mass produce them. Even if every mage out there had it in their starting spell I am not sure they would be able to keep up with the demand for these since overall there are so few men of magic compared to the large bulk of people with no magic abilities but who would love having access to things like talismans.

And while yes a mage could get paid more money actually casting the spells than training them think about the armor of ithan example. Sure 6 castings is 30 seconds worth of work but given its limited duration those 6 castings mean that the spell caster is in direct threat of death or sever injury. Adventuring mages are willing to take that risk but how many more reasearch oriented mages would be. Some people are homebodies who don't like being dirty/uncomfortable/or dead and so they set up shop in a town. I am sure they offer what spells are applicable to in town use for a lot of their income but it also makes sense that they would also see training others and make money that way.


One thing that must be remembered about things like talismens and scrolls is that they are consumable or must be recharged for a non trivial PPE cost. Adventuring mages likely have neither the time nor the spare energy to replenish these even if they know the right spells. Given the limited number of men of magic and the small subset of those who are setup in a good location to be able to generate even a reasonable number of these will never be able to crank out enough of them fast enough to cause a deflationary cycle. The price may drop a bit but it will stabilize pretty quickly as the amount in circulation stabilizes between how fast they can be produced and how fast they get expended.

While it is fair to say in rifts earth magic is rare if you take the planet as a whole it is also pretty clear that in certain areas there is a very high concentration of magic users where magic is not rare in that area and training/learning will happen in those locations.

Think of it this way a ley line walker wants to learn call lightning. Now does it make much sense if he goes to some place like lazlo or dweomer and offers a reasonable amount of money that there would be no willing to part with that "super sekret spell". At some point if something is that unobtainable or if say somebody tries to charge 100k for it at what point does the ley line walker say hell with it and just buy a wilks rifle that does more damage for half the price.

A GM has to ask themselves a question do they want their men of magic in their games running around equipping themselves like head hunters or other men at arms and is that how you want to see your men of magic look and play in your campaign. If you make magic super expensive and hard to acquire players are going to improve their power any way they can and eventually you wind up with mages who wind up basically being a soldier who is the parties armor of ithan dispenser.

I have seen that happen and it really ruins the flavor of magic users in a game environment that screams magic.

[flatline]

Even when the GM gives easy access to new spells, my mages still use armor and rifles.

Using a rifle lets me use my PPE for effects that aren't so easily substituted with technology.

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

Long story short, the numbers listed are probably not complete.
The overall point was simply that it seems more beneficial to sell spell services than to sell spell-capability to competitors.
And I think that this would apply as a rule.

i would say that probably depends a great deal on what it is.

you mentioned that purchasing fly as the eagle or armour of ithan are possibilities... thing is, neither of those strike me as being the sort of spell someone wants cast in the middle of a shop.

I agree, but those were among the spells listed at that particular shop.

it is quite likely that the person buying those services is going to want you to spend a great deal more than 1-2 actions in travel time alone, and the 50% "difficulty" surcharge may apply, but the increase in time spent is much much much more than 50% i would suspect.

There is no indication that the shopkeeper or his apprentices would leave the shop for this service.
If they had to, I'd assume that there would be a substantial increase in the cost, well above and beyond the 50% difficulty fee.

but yeah, honestly, i doubt you see very many people coming in to buy a casting of cleanse at all. there's much cheaper ways to clean stuff.

Probably not faster, though.
And keep in mind that this shop is in Juarez... maybe there's a steady stream of people needing to get blood off their clothes in a hurry.
(Then again, for CR 300-600, they could probably just bribe the cops.)

[Killer Cyborg]

Even when the GM gives easy access to new spells, my mages still use armor and rifles.

Using a rifle lets me use my PPE for effects that aren't so easily substituted with technology.

--flatline

Agreed.
I never understood the whole "mages should only ever rely on magic" notion.
I don't see how strapping on some armor and carrying a gun would make a mage any less of a mage, just like strapping on some armor and carrying a gun doesn't make a Scholar any less of a Scholar.

Moreover, the intention of of Kevin with Rifts seems to have been a heck of a lot closer to mages "basically being a soldier who is the parties armor of ithan dispenser" than to "Mages should be using magic all the time.
They don't have the PPE for it, they don't have the spell duration for it, and the game evolved from D&D where a first level mage could be expected to cast ONE spell per day, then either hide or charge into combat armed with a knife, and armored only in robes.
The decision on Kevin's part to actively allow mages to wear normal armor and to use normal weapons seems to have been specifically to make them a lot more useful in combat without giving them a huge increase in spell-casting ability.
And that's the way that I prefer it. If a mage uses magic all the time, for everything, then that tends to make magic less magical. It makes it mundane instead of extraordinary.

[kaid]

Even when the GM gives easy access to new spells, my mages still use armor and rifles.

Using a rifle lets me use my PPE for effects that aren't so easily substituted with technology.

--flatline

Agreed.
I never understood the whole "mages should only ever rely on magic" notion.
I don't see how strapping on some armor and carrying a gun would make a mage any less of a mage, just like strapping on some armor and carrying a gun doesn't make a Scholar any less of a Scholar.

Moreover, the intention of of Kevin with Rifts seems to have been a heck of a lot closer to mages "basically being a soldier who is the parties armor of ithan dispenser" than to "Mages should be using magic all the time.
They don't have the PPE for it, they don't have the spell duration for it, and the game evolved from D&D where a first level mage could be expected to cast ONE spell per day, then either hide or charge into combat armed with a knife, and armored only in robes.
The decision on Kevin's part to actively allow mages to wear normal armor and to use normal weapons seems to have been specifically to make them a lot more useful in combat without giving them a huge increase in spell-casting ability.
And that's the way that I prefer it. If a mage uses magic all the time, for everything, then that tends to make magic less magical. It makes it mundane instead of extraordinary.

It is one thing to have a mage using tech weapons and it is another thing when you see mages basically turning themselves into men at arms simply because they cannot get any new spells. In rifts magic users have some options and if a GM denies them options to gain power via magic they eventually start ignoring that facet of their character to the point there is almost no reason to have ever chosen that OCC in the first place which generates bad feelings and other unfortunate consequences.

I have seen this in games and I know of several GM's where their players will simply not play any of the men of magic who can gain spells by purchasing them and learning them. If any magic user is played it is always the ones who gain set spells per level.

[Killer Cyborg]

Even when the GM gives easy access to new spells, my mages still use armor and rifles.

Using a rifle lets me use my PPE for effects that aren't so easily substituted with technology.

--flatline

Agreed.
I never understood the whole "mages should only ever rely on magic" notion.
I don't see how strapping on some armor and carrying a gun would make a mage any less of a mage, just like strapping on some armor and carrying a gun doesn't make a Scholar any less of a Scholar.

Moreover, the intention of of Kevin with Rifts seems to have been a heck of a lot closer to mages "basically being a soldier who is the parties armor of ithan dispenser" than to "Mages should be using magic all the time.
They don't have the PPE for it, they don't have the spell duration for it, and the game evolved from D&D where a first level mage could be expected to cast ONE spell per day, then either hide or charge into combat armed with a knife, and armored only in robes.
The decision on Kevin's part to actively allow mages to wear normal armor and to use normal weapons seems to have been specifically to make them a lot more useful in combat without giving them a huge increase in spell-casting ability.
And that's the way that I prefer it. If a mage uses magic all the time, for everything, then that tends to make magic less magical. It makes it mundane instead of extraordinary.

It is one thing to have a mage using tech weapons and it is another thing when you see mages basically turning themselves into men at arms simply because they cannot get any new spells.

In rifts magic users have some options and if a GM denies them options to gain power via magic they eventually start ignoring that facet of their character to the point there is almost no reason to have ever chosen that OCC in the first place which generates bad feelings and other unfortunate consequences.

I have seen this in games and I know of several GM's where their players will simply not play any of the men of magic who can gain spells by purchasing them and learning them. If any magic user is played it is always the ones who gain set spells per level.

That sounds like some crappy GMing, but it doesn't really have much to do with the price of spells.

That being said, have the mages in your group tried...
a) joining a guild?
b) asking to be paid in spells rather than credits?
c) summoning demons or other supernatural beings, and having them teach the mage a spell?

[Blue_Lion]

Even when the GM gives easy access to new spells, my mages still use armor and rifles.

Using a rifle lets me use my PPE for effects that aren't so easily substituted with technology.

--flatline

Agreed.
I never understood the whole "mages should only ever rely on magic" notion.
I don't see how strapping on some armor and carrying a gun would make a mage any less of a mage, just like strapping on some armor and carrying a gun doesn't make a Scholar any less of a Scholar.

Moreover, the intention of of Kevin with Rifts seems to have been a heck of a lot closer to mages "basically being a soldier who is the parties armor of ithan dispenser" than to "Mages should be using magic all the time.
They don't have the PPE for it, they don't have the spell duration for it, and the game evolved from D&D where a first level mage could be expected to cast ONE spell per day, then either hide or charge into combat armed with a knife, and armored only in robes.
The decision on Kevin's part to actively allow mages to wear normal armor and to use normal weapons seems to have been specifically to make them a lot more useful in combat without giving them a huge increase in spell-casting ability.
And that's the way that I prefer it. If a mage uses magic all the time, for everything, then that tends to make magic less magical. It makes it mundane instead of extraordinary.

It is one thing to have a mage using tech weapons and it is another thing when you see mages basically turning themselves into men at arms simply because they cannot get any new spells.

In rifts magic users have some options and if a GM denies them options to gain power via magic they eventually start ignoring that facet of their character to the point there is almost no reason to have ever chosen that OCC in the first place which generates bad feelings and other unfortunate consequences.

I have seen this in games and I know of several GM's where their players will simply not play any of the men of magic who can gain spells by purchasing them and learning them. If any magic user is played it is always the ones who gain set spells per level.

That sounds like some crappy GMing, but it doesn't really have much to do with the price of spells.

That being said, have the mages in your group tried...
a) joining a guild?
b) asking to be paid in spells rather than credits?
c) summoning demons or other supernatural beings, and having them teach the mage a spell?

Asking to be paid in spells does work.

I have had many tws that got paid with spells for TW work.
Also gets around teaching spells to others by providing a device that lets them use a spell they do not know.

[Daniel Stoker]

Why, looking for some psychotropic vapor?


Daniel Stoker

[kaid]

The GMs who I have seen this go off on the magic is rare and mages are secretive and won't share spells where basically to gain any spell other than one that your OCC says you get per level would only ever happen as a reward after a climatic battle of few weeks of play time. I have seen ley line walkers go 5 or 6 levels before they gained one spell by learning it and in this time the tech guys went through multiple power armors, regular armor, weapon upgrades.

That kind of thing makes me really leary about anything labled GM discretion for learning key parts of ones OCC like spells. The silly thing is these same GM never seem to have any problem letting the tech toys flow which always boggles my mind. Seriously is sub particle acceleration that much more powerful than a glitterboy especially when you can simply buy a wilks rifle that does the same damage without raising an eyebrow from the GM.

It is one reason I get a bit passionate in threads like this I have been in the rabbit hole the whole super rare magic/secretive mage thinking leads to and it is not amusing.

[Blue_Lion]

The GMs who I have seen this go off on the magic is rare and mages are secretive and won't share spells where basically to gain any spell other than one that your OCC says you get per level would only ever happen as a reward after a climatic battle of few weeks of play time. I have seen ley line walkers go 5 or 6 levels before they gained one spell by learning it and in this time the tech guys went through multiple power armors, regular armor, weapon upgrades.

That kind of thing makes me really leary about anything labled GM discretion for learning key parts of ones OCC like spells. The silly thing is these same GM never seem to have any problem letting the tech toys flow which always boggles my mind. Seriously is sub particle acceleration that much more powerful than a glitterboy especially when you can simply buy a wilks rifle that does the same damage without raising an eyebrow from the GM.

It is one reason I get a bit passionate in threads like this I have been in the rabbit hole the whole super rare magic/secretive mage thinking leads to and it is not amusing.

The book to me seams fairly clear that low level spells should be avaible in places of magic. It is the high level spells that are suppose to be realy hard to get. But over all the mages are not just out teaching all willy nilly. The whould reserch the person to make shure they are not a threat or whould abuse the magic. But the genral mindset of the game is to protect knowledge. I do not think that in a magic city getting spells should be imposible, just that most mages do not share their magic knowledge.

[Drakenred®™©]

ok lets put it another way


Carpet of adhesion and other binding/trap spells
Domination spell
Female Coalition officer
Bar full of drunken male humans and DBs who had to run from a CS "purification" patrol.

You cant get that from Wilks.

As for packing a gun and body armor to be honest who do you think the CS will be shooting at first, the guys with the body armor or the guy in a robe where the air glows from shruging off hits that dont touch him while aparently summoning meteors down on them every melle action.

Right they go for the Drama Queen.

[flatline]

As for packing a gun and body armor to be honest who do you think the CS will be shooting at first, the guys with the body armor or the guy in a robe where the air glows from shruging off hits that dont touch him while aparently summoning meteors down on them every melle action.

Right they go for the Drama Queen.

Yes, mages do well to not draw undue attention to themselves.

--flatline

[Ed]

The fact you accept no evidence that disputes your claims does not make it cease to exist, .

However, the fact you provide no evidence in support of yours speaks volumes.

Absolutely irrelevant (an inaccurate, people manipulate reality thanks to math every day, albeit through other tools than spells), knowledge is information and one cannot equate possession of or transferring it to another like one transfers a tangible good or service.

Until you provide evidence that a knowledge of basic arithmetic can produce effects equivalent to the Domination spell, the above statement is nothing more than mindless drivel.

Strange, you seem to be tossing out something completely irrelevant (Dangerfield's unrelated diving event) as if it has some importance which it does not.

It was as relevant a portion of the movie as your example.

You also don't get to stick to 'simplistic and idealized markets' because no market is, people are not idealized objects and do not react based purely (and often not at all) on the Laws of Economics and as long as you refuse to accept and acknowledge that fact you're going to keep being flawed and just plain wrong in your arguments. People are not governed by anything but their individual values and motivations (i.e. The Law of Human Behavior) and can't even remotely be treated as idealized objects in their reactions. They will drive themselves into bankruptcy in order to spite someone else even if they'd profit too, push something because they think it's pretty and keep trying to sell it no matter how much the market obviously doesn't want it, and so on.

Sounds like a simple job then to provide better predictive and explanative models of behavior than those "simplistic and idealized" models. Be sure to show your math.

Economic models that you keep improperly applying, you keep bringing things down to monetary values only and dismissing all motivating factors for why someone would do something that wasn't financially profitable for them. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who did anything purely based on 'how much money can I make off of this?', you find plenty of people who stay with poorer paying jobs because of non-economic reasons or who give things away even though it brings them no benefit. There are factors that would push for a reduction in the cost of spells, because again people are people and do not all think and respond in the same way. Someone who hates you (generic use of 'you') likely isn't going to have much trouble handing a baseball bat to someone looking to hurt you rather than try and charge the guy for it. Same deal someone who is a mage who hates a particular group or person isn't going to have problems making it easier for mages out to target that group or person to acquire useful spells for the task.

Reading is fundamental. Economic models measure costs and benefits, monetary values assigned are simply an easy way to keep score.

If you leave out the human element you're always going to come to a wrong conclusion regarding things, no matter what the field might be. You leave out the emotional and insist everything reacts with pure logic (which is what you're insisting on by insisting that only an idealized and simplistic economic model be applied) and you're going to get surprised a lot at how often the real answer is different than your prediction.

Since my "simple and idealized" economic models incorporate all types of benefit received, they will be wrong far less often.

All mages aren't of one mind but of many individual voices, one is simply going to fail by insisting that they all react based on monetary principles (especially given there will be those that care nothing at all for money), so until you bother to factor in the free-will aspect of things you're always going to be wrong when it comes to insisting that only economic rules are relevant.

Reading is fundamental. Economic models measure costs and benefits, monetary values assigned are simply an easy way to keep score.

[Nightmask]

The fact you accept no evidence that disputes your claims does not make it cease to exist, .

However, the fact you provide no evidence in support of yours speaks volumes.

Absolutely irrelevant (an inaccurate, people manipulate reality thanks to math every day, albeit through other tools than spells), knowledge is information and one cannot equate possession of or transferring it to another like one transfers a tangible good or service.

Until you provide evidence that a knowledge of basic arithmetic can produce effects equivalent to the Domination spell, the above statement is nothing more than mindless drivel.

That's quite insulting and derogatory, particularly since I do not have to provide any such evidence because it's totally irrelevant and has nothing to do with the actual point being made.

Strange, you seem to be tossing out something completely irrelevant (Dangerfield's unrelated diving event) as if it has some importance which it does not.

It was as relevant a portion of the movie as your example.

Obviously you're mistaken. My example was of how pure models, particularly one so simplistic, frequently leave out actual real life factors. In simplifying things down the leave out other factors that affect the model. Your example was to go off about some unrelated diving event.

You also don't get to stick to 'simplistic and idealized markets' because no market is, people are not idealized objects and do not react based purely (and often not at all) on the Laws of Economics and as long as you refuse to accept and acknowledge that fact you're going to keep being flawed and just plain wrong in your arguments. People are not governed by anything but their individual values and motivations (i.e. The Law of Human Behavior) and can't even remotely be treated as idealized objects in their reactions. They will drive themselves into bankruptcy in order to spite someone else even if they'd profit too, push something because they think it's pretty and keep trying to sell it no matter how much the market obviously doesn't want it, and so on.

Sounds like a simple job then to provide better predictive and explanative models of behavior than those "simplistic and idealized" models. Be sure to show your math.

Sounds like you are either ignoring the actual scope of the issue or just continuing to toss out distracting nonsense to cover for how defective your arguments have been by trying to insist everything can be reduced to idealized and simplistic economic models.

Economic models that you keep improperly applying, you keep bringing things down to monetary values only and dismissing all motivating factors for why someone would do something that wasn't financially profitable for them. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who did anything purely based on 'how much money can I make off of this?', you find plenty of people who stay with poorer paying jobs because of non-economic reasons or who give things away even though it brings them no benefit. There are factors that would push for a reduction in the cost of spells, because again people are people and do not all think and respond in the same way. Someone who hates you (generic use of 'you') likely isn't going to have much trouble handing a baseball bat to someone looking to hurt you rather than try and charge the guy for it. Same deal someone who is a mage who hates a particular group or person isn't going to have problems making it easier for mages out to target that group or person to acquire useful spells for the task.

Reading is fundamental. Economic models measure costs and benefits, monetary values assigned are simply an easy way to keep score.

Then you really need to take time out and actually read my posts, your economic models leave out all the other things other than monetary value that motivate people therefor are flawed and cannot provide an actual useful answer because they don't account for things like bias on the part of the beings involved. Since you can't reflect those biases in monetary terms your economic models are useless since they don't account for those factors in decision making.

If you leave out the human element you're always going to come to a wrong conclusion regarding things, no matter what the field might be. You leave out the emotional and insist everything reacts with pure logic (which is what you're insisting on by insisting that only an idealized and simplistic economic model be applied) and you're going to get surprised a lot at how often the real answer is different than your prediction.

Since my "simple and idealized" economic models incorporate all types of benefit received, they will be wrong far less often.

Clearly your models don't, since you only refer to financial benefit in all your statements and since there are other benefits one can receive (such as seeing a hated rival suffer or be defeated) that aren't financial your models are wrong.

All mages aren't of one mind but of many individual voices, one is simply going to fail by insisting that they all react based on monetary principles (especially given there will be those that care nothing at all for money), so until you bother to factor in the free-will aspect of things you're always going to be wrong when it comes to insisting that only economic rules are relevant.

Reading is fundamental. Economic models measure costs and benefits, monetary values assigned are simply an easy way to keep score.

Repeating your posts rather than actually respond to the actual posts made only appears as if you either aren't reading or feel like insulting my intelligence by implying I lack reading comprehension because otherwise I'd have to agree with you which is clearly wrong. I comprehend what you post just fine and can see how flawed the reasoning is.

[Ed]

Economics is the study of how individuals and groups allocate finite resources to satisfy infinite wants and needs. Economic analysis is built on the fundamental principal that pleasure is preferred over pain and that given a choice more pleasure (less pain) is preferred over less pleasure (more pain). In place of pleasure and pain, you can substitute revenue and expense, joy and heartache, good and evil. To keep repeatedly claiming, as you do, that economic models are invalid, or inapplicable, because they do not incorporate intangible costs or benefits, is asinine; intangible costs and benefits not only are incorporated into the model, they are bedrock principals. Monetary units are used to facilitate the discussion so as to take advantage of two of the properties of money and make the discussion more efficient.

[Nightmask]

Economics is the study of how individuals and groups allocate finite resources to satisfy infinite wants and needs. Economic analysis is built on the fundamental principal that pleasure is preferred over pain and that given a choice more pleasure (less pain) is preferred over less pleasure (more pain). In place of pleasure and pain, you can substitute revenue and expense, joy and heartache, good and evil. To keep repeatedly claiming, as you do, that economic models are invalid, or inapplicable, because they do not incorporate intangible costs or benefits, is asinine; intangible costs and benefits not only are incorporated into the model, they are bedrock principals. Monetary units are used to facilitate the discussion so as to take advantage of two of the properties of money and make the discussion more efficient.

Information however isn't a finite resource, it's infinite. You can replicate it and disseminate it without ever using up the original source. You teach someone a spell and you still have the spell, no resources (other than time) are ever expended. Given all your arguments have been about actual money and you have continued to act as if motivations other than actual money were irrelevant then you have been presenting a flawed and effectively failing argument. You have argued the position that killer guilds go around eliminating people for sharing spells for free because it cuts into their profits selling the spells, all while insisting or ignoring all the possible reasons why that wouldn't occur, and just repeating yourself over and over again how 'oh no all guilds go around doing that, they're quite uniform in that regard no matter their beliefs or goals', which is simply wrong.

It's not always about money and while you want to keep setting the monetary value of the intangibles as being zero in all cases because you've an end position you want to defend (starting with the answer you want and working backwards), others actually work forward, looking at the question ('how successful would a free spell movement be?') and work forward to the most likely answer ('depending on region and need and the mages involved it could prove highly successful').

[flatline]

Economics is the study of how individuals and groups allocate finite resources to satisfy infinite wants and needs.

A teacher's time is finite, but knowledge can be reproduced infinitely.

When I studied economics in college, every time we tried to model the value of information, the value quickly went to zero as more parties learned the information. Game theory predicts that in such a situation people who know the information will only refrain from cashing in on that information if they are supremely confident that everyone else who knows that information will not sell it. If there is any doubt at all, then people start cashing in while the information still has value which quickly drives the market value of the information down to nothing.

What part of this have I gotten wrong?

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

Economics is the study of how individuals and groups allocate finite resources to satisfy infinite wants and needs.

A teacher's time is finite, but knowledge can be reproduced infinitely.

When I studied economics in college, every time we tried to model the value of information, the value quickly went to zero as more parties learned the information. Game theory predicts that in such a situation people who know the information will only refrain from cashing in on that information if they are supremely confident that everyone else who knows that information will not sell it. If there is any doubt at all, then people start cashing in while the information still has value which quickly drives the market value of the information down to nothing.

What part of this have I gotten wrong?

--flatline

Sounds right to me.
But that's where the Guilds come in.

Although, in the case of magic, it's not JUST knowledge; most people can't cast a spell even if they were trained exactly how to do it.
Only mages can cast spells, and only certain mages can learn spells through standard teaching.

[Ed]

Economics is the study of how individuals and groups allocate finite resources to satisfy infinite wants and needs.

A teacher's time is finite, but knowledge can be reproduced infinitely.

Not so. There are always limits.

When I studied economics in college, every time we tried to model the value of information, the value quickly went to zero as more parties learned the information. Game theory predicts that in such a situation people who know the information will only refrain from cashing in on that information if they are supremely confident that everyone else who knows that information will not sell it. If there is any doubt at all, then people start cashing in while the information still has value which quickly drives the market value of the information down to nothing.

What part of this have I gotten wrong?

--flatline

The part where a spell isn't just knowledge, like what's the capital of Belgium. A spell is a technique whereby Potential Psychic Energy is channeled to alter reality. It has elements of both a positional good, a tangible good, and a service and definitely cannot be reporduced indefinitely. The obvious constraints being the limited number of people it can be taught to and the time it would take to teach the spell. Then there are unique market constraints such as the presense of artificial limits on supply and the utility of the spell as a service.

In your game theory example, the utility of the information could only be realized if the information was exchanged and that every individual actor in the universe could obtain and benefit from the information. Should the model contain different assumptions such as: the information has value in and of itself, the information cannot be exchanged freely throughout the game universe, ie some actors have no ability to learn the information or pass it on, and simply knowing the information adds utility to the possessor; the out put would be radically different.

[Ed]

Information however isn't a finite resource, it's infinite.

Wrong. There are always limits. The storage capacity of the medium itself is an obvious one.

You can replicate it and disseminate it without ever using up the original source. You teach someone a spell and you still have the spell, no resources (other than time) are ever expended.

Assuming you are correct (and you're not); time most definitely has value. So, ultimately, you're still wrong.

Given all your arguments have been about actual money and you have continued to act as if motivations other than actual money were irrelevant then you have been presenting a flawed and effectively failing argument.

Reading is fundamental. My arguements have primarily involved benefit or value. At any rate, discussions involving price still encompass nonmonetary motivations.

[Giant2005]

The spell prices are high as a consequence of spell prices being high.
Think about it, the average wage in Rifts is like 3,000 credits a month. One spell sold at 1 million creds is enough for almost 28 years of comfy living - after two or three spells sold, that caster has just retired to whatever is the closest thing Rifts has to a tropical island resort.
The prices are high because demand far out-strips supply due to all of the wizards retiring and the numbers of those actively selling services shrinking with every sale.

[Subjugator]

You can replicate it and disseminate it without ever using up the original source. You teach someone a spell and you still have the spell, no resources (other than time) are ever expended.

Assuming you are correct (and you're not); time most definitely has value. So, ultimately, you're still wrong.

The time value of money is a core study in finance (and, I believe, economics). AFAIK, time is the only commodity that is absolutely irreplaceable.

/Sub

[Nightmask]

Information however isn't a finite resource, it's infinite.

Wrong. There are always limits. The storage capacity of the medium itself is an obvious one.

There are no practical limits on knowledge, and in this discussion regarding spell knowledge the storage 'device' for spells is the minds of mages which is a lot of storage capacity since we're given no known limit other than the number of spells available in the multiverse for a particular mage to learn.

You can replicate it and disseminate it without ever using up the original source. You teach someone a spell and you still have the spell, no resources (other than time) are ever expended.

Assuming you are correct (and you're not); time most definitely has value. So, ultimately, you're still wrong.

Well obviously I'm correct since you can't use up the original resource, it's information and you can't use up information. You don't teach someone Globe of Daylight and now you can't cast it anymore or some of your Globe is now gone leaving it diminished. Indeed the fact of teaching the spell just helps you reinforce your knowledge of the given spell as you have to review it and carefully instruct someone else in how to cast it successfully.

Given all your arguments have been about actual money and you have continued to act as if motivations other than actual money were irrelevant then you have been presenting a flawed and effectively failing argument.

Reading is fundamental. My arguements have primarily involved benefit or value. At any rate, discussions involving price still encompass nonmonetary motivations.

You really need to stop with that bit of insult there, and no just because a discussion involves prices does not mean it automatically includes non-monetary motivations, and seems like you need to reread your own posts because you make them all out to be about cash money and have refused to acknowledge any mention or discuss any of those non-monetary motivations. Not once, so as long as you're going on about how fundamental reading is then go back and look at your actual posts, because not a word from you acknowledges those non-monetary motivations, just a lot of fluff about how everything can be viewed by the pure laws of economics (it can't) and how they automatically include those non-monetary values all while you ignore those non-monetary values and insist that all they care about is keeping the number of spells around low so they can sell them for more money.

[Subjugator]

There are no practical limits on knowledge, and in this discussion regarding spell knowledge the storage 'device' for spells is the minds of mages which is a lot of storage capacity since we're given no known limit other than the number of spells available in the multiverse for a particular mage to learn.

There are practical limits on how much knowledge one person can learn in a lifetime. There are also practical limits on how much one can *use* in a lifetime.

Well obviously I'm correct since you can't use up the original resource, it's information and you can't use up information. You don't teach someone Globe of Daylight and now you can't cast it anymore or some of your Globe is now gone leaving it diminished. Indeed the fact of teaching the spell just helps you reinforce your knowledge of the given spell as you have to review it and carefully instruct someone else in how to cast it successfully.

The time is not infinite. Not only is the time not infinite, but each segment of time that has passed represents an opportunity cost that is invested in whatever one is doing. In the context of a limited lifespan, the value of time approaches infinite (who would not beggar themselves for an extra few minutes with a loved one as they die?).

You really need to stop with that bit of insult there

It is an observation, not an insult. Reading *IS* fundamental. There is even a charitable organization with that same name.

and no just because a discussion involves prices does not mean it automatically includes non-monetary motivations

When an economist discusses the science of economics, they will virtually always include non-monetary motivations unless specifically noted otherwise.

and seems like you need to reread your own posts because you make them all out to be about cash money and have refused to acknowledge any mention or discuss any of those non-monetary motivations. Not once, so as long as you're going on about how fundamental reading is then go back and look at your actual posts, because not a word from you acknowledges those non-monetary motivations, just a lot of fluff about how everything can be viewed by the pure laws of economics (it can't) and how they automatically include those non-monetary values all while you ignore those non-monetary values and insist that all they care about is keeping the number of spells around low so they can sell them for more money.

It absolutely can be viewed by the laws of economics, since they include non-monetary motivations.

To give an example, if I, as the vice president of art at the advertising firm "Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe", make $5M per year, and decide to step down to found a new firm named, "Whitemans, Small, Johnson" making $3M per year, the basic profit and loss analyses would be as below:

Accountant: As a result of your move from DCH to WSJ, you had a net loss of $2M per year. This was a bad decision."

Economist: As a result of your move from DCH to WSJ, you had a net loss of $2M per year, but had a 500% increase in job satisfaction, 60% more time home with your family, and better overall health. Those benefits have been included in the weighted average of happiness resulting in a net gain of 15% over your prior level of happiness."

/Sub

[Drakenred®™©]

One way to look at it is that Magic is the Gymnastics of the Universe. Theres only a handfull of people who can do Olympic level Gymnastics, and only a handfull of people who can train others at that level. Everyone else is stuck with whatever little bits they can do.

For example your Average level 1 line walker has the power to toss around a dozen or so first level spells, and theres nothing to stop him from being taught almost any spell, however the reality is that if they tried to cast a Meteor spell they would have to promptly go off and take a long nap. And you can straight up forget about the average First level caster trying to cast a single remove curse unless he sets up his operations in a Butcher shop that does volum buisness for a medium sized comunity or is willing to spend a few hours hanging out on a Lei line.... And then after casting the spell hes Still going to be toddeling off for a nice nap. for that matter if said line walker then goes along being perfectly average in every way as he levels up hes going to be 6th level before he can cast as remove curse just useing his own PPE...and then hes going to promptly toddle off to take a nice nap!

The simple reality is that theres very few Mages who can "Routeenly" do high level high power magic. there services are going to be in demand. and even if you made it so that every level 1 spellcaster had 10th and 15th level spells as part of there inate spellcasting arsenal the PPE needed for thoes spells are going to require access to PPE on a level that will in one way or another be very expensive. and said expenses and time invensted and resources needed to Cast thoes high level spells means quite simply that high level spells are going to remain expensive.

[flatline]

Economics is the study of how individuals and groups allocate finite resources to satisfy infinite wants and needs.

A teacher's time is finite, but knowledge can be reproduced infinitely.

Not so. There are always limits.

When I studied economics in college, every time we tried to model the value of information, the value quickly went to zero as more parties learned the information. Game theory predicts that in such a situation people who know the information will only refrain from cashing in on that information if they are supremely confident that everyone else who knows that information will not sell it. If there is any doubt at all, then people start cashing in while the information still has value which quickly drives the market value of the information down to nothing.

What part of this have I gotten wrong?

--flatline

The part where a spell isn't just knowledge, like what's the capital of Belgium. A spell is a technique whereby Potential Psychic Energy is channeled to alter reality. It has elements of both a positional good, a tangible good, and a service and definitely cannot be reproduced indefinitely.

Perhaps you could explain this a little more fully. Specifically, I'm curious how spell knowledge could be considered a positional good, a tangible good, and a service.

--flatline

[Ed]

There are no practical limits on knowledge, and in this discussion regarding spell knowledge the storage 'device' for spells is the minds of mages which is a lot of storage capacity since we're given no known limit other than the number of spells available in the multiverse for a particular mage to learn.

1 Spells aren't knowledge. Knowledge is the capital of Belgium. A spell is an ability to channel Potential Psychic Energy to a desired effect.

2 Not every mage can learn spells. Not every mage can learn spells from any source. Not every one is a mage. The population of the megaverse is finite. All these restrict the total.

Well obviously I'm correct since you can't use up the original resource, it's information and you can't use up information. You don't teach someone Globe of Daylight and now you can't cast it anymore or some of your Globe is now gone leaving it diminished. Indeed the fact of teaching the spell just helps you reinforce your knowledge of the given spell as you have to review it and carefully instruct someone else in how to cast it successfully.

There are a finite number of people. There are a finite and smaller number of those who can cast spells. There are a finite and still smaller number of those who can be taught spells. A still smaller number of those can teach or be taught spells from a specific individual. Every spell taught comes with a cost, it's one of those intangible costs you keep claiming economics ignores, called Opportunity Cost. This is going to limit the number still more.

You really need to stop with that bit of insult there, and no just because a discussion involves prices does not mean it automatically includes non-monetary motivations,

Yes. It does. Every single time.

and seems like you need to reread your own posts because you make them all out to be about cash money and have refused to acknowledge any mention or discuss any of those non-monetary motivations. Not once, so as long as you're going on about how fundamental reading is then go back and look at your actual posts, because not a word from you acknowledges those non-monetary motivations, just a lot of fluff about how everything can be viewed by the pure laws of economics (it can't) and how they automatically include those non-monetary values all while you ignore those non-monetary values and insist that all they care about is keeping the number of spells around low so they can sell them for more money.

Ahem:

1st post

That explains why, to follow the analogy, the pricing of spells should more closely resemble that of the glitterboy factory rather than the individual glitterboy.

2nd post

Spell casting is a perfectly competitive market with low barriers to entry and incentives to expand supply. Spell instruction is a monopolistic competitive market with extremely high barriers to entry and strong incentives to restrict supply. A better analogy would be electricity generation, a local market for electricity is perfectly competitive, electricity is electricity the source is irrelevant to the consumer and there are little to no barriers to entry into the market. Anyone with the cash can buy a generator, wind turbine, or solar panels and sell power to the local grid. This activity is analogous to a spell caster working for hire. Call lightening is call lightening, it doesn't matter if it's cast by a LLW or a mystic.

Learning spells is analogous to becoming a utility. There are significant barriers to entry in terms of cost and legal/competitive. So the presumptive spell instructor has to clear a very high, and growing, hurdle to teach others spells. For example, the "easiest" way to learn the Talisman spell is to become a Temporal Wizard; that takes years of slavery to a other dimensional demon. So a 1st level temporal wizard would be quite willing to sell the output of the spell but not to teach the spell itself. And other temporal wizards, or those who know the spell, have a tremendous incentive to prevent him from widely teaching it outside the small circle of people who already know it.

3rd post:

Learning spells is analagous to becoming a utility. There are significant barriers to entry in terms of cost and legal/competitive. So the presumptive spell instructor has to clear a very high, and growing, hurdle to teach others spells. For example, the "easiest" way to learn the Talisman spell is to become a Temporal Wizard; that takes years of slavery to a other dimensional demon. So a 1st level temporal wizard would be quite willing to sell the output of the spell but not to teach the spell itself. And other temporal wizards, or those who know the spell, have a tremendous incentive to prevent him from widely teaching it outside the small circle of people who already know it.

You're assuming that all mages have the same motives.

Yes. I am. Mages seek to maximize their personal benefit (however defined) and minimize their personal cost (however defined).

If my motive is to make money selling Talismans, then the fewer people there are making Talismans who can compete with me, the better.

Plain enough. Number of competitors is a given determinant of supply. KC did an excellent write up on the cost-benefit structure of selling the output of spell casting verses teaching/sharing the spell.

If my motive is world conquest for myself and my allies, and I find that my plan for world conquest requires lots of Talismans to be available, I'm going to teach Talisman to as many mages as I need to get the supply level that I require. If this angers some guild, then my plan had better account for it.

Two problems come immediately to mind:

1. There is no in-game way for you to tell which guild(s) are going to be angry, how angry they will be, when they will get angry, or what form their anger will take. There's no way to account for that many unknowns without meta-game knowledge. If your actions angered the Pacifistic Guild of Fluffy Bunny Huggers (PGFBH) the reaction would take one form. If you pissed off the Guild of the Gifted, the reaction would be orders of magnitude less survivable.

2. Given the alignments involved how does the plan account for one (or more) of the recipients of your largess being a violent proponent of the me-first attitude you describe in the situation above?

If my motive is to make enough money to live comfortably without having to work hard, then selling the Talisman spell to a handful of mages is my best bet since I don't care if they undercut me later. I've already made my money.

Several problems here too. Though some are more technical than others.
1. How do you prevent the type of deflationary death spiral you believe should occur to spell prices? In other words, what's to stop student number 1 from immediately undercutting your next sale?
2. See KC's spell casting income write up. It's possible to live extremely well off the income from spell casting with trivial amounts of time spent working.
3. Time value of money: there's no marketing or selling period in this plan, given the high cost of the spell it's doubtful you will be able to find enough people willing and able to simultaneously purchase Talisman at your full asking price. You'll be forced to either discount or wait to acquire new customers and the longer you have to wait the less valuable your payment becomes and the more likely you are to offend other spell merchants.
4. Finally, in order to quick sale like you plan you're going to have to enter the market at the clearing price, meaning since the demand curve slopes downward towards the quantity axis, each sale will be for less money than the one before. You won't have to worry about being undercut by your students, you'll do it to yourself.

And that's just scratching the surface.

True.

--flatline

[/quote]

I could go on but these are sufficient to disprove your statement.

[Ed]

Perhaps you could explain this a little more fully. Specifically, I'm curious how spell knowledge could be considered a positional good, a tangible good, and a service.

--flatline

Before the market for anything can be modeled, what type of good or service it is must be understood. A spell can be used to produce a tangible effect; the best example being a pure combat spell or it can be used to produce a tangible physical item, a zombie, mummy, golem, scroll, talisman, etc. A spell can be sold as a service, a la KC's example of the Cleanse dealership. Or the spell could have value to the mage because it is a positional good- it has value in relation to one mage having it and another mage not having it. The best analogy I've been able to identify is electricity generation. Small scale operations are relatively inexpensive, but larger scope efforts are prohibitively expensive.

I can explain in more detail tomorrow.

[flatline]

Perhaps you could explain this a little more fully. Specifically, I'm curious how spell knowledge could be considered a positional good, a tangible good, and a service.

--flatline

Before the market for anything can be modeled, what type of good or service it is must be understood. A spell can be used to produce a tangible effect; the best example being a pure combat spell or it can be used to produce a tangible physical item, a zombie, mummy, golem, scroll, talisman, etc. A spell can be sold as a service, a la KC's example of the Cleanse dealership. Or the spell could have value to the mage because it is a positional good- it has value in relation to one mage having it and another mage not having it. The best analogy I've been able to identify is electricity generation. Small scale operations are relatively inexpensive, but larger scope efforts are prohibitively expensive.

I can explain in more detail tomorrow.

Please do.

If spell knowledge were a tangible good, then if I sold it to you, I would no longer have it. I would also need to store it and, perhaps, maintain it.

Whether or not a particular spell could be a positional good is something I'm trying to understand. Knowing a rare spell could, in some circles, give you some sort of status that you wouldn't have if everyone knew the spell, which, of course, may increase demand for that spell (and, in the short term, at least, increase the price that the market will bear). Beyond that, I'm not certain how being a positional good would change anything.

--flatline

[Nightmask]

There are no practical limits on knowledge, and in this discussion regarding spell knowledge the storage 'device' for spells is the minds of mages which is a lot of storage capacity since we're given no known limit other than the number of spells available in the multiverse for a particular mage to learn.

1 Spells aren't knowledge. Knowledge is the capital of Belgium. A spell is an ability to channel Potential Psychic Energy to a desired effect.

2 Not every mage can learn spells. Not every mage can learn spells from any source. Not every one is a mage. The population of the megaverse is finite. All these restrict the total.

1 Yes, a spell is knowledge. It is something that can be taught to someone else, information of how to do something.

2 No, the population of the megaverse is infinite, since the number of dimensions is infinite the population is infinite as well. There is no effective restriction of the total numbers of anything if one counts the multiverse and even if you just considered a universe the size is sufficiently large enough to find virtually anything in plentiful supply and mages certainly aren't in short supply whether of the 'I just know how to do this' or 'I was taught how to do this'.

Well obviously I'm correct since you can't use up the original resource, it's information and you can't use up information. You don't teach someone Globe of Daylight and now you can't cast it anymore or some of your Globe is now gone leaving it diminished. Indeed the fact of teaching the spell just helps you reinforce your knowledge of the given spell as you have to review it and carefully instruct someone else in how to cast it successfully.

There are a finite number of people. There are a finite and smaller number of those who can cast spells. There are a finite and still smaller number of those who can be taught spells. A still smaller number of those can teach or be taught spells from a specific individual. Every spell taught comes with a cost, it's one of those intangible costs you keep claiming economics ignores, called Opportunity Cost. This is going to limit the number still more.

The people who can't learn or cast spells aren't relevant to the discussion, since it's all about mages and how much they charge for someone to learn a spell from them or for them to cast a spell for someone else. Of which the numbers of mages around is significant, Rifts Earth alone clearly has hundreds of thousands of mages of various types if not closer to a million with Ley Line Walkers and Techno-Wizards (those who most spend time learning and trading spells) the most common.

You really need to stop with that bit of insult there, and no just because a discussion involves prices does not mean it automatically includes non-monetary motivations,

Yes. It does. Every single time.

No, obviously it does not.

and seems like you need to reread your own posts because you make them all out to be about cash money and have refused to acknowledge any mention or discuss any of those non-monetary motivations. Not once, so as long as you're going on about how fundamental reading is then go back and look at your actual posts, because not a word from you acknowledges those non-monetary motivations, just a lot of fluff about how everything can be viewed by the pure laws of economics (it can't) and how they automatically include those non-monetary values all while you ignore those non-monetary values and insist that all they care about is keeping the number of spells around low so they can sell them for more money.

Ahem:

1st post

That explains why, to follow the analogy, the pricing of spells should more closely resemble that of the glitterboy factory rather than the individual glitterboy.

2nd post

Spell casting is a perfectly competitive market with low barriers to entry and incentives to expand supply. Spell instruction is a monopolistic competitive market with extremely high barriers to entry and strong incentives to restrict supply. A better analogy would be electricity generation, a local market for electricity is perfectly competitive, electricity is electricity the source is irrelevant to the consumer and there are little to no barriers to entry into the market. Anyone with the cash can buy a generator, wind turbine, or solar panels and sell power to the local grid. This activity is analogous to a spell caster working for hire. Call lightening is call lightening, it doesn't matter if it's cast by a LLW or a mystic.

Learning spells is analogous to becoming a utility. There are significant barriers to entry in terms of cost and legal/competitive. So the presumptive spell instructor has to clear a very high, and growing, hurdle to teach others spells. For example, the "easiest" way to learn the Talisman spell is to become a Temporal Wizard; that takes years of slavery to a other dimensional demon. So a 1st level temporal wizard would be quite willing to sell the output of the spell but not to teach the spell itself. And other temporal wizards, or those who know the spell, have a tremendous incentive to prevent him from widely teaching it outside the small circle of people who already know it.

3rd post:

Learning spells is analagous to becoming a utility. There are significant barriers to entry in terms of cost and legal/competitive. So the presumptive spell instructor has to clear a very high, and growing, hurdle to teach others spells. For example, the "easiest" way to learn the Talisman spell is to become a Temporal Wizard; that takes years of slavery to a other dimensional demon. So a 1st level temporal wizard would be quite willing to sell the output of the spell but not to teach the spell itself. And other temporal wizards, or those who know the spell, have a tremendous incentive to prevent him from widely teaching it outside the small circle of people who already know it.

You're assuming that all mages have the same motives.

Yes. I am. Mages seek to maximize their personal benefit (however defined) and minimize their personal cost (however defined).

If my motive is to make money selling Talismans, then the fewer people there are making Talismans who can compete with me, the better.

Plain enough. Number of competitors is a given determinant of supply. KC did an excellent write up on the cost-benefit structure of selling the output of spell casting verses teaching/sharing the spell.

If my motive is world conquest for myself and my allies, and I find that my plan for world conquest requires lots of Talismans to be available, I'm going to teach Talisman to as many mages as I need to get the supply level that I require. If this angers some guild, then my plan had better account for it.

Two problems come immediately to mind:

1. There is no in-game way for you to tell which guild(s) are going to be angry, how angry they will be, when they will get angry, or what form their anger will take. There's no way to account for that many unknowns without meta-game knowledge. If your actions angered the Pacifistic Guild of Fluffy Bunny Huggers (PGFBH) the reaction would take one form. If you pissed off the Guild of the Gifted, the reaction would be orders of magnitude less survivable.

2. Given the alignments involved how does the plan account for one (or more) of the recipients of your largess being a violent proponent of the me-first attitude you describe in the situation above?

If my motive is to make enough money to live comfortably without having to work hard, then selling the Talisman spell to a handful of mages is my best bet since I don't care if they undercut me later. I've already made my money.

Several problems here too. Though some are more technical than others.
1. How do you prevent the type of deflationary death spiral you believe should occur to spell prices? In other words, what's to stop student number 1 from immediately undercutting your next sale?
2. See KC's spell casting income write up. It's possible to live extremely well off the income from spell casting with trivial amounts of time spent working.
3. Time value of money: there's no marketing or selling period in this plan, given the high cost of the spell it's doubtful you will be able to find enough people willing and able to simultaneously purchase Talisman at your full asking price. You'll be forced to either discount or wait to acquire new customers and the longer you have to wait the less valuable your payment becomes and the more likely you are to offend other spell merchants.
4. Finally, in order to quick sale like you plan you're going to have to enter the market at the clearing price, meaning since the demand curve slopes downward towards the quantity axis, each sale will be for less money than the one before. You won't have to worry about being undercut by your students, you'll do it to yourself.

And that's just scratching the surface.

True.

--flatline

I could go on but these are sufficient to disprove your statement.

Funny, they just seem to prove my statement, you reduce everything down to claiming it's all about money which is patently false, it's not all about money and economics can't really account for how people react based on those intangible, non-monetary desires. Economists get caught in the wrong all the time because they didn't manage to account for one intangible or another (if they were so right and people so predictable the market would never crash for one, and they'd all be wealthy if they could be so perfect in predicting people's behavior).

[Subjugator]

Please do.

If spell knowledge were a tangible good, then if I sold it to you, I would no longer have it. I would also need to store it and, perhaps, maintain it.

While this is literally true, it is not always practically so. For example, one could cast 'summon wood', which would create lumber at the sacrifice of PPE. By so doing, they could then sell a tangible asset and still have the asset available for future use (since what was sacrificed was PPE, and could be immediately replenished at a ley line. Thus, a tangible object would be sold and yet would not diminish the availability of the product to the spell caster.

In that case, the cost to the caster is opportunity cost, which reflects what they *could* have been doing at the same time had they not been summoning wood.

Whether or not a particular spell could be a positional good is something I'm trying to understand. Knowing a rare spell could, in some circles, give you some sort of status that you wouldn't have if everyone knew the spell, which, of course, may increase demand for that spell (and, in the short term, at least, increase the price that the market will bear). Beyond that, I'm not certain how being a positional good would change anything.

Why do you think some spells of legend are as rare as they are? Crimson Wall of Lictalon is cool, but it's not as useful as say...Metropolis. In spite of that, Metropolis is common compared to CWoL.

...and AFAIK, CWoL is not only temporarily rare.

/Sub