Practices are extensions of the Focus system in Spell: The RPG. They are tiered Focuses that allow for more benefits the more the character invests. They come with lore, rituals, and other trappings as well. There is a near-endless number of Practices—and many wouldn’t call themselves such. Many are unique to their settings where they might be referred to as something like a Coven, a League, or a School of Magic.
The first tier is purchased as just the name for the Practice and functions identically to a normal Focus. Each subsequent tier grants access to either a benefit to spellcasting or a new option to the Focus Roll results. As a character advances in a Practice, their responsibilities also become steeper. Practices have a list of abilities that characters can access in any order; some higher powered benefits may require a minimum tier level.
Not all Practices are built the same. Some are focused on basic needs with many abilities accessible at lower tiers and little in the way of barriers, except for the responsibility of using the powers to the benefit of the land and others. Some Practices are built around exclusivity and require extreme hoops for a character to jump through. Similarly, not all abilities are the same either, ranging from quaint to epic.
The Practices of Muster, a sort of solarpunk Outback town in need of some help, are based around the common needs of the town and its people. They’re not formal institutions but traditions passed on orally. There are two options based on the oldest rituals of the town, Water Shepherds and Monster Drovers, and a mysterious third Practice based on the town’s darkest secret.
Thinking Through Spells: Water Shepherds
I started writing about the Water Shepherds first, with this description: Muster is a town of flood or famine—or it would be if not for the stewardship of the Water Shepherds. They maintain the massive earthenware jars that line the riverbed to collect the floodwaters and redistribute them during times of drought.
When it came time to write the actual benefits of the Practice, I froze. I got a big ol’ mental block. But then I talked it through aloud (a big thanks to Mariah for bearing with all my game design chatter). One of my primary goals and concerns with Practices was that they provide additional context for spells. It’s a goal because I want specific kinds of spellcasting to be easier for the types of characters who want to be able to cast specific kinds of spells. It’s a concern because it potentially undermines the freedom of the basic spellcasting system.
Muster is a town of flood or famine—or it would be if not for the stewardship of the Water Shepherds.
On the other side of working through that block, I came up with this example. I imagined a Water Shepherd trying to restore water to the drought-stricken town. I rolled for a spell and came up with “ERUPT.” I imagined, as a player, saying that water erupts from the earth just like a geyser. However, if Water Shepherds have the special rule “can add the word WATER to any spell,” then they could cast “ERUPT WATER.” Obviously, ERUPT WATER should be more on the nose than just ERUPT. Here’s how I might rule these two situations:
ERUPT successfully causes water to erupt from the earth in a magical geyser because water is something that can erupt because geysers exist. This leap is logical. This leap wouldn’t allow for an eruption of chocolate or christmas tree ornaments. It’s too much of a stretch because those are not things that reasonably erupt from the ground. In addition to water, the spell also causes steam and rocks to launch into the sky and sulfurous gas stinks up the air—just like a geyser.
ERUPT WATER also successfully causes water to erupt from the earth in a magical geyser because that’s what the spell specified. I wouldn’t throw rocks or steam in the mix and just as I gave room for ERUPT to specify what (reasonably) was erupting, I’d allow what water (reasonably) was erupting. Clean drinking water at a refreshingly cool temperature? Sure, because water is frequently drinkable and cool when we’re interacting with it. Since we don’t have to rely on the geyser connection to include water, it can be more specific at the cost of freedom. While ERUPT WATER can make a refreshing fountain spring of drinking water or a jet of steam, it could not erupt lava like a volcano, which ERUPT could do instead.
Thinking Through Spells: Monster Drovers
Here’s another example. One of the abilities the Monster Drovers will have is a spell context of “Summon a Mount.” Now, any character regardless of whether they’re in a Practice can say “I would like to cast a spell to summon something I can ride.” The difference between anyone being able to say “I would like to summon a mount” and the Monster Drover saying “I would like to cast Summon Mount” is that the latter guarantees, essentially, that it’ll work.
My example spell was GUM. If a non-Drover character wanted to summon a mount and spelled GUM, I’d either say “You can’t ride gum, it doesn’t work as intended” or, if we were all feeling quite generous, “You summon a big wad of gum that you can sit on and it sloooooowly stretches and inches along.” The Drover is guaranteed to summon a mount and GUM is the flavor of that mount—they summon a giant gummy worm or a claymation-looking horse a la Pokey from Gumby.
You summon a big wad of gum that you can sit on and it sloooooowly inches along.
The difference here, which I would like to make clear without having to write a rambling essay like this to explain, is that when any character casts any spell, the context they provide is not guaranteed—only their goal is set. Justifications can make things fit a bit closer to the goal, but accomplishing that goal is not certain. The only guarantee is that magic is happening.
So, yes, you summoned a big wad of gum, but there’s no guarantee it’d be mobile. That’s not an inherent attribute of gum. If you were descending a large cliff and wanted the gum to stretch you safely to the bottom? Perfect. You want to gallop across the desert on a gum with no name? No dice—cast RIDE GUM or GUM HORSE or something like that. This extra layer offered by the Practices guarantees an aspect of the context without needing extra words in the spell. Yes, it’ll be magic and, yes, it’ll be a magic thing you can ride.
Monster Drovers will need transport more frequently and for many different reasons. Maybe to fly, or travel across water, or breach the barrier between consciousness and the land of dreams to ride safely through the tumultuous fluff of nightmares. Their spell guarantees them something to ride but not any specific special abilities. A basic spell guarantees magic but not something that can specifically be ridden.
And those are my plans for how Practices will work without compromising either cool extra abilities or the freedom of the base game itself.
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