The workings of magic

 One of the things I dislike about some D&D settings, especially high-magic ones or "kitchen sink" ones, is the way magic is so ubiquitous as to be effectively a surrogate for technology. Sometimes it's semi-subtle, but often it's obviously, or even explicitly, an analog of some real world or sci-fi technology -- TV, radio, the internal combustion engine (oh-so-cleverly renamed "internal conjuration engine"), Star Trek transporters, and the like. If you've got the gold to spend, just hire some wizards, either to mass-produce magic items or to act as some sort of sorcerous butler/travel agent/housekeeper/personal chef/communications system.

Another thing I dislike about some D&D games is how easy it is to bloat one's spell books with spells scribed from scrolls found as treasure, and how spells tend to be traded and shared freely between the party's spellcasters until everyone's books are essentially complete and homogenous.

The obvious rebuttal in my mind is that magic is not a formula. It isn't just "say these words, make these gestures, mix these reagents" and a specified effect occurs. Channeling the magical energies of the universe is unique to each practitioner of magic. It requires a deep understanding of complex relationships between elements of the universe, and each caster is him- or herself a part of that universe, with his or her own unique relationship to the other elements. Though there are common factors to every spell, each caster must discover the ways to bring those factors together from his or her unique position in existence.

The upshot of this is that wizards can't just teach each other their spells or learn them from scrolls like lyrics to a song. Learning a spell from another mage requires deep philosophical discussion between teacher and student, along with intensive research by the student to configure and attune the elements of the spell to his own unique perspective of existence. A scroll can serve as a resource for learning a spell. The spells written on it may be discharged by any mage because the necessary energies have been bound into it by its creator, but to assimilate knowledge of the spells into one's own spell book requires a similar amount of research and contemplation to learning from another caster. A scroll can serve as a resource for learning its spells, but it's never as simple as just copying them verbatim.

In game terms, having a mentor or a scroll can serve as a means of reducing the cost and time of spell research, but never a substitute for it. In the case of beginning magic-user characters, the mentor can be assumed to bear the costs of this research in terms of money and reagents, and time can often be hand-waved -- the character's starting spells were learned prior to the beginning of the campaign, and it can be assumed those gained on leveling up are learned between adventures.

Magic items are another issue, but can be dealt with similarly. The same metaphysical principles apply to enchanting items as to learning spells; not only is each enchanter unique, but no two swords or cloaks are identical, either. They share common elements, but each iteration of a common type of item is different in subtle but important ways. An enchanter must become intimately familiar with an item on which he wishes to bestow magic, learning the warp and weft of its unique reality, and tailoring his methods of enchantment exactly to it. Even a seemingly identical item is connected to the fabric of the multiverse in different ways, and cannot be enchanted by a rote formula. 

Unlike mundane technology, there are no hard-and-fast formulae, no universally reproduceable blueprints, no templates or jigs, no shortcuts to spellcasting or to creation of magic items, which serves to maintain differences in spell repertoires from one caster to the next, even within an adventuring party, and to keep magic items suitably uncommon and varied.

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