Gelatinous Icosahedron

 A character's spells are an important resource, both for the individual and the party. As such, a big part of the game's challenge comes from managing them well, and different schemes offer different incentives in play. Below, I compare and contrast the differences between some common spell casting systems, with special attention to their effects on resource management and player decision-making. Prepare and forget : The by-the-book method for most older editions of D&D and their modern clones and simulacra. Choose spells for your caster to prepare or memorize each day. Those are the spells you get, and when you cast one, it disappears from the caster's mind until prepared again after a full rest. You can choose to prepare multiple instances of the same spell, if you want to be able to cast it more than once.  In theory, this is Hard Mode resource management: your spells are limited  and  you have to choose them in advance, with imperfect to nearly nonexistent f...

 Everybody has an opinion on the so-called Vancian casting system of classic D&D. Some (myself among them) find the idea of "fire-and-forget" spells to be a poor representation of the kind of fiction we want to represent. Some (again, including myself) find it too rigid, and dislike the incentives it provides toward spell selection. And then there are those on the other side of the fence, who like the in-fiction implications (still not a fan) or who see value in such a system for the purpose of promoting game elements of resource management and player skill (for which I do have an appreciation.)  Not a whole lot need be said about the in-universe implications of spell preparation. It could literally be a case of impressing patterns of magical energy (or imprisoning a minor daemon or other entity) in the mind and then discharging it, losing the pattern or knowledge until it is prepared again) but it could just as easily be reskinned as carefully preparing proper reagen...

 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 obviou...