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   13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Thursday, 04-Jun-2026 16:45:03 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

   in reply to

   • Roger BW 😷
   • Shimmin Beg (he/him)

   @RogerBW @shimminbeg I enjoy thw lore potential here. All those bits of prophylactic superstition that filtered through into culture...

   throws salt over shoulder to banish unseen wizardly spy orbs

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     Roger BW 😷 (rogerbw@discordian.social)'s status on Thursday, 04-Jun-2026 16:45:04 JST Roger BW 😷

     in reply to

     • Shimmin Beg (he/him)

     @shimminbeg By which, when not very tired, I meant: the mundane victims may have a thing that they don't know is a magical defensive ritual, they just do it because of tradition, but that tradition descends from something actually useful.

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     Roger BW 😷 (rogerbw@discordian.social)'s status on Thursday, 04-Jun-2026 16:45:05 JST Roger BW 😷

     in reply to

     • Shimmin Beg (he/him)

     @shimminbeg A side note on that, mundane silly precautions with an anti magic effect, because someone else knew about wizards even if "we" don't.

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     Shimmin Beg (he/him) (shimminbeg@masto.ai)'s status on Thursday, 04-Jun-2026 16:45:07 JST Shimmin Beg (he/him)

     in reply to

     Obviously in some settings wizards *are* meant to completely dominate any interaction or conflict with non-wizards, in which case this isn't necessarily an issue.

     It can still make things *boring*, though, by shortcutting a potential adventure. "I could do an elaborate series of investigations to identify the werewolf amongst the castle residents, or just cast Reveal Werewolf. Oh, hi Jim."

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     Shimmin Beg (he/him) (shimminbeg@masto.ai)'s status on Thursday, 04-Jun-2026 16:45:08 JST Shimmin Beg (he/him)

     in reply to

     This is where you get problems like "wizards can secretly locate and then spy on their enemies and wait until they're asleep, then walk through the walls and kill them". Or "wizards can secretly watch over any person's shoulder to steal their passwords".

     Things that an ordinary person simply cannot do anything about. If ordinary people are meant to be a credible opposition, that's a problem.

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     Shimmin Beg (he/him) (shimminbeg@masto.ai)'s status on Thursday, 04-Jun-2026 16:45:09 JST Shimmin Beg (he/him)

     in reply to

     If there's a spell that can track a known individual or object to anywhere in the world (which exists in at least several systems), a person cannot disappear if wizards are looking for them, especially if the wizards are prepared to cast repeatedly in case their spell failed without them knowing.

     A known object can't be stolen and hidden away.

     In many cases, these spells also work to confirm whether a person is still alive.

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     Shimmin Beg (he/him) (shimminbeg@masto.ai)'s status on Thursday, 04-Jun-2026 16:45:10 JST Shimmin Beg (he/him)

     in reply to

     In some systems/cases, the only way to counter these things is to know that magic exists and use specific magical countermeasures. This means mundane people are completely powerless against the magic even if they learn about it.

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     Shimmin Beg (he/him) (shimminbeg@masto.ai)'s status on Thursday, 04-Jun-2026 16:45:11 JST Shimmin Beg (he/him)

     in reply to

     Somebody who can read minds, or infallibly detect lies, or pass through solid objects, or project their senses to a distant place or time, in a mundane setting, has capabilities nobody expects. Mundane countermeasures like "keeping secrets", "being a good liar", "convincing fake documents", "hiding in a well-defended bunker", and "holding the secret meeting in a place nobody can possibly have bugged" do not help.

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     Shimmin Beg (he/him) (shimminbeg@masto.ai)'s status on Thursday, 04-Jun-2026 16:45:12 JST Shimmin Beg (he/him)

     in reply to

     Someone who can fire lightning from their finger is broadly a similar problem to somebody with a really well-hidden firearm: they're a physical threat even in situations where nobody should have a weapon.

     You can still use mundane countermeasures. Having people ready to respond to such threats helps. Making it hard for even such people to target important people or things helps. Being good at not getting shot helps. You do not need to know that lightning wizards exist for these to help.

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     Shimmin Beg (he/him) (shimminbeg@masto.ai)'s status on Thursday, 04-Jun-2026 16:45:13 JST Shimmin Beg (he/him)

     in reply to

     Magic is always potentially tricky to game with, especially in settings where it's restricted to a minority of people, and even more so when it's not widely known to exist. The more magic departs from the capabilities and limitations of mundane skills and technology, the more of a risk this is.

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     Shimmin Beg (he/him) (shimminbeg@masto.ai)'s status on Thursday, 04-Jun-2026 16:45:14 JST Shimmin Beg (he/him)

     Writing a thing about Knowledge spells in GURPS (your divinations and suchlike) and one of the first sections is "why you might want to ban some or all of these spells"...