Dungeon Master Forum

Hi folks,

I am currently planning an RTC dungeon with some hostile environments, e.g. underwater sections or areas without an atmosphere (meaning the lack or air, not the lack of story, hopefully).
That brought me to the question, can a character cast spells without speaking? Obviously, speaking is not possible under water or without air, so should I forbid spell casting?

I dunno, I never assumed the characters were speaking. I once started a crappy DM story once in which spellcasting was accomplished via tracing the runes in the air and channelling magic into each as you did it, so the rune symbol stayed hovering there (glowing pale blue), and when you'd written out the right runes of a spell you could sort of gather them up into your hands and at a time of your choosing you could release them and they would coalesce into the form of the spell - so you could make a throwing motion to cast a Fireball or other offensive spell, or in the case of potions hold an empty flask beneath your spellcasting hand as the magic turned to liquid you would catch.
But really, it's your dungeon and your world - if you want to say that in your dungeon spellcasting is only possible via voicing the runes, then go for it . I wonder if pronunciation would matter, like, I don't imagine people like Daroou or Toadrot have the same-shaped vocal cords that humans would .

I'd agree with Ameena. I never assumed the spells were spoken. Your dungeon... Your rules.
Look forward to your dungeon, Leslie.

My copy of the manual is in a box with all the other pamphlets and other stuff included with games in the basement of my mother's house, but didn't they mention that the spellcasting was based around runes rather than incantations? It's been almost 30 years since I read the fluff.

In Dungeon Master mythology, magic users must both visualise the runes in their mind and speak each rune out loud to cast a spell. It's explained in the manual (using clear terms like voicing, reciting, etc.)

In addition, FTL intended for characters to speak their spells audibly in DM2 (but decided against it in the end, partly due to cost and partly because it sounded weird when casting many spells quickly.)

So if you want to honour the DM mythology, then no, you wouldn't be able to use magic underwater. But as others have said, it's your dungeon so you make up whatever rules you want

Ok, I just remembered the manual was on dmweb.free.fr and looked it up. I also remembered that when you enter in a series of runes that are NOT a spell and try to cast, it says "So and so mumbles a meaningless spell", so that should be an indication that the spells are spoken.
Also the manual calls them syllables, so apparently they do chant things like UM OH KATH RA! to fling lightning bolts or PAL VI to make potions.

Ohh yes good point, I forgot about the "mumbles" part .

Forgot the bit about mumbling the spell too, but you could just change the text to suit your dungeon.

Funny how we all forgot about the "so and so mumbles a meaningless spell", when I saw that message countless times 30 years ago when experimenting to find all the spells.
I recall starting the "Kid's Dungeon", resurrecting the characters with the most mana, grabbing the water skins and flasks, then going to "Make a Monster" and killing a bunch of screamers (just press the button about 50 times with the door closed, then PAL OH VEN through the grate (MON hits it)), then I set out to systematically try every rune combination in the game, sleeping as needed with unlimited screamer slices.

slickrcbd wrote: ↑Thu Mar 21, 2019 12:58 am Ok, I just remembered the manual was on dmweb.free.fr and looked it up. I also remembered that when you enter in a series of runes that are NOT a spell and try to cast, it says "So and so mumbles a meaningless spell", so that should be an indication that the spells are spoken.

In theory though, couldn't the spellcaster prepare the spell in advance? It occurs to me that since you pay the mana as soon as you say the rune, that the symbol stays there until used, erased, or until the death of the caster.

Funy, everybody tried all spell combinations
And again in CSB, and again in DM2 I presume

I think, failed spells should hurt, the loss of the mana used to prepare the spell is not enough penalty, magic is a dangerous science.

Well, by the time I got access to CSB it was the 21st century and I could just check www.gamefaqs.com.

When I got Dungeon Master the World Wide Web did not exist. I did not have a modem either, nor did I know of any BBSs except the big ones like GEnie, CompuServe, Prodigy, and AOL. Actually, I think Prodigy came later or at least the advertising did.

So trying all the spell combinations was really the only way to go since they did not exactly provide a spell list in the manual like Bard's Tale, Wizardry, or Might and Magic.

I and a couple friends actually wondered if we were missing an insert that listed the spells like the way Final Fantasy Legend II for the Game Boy came with a fold-out insert separate from the manual that told you the properties of all the weapons and armor in the game. Or how Sierra's Manhunter:New York had a feelie with a fake ad for the in-game video game that included a map of the first level that was really a map to the sewers with the location of all the keycards you needed to collect.