But let's not forget that what sets a fantasy game like Olympia apart
from a medieval simulation is Magic. I - for one - think it is the
most interesting part of the game. To judge by the membership of the
guilds a plurality but not a majority of the players agree. But that
is fine too, the wide spectrum of possible roles and interests is
another concept which makes Olympia great.
Magic _should_ be hard to acquire, very expensive to learn, and
dangerous to practice and the benefits should come late. But in the
end the payoffs should be commensurate with the investment. With the
possible exception of danger all of the former is already true, but
the later isn't as the abilities of even the most powerful archmages
today only cover a very limited spectrum. Hence I think it would be
good not only for mages, but the game if there were more spells.
The spells should not even in general be more powerful as some of the
current restricted spells already are quite powerful. Nor do I think
that (as some have suggested) there should be a high level magic
spell to emulate every other skill. But mages should be able to do
more of what is traditionally associated with mages.
Carl Edman