From: lanilifar@aol.com (Lanilifar)
Newsgroups: alt.games.whitewolf
Subject: Study Points for Mages
Date: 12 Apr 1995 07:33:05 -0400
Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)
Reply-To: lanilifar@aol.com (Lanilifar)
NNTP-Posting-Host: newsbf02.mail.aol.com

  Study point system for Tomes:

      This system for study points was designed in order to make studying
parctical and interseting, to add realism, and to make Tomes a valuable
commodity.  We had difficulty in our group deciding how to use study
points at first.  MtA had a vague description paraphrased as, "one month
is enough time to study a discreet amount of information."   We felt that
giving more than one study point a month would cause advancement to occur
to quickly, yet at the same time only one study point made it fairly
useless.  So rather than make study points a factor of time we tied them
to specific Tomes.  
     Each magickal Tome in a mage's library is Topic (Sphere) specific. 
These topics are very specific in that each tome only applies to a certain
level of Knowledge.  For example if you already know how to shift your
senses through the correspondence point a Tome at that level of knowledge
will not help you.  However a tome that teaches you the principle of
shifting through the point yourself might be very valuable to you, while
at the same time it would be too advanced for someone who can only grasp
immediate spacial perceptions. Each tome also has an individual amount of
time it takes to read and comprehend.  Most Tomes also include experiments
for the mage to run which help him understand the concepts therein.   Now
each tome has a specific amount of study points you gain from it and study
points you gain from the experiments.  At the end of the allotted time you
gain these study points which can only be applied toward that specific
topic.

Examples:  
Scott Fierson has a library woth 10 Study points; he has three magickal
tomesas follows:

"Gaia's Wonders" written by Tommy Avar, Dreamspeaker
    This tome contains much information on the gauntlet and its basic
nature.  It explains details of stepping through it and converting your
physical body to a Spiritual one.  It describes much of the beauty and
wonderful sensations of the near umbra.  It also gives warnings and
guideposts for the near umbral traveler.  There are few experiments the
two most dangerous are: 1) Summon Spirit guide, this is used to call a
spirit which can step siedeways and ask it for help.  It hopefully will
Step Sideways with you in tow so that you can experience it firsthand. 2)
Affect Gauntlet,  This is nothing like breach the Gauntlet, it merley is a
start for Stepping Sideways. This is one of the last experiments in the
book and many mages get stuck in the Gauntlet during this stage.
  Game terms:  This book is to help Mages with a Spirit 2 raise to Spirit
3.   It will take 4 weeks to read and comprehend this tome.  An additional
2 weeks are required to perform the experiments.   Experiments are actualy
performed through the course of the book so it has to be decided in the
beginning of study whether or not the mage is going to perform them.  At
the end of the allotted time the mage gets 3 study points for the tome and
1 study point for experimentaion even if he failed.  (Failures teach us
something.)

For the next two books I removed the description:
"Decay, Glitches, and Luck" 
 Game Terms:  This book will help Mages with an Entropy 2 raise to Entropy
3.  It will take 4 weeks to read and an additional 3 weeks for
experimentation.  This tome is worth 2 study points and the experiments
are worth an additional 2 study points.

"Marvels and Revels"
 Game Terms:  This book introduces the concepts of life magick to the
ignorant so they can move to Rank one.  It takes 3 weeks to read and is
worth 2 study points. 

 These books take up Scott's full 10 study points.  Mages cannot just
perform the experiments to gain those study points, but they can just read
the tome.   This system allows for lots of variance.  Some books could be
mostly experiments and therfore give lots of study points for
experimentation.

Tell me what you think.

Steve Reigle