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gadrin wrote:Just curious, as a GM how do you portray these when they occur in your games ?

Fluff and just talk thru them or take time to let the mage roleplay ?

Bunch of dorks standing around chanting ? Lines and magic symbols drawn ?

Fill us in on what your NPCs (or PCs if your mage does this type of thing) when
it happens in your games.

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I personally just skip over it.

But one memoriable game I played in, the GM made the casting of an Exorsiem ritual spell a long and drawn out affair, with the dark power infesting her mind casting magic and summoning monsters to fight us to try to stop the ritual. So everyone else had to keep the stuff off the spellcaster's backs.

Nekira Sudacne wrote:
I personally just skip over it.

But one memoriable game I played in, the GM made the casting of an Exorsiem ritual spell a long and drawn out affair, with the dark power infesting her mind casting magic and summoning monsters to fight us to try to stop the ritual. So everyone else had to keep the stuff off the spellcaster's backs.

I think this covers it nicely. For humdrum ritual spells, gloss over them. Nothing will kill the energy of a game than being forced to act out a protracted ritual for something superfluous.

But for the big spell/finale, the session or campaign decider where success or failure will have dramatic consequences, the GM's approach in Nek's example sounds awesome!

For cinematic purposes, both my players and NPCs get a "cool" description of whats happening. Players get +4 to their spell strength for rituals as well as NPCs (sometimes I sneak them a +5... )

They also only use a portion of their personal P.P.E. rather than total spell cost.

Munchkin Slappin GM wrote:A 15 sec melee round could take an hour. A 30min ritual ???????? I skip them, but I think I've only had a couple of rituals cast at my table.

I usually skip to the important parts, like the human sacrifice or the battle of wills and gloss over the rest. Shifter tricks are handled in dead time, when possible, but sometimes it goes down (quickly) in game.

Rituals are more prepatory by nature anyways and, under no circumstances should a mage be able to summon a shadow beast mid-melee.