How Many Spells I can Do? If I cast Too Many Spells Will I get "Spell Overload?"
How Many Spells I can Do? If I cast Too Many Spells Will I get "Spell Overload?" My first reply is a question in return:
Who made up the idea that there *is* such a thing as "spell overload"?
Do they *want* there to be such a thing?
Why?
What advantage would it give anyone, as a conjure practitioner?
It sounds like fiction to me -- like a plot element in a video game or a movie.
In first person shooter magic-scenario video games, concepts like "spell overload" are created to deliberately DECREASE a shooter's "powers" in order to give their "target" a slight protection against their overwhelmingly intense spell-casting powers and make the game more exciting.
The same sort of scenario is interjected by comic book and television editors into series fiction, where the story-arc must be slowed down a bit to avoid a too-rapid wrapping up of the major themes. Ideally, as an editor, one wants all of the storylines to wrap up exactly at the point that the series is cancelled. This is difficult to accomplish, but one tool that editors use is the "power limitation" premise.
Having been a comic book professional for 26 years, i know both the value of this device, and the hackneyed "oh, well, we need something to delay the resolution" shrug of the shoulders that underlies a story editor's decision to insert the "spell overload / power overload" theme into superhero and mystery hero fiction.
Is this what they want out of life?
Think about it.
The idea of "spell overload" seems to come up again and again among young newbies who think that hoodoo consists only of "casting spells" -- in token whereof they may call conjure practitioners and root doctors "casters" -- and, as i see it, "spell overload" is essentially an urban myth of the magical wannabe community that derives from comics, television, movies, or video games. Since it has nothing to do with the practical and traditional folk magic of any culture (except for the culture of the very young and fiction-driven), i have nothing more to say about it here.
