Comment on “Drafting Research”

Lothar, if I understand correctly, what you're saying is that the limitations of a spell as it's currently known (i.e. its description in the established roster of spells), are implied by Alexis's post to have been arrived at over time. Through this process of research.

Perhaps when the collection of effects now called fireball was first discovered in Alexis's world, the blast radius was smaller, the damage was weaker, it took longer to cast, and so on. Over time the spell was refined and improved into what the mages of 1650 are familiar with.

This would be consistent with spells as "technology" and not a science themselves. The principle that causes fireball to be possible has always existed; human discovery (harnessing those principles as a tool) took a while, and didn't come all at once.

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If one is thinking along these lines, it seems plausible that a character who is adventuring in search of a spell might stumble upon a "basic" form of the spell. In his studies of electricity, Volta figured out the essence of battery technology with his pile, even though his version was crude. A character looking for dancing lights and who has gotten a large amount of the process correct might conjure a single weak immobile light, thus learning they'd gotten within spitting distance of a real useful spell. That would be an especially satisfying progress point: "I've almost got it!"