Ritual/Rune Magic

[Garem]

This idea just came out of the blue from reading this post.

What if ritual magic was scripted? I imagine it would be highly similar to alchemy/herbalism, but more RP involved instead of just testing things. The difference is that these sorts of "rituals" would cause temporary changes in the game world, not create items which give some sort of advantage.

Examples:

-Creates an NPC/PC with which the character can interact, such as demon summoning (not controlled by the PC, merely speaks and leaves)
-Brings the ghost of a PC back briefly from death so it can answer questions
-Creates an invis dispelling ward that only works once and lasts for a RL hour
-Creates minor portal magic.

Other thoughts:
Knowledge of these special rituals would be exclusively DM rewarded. They would require teams of PCs to near-simultaneously complete actions or speak key phrases.

I would be very wary of these things creating any major mechanical advantages. Just wanted to kick this idea can down the alley, see what people thought.

[Fingersmith]

Wow. That sort of thing being scripted could be really fun. As long as the major rituals still involve DMs (since they always have a flair for the dramatic that really makes such things awesome), this could be really good.

I imagine it as sort of just a more advanced and complicated form of spellcasting, infeasible for questing but more for the RP quality it offers. Now I know that you can do rituals already, but having a scripted effect, whether mechanical or just visual really has a lot of appeal to me.


-COMEDY OPTION-


Turn the Nightriser Shield into a ritual that needs to be performed by PCs at regular intervals or it'll fail.

[Garem]

Ahh yes, neat thought! Flashy visual effects, that could be cool too. Like Gandalf hosting Bilbo's birthday bash.