If I have bought the ArM5 core book and try to find out, what those "investigations" on p.158 are, I go to the index and find, that they are described in - lo - the subchapter Investigation. So they better be described there.
This makes "investigations" into a term. It also prevents questions throughout a game, whether this or that or yet another ArM5 core rule define "investigations" and are handled other than with a season in the lab.
Do you really what I've just written??? I certainly don't. I think we all know I just typed some BS. But if what you say is true, this is necessarily true as well. So can you just stop this pushing this completely illegitimate argument? It could be useful to examine Virtues and other things to figure out what could reasonably apply during fast-casting. But spending time pushing something so clearly fallacious does nothing to help anyone.
Here are things I immediately disallow for fast-casting. There are more, but these are ones that jumped to mind.
Other generally available options
Forceless casting (explicitly a spellcasting option)
Flourishes (needs concentration, presumably would be in the same spellcasting-option category if placed in the core book)
Mastery options
Quiet Casting (sure, the penalty my drop to 0, but there is no exception granted)
Still Casting (while written differently than Quiet Casting, it's still presented as an option, and I don't find a compelling reason why it should be treated differently than the clearer one)
Boosted Casting (no exception is granted for the required vis)
Multiple Casting (it's an option, it easily takes penalties, and there is a statement about prohibiting it in difficult situations)
Virtues
Performance Magic (you need to go about the craft/activity)
Method Caster (unless fast casting is your method) (you are fast casting rather than using your method)
Imbued with the Spirit of (Form) (you can't use vis, so you can't use Fatigue in its place as it doesn't have a place)
.
As for LB and LLSM, I could be persuaded either way. I see possibilities in both directions.
Defined technical term: "Investigation" fits your requirements better than "spellcasting option" does. You insist the latter is, while not accepting the former.
Context: You've been arguing that if it's not immediately attached to "spellcasting option," even if it is an option for spellcasting, then it is necessarily not a "spellcasting option," regardless of context. Context is irrelevant. But then suddenly context is completely relevant for "investigation." If context is now relevant, then we must accept that Virtues and other things that add options to spellcasting may well be "spellcasting options" based on context, so automatically ruling them out for not being attached to the term "spellcasting option" is accepted as invalid. Or is context about to become irrelevant again?
My reasoning was "this is something you have to think about whether to use (and how much to use), you don't have time to make this decision when you're trying to get a spell off very quickly".
Yes, that was something I considered pushing in one direction.
In the other direction I see is that you can use fast casting with either fatiguing or non-fatiguing sponts, so it seems like a choice about dumping energy into the spell is permitted. LB and LLSM are essentially that.
I would have presumed the section of the book called "Spellcasting Options" should have covered all the spell casting options up to that book (ie the first, main core book). Later books could have introduced options that weren't considered in the first book.
And that is about all of the flame-war thread that I care to understand.
Perhaps to cool things off, are there any Virtues and Flaws that we agree do affect Fast-Casting?
eg Special Circumstances: Fast-Casting
But if you then note for our specific case, that "spellcasting options" does in ArM5 core only appear in the subchapter title, once in the same subchapter, and in the index, this argument no longer holds.
There is just no way to find out, where else in ArM5 things denoted "spellcasting options" can be found.
Either "spellcasting options" becomes a term, or every SG is free to understand what she wants by that phrase. The latter is just bad writing in a core rule book.
Trying to create a term which is only used once in the text also seems like bad writing. Especially with there being no actual definition of the term.
As far as I can tell the phrase "spellcasting options" is not used in any other ArM5 book.
As an extra note, the phrase "spellcasting rolls" also only appear exactly three times in the core book.
Just in this case - term used only once in the same book - it makes all sense to omit the definition: especially because of the very hard space constraints when writing a core rule book that anyway ends at 240 pages.
Trying to create a term without even trying to define it would be really poor writing.
But there is no good reason to think they did try to create any term, instead they just wrote using ordinary English.
(The words appearing in the index means nothing, except that the words can be found on the page pointed to. The index is of too poor quality to be used to prove anything at all.)
Yes, I did. Follow what you wrote and you'll see you're being arbitrary. You apply this in one instance not accepting context at all and apply it in another instance insisting context is utterly important. So essentially your argument is that you're being arbitrary.
It covers all the standard spellcasting options. That doesn't mean a Virtue or similar couldn't give an exception. Or we're saying things like Bloodline, Bargain, and Fire cannot be R/D/T since they're not included in the right section. The reason is that they are not standardly available R/D/T, but just added to them by a Virtue. If we accept that as how it works, claiming another section cannot work that way is invalid.
Exactly. Most words being used are not being used technically and are not being defined. There are many cases where regular words show up in the index or as names of sections, such as "investigation."
Argument is pretty much, Let's disagree on semantics, and go down a spiral of flame.
My opinion on your question. There is enough disagreement it's fair to say unless someone with appropriate authority gives an official Atlas answer, there's no canonical answer, interpret as you like.
That's better than my Method Caster (Fast-Casting) suggestion since Special Circumstances (Fast-Casting) can apply to spontaneous magic. So, while both seem good, yours is the preferable of the two.
An odd one: Fast Caster really, really should. But it definitely does not without a house rule.