Magic systems

If there's one thing I've studied in RPGs as relentlessly as I've studied certain non-RPG stuff, like (say) the evolution of vertebrate anatomy or the courtship habits of the opposite sex, it is the Magic System.

There are several variables to consider:

MECHANICS

- use the same mechanics as skills and/or combat, or different?

- have flexible, defined-at-the-moment effects, or highly codified and defined actions instead?

- regarding the above point, if flexible, is flexibility only from the player's POV, or from both player and character POV? (we may need to clarify this issue ...)

- improvement mechanics: within defined paths of improvement, or open-ended at every step?

SETTING

- is magic a technology? (please, no Asimov quoting)

- how is magic taught and learned, or is it a talent/innate thing?

- is the WORLD magical? How does a magic-inclusive setting differ from a mythical one (in terms of style)?

- how do inhabitants view magic?

THEME

- does magic MEAN anything to the players, in terms of playing this game? are there forms they want to avoid or to approach in a certain way?

- what thematic role is played by magic in the Elric books? In the Earthsea books? In the (original) Conan stories? Or conversely, in the Cugel stories, and the Fafhrd and Mouser stories?

- does RPG design ever address this issue? Which ones? Which ones not?

- what about modern magic themes? are there any? How is Sorcerer different in theme from (say) Mage, and how can that be reinforced or used most effectively in designing characters, demons, and scenarios?

- can system reinforce theme? (I suggest that it necessarily does, and that therefore the idea of a UNIVERSAL RPG that addresses magic is nonsensical)

Let's dissect these and related ideas: open free-for-all question and comment session.

Some example magic-heavy RPGs to consider: Everway, Ars Magica, Castle Falkenstein, Sun and Storm, Glorantha/RuneQuest . . . and any others come to mind.

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RAVEN:

I'll speak from personal preference here, as there are, truly, any number of ways to go about responding to this question. Forgive any simplistic or confusing responses, it is currently 3am.

>MECHANICS

>- use the same mechanics as skills and/or combat, or different?

I don't frankly have a preference on this, as it really depends on the system. I generally tend to favor similar systems across the board to make the learning curve less steep.

>- have flexible, defined-at-the-moment effects, or highly codified and defined actions instead?

As a student of the occult in the real-world, I must confess that I like the codified and defined in regards to magic, with a bit of the flexible (like real magic). However, magic styles like AD&D, I don't.

This might seem odd, so let me explain further...what I truly dislike about most magic-systems are the flash-bang concepts behind them...that is, fireballs, lightning bolts, super-explosive-blow-up-your-enemies-with-a-wave sorts of magic. It bites. Such is so unfortunately unrealistic and un-magiclike that it kills my sense of wonder or awe for the magic as-presented.

Both systems (predefined and momentary) tend to lean towards this sort of blatant flash-boom effect, however; and though I find that while making magic codified makes the Narrator's job easier to handle (removing some of the headaches present in adjudicating non-standard magical systems by predetermining what style of magic is allowed in the game) it can be too restrictive without some flexibility allowed.

>- regarding the above point, if flexible, is flexibility only from the player's POV, or from both player and character POV? (we may need to clarify this issue ...)

Flexible is as flexible does, eh?

>- improvement mechanics: within defined paths of improvement, or open-ended at every step?

I happen to think it should be treated as any other skill, based around a learning curve that slowly becomes more and more difficult for the character to rise on, and influenced by natural talents and abilities.

>SETTING

>- is magic a technology? (please, no Asimov quoting)

Define: "technology"

>- how is magic taught and learned, or is it a talent/innate thing?

Via rote and via belief; magic is no more innate than being able to draw well is, or being able to run fast. So, yes, it is, but it isn't. That is, your standard gimp could be taught magic; however, they might not be able to put it to any or much use.

>- is the WORLD magical? How does a magic-inclusive setting differ from a mythical one (in terms of style)?

Think AD&D versus Lord of the Rings. In AD&D, magic is very blatant, very in-your-face and so "real" it is gritty. It lacks wonder, interest or mystery. This, IMNSHO, bites the large, angry goat. In this, it becomes another type of mundane technology, instead of something mysterious, ancient and powerful.

>- how do inhabitants view magic?

This, again, depends a great deal on the campaign in progress as well as the social/cultural and psychological mindset of the populace surrounding the magic-wielding character(s).

>THEME

>- does magic +ACI-mean+ACI- anything to the players, in terms of playing this game?

Unfortunately, it does not seem to. It is, mostly, simply a means to an end. I say unfortunately because...well, it is. Sorcerers and wizards do not seem the mysterious, powerful beings of yore they are supposed to be when Gordolf the Almighty is known to have three magic missiles, a fireball and a phantom horse up his sleeve...or when Jack the Bender has three dots in Life, one in Prime and two in Conjunction.

Thus, magic becomes too well-defined and obvious.

>are there forms they want to avoid or to approach in a certain way?

Not sure what you mean.

>- what thematic role is played by magic in the Elric books? In the Earthsea books? In the (original) Conan stories? Or conversely, in the Cugel stories, and the Fafhrd +ACY- Mouser stories?

Thematic roles: in Elric, magic was very much present in the background, never blatantly "up front" in the AD&D "I cast a fireball" sense, and well...you almost didn't notice it, despite the fact that it was permeating the world (from the dragons to the rune-blade itself).

Earthsea is perhaps one of the best series I've ever read, and I recommend it highly to anyone. It has impressed me simply with the wonder behind the magic, with the making of a modern mythos. If that quality could be captured in a game, then it certainly would be worth it.

And I daresay it has been too long since I read Leiber to comfortably comment.

>- does RPG design ever address this issue? Which ones? Which ones not?

Mage attempts to. Nephilim attempts to. AD&D and similar games do not.

>- what about modern magic themes? are there any? How is Sorcerer different in theme from (say) Mage, and how can that be reinforced or used most effectively in designing characters, demons, and scenarios?

Nephilim and Mage, once again.

Sorcerer is quite a bit different, in that one isn't tossing around spells, but requesting the aid of a demonic patron/partner, often in return for services rendered. There is much less surety about the effects or methods via which the Sorcerer's "magic" works than with other systems.

>- can system reinforce theme?

UNDOUBTEDLY! Let me repeat, UNDOUBTEDLY.

Basically, when I look for a magic system, I look for these things: Does it reflect various real-world practices accurately (ie -- could it be used to faithfully/realistically simulate the magical pratices of Voodoo, Qabbalism, Wicca, or Shamanism/Medicine?)? Are there certain rational, sensical rules to it based on magical principles (such as contagion, similarity or sublety)? Do the effects it has rip holes in reality, or do they make sense in the given context (ie -- don't tell me that people find wizards mysterious and powerful, then present a world where you can buy magical lightbulbs)? Could I realistically play Merlin or Gandalf with this system, that is, play them WITHOUT the character becoming another "Quick, call the wizard!" or "Quick, fireball them!" individual with a two-dimensional skill?

Thus far, the only thing I have thought up is just not giving the character a limit on their abilities...telling them how they go about accomplishing an effect, but not setting any effects...that is, somehow make it seem like real-world magic: "Alright, Ferdinand dances around and shakes his rattle to call up the spirits, hoping that they will direct him to the briefcase." (But Ferdinand doesn't see the spirits, he just hopes he finds the briefcase...and who knows if the coincidences that lead him to it are magically inspired or not? On the other hand, a shaman character would have to see actually see spirits who tell him where to find the briefcase...two different styles, both from real-world systems...could one system be used to implement both?).

Now, before I continue babbling...

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RON EDWARDS:

I edited down Raven's post just to focus on the parts that got my motor running.

>...what I truly dislike about most magic-systems are the flash-bang concepts behind them...that is, >fireballs, lightning bolts, super-explosive-blow-up-your-enemies-with-a-wave sorts of magic. It bites. > Such is so unfortunately unrealistic and un-magiclike that it kills my sense of wonder or awe for the magic as-presented.

>Think AD&D versus Lord of the Rings. In AD&D, magic is very blatant, very in-your-face and so "real" it is gritty. It lacks wonder, interest or mystery. This, IMNSHO, bites the large, angry goat. In this, it becomes another type of mundane technology, instead of something mysterious, ancient and powerful.

>>- does magic mean anything to the players, in terms of playing this game?

>Unfortunately, it does not seem to. It is, mostly, simply a means to an end. ... Sorcerers and wizards do not seem the mysterious, powerful beings of yore they are supposed to be when Gordolf the Almighty is known to have three magic missiles, a fireball and a phantom horse up his sleeve...or when Jack the Bender has three dots in Life, one in Prime and two in Conjunction. Thus, magic becomes too well-defined and obvious.

>>- can system reinforce theme?

>UNDOUBTEDLY! Let me repeat, UNDOUBTEDLY.

In my opinion, the use of "magic" in story-telling of any kind is entirely wasted UNLESS it reinforces the story's theme. As far as I can tell, magic-as-just-a-means is not found in myth or literature until the mid-80s, after fantasy gaming began to play a big role in the marketplace. (I may be wrong in this, but not FAR wrong, I don't think.)

I fervently agree with Raven's points. I too would name Mage and Nephilim as at least trying to get at "theme" with magic, although I think each focuses a bit more on character creation rather than on the actual use of magic day by day -- that is, once you're placed in a clan or have your skill list written down, what you'll "do" as a magic-guy is at least partly set.

Everway certainly counts. So does Castle Falkenstein, in which the scholarly-journeyman style of magic is a lot like that found in Vance's Dying Earth books (ie, it LOOKS like just another technological skill but in fact isn't).

Here's my biggest beef with RPG magic systems, insofar as they make USING magic kind of boring and tactical: the spell list. More on this later ...

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ANGEL:

Honestly, I'm not sure what to say here. My answer to any given question would be "depends on the game." There are an unlimited number of ways to go about a magic system and the themes it involves.

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RON EDWARDS:

Are you sure it's really unlimited? I'm not sure that a magic system for a GIVEN theme is so wide-open as that ... maybe I'm just a system-head, but perhaps once the theme is decided upon, the system options become narrower.

Example: I see no point at all in a magic system which does BOTH of the following:

- one set of spells does NICE things and one set does MEAN things (call them white and black for purposes of this example), AND

- player-characters are limited to one or the other by belonging to classes or clans or some similar designation.

In other words, if the whole theme of magic is the conflict between these two styles or methods, then the magical player-character is much more interesting and relevant if he or she has access to BOTH. Therefore the moral choices involved in casting magic are dramatized all the time during play, not only once during character creation.

(In fact, this is the basis of an older RPG design of mine called Gray Magick. Very 80s mechanics; needs to be dusted off some day.)

Lots of hot-air opinion in this post ... didn't mean to get argumentative. You're certainly correct about the amazing diversity possible in magic systems. Maybe my question should have been, why is so little of that potential actually realized in RPG design?

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ANGEL:

True, and that's actually what I meant. The possibilities for systems are unlimited, but what possibilities you actually choose will depend on the system.

>Example: I see no point at all in a magic system which does BOTH of the following:

>- one set of spells does nice things and one set does mean things (call them white and black for purposes of this example), AND

>- player-characters are limited to one or the other by belonging to classes or clanS or some similar designation.

I can think of a couple highly specialized themes that could use that. In general, though, that's just an attempt to create an option by adding another CLASS. After all, some players can't create characters without a neat category to put it in to.

In other words, if the whole theme of magic is the conflict between these two styles or methods, then the magical player-character is much more interesting and relevant if he or she has access to BOTH. Therefore the moral choices involved in casting magic are dramatized all the time during play, not only once during character creation.

I pretty much agree with that. Characters are so much more interesting when they don't fall one way or the other.

>Maybe my question should have been, why is so little of that potential actually realized in RPG design?

Same reason potential is often not realized in any other field? Or perhaps because in the past, games tried to avoid making their systems thematic. Sometime, I'd actually like to discuss my pet magic system with you. It's a dizzying system, though, because of a couple concepts. It's quite simple... it's just hard to explain.

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RAN HARDIN:

Going from Ron's editing of Raven's comments....

> >...what I truly dislike about most magic-systems are the flash-bang concepts behind them...that is, fireballs, lightning bolts, super-explosive-blow-up-your-enemies-with-a-wave sorts of magic. It bites … Such is so unfortunately unrealistic and un-magiclike that it kills my sense of wonder or awe for the magic as-presented.

OK, I find it a little strange to talk about a made-up magic system in a fabricated group-told story as being "unrealistic," but I'll let that pass for now. The fact is, you can dig up many mythologies of magicians that are far from being subtle, empathic beings, and contain *much* flash-bang... Norse, Finnish, Vedic deities and their children and related ilk, to my recollection, are lean and mean and big and bad, and will flash-fry you if you look at them wrong, with big, powerful "spells" full of thunder and lightning (or are literally thunder and lightning).

For those of us in this discussion who use the word "magic" to embody important concepts in their belief system, don't expect to find the designers of games to share those beliefs. I would ask: to what extent a *player's* beliefs should be of consequence, anyway? As a matter of fact, this is the point of tangency I'll take off from...

I've noticed a certain degree of... hm, I don't have the vocabulary for this... I'll call it "grounding," as in "grounding the game and the story in the beliefs and so forth of the *players*." Raven's comments on magic, Angel's comments on learning the fears of his players, etc.

I've made it known in this group before that I value the concept of character above many other facets of the gaming experience. To take Angel's scenario as an example... as a player, I would feel a certain letdown at having *my* fears being played upon to have an effect on the story revolving around my *character.* *I* am not my character, and it is doubtful that the two personalities would share a group of fears. I know this sounds like "actor talk," and frankly, that's where this is coming from... but if I'm role-playing in a game, and something happens that makes *me* go "ewww" or "My God!," that doesn't make for a good gaming experience. Why? Because I just got yanked OUT of my character, and back into me. "The Moment," for me, involves a very deep submersion into my character, where I am acting and thinking in terms of this Other. If my own strings are plucked for effect, why would that affect my character? Well, it shouldn't, but it does in the sense that my portrayal of the character is screwed up.

"Well, OK," you might say, "Why can't you take those reactions and internalize them to your character?" Good question, and yes, I can do that... it's just that to me, it makes the game less enjoyable (which in spite of all our high-falutin' talk here, is what RPG is about). I just don't enjoy it. I want my *character's* fears to be exploited mercilessly, because I get enjoyment from discovering those fears and playing to them. In some ways, seeing and experiencing horror from another's point of view is as horrific as having my own sense of horror strummed in a fictional context.

Now, having said all that, I realize I may well be misinterpreting Angel's remarks about his players' fears... but I have been involved in games where GM's tried that very thing (a long story unnecessary to the point -- just play with phrase "worm-infested fish" and you'll have the general idea), and it was a wave of disappointment all 'round when it didn't come off in an effective way.

As far as magic goes... I can sit around and discuss magic system design as well as the next fellow (well, maybe not if the next fellow is Ron, but anyway...), but I think too often players and GMs forget that game systems are representations, and not realities. What I mean is... well, let me use Ron's forthcoming comment on spell lists as an example.

I'm guessing Ron is going to expand on Raven's comment on the "unrealism" of some magic systems, particularly where spell lists are concerned. And that's because they share a certain viewpoint on what "magic" is, or should be.

To be blunt, my point is, So what? Who cares what *you*, the players/GMs, think? What matters is if the system is viable to the *characters*, whose use of magic the system represents. I think rejecting the design of a RPG because you yourself have philosophical differences with the system is like rejecting a play because you don't agree with the philosophy of the playwright.

To a player, there is a list of spells. So what? There's nothing that says the *character* views magic as being a list of spells. In cultures where magic is a traditional, handed-down codified system (most ritual magic, for example, is not "slap it together and see what happens"), there will be a group of commonly-taught knowledge. It's probable that the character doesn't even know what it's possible to learn -- although the player does, by looking at the list. The problem really arises in the process of the character learning new magic. If the player says "I spend 1,000 experience to get Barsoomo the Hand of Death Spell," and the GM says "OK," that's a problem -- with the roleplaying, NOT with the system. First of all, Barsoomo should have to have HEARD OF the dreaded Hand of Death, and the player should then decide that Barsoomo is either curious enough, greedy enough, or immoral enough to use such a deadly and heinous magic. Next, Barsoomo has to delicately find a way to locate someone else who knows the spell, or possibly a book or something where some half-crazy mage of long ago had the temerity to write down such taboo information... Well, you get the picture.

> >Think AD&D versus Lord of the Rings. In AD&D, magic is very blatant, very in-your-face and so "real" it is gritty. It lacks wonder, interest or mystery. This, IMNSHO, bites the large, angry goat. In this, it becomes another type of mundane technology, instead of something mysterious, ancient and powerful.

I don't believe that making something "mysterious, ancient, and powerful" is the job of a game designer -- it's the job of the GM. I would agree that D&D made it hard to make magic so... I feel that design can influence the theme and mood of a game, but it does NOT make or break it. A good GM can take a clunky system like Chivalry and Sorcery and turn it into a memorable and powerful experience.

> >>- does magic mean anything to the players, in terms of playing this game?

> Unfortunately, it does not seem to. It is, mostly, simply a means to an end. ... Sorcerers and wizards do not seem the mysterious, powerful beings of yore they are supposed to be

Part of the problem here is playability. Is it realistic for a player to have a Gandalf as a character? Probably not, for two reasons: 1) Gandalf, in his various incarnations, kicked ass when he wanted to. The fact that he didn't so often speaks more to the character than the power he wielded... the old "the most skilled samurai in all the world has never drawn his sword" bit. That's tough for even devoted role-players to do, to resist pulling out a can of magical whup-ass whenever an obstacle is encountered.

2) Gandalf probably spent much of pre-story life studying. Not "adventuring," not hitting the dungeons or whatever... studying. Practicing. Reading. Practicing. Fasting. Meditating. Practicing. In other words, a bunch of things that really aren't very much fun to role-play. I mean, you can play Hungadunga the Chartreuse as a beginner wizard who wants to BE a Gandalf someday, but it won't be very enjoyable, or interesting. (Ever watch someone else study?) Powerful wizards like that really are best left as NPCs, and not models for player-characters in the first place.

> In my opinion, the use of "magic" in story-telling of any kind is entirely wasted UNLESS it reinforces the story's theme. As far as I can tell, magic-as-just-a-means is not found in myth or literature until the mid-80s, after fantasy gaming began to play a big role in the marketplace. (I may be wrong in this, but not FAR wrong, I don't think.)

I'm not sure I understand the term magic-as-just-a-means, Ron, although I would argue that Zelazny had a host of heroes who use their magic pretty damned pragmatically... I'm assuming you're generally referring to the "D&D" class of mainstream fantasy, a la David Eddings or someone like that?

But I disagree with your basic point. I dunno, maybe pragmatic magic needs a different name, or something? Why does magic HAVE to reinforce theme? Why does it have to the Great Googlymoogly? Why can't it be a tool, like a sword or a screwdriver? Again, from a character-driven POV, why can't there be situations where magic has nothing at all to do with spirituality of a culture? Now, if a story is trying to represent magic as both mundane AND highly spiritual, that would be a problem. I just don't see why magic has to contain some sort of higher, spiritual importance, or why it needs to have a strong connection to the theme of a story. Does a person's boots have strong connections to a theme? Does his front door knob? Why, then, magic?

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continued in Magic Systems 2