How do you Magic?

I've never liked the magic system of any of the editions of D&D for this reason, they make magic too safe, sanitized, and harmless. I believe in the maxim 'with great power comes a great cost', and like to magic reflect this. I much prefer systems like CoC or UA or oWFRPG or BW (with the optional rules), where practicing magic leaves you as a gibbering husk in the end. Magic allows you to burn twice as brighter, but it also consumes you twice as fast.

Magic is life force expressed through the will of a sharpened mind. All beings possess life energy, it flows out from them through heat, light, action and ideas. Mages control the flow of this power through them and form them into spells and weave enchantments.

All magic requires a wand, which itself must be charged with magical energy to be activated. Once it is though the wand may be used to cast various charms, hexes, transformation spells and more through its wooden or bone body, acting both as an arcane battery and conductor of power.

Magic in its rawest form like this is extremely limited. The limits of basic spells are extremely shallow, and though they can be cast as long as the magician still has enough energy within them, they are weak on their own. That is why weaving spells to create longer term enchantments, layering hundreds if not thousands of lesser charms on an object to ensorcel it, or dispelling the raw and concentrated properties of magical herbs and animal parts into potions are all required to be anything but a witch-wife or charm caster.

The cleverest Magicians will eventually take the revered name of Sorcerer, and will be remembered for their deeds just as the great champions, prophets, and daredevils are known for theirs.

It's real simple. Easy to learn, hard to master, all that bollocks. But lemme tell you the secret;

Any cunt can do it.

Vancian magic has always been shit, and has always worked how you originally described it.

What's the difference between a Wizard and a Sorcerer?

To me, the Wizard is a magic user who has tamed magic to his own use, a more controlled source. A tamed attack dog.

A Sorcerer wields magic like a wild, feral dog. Stronger, more wily, more dangerous, but uncontrolled in comparison to a Wizard. They take more risks in hopes for a greater reward. They walk the wild path, where the Wizard walks the narrow, safer route they know works.

Magic is power. Pure, unadulterated power. Volatile and wild it will do it those who don't have the willpower to keep it in check. Those who break through its barriers could potentially do some serious damage to the world around them.

The ground cracks as they walk, clouds break or gather due to their presence, they crack open stars and knock the on the sky. These wizards use the primal force of reality at their beck and call. These are not the stickly mages of stories and fables but scarred and tempered mages who had to fight themselves to wield it.

Corner not one of these powerful few, or you may be moments away from a primal roar which decimates a few city blocks.

RAGE MAGIC BEST MAGIC

The wizard must be beaten into a pain-trance by his lover in order to cast anything.

Sorcerers are from Conan books, Wizards are from Dying Earth books. Sorcerers summon demons, deal in mind control and hypnotism, and all around shady fucks. Wizards are amoral manchildren jerks to the bone.

Personally, I think multiple arcane magic classes were a mistake. In 2e and before, "sorcerer" could easily refer to a wizard. You could use all kinds of words for the standard magic user, because that was the only kind of magic user.

Now the word "sorcerer" has a very specific definition. I like the idea behind the sorcerer class, but putting it alongside the wizard doesn't quite feel right to me, and really does suck that they had to tack a specific definition onto a perfectly good synonym for wizard.

>Now the word "sorcerer" has a very specific definition.
for DnDfags. not for anyone else.

The options are clever applications of science and sleight of hand...or damning your soul with demons.

Weird runic arrays that follow systematic rules

However, the runes first have to be discovered and learned, some are rarer than others, and each one only works once.

Magic is best defined as a constant cutting motion.

Huh. I like this.

Narutoverse Chakra and Witcherverse magic combined.

Magic and power comes to those that persevere.

That is the most English statement on magic I have ever read. Well done mate.

>-10% cost (mana dependant)
>flavored as the player requires for ability

Other than that, depends on the setting mythology and cosmology

i prefer magic to be a simple alternative to other methods, not necessarily better or worse

Like this.

Mechanically? Basically freeform, built around your key magical abilities (no just "I'm a wizard") based on a roll and with mechanical effects requiring a harder roll.

Dice explosions apply a penalty resource which, on a crit fail, fucks reality according to one of several random tables selected based on the amount you've accrued.

After all these years I still like Morrowind's spell mixing and self-orientated Magic. Not all my mages want to be underlings or worshippers of a god, or even equals. Some are kind of lone wolves, some are atheists, but the majority just don't have the backstory to fit being a dedicated man.

>they make magic too safe, sanitized, and harmless
Gee, I sure love randomly dying out of nowhere all the time.

>GURPS math
muh nigga

Magic comes in three varieties, mind, body, and soul.
Bodily magic is the most common. People born with ability in it possess innate powers ranging from good intuition on healing and anatomy, to full haemokinesis and flesh-warping powers. Scrying the future in blood and entrails is a common practise.
Mind magic is less common. Low powered individuals will be notably more intelligent or creative than most, and will be able to learn and imagine easier. Higher powered individuals can hypnotise, read minds, bend weaker individuals to their will, and possess limited prescience.
Soul magic is the least common. The least powerful possess some measure of immortal soul, returning as a ghast or undead after death. Higher powered individuals may exhibit complete control over their own mortality and the mortality of others, leading to the rare necromancer super-king every century or so. They naturally see the strings of fate everywhere and the highest of the high can manipulate these to become beings of nearly god-like power, and regard themselves as such.

In most human societies, blood magic is openly used and seen as a blessing, and the practitioners frequently become priests and priestesses. Mind magicians are subtler, often moving themselves into positions of power, and often are completely unaware of their powers, people just seem to like doing things for them. Soul magic is poorly understood and is rightfully hated. The undead are destroyed wherever they are seen and whenever a high necromancer rises world-spanning wars follow.
the "gods" of the setting are just super powerful mages who have control over all three domains, and have ascended themselves into different planes of existence

You need the appropriate Skills and Talents. Typically - Channel, Speak Arcane Language (X), Petty Magic/Lesser Magic/Arcane Lore (X). If you're using a Dark lore, you need Dark Lore (X) and Dark Magic. There's also hedge magic, witchcraft, and other culture specific lores.

Anyway you roll your number of magic die in an attempt to hit the target number. Channeling and ingredients provide a boost. Repeating digits cause side effects. All 1s cause a disastrous failure.

blog.dilbert.com/post/128474925371/how-to-spot-a-wizard

Wizards are people who can impose their will on reality. Magic cannot be proven to be magic, it can always be chalked up as pure luck and coincidence.

I don't usually give a single source for all magic. It's any mysterious or esoteric practice that has some sort of real or apparently real effect. Different cultures and cults have different mystical practices and no two work exactly the same.

A capital M magician is a polymath who seeks different mysteries on the path to power. His skill is decryption, breaking through the layers of secrecy the mystical arts are usually surrounded in. He learns patterns and similarities in different arts where he can, winding them all together into an eclectic arsenal of abilities.
>Magician is the jack-of-all-trades class

A full time mage is a chemist, a priest and a psychic. Some of his abilities are learned, some he has gained through powerful tools and bodily alterations. He might carry a ledger containing the names of ghosts and elementals owe him favours. He clutches this in hand he transplanted from a demon and he keeps a psychokinetic trick on the tip of his mind, just in case. He wears the robes of a priest, covered in amulets collect from across the world to ward against the many different types of supernatural evil. For the more common evils he keeps a pouch of homemade grenades. In his many years of life and training he still only qualifies as a journeyman sorcerer.

With great training one can access their inner energies. They go by many names but they are meaningless. With these energies one can command the world to the wizard's bidding. The problem is people don't have enough energy to command it to do anything interesting. What they do have is the ability to use this energy to open micro portals to other planes. The fundamental laws of these planes may vary massively from our own. Thus a wizard can open a tiny rift into a world where air is fire and ignite their foes. Discipline and ingenuity are needed to combine planes for complex spells.

By existing in a semiotic reality.

Another branch of wizards use their inner magic to commune with the ambient energy of the world, channelling it into a store of some kind: a staff, a gem, a scroll or even themselves with enough practise. Then with a focus, an intense manifestation of will made of sky and thought they can directly command the world to change. While capable of much greater feats than portal magic, this form of magic quickly runs out and takes much travel and time to gather the correct magics.

A sorcerer is their own source of power. A wizard learns to use other sources.

In a nutshell.

Some wizards look inwards rather than out. Another large methodology relies purely on inner magic. With enough people working together their combined will is enough to shift the world's idea of what it should be doing. The concerning part people may not be aware they are doing this.Of course it is possible to harvest energy off others, usually by blood so it can be used by a single person. An ancient cult once used a method where a wizard could consume another's very being and gain their power, some approached powers rivalling gods until said gods put them down.

There are two basic ways to do it.

The most common way is to ask someone else, who is better at it than you, to do it for you. This is where you get magic words, special ritual symbols, and all that other shit. Words and symbols don't carry any inherent power. What gives them power is how they're recognized and understood. Many spell-casting traditions are based upon long-preserved contracts to which their order is bound, which usually must be invoked using the language or symbols in which the terms were first formed.

A contract can be formed in any language you and the contracting spirit is willing to use, and the only thing that really holds the contract together is mutual trust or fear of punishment. Magic has its laws, and that law has its enforcers. The reason why demons can't enter properly consecrated territory is because they are actively prevented from doing so. To intrude upon a god's territory, while being explicitly forbidden from doing so, is to risk its wrath for insulting it in such a manner.

The second method of magic is to do it all yourself, utilizing one's own divine spark. Essentially, this is magic fueled by your own soul, and it takes a lot more studying to manage since you need to learn how to do everything yourself. You'll be free from any contract, but there's a good chance you'll get yourself or someone else killed sometime in the learning stages. You are meddling with the powers of creation, without any prior experience, so of course there are going to be risks. At first it might seem like it isn't worth it, that you can't control it or that you just can't figure out or learn how to do the things you want to do, but you can rise ever so much higher if you just stick with it. Gently fanning that divine spark within yourself until it becomes a blazing, all-consuming, inferno.

This system would imply magic is evil and will ultimately result in destabilizing the universe it exists in with enough use.

very carefully

I'm curious, which book is this from? 1AD&D?

More akin to reality warping than the mundane chi usage your average warrior will use. Whereas any cultivated individual can lighten their body with their base chi, or flood their chi through their fire system to generate explosive flame from their fists, true magic involves simply defying all laws of physics. They are capable of literal flight, trapping people within geometric impossibilities, teleportation, compelling impossible runs of fortune and misfortune, and more. Truly capable magicians are masters of heaven and earth, making the impossible possible with a whim.

Isn't that from that runeanon's magic system from a couple of years ago?

nanomachines son

Either that or the OD&D supplement Eldritch Wizardry.

All reality is made of strings.

Matter, energy, and even the realm of thought is made up of intangible strings like the world is an infinitely dense three-dimensional loom. And anything more complex than an element is made up of groups of strings called Knots.

If you can tie a knot, you can magic!

But you're also made of strings, and those bastards like to snag each other. Try to avoid freezing yourself solid while conjuring fire. Not as easy as it seems. Or try not to give yourself an aneurysm while reading people's minds.

And if you snag too many strings and rub reality raw enough, you'll get a Snarl, which is basically when the universe shits itself to death. Which is bad if you don't want to get erased from existence.

>OD&D supplement Eldritch Wizardry.
This one, right here.

Gygax wrote psionics at the insistence of a member of his play group, but put no effort into it.
The ~1% chance of being psionic is so that he'd never have to actually use the system.
The psionic encounters table was insurance, any psionic characters die immediately.

Which is a shame really. And the power write ups were super interesting. T
Psionic Fighting-Men with the right powers were the closest any D&D got to Wuxia-esque Martial Artists.
Psionic Clerics could traveled to parallel universes to view the aftermath of decisions they were pondering.

Missed this part.
>Thieves: who prove to have psionic potential are subject to basically the same advantages as those gained by fighting men. In addition to the penalties noted for fighting men, however, thieves also lose 1 point of dexterity for every four psionic abilities gained.
It's on a different page, for whatever reason. Still not half as poorly organized as the AD&D 1e psionic rules.