What are some interesting ideas for magic that don't fit within typical "elemental"/arcane stuff? Personally, I've always had an interest in Tarot-themed magic, where it might work by actually changing fate, or the spells cast are decided by what the caster draws from a deck.
While the concept really excites me, I'm not entirely sure how it would work in execution, if it even would. Any other ideas?
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Sine Requie is an Italian tarot based RPG you might want to check out.
Personally I'm a fan of Hellblazer-seque bargaining magic where the price You pay for magic allways reveals itself as that much too high.
This is a really fun idea.
>go through the autism of organizing your spells by arcana
>bring a tarot deck to the table
>shuffle it
>cast a spell
>to do so you draw a card and select a spell of that arcana
Doesn't work too well with Vancian magic though.
Isn't the more "traditional" form of casting present in D&D via the Warcraft RPG? Can always hack off those mechanics and use them as a base for deck-based spells. Could have sworn this was a thing in a specific roguelike.
Infra Arcana?
Having to do actual rituals. As above, so below type shit. Like Dresdenverse shit.
From a mechanical or lore point of view?
I suppose lore wise I like the idea of Dark Souls where miracles involve retelling the story of an event involving the gods or something particular to your religion.
Imagine if you had to re-enact parts of a story to get a similar effect to happen? In order to gain the buff your warrior god had when he fought such and such big bad evil guy you are literally reciting the story of that fight while donning a special cape or something like that because that's what your warrior god did.
From a mechanical point of view Deadlands for Savage Worlds had a pretty interesting mechanic for casters that had made a deal with a devil.
Can't remember the exact specifics off the top of my head but I think the player and the DM drew some cards and tried to get the best hand or something like that.
Your character played cards with a devil for you powers.
One could have something like the caster draws from a standard 52 deck of cards and each suit responds to a school of magic and each symbol responds to a degree of magical power (or maybe a spell in the school).
Certain symbols could give different bonuses or penalties (like the number 7 is bad luck in the setting and attracts a evil deity and the DM rolls on a random table for the effect. Deity and table varies between suit.
Might be cool
Explain further, please.
I like this.
... which makes such magic system pointless, unless you are playing a rule-light or outright narrative game.
Because if you have a magic as integral part of game mechanics, with well defined effects and prices, then there is literally no point even coming close to such magic, not to mention using it.
Why?
>Why
You can't be fucking serious.
How the hell you imagine a functional magic system, which serves as mechanics and not just plot device, based on actually selling your soul or a fuckload of nasty things happening around you?
Unless you ignore the bad effects, then there is literally no point or reason why just about ANYONE would bother with such magic.
Just check Call of Cthulhu. It has a magic system that embodies this type of magic into rules. And this is the very reason why NOBODY even thinks about making use of magic, no matter what, because your Sanity drops to the level of incoherent gibberrish and salivating yourself on the floor just after three or four spells.
Magic-at-high-price just doesn't work mechanically. Great plot device, but instantly useless if magic is anything else than plot device.
Then why are there so many settings where blood magic and the like is prevalent?
Blood magic isn't always high price.
Since when blood magic is high price?
Also, most of those games have the exact problem described - they put absurd price for use of magic, while in the same time not taking into account nobody sane would even bother. This is what you get from making setting first and then trying to shoehorn rules for it later.
Going back to that CoC example - it's always problematic to use magic for GM in it when it has to be rolled rather than fluffed, because it usually backfires so badly into the Evil Cult of the Week players don't need to do anything else than throwing a jerry can inside and set it ablaze at this point.
High prices magic works ONLY if it's narrative tool.
For example, imagine you have a sea witch character. She made a pact with Things From Below. Sure, she gained trendemous powers, but there is a catch. Each and every spell she cast is casted from her lifespan. And while she can theoretically syphon vitality and youth from others, she needs more and more of it to just not crumble into dust after each spell.
Cool idea, right?
Not even GURPSfriends managed to work it into mechanics without greatly diminishing the age gain effect and completely skipping the growing resistance to syphoned energy.
And answering your question - who said those settings are good and the mechanics of those games are fully playable?
Not him, but have you ever wondered how ridiculously stupid it is to be a stereotypical D&D warlock?
You are making a deal with powers well beyond your grasp, to gain a small fraction of said powers. The other side is never obligated to uphold their part of the bargain and will actively try to fuck you over. In the same time, your powers can be revoked on technicality at any given time.
In short - you've just sold both your healthy kidneys for a heavily-regulated access to a dialysis machine.
This of course can work if the PC in question is potrayed as stupid, delusional or just plain insane, but that pretty much never happens.
>D&D warlock
>The other side is never obligated to uphold their part of the bargain and will actively try to fuck you over
But being a D&D warlock is super fucking safe as far as keeping your powers goes. Fuck, Paladins by RAW have a harder time keeping their powers than D&D warlocks.
I think real world occultism as a lot of ideas that can be brought into RPGs.
>your powers can be revoked on technicality at any given time.
You're thinking divine casters. Warlocks keep their gifts regardless of patron disposition
>And this is the very reason why NOBODY even thinks about making use of magic, no matter what
Blatantly untrue. In a Lovecraft based setting PCs will get desperate enough to turn to magic if you put them in the right situation.
However, it doesn't quite work well if you make them do it. You want to let the PCs dig themselves into a hole and realize they can claw their way out the hard way or take the "easy" way out with magic.
That's kind of the point though. In those sorts of settings magic is used by the stupid and desperate.
>I only run one-shorts of CoC
>I don't even play the stuff
Good for you, Garry.
Shots. Fucking auto-correct
>In those sorts of settings magic is used by the stupid and desperate.
Which was my entire fucking point, so nice reading comprehension
Newsflash, PCs are stupid and desperate.
You assuming no one ever uses magic that has any sort of bargaining or sanity component is silly.
I fucking loved the magic in Dresden Files, especially the potions. Kinda corny, but in a good way.
>He never played with just about anyone else than questfags and story-players
Like I was saying, good for you, Garry.
Who the fuck is Garry?
I've been playing with the idea of all magic being story-based and what that means. So, swords become magical if used for sufficiently heroic deeds or given a sufficiently inflated ego, you heal wounds by telling the wounds to stop being such a pussy, etc.
I'm not sure how to get it beyond a gimmick, though.
...
>I'm not sure how to get it beyond a gimmick, though.
You literally can't, because it is a gimmick
You can just call me a fag or a That Guy like everyone else if you're going to throw out silly names that don't mean anything.
Not him and I don't even know what character he's referring to, but you my friend must be really new around here to be unfamiliar with people using randomly picked names when adressing stupid anons.
I'm familiar with the practice, but that anons complaints are so vague that I assumed he was referring to something specific that I must have missed.
Plus Tom is usually the name that's used for that where I'm from.
Shut the fuck up Steven
Nobody gives a fuck about your local traditions of sheep-herders, Jimbo
Seems to work pretty well in Symbaroum. There's a corruption mechanic that works with magic in a similar way. It's fun in a system that's expected to be high lethality.
Borrow power from your magical 'neighbors' like spirits and fey in order to fuel your spells and craft magical charms. It helps if they like you, or you have longstanding business relationships.
This does mean occasionally having to do favors for magical folk in kind. Spirits and fey are magical beings, but their portfolios are individually limited. None of them can do everything that you can do, because you draw from all kinds of sources. So occasionally they have need of a kind of magic they can't do, so they come to you for help.
Be careful. Not all magical beings are friendly, and not all magic they have to offer is helpful. Some are outright malicious towards those that can see and bind them.
Meme magic.
OP saying you don't want 'arcane' magic really shuts a lot of doors. What do you even mean? No spellbooks? No vancian? No mana? No Harry Potter? It's so vague I can only think of a handful of magic systems that aren't 'arcane' or elemental.
I meant typical spellcasting of energy. Like magic missile and the like.
>Imagine if you had to re-enact parts of a story to get a similar effect to happen? In order to gain the buff your warrior god had when he fought such and such big bad evil guy you are literally reciting the story of that fight while donning a special cape or something like that because that's what your warrior god did.
Wasn't there something like that in King of Dragon Pass? "Hero quests" or something like that?
and your story becomes a legend and from then on for that buff people tell the story of the time fought whatever big bad while telling the story of the warrior god and such
Blue magic
I really like the idea of story magic. Even in cases where it isn't as literal. Like, not just gaining strength in a fight by reciting a story of a fight, but say, mending a wound by reciting the story about how two people mended their friendship.
I have no familiary with it. When I thought of that I was thinking of a movie about abe no Seimei. I forget which one it was but there is a point where he dresses up like a japanese goddess who danced around foolishly and cause such a ruckus it caused Amaterasu to come out of her cave.
Yeah, I would imagine it would be of the utmost importance for a recognized deed to be chronicled so a new miracle can be formed from it.
Now imagine what would happen if the story was fabricated but told so much it was believed until something surfaced that told the truth of an event? So basically you have a similar spell that can do two thing because one of the stories is false (but believed) and the other one is true.
Also, on the subject of alternative magic I really like the idea of the caryll runes. Thinking of how vancian magic works I would imagine a wizard learning how to harness spells in their minds/souls create a mental image in their heads of a shape sort of like the slots from FF7 or 10-2 and these shapes help you not only maintain the spell but also connect them together (i.e. using meta magic and what not). So then you can imprint different "shapes" to better refine your magic with some being more stressful than others or allowing for some kind of forbidden thing you can do.
>I can't pull it off so it is always and forever wrong for everyone
Perhaps for most spells it's simply a matter of reciting the story appropriate for what you're trying to do as you mentioned where more powerful spells actually require you to damn near do a play re-enacting the event.
Imagine re-enacting the epic of beowulf but then the end result is that you die in the process but also gain his epic strength?
Or maybe you force others to perfome the drama for you.
The No Magic; all even remotely odd happenstance around you are seen by all others as the result of your immense magical power. The more time people spend with you, the more likely they are to attribute their own life events to your magic, even after they've left your presence. This isn't actually mind magic, or any magic at all, you just seem particularly arcane and the rumor ran away from you.
Right?
For me when im Dming, i establish a rule that every kind of spellcasting have to be done trough rhymes . Lets say that a player want to use fireball. He have to rhyme words that kind make sense in a sentence that is in some way related to the spell name or effect.
Cargo Magic from rifts.
Fucking golden
You played 5 card stud w/ the manitous, having really high casting stats let you "cheat" in extra cards so your chances were higher iirc. I gotta get that pdf again.
Bear with me here folks. This is something I'm working on and is very much WIP.
>Entirety of the American Continent is replaced, practically super imposed, with something completely different
>In the exact same shape and form as the continent, except for off shore islands which have vanished
>Due to the utter disappearance of huge economic powers the world is sent into upheaval
>Not to mention the 8.0 earthquake seemingly everywhere that hit moments before it even happened
>Players will be those escaping the chaos of wherever they are
>Whether citizens of other countries or remnants of military forces stationed around the world who no longer have a center of command
>As the players explore they encounter a sapient species
>They claim to have had powers granted by their stars
>But since the stars have changed so have they
>They have grown weak and many of them have perished becoming small lights dotting the landscape
>Depending on types of characters created may have them manifest powers as they capture them
>or something
Really, I plan on humans lacking a "soul" comparatively to those that inhabited this world. We're simple vessels who just need something to take up the empty space. Very WIP. I plan on it being a exploration survival game where the modern amenities are to be earned.
I really liked how magic works in Wraith World
Basically, you can get it through several ways, but it always end up being lended from a superior entity in some way
You could choose to make a pact with one of said entities for example, or you could also attempt to impress the gods
In the end, you don't know what you get, except for the actual cost of the spell, that can range from simply mana in rare cases to offering some of your health or even sacrificing body parts
These spells should be better described as powers, and are always related to their source. For example, making a contract with a demon of fire would grant you a power related to fire, but it could be anything, from a simple fireball to protecting someone else from fire.
The best part about it is that you can litterally create powers on the spot when something unusual happens. The fighter has gone through several fights in a row and didn't die while staying at 1 hp ? He'll get a skill related to toughness ! The barbarian used a strange crystal sword for a while ? He discovers how to unlock one of it's powers !
It's basically limitless potential, as long as you have ideas for sources and possibilites (of which the players aren't limited to one)
Ive been going with the idea that 'magic' is really just a programing language. Kind of like what they use on the anime 'I could not become a hero so I reluctantly decided to get a job'
So more or less all magic has to some how inscribed or sourced; IE item have the power. though wands and staves can be traditinal it can be any device meant to draw the Æther in and use it for some function.
Sounds similar to Darwinia
SInce I actually ran a bloodborne campaign and used caryll runes, i'm really surpirsed from your interpretation
I didn't use them as spells, but more as buffs of some sort; basically, you had a pool of points that could be spent in a rune in order to gain it's powers. However, doing so whould limit the comprehension of actual language and other symbol, as the user is forced to maintain the image of the rune at pretty much all times
I suppose what I was getting at was looking at images of things like the Path of Sephiroth and the various symbols in voodoo to represent Loa.
When I look at them I see "nodes" that you can put stuff in and the symbol as the framework by which you can do it.
Then again, I really like the idea of stuff like having complex geometric shapes because they interact with the "other world" in unique ways such as making it easier/harder to interact with spirits,traping them and stuff like that. This particular demon perfers triangles. Why? Who the fuck knows, but if you want to summon it your circle has to be in the shape of a triangle.
You know it's kinda weird. Magic from mythology and folklore became non-traditional magic. Now traditional magic is "elemental"/arcane stuff from video games and DnD clones.
I'm rather fond of the kind of 'magic' involved in Fullmetal Alchemist, but it's definitely a lot more freeform compared to traditional magic systems, so it'd be hard to fit it into a ruleset without restricting players from doing certain transmutations.
Yeah that's how theism works in Runequest/King of Dragon Pass. Heroes dress up as mythological figures, act out legends and if they do it well they get pulled into the hero plane where gods reside and actually do it for real. As long as they don't fail or die they come back with part of the gods' magic, which exist as runic symbols that are the building blocks of the world
ok this seems like a good place to post this but how does this sound for a magic system?
>no real spells or anything, not really "wizards" so much
>instead, magic is accessed through otherworldly spirits
>by fighting ot tricking them, you can capture them
>can use newly captured spirits to cast certain magic relevant to said spirits
>they'll always try to escape
>using powerful versions of spells makes it easier for them to escape
for instance, if you have a fire demon, they'll be more likely to escape if you're throwing a massive fireball than if you're lighting a candle
>character must use their own spiritual presence, possibly assisted by occult artifacts, to keep spirits captured
"spiritual presence" can also be used a sort of spell slot, as you can only control so many spirits
>if they escape, they then fight back and take revenge
so for example
>joe the wizard has a strong spiritual presence, so he can take 3 spirits
>has a fire demon named flamius, a healing spirit named bandaidus, and a fortune telling spirit named tarotius
>joe enters a dungeon the next day
>needs to light a candle, so he summons flamius to use his firepower to light the candle
>rolls against spiritual presence
>succeeds, so his candle is lit, and he keeps his demon
>bandaidus tries to escape, joe rolls and succeeds
>still has bandaidus
>reaches near final room of dungeon
>wants to see what's inside
>controls tarotius to look inside
>succeeds on rolls
>sees whatever strong guy inside, we'll call him bill
>bandaidus tries to escape again
>joe fails his roll
>bandaidus is now out
>joe uses flamius to cast a fireball
>since this is stronger, he has to roll a number x amount of digits higher than to light the candle
>succeeds, defeats bandaidus
>captures him again
>enters room
>rolls to cast a big cone of flame on bill
>fails
>flamius escapes
>tarotius tries to escape
>succeeds
>tarotius freezes this plane's time while flamius casts a fireball
>bill is killed
>bandaidus escapes
so ran out of space, but basically i think this does a few things
>adds some risk vs. reward to magic
>gives some fluffy reason for magic
>makes it challenging to acquire new spells
>gives martials more sense since all wizards need to be skilled enough to fight whatever spirit
so what did i horrendously fuck up in it? i imagine a lot.
Sounds like shit. Pointlessly convoluted shit
Synthesis from Tribe 8.
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