What is the BEST magic system?

What is the BEST magic system?

Savage Worlds

Why is that ?

Simple, straight foreward, easy to understand, and allows for creativity. It's essentially a big ass toolbox, even if what you're running isn't magic related.

Mage the Ascension/Awakening and Ars Magica because freeform magic is best magic.

>Mad scientist grows monsters in the basement of his university and sicks them on an unsuspecting public only to be stopped by a reality-hacking magical girl.

>Serious-minded astronauts wielding the advanced powers of science being attacked by a couple of idiots who drove to the Moon in their truck

>Hermetic Magi, wizards of the ancient Art getting into a serious conflict with wuxia martial artists in the Chinese Hells over the proper use of limited resources.

Creative/freeform magic has a real problem with power creep and balance though

Give me my old magic missile any day

I honestly love the way magic works in Unknown Armies. It's wierd, it's often dangerous to the practicioner and in terms of game balance it's not inherently worse or better than non mages

Less of a problem in systems where all the characters have "magic" like Mage and Ars Magica.

It matters less what formal "Magic" can do when magic is just another manifestation of the same force that lets the devout regenerate like Anderson and grow angel wings, lets martial artists do wuxia and shoot ki attacks, and lets scientists create 50 foot robots.

These, but for another reason: they follow the logic of their cosmology, and have limitations and abilities that reflect the fictional reality.

Lighter, but also good and flavorful: Unknown Armies.

I like Earthdawn's the best. The magic system is fully integrated to both the setting and all characters (even martials in Earthdawn are explicitly magical characters). As everyone has access to significant portions of the magic system it goes a long ways towards keeping the Martial/Caster balance fairly good.

Vancian magic

>tfw no group to run Ars Magica for

Source?

Ki, Summoning and Arcana/Magic from Anima beyond fantasy

>even martials in Earthdawn are explicitly magical characters
Honestly, the fact that D&D continues to resist this is the most aggravating of the sacred cows

I think it is Dragon's Dogma

Mistborn. Why are we even having this conversation?

A terrible system that trys to make all soells boil fown to a handful.

While not from an RPG, I rather like Naming.

It keeps the magic mysterious, because by definition it works from your unconscious rather than your conscious mind, which removes a lot of the gamism from it. 'Epic logical exploits for magical science' is literally impossible, because if you are thinking that hard about it, it will never work.

Its appropriately difficult and dangerous, to the point that most people that try to learn naming permanently fuck up their brains in the process (which explains away why everyone in the setting doesn't learn magic) and while capable of incredible feats its not something you can use willy-nilly or even every fight.

It creates specialization rather than omni-wizards, since we are told that "modern" Namers likely only learn 2 or 3 Names in their lifetime that they can reliably use. Those Names are a fuckton of power, but that's still only 3 things you can control.

But even if you never really grasp a given Name, Naming as a discipline can be really useful because its all about understanding something so completely that you can control it. Even a partial understanding of an object or person can give you incredible insight, even if you can't command them.

I love the magic system of rifts and palladium. The points make sense less powerful spells cost less more powerfull more.
Huge catalog of spells that are varied and dynamic., love it

I really hope he releases a Stormlight game. Playing as Knights Radiant would be fun, everyone gets to create not only the Radiant but also the Spren, hopefully

Psionics

...

Anything as anime as brandon sanderson's work is automatically disqualified.

To make a good magic system it has to actually have constraints and limitations.

The problem with D&D style is it lets you basically do anything you want with some handwaving, and that means magic turns into reality warping, which quickly turns mages into unstoppable gods.

Instead, have the magic work and function within reality. Preserve the laws of thermodynamics. If you're creating a fireball, where is that energy coming from? Does it work by heating air? What's combusting?

Magic needs to be more physics than magic

Ars Magica is the best for medieval high fantasy stuff. If you buff fighters/thieves/other classes then you can use it for high powered fantasy for classes to be balanced, or if you want to keep things low fantasy just let the Wizards be the strong playable characters.

Unknown Armies is best for modern day spooky magic.

Harry Potter mechanics (needing a wand, motion, incantation and very specific spells) but with weaker spells is good for lower fantasy games where you want Wizards to have strong counters (take away their wand).

Don't Rest Your Head style magic ported into fantasy or in surreal fantasy is great for magic that corrupts the user.

I'm a bit of a fuck though because I love pretty much all kinds of magic. I worked on a shitty homebrew rulesystem for over a year in an attempt to have every magic system I knew about in one setting/game, though obviously it wasn't very good.

I like GURPS Sorcery the most. Ritual Path Magic is pretty good too.

I was going to comment about Pat Rothfuss/Name of the Wind magic system but you summed it up better than I ever could

I really like how this system makes magic rare in the world which adds a bit of realism and makes magic a much more powerful plot/character device

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition has a pretty good system. It is good because 1) casting spells is risky and it requires dice rolls, 2) it requires a substantial investment on the side of the player/character to become and stay a wizard, 3) the spells are not horribly overpowered - sure some of the effects are really powerful, but only IF you manage to cast your spell.