What're some magic systems Veeky Forums really likes? I was thinking of putting my own together in order to get away from generic MAGIC MISSILE crap but I'm kinda at a loss for where to start. Doesn't matter from where, books or RPGs.
From where does magic come from? Is it intrinsic in the species? Is it from gods or other higher order beings? Is it actually old technology nobody understands anymore?
What can be done? Limited reality warping? Augmenting natural abilities? Summoning otherworldly intelligences?
Are there multiple systems involved in the setting? Are they more connected than is immediately apparent or are the conflicting with each other?
Personally, I like the system from RoleMaster . Anyone can learn magic, but only specialists can easily acquire the more powerful spells. Characters have a "mana pool" to power their castings, and they choose whether to do a few high powered spells, more medium ones, many low level ones or a mixture of the three. Each of the three"realms", and their hybrids, has an area that it excels at whilst still being able to produce generic attacks or defences.
GURPS's impulse points system isn't supposed to be used this way, but it's kind of perfect for a tolkienesque subtle fate-based magic kind of approach.
Luis Rodriguez
This is so unbelievably terrible it makes me physically nauseated. It's overly specific to the point of abject autism, and waffles on for paragraph upon endless paragraph about minutiae, yet its structure is a shotgun-scatter across fifty pages so you have to feverishly browse back and forth to get the big picture or to use it in play.
Sweet christ almighty, is this what all GURPS is like?
Dylan Miller
I enjoyed the way magic was structured in the World of Ethshar books. It made a lot of sense for a high fantasy world.
Although nowadays I mostly prefer systems where magic is complex, relatively low powered and requires a lot of set up and manpower to produce any of the larger effects. I prefer it when mages don't go around slinging fireballs and magic missiles left and right in direct combat, but have more of a support role with more subtle magic.
Benjamin Ortiz
>support role with more subtle magic. What are some examples of this? I mean what can you actively do to contribute in combat that isn't clearly overt like throwing rocks with telekinesis or blasting people with rays or missiles?
Christopher James
I prefer it when mages don't actively contribute to combat while it's ongoing, they contribute either before or after. You can have stuff like curses (like Diablo 2 necromancer), probability manipulation, arcane knowledge of the environment, straight up buffs or debuffs, etc.
One game I ran had no formal magic system, but the players did use magic on occasion (two of them were knowledgeable in magic), and usually preparing a spell would be a sub-quest on its own and took a whole session. Magic in combat was mostly used as a force multiplier.
For example, they came across a swamp where the dead rose and attacked the living, later on in the game they had to mount a defense against a larger force of raiders, so they spent a session or so researching the swamp and came up with a way to lure the walking dead and also a way to appear dead to them, so the zombies wouldn't attack them. They then lured the raider party into the swamp so they had to exhaust resources fighting undead.
That's the kind of magic usage I prefer to see.
Logan Cox
Yes. And it is beautfiul.
Thomas Perry
A while ago someone made a rune programming magic language, pic related. I really liked it, been thinking about reworking casters in my own games to use it but I'm worried about having my players learn it and the subjectivity of it.
Oliver Watson
Are you talking about that one for making magic circles or is this some other one?
Hudson Taylor
I forget exactly, I remember it being like coding so you'd write your spells using those runes. So like: When touched target user, then create earth hold That would make it so when the object the spell was cast on got touched it'd encase them in stone or hold them in place.
Lincoln Thompson
This sounds like what any wizard reading another wizard's spellbook would say.
Henry Howard
>but I'm kinda at a loss for where to start m8 Why do you want to change something just to change it? If you have no concept for something, leave it till you have inspiration. You're not an edgy little cunt who wants to bash DnD, right?
>From where does magic come from? Is it intrinsic in the species? Is it from gods or other higher order beings? Is it actually old technology nobody understands anymore? >What can be done? Limited reality warping? Augmenting natural abilities? Summoning otherworldly intelligences? >Are there multiple systems involved in the setting? Are they more connected than is immediately apparent or are the conflicting with each other? Nigga, answer that shit yourself.
Henry Cox
>stop discussing magic reeee No.
Ethan Lewis
Take a look at Brandon Sandersons cosmere books. He's crafted a few really good systems for magic that I think you would find interesting.
Allomancy, feruchemy and Elantrian Magic is some of my personal favourites.
Nathaniel Wood
I definitely prefer systems that rather than provide a list of already prepared spells instead provide different ways to conjure magic, allowing the GM to quickly say "sure, if you want to cast a fireball you have to roll for this to see if you can summon enough fire, and this to make sure you don't accidentally set yourself on fire" for example. Scalability is also important to me. If the player wants to make the spell bigger or smaller it should be as easy as adding or subtracting dice from a pool.
Justin Morales
Nah. Stop trying to get /tgt/ to do your creative legwork for you you lazy faggot.
Eli Davis
The Mistborn system. There are only 8 or 9 spells. Most of them are pretty crap on their own. You digest metal to cast them linking metal values to spell values. When used together they're awesome.
Sebastian Brown
Not even OP but why can't we suddenly discuss creative magic systems? It's not like this isn't Veeky Forums so why so bothered by it?
We have tons of discussion about different creative works, like /wbg/ or writefaggotry. Some ask for suggestions about something they already created and others ask for sources of inspiration.
Anyway OP as other have suggested; Cosmere books hold a lot of creative uses of magic. I wish that I could point you in the direction of the Swedish rpg Eon 3, though I don't think it's translated to English. It's a system that makes magic a science, where you take different filaments, give them a target and magnitude and thereby make magicz happen.
Lucas Perry
>Guy is trying to marry wildly different systems of magic based on the idea that all magic comes from different shards of god The absolute madman
Camden King
Wow, what an utter cunt. You're on the wrong board if all you're here for is to shitpost.
Asher Gomez
Barbs has the best one. Spells have 3 tiers, 1 and 2 are the ones you're going to use, 3 is for BBEGs and quest resolutions. They have a standard power range, and hard and soft requirements. You can research new spells, and its a lot less work than it sounds like. Nothing else works as well and as cleanly.
James Brown
Some of those runes are other runes rotated or flipped. How does the enchanted object "read" them in the correct direction without a dedicated starting point rune?
