Help me bring magic back into the spectacular and awesome. Rather than the shallow and the dull. Voice or point in the direction of magic "systems" that aren't systems. But are human thought given form. Where the casters don't call upon Mana pools (gas tank), Stamina pools (gas tank), physical components (MacGuffin), Clark's Third Law (pseudo scientific horseshit), abstract bureaucracy (deals with gods or limitations ((Vancian)) or other horrid ideas that poorly convey power and wonder. Give me nature and terror. Where the cost is the use of the power. Where a scene can barely contain even the single utterance of spell, let alone multiple. Where the universe rips apart and only the insane or brave seek out magic as a power. Where practicality and hope go to die!
Help me bring magic back into the spectacular and awesome. Rather than the shallow and the dull...
>magic back into the spectacular
And that's where you're wrong, user
Imagine a wizard depositing a localized cosmic event by shitting out a portal in your backyard. The mother fucker doesn't even clean up after himself! You just have spherical hole that goes god knows where into thirty other realities waiting to be delved into. How do you muck something like that up with a bunch of horseshit that an account would find dull on a slow work day!
trouble is this kind of magic only really works at a specific distance from knowledge; it has to have an internally consistent system in order to not just be random bullshit and feel unsatisfying in that way, but it also can't be completely understood or it's underwhelming in the other way. this specific distance necessarily removes it from the realm of tabletop, where magic must be codified in the rules first; it must be understood.
It can be witnessed as a phenomenon and maybe vague understandings of what what triggers it, but it shouldn't be understandable or even relatable, at all. It needs to be an effect that defies expectations and brings both boons and disasters. At once. Something like a storm.
>Something like a storm.
Storms are both understood and relatable, they're not even that hard to predict.
Not when they form or where they are going to hit. The resulting phenomenon is also unpredictable unless you are talking about flooding. Also, invoking something like a storm wouldn't necessarily "help" you. It could kill your enemies it could kill you. It could kill everyone there. There's noway of knowing. However, the landfall of a storm is just one example of a multi flowing event with neither pros or cons. Just an event you created that might result in something good or bad happening depending on how the resulting effects play out. Naturally there needs to be something more than that. An ability to steer it slightly or further draw upon it for great consequences, but that's the basic idea. Something "awesome" happens and the resulting fallout must be accounted for. Whether it involves further input from the caster, or not.
The problem with that kind of magic is that it can't be used in the hands of players. It's perfectly fine to have something like that in your game, but if you give it to the players, all sense of mysticism is gone unless you handle it very, very gently and even then it's probably busted.
Low magic settings equal the most abstract magic (Which often has the most non-mechanical depth) because it's all about not knowing, and once you have it, you know it.
Also I'm really fucking tired of these threads.
Giving up and defaulting to a shit magic system isn't an answer. Most RPG's can't even begin to handle magic well. Starting with the largest and most popular ones. It almost always boils down to an uninteresting gun or some other stupid shit. At that point a practical device would be more interesting than magic that amounts to the same thing.
Fucking magic paradox.
Wonder magic is for GM.
Tool magic is for players.
I challenge you to find a valid and practical alternative.
My ideal goal would be a magic spell that must be "crafted/discovered." Has virtually nothing in the way of "stats." Has strange prerequisites to its use and form that go beyond mere flavor text, and that the actual use of the spell is the cost. As in, it brings beneficial and unstable elements into the the scene or encounter. Possibly turning fatal for the players if not well implemented.
The most basic way I could see doing this would be with a "fire" spell. The fire created would be a generic fire template. No degrees of strength. It's just good old fashion lethal as fuck fire. Proximity is debilitating, partial exposure is horribly injuring, total exposure is lethal. The fire would exhibit normal characteristics of flame and precede to burn the building they are in down. Initial use of the flame would be directed at the enemies. Evoking the flame further would make it spread in unpredictable ways and slowly be drawn back towards the caster for mystical reasons. Pushing the fire further would lead to a mystical transformation that might cause the flame to take on other worldly properties, living flame, animal shapes, unnatural movement, radioactivity, chaos style mutations to those around it, etc. Evoking this flame and slightly controlling it would be both the casters role and cost. All rolled into one seamless exercise that never diverged into bullshit mana pools, stamina, drain, etc. Obviously acquiring the spell would require similar esoteric effort and casting it would be still stranger.
This seems more like a madness talent from DRYH.
You put it a totally generic way. Interesting but no valid/practical.
Doesn't it just seem like every time you witness it, within a few moments you forget it ever happened? Magic has to disrupt peoples lives, otherwise it just blends into the background, people don't notice it, it becomes somebody else's problem.
There is no way to create fire without a material component.
Find a way to conjure fire ex nihilo, in way that doesn't leave me guessing what you've got hidden under your sleeve, and I will be your apprentice.
In fact, if magic didn't require any material component, about 9/10 spells would be amazing. Even the simplest parlor trick or cantrip described in most fiction would be like a work of art.
But it always comes back to the material. Deny the material, make the ethereal manifest, do it in a way the BREAKS the rules, then I will believe you.
The more subtle your art, the more pronounced its effect on the world, the longer it lasts and the more its impact is felt.
I've seen magick, you know?
I've seen coincidences and felt widdershins and known it to be true and to exist. The question isn't so much whether magic exists. Its how to harness it for the betterment of the self and the world we live in.
You can't go casting fireball down main street. It will cause peoples brains to melt out their ears. They will go on about their day as if nothing ever happened, they will blame terrorist attacks and freak occurrences, they will say this or that to protect themselves from a world in which they already exert precious little control over their lives.
Can we avoid Gaiman/Mage shit of gods/magic made of belief / paradox / etc.?
I doesn not add anything, just other metashit layer to make magic less magic.
that being said, fucking with mundanes is a time honored pass time of wizards. Think of the fae in shakespears folios, the strange and eerie, ideas which delight the senses and invite others to explore.
The idea is that EVERYTHING magical would work like that. Every spell would be its own consequence. I have more specific thoughts on the matter, but I'm intentionally being tight lipped about it due to the nature of the project I'm working on. Regardless, I'm attempting to mechanically capture magic as it's portrayed in narrative fiction. Without using the terrible "rules lite" method or an overly crunchy nightmare is my goal. Maybe something loosely comparable to ARS magica but without specific numbers and costs, and more like assemble elemental and esoteric templates put together to create the effect.
For example. You need a Scrying device. Now, most systems would demand weird, unrelated physical components, point costs, related items to your target, maybe some cliche to go along with it like a mirror or water. Well, here's how I would do it.
One. I wouldn't have an item that specifically goes to one person or can give you a tella screen of the world. That's too boring and too practical. Magic should never be practical. Magic should make the impossible, possible. So instead our mage has to come up with a way of "finding" his target. Without the cliches or "magic system." They decide to take long hard look at themselves and remember their child hood (this is the method where they made the rest of their spells).
Now, when they were a child they had an apprenticeship making wagon wheels (before their "gift" emerged), and they would always obsess with where the wagon wheel would end up at the end of its journey. How many people they inadvertently helped by making that wheel and what its final destination would be. So without really any reason other than a strange sense of nostalgia. They precede to fashion a wheel. This last for days and days. Their party member know by now not to question this process and only look on with awe and fear occasionally out of a morbid sense of curiosity as the mage constructs this wheel without food, sleep, or drink.
I'm saying magic like that needs time to build, to warm up, you must paint a scene first. You must stretch the veil, court the shadows, tease the effect out of the ether.
It simplifies approach to the source of magic. In Gaiman/Mage case everyone has the potential but few people know how to unlock it. In more traditional case of a gift it raises too many questions about how access to magic is transefered either through blood, spirit, curse or whatever else. It's confusing and leaves many muggles unhappy.
Continuing on. The wheel is now finished. The mage sets it on the ground on the road and rolls it forward. Instead of stopping it keep rolling faster, and faster. Leaving behind a trail of fire in its wake.
Now this fire will not go out, for days... years. Who knows, and believe me it's quite unnatural and strange. And... it will cause more than few problems on its journey, but guess where it's headed. Straight to the general area of the target that the mage seeks. Strange, no cost (save for its use), and an endless series of hooks for your party while pursue the burning wheel and go after your foe... possibly.
magic is more like courting a lover. its inviting trouble into your life, making your passions made manifests, and its rewards belong to he who dares. You must not be afraid to look foolish or fear the absurd.
but the flame must remain small, and the fires die out in a few days, lest that conflagration lead you and whom you seek to your fate.
Perhaps magic is best done in pairs? One provides passion, the other reason. Why else would so many young lovers discover the spark?
Explicitly ban all magic and all magical monsters. Remove them from your setting entirely and work from the premise that magic doesn't exist, neither do magic items and magic creatures.
Only then can magic ever really be spectacular or create a state of wonder. When players observe magic don't explain it too well, don't give spells explicit names or describe it's nature.
If magic is something that bypasses the rules of a world then a world is best designed without magic ever in mind to begin with. Magic of any system will usually suffice as foreign enough.
>Perhaps magic is best done in pairs?
Oh yeah, the tantric magic or what was its name
Agreed. Only negative consequences and overly mechanical point systems are not what I want.
but on high moons and holy days, when the moon shines bright, the fire will catch yet again, and lead some other adventurers on their way. The mark, once made, is indelibly set.
Reality must give way of her own accord, you can not simply force your will upon an already trodden earth.
Paradox is only one side of the coin.
People would be aware of its existence. The scars from "mages" using still linger from troubled times both recent, and long in the past. People fear it, respect it, and have no idea what the fuck "it" is.
Lot of people will quickly call this "freeform shit".
Are there actual rules? No numbers, that's ok. Use fictional positioning. But you have to put some clear guidelines at least.
> I'm intentionally being tight lipped about it
Not good.
It is defined by its otherness.
A bit of something beyond understanding.
That's the problem, magic doesn't exist. As soon as magic is something that exists which can be seen, touched, talked about then it will no longer be something mysterious. Magic is god of the gaps and you need to explicitly make those gaps by removing it from the world.
you look at man in his element, prior to the advent of the cities, and what do you see? All around him are the elements, the material.
The elements are alive, they hunger. The forms are more malleable.
>If magic is something that bypasses the rules of a world
You are talking occultism. Magic is within rules of the world and has its own rules and limitations.
That's why magic systems aren't magical.
How can we even begin to understand the principles at stake in the modern age if we can not understand the elements they are comprised of?
You see, THAT is why they are the master of the material, because they have robbed the material world of its mystery and done away with magic. The fantastic is rendered ordinary, and only by rediscovering the elemental nature of reality, the fabric of being, can we learn to appreciate what it is to work our will upon something.
Our will is the craft.
>Lot of people will quickly call this "freeform shit".
There are limitations, and more importantly. Consequences. In a nut shell it would be like this (this isn't exact)
1, What you do to somebody else can happen to you. Find somebody, somebody will find you. Attack somebody, the effect can attack. Become a beast, suffer the nature of that creature. Drag other people in, complicate a situation. For every effect a reaction. Stack complex effects, get complex reactions. Exponentially more dangerous. The wheel will bring anger from other people that it may have hurt or killed during its journey, The fire won't go out and may cause horrible damage. The presence of the wheel spreads for miles around and so do tales of people following after it. The wheel may come rolling back... watch yourself.
2, It originates at your body. No exceptions. If an effect is incredibly powerful, it's also suicidal.
3, The spell is tangible and can be combated or destroyed through mundane means. This will hurt an other worldly part of yourself that is slow to heal.
4, Pushing a spell further changes its nature and increases its power. To unknowable and dangerous ends.
Why not if it doesn't treat magic like something obscure and supernatural?
We all work through the craft. And unless you have something to craft upon, something to anchor your magic to this fetid cult, people will assume you are an outsider, working your will upon an unwilling and uncooperative earth.
The earth gives way, the sea parts gently for members of the craft.
Exactly. Magic systems aren't magical and don't allow for that intense mystery and wonder that is so well expressed in early myths, legends, and books. There's a reason why Star Trek had "technology" as place holder in the script.
My bane is the people. I do not understand their ways. I do not wish them any harm, but sometimes their folly weighs heavily upon me. I am often in need of things only they can provide, foremost among them privacy and space. Their collective resourcefulness is often at odds with my eccentric ways. They often find a way to pull the rug out from under me, to rob a thing of its essential property.
Honestly, I like avoiding pseudo science or other "hard" stuff. That's more suited for the Scifi genre. If you want explainable and practical, then use the real McCoy. Nothing is more boring than hearing about imaginary rules to esoteric nonsense explained in a painfully dull way.
Now that's better.
There is:
-sympathetic magic
-effect mirroring
-narrative proportional costs
-worldly effects, not abstract
-user origination
-wild magic
What about mental effects?
For instance, were I to conjure gold, people would somehow assume I did not come by it honestly. It were as if my name carries no weight, my craft not welcome. I can write no cheques and others are reluctant to be in my debt. They think I stink of some rural hypocracy, a thou shalt not amongst thou shalts. I come by it honestly, I would not split the wood if there were no call for it. They seek me in their labors but can not muster a fair cent for my reading of their fortunes.
As I said before, people tend to forget.
Everything is by nature built from the "magic." Ergo even those unaware of it can not be easily changed because they are their own mass of "magic." You have to over ride their sense of self to change them, again. Through a physical medium that must be created and alter them. Which, can again, be defeated through conventional methods.
sounds like you just don't have the patience for it.
>As I said before, people tend to forget.
I missed. If you multipost maybe get a trip.
Practically, I want to give a mental order to a mundane. How does it work?
Like this?
Which medium? Which conventional methods?
I do not understand why some people are as to lions and any magic an affront to their being. Their will is so strong, yet they seem so passive and weak. It is the nature of a merchant to pry from their cold dead hands their deeds and holdings, nothing is more precious to them than their debts.
I do not understand it. I place myself under their debt but receive no accord, no lands and titles, it was as if everything were theirs and they were merely lending it to me, they charge in pounds of flesh double what powers they lend. They see in me someone who would not chase squatters out of their tents, and I guess it shows.
>For instance, were I to conjure gold, people would somehow assume I did not come by it honestly.
It would be far more dire than that. The gold you conjured would be the act of conjuring gold given form. Everything that gold "touched" would "conjure" more gold. Think the Midus touch, but far worse.
>It were as if my name carries no weight, my craft not welcome.
It would be male shaped pieces of debris strange coinage and other things you turned gold. Some of the pieces would run the risk of "carrying" on effect and changing other people. You would be leaving a wake of gold statues and relics around. This gold would, naturally, be considered tainted by anybody that happened upon it.
>I can write no cheques and others are reluctant to be in my debt.
You're wanted for murder. Possibly multiple murders, and whatever anti sorcery or occult laws exist. If any.
>They think I stink of some rural hypocracy, a thou shalt not amongst thou shalts. I come by it honestly, I would not split the wood if there were no call for it. They seek me in their labors but can not muster a fair cent for my reading of their fortunes.
If you played your cards right and managed to make some untainted gold. It would still have linger affects of the "magic." These consequences would be reduced by might cause other types of unwanted reactions to it.
Magic isn't obscure and natural as soon as you understand it or can verify it exists. Nothing is for that matter, humans are very good at adapting to new knowledge, even if that knowledge system is a fabrication.
You might as well be asking how to horror works, which is something that has an almost mechanical psychological method. If you lay out something familiar and nerdgasm at your players about how horrific it is then you don't really understand what horror is. No amount of lore will make something creepy or horror if you've already messed up the basic psychology.
>Practically, I want to give a mental order to a mundane. How does it work?
You must commit to act. You must decide you are willing to make things unpleasant for them in a most unreasonable fashion before you cast your glance.
Otherwise, your only chance is to seduce. Present to them the object of their desire, place them inside your debt and inside your confidence. Collect enough favors from enough people and you will be able to provide anyone with what their hearts desire.
After all, it is not their will that you desire, is it?
>I missed. If you multipost maybe get a trip.
Practically, I want to give a mental order to a mundane. How does it work?
I didn't write that. Somebody miss answered you. I'll the provide actual explanation below.
>Like this?
>Which medium? Which conventional methods?
If the medium was light shining from the caster's eyes it could be reflected or avoided. If the medium was a horrible mist moving towards you rush through it, go around it, or move through it partially and hope that you aren't affected immediately. You natural "magic" would prevent it from hitting you instantly. But that wouldn't hold up for long, and especially not with stronger "mages."
>Magic
>can verify it exists
user, what are you talking about? We aren't talking about real world where magic doesn't exist for sure.
So basically you don't want a magic system, just some fluffy 2deep4you bullshit that dissapears up your own asshole.
Fire could also consume the mist, just as a blindfold could prevent the light from reaching your inner being. Similarly closing your mouth and plugging your nostrils to prevent the spell from entering you and working on you constantly would be a good idea as well.
>We aren't talking about real world where magic doesn't exist for sure.
I'd advise not to write that in KeK domain, young squire.
Where did you get that horseshit? I don't want any kind of "system." I want a means of expressing magic that a PC could use in gameplay that wasn't too crunchy or too "rules lite." An actual new take on magic that isn't boring bullshit.
Because players are real world people whose critical faculties don't change when they play a fantasy game, fact.
>Because players are real world people whose critical faculties don't change when they play a fantasy game
If players don't want to do basic research into the topic and immerse themselves in different worldview and aesthetic, they simply don't want to play in it. Just admit it and move on to something more to your taste.
KeK has no power here
something which sounds a bit like this; In the Burning Wheel Codex there's a new optional magic skill for that game called 'Folklore', whic allows the character to create superstitions, the way it's designed it there are a bunch of conditions types:
>signifigant numbers
>signifigant metals
>signifigant minerals
>signifigant herbs or plants
>signifigant animals or parts thereof
>signifigant dates
>signifigant geometery
>signifigant architecture
>signifigant features
>signifigant gestures or manners
>signifigant day-to-day rituals
the more of these the thing you're creating has, the easier the roll is, so saying 'demons are scared of silver' is a very difficult roll, saying 'One the morning of the day of the harvest moon the stoop of the house must be swept clean and three salt piles poured on the lintel in order to make sure demons can't cross the threshold' that would be a much easier test
You want to have your cake and eat it too. Unless you literally freeform you need to codify magic and it's use in someway to make it fit for a game.
>missanwering
Ok. One more reason to use trips.
Interesting, so all magic is phisycal and/or has a physical medium to take effect (ad ex. the wheel), and both of them originata from the caster.
Mundane protect themselves with their natural magical mass (existence) and avoiding the practical effect.
If you give some other decent definitions, we could have something to play with.
>I want a means of expressing magic
Then I'am sorry but you want a "system".
HA!
That's not the issue at all. If a player immerses in whatever junk pseudo-science esotericism you come up with they still know you have a game system and are pulling descriptions out of your ass. You are then engaging in acting together without an audience, any sense of the mysterious is purely manufactured for your own satisfaction.
In other words it's group masturbation where your players are faking their orgasm.
Nah
>magic
>pseudo-science
user please
check'em and surrender
There is nothing to check
(should)(lurk)(more)(:))
Here's the main flaw I see in operating like this: rpgs, as a form of media, have their strengths and weakness, like any other form. The main strength of rpgs is their ability to look closely at the decisions a person, or group of people, make in a certain situation, since the audience are also the people making the decision the process of the characters figuring out what to do is much more engaging than it is in other kinds of media. The more abstract and unpredictable the elements involved in a decision are the harder it is to make that choice, if the effects and consequences are all subject to the degree of randomness you seem to be proposing then it's very hard to make an informed choice, on either the character or player end or the character end, thus weakening the dramatic value of that choice.
It is what it is and if you don't understand that then you don't understand what you're asking for. I suppose you can just diarrhea fart on paper and hope something magic happens.
Have fun with that user, I'm sure it will be a spectacular system.
>There are limitations, and more importantly. Consequences. In a nut shell it would be like this (this isn't exact)
is still fairly freeform, in terms of how this would play out at the table it's basically
>the group decides what they need to do
>mage player thinks about their character backstory for a thematically appropriate way of doing the spell
>based on that mage player decides what the physical manifestation will be
>the GM adds a twist to the physical manifestation
>the GM then adds a thematically appropriate consequence to the magic itself, as well as how the world at large reacts to the spell in question
so there's a lot of 'someone just makes something up' inherent in that process as you've described it
user, magic isn't science so calling it's pseudo-science is just as stupid
Not that user, but science is nothing than observation of consistent rules. The only way something isn't subject to science is if it is unobservable or has absolutely no consistent rules, in other words, pure chaos.
Magic is only not science if it's requirements and effects are completely random nature and random magnitude.