Magic is boring and dumb. It will never be as satisfying as physical violence. On a fundamental level...

Magic is only as boring as the designers allow it to be.

To quote a chubby Mormon anime writer:
>“An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.”

As long as the limitations and capabilities of magic are clearly defined it isn’t really a problem.

I, a wizard, made me fuck my mom.

A wizard, my mom and I watched us fuck.

I agree a bit. I find magic way more interesting when it's integrated into the world rather than it existing as an external kind of force that people use to conjure things from nothing.

Something I really enjoy is magic being this natural thing, unseen, and the usage of it being part of a process that only the most skilled craftsmen can begin to understand, meaning most if not all magic will be in the form of items with extraordinary qualities. Much like Lord of the Rings, discounting the Wizards and their more overt displays of power a bit (though those are rare enough, and are quite subtle even then). Honestly I just really fucking like magical jewelry and weapons.

I made my mom a wizard while she fucks my watch

>I made my mom’s wizard’s me watch me fuck a watch.

>My wizard made mom a fuck while watch was me

>My mom, a wizard, and I
>BUT WHO WAS FUCK?!!!

>mom, wizard, fuck, I, me, watch

I hear the Fighters' Guild is recruiting. Not a bad way to make some money, if you've got the stones for it.

56606196 (Bitch)

>2017
>having any fun at all

>having fun
What are you, fucking gay?

I believe the issue relies in implementation. I certainly agree that there are certain ways we've seen magic handled (largely in D&D/PF, but other places as well) where magic is a simple cure-all to a specific set of problems.

Travel? Teleport.
Language Barrier? Tongues.
Tricky terrain? Fly.
Stealth section? Invisibility.
Scouting? Scrying.

Spells which instantly solve certain obstacles render those obstacles an uninteresting requirement to expend daily resources. That isn't to say these spell should never exist, but at least that they should be high level, have some other drawbacks, or otherwise bring up other interesting challenges.

Magic is best when it's used to enhance stories, not put an end to them. See: Little Mermaid, giving up voice in exchange for a Polymorph, a new obstacle to be dealt with. Making magic fundamentally dangerous or unreliable is another way to handle this; you CAN use it to try to deal with various problems, but doing so has an equal chance of turning your team to chunky salsa- Is it worth it?

In general, I'm not a huge fan of magic being used for things that mundane skills already cover, as it feels like it invalidates the mundane versions of those specialties. What's the point of playing a linguist when the Wizard can already use Tongues? What's the point of playing a master infiltrator when the Wizard can just Dimension Door/Invisibility/Charm/etc.? Magic should either be relegated to solving issues the mundane cannot, or should require the mundane skills in order to enhance them (sorta an Exalted Charms kinda deal).

>Spells which instantly solve certain obstacles render those obstacles an uninteresting requirement to expend daily resources.
That's because most of those situations are largely uninteresting to the average party and provides a workaround to an issue that they may experience without being SoL and unable to continue.

Like Language Barrier, who wants to play in an adventure where you're effectively locked out of 98% of all possible interactions with most people from the country? People already have trouble wrapping their heads around roleplay with characters that speak the same language, I cannot imagine trying to maintain focus when the group knows for a fact that nobody will understand them anyways.

Have you heard of the High Elves?

OH! But what if magic is used to increase physical violence?

A Wizard's mom made him fuck me

I fully believe that magic should have a very limited role in any story or game, almost always appear in a very abstract manner rather than with fireballs and bolts of lightning, and should never be available to the players. Magic is something only certain NPCs should be able to handle; the evil wizard from the frozen north; the witch in the swamp who gives cryptic advice about the future; the dwarf who curses his treasure as the party steals it from him.

A watch wizard made me my mom, fuck!

a mom made me a wizard fuck watch

Me, a Wizard, made me watch me fuck my mom.

>tongues
Tongues should be like google translate. It will spit out the words into something you can understand, but it shouldn't be a substitute for actually knowing the language

>invisibility
I think it could be more interesting if it worked like the opposite of sneaking. While sneaking it would be easier to hide in a high diversity environment since there are lots of possible thinks to hide or blend in with, this could make invisibility spells make you pop out more.
On the other hand, really plain terrain could be more fitting for plain terrain, like empty fields. In these cases invisibility wouldn't work by making you actually invisible, but by instead projecting all around you what people should be seeing.

Basically, I think that its fine to have magic try to tackle the same problems as mundane skills as long as they approach it in a different manner.

A wizard watched me while my mom fucked him.

>Spells which instantly solve certain obstacles render those obstacles an uninteresting requirement to expend daily resources.
That's the point. No joke, being a (nearly) guaranteed solution to n problems per day, set at the start of the day, is the point of the D&D wizard.

This is a perfectly valid point, that magic can be used to remove obstacles which are inherently less interesting than whatever else the group would be doing. I'd argue that such is better achieved by widely available magic items that anyone could pick up, such that certain spellcasters aren't 100% necessary in the vast majority of parties just to offer these basic services. This factor will also vary based off of the setting and game in question- Most groups likely find language barriers frustrating and largely irrelevant to their plot, but it's something that can be used to great effect if the GM wants to make use of it. Having Tongues exist as-is basically undercuts any possible plots involving language differences.

I'd be totally down with this; magic can address issues mundane skills do, but the outcome is consistently different, possibly with slightly different consequences. This might make magic a "good enough" fix, while an actual expert could handle it better.

>Having Tongues exist as-is basically undercuts any possible plots involving language differences.
I've never seen/read/played a story where a language barrier actually enhanced the story. Maybe it can be done well but I'd honestly rather not deal with in the near or far off future simply because of how much of a fucking nightmare it is to deal with if someone in the group decided not to take any languages that we, or anyone else, could speak.

Stop playing DnD. Next.

>I've never seen/read/played a story where a language barrier actually enhanced the story.
I think in DnD it exists to limit how much information you can get out of enemies, whether through interrogation or overhearing an enemy patrol.

Or if partymembers speak an obscure language it can help protect them from being overheard.

Most friendly npcs will speak common so its almost always a bonus and not a necessity.

>opens up a wealth of tactical options beyond "I run up to it and hit it with my sword"
>"boring and dumb"

>I think in DnD it exists to limit how much information you can get out of enemies, whether through interrogation or overhearing an enemy patrol.
Okay? Most parties are just going to murder the shit out of most enemies anyway.
>Or if partymembers speak an obscure language it can help protect them from being overheard.
Why aren't you just whispering from a ways away?

It just seems like an unnecessary angle to add to most campaigns.

>Whispering from a ways away
My group often picks up an obscure language and say we speak it during combat, to explain how we're coordinating (we talk a lot about who's casting what and so forth) without enemies knowing our plans.

Magic, and supernatural powers or unusual abilities in general, are fun when they have limitations and people work out ways to overcome those limitations. It's shitty storytelling when magic is an omnipotent force which can do anything, of course, but dismissing the very concept of magic itself because it's 'boring and dumb' is the proclamation of a philistine.

If you have a problem with how it works, then you can just change how it works. That's the wonderful thing about storytelling.

i'm gay

Be seeing you.

You're assuming magic is some kind of "solve every problem" Swiss army knife, when it doesn't have to be at all. Any reasonable system will have limits on the range of options available to a magic user, such as by dividing magic into different categories and demanding characters specialise to get the most out of it.

A sword is a problem-solver. So is a fireball. So is a magic enchantment. So is an animated table. It's all just options.

>wahhh magic is baad because you can magic everything

...

>Magic is part of the laws of nature
Why do people do that ?
If magic is natural, then it's not magical anymore, it's fucking natural.

I agree. My favorite characters to play are magically enhanced warriors.

Magic is almost always natural. It's simply not part of most people's everyday life.

The obvious answer to a character claiming that magic is some outside element or that it works by 'breaking' the laws of nature is that they probably don't know jack-shit about the actual laws of nature of their universe.

>If magic is natural, then it's not magical anymore, it's fucking natural.
What is nature magic.

Why not? In Lord of the Rings "magic" is a word used by the mortal races to denote things the elves consider naturally occurring things that just require the right knowledge to manipulate, like how a smith plies his metal. The elves don't really get what men mean when they "magic", considering it a case of simply not understanding the finer nuances of the world.

Magic is still magic even if it isn't an outside force, it just really depends on how it works and how the cultures of the setting see it.

youtube.com/watch?v=VHrTTgmB_3w

Agreed, I find there are two ways of working around magic.

Not explian it at all, it's some kind of divine shit nobody actually understands, high risk high reward and very uncommon

Limit the amount of magical elements so you can create a plausible universe.

...

You see, you would be right, but almost all players who only make martials end up like this:
>Okay, so the troll is charging through the wallway, smacking things out of his path of destruction, what do you do?
>"I move towards him and roll to attack"

That's more a problem of the system rather than the players. The system (often D&D) makes physical combat highly abstract and general while making magic incredibly detailed and specific. Imagine for example if there was only one, generic "attack" damage spell that was always the same: roll for damage, enemy rolls relevant save check for half damage.

The solution is to actually make physical combat interesting by making it more specific. Lunges, jabs, slashes, kicks, parries etc. can and should be incorporated to give mundanes more options.

>Faust/Tactical Risk
Magic can be a quick solution or power boost that creates a new problem. It adds a way of avoiding imminent death while adding new conflict to the situation. It works as a temptation, a party with access to it wants to use it for it's power but knows it could doom them as well. Temptation is intriguing and dealing with new stranger conflicts, particularly ones brought on by ones own actions is exciting.

>Crappy Superhero/Making the Best of an Odd Situation
It can also be really unorthodox or weirdly specific. Stealing screams, Fire Listening, Door Control, Call or Repulse Worms, Alter Writing, essentially anything you would except a C-list Superhero to have. They are powers that can solve a few really specific problems. They probably take up time/exp/levels to learn that could be spent on more obviously useful things. BUT if the magical is creative they can result in some really interesting effects. It's the satisfaction of figuring out how to make something benign incredible.

>The Classical Witch/Infiltration Support/Q to the Parties Bond
You could also limit magic to it's common mythological uses. It could be used to divine, scrying seeing through the eyes of animals, information gathering over long distances. It could be used to cure maladies, usually not instantaneously and sometimes requiring exotic items which open up new quests. Poison was also a major part of magic, creating liquids and powders with varying horrible effects, they would still need to be applied to blade or poured stealthily into a drink.
Finally magic could be used to call or banish spirits and supply laymen with the means to effect or defeat spirits. Some magicians could actually control or enslave spirits but this required tricky bargaining or hard fought for items of power.
These guys don't really do anything for the party but rather supply information and tools that the party can use, creating new adventures.

>mrbtongue
nice, wish he'd make videos more often