I want to include some "magical realism" in my campaigns, so could you help me to come up with some ideas about how magic use can have potential downside for user or the one receiving it?
I'll start
>Healing magic gives the cells energy to divide themselves and heal wounds, but it eventually may lead to cancer if abused
Then heal the cancer...
The Discworld approach might work better - all magic has to balance out. Ya wanna heal a broken leg? Gotta break your arm - or someone else's leg. Wanna lift a boulder? Gotta roll one off a cliff.
Bonus points if you have no control over where or when this equation will even out. You can double the paranoia by making the "equal and opposite" reaction not always necessarily negative for the caster, just something that always happens near him in such a way that he knows he's responsible for it.
Beats gaining Paradox I suppose.
You don't know what magical realism means, do you?
Think he just wants a way to discourage mages by making them pay for their magic. Lotta systems do that in various ways, rather than just giving you X spells per day or what not.
Mage and Discworld probably have the most creative among those. In Mage's case, while you can generally get away with any magic you could explain by coincidence, any overt magic gives you Paradox points, which have various adverse effects as reality attempts to "right itself". If the mage gains too many, he begins to kinda enter his own reality, and if he's not careful, eventually this reality kicks him out entirely.
Granted, there were ways around this that kinda broke it as a "balancing" mechanism, nevermind the extent some players would go to in order to explain "coincidental" magic. ...but magic in that system was basically capable of anything, so it was bound to be a little broken.
...And then there's simpler approaches like Shadowrun - where ya normally just get a headache or pass out, but if you take it far enough, you can start burning portions of your body off. Optionally, you can just go full Allahuakbar and burn away your body and soul to magically suicide-bomb yourself.
There's an overhaul mod for Skyrim that apparently has a good approach for this. I forgot the name but it has German developers so you can google it fairly quickly.
On that note, I recall that in one YA magic series if you did any kind of magic outside of designated areas, especially harmful magic, you'd rack up negative 'karma' which would trigger worse and worse consequences for you until eventually anti-magic entities dragged you kicking and screaming into the nether. Not subtle, but if you really need to discourage players that'll work.
Demonic possession.
Every time you cast a spell, depending on its strength, you must roll to resist picking up a minor or major demon which takes residence in your mind, taking up its rating in points in your "demonic pool". So long as you stay under half your maximum demonic pool, this is normally not a problem, unless you get into a stressful situation, such as combat. For every point of possession you've gathered, there is a in chance that a demon may determine your actions for that round - though they can't make you cast spells until your demonic pool over half full, and then only spells rated up to their power. Demonic possessions under half your pool will deteriorate in time, or with (expensive) exorcising rituals. Having enough demon points to overrun half your demonic pool risks demonic possession at any time and can only be cured via the expensive rituals. If the pool is full - pool's closed, you are full NPC until you can be captured and ritually exorcised, which will reduce your demonic pool by at least one, should you survive it.
>then heal the cancer
With what, mutated cells? Once the DNA is damaged, they can't just reproduce to form new, healthy cells. All daughter cells they produce will also be cancerous. That's actually how tumors form
See OP's pic. I mean, if you don't "heal" cancer, what do ya do with it? Besides, all ya really need to do is get the healthy cells around the cancer to divide so quickly they overwhelm the cancerous ones.
...Holy shit, Veeky Forums just cured cancer.
magical realism is a genre. think Gabriel Marquez
...no
cancer is cured (really just in remission) when no trace of tumor or biomarkers can be found. that's accomplished via chemotherapy - basically putting poison in your bloodstream that you hope kills your cancer cells before you.
in a magic-as-scifi world, you could say your potion/spell is highly targeted medicine/radiation, and you have a CRISPR potion/spell to clean up any oncogenes...
>Besides, all ya really need to do is get the healthy cells around the cancer to divide so quickly they overwhelm the cancerous ones.
>...Holy shit, Veeky Forums just created deadpool.
FTFY
Meh once we get to genetic engineering we can manually just tell our cells to stop being retarded. That's it. The only way to prevent cancer is program it to stop it being cancer.
I'm sure we'll get to cloning and brain transplants before then but if you get brain cancer you're fugged.
Magic is just a transference of effect, and the intended result is borrowed from the future. Want to light a candle with magic fire? At some point in your future, a candle will be extinguished by your actions before it ought to. The downside here is the lack of clarivoiance, you never know when the counter-effect will take place.
Another idea for a downside (more of a limitation, really) would be limiting the caster. Imagine if each person has a set amount of "influence" they are destined to enact upon the world. Magic is cashing in that influece before it is due. So, for example, you were tombe a great conqueror, you could instead cast a teleport and overwhelmingly win one single battle.
Of course, the fun comes if you run out of "funds", so to speak. If you used up all the influence you will ever have on the world to fuel magic, then guess what kind of people can no longer influence the world with their present actions? Funnier still is if the mage somehow run into the negatives.
Overuse of psychic magic causes you to become depressed and lethargic, overuse of fire spells causes your hands to char around the edges, making it hurt to move them, ice magic is similar as eventually your hands will become frostbit in places, healing magic will fix these yes, but be careful because it puts incredible amounts of stress both on the body and the mind, overrelience on healing magic will break your bones if you depend on it.
healthy cells that divide faster than cancer cells are no longer healthy user, they are fucking cancer cells of another breed
generally the preferred aproach is to tell the cells to suicide themselves
Higher-level magic takes proportionately more time to do, making powerful magic awkward to use in combat.
First of all, remember to not make your game frustrating. Unless you're playing a meatgrinder, not being able to do your thing because you'll die to cancer isn't fun. Anyway, ways to limit the use of magic and maybe inject some flavor:
• Casting spells depletes an inherent resource (e.g. mana) which limits how frequently you can do it. You can consider making mana difficult to regain (not just a long rest), and/or offer the players to cast spells for free, but with potential consequences.
• Magic requires elaborate rituals with specific components, improvisation, hastiness or otherwise improper procedures might twist the effect, or cause it to outright fizzle.
• Use of Magic requires a contract with a magical entity or source which requires that you offer something in return.
• Magic is unreliable; while you can generally produce a specific effect reliably, the parameters of it can vary.
• Using Magic exposes your body to the arcane, changing it over time. Maybe demons are attracted to you and gain influence over you, maybe you gain elemental affinities, maybe you just get sick and die.
• Casting a spell requires connecting your mind to an otherworldly realm, leaving you vulnerable to e.g. being tracked down, having your mind fucked with, or being subject to magical storms.
I think those are all the broad categories I can come up with. Some of them overlap more or less.
Everything magic users cast reflect on them. In a unpredictable way. Like this:
Orc raiders. They grouped up so you burn them to the crisp with motion of your hand smirking silently and mentaly jerking yourself watching fighters in your group looking at you with frustation. Well you collect loot and all the things, go back to town, rewards from mayor, city hall party, inn party, laying to bed, close your ey.. BOOOM... Inn roof is on fire.
Basically you just store spell effect and cast it "agaist" magic user in sometime in the future (or in the past). It can be aws simple as spell itself or coincidal karma payback (lonely orc scout survived and saw how you obliterate his friends and decide to suicide bomb the inn where you sleep).
Setting like this can have some interesting prejudging against mages. Like if everything bad happened everywhere its spellcaster guilt, and then they hunt mages and some of hunted mages cast some thing to save himself and then this magic reflect back in time and cause this bad thing in first place. Or you could play as antimagick detectives whos job is find and blame some poor bastard for random thing he didnt do. Aaand i think i find myself a new theme for a game, thank you OP.
>I mean, if you don't "heal" cancer, what do ya do with it?
generally kill it or cut it out, it's your mutated cells, not an infection
>all ya really need to do is get the healthy cells around the cancer to divide so quickly they overwhelm the cancerous ones
You didn't cure cancer user, you literally just suggested curing cancer by literally making more cancer
>...And then there's simpler approaches like Shadowrun - where ya normally just get a headache or pass out, but if you take it far enough, you can start burning portions of your body off. Optionally, you can just go full Allahuakbar and burn away your body and soul to magically suicide-bomb yourself.
The roguelike a Crawl has magic costing nutrition as well as mp, so it's possible to starve yourself if you use magic to recklessly. I really like this idea because however magic Works in a setting the casters body or mind is exhibiting some kind of energy to shaper manipulate the material world. It makes sense to me that it would burn calories.
One day I was thinking about realistic magic.
My idea was based on the question: "how magic would be if realistic?"
I came up with those "rules". Of course this is just some layout, this doesn't tell the very specific details of how magic would works, unless needed (so, the magic would be realistic without it).
Anyway MY wip rules:
1-They can use magic while we can't because their universe, multiverse or omniverse allow it.
1.1-Magic is like an second science that allow stuff normal science doens't allow.
2-NO gods
3-In the case there is a way to go to another universe/multiverse exist,
3.1 And if mages from this universe or multiverse we talk about here go to another universe or multiverse
3.1.1-That doesn't have magic, they will be useless.
3.1.2-With a "universe allow it" kind of magic system they will probably be useless too, unless the system is similar to them (imagine a universe created by time travel, that has just some changes).
3.1.3-If there is a crossover between this universe/multiverse and another multiverse that has average magicians (like if this was converted to gurps and used in with the multiverse system), mages from this system i am talking here will be useless as a average mages while they are in the other universe/multiverse.
4-Multiverse/universe teletransport magic to a different universe without the same magic system is only possible (to exist in setting/game) if its also possible with normal science.
4.1-This doesn't means that spells or whatever used to do it will be the same as the one used to travel to a universe that has the same magical system.
4.2-If a guy travel to another multiverse/universe that don't have the same magical system, he will need to go back with science or he will not be able to do it.
5-Magical items here are like mechanical magical casters they make the "second science" changes needed to make their magical stuff happen.
5.1-Those magical parts will not work in other universes/multiverses without the same system.
6-Magical Monsters, races, animals.. probably don't exist.
6.1-If they exist, they will be:
6.1.1-magical mutants
6.1.2-Group of guys mutated by magic that them, by reproduction and stuff became a normal specie. And also the evolution that came from those guys
(MAYBE)6.1.3-Scifi monsters formed by atom morphing magic (convert matter to other form of matter).
6.2-They lose their magic powers in the other universe without the same magical system (arrive there without it).
6.2.1-Scifi monsters can exist (realistic or not [if you are using a soft scifi setting]) in the other universe.
Some stuff I am not sure about my idea:
If it would be possible to have some magical inate person. Of course it would be possible to have to guys that have an easier time to learn the magical stuff in the same way some have an easier time as learning programming as some example.
How mana would work (IF the magical system would have mana).
>Potential downside for user
Excessive use of magic may lead to impotence.
OP, your given "downside" gets posted a lot and is probably one of the worst ways of doing it.
You want realism?
>DM rolls behind in secret every time you get healed magically
>it's realistic so you never find out you have cancer
>PC dies twelve sessions later from something that healing magic can't cure for reasons unknown
Even if you tell him he has cancer somehow, our way of curing it now is "punch a hole in you with radiation and hope it doesn't do more damage than the cancer itself." What's he going to do about it? Cut it out himself? Buy the Book of Vile Darkness and make you put a disease wizard in somewhere? Wish?
My favourite is all magic is blood magic.
Simple spells require your blood
Moderately difficult spells require another beings
Difficult spells require a humans
Epic level spells require a willing(no coercion magical or otherwise) human sacrifice.
Virginity and other requirements can be included as needed.
Optionally spells bind magic rather than producing it. If they fail to meet the requirement for whatever reason a super powerful(and often fatal or at least dismembering) effect happens.
e.g Character is now phase shifted, forever
Character loses both arms in a torrent of hellfire
Character unleashes the blood dimension/elder god that is the planet/whatever horrible fuckwittery tends to underpin my campaigns and summons it's vague attention.
The only casters that shall survive are the smart casters.
>magic is unnatural creation, and the universe has to compensate for it
>using it leaves behind small, formless things that devour their surroundings instinctively
>easy to deal with individually, but an experienced mage can amass an army of them
>magic is almost universally feared because of this
I'm not sure I understand the purpose. Unless you're designing a new system from the ground up, most games already balance their magic. Wouldn't adding drawbacks just make spellcasters weaker compared to other classes?
Answering in the case of 'magic with costs', I do this mostly with potions but with a bit of work it can be applied to magic.
Using potions tends to result in stress on the body. Taking a potion to heal a broken arm would result in the drinker feeling like he just ran a marathon. Taking something to cure the resulting fatigue would feel like a near lethal dose of caffeine and might open them up to heart attacks if they push themselves.
An easy way to do this is to find a system with a fatigue mechanic and then make them tired (unless you want to set up a special effect), but if you don't have any then temporary damage (expressed as a cap on maximum health that can drop to zero if abused) is a thing you could do. Or, if you have a more open magic system wherein the player has freedom to describe what they do, then you can decide on the impact on the spot (take notes; try to consistently have it produce similar results, even if you vary the intensity) and have the player make a lore or spellcraft or whatever roll to determine if they can predict the result and to what degree.