What Magic Is

[Comte]

I think it depends on the game.  Lets go back to AD&D to make my point.  I think we can all releate to that magic system.  Actualy we are going to go slighly farther back.  D&D was formed as an expansion of the idea of a tactical board game.  Back in the olden days you were dropped off at a dungeon and sent to go do something.  So you go you meet monsters and you handle them in a stratigic sort of way.  Many times dungeon crawls can feel more like board games.  To that end a quick examination of roles needs to be made:

THe Fighter: He takes care of the little people and the majority of the fighting.  He also in essence acts as human shields for thouse peices that are less inclined to combat.  In army turns they are a block of infantry.

The Cleric:  He heals the fighter, battle feild medic, nothing fancy here.

The Theif:  The thief can prefore a variety of roles on the battle feild he can scout out artillery, asses strengths of enemies before you encounter them, set traps, essentialy they are scouts.

Mage:  They are artilery.  They can kick out damage on a scale that is unrivaled by any other class.  However, they suffer from many disadvantages and need to be proteched.  A well placed spell can change the tide of a battle.  Some battles would be impossible without a mage and a well placed fireball.  

Artilery.  Ever since then the magic user has been attemping to wriggle out from under the crushing burden of being the super vulnerable hunk of flesh that can sink continents.  The problem here is that magic has become such an essential part of the AD&D expereince that sometimes it can be difficult to see how certain situations would be handled without magic.  One person cited an example of making the players use magic in diffrent creative ways...well what if they didn't have a mage at all?  Fantasy gaming in general becomes very diffrent without any sort of magic.  Through one player are world of possiblilties are opened up, by taking it away it becomes an easyer way to see what exactly it is that it dose.  All the sudden thouse 30 ice mefits are a real pain whereas before one fireball would of solved the problem.

So to answer the question I think many times magic is the very opposite of player empowerment.  Infact a magic user can be this increadble ball and chain.  At 4 hp's per level you need to make bloody certain that nothing scary gets ahold of him, you also have to stay out of the way of that fireball unless you want to get blasted.  Mant battle plans are foucused specificaly on how to use the wizard effectivly, because if they aren't allowed for then much potential is wasted by the party causing a potentialy dangeouse situation.  

The situation can be exasperated again if your little wizard freindwants to make some magic items.  Then the play group has to wander far and wide to get all the bizzare ingreadiants nessisary, risking life and limb just for a sword.  That seems less like empowerment and more like the players trying to keep up with an arms race.

[simon_hibbs]

I was reading some Forge threads, looking at various magic systems that people were working on, when something struck me:

Magic is really just a player-empowerment tool, resisting the GM's total control of the game.  This is partially why it's so ubiqitous in roleplaying.

Frankly I think any useful ability the characters get could be described in exactly the same terms. They are resources the empower the players, allowing them to resist the GM's total controll of the game. A persuasion skill lets you get past that annoying bouncer. A common argument against systemless play is that it gives the GM too much controll, and some game systems get round this using metagame mechanics in place of traditional simulationist mechanics. In the end though, they're all doing the same thing in different ways.

Different games use magic in different ways. in Call of Cthulhu magic is certainly empowering, but it also reinforces the game's sense of creeping doom by exacting a very high price from those who use it. In that game magic is all about the dissolution of the Self in the face of an incomprehensibly alien cosmos. Very Nietzchian.

I think you're over-analysing the game qua game as against the game as an exploration of fiction. After all if I'm playing a Swords and Sorcery game and magic is purely about player empowerment, what does that say about magic in S&S novels? Is it realy always just about character empowerment? What about the many novels in which magic is mainly the preserve of incidental or enemy characters?


Simon Hibbs

[Windthin]

(I personally put forth the theory that whenever you have magic, you have the potential for things that the tech level of the setting would otherwise not allow -- better alloys through fire magic, better medicine through healing magic, without necessarily understanding the full force of it, so on).

The problem is that I would say the same thing about technology (and psionics and body skills as well)--that you can do absolutely anything with any one of these, if the limits are removed. You can argue that Star Trek levels of technology manage to obviate the need for magic by using technology instead (and you would be correct). So while what you say is true, that you say it that way suggests that magic is somehow more than these other things, when it's merely another approach to accomplishing goals.

Oh, no.  I agree.  Magic is merely another approach.  In fact, that's my whole point; magic can allow for things you might otherwise require advanced tech for, and yes, advanced tech can mitigate the "need" for magic.  Magic is a tool.  I just don't feel it is a tool that is always truly thought about beyond being a plot device.

Good usage also takes into account, I feel, the full ramifications magic has upon a society; a problem with many settings is that magic is introduced and then the rest of the setting is left alone, to run its course rather than truly incorporating the magic into it.  So you wind up with a "medieval" (I hate that word in conjunction with fantasy, but that's another rant) setting that also has magic tacked onto it, or a "modern" setting that also has magic tacked onto it.

This assumes that merely because magic is present it is ubiquitous; that doesn't follow.

It is pretty common in our age...

Now you've hit a point here.  I noted there is the potential.  But yes, how much potential partly relies upon how pervasive any form of magic is in a world.  I do not, however, buy any argument that points to medieval soceity because, as I am fond of noting, fantasy worlds are not medieval society necessarily, despite how often they are modeled after it.  Perhaps I should have also mentioned that the presence and saturation level of magic directly effects any world it is found in, for I know there is a vast difference between a land where the various orders keep a tight grip on all magical knowledge and one where it is more commonplace, more widely-spread.  I suppose what I am talking about, really, is the tendency to ignore the full ramifications of the fantastic in a setting, aside from a device to create strange beasts and amazing effect (one of the things that has always annoyed me about D&D, I will admit, is the absolute inundation one receives in terms of magical critters and beings).

Anyhow, onto what I've  read elsewhere here... somebody pointed out that ANY ability a character has can be used to wrestle control from the GM.  Roughly.  If you see gaming as a wrestling match.  The thing is... I think any GM with a halfway decent group should learn to expect surprises.  Twists.  Players doing something totally unexpected, and this isn't necessarily using a skill or spell an odd way, but taking a liking to a character you had not though much about or deciding to not take the blatantly obvious plothook, for IC reasons or because it's not so blatantly obvious to them, and so on.  Magic, skills, all of these are devices that let the players interact with the GM within the boundaries of the setting.  I don't see where or why this becomes a power struggle.  I believe it is wise to try to know your players, what they are likely to do, what they have at their disposal... but no matter how good you are at this, they'll still toss you a few curves here and there, magic or no.  That's just the way the game goes.