[Option] A Magic System

[Kit]

Some of you may recall me wittering about my homebrew system called Option a while ago. Anyway, I've finally started work on it again and it's gradually emerging from its vapourware status. Currently I'm working on the magic system, and I'd could use some input on it if anyone has any comments and/or ideas.

Some basic preliminaries about the system: It's a roll + add method, there are no skills as such - anyone can attempt to perform any action, and a variety of modifiers can apply (there's quite a large range of modifiers, but some moderately clever accounting means that at any one time you shouldn't have to do too much maths in the course of the game).

The general emphasis is not too heavily on combat, although it *can* be a combat game if you want. However it encourages characters with a reasonable degree of versatility and flexibility. One thing it does not have is the combat monsters of D&D - people in Option are very much human and killable. An experienced warrior can't take all *that* much more damage than an amateur, they're just better at avoiding the damage in the first place. People can be very good at what they do, but they don't generally reach quite the ridiculous extremes of power from D&D.

It's very much simulationist in design, but I'm keeping gamist concerns in the back of my mind at the same time (in particular the dreaded phrase `game balance'). I think. I still don't understand the GNS theory all that well.

Anyway, I'm currently working on the magic system for it. I've got a basic mechanic, but really what I'm trying to develop is the `feel' of the system.

Fantasy series used for inspiration: The Deryni Books, by Katherine Kurtz. The Book of Words, by J.V. Jones, Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin.

I'd like to keep the system moderately setting generic - in particular it should work as well for magepunk as high fantasy. Also, Option takes the point of view that psychic powers are just a special case of magic.

The basic idea of the system is that as you cast spells you have the possibility of acquring burn. The more powerful you are, the easier it is for you to cast without acquiring burn. Burn acts as a penalty to all your rolls, including those to cast more spells and to stop yourself from acquiring burn. It's definitely a downward spiral - if you start exerting yourself too much you become in danger of collapsing when you cast even the most minor spells afterwards. It is very much worth noting that an excess of burn can be lethal.

It should be noted that skill (the ability to succesfully cast spells) and power (the ability to resist acquiring burn) are not linked stats - it's quite possible to create a very highly skilled mage with little power, or an untrained amateur with more power than he knows what to do with. This is a feature I find a lot of magic systems are lacking in. (Ok, I say `a lot'. It has to be admitted that my experience is fairly limited).

Generally the two biggest contributing factors to burn are extent and speed. The first is obvious: The greater the effect of the spell you cast, the greater the burn. The second is somewhat less so - spells can be cast incredibly quickly if in great need. A sufficiently skilled mage can let off a ward or an attack in the blink of an eye, but they might not be able to count on surviving long after. Because of this a good deal of emphasis is placed on ritual magic, which slows down the casting of the spell but makes it much easier and less energy intensive to cast.

Mages can manifest quite a range of low grade quasi-psychic effects with little risk of acquiring burn. Short range telepathic speech, telekinetically manipulating small things or lifting light objects, lighting or quenching candles or other small fires, short range ESP, spinning minor illusions, light spells, etc. If a mage is manifesting these sorts of things continuously all day long then it will be roughly the equivalent of a hard day's labour in effort, but casual use of them is generally negligible. These effects can also be used to enhance mundane abilities, such as archery, with ESP and telekinesis guiding your hand and arrow.

All of the above can be used to a greater extent, requiring more difficult rolls and with greater possibility of accumulating burn. Great feats of telekinesis can be formed, things can be seen at a great distance, people spoken to from afar, etc. Also the energy manipulation can be used to create energy blasts, etc. These are however time consuming and burn intensive - generally only to be used in great need. The Option mage is not a fireball cannon.

Advanced illusion spinning can become quite powerful and subtle. Really it's almost a form of transfiguration (see below). `Real' illusions can be created - things which look and feel solid. They do not however have any real strength or substance to them - an illusory wall will crumble with a sharp rap, an illusory bridge will not support weight for more than an instant, illusory food will not sustain you.

Then come more advanced effects. Principally: Warding, Summoning, Conjuration, Transfiguration, Healing.

Warding and Healing are more or less obvious in their intent, though it should be observed that magical healing is not an instantaneous thing - a healer can fairly quickly stabilise a wounded individual or patch up some minor injuries, but healing a serious wound takes time and energy.

Summoning covers the summoning of spirits, etc. Included in this are certain necromantic aspects - summoning the dead, binding spirits to bodies to create undead, etc. The latter is rather difficult, but produces some exceptionally nasty effects. Skeletons and zombies are most definitely not mooks.

Conjuration covers manipulation of time and space. The basic ability in conjuration is the technique of `pocketing'. Essentially you store a creature or object in an extradimensional space, where it is kept in stasis until you need to call it back. Calling things to you from a distance and teleportation effects are also covered, but these are rather difficult and advanced, and tend to be ritual spells.

Transfiguration is the art of changing the form and substance of things. Water can be changed into wine, broken things can be mended, rock can be shaped, etc. In general a change of form isn't *too* hard, although great changes are taxing, whileas change of substance can be quite difficult. This also covers the transformation of living creatures, but this is increasingly difficult as the living flesh resists your magic. However it is much easier to transfigure yourself - it is easier to turn into an eagle than it is to turn your opponent into a frog (the latter is almost impossible except ritually, while a powerful mage could probably achieve the former without taxing their strength beyond its limit). Merely changing someone's appearance is however not all that hard.

These aren't entirely disjoint categories - a lot of them will combine. For example healing is in some sense a subset of transfiguration, and the line between telekinesis, energy manipulation and warding can sometimes get blurry.

That's all I had in mind for specifics. The general feel I'm going for is mages who are capable of a wide range of subtle and useful effects, and given time to work can create some very powerful effects, albeit not without cost. I want mages to be capable and powerful, but not without their weaknesses. Also I loathe fireball cannons, so I've deliberately nerfed them. :)

Questions I'd like to consider:

Is there anything important I'm missing?

How does the above system seem? Does it achieve the feel I want?

Is the feel I want good? Is it reasonable, `realistic', would it be fun to play?

Anything else that I haven't thought of. :)

Thanks.

Kit

[Kit]

Argh. I suck. I meant to put this in RPG Theory, although I guess this isn't *too* inappropriate in here.

Sorry about that.

[xenopulse]

Kit,

I think this is exactly the right place to post; after all, you want to discuss your specific design.

In my eyes, "burn" is great. I very much like magic systems where the magic users have to pay a price, and have the very dramatic ability to sacrifice or risk something for greater power. I think you have a good idea of where you want to be. Now you just need to come up with mechanics that handle it.

First question, since this is a magic subsystem for a whole game, should magic work like everything else, e.g., be based on roll+modifiers and anyone can do it, or should it be a completely separate system? Since you say you have no skills, how will you keep track of characters growing more experienced with magic?

Second, can magic users use magic that does not cause burn to them without limitation? If I am a powerful magic user, can I cast simple spells all day long? There are balance and abuse questions regarding this issue.

Third, seeing that your game is aiming to support Sim play, have you considered the effects of magic on the rest of the world? This is connected to the previous two issues. The more available and usable magic is, the different the world will look from our own, requiring you to put a lot of effort into making it coherent.

Those are all the questions I have. I am looking forward to seeing more of the system, because, as I said, I really like the idea of the cost of magic in "burn."

[Kit]

Well, part of the reason that I didn't want to post it in here is I can't guarantee that Option will ever emerge out of the vapourware state, and I understand people don't like that kind of system in this forum. But anyway, if you say it's fine here I shan't object.

Anyway, the basic premise of Option is `one mechanic to rule them all' :-). There is only one mechanic in this system, and everything is a specific application thereof (of course, sometimes these specific applications get a wee bit complicated...). Thus magic is indeed roll + add.

In order to explain things I need to give a basic explanation of how Option works. A character is completely described by two things: Options and Modifiers. Options say what you can do, modifiers say how well you can do it. The ability to cast magic is an Option. Modifiers are much more varied than Options - there are as many modifiers as you can think of actions (most of them are lumped together into quite general categories, but you can specialise to an arbitrarily high degree if you wish).

Modifiers cover every possible internal influence on rolls you make. In particular they are both `stats' and `skills'. Option does not make a distinction between the two (in particular it ignores the nature versus nurture question), which is what I mean by saying there are no skills. So the way Option handles saying someone is skilled at doing x is by giving them positive modifiers to their rolls to do x. These modifiers improve as you gain more experience with magic.

The way Burn is assigned as follows: When your mage wants to produce an effect, this effect has a certain cost associated to it. You roll a dice and add your relevant power modifiers. If you beat the cost for the spell, you acquire no burn. If you don't, then you acquire burn - the more you fail by, the more Burn you acquire. Thus a mage with a high power can cast spells with a low cost relatively easily. When they have 0 burn they may even be able to do it without needing to roll (Option features a lot of potential rolls which are automatic successes in normal circumstances but can get tricky when circumstances are less normal). Thus a reasonably powerful unfatigued mage with no burn can float books about the room until the cows come home. However if they've just summoned a powerful spirit or engaged in a mage duel, etc. then their ability to do so is a lot less certain.

To answer your third question, Option is setting generic so I'm not giving too much direct thought to the setting. I am however bearing the following in mind when creating the magic rules:

Firstly, the more that widespread usage of an effect would disrupt society beyond recognition, the more difficult it is. This isn't kept to 100%, for example with some of the telepathic functions, but it is for example the reasoning behind the fact that teleportation is very hard and raising the dead is nigh on impossible. (There will be rules for ressurecting people in Option, but you'd be hard pressed to do it without a circle of mages ritually casting for several weeks, etc, and they'll probably be drained to near the point of death by doing it. It is not a light undertaking).

Secondly, why aren't mages running the place? Maybe they are, but it shouldn't be a logical consequence of the magic rules - that would make for a boring range of settings. The fact that burn affects everything is part of this. Originally it only affected further spell casting, but I decided that that wasn't limiting enough.

I'm also having a think about how various things will affect societies' opinions of mages. Various aspects of the rules could for example lead to a lot of fear of mages. For example, a desperate mage is a very scary thing, because the restriction imposed by burn is a lot less significant if they don't care about surviving their spell - this means that people will treat mages with a good deal more caution than they might strictly speaking warrant in normal circumstances. (Think `Final Strike' from the valdemar novels). Also, burn is quite hard to reduce - some is reduced with rest, but for large quantities this is a slow process (and you have the usual issue that the more burn you have the harder it is to reduce). As such there are various other ways to reduce it - the most common is the cleansing ritual, which is time consuming but harmless. Less common is the fact that mages can remove their burn by drawing energy from other people, not neccesarily with their consent! Things like that could cause people to be quite nervous about mages...

But as I said, it's not a setting specific system so the details of the above are up to the individual GMs.