The Meaning of Magic(k)

[The Crazy Player]

Greetings! This is my first foray into The Forge, so if I fumble etiquette, please let me know.

I have often been fascinated by the concept of Magick in RPGs, but over the years of playing I have found distressingly few RPGs that actually address what Magick is. By definition any game that allows the ability for Magick covers what Magick does (i.e. the mechanics of Magick), but only a very few cover the flavor of Magick in a setting.

Is Magick an energy? If so, what kind? What are the principles to govern that energy? If Magick is not an energy, what is it? Pure, raw Will given form? Whose Will?

I have therefore had the thought to write an RPG book addressing these issues, in a manner suitable for general use. I thought that, before I spend a great many hours working on this, it might be wise to ask the following: A) Would such a work be likely to receive interest from the Role-Playing world? B) Has someone already beaten me to this concept?

I eagerly await commentary.

The Crazy Player

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Welcome to the Forge!  You've come to the right place

Answers:

A) Yes, people would respond well to a game like that.  But w/o mechanics or more detail, I can't say if someone would respond well to your game that's like that.  I'm not being insulting or snarky, I'm just saying that without more information, I can't comment to much on your design concepts. 

B) Yes, John Kim has done some work on this.  Follow this link: http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/magic/ to read some really great stuff on magic.

C) You didn't have a C, but I would recomend you check out this link as well: http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/2006/12/socratic-design-anthology-3.html  It's a little self promotion, but it may have some things that are useful to you.

Peace,

-Troy

[The Crazy Player]

Thanks for the input.

Clearly, I have some reading to do. However, I think I need to clarify a point.

What I have in mind might be thought of as less of a game in itself and more a game supplement for gaming in general. I don't intend to make it system specific (since everyone has a favorite system and it is not remotely practical to try to cover all of them), but rather something players and GMs can refer to when they need to describe or imagine what happens to the character when they use Magick. The idea is much more about flavor/style than rules, though some Magick styles will certainly suggest mechanics (i.e. a Magick style that involves the transfer and manipulation of life energies is probably going to require some sort of Drain/Boost mechanic, but I don't intend to try to tell a GM how to put that mechanic into the system of their choice.).

The Crazy Player

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

That sounds fine.  There's plenty of room for guides and theories on things like magic in RPGs.  John Kim's site is a good place to start. 

Peace,

-Troy

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

You might also check out this book: http://www.bastionpress.com/Products/spells_&_magic.htm

It has some cool ideas about magic.

Peace,

-Troy

[lumpley]

Arrg! The internet just ate a big post here. I weep!

Hey Crazy, welcome to the Forge.

Here's the thing, which I worded more circumspectly in my big post that the internet ate:

When you design a game, you coordinate what magic is IN the game's fiction with what magic does TO the game's fiction. For instance, in one game, magic makes conflicts less consequential; in another, it makes conflicts more consequential. In one game, magic lets your characters avoid conflicts; in another, it drives your characters into more conflicts. In one game, magic is a tool for the players to use to direct the story where they want it to go; in another, it's a tool for the GM to use to keep the players in line; in a third, it's a chaotic element that keeps both the GM and the players on their toes.

If the two don't line up - what magic is IN the game's fiction, with what magic does TO the game's fiction - if the two don't line up, the game won't fly.

If you're presenting only the former, with no advice about the latter, you're basically just hoping that your assumptions about the role magic plays in the creation of the game's fiction match mine (which they almost certainly don't). You're also hoping that I'm playing a poorly-designed game so that I need material about what magic is (which I'm almost certainly not).

On the other hand, if you're presenting both, hooray! Congratulations! You're designing a whole new game.

Now me personally? I'm a selfish bastard. I want you to design and publish a whole new game, so I can buy and play it. The market for whole new games, thoughtfully- and well-designed, is WAY bigger than the market for dubiously-useful "generic" supplements. I think you'll have more fun doing it that way too.

The thing to do is, make magic the core of your game. You have a vision for how magic works? Make a game about it, the whole it, and nothing but it.

Advice from a selfish bastard, for what it's worth.

-Vincent

[David Artman]

(Vincent, now you know to always select all and copy your posts before hitting Post--I've been doing that routinely, since the site's been 500 erroring all the time. )

One word - Mage: The Awakening

OK, three words and a colon.

If you've got ideas that actually expand upon that work, go for it! But if you want to play a game about Magick qua magic, that's the Gold Standard, in my opinion. Takes some mature players (read: not munchkins) to really get entertaining and evocative magic effects and rituals; but even using only rotes, it's very flavorful and I'd even say pseudo-scientific about how and why magic works.

Of course, Ars Magica is the granddaddy of magic-for-fantasy-mages RPGs, but I can't speak to actual play, just anecdotal testimonies about it being The Bomb in its day (and today). Again, if you've got more to add that this game doesn't address, go for it!

Or... roll your own. Maybe your approach to magic has never before been seen and would make for an indie success. In particular, if you can bring some of the modern GM-less, narrativist, or conflict resolution approaches to it, rather than the traditional task resolution + spell lists + bestiary of the major games already in print.

HTH;
David

[lumpley]

Counter David, I think that Ars Magica and Mage set a pretty low bar for entry. I think we're all sitting here desperate for a well-thought-out new take on magic. I know I am.

Crazy, tell us more about your vision. Not your vision for a product, your vision of magic. What IS magic? What DOES magic do?

I'm Vincent, by the way. What's your real name?

-Vincent

[The Crazy Player]

Ah. Clearly, it is time for a little background.

I've been gaming sine I was 12. I'm now 29. I started RPing with AD&D 2nd Ed (Yes, I know what T.H.A.C.0 means.). After much time trying to get AD&D to do what I wanted it to do, I found myself drawn into WoD. In particular, I was (and am) something of a scion of Mage the Ascension. I know those rules better than almost anyone. Indeed, it was (and to me still is) the system for Magick. That said, it takes a special kind of mind to work Mage, and not everyone can do it. Moving on, though. My current game of choice in Mutants & Masterinds, 2nd Ed.

The point of this little foray? I've virtually no experience with what might be called "micro brew" games, which is to say a game that covers one specific genre and one specific setting in detail. I (and the rest of my group) have always played games that have a broad range of character types and can cover a broad number of settings. What might be called Generic systems. (Yes, technically Mage the Ascension had one setting and one character type, but the range of things that fit in there was still huge.)

This has therefore influenced my idea of what kind of game book I should write. The idea of writing a single setting game doesn't make sense to me. I'm not saying it can't or shouldn't be done, or that such games are bad, just that It doesn't compute in my own head.

What is my vision of Magick? I have several different visions. The vision nearest and dearest to my heart and mind is that Magick is pure human Will. Not a gift from God (or the Gods). Not something foreign, that a rare few can wield and even fewer will be great at. Magick lives in each of us, shaped and molded by the imagination of thinking men and women. Magick is what allowed Mozart (or James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich) to write some of the most incredible music ever. In gaming, I think such Magick should be taken to the next step, given power to reshape the world more literally, less bound by rules (though all systems must have them) than by the boundaries of the imagination. In such a game, what a Mage can conceive, a Mage can achieve. Note that the phrasing of that is important. "Can" achieve, not "will" achieve. There is effort involved, and the risk of failure. Like music, one bad note can turn something sublime into something bland, or even horrific. Magick is the power to do (theoretically) anything, and that kind of power comes with the heaviest of responsibilities. There was an episode of Star Trek: TNG that nicely covered but one potential pitfall. A being of immense power (not Q) became angry at a ship of aliens who had killed his beloved wife, so he willed them out of existence. All of them. Every member of that race vanished in one blinding instant, because this being had wished it. Imagine having that kind of power. That is the game that most interests me.

However, not everyone would want to play that kind of game, nor is everyone comfortable with the idea of Man as The Reason. This has lead me to consider other ideas for what Magick might be, what the theory behind it is, what it means to a game (not just a game system), and what it means to characters. What if Magick is life energy? What if you need more energy than you have to do something profound with Magick, and you can take that energy from others (forcibly, if necessary)? What if it were possible to take the life energy of others to extend your own life? To teleport across the U.S. in the blink of an eye? Steal the life of a murderer to restore his victim?

These are just two of the ideas for how Magick might work that have occurred to me. I don't think of them in terms of a system in part because the system I might use (M&M 2E) might not be the system you might care to use, but also because to me these concepts are bigger than just one system. If I wrote the rules for one of these ideas for my favorite system, I would be at least suggesting (if not outright saying) what each concept can and can't do, based on the system chosen. For a concept as broad as Magick, to limit it in such a way would be criminal.

*Reads the above* Ok, it is definitely time for me to get off my soapbox and allow others to respond to my rant... er... thoughts.

The Crazy Player

[CommonDialog]

I liked the episode of TNG a lot, by the way.  And I, too, have thought it would make great fodder for a RPG, but it's tough to play that powerful of a mage and have balance in the rules.

With that bieng said, as I understand it, Mortal Coil has some good rules for creating systems of magic.  You might want to check it out.  I can't speak firsthand, but have been told creating systems of magic is where it excels.  I'd know better if IPR ever sends me my copy...

*sigh*

[tj333]

http://www.galileogames.com/mortal-coil/index.html
There is a preview chapter there that tells you a bit about how it makes magic systems. As a group you brainstorm the basic magic system/setting. Then you can sacrifice your magical ability to make a new rule of magic.

For more directly to The Crazy Player. Your idea seems like could have some uses especially for games like Mortal Coil or Mage: The ___. But for less general systems it would be of less use without some guidelines on how to create a adapt the magic background to a system.
From the way you answered Vincent's questions it seems that you have many visions of magic rather then one set vision. And the goal of the project is to present a collection of these views.

What the last 2 paragraphs are coming to is this. You would tell me what magic does  in the fiction. That it is a act of will to make it happen (An interesting take on Nietzsche's will to power perhaps?).
Then give guidelines on what the rules need to do to make that happen. Such as some measure of will that affects spell casting, perhaps limiting the number or size of spells that you can cast.
So avoiding any game system while setting forth the requirements of a magic system to create that particular idea of magic.

Is that any help?

[The Crazy Player]

I've heard about Mortal Coil a little bit on Have Games, Will Travel but I haven't read anything about it before.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at, tj333. But, from what I can tell, you're not entirely clear on what I'm getting at, either, so I'll attempt to clarify.

Let us say you are attempting to run a game using the M&M 2E rules engine (my current engine of choice). While the game covers a vast number of powers and abilities, there is almost no flavor in the system. The 2E book does not come with a setting, merely a few suggestions on how to create games and some details on the various comic book Ages and conventions. So, say you decide to use this game engine for your own fantasy setting, which you have created yourself. You have decided that there is Magick in this setting, but you haven't decided what flavor of Magick there is. Is all Magick Necromancy? Something closer to Psionics? Does all Magick come from the Gods and they only give that power to their favored?

The book I have in mind would help you answer these questions. It would present different theories about how and why Magick works, so that you could use the elements that best fit your game and your group.

That is the idea, anyway.

The Crazy Player

[tj333]

My apologies for my last post. I was typing that during a coffee break at work and did not have time to go over it as much as I usually do.
I do believe I understand what you are saying but let me try to be a little more clear this time with what I am saying.


I was suggesting that if you have some explicitly stated requirements or guidlines for a magic flavor on what any system would need added or changed then it would be easier for people to add that to their game.

The Principals of Sympathy and Contagion (Like affects like and once together always together.) can be the bases for a magic system. But how do you work that into a game?
That is the part I think that takes this from a good idea to a useful product. I don't think that your desire for being systemless in the book stops you from doing this, just makes it harder.
I've tried using the Principals of Sympathy and Contagion as the bases of a magic system before and getting the theory was the least part of the work and that experience is coloring my view of your product.

[The Crazy Player]

I believe I see what you are talking about, now. Something in the nature of an "Applying This to Your Game" section.

I have been working from the assumption that the person using my proposed book would be (in effect) a scholar of their particular system and likely know it better than I do, so telling them how to connect these concepts to their system (which I might never have played) would be pointless. You suggesting that a few examples of how these flavor concepts could be integrated into a system would not only be helpful, but entirely necessary.

Am I understanding you correctly?

The Crazy Player

[tj333]

Almost got me.
"Applying This to Your Game" section but not anything to do with a specific system. I agree that trying to do these for every or even many games is impractical.

I'm just going to use the magic system from Shadowrun as an example of what I am talking about.

Shadowrun magic is a system of learned spells that are cast with a skill roll and the magical patterns of people and things. Spells are forcing magic into the pattern that matches the desired outcome. Spells do damage to the caster based on their power and intended effect. Now imaging this goes on for some pages before getting to this part.

• There is no limit to the number of spells a wizard can know but the complexity of a spell is limited by the wizards skill. A game should include a magic skill for learning spells.
• The effectiveness of a spell is based on its complexity and the skill of the caster (the game can use the same skill as used for learning the spell..).
• Teleportation and time travel are are stopped by the same things that stop them in real life.
• The manosphere is generated by living things, so there is no magic in space.
• Since magic is connected to life and the caster, it cannot be targeted through electronic devices such as cameras.
• Mental or purely magical effects are the easiest.
• Physical changes are harder, a small penalty (-10%) should be applied to the skill check for casting these spells.
• Creating physical things is the hardest, a moderate penalty (-25%) should be applied to the skill check for casting these spells.
• Spells need to be sustained by the caster and will end if they are not.
• Spells take energy form the caster and can kill you if you cast too many or too big of spells. This can be handles by the caster losing health in the game when a spell is cast. The wizard resists the spell's the same way as regular damage in the game.

Wow, it took a long time to write that so I'll end it there but if I spent more time and detailed more of the spots in the magic that can be reflected in the rules system you would have what I'm getting at.