[Core Engine: The World Behind] A Second Thread about my Magic system

[Justin Nichol - BFG]

Several months ago I posted a thread about my magic system. It's for an open content game I'm creating, more specifically for the first setting I'm developing for it. It's an Urban Fantasy setting, and I noticed from different books, like Gaiman novels, Hellblazer comics, the Dresden Files etc, that in prose stories what makes magic cinematic and interesting from a story perspective is not what a Wizard or Witch can do but rather how they can do it, and secondly what they cannot do. In other words, I came to the conclusion after playtesting this setting that it was sufficient to have what magic can do be simply everything with a few principal limitations, and have the focus of the game be on the metaphysics of the universe or HOW the magic is done. And rather than have the characters made unique by what powers they do have in some superheroic powers list, I thought it would be more interesting to have that "everything" magic is capable of be further restricted by taboos held by every individual who tries to use magic.

So basically, the point of the magic system is to recreate in simple mechanics a metaphysical structure for the world, and modern-day Wizards must manipulate those metahpysics in order to gain enough Impetus for their magic to take effect. I have quite a bit of metaphysical structure figured out already, and I want to get everyones thoughts on it below, but aside from criticsm I was hoping to see if anyone could maybe help me come up with more ideas for metaphysics or come up with ways to make the metaphysics that exist more concrete or consistent. I really want the magic system to be immersive, as though while playing the game, they actually felt like their character was working magic and not just pressing a button that casted a spell.

I suppose I should start with the Seven Principles of Magic (note I'm open to adding more if people see a hole or want to suggest a limitation.)


The Seven Principles of Magic

The Principle of Impetus: This principle is perhaps the most important to the actual use of Magic. It states that all Magic requires Impetus to work. In other words every effect requires a cause. Mastery of Impetus is one of the most important skills a Magus can gain.

The Principle of Equilibrium: Equilibrium occurs often in Magic and in very unexpected ways. This principle essentially dictates that effects caused by Magic tend to cause other actions which bring balance, or incur some dualistic occurence. This principle is not always perfectly visible to the Magus, and it is unbelievably difficult to predict how the principle might function at any given time. A Magi may bring fortune to a relative only to doom some poor soul a world away to bad luck. There are legends of foul Necromancers and power-hungry Magi who have murdered their only loved ones in order to direct ruin onto their enemies utilizing this principle.

The Principle of Sympathy: The Principle of Sympathy is comprised of two related ideas; the first being that like affects like, and the second being that objects and people that become connected maintain some essence of one another throughout their existence and therefore can be used as links in the casting of charms and wards.

The Principle of Taboo: This principle states that every Magi is only capable of an imperfect knolwedge of the ways of Magic. All Magi are bound by taboos which dictate what areas of the Magickal Arts are barred to them. Legends tell of Magi who are not bound by Taboo and such legends are usually messianic in nature because a perfect understanding of Magic is not available even to the most powerful Fae nobility or gods.

The Principle of the Wyrd: The Wyrd is best described as an interconnected web that exists  in and around all actions and can be viewed by those adept in Soothsaying and Sights. The principle which bears its name states that no Magus is capable of using Magick to change the Wyrd directly, and that it is not possible to travel to other times as such. It is possible for a Seer to view the actions which will bring about the future and use that forewarning to alter the future, but Magick is incapable of making direct changes to the Wyrd itself.

The Principle of Essential Nature: This principle states that no Magus is capable through Magick of changing the essential nature of a living being. Magic can never make a Vampire live again, or rob a person of their Faery blood, or reverse the condition of a Lycanthrope. Likewise, it is incapable of causing anyone to gain such characteristics, and is furthermore and perhaps most importantly unable to grant to or rob anyone of Sights. Likewise, no level of transmutation can change the soul of a being, so no matter how convincingly a man is turned into a Newt, they still have the soul of a human being.

The Principle of Life: No Magus is capable of resurrecting the dead or healing grievous injury. When a person is injured, more than their body suffers, their spirit is also damaged. Therefore even though a Magus could reshape the injury through Transmutation, and could even perform first-aid by stopping bleeding, even if the wound were fully sealed using transmutation, the persons injury would still ache and pain them, and their spirit would still be harmed. Furthermore a Magus inexperienced in the workings of the human body could seriously hurt or misshape a person and cause veins to close, limbs to atrophy, cripple or even kill a person. Likewise, a dead body can never be resurrected  because it's spirit has left. Even if a Ghostly remnant of the person spirit remains, they can never more than inhabit the body, and even then the body continues to decay at a normal rate and the spirit is subject to all wards and banishements.


This is pretty standard fare I know, and I would like to change the number from seven to something else because it resembles somewhat Ars Magicas laws of magick. Still, no need to reinvent the wheel, I just needed to put in place certain limitations and still need to write sections for what all of that means specifically in game terms but I hope some of it is somewhat obvious. Now, there are four magical abilities in the game, Sights, Doors Charms and Wards, each is described below.

Sights- Sights is the ability to see that which normal people cannot, to see the world behind the veil. Those with sights can see beings of supernatural origin, and can notice the patterned coincidences of the metaphysical world. It can also be used in instances for divinatory purposes. It's greatest practitioners are called Seers.

Doors- Doors is the ability to travel in the wainscotting, to enter the world behind the world. The world behind is comprised of extra-spatial places that exist in relation to the physical world that the average person exists in, although not in a way that obeys any commonly accepted physical laws. For instance, a wardrobe may actually be a tesseract which contains a land within it, or instead, it may be so that all Main streets are connected, and those who can find the way may travel great distances in physical space by walking along this great road. Despite it's correlation to phsyical space, Doors cannot be seen by anyone not possessing Sights. It's greatest practitioners are called Sojourners.

Charms- The casting of spells and charms to enact change or achieve some effect. Any conceivable effect not otherwise covered by Sights, Doors or Wards, can be achieved using Charms. The focus in Magick and the use of Charms is not on the what but on the how, that which is conceivably possible may functionally or practically impossible simply because the proper impetus cannot be arranged. It's greatest practitioners are called Magi.

Wards- Wards is a separate discipline from and far more widely used than Charms, some so-called Magi practice the art of Warding exclusively. It is used to protect against and suppress magical effects or events, or to hold at bay beings based on their attunement or other elements. It can also be used in certain instances to hold closed paths that can be travelled via Doors. It's greatest practitioners are called Guardians.

Included in the finished design will be many examples of what each can do with suggestions on appropriate levels of difficulty.


Now on to Impetus. Essentially Impetus is like a second difficulty which exists only for the purpose of Magical effects. The power of the effect and it's relative complexity determine it's functional difficulty i.e. what must be rolled on the dice. But impetus is a separate factor which is met by using one or more of the forms of impetus described below. Failure to meet the set amount of impetus needed does not cause the effect to fail but instead incurs the principle of equilibrium which means in effect that in some way, maybe never even beknownst to them an opposite effect will occur or that ultimately their magic or intent will be unworked. If impetus is exceeded it reduces the difficulty which allows lower power characters to sometimes work powerful effects when it is appropriate for the story and when the players work their magic in clever or novel ways.

Formula- Impetus can be gained through Magical rote and ritual. Through symbology and the working of sigils, rituals and other strictly structured practices the Magus can gain the Impetus to perform magical acts. Formulaic impetus is the sort most commonly known by the general public because it is the arena of magic words and spells. To gain this impetus a Magus must deeply learn and understand the effect they desire to enact and the spells tied to it.

Supplication- Supplication is the act of gaining Impetus through personal rite, humbly entreating the Magic to work. It functions primarily through acts of creativity and in the use of skill, arts and supersition woven together. A Magus using supplication might perform an ecstatic dance or may work the Magic into a poultice or potion to be used by the recipient of the Charm.

Revelation- Impetus through revelation is as spontaneous as Magic can get. It is the working of will through happenstance and playing off of the patterns in the world around the Magus. In some instances, such effects simply happen, or can be made to happen if the Magus finds turns of phrase, irony or strange justifications in the patterning of words, symbols, ideas and coincidences in the world.

Sacrifice- Impetus can also be gained through more grisly means. An act of sacrifice can provide the spiritual energy necessary to provide Impetus for a work of Magic. The sacrifice can take many forms and be of a personal nature or be very literally the sacrifice of a taken life. The more serious and potent the sacrifice, and the more related it is to the effect desire, the more powerful the impetus provided by the sacrifice.

Contagion- Some Magi use the Principle of Sympathy to provide impetus for certain Charms, Sights or Wards. To gain an Impetus of Contagion, a character must have an important personal affect of the target of the Magic, or otherwise must have something which strongly represents them or is attuned to something to which they are likewise attuned. Note that Contagion impetus is the only impetus that can be used to fuel Magic against a person or being that cannot be seen. However the ability to see the person in the flesh or spirit is means enough to give the spell contagion even though it offers no actual impetus.

One issue I have yet to resolve is how much impetus is gained via different uses. I know that Formulaic impetus will only grant one or two depending on how specific the formula or focus. But revelatory impetus could grant anything from 1 to 6 depending on how clever or appropriate it was for the story. It certainly should be variable, but I don't want it to be entirely storyteller fiat (though I'm not opposed to a little bit).



Finally, I would like to share a general outline of taboos. Aside from the limitations of the seven principles, magic is capable of anything. Anything that is not the express territory of sights, doors and wards is possible through charms if the magic is worked right. What makes each character unique is not which of many powers they can cast once per day and all that, but instead is what metaphysical areas are for some reason of birth, fate or circumstance barred to them. Each character has taboos, but I am currently devising a system of cabals and special creature templates which will dictate or alleviate taboos in some areas in exchange for the complete restriction of other whole areas. A completely independent mage that is not fae or some other creature has 30 point of taboos (hope some of that made sense). Heres the list of taboo levels:

5 Points- The character cannot use a certain area of their magical powers (not a whole ability but a significant portion of one of their abilities), under a common condition.

Example: The character cannot divine when the moon is visible in the sky.

10 Points- The character is unable to use an entire magical skill under a common condition.

Example: The character can not Ward when they are not in contact with naked earth.

15 Points- The character can never use a certain Charms arcana or an entire area of their other magical skills.

Example: The character is incapable of transmuting, or is unable to make and close Doors.

20 Points- The character can only use any of their Magical skills under a certain predetermined condition.

Example: The character can only use their Magical skills during the day or when they have seen the ocean in the past 12 hours.

25 Points- The character can never learn or utilize an entire magical skill. Note that a character cannot choose Sights because Taboos only affect people with the sight.

Example: The character is incapable of using Charms, Doors or Wards.



So as you can see what I'm basically trying to do is create a metaphysics for the world attached to the game mechanics so in order to work magic, the players and characters actually have to think about how it might be done and what the costs are if they act too spontaneously or without thought. there will definitely be room for spontaneity and flash but players must be clever and make the magic cinematic or incur equilibrium. If anyone has ideas for more metaphysics I could work into the system, or potential problems they foresee please please please let me know. I really feel like I've touched upon a system that I have always wanted and not even the most open and abstract magic systems ever actually made the story feel like I was working magic, it always just felt like a slightly more imaginative version of magic missile.


Thanks if you actually read this.

[J Tolson]

Well one of the reasons that most systems only use a slightly more imaginative version of magic missile is that in a world where not everything is possible there must be some limitations. Consider, for example, what the difference in DnD is between whacking an Orc with a broadsword and blasting them with a fireball. Mostly, it is the type and number of die rolled; there is very distinction in the game world between a sword and sorcery. For magic to work, it must truly be magical, which causes problems when you are trying to balance magic characters with mundane characters.

Anywho, so to my understanding it looks like a character would need to put a certain amount of energy (or Impetus) into a spell for it to succeed (in the expected manner). Too little energy and there are nasty side effects. Not only that but they must work this magic inside of a certain degree of restrictions (aka, taboos). The rest just seems to be classifications of magic and how some magic relates to other bits of magic. Does this seem to be a good summary so far?

Thus, then, might I suggest simplifying your Principles of Magic? Simple things such as "an event in motion tends to stay in motion and an event at rest tends to stay at rest," so that it is easier to make a pre-existing fire grow in intensity, rather than to set something ablaze. This would help ingenuitive players create greater "magical" effects through mundane actions (light a match, use that to shoot a fireball, for example).

You idea of Balance is good. If I might suggest a slightly different interpretation; "for every magic action there is an equal and opposite magical reaction." MageMan heals a friend but only by taking on some of the wounds, for example. Causing it to rain must draw the moisture from somewhere (perhaps a village well, perhaps directly from the villagers). A skilled mage, through the proper use of impetus, might be able to mitigate these consequences through a ritual (targeting a specific thingy to draw the water from, for example). Planned use is then almost consequence free while hasty use can reap the whirlwind.

Perhaps a bit of magical "gravity?" "My magic is attracted to every other magic in the universe with a force directly proportional to the product of their masses, and inversely proportional to the distance between them." That is, it is easier to use magic effecting something that is already magical (the more magical it is, the easier it is) and that the distance one is away from something causes it to be more difficult to effect, magically. This would help to explain why great magicians would tend to congregate around each other and why small villages seldom produce merlins (assuming, of course, that such would fit in with your setting). Helps the non-magically inclined individuals survive in a world with magic, by granting them a natural degree of immunity.

Anywho, just a few ideas for your "rules of magic."

[Justin Nichol - BFG]

Well that was exactly my point, no matter how broad each of the Spheres in Mage was, they were basically just distillations of what was more granular in earlier game systems (ie individual spells). I want to get away from that to some extent (obviously characters still have to have limitations and need to be clear on what they are capable of), I want to have a game where the rules are the metaphysical laws of the world in which play takes place so that in order to use the rules to cast magic they are forced to solve problems and are rewarded for progressing the story in novel ways rather than just spending some mana or a memorization.

As far as impetus being energy, not exactly, impetus is not supposed to be like a pool of mana, it is not a substantive energy as such in the game world. Instead, it's a numerical representation on the player side of how much convincing is required for reality to concede to the Mages request. If that is not met there is backlash, but more or less you got the point yes. The reason I split up magic at all is simply because there has to be some diversity in character abilities outside of just taboos I feel. And non-wizard creatures need to be capable of sights and doors or the whole setting falls apart.

As for the principles of magic, I feel I probably should write simplifications of the laws as they would exist to the knowledge of the characters and then have game terms for the principles aside from that. But it might also be useful as you suggested to add principles which dictate the way magic behaves. I have that to some extent, such as with the principle of sympathy which essentially means that a character must have some piece of or attuned representation of a person, place or thing in order to affect it if they cannot see it.

In regards to balance, I'm not sure I want it so cut and dry as an equal and opposite reaction. The point is that things tend to balance themselves but not that everything the character does with magic is somehow undone (although for a grittier scenario that might be appropriate). That might seriously reduce the fun of playing. It's meant more to generally suggest that very generally there is an equilibrium, and that impetus is what mitigates that equilibrium from taking fuller force. Without impetus, it takes on much more serious manifestations, and tends to undo the intent of the willworker even if they succeed in their charms.

In regards to the magical gravity, it's not a huge deal, because the setting is such that most of what the players come across is going to be capable of defending itself against magic, and there will be more safeguards in terms of setting that punish errant mages for non-chalantly attacking people without the sight and without wards to protect them.

Thanks a lot for your comments, you helped me clarify some ideas in my head.

[jag]

First, I like the thought you've given to magic very much.  But for more useful comments, two things stood out to me on the first reading.

One is that your principle of balance seems hard to adjudicate.  One example has that if you grant a boon to someone, then someone else somewhere will suffer ill effects.  Next you say that if you cause someone ill effects, someone else (presumably that you care about) also suffers ill effects.  If you are playing in a campaign where 'winning' is an important motivation, you might find players quickly either abusing this ambiguity, or grousing when the GM (assuming there is one) applies a balancing effect they find 'inconsistent' with a previous experience.  Even if 'winning' is irrelevant, i think there are many shades of grey between boon-to-friend-causes-bane-to-someone and bane-to-enemy-causes-bane-to-friend, and several cases it may be very challenging to find a suitable way to balance the effect, that the players also find reasonable.

The second is that three of your types of magic (sight, doors, wards) seem very coherent and compelling.  Your catch-all (Charms) is so vague that it's both extremely important and sort of... boring?  I know your fundamental premise is that magic can do everything (except what it can't), so you don't want a list of 5 restrictive areas, but the mixtures of 3 defined/restrictive areas and 1 catch-all somehow doesn't sit right with me.  Perhaps one resolution is to have 'magic' that can do anything (except what it can't), but have 5 (or 8...) 'spheres' that are commonly practice areas of magic -- but anyone can try for a general effect too.

I also like your idea of taboos -- it seems like a good way to make evocative characters (she can cast no spell dealing with fire, and the touch of cold-wrought iron sears her skin).  My inclination would be to give several more defined classes of taboos (restriction based on time, on material, on place, on ritual, etc), but my guess is that you want to keep it very free form.

[Justin Nichol - BFG]

I think you're right in regards to the principle of equilibrium. Having thought about it during this thread, I think I want balance to basically be the undoing or perversion of the magical effect, and the only way to assuage it is to use impetus, rather than any sort of moralist Karmic sort of idea. So in essence, a guy wants to find a person, on the fly, casts a location spell without any impetus. They roll, they succeed, and the intent of finding the person is somehow perverted. They may know where the person was but not where they are, or be led to some sympathetic link. Moreover, it could be that the initial spells effect ensures they are found, so the initial reason for casting the spell is still viable, but later loses the person they were all along trying to find.

As for Charms. I really don't want to deviate from my current setup, because originally I just had a magic skill. Then I separated out those things which all magical beings could use, and what is left is Charms. But I do have Charms further separated into Arcana which don't have specific game effects, but help in choosing taboos and defining what Charms can do better. The Five Arcana are:

Transmutation- The art of changing the physical aspects of a subject.
Conjuration- The creation of material from nothing or from basic components.
Enchantment- The alteration of the abstract characteristics of a subject (i.e. attuning an object, making water acidic without transmuting to acid, the alteration of a roses scent.)
Glamour- The creation of illusions and influence over the minds and emotions of others.
Evocation- Communication and the summoning of gods and ghosts.

Again this isn't meant to be restrictive necessarily but more to at least define common uses of charms.

As for taboos, I'm glad you like them, I really wanted to emulate the seemingly organic boundaries certain wizards seem to have on their magic. Some of the additions you mentioned can already be done with what's there, but I'm sure I could expand it or at least offer more examples to make it clear how many points any given taboo is worth.

[jag]

Cool.  I guess it's not clear to me why the Door ability is any different than the Transmutation classification -- why not just have the three abilities be arcana as well?

[Justin Nichol - BFG]

wait. You must misunderstand. Doors is the ability to walk in the world behind. To enter into spaces not of the mundane world. Transmutation is the ability to transform substances, I dont see how they relate.

The reason they can't be arcana is because that would mean one skill would dictate everything magical, and it would also mean that every magical creature would be capable of casting spells which would negate why I pulled sights doors and wards into separate abilities.

[jag]

wait. You must misunderstand. Doors is the ability to walk in the world behind. To enter into spaces not of the mundane world. Transmutation is the ability to transform substances, I dont see how they relate.

Sorry, i was unclear.  I understand why the content is different between the two.  I don't understand why the organization structure of Abilities (doors, sight, etc) is different than that of arcana.

The reason they can't be arcana is because that would mean one skill would dictate everything magical, and it would also mean that every magical creature would be capable of casting spells which would negate why I pulled sights doors and wards into separate abilities.

This is what i don't understand.

1. "it would also mean that every magical creature would be capable of casting spells" -- i suppose i don't know what magical creature means in your system, or what determines who can cast spells, so i can't really say anything to this.
2. "one skill would dictate everything magical" -- That seems to fit your general flavour, no?  Ie, magic can do everything except what it can't.  One "skill", but various restrictions each character has.

What are you design goals for the two types of subdivisions?  What do they add or prevent that's important?  In my personal aesthetic, having two similar types of subdivisions that aren't clearly different in any way but names is a bit jarring.  But my aesthetic is less important in this game than yours.

[Noclue]

One is that your principle of balance seems hard to adjudicate.  One example has that if you grant a boon to someone, then someone else somewhere will suffer ill effects.  Next you say that if you cause someone ill effects, someone else (presumably that you care about) also suffers ill effects.  If you are playing in a campaign where 'winning' is an important motivation, you might find players quickly either abusing this ambiguity, or grousing when the GM (assuming there is one) applies a balancing effect they find 'inconsistent' with a previous experience.  Even if 'winning' is irrelevant, i think there are many shades of grey between boon-to-friend-causes-bane-to-someone and bane-to-enemy-causes-bane-to-friend, and several cases it may be very challenging to find a suitable way to balance the effect, that the players also find reasonable.

Cool. This has me thinking interesting thoughts about a magic system in which if you have the power to cast the spell, success is guaranteed. All the ritual work and prep is about getting dice for the subsequent conflict over fallout and who gets to narrate it. That probably doesn't help much, I know.

[Justin Nichol - BFG]

Perhaps I should go back to the beginning. When I first started writing my game system I had an idea for an Urban/Contemporary Fantasy game along the lines of Neil Gaiman, the Invisibles, Hellblazer, the Dresden Files etc. For our first playtest magic was one skill called magic and everyone played magicians. After a few games I realized it was kinda lame because aside from a little personal flavor everyone was capable of doing the same things. Also I had the problem of it being impossible to make a character who was primarily a warder or primarily a sojourner using doors. Furthermore, I had a person who wanted to play a bodyguard a la Gaimans Neverwhere, but in order for them to be able to have sights and doors, they also had to have charms that they had to choose not to use since it didn't fit their concept. When I came up with taboos I had already split the four up and considered recombining the skills but I still had the problem that if say a member of the Seelie Fae was not a Magus, they would certainly have Sights and almost certainly be capable of using doors to travel in the wainscotting, but they would not necessarily have "unfettered" access to magic. If this was represented as a general taboo that Fae or any other magical being aside from human magi can't use the Magic skill to cast charms, then that means I've essentially said there can be no Fae Magi or what have you. It made sense to have magical abilities split into a couple skills. That way, a player could conceivably choose to play a character who was not a Magus, but instead a bodyguard or a member of the Order of the Windmill, a group of homeless knights, and not have a ton of charms that don't really fit the character.

I'm not trying to have two different types of subdivisions. Each of the skills has "arcana", or more granular divisions which explain in more detail what can be done with the ability. The arcana only exist to help get a sense of what each can do, and to help make it easier to buy taboos that restrict certain areas of a magical ability. I don't want you to get the sense that charms is the only ability that is open and broad. And maybe I should remove all of that wording and focus more on explaining it through the arcana. But essentially, any skill can be used in novel ways. A practitioner of doors, sufficiently skilled could walk into a persons dreams, possess a host, blink from point to point a la harry potter. A person could use Sights to read the surrounding impressions of a crime scene, to get glimpses of the future, to see into a persons true heart. Wards can be used to render a home unnoticed to mundane eyes or to exorcise the aforementioned possessions. Charms is by definition a bit more broad than the others yes, but any of the skills can be used in broad ways. It's not like three of the skills have one specific application and charms has infinite applications.

Thanks for the criticisms. It's hard when you're trying to conceptualize something kinda complicated and weird to know if what makes sense to you in context of having written it, actually makes any sense to other people.


noclue- I'm glad it inspired you. It's all about building on ideas.

[jag]

Ah, i understand your position better now. Let me preface this post by saying that by my professional training and temperament i'm biased towards solutions involving basic rules or axioms, from which interesting properties and play emerges (Go being the best game in the universe at this, imo).  So i'll try to put on another hat, but my biases will clearly shine through.

If i read you correctly, you started making these structures (Taboos and Skills) in response to two problems:
1. All players could do pretty much the same things.
2. You couldn't reasonably depict certain types of characters, that only had magical abilities in certain realms.

My strong worry is that by having three defined Skills and one 'everything-else' skill, you are not eliminating these problems, you are just slightly restricting the situations in which they occur.  Ie, the first occur whenever the taboos don't hold and the magical effects aren't of three specific types.  So when it's neither a full moon nor within twenty feet of iron, both Fred and Sally have exactly the same set of options.

How much of a problem was this?  During actual play, did the fact that the characters had the same theoretical possibilities result in them choosing the same actions?  I might think that what characters actually do would be strongly influenced by their players' creativity, and thus be very different.  But in practice did they all sort of do the same thing?  Or was just the fact that they _could_ do all the same things lame?

As for the second, you still don't allow a character to be a master at illusions without her also being a master at most other things.  I suppose the question for your setting is: Are those three areas described by skills far more important than all others, such that they handle most cases where a character would want to be specialized?

I don't mean to be discouraging at all.  I really like the metaphysical approach, and think taboos are very clever (and will probably appear in my game in the near future...).  But i do think these problems are exactly the impetus for systems to use a more defined magical system.

[Noclue]

I have to agree with Jag here in that I'm having a hard time understanding how the game breaks if you do away with the charm category and replace it with Transmutation, enchantment, et. al. It makes more sense to me and I too feel some resistance to a catch-all skill, especially when its "catch-all except those other things I listed."

Justin, maybe if you could explain again, why this list of magic skills would be bad:


Doors
Sights
Wards
Transmutations (IMO, I'd just subsume under enchantments)
Enchantments
Glamours
Conjurations
Evocations

Sorry if I'm being dense.

[Justin Nichol - BFG]

Well the whole point initially was not to have a super granular set of "magic powers", and that's why I only had a single magic skill. But I want to reiterate, that Charms is not the only catch all skill. If you guys are familiar with Mage: The Ascension I'd like to do a quick exercise. In my game, I want things to be very open as far as what can be done, not super restrictive, and have the focus be on can you come up with an interesting ritual or gather the proper impetus, not do you have the right sphere to cast that rote. But back to my exercise, heres how I think things would translate:

Sights : Some Mind, Some Time, Some Prime, Some Entropy.
Doors: Correspondence, Some Spirit, Some Mind
Charms: Some Spirit, Some Mind, Some Forces, Matter
Wards: Some Spirit, Prime, Some Forces

As you can see, even if Charms is slightly broader in it's capabilities, all of them have broad applications, and are not super restrictive in how they can be used. Sights generally allows you to sense and know things you could not know, doors allows you to travel where you cannot travel, charms allows you call on forces you could not call upon, and wards allows you to secure places and people in ways that could not otherwise be secured.

The reason I wrote the arcana was to give people a clearer idea of what each of the four skills can do. I dont want to make them skills because then I'm just falling back into the same old rut where magic is what points you have and not what you do to make the magic happen, it's the what not the how if I make things too granular imo. Another reason for the arcana was so people would have an easier time choosing taboos if they were having trouble figuring out what each of the abilities entailed. If I had a list with all the charms arcana and none of the arcana of the other skills, then Magic would be like it is in Mage and In pretty much every other game with magic aside from the really freeform story games, where it only matters what you know, not how you use it. So the game doesn't break, but it perverts my initial design goal of having a game where how you did the magic was more important than what skills you had. The only splitting up I did was to make it possible to have other characters without charms, and I created taboos so those characters who did have charms would be unique from one another.

Thanks again, for your criticisms and suggestions. Feel free to continue if you see further issues, I'd appreciate it. But I'd also like if you can see some metaphysical idea that is missing or could be implemented along the same lines.

[higgins]

Hi Justin!

I've been enjoyng this read and I'd like to address two points. First point is from your first thread.

Well, what I'm basically thinking of having is a sliding scale of difficulty based on the difficulty of the spell and the level of these metaphysics you've employed and how clever/ important to the story your actions are. Without any prep, doing some intensive, would be next to impossible. In later episodes the character may reuse the vision spell, it may even become regular, and that's not too much of a problem, lots of wizard characters have signature spells and abilities, but what it will not recieve is the same spontaneous reudction in difficulty from it being clever and being specially suited to solving the problem of that story which was finding out what the darkness was and what it represented. So in other words, the character may still get a reduction in difficulty from doing something in preparation, a personal sigil of sorts, and if it were again central to the story, it may further reduce in difficulty, but it would never again regain the reduction for being clever because it would not be new. It's not the hugest incentive in the world, I'm not trying to create the perfect magic system where all players are inspired to be amazingly creative and never use the same spell twice, but it does at least provide some incentive in a substantive way to make something new in difficult situations, to try to be clever, to not use magic when it isn't suited to the story, and to focus on how they're achieving their effects in the story. By all I just said, I think you have probably inferred that yea I do think redescribing spells or coming up with new methods in a good thing, but it's not required, only encouraged.

Do you still have that objective?

I'm to present a portion of my own magic system, yet not to hijack your thread, but to explain some of the background of where I'm coming from. About three years ago, I started a Birthright chronicle using Storytelling system (nWoD) . At that time, M:tAw wasn't out yet, so, I designed a simple elemental magic system to suit my needs:

Earth: Protection, shaping
Air: Movement, illusions
Fire: Destruction, charm
Water: Life, knowledge

I hated the idea that any mage would be able to do everything, so, I thought it would be neat if the opposite to your main element was banned. That was until I myself wanted to make a 'mental' mage who was about mind control/read (Fire) and object/location reading (Water). Strict banning isn't the way to go, so, I really like your taboo system. Thumbs up!

To address this originality issue, I started out with the exact same assumption -- to reward clever and well suited spells while resuming to the original difficulty from that point on. I'll address this also in two points:

a) We had a scene where most of the PCs (and most of their allies) were in prison with a life and death appointment to catch. Khalid, the khinasi, had escaped from a prison going through the walls before, but since now they were underground, he needed to alter that trick. He decided to make the most threatening spell ever – to dissassemble his body into indigo blue (most of his spells visual effects are somehow conncted with indigo blue) fly-sized particles of energy, leaving his soul an indigo blue ghost, so he could move though the walls, his "body" following him even through the most smallest cracks.

I decided that the spell was sooo freakingly aswome, and gave him a quite low difficulty to pull ths heavy spell off. The player, luckily, succeeded.

Guards, seeing a blue ghost surrounded by blue twirling dots, gave an alert. The mage who was guarding them emptied his wine bottle he had been enjoing in a nearby cell, and forcibly collected Khalid's body in it. After exchanging some witty remarks ("If you see a bottle you like, just let me know, aye?"), he went to find another bottle to trap Khalids soul as well, and things got REALLY hot. =D

I and all my players loved this and it lead to situations our group coming from D&D never thought it was possible, yet later on, the character used the same method to go safely scouting what's in the nearby rooms, which was totally lame. In that way, I totally agree with you.

b) Signature spells. Or more the like... spells that become an integral part in the play. The real first craze for my players in the new magic system was sending mental messages (Air and Fire mainly). They were totally nuts about them, as it allowed the flexibility they never had experienced in any game. Firstly I was really strict about them. Single spell for a single one-way message, failed roll meant the message wasn't recieved. As this became more and more common, I loosened my grip until... At this point, I don't even consider the people as subjects of tiring when making communications spell (provided they have some empathic link like friendship etc). I just don't see how it would benefit to the story if every fourth or fifth message got lost because of bad die rolls.

With the latter I mean that you should decide if some of the powers are so intergral to the game that they should be somewhat "costfree" or "nearly always successful".

As for the second, you still don't allow a character to be a master at illusions without her also being a master at most other things.  I suppose the question for your setting is: Are those three areas described by skills far more important than all others, such that they handle most cases where a character would want to be specialized?

This is actually done very easily. One can specialise in a certain so-called sub-power. Want to play a master of illusions? Take Charms and say you have bonuses on illusions and penalties (or even inability) in case of transmutations etc.

So, in my system, some could sacrifice her healing powers to gain better insight (both Water)... I think the analogy could be applied Justin's system too.

-Henri

[Valrus]

The Seven Principles of Magic

The Principle of Impetus: This principle is perhaps the most important to the actual use of Magic. It states that all Magic requires Impetus to work. In other words every effect requires a cause. Mastery of Impetus is one of the most important skills a Magus can gain.

The Principle of Equilibrium: Equilibrium occurs often in Magic and in very unexpected ways. This principle essentially dictates that effects caused by Magic tend to cause other actions which bring balance, or incur some dualistic occurence. This principle is not always perfectly visible to the Magus, and it is unbelievably difficult to predict how the principle might function at any given time. A Magi may bring fortune to a relative only to doom some poor soul a world away to bad luck. There are legends of foul Necromancers and power-hungry Magi who have murdered their only loved ones in order to direct ruin onto their enemies utilizing this principle.

The Principle of Sympathy: The Principle of Sympathy is comprised of two related ideas; the first being that like affects like, and the second being that objects and people that become connected maintain some essence of one another throughout their existence and therefore can be used as links in the casting of charms and wards.

The Principle of Taboo: This principle states that every Magi is only capable of an imperfect knolwedge of the ways of Magic. All Magi are bound by taboos which dictate what areas of the Magickal Arts are barred to them. Legends tell of Magi who are not bound by Taboo and such legends are usually messianic in nature because a perfect understanding of Magic is not available even to the most powerful Fae nobility or gods.

The Principle of the Wyrd: The Wyrd is best described as an interconnected web that exists  in and around all actions and can be viewed by those adept in Soothsaying and Sights. The principle which bears its name states that no Magus is capable of using Magick to change the Wyrd directly, and that it is not possible to travel to other times as such. It is possible for a Seer to view the actions which will bring about the future and use that forewarning to alter the future, but Magick is incapable of making direct changes to the Wyrd itself.

The Principle of Essential Nature: This principle states that no Magus is capable through Magick of changing the essential nature of a living being. Magic can never make a Vampire live again, or rob a person of their Faery blood, or reverse the condition of a Lycanthrope. Likewise, it is incapable of causing anyone to gain such characteristics, and is furthermore and perhaps most importantly unable to grant to or rob anyone of Sights. Likewise, no level of transmutation can change the soul of a being, so no matter how convincingly a man is turned into a Newt, they still have the soul of a human being.

The Principle of Life: No Magus is capable of resurrecting the dead or healing grievous injury. When a person is injured, more than their body suffers, their spirit is also damaged. Therefore even though a Magus could reshape the injury through Transmutation, and could even perform first-aid by stopping bleeding, even if the wound were fully sealed using transmutation, the persons injury would still ache and pain them, and their spirit would still be harmed. Furthermore a Magus inexperienced in the workings of the human body could seriously hurt or misshape a person and cause veins to close, limbs to atrophy, cripple or even kill a person. Likewise, a dead body can never be resurrected  because it's spirit has left. Even if a Ghostly remnant of the person spirit remains, they can never more than inhabit the body, and even then the body continues to decay at a normal rate and the spirit is subject to all wards and banishements.

Thought I'd offer some thoughts on these directly since I think enough  has been said about the rest for now.
These seem fairly solid, just need some editing and it feels like you're trying to define the behind the scenes stuff for magic. Also you seem to be contradicting a little, especially in the last one. To me it reads like you're missing out on What exactly magic IS and focusing more on what it can do, but the What would help you define your ideas and rules a lot more.

To my mind I see an underriding thread which may or may not be there. It seems to me that use magic is tied to spirits which are tied to their forms. I.E. a persons spirit determines if they can use magic, but magic cannot effect the spirit itself. the wyrd is the name used for the connections that exist and Equilibrium represents the Magus effecting that web through the physical. Impetus is how that pushing is done. The immutablity of the spirit explains the last two principles(which seem connected and almost the same when I read them, you can change the body but you cannot change the spirit.)

Hope that helps a little bit.