How to keep magic magical?

[Knucklebones]

I've been trying to find a way to properly incorporate magic into my game system, but to do it in such a way that its effects are more flexible and player determined than what is normally found in the more popular games (Dungeons and Dragons, White Wolf Games, etc). My main goal is to keep magic... well... magical -- something special and unique with effects that are far more interesting gameplay-wise than "you do 3d6 damage".

So far my system for magic does not use a rigid collection of spells, but instead allows players to choose one of three magical Paths to learn, and once they have chosen a Path they may cast spells from two out of three of their chosen Paths different Branches. Players then create their own spells that fit within the guidelines of their chosen Paths and Branches, and may use them once they get the GM's approval. I figured that by setting up the system in this way it would keep players who choose to use magic focussed on very specific magical abilities rather than using the stuff to solve all of their problems in the game. I also am trying to find a way to eliminate the spellcaster-as-warrior dynamic by making the magical system more closely resemble real-world folk magic (spells require hour long rituals, the character needs certain rare re-agents, etc.) I like the idea of players using magic to solve non-combat problems, but still useful to furthering their goals.

Can anyone think of something I've missed in my reasoning -- some better way of working out magic?

[Eero Tuovinen]

Welcome to the Forge!

This is a large topic, and it's been discussed earlier in many forms on these forums. A relatively recent favourite I seem to remember was one where Vincent Baker was trying to explain structuralism... it was either this or this one, I can't be bothered to read them through to ascertain which. Both should be pretty educative reads, anyway.

Other than that, the magicalness of magic is a pretty complex issue, one where I'm not sure mere rules structuring will do the job. It's a definitional issue first and foremost, as magicalness means so different things to different people. After that it is, I suspect, a matter of mood and expectation which certainly can be worked on with rules design, but which are also most suspectible to the experiental context of the participating players. What works for me to make a magical atmosphere wouldn't necessarily work for you, for example, partly because we mean different things with the term and partly because we react in different ways to the same stimuli.

That being said, I'd be interested in discussing this more, but to do that I need to know more about the kind of game you're making. You mention things like skill breadth, GM approval, ritual length and reagents, which makes me understand between the lines that the function of magic in your game is to resolve situations. (Well, not so between the lines; you say it directly.) Looking at that in a wider context, what would you say is the overall goal of your game system? I don't think it's possible to look at the magic subsystem comprehensively without at least some knowledge about the goals and emphasis of the overall system.

[Knucklebones]

Welcome to the Forge!

This is a large topic, and it's been discussed earlier in many forms on these forums. A relatively recent favourite I seem to remember was one where Vincent Baker was trying to explain structuralism... it was either this or this one, I can't be bothered to read them through to ascertain which. Both should be pretty educative reads, anyway.

Other than that, the magicalness of magic is a pretty complex issue, one where I'm not sure mere rules structuring will do the job. It's a definitional issue first and foremost, as magicalness means so different things to different people. After that it is, I suspect, a matter of mood and expectation which certainly can be worked on with rules design, but which are also most suspectible to the experiental context of the participating players. What works for me to make a magical atmosphere wouldn't necessarily work for you, for example, partly because we mean different things with the term and partly because we react in different ways to the same stimuli.

That being said, I'd be interested in discussing this more, but to do that I need to know more about the kind of game you're making. You mention things like skill breadth, GM approval, ritual length and reagents, which makes me understand between the lines that the function of magic in your game is to resolve situations. (Well, not so between the lines; you say it directly.) Looking at that in a wider context, what would you say is the overall goal of your game system? I don't think it's possible to look at the magic subsystem comprehensively without at least some knowledge about the goals and emphasis of the overall system.

Thanks for the speedy reply!

The overall goal of my game system is to give players a framework for resolving situations during the storytelling (isn't that the goal of every system though?), and as such I wanted the rules to be a means to help guide people in roleplaying in the game world rather than a structure to be rigidly followed and result in stifling creativity with charts and statistics for every possible outcome of player decisions. I wanted the emphasis of the game to be adventure and exploratoin, but with the Player characters being just as vulnerable to injury as any enemy they may encounter (in the real world good people get shot just as often as bad, no matter how skilled they are) -- in this way I hoped to make non-combat options a viable solution for solving problems in the game system, and Magic is meant to be another option for solving problems. 

By making Magic a long or expensive process, I hoped to make it something which couldn't be done on the fly during combat but instead something employed by characters as a means of solving problems. Why use a Fireball when you could just shoot someone? On the other hand no amount of weapons training would help you to control the weather, or temporarily render yourself invisible, or allow you to speak to ghosts. The goal was to make the tasks which magic is used for be things which could ONLY be done easily with magic.

[greyorm]

A very good question, and one I've grappled with in the past as well. Allow me to share some thoughts and observations.

've been trying to find a way to properly incorporate magic...in such a way that its effects are more flexible and player determined...My main goal is to keep magic... well... magical -- something special and unique with effects that are far more interesting gameplay-wise than "you do 3d6 damage".

The problem you are running into is actually age-old and has been tackled before time-and-again with varying levels of success in varying ways. My hard-won advice on the matter is that the "feel" of magic is not in the mechanics or how you decide to dress it up in game terms. Magic, when it feels like magic, does so because it is both mysterious and exotic.

Here's what I mean by that: you state you want magic to do more than give a game-play effect, but what does magic do if not provide an effect in the game? A spell or magic must "do" something or players wouldn't take characters that could utilize such.

This is part of the problem: by their nature, the mechanics, the system, whatever it happens to be -- whether it's "set, level-based spell lists" and 3d6 fireballs or "free-form spell creation" and narrative embellishment -- makes magic feel mundane because there's no "black box" to the equation. You put X in and Y comes out, and you know whether or not Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead. As a player, we know magic does something and we know both how and what that something is.

So it seems you can't solve the problem by restricting players to certain effects or making spells require rare reagents and detailed ritual practices, because we already know -- almost have to know -- all the mysterious details so we know what we're doing when we have a character work magic. So it also It seems very hard to get away from the idea that magic affects the environment and therefore has a quantifiable effect in the game.

Even if we change magic so that it doesn't have any real mechanical effects in play, then all we have is straight Color without anything in its favor more than the addition of an aesthetic (and game-oriented players may ignore or not bother with such). Since you don't need any rules for Color, just a sense of the poetic and of wonder, you can make even 3d6 fireballs interesting with that method.

In the end, it would be better to quantify what you mean specifically by "making magic more interesting than {some mechanical effect}"? Interesting in what way?

Players then create their own spells that fit within the guidelines of their chosen Paths and Branches, and may use them once they get the GM's approval. I figured that by setting up the system in this way it would keep players who choose to use magic focussed on very specific magical abilities rather than using the stuff to solve all of their problems in the game.

These solutions seem a bit haphazard given the rest of your desires, and do not seem as though they would actually make your magic system meet your stated design goal above (making magic more magical).

Players create their own spells that then require GM approval. So you want more player creativity, but at the same time require final approval. At such a point, it might be better to simply provide a list of acceptable spells for your players. You aren't gaining much by saying "I don't want restrictive spell lists" and then effectively creating restrictive spell lists.

Instead of telling us what you're trying to avoid, why don't you explain what you want magic to do, specifically and concretely. How do you imagine magic functioning in actual play? What role does it fill in the game? What will the players do with it in the most common situations you see coming up in play?

(For example, if your game will be D&D-like, with combat playing a central role to the system and in play, then crippling players choosing to play magicians and discouraging the mage-as-warrior stereotype with penalties to their combat effectiveness is not a good idea. If the only stage-time a magician gets is solitary magical work, there is a second problem: how would playing out use of this special skill in a scene add to the game?)

Also, you state you do not want the players to use magic to solve all their problems, but you want them to use magic to solve problems and further their goals. This is confusing. It seems the best way to handle such would be to allow anyone be a magician or work magic (since it seems all magic would best happen off-stage, given magic-workers must use rare materials and lengthy rituals)? If not, what do magician characters actually do in play?

I'm not certain I see how requiring specific magical focuses and pre-ordained spells (ie: magical effects) for each magician character removes the "uninteresting 3d6 fireball"-effect you spoke of above?

I also am trying to find a way to eliminate the spellcaster-as-warrior dynamic by making the magical system more closely resemble real-world folk magic (spells require hour long rituals, the character needs certain rare re-agents, etc.) I like the idea of players using magic to solve non-combat problems, but still useful to furthering their goals.

Just as a point of interest for you: when you refer to hour-long rituals and rare reagents, you are referring to ceremonial magic (and there are significant differences between ceremonial and folk magic). Folk magic is things like horseshoes over the mantle and herbs mixed into your tea and crossing your fingers while turning in a circle to ward off bad luck.

[Knucklebones]

Here's what I mean by that: you state you want magic to do more than give a game-play effect, but what does magic do if not provide an effect in the game? A spell or magic must "do" something or players wouldn't take characters that could utilize such.

True, but if magic is nothing more than just another kind of weapon available to the player then why even bother to set it apart in the first place? The effect that magic has on the game mechanics shouldn't be more important than the role-playing opportunities that magic offers the players, and there isn't much role-playing opportunity found in a relatively mundane task like swinging a sword or casting magic missiles. Magic IS a tool and a means to an end, but one that should more closely resemble in game diplomacy rather than combat in the way that it is implemented.

These solutions seem a bit haphazard given the rest of your desires, and do not seem as though they would actually make your magic system meet your stated design goal above (making magic more magical).

Players create their own spells that then require GM approval. So you want more player creativity, but at the same time require final approval. At such a point, it might be better to simply provide a list of acceptable spells for your players. You aren't gaining much by saying "I don't want restrictive spell lists" and then effectively creating restrictive spell lists.

I don't see how allowing players to make their own spells is equivalent to creating restrictive spell lists -- that the GM should have final approval about what is and is not possible in the game world makes sense to me, and if a player makes a spell that doesn't fit in with the setting or is so powerful that it would remove challenges then I believe it is the right of the person running the game to keep it out. The point that I was trying to make was that by allowing the players and their GM to make their own decisions about what magic did in the game, it would allow them more freedom to shape and personalize the game world than simply providing them with a pre-made spell list. The GM of course would also be able to devise spells of his own in this system and players might have the chance to learn or them, or they might not depending on the kind of game being played.

Instead of telling us what you're trying to avoid, why don't you explain what you want magic to do, specifically and concretely. How do you imagine magic functioning in actual play? What role does it fill in the game? What will the players do with it in the most common situations you see coming up in play?

The fact is that I am still working out the role of magic in the game system, but already have a good idea of how it fits into the game world: Magic is rare, and while most people know the meaning of the word almost no one believes in the actual existence of magic except for the naive and those that have actually witnessed it in action. Magic should be hazardous to use for both body and soul, making its use restricted to only those who have been successful enough in their studies to have not gotten themselves killed or driven insane in the process. The use and practices of Magic should also differ wildly from culture to culture and place to place -- in Haiti you can find houngans summoning the loas to posses them, in laboratories across Europe there will be alchemists carefully distilling their various potions, while in the American wilderness there will be tribes performing sacred dances to bring rain. The fact that there are so many different systems of magic prevents any kind of general spell list, and instead favors breaking magic up into broad subtypes based on their effects and then further breaking down those subtypes into more specific categories and allowing the players to decide what their spells do and how they are done using the in game rationale.

Specifically and concretely: Magic should be used to attempt tasks which could not be done in any other way. I gave the example in my previous post of using magic to speak to ghosts -- a skill that could prove very useful for gathering information by the characters, but also provides atmosphere and a sense of the fantastic to the game itself.

(For example, if your game will be D&D-like, with combat playing a central role to the system and in play, then crippling players choosing to play magicians and discouraging the mage-as-warrior stereotype with penalties to their combat effectiveness is not a good idea. If the only stage-time a magician gets is solitary magical work, there is a second problem: how would playing out use of this special skill in a scene add to the game?)

While combat is a part of gameplay it is not the central part of the game, which focuses more on exploration and mystery. As to the question of magician characters, why should magic be a solitary task? Rituals could involve more than a single character, or players could devise spells that require different kinds of magic to work together in concert to create different effects.

Also, you state you do not want the players to use magic to solve all their problems, but you want them to use magic to solve problems and further their goals. This is confusing. It seems the best way to handle such would be to allow anyone be a magician or work magic (since it seems all magic would best happen off-stage, given magic-workers must use rare materials and lengthy rituals)? If not, what do magician characters actually do in play?

The statement that "magic shouldn't be used to solve all of their problems" means just that: players should use magic in situations where it is appropriate. While it is possible to use a gun to drive nails into a wall, it certainly isn't the best means of putting together  a house. The fact is that there are no classes of any sort in this system, so any character could potentially become a magic user if the player chose.

[Manveru]

You might want to focus attention on the resolution dialog/mechanic(s), in play, between GM and player for magical effects.  You might be able to keep the definitions of magic on the character sheet (skills, ability details, etc.) fairly broad (i.e. mysterious, with fuzzy boundaries) so that there's room for GM and player to work out the mysterious details in play.

For example, if you're including ranges for magic effects, leave them vague, don't provide absolute measurements.  Instead, have actual effective range determined every time the magical effect is used, by some factor of the resolution at the time a test/roll is made.

[whoknowswhynot]

Iv'e got two things.  First of all, the universe in WEIRD!  Too complicated for rules to be used to simulate it.  Try to simplify the magic.  It will go much better I think.  Secondly, I do not know if you have heard of Amazing Engine.  The Magic system for it's "For Faerie, Queen and Country" world is interesting.  It has some basic "magic" acts like create, summon, smite, etc.  These basic acts have a general difficulty that is lessened by skill, duration, intensity, range, casting time, components, fetishes, requirements, drawbacks etc.This would mean that maybe spells like the 3d6 fireball would be possible, but require a lot of stuff for it to be effective and then maybe a lot of time to cast or a BIG drawback, like hair starts falling out or something...Just an idea.  Also FFQC requires that the player make up the words to spells or put it in a sentence structure, such as "I now SMITE you with the heat o' the sun for your evil ways".  Never played FFQC, but always thought it was interesting.

[David Berg]

I like randomizing spell effects to at least some degree.  Makes the casters feel like they're doing something experimental and dangerous instead of using "just another weapon".  If you don't mind magic use being infrequent, then possible side-effects, some of them utterly catastrophic, are fun.  For me, the key to "magicalness" is lack of understanding and lack of predictability.  I have a system where numerology determines a spell's auspiciousness, and astrology determines the numeral of any given casting, and the players know none of this.

[Knucklebones]

I like randomizing spell effects to at least some degree.  Makes the casters feel like they're doing something experimental and dangerous instead of using "just another weapon".  If you don't mind magic use being infrequent, then possible side-effects, some of them utterly catastrophic, are fun.  For me, the key to "magicalness" is lack of understanding and lack of predictability.  I have a system where numerology determines a spell's auspiciousness, and astrology determines the numeral of any given casting, and the players know none of this.

Those sound like fantastic ideas David! As a matter of fact I was planning on using Magic only infrequently in the game, in order to preserve it as something special -- I hadn't thought about incorporating random effects in the spells though and now I'm considering it. Beforehand I had simply been thinking of making spellcasting a dangerous/draining act for the body and soul, but perhaps throwing a bit of colorful chaos into the mix might help alleviate the grimness of that idea since the setting isn't supposed to be overly dark.

[Adrian F.]

I would define the magic paths by what the can't do and their possible side effects and not by what they can do.And define the mechanical strength of the effect by how many side effects the caster risks.
More specialization  inside a path would remove a side effect and adds a restriction.

School	Restrictions	Sideeffects
Magic	A spell takes a hour A spelll needs a rare component	Nothing The caster is subjected to the same effect The caster dies The spell is delayed 1d4 hours The effect is inversed The caster looses something that is important to him The effect is randomly targeted Everyone knows affected knows the caster of the effect The opposite of the effect happens to the caster The caster is haunted by magical creatures The caster must create the opposite effect of the spell in a month or be destroyed by the imbalance ............
Magic => Nature Magic	A spell takes a hour A spelll needs a rare component A spelll must be performed outdoors	The caster is transported to a far away place is removed
Magic => Nature Magic=> Druid Magic	A spell takes a hour A spell needs a rare component A spell must be performed outdoors A spell can't have a negative effect on plants	The caster is haunted by magical creatures is removed
Magic => Holy Magic	A spell takes a hour A spell needs a rare component The caster looses his casting ability for a month when he harms a innocent	The caster dies is removed

[contracycle]

My standard tuppence on this question: magic that isn't metaphysical is not really magic.  If it exists in the game purely as a toolkit, then it will be treated as a toolkit.

The difference between a magical act and a mundane act is its connection to deeper meanings, things that touch the fundamental nature of reality.  The use of magic implies special insight and wisdom, and understanding of how the world really is at a non-obvious, non-trivial level.  A magician is not a scientist, even they they are both distinct from ordinary people by virtue of knowing things, because the kinds of things that magicians know are related to metaphysical meanings and understandings of the world, while scientists know things that are "merely" physical and "mundane".

[David Berg]

Whee!  This is fun.  I think "magicalness" benefits from having magic be:

1) Non-standardized. Ideally, it shouldn't be possible to say 'well, all 3rd lvl mages can do x, so he must be able to do x'. Some rules of the "no spell may"-type will of course have to exist, but specifics should be rare.
2) Varied. Having played a mage shouldn't give you too vast an insight into what someone else's mage in the current party can do.
3) Full of Cool Bits which are both sufficiently neccessary and sufficiently fun to play that they get played on a regular basis, and hence made "real".  Sacrifices of objects or living things, chanting, dancing, etc.

P.S. I cannot agree strongly enough with contracycle's "toolkit" warning!

[Marshall Burns]

Ok, so this is something that I have very strong opinions about, and I'd like to spout off for a moment if I may.

First things first, some basic "laws" of magic:
1.  If it works, then it is true.
2.  Nothing is created, just moved around.  Sometimes it's moved from abstract realities, sometimes it's assembled bit by bit from disparate parts, but that's still just moving it around.
3.  There is ALWAYS a price.  Sometimes, it's negotiable.  Sometimes it's too much.
4.  Magic is infinitely more mysterious than anyone will ever give it credit for.  It is ABSTRACT, by which I mean that reason, logic, and clear-cut cause & effect will never, ever be able to understand it completely.


Okay, now some other points, effectively derived from the above "laws."

A. Overall, the method for producing magic is irrelevant.  I think you've got that down, from your comparison of a vodou ritual vs. a rain dance.

B.  The magician, no matter how skilled and wise in his craft, does not see the whole picture.  They have a concept that they work by ("My power is provided by an attendant demon" or "My power is provided by the Great Spirit" or "My power results from projecting my disciplined will into the universe" or whatever), but it is either flat-out delusion or it is not the whole picture ("if it works, then it's true" is as far as the concept of truth goes in magic; not much further'n you kin throw it).  All they have to go on, ultimately, is 1) I have access to this power and 2) I am able to direct it to my will... most of the time.  They never KNOW anything.  What separates a good magician from a bad one is not what he "knows," but how well he follows the incomprehensible flows of the universe (whether he realizes he's doing it or not)--and "knowing" things usually makes that harder.

C.  A spell is not a formula, like you find in chemistry or mathematics.  It is not a machine to be operated.  It is an iteration of symbols that somehow speaks to the universe in words it cannot ignore.  From a magical point of view, everything is metaphor, and in a universe of metaphor, well, the symbol IS the thing.  As I think you're aware, spells are also not the only method for producing magical effects.


Now, how does someone go about getting all that into a game?  That's the hard part.  I don't know how to tell you to do it in your game, but here's three different ways I've been doing it for three of my own games:

1.  the "Witch Trails" way.  Magic is based directly on American folk magic, particularly Pow-Wow and Hoodoo.  All four of the stats (Vigor, Wits, Touch, Sand) are "magic stats" insofar as their rational functions are considered to be symbols of metaphysical functions.  Those four stats are also associated with a suit of cards--hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs, respectively--in a manner that indicates what sort of magic each particular stat has an effect on, based on the Tarot suits those suits were derived from--Cups (related to affection, sensitivity, compassion, blood, water; a feminine symbol), Swords (related to thought, wit, caprice, mucus, air; a masculine symbol), Pentacles/Coins (related to craft, practicality, wealth, black bile, earth; a feminine symbol), and Wands (related to will, drive, change, yellow bile, fire; a masculine symbol), respectively.  I don't tell the players this stuff about the suits, because A) it's all kinda weird and B) it's derived from centuries of occult philosophy that I don't have time to explain; there's just a table that indicates what sort of effects are associated with what suit.  The players come up with their own magic and describe its effect and how its done; based on the table, the GM decides which of the 4 suits it goes with, then assigns a Potency value between 1 and 10, plus the value of the corresponding stat (between -2 and +2).  This Potency does not determine the extent of the effect; that's up to the player.  What it does is determine how difficult the magic is to counteract, in case of magical conflict (all PCs in this game are magic users, and they go up against supernatural forces).  The harder the magic is to do (the longer it takes, the more stuff you need to do it, etc.), the higher the Potency should be.  When two bits of magic come into conflict (say, a hexsign that bursts into flames and a spell to summon rain), the one with the higher Potency wins, flat-out.  When a PC wants to use some magic, and they don't have the stuff on-hand that they need, they can spend a number of Chips (character resource) equal to Potency x 5, or they can take on Trouble (negative effects) corresponding to the Trouble tables for a value of Potency x 5 (50+ is usually mortal damage).

Note that the inner-workings of the magic are pretty much not dealt with at all; magical weirdnesses only represent themselves in the form of Color, essentially, provided by the GM and/or players.  All the mechanics deal with is A) does it work and B) how much does it cost you.  And you know what?  There might be conflicting magic already set up by some supernatural threat that the PCs (and even players) are completely unaware of, and, if the effect of a given work of magic is subtle, there's no way to know if it worked or not (which is hella scary sometimes).  Also, a core piece of all resolution in this game is "the Washout," in which the GM narrates unforeseen consequences of the PC's actions--basically, answering the question, are the PCs digging themselves into a grave?  How deep?  The Washout applies just as much to magic as it does to the shoot-outs, arguments, and brawls (this is a Western, by the way).

2. the "Rustbelt" way.  Player describes the magic's effect and the method of producing it.  A work of magic is assigned a "Power" value based on A) how overt its effect is and B) the statistical unlikelihood of it happening on its own.  This usually falls between 10 and 40, but you can go all out and cause an eclipse or something for Power around 100.  Then, based on some tables, you rate the Complexity of the method; does it require verbal components, somatic components, reagents, special accoutrements, time, drugs, sacrifices?  How much of any/each?  So, then you take the Power, subtract the Complexity, and add 10.  This becomes the "Challenge" for performing that magic, and then it goes to the game's core resolution system:  roll a d10, add the applicable stat (with magic, usually "Uncanny"), compare to Challenge.  If greater than Challenge (rarely possible with magic), the goal is accomplished without a hitch.  If less than Challenge, you must either Give or Push.  If you Give, you forfeit the goal, fail the task.  Pushing means continuing on through sheer willpower; you pay the Price (difference between Challenge and your roll + stat), and you succeed.  Most Prices are in terms of Blood, Sweat, Tears, and/or Injury (the damage categories), but in the case of magic, it goes to the Manaburn Table, which includes all kinds of nasty effects ranging from insanity (usually temporary) to hideous scarification to spontaneous combustion to disappearing from the material world for an amount of time.  I want to note that Complexity is, in this system, essentially a down-payment on the Price.  Also, magic done in quick fashion, such as in combat, has a very high Price (time is the easiest way to build up Complexity).

This is a bit shifted up for the purpose of the game's core mechanic, namely that you can accomplish ANYTHING if you are willing to pay the Price.

Also, magic in this game is quite rare, and most people in the Rustbelt will never witness any magic.  Most don't even believe in it.  And, of course, witnessing it is an awesome and terrifying experience (that probably calls someone's Faith traits into question...).

3.  the "American Wizards" way.  Every PC is a magician, every stat is a magic stat (whether they're Physical Attributes, Mental Attributes, Abstract Attributes, Faults, Arts, Lore, Tricks, or Traits), and every action is considered a magical action.  Science is considered a form of magic (hint:  it doesn't actually work the way scientists think it does).  When you try to do something, you basically name 2 Attributes and every Art, Lore, Trick, or Trait that you think is related to the task (either makes it easier or provides the character with motivation to do it), roll their dice (it's a dice pool system), total up the successful rolls (5 or higher, on D6s, D8s, D10s, and D12s), and compare to the opposing rolls (which are done the same way, either by an opponent player or the GM).  If you failed, and you want to put extra OOMPH behind it, you can, but it'll hurt (similar to the Rustbelt mechanic, except damage is represented in terms of losing dice from a stat or taking on some kind of damage/injury/whatever Trait). The core concept here is "Nothing happens unless it is willed to happen."  Inanimate objects are considered to have wills just like everything else; when I try to put my hand through this table, the table stops it because A) I have willed myself to have a material body and B) the table has willed itself to have a material body that happens to be harder than mine.  However, I can overcome that table's will if I try hard enough.  Maybe I do it through Physical means, by rolling my Vigor and Grace, and my "Art: Karate," or maybe I try to do it through Abstract means, by rolling my Command and Flow, and my "Trick:  Phasing out my body for a short amount of time," or some other method, you get the picture; no matter which way I do it, from the American wizard's point of view, it's magic.  Oh, and success is often followed by the GM narrating unforeseen, negative (but usually humorous) outcomes of the PC's actions.

Here, again, is the idea that things either work or they don't, and there's not any explanation for why.  Maybe you just didn't try hard enough, maybe there's another force at work, maybe the stars just weren't right; I don't know.  Who knows?  No one knows.  Because it's unknowable.


So, yeah, I hope that's useful for something or other, or at least that it's interesting and causes you to think of something you wouldn't have thought of otherwise.  And, perhaps I'm flattering myself here, but I also don't mind if you rip off any of my ideas directly, so long as you give me credit.

-Marshall

[Marshall Burns]

Oh, crap, I forgot about one of my favorite bits of American Wizards:  Prevailing Impossibilities.

In AW, the PCs are quite likely to visit separate realities (parallel universes?  Well, sometimes.  But most are at an oblique, and some are downright perpendicular).  In fact, the game centers around the American Institute of Wizard Arts, which is located in a separate reality located in the physical space of an area in New York City and the temporal space of 191X (in other words, it's always somewhere in the 1910s there, but outside of that pocket of universe, it's 2008 -- which also means that the AIWA is not present in New York City today because it's only present somewhere in the 1910s -- how cool is that?).  But, anyway, depending on what pocket of universe you're in, the Prevailing Impossibilities differ.  Let's take that example of passing through the table through Abstract means; at the AIWA, that would be perfectly possible; people do it all the time, and would be handle as normal.  However, if you were to attempt that in the mundane world, where it would be considered impossible (due to the prevailing will that "magic isn't real and science is the only way to understand the universe" in the mundane world), and you'd have to deal with 3 additional forces:  Tension, Snapback, and Impact.

Tension is the force of the Impossibility.  It's another thing you must overcome (i.e., roll against) to do what you're trying to do.

Snapback is what happens when you stop; you've stretched the universe here, but when you let go, it's gonna, well, snap back, much like a rubber band.  Also like a rubber band, it will probably hurt.

Impact is the effect that the action has on people who witness it.  See, you just did something that they consider Impossible, which will have one of the following effects on them:
1.  They ignore it unconsciously, to the point of not even realizing that it happened.
2.  They explain it away as something else; a "rational explanation."
3.  They incorporate it into their collection of Things That Can Happen -- with interesting and sometimes ouchy psychological effects.
4.  They are completely devastated, psychologicall destroyed; everything they know is WRONG!

Basically, Impact is there to make the players think about the consequences of their actions (which is apparently a running theme in my games that I never noticed until now).

Heh.  And, yeah, in comparison to the horror basis of Witch Trails and the hardboiled grittiness of The Rustbelt, American Wizards is very light and humorous.

[greyorm]

True, but if magic is nothing more than just another kind of weapon available to the player then why even bother to set it apart in the first place? The effect that magic has on the game mechanics shouldn't be more important than the role-playing opportunities that magic offers the players, and there isn't much role-playing opportunity found in a relatively mundane task like swinging a sword or casting magic missiles. Magic IS a tool and a means to an end, but one that should more closely resemble in game diplomacy rather than combat in the way that it is implemented.

While this is true -- with magic that is only utilized as a weapon -- it seems the important question remains unanswered: ...what you mean specifically by "making magic more interesting than {some mechanical effect}"? Interesting in what way? It seems your answer here is that you want magic to be interesting by making it do more than blow things up or kill them. Is that a correct assessment of your meaning?

If so, then my previous response and what I was trying to point out there regarding what makes magic magical isn't an issue here because what I thought you were asking was "How can you make players think about magic in a magical way rather than solely as a game effect (which it is)?" And that doesn't seem the case now.

So, you don't want to do D&D, since D&D is all about combat and fighting (which is why magic is specifically a weapon in that game), but it also seems you aren't quite certain what to do with magic or how it fits into your game role-wise, as you note here:

The fact is that I am still working out the role of magic in the game system, but already have a good idea of how it fits into the game world:

You have developed Color and rationale, but what you don't explain is how magic works in this game -- what it's role as a component of a game is. Not mechanically, but specifically: what does it do? What is its function in the game?

If we look at the example of D&D: Arcane magic is another combat option for a game that focuses on combat; it also functions as a bag of tricks for use while dungeoneering. Similarly, divine magic serves to replenish and restore the ability of the characters to continue through the dungeon, and it also has some other toolbox functions. Since the game is about dungeoneering -- fighting monsters and finding treasure -- magic is utilized in that game as a means to that end (and rightly so), regardless of any other color or rationale that might be tacked on to it. It blows stuff up and kills things and so forth because the game is about doing just that. It isn't about gaining political favor or making the crops grow because those abilities are actually fairly useless in the context of the game (even if there's all sorts of color about warring kings and starving peasants).

Now, you don't want to do D&D, so then the question to ask is: what are you doing instead? What is your game about? Knowing that, you can more securely answer what role magic should take (ie: "My game is about X" -- how does it interact with and support the characters in doing X?) Which you state below:

While combat is a part of gameplay it is not the central part of the game, which focuses more on exploration and mystery. As to the question of magician characters, why should magic be a solitary task? Rituals could involve more than a single character, or players could devise spells that require different kinds of magic to work together in concert to create different effects.

I'll start with the end statement and work backwards: Yes, they COULD work together and devise spells to create different effects. Anything COULD be done. Dragon magazine has had years and years and pages and pages of articles full of things you COULD do in a game, many of which simply don't work or fit into the structure of a D&D game because that isn't what D&D did unless you really twisted its arm and ignored all this stuff over here and pretended this other stuff wasn't important.

This is what I was talking about above regarding a clear idea of what play looks like and what the players do in play.

Treat your game like a boardgame for a moment instead of this fuzzy-concept set of different games that have collectively been called "role playing games" where supposedly "you can do anything", and think about you game in terms of players and rules and game pieces. With that in mind, here's the question: how do you make the situation in question (role-playing out magical rituals) interesting and important to playing such that players would want to play it out and describe it rather than handwave it as background? That is, how do you make it FUN and REWARDING to do in the context of the game? (Punishments are easy -- such as "I dock XP if you don't role-play" -- but incentives are hard, because they require a game to work as a whole game -- such as "If you describe the ritual and get a reaction at the table, you get bonus dice, and you'll need them because you probably won't have enough without them.")

So the question really is: do you imagine a lot of play sessions occurring where these sort of rituals are fully role-played and described? Is that really what your game is about? Is that what the rules support players spending their time doing? Or the big one, since you said above what the game is about: How does magic support the play-concepts of exploration and mystery, how does it contribute to those goals in terms of what it does in play?

Now, the answer might be, "You know, my game isn't really about magical rituals. I don't want to spend chunks of my game session with players describing and role-playing out various rituals. There's no real incentive or reward or reason for the players to do so, it won't really further or benefit what is occurring in play. So I guess I don't need it to do anything in actual play except fade into the background the way we know there are local economies and rates of currency exchange between foreign countries and so forth without needing to interact with those things or know anything concrete about them."

And if that is the answer, then that's the answer. You're good. You don't need to change anything to make the players want to role-play magical rituals and spell-research and such. But then you also have to figure out if magicians still have enough to do, or if they are going to be doing "their thing" off-stage so much that you need to change some rules or concepts to balance screen time in play.

If that isn't the answer, and you're thinking, "That stuff will add to play, because they'll be doing this thing to make this happen, and devising rituals to make themselves more effective at that," and so forth, then you're well on your way to making magic work in your game as a vital and interesting part of the process of play.

Finally, allow me to attempt to clarify this statement:

I don't see how allowing players to make their own spells is equivalent to creating restrictive spell lists --

It does so by creating spell-lists after the fact. You haven't changed that spell-lists exist in your game, only where they come from. However, I also think you're hitting the good design mark more than you may realize when you state "...it allows them more freedom to shape and personalize the game world..." Tied in to that is this:

that the GM should have final approval about what is and is not possible in the game world makes sense to me, and if a player makes a spell that doesn't fit in with the setting or is so powerful that it would remove challenges then I believe it is the right of the person running the game to keep it out.

This seems like a social contract issue, not a rules issue: why do you distrust your players so much that you need to make sure they don't screw up the shared game world? Isn't this a case of "only ruining their own fun"? There are numerous discussions here on the Forge about these sorts of issues at the table and about trusting your players and not playing with people you don't trust: who need to be controlled "for their own good" that can be found by digging through the archives.

That isn't to say "anything goes" is the virtue being extolled, but I sense there's some unconscious hobby social attitudes coming into play -- GM-as-emperor, players-as-plebeians or some other sort of subtle adversarial player-GM concept -- that aren't being confronted up front. I may be wrong, of course.

The statement that "magic shouldn't be used to solve all of their problems" means just that: players should use magic in situations where it is appropriate.

That's a good answer. It's also vague: what "an appropriate situation for magic" is will, of course, depend on what your game is about and what the players will spend their time doing during sessions of play, but it isn't immediately apparent from your statements what this functionally means in play. That is, I couldn't say what situations magic would be appropriate for based on what I know so far of your game, though I have some guesses.