Exhaustion/Strain based Magic . . .

[Chris]

To put minor magics in perspective, I often consider the fact that a traffic light could be seen as a minor ward--very few will pass the line established by a red light, and the moment you do, there's usually an intense feeling of guilt and paranoia involved. Traffic lights are mundane these days, so a similar effect might have been just as mundane back in The Day--and if so, there may be no need to consider it "magic."

But that might mean *gasp* role-playing rather than turning to dice and a chart for solace.  Your suggestions is so intuitive and simple, but I think it gets to the core of my problem - if players played out their characters as honoring wards, cursed areas, etc., everything would work.  Perhaps there could be some sort of "Karma" bonus for "obeying the traffic-lights", something like sorcery's role-playing bonus to checks.  

And I'm thinking I AM thinking of two different systems. . .

[Jay Turner]

Well, you could require a check to set up the ward, then a check to break it. I don't know what your system is, but in Storyteller terms, it might be a Charisma + Hearth Magic roll to set up the ward, and to break it you might have to make a Willpower roll and match or exceed the success of the creator of the ward.

To make magic "mundane," you don't have to hand-wave it; rather, you can just make a skill that rules "mundane magic" and have it work under the same system as other skills. You'd require a skill check for First Aid/medicine, so why not for setting wards/blessing a weapon?

The way you describe it (I haven't read any of those sagas), it seems like the minor magics are, essentially, mystical sciences that anyone can perform, provided they have the training. The thing that separates that from your average skill is, in my opinion, flavor text.

[John Kim]

To make magic "mundane," you don't have to hand-wave it; rather, you can just make a skill that rules "mundane magic" and have it work under the same system as other skills. You'd require a skill check for First Aid/medicine, so why not for setting wards/blessing a weapon?

The way you describe it (I haven't read any of those sagas), it seems like the minor magics are, essentially, mystical sciences that anyone can perform, provided they have the training. The thing that separates that from your average skill is, in my opinion, flavor text.

I would go one step further than that -- magic is not one skill, it is many skills.  For example, "Medicine" could quite reasonably be considered a magical skill -- at low levels it would be what modern people consider mundane healing, but at high skill it is what would be called "magic".  

One of the problems of RPG magic systems (which I talk about in my essay) is that they try to make magic into a neatly contained system.  If you remove the "magic" chapter from the rulebook, you get exactly the results of the modern scientific worldview.  To historical people, however, magic was pervasive.  There is unlikely to be distinction between a "really good healer" and a "magic healer" -- because that process is itself magic.  

Similarly, RPGs tend to view a magic sword as a mundane sword which someone then puts magic into.  This is a distinction alien to the sagas.  One makes magic swords by being really, really good at making swords.

[John Kim]

I thought I would throw in a link which I found useful for saga-based magic:

http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/seidhr.htm

[Mike Holmes]

To get back to the original topic, if I might, I am a big fan of the exhaustion idea (might have to do with starting playing RPGs with TFT). Might not be the best idea here, but I like it in general. I have a few notes, however.

First, many games only limit magic in a way that makes it tactically limited. This bugs the heck out of me. It says thta magic is only considered in the context of combat, and not how it would affect the world. So systems like TFT are at fault here. You get a bit tired, sure, but right after being tired, you can rest for a little while, and be right back ready to go for the next fight.

Actually there are systems that are much worse than TFT. While it might take you hours to recover in TFT, in Hero System if you use the simple default END system, you can recover from any spell that doesn't kill you usually in just a couple of minutes or less. Which means that spell casters can cast spells all day long.

OTOH, recognizing this, Hero includes a system that works against this effect. Long Term Endurance (LTE), is a neat idea. Basically, if you go slow enough, like walking, you can go pretty much all day, and not accumulate too much LTE loss. But if you run, you'll accumulate more per unit time. What this means for spells is that you can perhaps cast "cantrips" all day long, but more serious spells are more limiting. They can reduce your overall endurance in a way that takes day-long periods of rest, or full night's of sleep. In fact I love that you can get sooo tired, that you wake up the next day, still weary from the day before (I allow this to be transfered to STUN loss to represent the pains accumulated from working the day before).

All very realistic, and all very limiting if you do it right. Now, the Hero System rules for this are actually a bit clunky in execution, but the idea is right. Basically, some of your endurance lost should last a long time. This basically makes casting spells very similar to hard work. If you keep the effects that can be produced by magic and non-magical effects similar, then this explains why magic doesn't affect everything in the world (any more than, say, Farming would).

This does mean that, IMO, that strong magic should really task you physically. In Hero if you take too much END loss, you start taking STUN. If you take too much STUN, you take BODY (like HP). So, as long as you require spells to be really costly (x4 END cost for Hero or so), and allow that to really threaten the character's well being, you'll have the limiter that I think really works well.

Mike

[John Kim]

First, many games only limit magic in a way that makes it tactically limited. This bugs the heck out of me. It says thta magic is only considered in the context of combat, and not how it would affect the world. So systems like TFT are at fault here. You get a bit tired, sure, but right after being tired, you can rest for a little while, and be right back ready to go for the next fight.

Actually there are systems that are much worse than TFT. While it might take you hours to recover in TFT, in Hero System if you use the simple default END system, you can recover from any spell that doesn't kill you usually in just a couple of minutes or less. Which means that spell casters can cast spells all day long.

What's wrong with spell casters casting spells all day long?  Your implication is that it doesn't consider how magic affects the world.  In my experience, though, RPG systems rarely consider how magic affects the world anyway.  The major effects happen because of the existance of unprecedented powers, not because of how often per day they can be done.  For example, reliable long-distance communication even once a day massively changes society -- especially when it doesn't rely on large-scale organization.  

My impression is that limiting magic usage is usually based on a game balance perspective.  You make spells very powerful, and then decide that of course they must be limited in usage.  This ignores that you simply don't have to make spells so powerful, or that you can limit them in other ways.  The Hero System discards that: spells can be limited in times per day (charges), but they can also be limited by any number of other means, or not limited at all.  For example, a Fantasy Hero mage with Fireball can cast it all day long, but it isn't an earth-shattering effect like D&D's fireball.

[Mike Holmes]

I agree. But usually the explanations given for why society isn't more affected is that magic is limited. But then they fail to actually limit it. We're just fixing a disconnect.

And yes, you have to consider the ramifications of single uses of powerful powers. Fortunately they're often less.

On the subject of Hero System, I use it as an example precisely because, left to use unregulated, the results will suck. My point is that in designing a magic system for any game, just like carving one out of Hero System, you have to be very careful with how you build it in order that you make it so that the potential effects remain internally consistent with the setting.

In point of fact, when using Hero System I have a ton of other limitations on how spells can be built because it is so problematic. For example, I limit the existence of large, powerful spells in a couple of ways. The system makes them hard for a character to own, and limited in scope when they do. And make the casting harsh enough that it's only done when it's seen as necessary.

That last is important. The feel that I think most people want is to have magic be something that wizards only do as a last resort. That's not often conveyed.

And BTW, endurance is only one way to do it. There are many other better ways. Gandalf didn't do a lot of magic precisely because he was watched by powers greater than himself and use gave away his position. This is another sort of cool limit that one can put in a game, and there are a jillion others.

I was just addressing the one that pertained to the thread.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Right, folks. Chris is specifically discussing a strain/energy approach to magic. We can all provide a bezillion other ways to approach the issue in play or design, but that's not the topic.

Best,
Ron

[John Kim]

On the subject of Hero System, I use it as an example precisely because, left to use unregulated, the results will suck. My point is that in designing a magic system for any game, just like carving one out of Hero System, you have to be very careful with how you build it in order that you make it so that the potential effects remain internally consistent with the setting.  

Well, I would phrase it more that you have to agree what magic should be like.  One way to do this is regulating it, like the suggested procedure in Fantasy Hero.  Chris ran his first T'ang Dynasty China campaign by filling out the two-page form from Fantasy Hero, and I thought it worked surprisingly well.  We put a huge amount of effort into the magic in later versions of that campaign, with IMO only modest improvements.  I played several Hero System games where I didn't specifically regulate magic this way -- but I suppose you could say that it was still regulated by having a hand in character creation.  

The system makes them hard for a character to own, and limited in scope when they do. And make the casting harsh enough that it's only done when it's seen as necessary.

That last is important. The feel that I think most people want is to have magic be something that wizards only do as a last resort. That's not often conveyed.

Is it?  Well, I really can't say what most people want, but I think I've tended for the opposite.  Magic in my games tends to be integral to the character and perfectly reliable within its scope.  I have tended to discard options like casting rolls, botches, and spell points in my games.  

I suspect that we may be talking about different things, so I'll give an example.  Magic in my current campaign centers on the PC Silksif, who is a shaman -- a Lapp tradition borrowed by vikings, called by them a gydja (priestess) or volva (prophetess).  Speaking to the dead and the spirits is her primary function -- it requires her going into a trance and some time, but it is reliable.  I originally called for skill rolls to do this quickly and/or with distractions, but I have tended to drop this -- though this is partly because she is highly skilled.  If we had a lesser shaman among the PCs I might call more often for rolls, but going into the spirit world is still automatic under good conditions.  She also has sending rituals of significant power, but they are platform magic: they require her to lie on a raised platform in a trance for the duration.   Thus, she tends not to use them because they are impractical -- though I suspect there is also a social aspect to it.  More overt castings are not frowned upon per se, but they do distance her from others who find it unsettling.  

Still, the overall feeling is that magic is omnipresent for Silksif.  Magic is not something she regards as a last resort.  For example, she did use sendings to spy in bird form on her ex-lover Kjartan.

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm. I really can't see it being a common idea that magic is more reliable than, say, skill.

Note that we're talking RPGs here. Sure, in ancient literature and legend it might be different. And there's nothing wrong with it being reliable. It's just that there seems to be somewhat of a backlash in RPGs against the idea of reliable magic that you find in (all editions of) D&D.

But, let me restate, then. For those who want magic to be a last resort...see the above.

Mike

[Chris]

She also has sending rituals of significant power, but they are platform magic: they require her to lie on a raised platform in a trance for the duration. Thus, she tends not to use them because they are impractical -- though I suspect there is also a social aspect to it. More overt castings are not frowned upon per se, but they do distance her from others who find it unsettling.

John, our ideas do seem to be running parallel.  I was going to put my notes on Runic magic online to be linked, but I found out the files corrupted.  Fun fun fun.  But I am tentatively making simple rune casting error free, and bind runes always succeeding but with somewhat unpredictable success, due to their comlexity (% of stated intent or something).  The only "limitations" would be the extremely labor intensity (carving onto steel), the social stigma often associated with anything magical (even in pagan societies those with otherworldy powers were, if not anathama, at least held highly suspect), thus making daily rune-carving highly impractacle.  

(Ron, thanks for trying to reign this in, but I think my question has changed :)

My only problem with this is - if someone can carve a rune onto my sword to make it more damaging in battle (+1, or whatever your system is), why didn't anyone just set up a magic sword shop and crank out runed items all day?  Sure, people would seek out a wise man and have him bless or inscribe something, by there isn't anyone riding around with a magic sword, helm, cloak, saddle, horn, loin-cloth, soup-bowl, et cetera.  I guess this is what started me thinking along the lines of strain/exhaustion, as then you CAN'T keep it up forever.  

Even in the Legendary sagas like Sigfriend, items are rare rare rare - once he has his sword and helm, those two items make him the most loaded guy in town.  And where did they come from?  Forged by the Nibilungs, given by gods . . . not made by man.  Of course, this is a world where greedy old Fapnir just turns into a dragon one day, so perhaps trying to find a system won't work, at least not how I first thought.

BUT . . . in order to have some order, as Ron was rightly suggesting, I propose any ideas about saga magic go over HERE http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6247 under my saga campaign thread, and we can keep this about ideas involving strain/exhaustion.  I might be working on sagas right now, but I'm still interested in how people think of handling stran magic, as it does tend to be one of my favorites.

[Andrea Gualano]

Some time ago I was thinking about "realistic magic"... well probably my very personal idea of what realistic magic should look like.
The definition I found was:
1) the only form of common magic should be very simple spells, of minor effect (and probably such things could be achievable even without magic)
2) legends tell of really powerful magic, and people are really afraid of witches, even if they've never witnessed such powerful magic

A way to enforce such magic by mechanics could be with an exhaustion system in which powerful spells can stop a character from using further magic for weeks or even moths.
Spellcaster characters will avoid using such spells because of the very costraining consequences, but they would be able if they wanted, and from a mechanical POV people have good reasons to fear witches/warlocks...
This could led to a game world where magic is pervasive, but powerful spells are rare enough not to change the "normal" way of things. (But spellcasters can gain much power by fear or persuasion)

[Chris]

A way to enforce such magic by mechanics could be with an exhaustion system in which powerful spells can stop a character from using further magic for weeks or even moths. Spellcaster characters will avoid using such spells because of the very costraining consequences, but they would be able if they wanted

So an extreme drain/exhaustion.  But what the actual system?  I'd be interesed in seeing a few more actual examples bandied about - referencing other systems and discussing theory is great, but does anyone have any rules ideas they'd like to share?  I have mine, but they are a)on a corrupted file I am fighting with and b)in retrospect both mathematically cumbersome and highly derrivitive.  I might throw them on-line just as a starting point, but I've quickly lost interest in where it was going.  Anyone else?

[Mike Holmes]

Well it's kinda hard, not knowing what the rest of the system would be like. Ideally it should fit right in.

But let's say that you had a hypothetical Magic Endurance (ME) stat that was unrelated to other stats. Basically when you cast a spell, you use some amount of ME. Then you get back your base ME every time you rest for eight hours, or sleep for four. This rate is penalized for less than optimum resting spots, and maybe boosted for resting in a magical place (think Rivendell).

Now, to make it interesting, Base the ME loss not on the base cost of the spell, but on a calculation instead of the difference. Thus, if a spell costs 13 to cast, you subtract the 10 ME, and lose 3. So now your ME is only 7. Now if you cast the same spell you lose 13-7 = 6 ME for a new total of 1. Cast it yet again, and you lose 12 down to -11. Cast it again, and lose another 23 down to -34. Next time I go down to -81. Next is -174. Call -200 the limit, so this spell can't be cast again. In fact, no spell with a positive cost could be cast at this point.

Now if I go to -174, it's going to take me about  19 rest cycles to get all my ME back (at 10 per cycle to get back to +10). At the very best, that's nearly five days. If you want to allow players to dig bigger holes, just lower the minimum to 500 or 1000. At near 1000 in the hole, it would take nearly a month to get back to full. And note that if you're that low, that it takes you nearly half the time spent descending even getting back to the point where you can cast one spell. Logarithmic that way.

Thus a character under this system would have exponentially more incentive to stop casting spells after each one. I mean cast this spell once a day, and you can rest it off in one night. And you can cast another in an emergency. Cast it six times, as in the example, and it's days before you can cast anything again.

I've made more elegant versions of this before, but this is just the one that comes to ming.

Mike

[Chris]

My idea (which was based on the d20), had a MP (mental point) die, which worked just like the hit die - so it generates your clasic magic points.  Spells have two ratings (level and effect), which you can chose to make the spell more or less powerful, and also set your target number for a save versus the spell.  The spell costs a number of MP = level, plus any aditional damage taken if you fail the save.  A character could spend any number of MP, even more than they have, but excess converts to HP damage and renders the spell caster unconscious.  Casting a spell above your level incurs a penalty against the save, and increases the damage if you fail - thus a first level character could cast a tenth level spell, but they'd most likely fail AND kill themselves.  But, if desperate enough, any level character could cast whatever spell they needed . . .  I'll get my spell ideas on-line someday.  Really.