I need a sounding board, and you folks always work well for that sort of thing.

I'm trying to chase down an idea that's floating around in my head about creating a magic system that would carry the "things man was not meant to know" idea to the level of real consequences of importance to not just the character but to the player.

This isn't entirely original. Call of Cthulu has sanity loss caused by looking in the wrong ancient tomes, Sorceror (as I understand it at least) has loss of humanity caused by playing with demons. I'm sure there are others.

I'd like something slightly different. Something a little... fae.
Let me throw some ideas around and see where they stick.

There is some sort of shadowland, or mists, or otherwise otherworldly place that is just a little out of synch with our world. This is where the faerie creatures and monsters and magic comes from. There are thin areas where things overlap, the unnatural can wander into our world and if we're not careful we can wander into theirs.
"Strange things" tend to happen in these thin places, in the shadows or the mists.
Magic (whatever magic might be) leaks through these thin areas and may be accessed from our world. Maybe using the magic even makes these thin areas grow, causing more weirdness to escape into our world.
Magic can be a handy tool, great fun to play with, but there's a cost. The magic being channeled through you alters you in some way. If you use magic too much or too recklessly, you become a Changeling, half-fae yourself and out of touch with our reality. Some people will fear you, some people will respect you for you now have even greater power...but at what price?

Now...
How would I go about emulating these ideas mechanically? My ideas are too vague. So you become "changed"... so what? What does that mean? How do I quantify what is changed in the scope of game mechanics? What does "out of touch with reality" mean? Insane? Not quite. Non-human, but still human. Tuned in to a different station than the rest of humanity.
Might be physical changes too, or people just feel like you're "creepy".

I guess I need to find some sources for inspiration.
Any thoughts?
Any suggestions?

Offhand, this sounds exactly like a Sorcerer setup. Aside from actually using Sorcerer in a customized setting, I think we'd need at least a starting system on which to tweak.

Jaik wrote: Offhand, this sounds exactly like a Sorcerer setup. Aside from actually using Sorcerer in a customized setting, I think we'd need at least a starting system on which to tweak.

Madelf, I think you have to force yourself to be quite a lot more specific concerning the nature of magic and the strange world on the other side. (On a side note: reading your story about a paralel world inhabited by strange beings, and so forth, conjured up a very strong image in my mind. It was strong enough that I think I remembered this idea from something I read long ago, but I truly don't know what. Anyway, it is an interesting concept.)

Let me write down the key concepts from your post:
* Real consequences
* Out of synch with our world
* Strange things
* Weirdness
* There is a cost
* Out of touch with reality

Ah! Too vague, too vague! So it's strange, so it's different from our world, but different in what way? You have not even hinted at it. :) It's far too early to even think about mechanics, you'll first have to become a lot more specific about what this weirdness amounts to, what kind of thing the cost is. It might be a good idea just to write down images and words that occur to you, no matter how vague, and see if a picture begins to emerge.

Its hard for outsiders to help at this stage of the creative process, but I want to be perhaps a bit more helpful than merely saying "you've got to work this out!". So the following are questions you might wish to consider:
* Is the other realm connected with evil? If so, is it the understandable, human variety of evil (greed, hate, pride, [fill in your favourite sin], etcetera); or rather evil as the Nothing, the completely Other?
* Are the denizens of the other realm mindless forces? If so, monsters driven by bestial hate and lust, or rather abstract beings with metaphorical significance? Or are the denizens thinking beings? If so, can one talk with them? Can they be trusted? Can they be understood? Could one learn to like them personally, or are they too strange? Do they have real individuality?
* What kinds of effect does the magic from the other realm have in our world? Can it kill? Bend minds to your will? Change fate?

Most importantly, I think you need to find out the Premise which with all this is tied in. "Will you accept power no matter what the consequences?" is a possibility which is hinted at by some of your remarks, but if your idea is anything like the vague notions which are currently floating around in my mind, this is too mundane. Anyway, never mind my vague notions - have fun developing your ideas. :)

Victor Gijsbers wrote: Madelf, I think you have to force yourself to be quite a lot more specific concerning the nature of magic and the strange world on the other side.

(On a side note: reading your story about a paralel world inhabited by strange beings, and so forth, conjured up a very strong image in my mind. It was strong enough that I think I remembered this idea from something I read long ago, but I truly don't know what. Anyway, it is an interesting concept.)

I've seen it done in a similiar manner to Humanity in Sorceror, where the key componant is Control. In a setting with Light and Dark Fae there are 3 sorts of magic, Light, Dark and Wild. The first two a defined by rules.

In Light magic power comes from following the rules. The player says "this is my magic, and these are my rules." As long as they stick to those, all is hunky dory. Kind of like [URL=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0441894674/qid=1089939912/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-7297078-5541543?v=glance&s=books]Wizard of the Pigeons[/URL] by Megan Lindholm.

In Dark magic power comes from breaking the rules, from the willingness to push beyond the boundaries. More can be done, but more is lost. The sacrifice is control, both of the magic, and of the self. In time the magic comes to control you, rather than you the magic. The player says "this is my magic, these are the rules, this is how I break them, this is the effect is has on me."

Wild magic has no rules and cannot be controlled. Mess with it at your own peril.

In the example I've seen, there are no mechanics as such, but I imagine that you could get this effect in a number of ways.

Good to see you again, Calvin.

What strikes me is that the first problem with "this affects you in these ways" is that I have to know why that matters. That is, I can devise any of a dozen mechanical ways of causing changes to interfere with the relationships the player characters have with non-player characters, but why do they care?

Thus for the sorts of affects you're envisioning to have meaning, there has to be something at stake in connection with character relationships. It's easy to suggest ways to "control" the player character's ability to influence, befriend, and otherwise interact with non-player characters; it's a lot harder to make that matter to the player.

--M. J. Young

madelf wrote:
Now...
How would I go about emulating these ideas mechanically? My ideas are too vague. So you become "changed"... so what? What does that mean? How do I quantify what is changed in the scope of game mechanics? What does "out of touch with reality" mean? Insane? Not quite. Non-human, but still human. Tuned in to a different station than the rest of humanity.
Might be physical changes too, or people just feel like you're "creepy".

I think the central problem with reversing the angle so that this personal evolution becomes the subject of play is very tricky for a multiple-protagonist medium. Most such stories concentrate heavily on the internal monologue of the viewpoint character and are thus able to explore personal apotheosis. How you would structure this in game terms is presently beyond me.

What strikes me is that the first problem with "this affects you in these ways" is that I have to know why that matters. That is, I can devise any of a dozen mechanical ways of causing changes to interfere with the relationships the player characters have with non-player characters, but why do they care?

Thus for the sorts of affects you're envisioning to have meaning, there has to be something at stake in connection with character relationships. It's easy to suggest ways to "control" the player character's ability to influence, befriend, and otherwise interact with non-player characters; it's a lot harder to make that matter to the player.

Heh, not only would this work for Sorcerer, but it's been looked at in detail before.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=2130

That said, who cares. What happens in Sorcerer is that if you go to zero humanity (and become fae, in this thread's example), you lose the character. I assume that you want players to be able to continue playing the character, but somehow reflective of the price they've paid? That alone would be different from Sorcerer.

Mike

Hiya,

Not too different, Mike. Many of the options listed in The Sorcerer's Soul permit the character to be continued under the player's control. Calvin, this is probably the main reference I'd recommend on the subject (said hesitantly due to conflict-of-interest concerns).

Best,
Ron

I knew you'd say that.

The point is that there's lots of room for a new game in this area that doesn't handle things precisely like Sorcerer does.

Mike

I think you can rest easy, Ron.
Looking over that Sorcery/Buffy thread, I can see how Sorceror could be used to do something like what I'm after. And the general theme definitely has a lot in common.

But I really think we'll be coming at this from substantially different directions.
I'd say that a big difference will be in the fundamental assumption of how magic will work.

Standard Sorceror wouldn't work for me as I don't want the players summoning the fae as if they were demons and making them do the magic. The fae may be magical but they are not the magic in themselves, they are just a element of an alternate world. They may eat and breath magic, but they aren't there to do the player's bidding.

The idea of translating demons into spells is rather nifty, but not what I want to do at all. I have a deep and irrational loathing of individualized spells, so building spells as if they were demons is not something I want to do at all.

The ritual and sacrifice as "Needs" and "Desires" isn't right for me either. The magic system that I have now allows for ritual and sacrifice and all the trappings, but doesn't require it. Those things just make it easier and safer. This way I can recreate literally any type of magic tradition imaginable and at the same time allow a really powerful (and brave) character to cast magic by simple force of will. I expect I'll carry that basic sytem over into this game as well.

I'm also not into the idea of "Need" and "Desire" elements as part of spellcasting. They sound very appropriate for demons, but far less so for the way I'm envisioning magic. I'm thinking of the magical energy as something akin to sunlight, or fire. Something that can be harnessed to do certain things, and that can hurt you if you're not careful, but that has no sentience, needs, or desires of its own.

The fae creatures on the other hand may very likely have an agenda, but dealing with them would be interacting with another being, and I doubt the fae I envision would tolerate being summoned.

So I think Sorceror is safe from plundering for another day.
;)

Just to throw a thought out, what if part of the transition involves becoming inhuman in your thought processes, such that the player gradually loses control of the character?

Stay with me for a moment. I don't mean that the referee takes over; I mean that the decisions made by the player are less and less likely to work as expected.

The most direct way I can see for this would be by inversely relating the power of the magic to the control of the magic. At the beginning, the character can work a little bit of magic, but he can define it quite precisely. As he works more magic, the amount of power he can release increases, but the amount of control he has over it decreases, until ultimately all he can do is release a great deal of power without any ability to determine what it will do.

Now, one more nuance: it is not that the character has no control over the magic, but rather that the player no longer controls the character. As the character has become more and more alien, the player no longer understands him; he does not think as the player does. Thus it isn't that the character can't do what he wants, but that he doesn't do what the player would think best, because he doesn't think like the player.

Anyway, this is probably pretty far out there, and it would require a lot of work, but maybe it will spark something for you.

--M. J. Young

I think emotional and habitual changes might be effective for this game. Perhaps adding and taking away habits as necessary.

Alien nature takes some time to nail down as humanity is about feeling human. If someone starts off relatively inhuman, then the humanity loss hits them that much lighter. Thus the reason why vampire is generally ineffective: you play a vampire who was once human rather than a human who becomes a vampire.

If the changes are too overt or quick, it's like being handed a new character sheet, losing whatever kind of character you built over time. So a slow progression would allow it to creep in.

For instance, some elementally aligned earth mage starts to change into some kind of rock troll. Maybe the first change is a very small physical change. His toes turn kind of slate grey color. Doctor quickly chalks it up to athlete's foot and the incident is dismissed. Then maybe a slight habit change, like finding that going barefoot is just more comfortable, despite his foot problems. Then he starts to put more salt on his food, higher mineral content vitamins and such, etc. Perhaps when he finds himself chewing on a stone paperweight he thought had been his muffin would he begin to wonder.

As far as emotional goes, it can be difficult to deal with being told what a character feels if the context doesn't seem to have supported it. Being told a villain is scary is nowehere near as effective as when you actually think he is scary. The same goes for emotional change. If the character should be feelign distant from humanity, telling them they have lost an emotion to experience may be more effective than trying to tell them they feel an emotion. YMMV.

When the character finally gets it, you can probably start to get a little more overt as it isn't mysterious occurance or GM headgames. If your lucky, it will seem like part of the character at this point.

Are you going to include magic specific changes(earth mage to rocky stuff, hermetics to bindable spirits, druids to fae, etc.) or more randomly?

So, will the changes be an inevitable slide(ie. a scale that always builds up, never down), a risk(Scale goes both up and down), or punishment to those who do too much(goes down quick, but effects will remain)?

Aberrant (a White Wolf supers RPG) had a taint system, which caused the supers to mutate when they used their powers too much. However, the taint system was so forgiving that players would rarely gain taint long enough or in great enough numbers to risk getting permanent aberrations.

Oh, first post. Sorry if it sounds preachy or pushy.

I've some ideas for your mechanisms.

Write two (or many) different profiles : the first one for Humans et the second one for Changelings. A general description.

Then list different Traits (eg Appearance, Smell, Diet or even Sexuality).

A human character have 5 points in each Human Traits you choose. Each time he does certain things one or two traits changes. The character looses 1 point in Human Appearance and wins 1 point in Changeling Appearance. Describe each change to the player in the narrative way.

Finally use these points in game as bonuses or penalties.

I give you examples.

A character with a Changeling Trait tries to ride a horse, but you've decided (as GM) horses don't like faes then the Changeling Trait gives a penalty.

The same character tries to approach a unicorn. In this case the Changeling Trait gives a bonus.

One option might be to use somethijng like the HeroQuest mechanics. Magicians must pitch their magical abilities against a resistance that reflects the complexity of the magic and the ammount of magical energy required to perform it. On a success the magic is effetcive with the results depending on the level of success, but on a failiure the character is afflicted with a penalty that manifests as some form of otherworldly taint.

Do you risk attempting powerful magical effect, or stick to easier relatively risk free, low powered magic?


Simon Hibbs

I've got a whole thread on precisely Simon's ideas over in the Hero Quest forum. This is how I do magic for my Shadow World game (in theory - in practice, I only roll when I think magic is being "abused").

Mike

Hmmm...I guess the problem I have with Simon's suggestion is it doesn't really strike me as that different from a lot of games. Maybe it is.

In Multiverser, the difficulty, including the power level, of a magic skill is reflected in the probability of success. Obviously, the probability of failure is inversely related to the probability of success; but the chance to botch is also flexible, increasing with the probability of failure (1:10). Thus if you do something extremely difficult, you've got a fairly high chance to botch.

You would have to narrow the possibilities of what happens on a botch to reflect the desire to have it always directly and permanently impact the caster. (Multiverser botches are pretty wide open--you can destroy an entire universe, if you're really unlucky.) But it's well within the expectations of the design.

--M. J. Young

Is he looking for a radical design? I think just some focus could do the trick.

Mike

Agrees with Mike totally.

May the wind be always at your back,
-Pyorn

Okay, I haven't had a lot of time to think about this the last few days and good suggestions are piling up.
I'll try to address a few in bits and pieces.

Just to throw a thought out, what if part of the transition involves becoming inhuman in your thought processes, such that the player gradually loses control of the character?
-snip-

I think emotional and habitual changes might be effective for this game. Perhaps adding and taking away habits as necessary.

Alien nature takes some time to nail down as humanity is about feeling human. If someone starts off relatively inhuman, then the humanity loss hits them that much lighter. Thus the reason why vampire is generally ineffective: you play a vampire who was once human rather than a human who becomes a vampire.

If the changes are too overt or quick, it's like being handed a new character sheet, losing whatever kind of character you built over time. So a slow progression would allow it to creep in.
-snip-

Are you going to include magic specific changes(earth mage to rocky stuff, hermetics to bindable spirits, druids to fae, etc.) or more randomly?

So, will the changes be an inevitable slide(ie. a scale that always builds up, never down), a risk(Scale goes both up and down), or punishment to those who do too much(goes down quick, but effects will remain)?

Then list different Traits (eg Appearance, Smell, Diet or even Sexuality).

One option might be to use somethijng like the HeroQuest mechanics. Magicians must pitch their magical abilities against a resistance that reflects the complexity of the magic and the ammount of magical energy required to perform it. On a success the magic is effetcive with the results depending on the level of success, but on a failiure the character is afflicted with a penalty that manifests as some form of otherworldly taint.

Is he looking for a radical design? I think just some focus could do the trick.

Like was said before, just have effectivenesses be attached to the particular traits, human and fae. As the character changes, losing human effectiveness, and gaining fae, he can still do whatever he wants, but will be tempted to use the fae effectivenesses. This gives you that subtle pressure that you're looking for, without forcing anything.

For instance, if my Empathy for Humans rating becomes an Empathy for Fae, and I encounter a fae and a human both scowling from them having had a fight, I can try to make either feel better - but I'll have better success with the fae creature now, and less with the human. This may not describe the way the interaction occurs in detail, but it represents the "alien-ness" well.

Mike

Calvin wrote: I'm looking to somehow come up with a system that alters the player's perception of their character in a way that changes the way they play that character as the game progresses.
And I suspect that's a tall order.

He then wrote: I think right now I'm leaning toward the pretty simple concept of a merits/flaws system. When you reach a certain level of taint, you gain a fae trait. It might be good, it might be bad... most of the time it might depend on the situation, but whatever the case it makes you somehow different. Probably with a randomized method of deciding what the aquired trait will be, rather than letting the player choose the ones with the coolest powers.