Allright...ditched Sparks. Just didn't like the direction it was going. Ended up stumbling across Rifts: Wormwood...they had this whole section on Symbiotes. Well, that turned me totally off :)

So then I read a post, somewhere, regarding Magic in RPGs (it was linked recently on another post)that inspired a great idea.

And it just fits right into Realm with the moral aspects and whatnot.

So, everyone in my world is born with a small touch of magic. Most just have a tiiiiiny fraction that doesnt do anything significant. Some have simple gifts, such as the ability to talk to a puppie. They cant do anythign else magickal. But then the rare ones come along, with great ability. However, only a few ever have gifts in more than one area. The majority (99%) are single-gift people. Human Torch, Spiderman, etc.

All magick is governed by emotions. Some magic works better under the influence of a certain emotional state. Thus, they are as follows (taken from that post, until I rename them)

Choleric - Anger based magick. Does less when in any other state. Little effect when sanguine.
Melancholic - Contemplative, Reflection, or Sadness. Least effective when angered.
Sanguine - Optimistic or Confident, Happy. Least effective when melancholic.
Phlegmatic- Calm, unemotional. The default state. No penalties or bonuses apply in this state.

So, how do we manage states? I've devised a rudimentary sort of thing here to show you.

Choleric - Take a certain amount of damage, or a story point triggers it.
Melancholic-study, research, story trigger.
Sanguine - victory, achievment, story trigger.
Phlegmatic - Standard state. So, not much to worry about here :)

Now, obviously there would need to be details into the triggers and when they apply.

If they wish to stay in a certain state, they will need to spend Ki(mana) to do it. And, they will need to use precious action points in combat to maintain the state as well.

So we could say:
John casts a Fireball. He is really pissed off. He smites the target easily due to the anger fueling the attack magick. He then gets confident against the rest of the opponents. He cant afford to force anger through magick, so he either needs to hurt himself, or get hurt, to get angry again. Until then, his fireballs are far less effective.

And neatly, this ties in with the Sway system quite nicely. Mages are fueled by their own emotions...which will directly conflict with moral virtues a lot of the time. So they now need to weigh int heir emotional state to the Sway mechanic. Do the right thing, or complete the desired magick.....

Thoughts? I like the idea a whole lot. I'm sticking with this template for sure.

Thought One: why do you have the -k appending onto magic?  Is there a damn good reason?

Thought Two: I love games that let everybody do magic to some degree.  Nearly every other action is accessible, if not easy, for all other characters -- everybody can fight, everybody can (attempt to) sneak around, everybody can interact socially.  Why is magic this arena that only some people can do it, and some people can't?  It's bullpucky.  Making magic universal, and letting people specialize in it much like a gladiator specializes in fighting, is very cool.  (And it shakes out a lot of issues with the rest of the game, making it all work better.)

magick, heh. Out of habit :) lot of sources ive read from do it as such and it stuck. I associate withotu the K as streetmagic. simpler feats

Hi!
  Looks cool. Seems more focused than symbiotes. I think mechanically Choleric gets the short end of teh stick. Especially if you are going for a simple system. How many HPs will people normally have? 5, 10, 20? In their quest to get enough damage to cast their spell, they might die, lol
  Phlegmatic is a poor choice of word in my mind. One it is so open to teases and verbal abuse. Two, it does not evoke any thing I would want to be. Again, maybe base them off of behaviors you want to encourage:
Rage: Characters who use combat skills or intimidation
Happiness: Characters who help another or accomplish a goal
Sadness: Characters who fail to help another or accomplish a goal
Timidity: Characters that fell combat or use willpower
  I don't know, these are not perfect, but might get your creative juices flowing...

Hey Chris,

I must say I'm not sad to see the Symbiotes (Sparks) go... the idea of playing a character with a (potential) multitude of uglies pasted to their body didn't appeal to me, as you already know.  ;-)

Now, when you say 'governed' by emotions, do you simply mean as a difficulty/damage/effectiveness modifier? If so (and it seems you do with your fireball example - otherwise you would need to be angry to even cast it), you will still need a larger system of magic.

You say some people are 'born' with the gift, others are not... does that mean a character has to choose their gifts at character creation, and are 'locked in' forever? Or can they be 'learned' or 'bought' after creation? (and if so, do you assume they always had it and are just discovering it?)

Also, I'm not sure how comfortable I would be to have to spend points to influence my characters emotions... it really takes away from role playing... I do see the need however, otherwise the typical power gamer will somehow always be in the best mood for a given situation.... it's a real balancing act, but one that can offend the actors of the group. I suppose it all comes down to what you want the feel of your game to be.

All that being said, it's a very interesting idea, and if fleshed out properly could be fun.

Good Luck!

YUes, you hated Sparks. I know. I may still USE symbiotes in the game, just not as a major factor. Maybe something a character can find that adds +1 to a gift or somethin. *shrug*

As for the rest of your questions, archer: 

Governed by Emotions: Yes, it modifies damage, duration, etc baased on your current emotional state. You CAN cast in any given state, it just wont always be as effective.  Initially I had thought a Rock/Paper/Scissors concept woudl work better, but found a lot of loopholes in doing it that way. Why even bother beign a mage when its guesswork, right?

Characters are born with the gift, yes. They either have it or they dont. Everyone has a TINY spark, but few possess any magickal abilities beyond "coincidental" sorta stuff (Dowsing, able to make a garden grow no matter what...astoundingly qualified blacksmith )

I may allow leeway for it to be done after character creation, but personalyl I would rather them choose it. Spend some character points and then deal with having less in other areas and a wimpy magick ability at the start in return for great power later. Not have a fully done character decide that he wants to learn fire magic and become an Uber character.

As for spending points to influence emotions: Its mainly intended as a "stopper" of sorts. Say you get into a fight, you defeat the BIG guy, but his cronies are still around. You are confident though, cuz you killed the Big Bad...now his cronies seem worthless to you. You get cocky. Your mood changes. Now your fire isnt quite as firey. yo need to get pissed off if your fire is to have full effect.

That kinda thing.

Chris,

Emotions are difficult to write into game mechanics.  Different things cause different people to react in different ways.  When some people get hit in a fight they get angry.  Others become afraid.  When a persons significant other leaves them this might make them depressed, angry or happy that they are free of said person.  However, all people feel these emotions.

What if each character had an emotional stimuli.  There is something that makes then Angry.  Another which makes the Scared.  Etc.  This way instead of railroading the emotional state of the characters you allow the players to control it in a way that can be reflected by the game mechanics.  (This idea for stimuli is partially based off of Unknown Armies Obsession mechanic.)

I agree with dindenver that your emotion list could use a bit of work.  Since you are using some of the Seven Heavenly Virtues as proposed by St. Thomas Aquinouses, consider using some of his Seven Deadly Sins to define your emotional states.  You might want to combine some of them as well.  Example:

Rage:  What makes you angry?
Pride:  What do you pride yourself in?  What makes you feel valuable?
Greed:  What do you want?  What do you desire?  (Also encompasses Lust, Gluttony, Envy)
Sloth:  You don't have a sloth stimuli.  It is being stimulated when none of the above is.

Consider this.  What if, instead of making each type of magic's power totally derived from one emotion, you make each emotion have a specific effect on all powers?  Then, link each power to a specific emotion so that it has double the effect from that emotion.

Example:
Rage increases potency.  If effect occurs, add +X to that effect.
Pride makes effect more likely to occur.
Greed reduces the cost involved with casting spell.
Sloth reduced chance of opponent resisting effects.

Finally, Symbiots.  What if they added power.  A lot of power.  Enough to put a mortal on the same playing field as a Dreamer.  However, as long as a mortal wears a Symbiot it permanently drains his stats.  If a normal person has 20hp, maybe they drain 2/day.  So Symbiots will eventually kill their user or drive them insane.

Best,
        Bill

Bill:

Agreed, a mechnanic to manage the emotions is planned and absolutely essential in order to make it even remotely workable.

As for the emotion fueling magic and so forth..thats also the idea. All spells can be cast regardless, they jsut work better under the influence of specific emotional states. However, I also like the additional ideas you mentioned...where rage fuels power into the spell, etc etc. So lets say there are 4 types of magic, again:

In all of the below examples, lets assume the caster can opt to increase a single element of the spell in question. So on a Rage spell he could increase damage OR increase the effect and not both.

Fury: When enraged, the character gain +X dmg to all magick attacks. Furthermore, non-magick attacks have greater effect. However, magick fired in a state of rage is more costly and can result in fatigue.

Calm: Magick used in a calm state has no bonuses or penalties.

Insightful: Spells cast under this emotional state gain a benefit to duration. Any "enchant" spells operate at +1 efficiency. Damage is reduced to 1/2.

Contentment: Spells cast under this state fatigue the caster less, and use less mana to cast.  Damage is reduced to 1/4.

Interesting idea using the sins to define the emotional states, although I would prefer to keep the virtue/sin aspect only attached to Sway.

Gonna go over these thoughts with Archer (hes sorta my right-hand man hehe) and see what we can come up with. hes got the Gift for magic in his head.

Sayter,

It will be almost impossible to write in rules for emotional states like Insightful and Contentment without railroading the players.  If a player, at the beginning of the game, says "X stimuli makes me feel Y" that's fine.  But Insight and Contenement are not simple cause-and-effect states.  They are fickle states which come at odd times in unpredictable ways.

I can understand your desire to remove moral language from your emotional system.  Instead, consider the following list:

Rage:  What makes you angry?  (Grants +damage or +effect)

Love:  Above all else, who or what do you love?  This can be a person, a group, an ideal, etc.  This may not be yourself, or something selfish like money or booze.  When interacting with or to protect that which you love, this is activated.  (Grants -cost)

Sorrow:  Everyone has a secret weakness, a still bleeding wound of the heart.  This is yours.  (Grants +success or -resist)

Rational:  This is the default state.  You are controlling your emotions, they are not controlling you.  None of your stimuli are activated.

Your game is about heroes.  Make the emotions you worry about deep and powerful.  An insightful hero is not that much different from a contented hero.  Worry about the grand emotions that overpower reason and drive men to extraordinary accomplishments.  And do it in a way where the player does not feel railroaded into playing their character a specific way.

Best,
        Bill

ahhhh now I see what you meant initially . Allright, and that does make it a little clearer int he grand scheme by a buckload. Writing it that way would have been un-possible :)

I think that you are right, and pointed out something I forget sometimes. the players perspective :) Heroes, not just Guys that Live in the Fictional Game World. Thus, heroic conflict is the order of the day, even when it is a horrible world and vastly dangerous. or rather, ESPECIALLY in such a place.

The "four emotion" traits could easily be written as Facets on a character in my ssytem, plot hooks i may have before mentioned. easily referensced. or just in the Notes section on a character sheet, even

Might even be neat to make all characters , not just those with more powerful magick ability, have to choose these...I had even imposed that all new characters have to have at least a couple Hook facets. These could be them. Two birds, one stone.

How do we draw the line....what is a fair thing to have "selected" from a players perspective? And what would be efficient from a mechanic perspective? Cant bee too specific or it is useless. Cant be TOO general or it becomes too simple to control. Having "my dad" as an answer to what angers you, versus "Rude People" , seems the obvious choice would eb Rude People....if dad is far away, you cant get angry? Well, I suppose GM fiat and common sense would aply and a roll would ONLY be made if absolutely necessary.

Great direction...

Regarding the drawing of the line and fairness... when dealing with such ambiguous things, it often comes down to the GM... BUT you can give very specific examples as guidelines....

you can ALSO grant greater or lessor effects based on what the character chooses... if it's something that will come up fairly regularly, give them less of a bonus to counteract the commonness, and if it's a circumstance that will occur rarely make it a bit more powerful... of course, the main issue with this is the fact that events can drastically change making the common rare and vice versa, so I suppose there's no easy way.

One possible alternative to deal with this is to increase the effect the longer the player goes without using it... for example, you have a character that gets mad at everything... eventually the effectiveness of rage on his magic wears down, while a normally calm character who finally gets pent up and explodes has a greater effect...

The real question I suppose is just how much of this you want to turn into a hard coded game mechanic, and how much you want to leave up to the GM. In a perfect world the GM could run with every little nuance, but your game will (I'm sure) fall into less than perfect hands, and a certain amount of direction is necessary.

GM controlled effects can make for more magical magic (versus systematized magic) but can also lead to EXTREME player frustration, especially if the GM is biased or plays favourites (or is judged to, even if he doesn't!)

Some other questions, while we're on the topic of Magic....

Is your magic going to be spell based, or more free flowing? (a la Mage and Ars Magica) I ask because of potential overlap with the Dreamers, who i know to be very flexible....

Are you grouping magic types under the emotional categories?

Is there a 'cost' for using magic (mana, essence etc), or can characters cast spells willy nilly?

Not a question, but since your system is loosely class based (I believe Dreamer, Mage, Heroic Mortal can be roughly considered high level 'classes') it can make sense that Mages can learn more 'sparks', since the other 'classes' are locked out... Perhaps your greater sparks are simply those mages that have spent the Character Points... locking it down after character creation seems a bit heavy handed, especially since the majority of mages will then simply make their characters as 'greater sparks' to keep their options open...

Hi Chris.

Just to be contrary: I rather liked your use of the four temperaments. I thought they were interesting.

From reading this article on Wikipedia, it seems that, in the later days of the temperaments theory, phlegmatic was just considered an absence of the other temperaments. So you could always just use three - something along the lines of:

Choleric - Anger based magick. Fueled by the caster taking damage.
Melancholic - Magic which directly affects the caster. Fueled by the caster being defeated.
Sanguine - Magic which, oh, I don't know, something. Fueled by the caster being victorious.

And then the Phlegmatic state doesn't give rise to its own brand of magic at all. You have to unbalance your emotional state to use magic.

Bill is right that it's difficult to write rules governing emotions. However, I think you're on the edge of something really interesting with this. I think that either of these would be interesting (although they're probably mutually exclusive):

1. A rule that, if the player roleplays an emotional state, he is rewarded with extra dice for the appropriate sort of magic. You could have a system like My Life With Master: by roleplaying anger, the player is rewarded with extra dice for Choleric magic.

2. A rule that, if the player casts a particular sort of magic, he should roleplay the appropriate mental state afterwards

Finally, it might be worth reading the game Scarlet Wake. Your "fireball" example reminds me of that game: defeating opponents gives you Fuel (which is anger, basically) and you can use it to defeat more opponents.

Graham

Chris,

One of the great things about using stimuli for your emotional system is it gives your game focus.  You want people to be activating their emotional stimuli as much as possible in a way which drives your story.  So if a player selects "Men who hurt women" as their rage stimuli then the GM should make patriarchy and other female exploitation a part of his game.  If a player selects "the woman whom I once loved" as their Sorrow stimuli then she should be a major element in game play.

A stimuli based emotional system also provides a powerful boost to your story telling engine.  It gives the players a margin of story control, it gives play focus and could lead to some great conflicts with their Sway.  Also consider giving mundane people a bonus when following their emotions.  Not as large as the magic bonus perhaps, but even a little perk can help drive your story.  Perhaps a +1 would work.

Don't worry to much about how specific a single emotion is.  Rather, worry about what kinds of stimuli will drive a story.

Best,
        Bill

excellent , i can totally adapt that in a logical fashion. Just a matter of typing it up hehe

sayter wrote:
So, everyone in my world is born with a small touch of magic.

Choleric - Anger based magick. Does less when in any other state. Little effect when sanguine.
Melancholic - Contemplative, Reflection, or Sadness. Least effective when angered.
Sanguine - Optimistic or Confident, Happy. Least effective when melancholic.
Phlegmatic- Calm, unemotional. The default state. No penalties or bonuses apply in this state.[

So, how do we manage states?

an interesting response. However, relegating spell casting to personality type isnt quite where I want to take things. Given that the "spark" of magick is in everyone, but the sparks that are actually USEFUL are randomly born into people and they can only work that one specific gift and never any others, the usefulness of personality to magick is pretty much obliterated from the get go.

The way it works, at the moment, is that a player would select the trait "Spark" at character creation. This would give them a minimal ability...something extremely random. If they "upgrade" "Spark" to "Greater Spark", then they can select a single gift of magick (Fire, Healing, Earth, Teleportation, etc) and that is what they get. Period. That gift can then be shaped and developed over the course of the characters life in-game.

The emotions that set off diff. states with the magick are employed via personality traits also selected at character creation. Basically , they answer questions:

"What makes you mad?"
"What makes you happy?"
"What makes you thoughtful?"
"What calms you down?"

And from there, we have the triggers defined with minimal headache. The GM can use these triggers and rely on them exactly as written...or can embellish a bit.

For example  "What makes you mad?"  - Misogeny(sp?)

The GM could strictly use it to mean when a woman is disrespected or hurt...or he could use it whever ANY sort of action happens that involves a woman being on the lower end of the deal than a male. This sort of thing would be very applicable to one of the races in the game, who are matriarchal in nature. Their entire society is basically ruled by women. Thus, the character would be angered in ANY other place that did not hold the same sort of ethical grounds for the treatment of women.

It is flexible, yet also inflexible. Like any good RPG mechanic, its all in how it is used by the group or GM. I would rather allow this sort of flexibility with choices than force a character to behave a certain way because the rules say "they have to do it".

This is exactly why I have always disliked the idea of "Alignments" in typical fantasy games. Rarely do players follow them, and when they do its almost always because of a nazi-esque GM policy to moderate and enforce such alignments. This limits play, and also severely retards the concept of "roleplay". Just because someone is "Lawful Good" doesnt mean they cant slip a tiny bit and still remain that sort of person afterwards. Even the most perfect of Paladins makes mistakes.

However, the 4 humors were the inspiration for the idea of my magick. Elemental aspects are the core base of the mystic nature of my world. Some magick effects, however, do not fall into the 4 elements. For example, teleportation is not strictly reliant on Wind...and a magickal gateway is not really a product of any of them.

That seems to be the issue with magick. Not what is NOT possible in the world using its power, but what IS possible. It is even more difficult when one of the character types (Dreamers) is capable of feats more powerful than any mage could ever hope to achieve. Avoiding overlap, and still allowing the magic user to be a useful "class" is one challenge after another.

Hi!
  Well, maybe you should lay off the limiter mechanics for magic. If Sparks can cast magic without ramification, that balances out against the sway mechanic of Dreamers and their more powerful abilities.

sayter wrote:
an interesting response. However, relegating spell casting to personality type isnt quite where I want to take things

ahhh, okay....though that is kinda the way it works in the current incarnation anyhow, tyg. Not in that exact fashion, of course. But the concept is very similar.

For lesser sparks , the gift is random. They could end up with a completely useless ability...or one that has every day use like fashioning perfect baskets every time, or always baking a perfect loaf of bread no matter what...etc. Something that is deceptively simple and not necessarily construed as "magic" in the grand sense of things.

Those with the "greater spark" are able to select it, simply because those playing characters who cast magick arent going to want a random roll, for the exact reason you mentioned. The people aiming to roleplay a character with magick are going to want their powers to suit a specific area. Someone who wants to heal isnt going to select the fire element as their area of power. Much the same way a pacifist isnt going to choose fire either. I see no reason to limit it to personality type, because the player will determine what they want to be able to do anyhow.

I read that same article on John Kim's site. It started some of my research into classical elements; which is my stat basis for Heretic. Here is some background if you want to use it for your magic system.
The four temperaments come from Galen; court physician to Marcus Aurelius. His work formed the basis for medicine until Paracelsus decried humors in favor of outside influence in the Early 1500s.
Galen's views were based on Hipprates four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. Hippocrates based his ideas around the four classical Greek elements.
Aristotle added aether as a fifth incorruptible and eternal element to define the heavens. This view gained popularity with the catholic church as it demonstrated the temporary proprieties of earth and man versus the eternal aspects of heaven.
The four elements are tied directly to four of the five platonic solids (Aristotle never directly associated aether with the dodecahedron) which ties nicely into gaming if you want to use that somehow.
(platonic solids:  octahedron=air    icosahedron=water    tetrahedron=fire    hexahedron=earth)
check http://www.answers.com/topic/four-humours?method=5 for a table of the humors, temperaments and some other related ideas.
It goes a lot deeper than that, but that should be enough for a start. The interconnectivity of the humors, elements, Greek math and a lot of other things is quite extensive. After all this was the predominate world view until around 1500. I used them quite extensively in Heretic, but more as a loose basis to determine the flavor of an outcome. Just do some searching for humors, platonic solids, and classical elements. There are all sorts of gaming uses.
Hope something here is useful to you.
Jack

Thanks Jack, some interesting references there. I will check it out.