Perhaps I'm wrong. It might not be new at all. Maybe some of the fogies like Ron (I say this only after having read his Fantasy Heartbreakers series, can you say Encyclopedic knowledge?) will know of a system that was like what I am proposing. Basically, I'm creating an Urban Fantasy setting for my open-source system CORE. Initially, it was the first setting I had come up with as an idea and it was what we used to first playtest my system, but the game we played was amazingly fun. I'd like to let my system take some of the credit, the gamemaster was also on that night, but another part of it that I really liked was actually a total fluke. The basic idea of the setting was to make something similar to the works of Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, stuff like Night Watch, Hellblazer, etc. The setting is called The World Behind, and having done some more study it actually has some similarities to Unknown Armies in that it's very much based on a sort of Urban Paranoia that something isn't right, there's something going on behind the scenes, under the streets, behind the cardboard sets we call cities.

Anyway, while I was quickly statting up a crummy but workable CharGen, etc. so we could playtest I wrote really quickly a special ability called Magic. With Magic you could see this world behind, travel "behind the wainscotting" i.e. enter the extra-spatial places that were only visible to those who knew of the world behind the world, and could also cast charms and wards which were basic magic effects and protections against those magic effects. I initially meant it to just be something temporary, but I really liked it. The only caveat made on the whole thing initially was that it was difficult to do spells that were not dramatic, well-described or clever, and easier to do those things that drew on symbolism, irony, turns of phrase etc. I liked it so much I decided to keep it and have continued thinking about it ever since.

Just for a little variance, so not everyone had to be a mage, I broke the Magic skill up into Sights, Doors, Charms and Wards. And I realized as I kpet thinking about it and reading more Contemporary Fantasy material that we have been sort of stuck with magic that is either based on D&D or at best a well thought out response to D&D. Even the better systems, imo, like Mage and Ars Magica were always based on broadening the ability to do a thing with Magic, decompartmentalizing it. What I have come to notice is that games always address the what in regards to magic, but never the how in any meaningful way. And I think this is a grave mistake. I say this because in stories, I think it is least interesting what the character does with magic. Magic is a sort of plot device in stories. Characters wield it like a tool to solve problems, sometimes at a cost to themselves. Solving the problem is not what makes it interesting, a story which fiats a hero succeeding at everything using their skill is rarely terribly entertaining by itself. What is interesting in a story is how they go about doing it, what they must do to use magic and the consequences of using it.

I'll give an example, take the first few issues of Hellblazer written by Jamie Delano (spoiler warning). John Constantine has to bind a demon. Now lets think of this situation first in terms of how most RPG's would handle it, and next how the story actually handles it. In an RPG, if a demon were on the loose, you might at most have to do a little research, investigation, maybe if you have a pretty progressive game master find some sympathetic device or component. Then the rolls for summoning or the spell, then rolls for binding or exorcism. Most games and settings are so vanilla, you'd likely just banish the demon to the otherworld, and there might be a short combat because the ritual takes time if the gamemaster feels like making you work. Or worse, you might just play until you stumble across the demon and fight it outright using special weapons that hurt spirits.

In the story, the ritual itself is more important than the final effect of a demon being bound. The demon is one of hunger and starvation, it's loose in New York city causing uptown fat cats to suddenly gorge themselves on meat, but still wasting them away into a dessicated corpse, jewelers being eating gemstones, collectors begin devouring their comic collections, priests die gnawing at the cross. The person who initially alerted Constantine to the threat was an old friend of his, a junkie who accidentally released the demon. Constantine has to go to great trobule to learn the ritual of a Sudanese Shaman while on a psychedelics trip, and eventually has to summon the demon by stringing out his friend, leaving him unable to score dope. Papa Midnite, a Houngan begins a ritual of calling, and the craving of the junkie lures the demon into a possession of the hapless addict. Constantine then tattoos the wards of binding on his friend and traps the demon inside of him. He gives him one last shot of junk for mercy, and sticks the guy in a cell. The demon is left to gnaw on the soul of a prison it can't escape and like ourborous, it devours itself. Now obviously, not all RPG's have to be so dark. But in this story, the questions of how Constantine does what he does are far more important than the fact that he binds the demon. The binding is solving the problem, the how determines the consequences and the story.

So in essence, what I'm saying is that I want to create a magic system where the what is less important. Where the Charms and Wards abilities allow you to do essentially anything, aside from some bans or limits I might come up with a la Ars Magica or the Dresden Files, Magic can do anything conceivable. What governs the power of a magus, and fuels the story is how they go about doing it, the sacrifices they have to make, and finding clever ways to use metaphysical concepts to acheive a goal.

The way I in particular want to do this is build a simple but in-depth library of mix and match ritual components. Symbology, attunements, magic circles, components, foci etc. etc. all of which can be built upon more and more, which must be learned, and then mixed and matched in appropriate or novel ways to achieve an effect. Primarily and hopefully in ways that are dramatic or clever. Many times the attunements of a spell, acting as story elements, should play a big role. Things like making a hunger spirit eat itself. So magic is based around finding ways through story to accomplish something rather than just a tool to be thrown around in the course of solving the problem.

Sorry this is so long btw. Hope someone has something to say about it. Maybe people who like the idea could help me come up with ideas on how to implement it, and what sorts of Magic elements should be included.

Damn! I came into this thread hoping you were going to tell us, not ask us.

Oh well. I like this idea so much I can barely blink.

Is it possible that Sights, Charms, Doors and Wards is all you need?

Like, um, like, Constantine's stringing out his friend is an important part of the magic, but is not itself a magical act. If you make the magical acts receptive in interesting ways to non-magical acts, that could help create the cool cascading effect you're after.

(Also, if you're asking which existing games you should check out, Sorcerer tops the list.)

-Vincent

I'm with Vincent: you got me all excited because that's the kind of coolness for magic I've always wanted as well and you're looking for advice. Damn.

Ok, you've got Sights, Doors, Charms and Wards. And you want symbology, attunements, magic circles, components, foci, etc. that can be learned, combined and used. Here's my question: are you looking for a set list of elements of magical acts that is expandable by a group, a set list that is truly set (that's all there is), or a clear-and-open list made up in play by the players? And it also occurs to me that this list can either be rigorously cross-referenced (combining X with Y produces effect Z), or open to interpretation and use.

haha yea sorry, I mean I do have plenty of ideas but thta post was already long, and I don't have enough ideas that I can actually write it yet. Basically my ideas center around trying to create metaphysical rules for certain actions, and the requirements for those metaphysics would help to drive story because they would force the characters to do more than just roll.

For instnace, I want to have attunements, which might be rated, so if you had particular attunements you were good at doing certain types of things, but more importantly things like Demons and Spirits also had attunements to which you could play, or use against them. I remember when I came up with the idea of having everything be done by a few skill with no further compartmentalization, I loved it, but I also thought it might get boring fast if everyone who spent the same points to buy charms was essentially the same wizard. And the idea for how instead of what came when I was watching an episode of the Dresden Files and they began talking about ways they might achieve an effect and different reasons why they wouldn't work, and I thought to myself in a half asleep stupor, Man, it's so much cooler and more interesting what they're talking about in trying to cast the spell then them actually casting the spell. And I realized that while the object was to cast the spell, the story was them figuring out how to do it.

I figure sympathetics should also play heavily into it, having something attuned to a person, or a focus whose attunement corresponds with your intent. I think I'm going to have it so magic is extreeeeemely difficult to do as you progress unless you utilize these metaphysical components I want to create. So a person could do small tricks and helpful spells, but anything serious and they have to start figuring out components, sympathetics, and if all else fails seriously consider sacrifice which will of course be a slippery slope into darker magicks.

I think those four skills will be all, but I would still like to have some other things you can utilize or buy that will help out aside from those skills. For instance a Hermetic sort of Wizard type might be good at composing sigils and magic circles which aid in warding, while another is more of a shaman and well versed in spirit lore, knowing the proper ways to play to a spirits vanity through music and dance etc. Again, all while trying to keep the focus on the how.

So for instance, just using the very small preliminary ideas I have now, what happened in Hellblazer would have been something akin to Constantine realizing the demon was too powerful to be bound into an object and knowing that the only way to defeat it was to use the sacrifical ritual of the Sudanese Shaman, and playing on the attunement of the Demon to hunger and craving to lure it in by doing a summoning ritual with a tied up junkie fiending. A lot more to think about and play through than simply casting Summon Spirit and then Banish or what have you. Again, sorry this isn't more developed but I wanted to workshop it here. Thanks for the positive feedback.

p.s. yea, I'll definitely be studying Sorcerer

And as far as the list of stuff you can mix and match. What I want is a simple, but sufficiently broad and complex set of components, circles, foci, attunements etc. All of which can be interpreted. I think it would be boring rigamarole if everything was just a chart and all the X+Y's were provided in a chart, I want to provide ingredients that can interlock with one another to lessen the difficulty or allow the casting of a spell or ritual. Once that foundation is set, I'd like to continue to provide supplemental material, (for free of course, because it'll be Open Content) that builds on that foundation, and of course, so much will be up to interpretation, hopefully players and storytellers will come up with new and novel ways of using the components, and hopefully come up with their own to submit for inlcusion (community development).

I as well very much like the idea that magic is a setting element, not a PC element.  Perhaps we should try breaking this particular situation down into how it might work mechanically, under a strictly defined set of what magic can and cannot do.  From there we could broaden the rules to apply to a larger set of magical forces, and see if our guidelines work on that level as well.  The following is my take on how this might work:

First of all, in a rigid system, the rules of how the demon exists would have to be set out.  This may mean statting the demon as a non-player character.  But more importantly, we need to quantify the issue of it being a hunger demon, and exactly what that means.  The demon devours, and seems to have a preference for objects of obsession.  However, these are not the only objects it can consume.  Also, we should state first that there are no ways around an interesting solution.  So we have to limit the power of banishment rituals and such.

For our purposes, we define the demon as a singular being that must possess individuals to survive, and can only possess a single individual at a time.  In order to survive in a host, it must devour something.  It needs to feed not only upon the gluttony of the individual, but also upon metabolic energy produced by the individual (explaining why those gorging on meat end up dessicated).  Let's say that the demon's intentions or programming are to do so until the host dies.  Let's also say that the obsession works in a line, such that the demon first attempts to consume the primary object of association of the individual.  Failing the immediate availability of that, the demon attempts to consume the secondary, and so on.  Failing objects of association, the demon must still consume something.  Explicitly or implicitly, a valid object of consumption is itself.

There might be rules dedicated to how it selects its next host.  Doing so might create an interesting investigatory storyline in order to hunt down the demon based on how it moves from host to host.  So let's say it selects the most obsessed individual in the immediate vicinity.  To determine this, characters might have an attachment rating to certain objects or ideas.

Especially if the rules for rituals is written into rules freely available to the players, the calling and the tattoos have to have some twist to them in order to make their use interesting.  Otherwise, there is the risk of the answer having been obvious from the beginning that they should summon the demon into a sacrifice, and lock it in with tattoos.  I think that there should be a requirement that the user of these rituals must have specific knowledge about the demon.  Perhaps this knowledge is required to know that such rituals even exist, or perhaps the rituals of calling and binding are more universal, and require that the demon's name or more details be known.

Make a few hard decisions on the above information based on the theme of the encounter, and we have some rules on how the demon might work.  Broadening these rules to work with cleptomaniac demons, lust demons, etc. might be easier with a tested precedent, but we have to be careful not to fall into the rut of being transparent to the players.

I understand the hurdle of creating rules that pose some interesting issue which takes time for the players to resolve.  It's certainly easier to just throw a bunch of spells with definite effects at a system.  I as a GM like to base the rules for encounters off of puzzles and logic games, throwing an in-game shroud on top, and requiring the player to look deeper to discover the rules to the puzzle itself.  It doesn't work very well in groups that like to spellsling and hack through monsters.  But it works well with players who like to think.  Adapting this to ideas of the paranormal might require player to open their minds in order to understand the situation at hand.

-Jason Timmerman

Well in the story, the ritual used with the tattoos was a tailor made ritual specifically for binding that Demon. It was a prearranged mix of components meant to bind that demon in particular. I don't want to necessarily go too in-depth about each demon. I definitely want to come up with ways to "stat up" demons, but more as a general guideline for what the demon is about and not a specific roadmap of how it does everything it does.

For instance, I would never want rules that said demons of consumption can consume themselves, but if a Storyteller reveals that or comes up with something similar in the course of the story, or the players come up with that idea to solve the problem after having discovered the demon is attuned to consumption and craving, then that would be great. I want demons to have attunements, and for it to be stated with examples that Magi can play to those attunements or attempt to use those attunements against the spirits. I don't want a tremendous list of attunements all with ways of countering them. Basically, I would have several ways of describing the demon and how it interacts with the metaphysical, and if a Storyteller got a cool idea of making a consumption, possessor demon who ate it's horses alive, then great, but I don't think I'd make that a specific power.

In the actual story, aside from the tailor made binding ritual of the Sudanese Shaman, the only Magick the characters would have access to in the game I'm considering would be the summoning Ritual Papa Midnite performs. Constantine even mentions in the text that they could never have bound or overpowered the demon if it had not willingly possessed the junkie. So at most there might be a rule about possession, and it making binding easier because the spirit has already done half the work. Like I said before the way I basically want to make it is so that magic difficulties are incredibly high (doing them spontaneously), but certain advantages or modifiers can be gained through A. using metaphysical components in appropriate/novel ways, and being clever or stylish in your approach.

For a system like what you are describing I would let all of the mechanics revolve these metaphysical components.
A very simple way(that I am not actually recommending) to do this would be to have the player pay with "Resource A" for each metaphysical component he thinks is appropriate for binding/banishing a demon with an effect he has defined for himself.
The most important part of the rules would be that the one of the metaphysical components is the sacrifice(maybe just endangering if one could find a way of making what follows a component of the story) of something important to the character. Maybe character creation could just be to write ten things you care about and maybe rated as well(Example: My control freak mom +3, Going to Heaven +2, Keeping my homosexuality hidden +1, My job as a cop +2).
When "Resource A" is paid in connection with sacrificing this thing you get the rating as an extra bonus when actually trying to bind/banish the demon.

Of course the narration would revolve around what constitutes the different components paid for and how the come together to deal with the demon.

What I would never do is to let a GM determine if what the players are doing is valid in taking care of a particular demon and adding bonuses on that background. To me that is GM fiating cemented in rules.

I'm not sure what you mean specifically by let the mechanics resolve the metaphysical components. But if you mean that the metaphysical components should be flavor or second to the game mechanic of magic, that's the opposite of what I want to do. Again, I'm not sure if that's what you mean. I mean there are metaphysical components in other games, spell components, material, somatic etc. in D&D, Foci in Mage and many other games. While they do sometimes affect the game difficulties, they are largely unncessary and only serve as an extra boost to a die roll. And all too often they get fiated because th storyteller gets tired of asking the player if he has the components and everyone just assumes the Mage always has components. Or it becomes a constant bonus almost like a magic item, a Focus that always reduces magic rolls by 1, and just becomes another modifier.

Obviously I need mechanics, but I want the metaphysics to be what the characters actually deal with in a substantive manner rather than just being flavor or additions to a die roll. Basically the metaphysical components become story elements that allow a character the ability to attempt a spell rather than just a set of modifiers.

As for the sacrifice idea, I don't want it to be that to do magic, the character must always sacrifice, and that if they do perform a sacrifice that it's always personal, but I do actually like the idea of a sacrificial component being more potent if it is the sacrifice of something important to the Magus.

As for your last statement, I'm a little perplexed. If I don't let the GM determine what is a valid and clever method of achieving a goal, how does it get resolved save to have a book of charts for every coneviable permutation.  Most things are a GM fiat in RPG's practically. Determining difficulties is something the GM makes up. The storyteller is there to be an arbiter and to tell a story. Again, it's perplexing, maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

I'd have to agree with Justin on this one.  Even in games like D&D, it's the GM's job to make the choices on things like creatures of an appropriate Challenge Rating.  If it's not the GM's job to arbitrate issues outside the control of the PCs, and therefore arbitrate the difficulty, then it may as well be a GMless game.

But Elvis, if you're worried about the GM making arbitrary decisions on the spot on whether something will work or not, that's another story.  The interpretation of the level of creativity may be the most subjective issue there. 

For most issues, I think a good outline for how to use straightforward logic used to interpret the way those concepts combine would suffice.  It would be nice if the logic structure were complex enough to allow for different definitions of, say, "gluttony," and different ways to implement that concept into the different definitions of "demon."  The logic process itself would be the mechanic here.

As far as subjectively interpreting creative solutions, perhaps the best guideline would be to err on the side of the players.  No massive breaches of in-game logic would be allowed, but in furthering the plot in an interesting way, the logic algorithm would have some elasticity and looseness that it wouldn't otherwise have.  Again, the fun of the players is most important.  And I think that even the players can agree that winning on the basis that they bypassed all the rules is an unfun way to win.

-Jason T.

For a system like what you are describing I would let all of the mechanics revolve these metaphysical components.

If I don't let the GM determine what is a valid and clever method of achieving a goal, how does it get resolved save to have a book of charts for every coneviable permutation.

The storyteller is there to be an arbiter and to tell a story.

correction to my own text.

...but this is close to The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast(see the glossary in the article section).

Justin wrote:

So in essence, what I'm saying is that I want to create a magic system where the what is less important. Where the Charms and Wards abilities allow you to do essentially anything, aside from some bans or limits I might come up with a la Ars Magica or the Dresden Files, Magic can do anything conceivable. What governs the power of a magus, and fuels the story is how they go about doing it, the sacrifices they have to make, and finding clever ways to use metaphysical concepts to acheive a goal.

The way I in particular want to do this is build a simple but in-depth library of mix and match ritual components. Symbology, attunements, magic circles, components, foci etc. etc.

Try this on for size.

Every action requires a balancing reaction...that's true of magic as well, except the balancing reaction can be metaphysical rather than physical.

So you want to use magic to open a door...well then fine...but if you do, than another door has to close.  This could be literally another door...or it could be the "door of opportunity"...or it could be any metaphorical imagery relating to passage.  So the act of magic then becomes searching for the analogous door to close.  I can open this door...and to do so I'm going to close the door on my child's future...his dreams of being a professional baseball player are over, that door is now closed to him.

If I want to use magic to bar a door...same thing...I have to search for another door to open..."door" here being used very metaphorically.  For instance, the investigation that the cops have been launching into my operations has been stalled for months with no clues...by "opening the door" on that investigation (suddenly the cops have a clue thats letting them go somewhere I'd rather they didn't) I can keep this door closed.

Going beyond doors you can apply the same principal to anything...protecting something means makeing something else I cherish vulnerable (the ward that keeps the magic widgit safe from the bad guy has just caused my father to be diagnosed with lung cancer).  Making an enemy vulnerable means protecting something I hate (the curse that will let me put the final death on the ancient evil has also resulted in the trial of a notorious serial rapist being dismissed).

The fun you noticed in the Dresden Files will then be the players trying to come up with a suitable "sacrifice" to balance their magic and wrestling with whether the price is worth it, and which price they're willing to pay and which they're not.

Valamir wrote: Try this on for size.
...
The fun you noticed in the Dresden Files will then be the players trying to come up with a suitable "sacrifice" to balance their magic and wrestling with whether the price is worth it, and which price they're willing to pay and which they're not.

You just have to back it up from the specific to the metaphorical.

What are you accomplishing with your campfire?

Is it to keep you from freezing to death...then the balance is someone else freezing to death.

If you're just trying to make a fire to be a bit more comfortable...bring a pack of matches :-)

Basically you just have to pass equivalent good to an enemy or equivalent bad to a loved one.

So say you were trying to get a junkie friend clean...you could do so by making sure some other friend got hooked...but that sort of defeats the purpose...so instead you balance this by making an enemy healthy.

So what effect do you have on the enemy?  You make it so the enemy spends the day eating vegetables and drinking lots of water...well ok...that might make him feel a bit better today from not having carbo loaded, but long term - one day of vegetables will do nothing for his overall health...so the junkie friend feels ok without withdrawal for a day...and then back to usual.  Instead you make it so the enemy is never sick another day in his life...now your friend is clean every day of his life voila.

So the power you can do is directly proportional to how close you are to the person you're affecting and the person you're balancing that with.  But yeah...its a pretty inexact process, not easily "statted", but I suspect pretty easy to play.

That leaves open the option of a character who has no compunctions about aiding those that would seek to destroy him/her to be a sort of Gandhi.  Magically causing net good to the world, with the only negative consequence meaning my enemy gets some perk?  That's awesome power.  I can understand having a moral compunction with killing someone I don't know in order to save my wife, but choosing instead to save the life of someone who would kill me if they had the chance for the same effect?  That's hardly a price at all.

-Jason T.

Are you suggesting that's a problem?
I think that's a fantastically impactful statement...yeah...I can do net good in the world...but also if I do net good to my enemies.  So all of the sudden Al Qaida is getting huge, The Nazi Party is back in action, some warlord in Nambia just massacred 30,000 people...all so you could end the homeless problem in NYC...yeah...I think that makes for an awesome story.

I see.  I was under the impression that you meant a more 1:1 conversion ratio.

Jason T.

I would envision the ratio to be directly proportional to how close / personal / important to you the other party is.  Closing the door on the future of your son's dreams...yeah that's powerful mojo.  Closing the door on the future of someone you've never met...not so much. 

Giving a gift of success health and happiness to generic "badguys" not so much.  Giving a gift of success health and happiness to the guy who raped your wife and murdered your parents...yeah...you can generate some powerful mojo off of that...if you can bring yourself to do it.  I mean think about it..."you can cast this spell, but that guy will live to a ripe old age and die free and happy having obtained his life's dream".  Could you live with that?  That's a game I'd totally be into playing.

So, I imagine my group having incredible fun playing this game by:

-inventing clever combinations of Doors, Sights, Charms, and Wards to answer "How will they do it?"

-making heart-wrenching sacrifices to answer the question "At what cost?"

And it's all about magic, right??!!

Please, please make this game!

unhelpful but enthusiastic Chris

It seems to me that all this isn't specifically to do with magic, it's about dramatically appropriate stakes in the scenario. Whether you sacrifice your friend to destroy a demon isn't intrinsically any different from the question of do you blow up the terrorists even though they are holding your friend hostage.

Game mechanics aren't going to help you create situations like this. An understanding of metaphysics and the technical language of occultism can help you construct convincing situations featuring magic in the game, but only in the same way that researching counter terrorist techniques can make a War on Terror game more believable and therefore more immersive.

Simon Hibbs

simon_hibbs wrote:
It seems to me that all this isn't specifically to do with magic, it's about dramatically appropriate stakes in the scenario. Whether you sacrifice your friend to destroy a demon isn't intrinsically any different from the question of do you blow up the terrorists even though they are holding your friend hostage.

Game mechanics aren't going to help you create situations like this. An understanding of metaphysics and the technical language of occultism can help you construct convincing situations featuring magic in the game, but only in the same way that researching counter terrorist techniques can make a War on Terror game more believable and therefore more immersive.

lumpley wrote:
Like, um, like, Constantine's stringing out his friend is an important part of the magic, but is not itself a magical act.

Wow, I'm glad to see so many posts. It's given me a lot of food for though. Let me try to field a few misconceptions about my idea first.

BigElvis- Revolve around makes much more sense, and that's a lot of what I'm aiming at doing. Also I see what you're saying about giving the players the ability to determine what is a clever option, but I tend as a storyteller to have a specific story in mind and I and other storytellers I play with are not simply referees. I do think that the storyteller should be lenient, and there should be mechanics in place for the players to "work their will" and narrate for themselves at times. But if a storyteller has a way they would like the pplayers to move within the story or would like to make a particular feat of magic more difficult because they do not find it clever or appropriate for the tone of the story. I'm fine with that.

Agleos- I disagree very much. I hope I dont offend anyone, but have you played hero system? A good storyteller can tell a good story using hero but the rules get in the way of that because it takes so long to get through combat and resolution oftentimes. It's not all a matter of this is roleplaying, trust your GM. System can foster or hinder good storytelling, most especially in the creation of certain concepts or moods in games. Adding metaphysical components in a deep but easy to use fashion I think can increase it's use as a storytelling tool, and can also serve to make it more crunchy.

Valamir- wow thanks a lot for the suggestions, sort of like the to light a candle is to cast a shadow idea in Earthsea. Although I think the idea is great, I do think it muddled a bit of what Simon thought I intended with my original idea, and partially through my use of the Hellblazer example. While I definitely love this idea and will probably try to implement it to some degree, I don't necessarily want that to be the only or primary metaphysical law. Although stakes, sacrifice, balance in magic are all wonderful concepts, my original postulate was just to let the why be the impotus in a story for the characters to act, the what be the solution to a problem, and the how be the actual semi-mechanical ways that characters can go about achieveing the what. Stakes can be a part of that, but my fundamental point is not about stakes in Magic, but focusing on how magic is done in one way or the other, rather than what specifically can be done with it. But yea, your suggestions are great, the only thing I could see as a problem is that it seems to necessitate some sort of spiritual nemesis, while certainly possible, I mean what if a mage does not necessarily have an enemy worthy of it. Still, I really think this needs to be implemented as a metaphysical component somehow. I mean *shivers* just imagine, a power-crazed young necromancer on the verge of reaching a new level of understanding in the black arts shedding his fetters, by ritually killing his family and loved ones with the inverse of course being that pain unto those he loves might in turn cast powerful curses or even outright kill his enemies. Interesting stuff either way and really worthy of consideration.

VoidDragon- Yea, I think you hit it, although I don't necessarily have any problem with drawing inspiration from how magic is considered to work in real world ways (silly but useful for inspiration). For instance, it might be helpful to read more on how real life "magicians" use magic circles or sigils etc. just as much as it can be useful to use certain myths about faeries as the basis for characters in an Urban Fantasy setting. Thats one thing thats kind of been lost, but doesnt really have anything to do with the thread is that it's a contemporary fantasy setting and there are things out there aside from wizards, but with the idea I had, I dont mind the focus on magic thrusting Magi to center stage.

Chris- Thanks, I hope you'll consider maybe giving it a spin when it's finished.

NoClue- Crossing a threshold is a magical act, definitely, good stuff. And yea, actually in the story, Constantine is haunted by the ghosts of friends who die in his escapades, so while he certainly wasnt quite so bad as a marauding demon, and the junkie friend was directly responsible for the deaths of many and so the most appropriate candidate, you're right, it does have so much to do with his humanity or loss of it.

Thanks again everyone for all the food of thought. Keep it coming, I'll try and post next a quick rundown of all the fifferent components I'm consider, some simply magical others more ephemeral.

This is a great read. I'm new here and pleased to see attempts at a narrative magic system. I'm working on a system with a destiny mechanic (kinda like fate points, karma and so forth). Everyone uses destiny - it's a charater shield but also used to say - create a work of art. The idea is that magic burns destiny, a side effect of this is that the would be a negative effect.

Rereading the OP, I started to think a few new thoughts. The idea proposed by Justin is to make the ritual of casting a magic spell an integral part of the story. What I like about this is it tends to self regulate the use of magic for trivial acts. If you need to light a fire, you aren't going to travel to upper mongolia to steal the eye from the icon of the demon queen, you'll rub two sticks together. By making magic the centerpiece of the story, it limits it to important things and limits mages to being mages. You can't just roll out the magic user when you want to cast magic missile at the goblin hordes. The magic user is busy.

However, if the spell is the narrative, then the spell has to have all the stuff of narrative. It has to provide conflict and risk and loss. If the spells are being compiled from a relatively simple list of mix and match systems, the narrative needs to carry the freight or things will get routine. What I'm thinking is as a mage there should be a certain level of choice. Do you want to just draw a magic sygil, or do you draw the sygil from the blood of your victim's mother (as a morbid example). Their needs to be incentive to make the trade-off between easy (and dull) and difficult (but rich) make sense. That's where risk comes in. If magic has a price, then all of this narrative can be about ways that the mage lowers that personal cost, or deflects it, to get what he wants. And if failure is risky, then you have even more reason to stack the odds in your favor. What you get is some kind of trade off between expediency and time.

Two other thoughts. First, it would be cool if the mage never could be certain if he'd done enough. So he's his decision to actually cast the spell or whatever, brings a certain level of suspense. Secondly, all this running around to upper mongolia or killing your victim's mother, or whatever is not, without risk and cost itself. So, maybe you're just in a zero sum game where you're just trading one type of danger for another. Like, you avoid getting eaten by demons and get eaten by tigers instead.

Exactly. I had had similar thoughts, basically what I suspect I'll end up doing in addition to trying to find novel ways for metaphysical laws to work is have it so as aforementioned, all magic, even the lowliest charms are at a high difficulty. So a competent Magus if they wanted could possibly do small things, but would likely still fail at them if they weren't doing something dramatic, roleplaying it well and trying to be clever. I mean the game might get a bit tedious or difficult if Magi could never cast anything spontaneous but even then they have to be fun, intelligent and try to move the story forward, and they couldn't much beyond give themselves an edge. For instnace, when we played a playtest session, the only person playing a straight Magi was walking behind the veil astrally and came upon an alley filled with darkness. The player investigated a bit, tried to call upon his Lore to see if he could figure anything out but wasn't specifically able to recall shrouds of darkness. He did however discover that the alley did represent the actual space of the alley in the physical world. So he described how he pulled a magic marker from his satchel and proceeded to draw a detailed eye on his palm and thrust his hand into the darkness, this allowed him to see sort of a cartoonish tunnel vision spotlight sort of a view of the alley. The magic was semi-spontaneous, not an extended ritual but it was a novel, approach with description  and a clever magical symbol to help in the casting. Contrast that with your typical AD&D see in darkness or dispel and you can quickly see how with a little effort, even spontaneous magic can be more narrative, balanced and interesting. What's better is that later, when he discovered through consulting a crazed seer that the darkness was a portent of a murder to come, and knowing that he had sent another character there who was looking for a missing person, he rushed back and was confronted by an enemy in the blackness, and that enemy dropped sand in his hand, the player looked perplexed in a second and then roleplayed yelling in pain as he realized the enemy had just thrown sand in his eye.

With more difficult spells though yea, I want it to be so ridiculously difficult that it's a longshot if you don't use these components, and I want the components by definition to not really be usable totally by rote. For instance a sigil is a magical symbol tailored to a specific magical purpose, if the character were trying to summon a Faerie in the wood, he would have to make a sigil perhaps for just that purpose, and might not be able to if unknowledgable or unresearched in the symbols of the Fae, or if for instance the spirit were powerful enough that the sigil would be uneffective without knowing at least an Alias of the being to work into the sigil. So instead of just have Use of symbology -1 difficulty, it would be something that the character would need to sink their teeth into in the narrative. And of course one of the most important modifiers of difficulty is how it moved forward the story. For instance, if the characters were investigating the disappearance of a friend, it might not move ths story forward for a character to spend a half an hour of playtime enchanting a dagger, but going to the friends apartment and finding their favorite book as a sympathetic component in the casting of a Location spell would be appropriate and might gain additional positive modifiers because after all the location of their friend is exactly where the storyteller wants the party to go.

I'll post everything I've come up with so far soon, and we'll see if we can add to it.

Here's a really rough write up on the basic ideas I've been having. It's all very rough and crude, and I expect it will have to change quite a bit before it really achieves what I want it to. Hope its at least a good read.

Magick in "The World Behind"

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

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

Charms- The casting of spells and charms to enact change or achieve some effect. Any conceivable effect not otherwise covered by Sights, Doors or Wards, can be achieved using Charms. The focus in Magick and the use of Charms is not on the what but on the how, that which is conceivably possible may be functionally or practically impossible simply because no proper symbology exists to create such spells, or because the effect itself is so dangerous or difficult. It's greatest practitioners are called Magi.

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

Magick is the ability, through the manipulation of metaphysical principles to enact change in the world, both naturally and spiritually. But will is not enough as all Magic demands at it's most basic level an Impetus. There are many ways of achieving Impetus in Magic, through the use of symbology or other Arcana, or through the use of spontaenous and impulsive connective Impetus. All impetus have metaphysical consequences that must be averted or else suffered through. Impetus describes both the internal logic and appropriateness of a magical act, and also the narrative aspects of how the Magick serves the story.

Methods of gaining Impetus

Sympathetic- This concept is best described by the Axiom "like affects like". It imparts Impetus on a magical act by making the cause of the Magick resemble the effect desired. Voodoo dolls are an example of Sympathetic Magick.

Contagious- Contagious Magick is related to sympathetic impetus in that it functions by relating the cause of the effect to the subject of the effect. A contagious impetus is the idea that those things which were once in contact may stay in contact through emotional and spiritual connection, and thus an impetus for Magick can be gained using those things that are connected to eachother. A location spell using a lock of someones hair is an example of a contagious impetus.

Formulaic- Formulaic is the use of pure symbology and magical rote to provide impetus, it is the most rigorous and time-consumin impetus, but it is also that which can best incorporate and thus be strengthened by the inclusion of other forms of Impetus.

Superstition- Supertitious impetus uses ideas that have been strengthened through ages of belief to provide the force behind an effect. Superstitions are numerous and they do not necessarily act on their own but can be used to help fuel the casting of a Charm.

Impulsive- Impulsive impetus is the most volatile of them all and is performed spontaneously through the use of clever connective Symbolism, Irony, and turns of phrase/ play on words.

Following are several Arcana and other metaphysical concepts.

Attunements- Attunements are special elements that describe the spiritual resonance of a person, object, place or even event. Attunements can be manipulated to aid in the casting of Charms or in Warding against certain creatures.

Attunements can be temporarily granted to a subject through consecration.

Purification/ Desecration- Used to clear temporary Attunements gained through consecration or interaction with powerful Magickal resonance.

Possession- The ability of a spirit to enter and control the body of a mortal horse. It can be done through force or it can be offered to the spirit temporarily as payment or in the performance of certain rituals.

Summoning- Summoning is the act to call on the denizens of the spirit world.

Binding- Binding is the act of binding through evocation or invocation, a spirit to perform a task or else to remain held in bondage.

Banishing/ Exorcism- Banishing is the act of banishing or dismissing a summoned or possessing spirit.

Other ideas I'm working on/ trying to figure out

Symbology- Formulae, Circles / Squares, Sanctums, Foci / Sigils / Magic Words

I think it's definitely workable.  One thing I'm curious about are the actual step-by-step game mechanics that mediate how certain things are done.  I suppose we could just create a sort of syntactical vocabulary, where the "sentence" of a spell is built upon words of magick that are earned through the proper means/impetuses/steps/attunements based on the structure you've presented.

Another idea, which could integrate the formulae, circles, squares, sigils, etc. would be to set up the spell effect as a sub-game or overlay game within the game.  To explain what I'm trying to say, you could have, for instance, a grid, which would represent an entire spell, upon which circles and lines could be drawn to represent the formulae, which, as I understand it, could connect the elements (impetuses, attunements, and targets) in a logical fashion to create an effect.  Elements themselves could be game pieces (like chess pieces).

The types of lines, circles, and other symbols the character could scribe would depend upon the character's level of understanding of magick; but the character's access to pieces would be part of the game accessible to all characters, mystic or not (though I suppose knowledge of magick would be required to know which pieces would help in any given situation).

The entire spell would take a substantial amount of time to build, as each element or symbol could take up to a scene or more to obtain.

A setup like this would also allow for competetive magic; i.e., warding, counterspelling and redirecting.  In that manner, the competetors could both move pieces and draw lines on the same board, based on in-game actions.  If you're not careful, however, the act of redirecting could spell out a magic paradox if the spellboard is not logically interpretable at spell conclusion (which would be the equivalent of checkmate or stalemate).

If you wanted to put a good deal of work into such a system, it may be possible to create it so that interpretation of the sigils followed a logical process that described the spell in terms of what kinds of lines connected the different elements, so that the grid could be read from a starting point just as if it were the sentence built upon the vocabulary of magick that I mentioned earlier.  Lines would be followed and interpreted to find the next word in the sentence.  And like I said, uninterpretability may lead to paradox.

Thoughts on this?

-Jason Timmerman

Ok. So, cool. I'm loving this discussion because I've been working on a magic system based off of kaballah and looking for ways to keep magic magical and still be able to keep magic from becoming freeform craziness. At the moment, the conceptual framework isn't cooperating. Actually, its been kicking my ass pretty good.

As for what you're doing, I like the way you've broken down magical effects, but I'm interested in why these four.  The first three are relatively discreet categories: Sights for getting info, Doors for astral projectiony stuff, Wards for protection magic. Then you have Charms which is a grab bag for everything else. My first thought is to look at Charms and see if the grab bag is too big there. What stuff really goes in Charms? Is it really just one or two or three more discreet categories, or is it actually wide open? So some things that I think you can do with charms are what we would actually call charms (i.e. manipulate emotions), but it would also include other manipulations as well (weather, telekinesis, death rays, evil eyes, fire, etc.). Is it too wide, I wonder? Or is it ok?

Next, Impeti.You have the law of Contagion and the law of sympathetic magic. These are two ways that magic "works." The effect is targeted either by using a foci that was once actually part of the intended target or which represents the intended target symbolically. Then you have three ways that magic rituals can be structured - essentially by rote, spontaneously, or by what people believe works. These three seem to be in a different category.

Lastly, attunements. I admit to a little confusion here. These look like different kinds of Charms. Why do you need attunements for these particular charms and how is your goal (ritual = narrative) furthered in adding attunements?

Jason - I think I've got a good grip on what the thread is about, perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly. Having to sacrifice a loved one in order to bind a daemon is a reality rule for the setting, not a game mechanic of the rules system. Such a sacrifice and binding could be resolved using any number of different game mechanics.

Ralph's take on sacrifice is very perceptive. It could be implemented mechanically a number of ways, one of which would be to use such sacrifices to generate a pool of points of some kind that can  be spent to either power up a magical working, or to give a bonus on the casting roll, depending on what resolution system you decide upon.

Simon Hibbs

Simon, I don't really want to start a whole conversation about this (which would probably constitute a new thread), but I think we're just drawing different lines on how we define the word "Game".  I do respect your views on the subject, but I don't want to continue an argument on the definitions of terms.

You are correct in saying that a statement such as "B is a consequence of choice A" is a setting mechanic.  In my view, since the Setting is part of the Game, however, it is also a game mechanic.

As I (mis)understood your initial post, you were saying that such a setting mechanic is unimportant as long as we understand the real world.  My apparently unnecessary retort was based on the idea that we were creating a game, not using ideas that already exist.

I'm basically saying that I interpreted your post of:

simon_hibbs wrote:
An understanding of metaphysics and the technical language of occultism can help you construct convincing situations featuring magic in the game, but only in the same way that researching counter terrorist techniques can make a War on Terror game more believable and therefore more immersive.

VoidDragon- Yea I had had ideas along similar lines but nothing so specific, I wanted there to be some way to take individual sigils and put them together like a puzzle. Unfortunately, I can't think of any way to do that without it becomeing unnecessarily complex. I think it would be a really cool board game and it's really enticing to dive into it, but I just think I gotta go simpler.

The reason for this is also an answer to noclue partially. Basically, in the first iteration of the setting, using my CORE system that I'm developing, Sights, Doors, Charms and Wards were all the same thing, we decided pretty shortly after starting chargen that we should split them into separate abilities because while being a Mage was certainly an enticing prospect, you didn't have to be a mage to play, there are other character types, hopefully there will be many, and those other character types had to be able A. to use Sights and Doors without knowing Magic, and B. be able to ward against magic and dispel effects without necessarily being able to cast them, basically a wizened old guy who doesn't use magic but knows how to avert curses. But again I wanted to focus on how not what, so I still wanted all spell casting to be contianed under spell, I don't want any further compartmentalization, if I were making a game about wizards purely, I would not even distinguish the four abilities, but as it is, even as it seems Magi will take a precedence because of the attention thats being paid to them, I want their to be characters who can walk bhind the veil but are not Magi.

Sights and Doors are going to be similar in cost to one another, and so are Charms and Wards, my rationale for this is that wards can do things charms cant (hold creatures at bay, lock doors in the veil etc.) but can also do conceivably what Charms can do only inverse, in other words Wards has at least as many uses as Charms because it can defend against any Charm. So Sights and Doors will be cheaper and Charms and Wards will cost a bit more because they're broader, it may still turn out that Charms is more of a bargain in the long run than other abilities, but I guess that's the price of . So to make a long rant shorter, I don't want to have such a complex system no matter how great the idea is simply because it would make it inconceivable and boring to play something other than a Mage because you'd be twiddling your thumbs while the mages put together their cool sigil puzzles. If only we could come up with something that had the same spirit but was simpler to implement.

Noclue- As far as the Impeti crit, yea you're right, I might be able to still figure it out keeping those, but as I was writing them I had the thought that I'd probably need to change the stuff later, but I just wanted to show something on the thread that sort've described my idea in ways.

Another idea I've been having lately is to introduce Taboos, basically at some points the process of figuring out what sort've metaphysics your character is good at manipulating you also barred from using some. This could be used to create some variation between Magi, and to explain the different styles of Magic like Vodoun, Hermeticism, Chaos Magick etc. It also makes sense to me because despite the fact that some things magic can do that affect game mechanics may need to be described, when you have Magick that can do anything, it makes more sense to describe what your character cannot do, than what your character can because, well it's anything right?

I'm not sure this fits into the system you're envisioning, but some ideas popped into my head as I was reading the initial post, so I thought I'd toss them out to see if they're helpful.  In the initial post, the stuff that seemed most intriguing to me was making symbolism and metaphor a major component of magic.  So what I'm envisioning is that you take the "effect" you want your spell to have, and you then need to decompose it into some parts.  And then you take those individual parts and you build them up in a metaphorical way to complete your spell. 

So to take the hunger demon example:  The player wants to lure the demon in and imprison him.  So the GM says "OK, what's a prison"?  The player says "a place, surrounded by bars".  The GM says "OK, what's your 'place'?".  The player says "I know he can jump from person to person, so I don't want something like a building with different people going in and out... hmm... I know, I'll pick one particular person as the location".  The GM says, "alright, what are the bars on your prison?".  The player says "Hmm... Bars surround the location, but they're sort of built into it, too.  I need something analogous for a person.  I know, I'll give the person some magical tattoos all over his body, those are the bars on the prison".  The GM says "Cool.  You said you wanted to lure the demon.  How do you 'lure'?"  The player says "I get his attention, and I have some bait he finds irresistible".  The GM says "OK, how do you get his attention?"  The player says "ummm...  I get a shaman from his native land to do a ritual".  The GM says "that could be fun, get some exotic locale in the mix.  And what's your bait?"  The player says "well, I know he likes people with 'hunger'.  Hey, my junkie friend -- I keep him off the stuff for a while, and he'll be really 'hungry'!  And hey, that's the person I'll use as my prison!".  The GM says, "excellent.  Let's figure out what we need to do to make it all happen.  What do you want to do first?".  The player says "let's hop a plane to Africa."  And now you've got some scenes to play out.

In practice, I don't know how hard it would be to come up with creative metaphors like that on the fly.  I'm also sort of seeing that you would introduce complications with each element of the spell.  Like "we can use magical tattoos...  But the only tattoo artist I know who's skillful enough to pull something like that off happens to be the junkie's brother, and he's not going to be too keen on a plan that ends up killing the junkie".  Doing this might also give you the "discuss how to best achieve the effect" interactions you mentioned.  The players could exchange ideas until they hit on a metaphor and a complication that sounded fun to the group.  Stuff like "we need to use the demon's secret name as part of the ritual, so we'll have to track down the cult leader and beat it out of him" -- "I don't know, we've been beating people up a lot lately and I'm kind of burnt out on it.  How about the demon's secret name is also written down in the Necronomicon, but the only known copy is in a private collection in Istanbul?  We'll have to figure out some way to get the book.  We can cook up some kind of elaborate heist!"

So, basically, the idea is that the spell construction makes the players put a lot of metaphysical color into the game, and also creates a sort of through-line for the adventure, with the individual elements of the spell setting up some scenes and conflicts that lead to the climax.

Again, not sure if that idea is useful to you with the more mechanical way you seem to be headed, but I thought I'd toss it out.

It seems to me we're talking about two different magic systems here, and trying to find a way to compress them into one.

The first is the standard bippity-boppety-boo we see in a lot of traditional rpgs: the type of magic that substitutes as a weapon or a skill that the character doesn't have, something to get the characters ahead and move the story along. The second type is more of an extended ritual type, one that has the potential to alter the game-world and/or solve the Big Problem of the story. This second one is best served by a setup similar to what Valamir mentioned, and/or by involving a lot of legwork on it's own to complete.

I think the question is, correct me if I'm wrong, how to get both types out of the same magic system. Unfortunately, I do not have a solution for that question. If anyone does, I'd be eager to hear it.

I wouldn't say thats the case fanboy. Like I said before, while I have my own ideas that this thread is primarily to discuss ways to focus game mechanics on how magic is done rather than what is being done with it. It isn't necessary to the thread to marry spontaneous magic and ritual magic although we have discussed both. What is important at least in the original context is how do you have the flavor and metaphysics of mechanics matter to the system in any kind of magic.

Dan I really like all the stuff you mentioned, the only thing is that I'd like some standardized way of determining that sort of thing, something that was more general or expansive. That would work in a really freeform game, and could be a handy idea to work off of, but I think it might just be too specific.

I have been working on this and I'll try and post something new soon.

Justin,
Your goal of enforcing creativity in spell-casting is definitely praiseworthy and, I think, can be reasonably applied to large problems such as the demon you used as an example. However, in your real-play example of the dark alley and eye-hand: now that a player has stated that his special vision spell is achieved by drawing an eye on his hand, why should he change that description? Is it desirable to force players to re-describe the actions for casting "standard" spells over and over? What does this add to story-telling?

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

Justin Nichol - BFG, if we want to encourage creativity to that extent, that a creative ritual repeated no longer gets the bonus for being creative, I just think it should have some in-game explanation for why a ritual performed a second time is less likely to have the desired result.

My thoughts may sound like an answer to Mage: The Ascension here, but humor me.  In M:tA, the enforcing force was the Tellurian's resistance to magic (of course there were other factors).  It didn't enforce creativity; it rewarded monotony (the game actually encouraged rote repetition).  If we want to do the opposite, perhaps we could tie the reward to diminishing returns, especially in Impetus?

The universe might have some way of recognizing a spell that has already been cast, and block out the Impetus, Attunements and such from having further effect.  Mages that want to cast the same spell twice and still receive their nifty bonus have to find a way around this, usually by creatively coming up with another Impetus. 

Basically, the Universe already understands that you've spent that idea, and the idea's creative value is gone.  Finding another abstract connection in order to achieve the same result may also reduce difficulty somewhat; but taking a different route entirely may reduce it even more.

The words aren't coming out right.  Am I just stating the already apparent here?

-Jason T.

I thought of a better way to word my last comment:

Magick fundamentally changes the universe.  The act of casting the spell itself engraves the spell into the fabric of reality.  Using the same Impetuses and Attunements again is just like going over those already-engraved grooves again with the chisel: It does not add anything new, and cannot again aid in casting a spell. 

On the note of sacrifice, when a magick user (Mage or otherwise) decides to sacrifice something in their life, the user has taken that path of sacrifice, and cannot turn back.  Neither does choosing to take the path one is already on change the fact that one has taken it; a like sacrifice cannot be made again.

-Jason T.