So, in my ongoing Quest of Thinking, I thought a thought. Specifically about magic/super powers/psi abilities in a game.

I'm a Mage player of old, and so will fall back on my old terminology for a moment. First, all such abilities are either Static (predefined in what they can accomplish) or dynamic (defined by some set of presumibly static rules, but not defining every possible effect).

The former will ultimately result in a list of abilities. Most of the Storyteller games, D&D, and- well, most other games that I've seen -tend towards this approach. These abilities may be on the fly modifible, but the core function of them is always going to be the same.

The later will result in a list of rules which govern all possible abilities. Mage's Sphere system, Shadowrun's magic and Nobilis' Miracles fall in this realm, to one degree or another.

Now then, having quite explained myself, I finally get to the point. :) Has anyone run across/thought of a game which has such super powers but uses a substancially different system for running them then either the static or dynamic models I've described?

Hi,

Well, I’ve tried a couple of different approaches, one sort of what I think you mean by Dynamic (I haven’t read De Nobilis yet, and it’s been a long time since I read Mage). The other was very different.

In my Tang dynasty China campaign, I had a system where you had a series of Chinese characters, each of which had a point value. (Note: I’m going to use PC always, here, to avoid confusion with the term “character,” which will here refer to Chinese characters as in written signs.) Your PC had a school of magic, which gave bonuses for particular characters and groups of characters; for example a Five Phases magician got bonuses for Earth, Wood, Fire, Metal, and Water. You could also put experience points into building up particular characters within your school. Then you built a spell, and there was a system for calculating the point value and whatnot. The original idea was that you could improvise, but it was too unwieldy for anyone who didn’t actually know Chinese. So anyway you could design a power out of bits and pieces, essentially by writing a sentence in Chinese and calculating the point totals. This all meant that you could do pretty much anything, and the longer and more intricate the spell (and the more cleverly you worked in the school characters) the more powerful it was; on the other hand it made the thing slower to cast and whatnot.

In my Jack the Ripper occult campaign, all the magic was a sort of symbolic interpretation via sympathetic principles. The PCs really didn’t know the rules too well, which was intentional, and so they would just sort of wing it as they went. To “power up” the spell, they threw Tarot cards (usually Major Arcana for magic), which they would then have to interpret in context. This was very freeform and deliberately ill-defined. The idea was that it was sort of like Tim Powers’s books, where a lot of magic is sort of symbolic rules of thumb and some things you’ve picked up along the way; unlike Unknown Armies, there weren’t particular schools (dipsomancy, cliomancy, etc.), just your personal whacked-out way of doing things. This worked pretty well, overall, but some players got rather frustrated because they couldn’t predict terribly well what their actions would accomplish, and they couldn’t really have a list of spells.

What did you have in mind?

I didn't have anything in mind in particular, as much as I have a desire to see how far some ideas can be stretched.

The Character's idea is kinda neat (reminds me a bit of Calligraphy, which I might have to borrow in whole or part for a one shot ;) but is basically straight dynamic magic- I'm presuming that there was either a limited character set or something...

As to the tarot thing... that's really a weird sort of dynamic magic too. I think. Or maybe it's just very broad static magic that gets randomly chosen. And I can empathize with your player's frustration- I would have been exceptionally leary of using magic in such a system, for fear of it backfiring- and for the wrong reason. OTOH, it'd be a lot more interesting than most wild magic systems I've seen as a means of determining what happens when Magic Goes Wrong...

Drew, it seems to me that you've taken all possible concepts of magic and divided them into two groups by a basic principle, and then asked whether there is anything that doesn't fit into either group--which is inherently contradictory, I think. Either the system provides carefully defined outcomes, or it provides for flexible outcomes. Is there some other possibility I'm overlooking? Isn't it inherently the case that every system will be either static or dynamic, by definition? Either the abilities are fixed, or they are flexible? What other possibility can there be?

That said, I would say that Multiverser is a fixed system with inherent flexibility. I'll try to explain that.

Every ability a character can do goes onto his sheet, and gets rather specific definition of how it's done and what the outcome is. In that sense, it's fixed. You have a light spell that creates light within these parameters when this ritual is performed; you have a scrying spell that enables you to view any place the location of which you can describe relative to some location known to you. You can do it (bias and dice permitting) whenever you wish.

On the other hand, the game includes instant skill creation rules. At any moment a character can announce that he's going to try to do something he's never done before, and he's got a chance to succeed at doing that. His chance is better if he can show an example or something he read that talked about doing it or a skill he has which is very similar to it. Since we're talking about magic, there are ways to "tweak ritual" so that the magic is more probable or more powerful. Depending on what is desired and how it will be performed, it may take a bit longer to create such a skill than it would to perform one you already know. But there is no restriction on when you can do this; and if you are successful, the skill works, and you add it to your sheet. Thus in that sense the system is dynamic, because you can always craft a spell that does exactly what you want at this moment; although it is also static, in that once it has been crafted, that is what it does, and you can use it to do that again later.

Does this help?

--M. J. Young

It does a bit, yes, as it doesn't cleanly fall into either category. It's a limited dynamic and limited static thing.

And I realize I've divided all of magic into two schools, and that everything will fit into them. This means one of two things-

A) I can stop burning brain juice on trying to think of other ways to have magic work or
B) My definition is wrong or in some way incomplete.

...Actually, B. Calligraphy doesn't fit my current definition of dynamic spell creation, I don't believe, as I don't remember any real limits or guidelines upon just how you can spend your words and the effects you can achieve thereby...

I would add the construction systems (like Hero) to your list. Where all possible effects are defined statically, and are then dynamically interwoven to create static effects for the character.

Well I bought Paladin last night (already planning to run a character and world creation session with friends tonight) and was really impressed with how that deals with magic.

I suppose it is "dynamic" as you simply decide upon an effect/result and then spend animus/magic points and roll towards that result. But what was really interesting for me is that you think of the result as being mundane in nature, but you're using magic to achieve it.

So for example I could elect to use animus to charm a guard into letting me past even though I have no papers. That's a mundane effect that would be achievable with normal human abilities, but Im using magic to achieve it. The difficulty for my roll is the same difficulty as if I was using mundane means (like my social trait).

Anyway it was interesting for me because I've found that when systems try for dynamic magic they often get bogged down in rules - giving more options for customizing effects often seems to require more rules to define them. Changeling was the first game I ever saw that had a magic system that was so dynamic, but its the rules associated with that, that make it a turn-off for many of my friends. A magic system where you can do anything you want sounds like it should feel "free" and "liberating" but in fact often has far more rules interacting in complex ways than a spell-book method.

So anyway Paladin is really interesting to me for the way it handles that - by thinking of the intended result as mundane rather than magical (eg "persuade someone" rather than "charm someone", "injure someone" rather than "magic missile someone") it makes it easy to come up with difficulty levels. Of course I achieve the result using magical means and can colour it appropriately. All I'm doing is smashing open a door just like anyone could with a hammer, but Im saying I use a magic missile to obtain that same result. All I'm doing is lighting a campfire, but the flames shoot out my eyes instead of a tinderbox.

(Please forgive me if my understanding of this is incomplete or just plain wrong - just got Paladin yesterday and am pretty excited about it)

Tony

Hi there,

Tony, that's a good point. In the most-often used magic system in Hero Wars, as well, the typical use of an "affinity" is to augment a mundane action rather than to perform some unique action. (Yes, Ian, I know, Feats, etc, but let's stick with the usual initiate-level play.)

Best,
Ron

Hm.

Is it possible to achieve effects that are litterally impossible for normal people? Flight, teleportation, etc? (Although I suppose, if you only look at the end result in fairly squinty vision, nothing is /actually/ impossible).

Hi Drew,

In Paladin, no, not really. Although it depends on your perspective ... think "amplification" and you're on the right track. Jedi in Star Wars don't really fly, but they jump so amazingly that they might as well be flying. Enough so they can escape the burning building or kick the snot out of the guy with the jet-pack.

In Hero Wars, a bit more so. A character might fly "really," for instance, or glow like a light bulb, or otherwise look a bit more super-hero-ish, but again, in game terms, for the Augmentation mechanic anyway, it "ends" with the goal to be performed in mundane terms. (And as I implied, there's a Feat mechanic which is a directly non-mundane approach.)

Best,
Ron

Dynamic vs Static in magic for me has always been "Dynamic" I simply don't enjoy being limited to only what the game designers thought of as uses for their magic, in their way. I like PC's to be innovators, not rote bound rut makers.


As for superpowers, however I also prefer Dynamic, but that of course depends on the nature of the game, because frankly some comic books (in fact most of the standard superhero ones) have characters doing new or different things with their powers--these were called stunts in MSH and Marvel Saga and worked slightly differently but the intent was the same--a fixed power could be "pushed" or "stunted" to perform something new, or at least something within its realm. While the given power was "X" and static, the ability to override that with a stunt made the systems allow for dynamic results.

In my supers game, Hearts and Souls powers van be of either type, but the default is dynamic--sure you may have to say "Pyrokinesis" Wildfire, has the ability to generate flames by merely concentrating, they can be flame blasts, glowing orbs, dancing sparks or any number of fire related effects at Moderate ability.


Then the Player can also break down the power into /how/ versatile it is

Attack: High
Defense: High
Manipulation: Low
Movement: Low


This is to say he can use his power for category effects up to the rank--but the SFX what they look like are his--he can of course try new things (Like Flight by using heat generate thermals, or jets out of his feet) that is why Movement is rated rather than not simply crossed out, but at first he's just not going to be good at it.

Sidhain wrote: --these were called stunts in MSH and Marvel Saga and worked slightly differently but the intent was the same--a fixed power could be "pushed" or "stunted" to perform something new, or at least something within its realm. While the given power was "X" and static, the ability to override that with a stunt made the systems allow for dynamic results.

Yeah, Marvel Super Heroes is often overlooked and underestimated. Great game, and way, way ahead of its time.

Best,
Ron

I'll concur, MSH was decidedly out of its time. Humor was rewarded by the game.

Rewards could be used immediatly to alter those pesky dice results, or do stunt or held for use to "improve" a PC.

And rewards included things like "Making Commitment +5" which ranged from going on a date you'd, or fulfilling your role as a teacher at the local university and so on.