I was reading some Forge threads, looking at various magic systems that people were working on, when something struck me:

Magic is really just a player-empowerment tool, resisting the GM's total control of the game. This is partially why it's so ubiqitous in roleplaying.

I mean look at Nobilis, if you want an exaggerated case. There, the magic/miracle system empowers players more than just about any other game, encouraging them to take other Stances and manipulate the imagined world. Next, imagine a Universalis mod where the world-creation system is just the magic system, powers given to all-powerful mages or gods who manipulate the imagined world.

Magic is just a method of handing story control back to the players in small controlled doses. Calling it "magic" hides what it actually does, functionally, within the social contract. This also means that every "magic system" if employed properly, could just be a way for players to get more control. Look at Donjon, where players determine if there is a secret trapdoor or what's in the next room. A magic system by another name.

Of course, this may not be anything new, but I guess this is my week for making realizations I should have long ago.

I don't buy it.

A magic system might sometimes be a vector for players to have authorial power, but I don't think that's the normal case.

Let's look at magic in D&D. How is Magic Missle any more or less an "empowerment tool" than a crossbow? I don't see that magic system increasing the players' potential for authorial behavior. Even though I used the simplest case, jumping to Wish, I still don't really think that description fits. The DM decides how the wish is interpreted and fulfilled and there is a rich tradition of the GM screwing the wishful player if they can think of a clever way to do so. The GM has total control -- or doesn't...but not because of magic.

Nobilis seems to encourage the players to generate lots of story within the framework established by the game and the particular HG. And the whole system really revolves around the miraculous powers and how they are a tool for the P/Cs to do that. But ultimately, it could be run exactly as a typical D&D game. And I'm pretty sure that there are some very Gamist Nobilis games out there.

I love different magic systems. I think that magic is often the most fun to read in a new game. But I don't think they're particularly a narative asset.

But maybe I'm missing something; I'm still new to all this,

Chris

Jonathan Walton wrote: Magic is really just a player-empowerment tool, resisting the GM's total control of the game. This is partially why it's so ubiqitous in roleplaying.
...
Magic is just a method of handing story control back to the players in small controlled doses. Calling it "magic" hides what it actually does, functionally, within the social contract. This also means that every "magic system" if employed properly, could just be a way for players to get more control.

Hmmm, I think you're both essentially write.

I don't think that what's being handed to the player is actually "Story" Control, per se; but rather an ability to effect and alter the environment at a scale grater than mere swords and guns.

Handing that level of ability to influence the environment to the player, does give the player a greater degree of power, and when the "story" is essentially driven by the environment one of the side effects can be added influence over the story.

If you take it from an extreme example. Consider the worlds most railroaded D&D dungeon. Magic (at higher levels anyway) is essentially a free ticket for the player to de rail the rail road.

Take the impact of a Dig spell on a carefully laid out dungeon maze.
the impact of a charm spell on a key NPC
the impact of a sleep spell on the super watchful guard.
the impact of a wall spell to close off an avenue of attack
etc.

To the extent that the "story" requires the characters to be lost in the maze, to get lied to by the NPC, to get caught by the guard, or to get ambushed from behind; these spells have effectively allowed the player to alter that story.

If you've ever been in a heavily railroaded dungeon, think back to all of the desperate excuses DMs will give for why the magic didn't work (the dungeon walls are laced with adamantine which is immune to dig spells, the NPC mysteriously makes his Save 4 times in a row even though he's 0 level, the guard is standing inside an anti magic circle or has a talisman of sleep protection...etc; All of which is just the DM trying to protect his soveriegn control over his "story".


So...the more a story relies on a certain structure, and the more magic allows players to mess with, unravel, by pass, or otherwise modify that structure...the more impact a player has on the story.

In Nobilis the structure is more open and full of surreal crazyness. Nobilis magic gives the player the ability to engage in his own surreal crazyness and so similarly impact the story in a way that a non magical entity in the game could not.

John Kim wrote: As a player, I usually feel limited primarily by the other players.

John Kim wrote: GM control of story usually comes about because the players feel like they should do what he would like, because of the work he put in.

I'm having trouble seeing beyond the "lumpley principle" here. Magic, crossbows, etc. just being specific ways for the players to exert influence during play.

Am I missing something?

-Chris

Jonathan,
Wow, you just explained why I always play magic types in DnD...
I agree with you, although I don't think it's intentional, more like another example of incoherence.

I think any player ability with an 'open ended' effect can do this. By 'open ended' I mean an effect described in terms of the game world, rather than the mechanical system. Consider
transporters in Star Trek (yeah, yeah A.C. quote...blah blah blah), or hacking in games that
support it.

C. Edwards wrote: I'm having trouble seeing beyond the "lumpley principle" here. Magic, crossbows, etc. just being specific ways for the players to exert influence during play.

Am I missing something?

-Chris

Ralph,

It sounds to me like you're just pointing out that magic is really powerful. I agree. But a clever player could also disassemble their crossbow, use the string as a snare to catch pigeons, burn the stock to generate enough charcoal to leave a message on the stone wall, use the metal bow to wedge the door open, and roll the two-ton gold statue out on the remaining bolts. Magic is more versatile than the crossbow, but I belive the difference you are illustrating is a difference of degree rather than of kind.

And the DM presumably knows what spells the PCs have access to. They can plan for many of the uses to which those spells may be put, just as they can for many of the uses of a crossbow.

Now, maybe pragmatically a difference in degree is enough. Certainly by the time you get to the kind of power level displayed by Nobilis characters, the number of things that could happen with the "magic" is absurdly large and unpredictible and so what you're saying is really, really true. But it's still just providing more of the same kind of abilities to the character that the crossbow provides

Chris(W)

Chris does have a good point. In "Step on Up" conflicts between players (which includes players vs. GM), resources that are already built into the social contract become tools for arguing for your view of what should happen. So if my wizard has the Dig spell, I cna whip that out as ammo for the declaration that I should be able to tunnel. Likewise, more creative MacGyver players can do the same things with ordinary game objects. How many times have players in a Roman-era game tried to make Molotov Cocktails or proto-gunpowder?

My argument, though, was that any magic/psionics/superpowers/super-technology etc. that potentially has a kind of open-ended, interpretative nature is simply a redelegation of power back to the players. Sure, the GM can build all sorts of silly reasons why things shouldn't work, if they're really determined to railroad, but that just shows that they're losing control. They have to resort to other methods to keep the game moving in pre-determined directions.

Obviously, there are levels of freedom and power here. D&D-style spellcasting is pretty limited and causal. But there is enough space for interpretation that it can be a railroading GM's biggest headache because magic users always do things that disrupt your plot. Ask any hardcore D&D control freak GM and see if it isn't true.

When you get systems that allow you to create your own spells/superpowers/etc. the freedom and potential for disruption gets bigger. When you allow players to create things on the fly, it increases still more. And obviously, if the degree that players can affect the game becomes greater, each act will have a more meaningful impact. So really you have both Power and Freedom leading to greater and greater player control.

This isn't to say that players will necessarily use this new story control for any particular end. Magic is not necessarily Narrativist unless the magic user really wants to support themes in the narrative. But he could just as easily decide to smite his buddies or create a castle made of glass.

I've always thought that applications of magic particular to a function are empowering and yet not overwhelming to the plot. All my examples are from movies.

In Singer's X-Men, Storm could call a lightning strike, but it took time to brew the clouds, and even then, it had to come from the sky (instead of streaking from her hands.) Magneto could pull some devious tricks, using metal to act against his targets, mutant and human alike. But he couldn't make force fields or lift people into the air by influencing magnetic particles in their blood (both of which he does over and over in the comics.)

In Jackson's LOTR, Gandalf chiefly uses light to create awe and protective fields (e.g. bellowing at Bilbo in his Hobbit hole, face of light to the goblin swarm in the Halls of Moriar, arc of light to bar the Balrog's passage at the Bridge of Khazadhum.) But he still had to duck from the archers, wield a sword in a melee and ride his ass off to reach the Riders of Rohan.

How can their not be negotiations over intent of spell texts and how it affects game balance? And for more interpretive wordings, it just ups the trust required to share a similiar spirit of exploration.

When I ran a Hubris Story Engine 3-shot, I pushed the players to introduce plot elements, create setting and direct characters (theirs and others) as necessary to explain a scene resolution.



• The party wounded and captured a leader for the Necromancer's cult army in an upstairs hall of a whore house in a town that was a nexus of conversion and recruitment. Thousands of men were swarming the building, running upstairs to breach the barricaded doors. They succeeded their roll to escape.


• GM: So what happens?
• PC: Well, I guess the cult members and soldiers are rushing the front and sides.
• GM: No, actually, their surrounding the building.
• PC: No, I'm saying they are.
• GM: Oh, gotcha.
• PC: So, we open a window and jump out the back.
• GM: In his weakened state, the general may be killed! Then you wouldn't get to interrogate him.
• PC#2: Well, actually, there's a wagon full of hay that provides a soft landing.



• The party is tracking cult members as they make their way to a secret location for a meeting.


• PC: So why are we after these guys?
• GM: You're trying to figure out where an ancient sword that can harm the dead is kept so that you can use it to slay the necromancer, dissolve his power base and secure the kingdom.
• PC: Hey! Wait a minute! Along the way, while we're following these guys, I come across one of those types of swords in the alley!
• (All laugh.)
• PC#2: Yeah, the Hell with following these clowns. Let's go back to the pub and get drunk!
• GM: Very funny . . .





You're either in the spirit or you're a spoiler.

Magic is a device, a tool, as I see it. It's part of the setting, a part most underestimate (I personally put forth the theory that whenever you have magic, you have the potential for things that the tech level of the setting would otherwise not allow -- better alloys through fire magic, better medicine through healing magic, without necessarily understanding the full force of it, so on). It is a potent force, but it is not without its own boundaries. Bad usage of magic sees it as a cure-all, there to do the impossible when you want it done. Good usage of magic treats it more as a tool, even when it IS a mysterious force; it is not there to solve every little thing, but it can be potentially wielded to good effect. Good usage also takes into account, I feel, the full ramifications magic has upon a society; a problem with many settings is that magic is introduced and then the rest of the setting is left alone, to run its course rather than truly incorporating the magic into it. So you wind up with a "medieval" (I hate that word in conjunction with fantasy, but that's another rant) setting that also has magic tacked onto it, or a "modern" setting that also has magic tacked onto it. I agree, though, that a creative PC can do many amazing things without magic. I had a character who was notorious for the tricks he pulled off; he occassionally made use of magic for this, but more often worked with his own two hands, his wits and whatever was at hand. No one can deny, though, that magic, applied intelligent, can make many tasks easier. I don't see it, though, as a means of competing with the GM for power, I believe because magic DOES ultimately have limits; it exists within the bounds of both the setting and the system, is a part of it, and when well layed-out, is merely one more tool the player and GM both have to work with.

I do have a couple of quibbles with what Windthin wrote: (I personally put forth the theory that whenever you have magic, you have the potential for things that the tech level of the setting would otherwise not allow -- better alloys through fire magic, better medicine through healing magic, without necessarily understanding the full force of it, so on).

He further wrote: Good usage also takes into account, I feel, the full ramifications magic has upon a society; a problem with many settings is that magic is introduced and then the rest of the setting is left alone, to run its course rather than truly incorporating the magic into it. So you wind up with a "medieval" (I hate that word in conjunction with fantasy, but that's another rant) setting that also has magic tacked onto it, or a "modern" setting that also has magic tacked onto it.

I disagree with the general case that magic returns powers to the players. Having played Mage, with its extraordinary degree of freedom and power through magic, I don't feel there was any significant difference in the player/GM distribution of authority. Magic powers can be revoked by GM's, a feature that occurs frequently enough in the source material as to be unremarkable.

In fact I have come to think that magic has a different function; it symbolically alienates the player from their actions as a character. Magic serves as a massive signpost that this is Not Real Life, inasmuch as I'm referring to psionics ro what have you as well. The different, fiucitonal world operates under different, fictional rules, and this malkes then content of the fictional world less threatening and more accessible.

Interestingly (or perhaps not) I've always found that in D&D and similar games it's the non-magic users who wield the power. Why? Because if they choose to go one way and the magic users go the other, it's the magic users who die.

I think it's simply a matter of knowledge gradient. Players can always get creative. I've run games where spells *needed* to be used in unusual ways in order to succeed (i.e. you have to have dig spells and pass-wall and whatever to complete the dungeon).

This is essentially a version of the puzzle game.

Yes, magic can be harder to pin down than an cross bow--however the signature railroading experience: the NPC WHO MUST BE DEALT WITH (Bobby G, on this board) can just as easily be threatened as charmed--and usually just as effectively.

And consider this, it's reasonable for a crime-lord or an important castle to defend itself from common low-level spells. In a world with charm, bank-tellers might not have anit-charm devices (but they would have charm-detectors)--but the manager would.

If you can't make a vault that's immune to magic you've got to have an economic system that isn't vulnerable to being raided.

So, no, I don't think magic, per-se is extra empowerment. I think it's harder to second-guess than many other RPG artifacts but I don't think thats so much specific to a magical nature as much as simpling being outside most people's real life experience.

-Marco

I think of magic (and psionics, superpowers, super-technology, etc.) as ways to allow players to do things that everyone (that is, players and GMs alike) want them to be able to do, but that ordinary causality won't permit them to do.

When I'm GMing, I want players to be able to hear the frightening secret instructions that the head villain is giving to his chief operative. The players want that too. And I don't want the villain or the thug to look stupid in the process, so they're not going to have their conversation in a loud voice in the middle of the marketplace. It's going to be in a secret and well-secured area. But fortunately, the player-characters have powers of invisibility, or perhaps the skillz and warez to hack into the villain's ultra-secure communications link.

Of course, if invisibility or hacking ability is commonplace in the setting, then the villain is going to look stupid breifing the operative even in the inner dungeon chamber or over the "secure" com-link. So, invisibility or hackig ability is represented as rare. Rare enough that it's plausible for the villain not to expect it -- at least, not at the level of capability that the player-characters have.

But this isn't really special to magic (superpowers, etc.) alone. The same logic applies to "mundane" abilities, including combat. Have you ever wondered why, in a setting where there are seventh-level knights around, anyone would bother to employ fifth-level thugs or bodyguards? Superior combat skills gives the players the ability to do something everyone wants them to be able to do -- beat those thugs or bodyguard -- but such skills are depicted as rare, to keep it plausible that the player-characters would be confronted with such enemies in the first place.

- Walt

Marco wrote: So, no, I don't think magic, per-se is extra empowerment. I think it's harder to second-guess than many other RPG artifacts but I don't think thats so much specific to a magical nature as much as simpling being outside most people's real life experience.

I think the types of powers we are discussing give power because they essentially define and alternate system of causality. Basicly our reality provides one system (most games don't have specify how gravity works), and whatever the game specifies beyond that(tech/magic/superpowers,ect) forms another, less specified system. Due to being less specified, it's more open to interpretation, so players using it have more room to select multiple meanings. This can happen also if the players attempt a mundane action outside the GM's experiance, but it's more common with magic type things. Thus the defence against this is to try to specify things really specificly, but it's still more interpretable, which is why systems like Ars Magica attempt to give some underlying principals of magic so that definition can be resolved.

You don't buy it? Look at it this way: in a car chase I can argue with you about "what would really happen." With a History Spell? Dose it show you a video? Tell you a story? invest you with memories? There's no way to know what'd "really happen" since anything you postulate immediately sets the answer as axiomatic.*

You seem to be arguing that the true essence of magic itself is in some way empowering--and that it's constrained by AD&D and what have you (for the record, I don't find that boring--I find it intriguingly ... 'gamist' making for cool tactical situations).

But hell, I agree that "magick" is as empowering as a concept as one's likely to find. But so is uber-martial arts--look at wire-fu (at that level it's a lot like magic--but it gets very murky). And so is high-technology.

-Marco
* I *have* been in a "high speed" chase. I've been down behind a support column with a loaded assault rfile pointed at a person (with intent to kill if they didn't get the hell out of the zone I was defending). I've ridden horses. I've fenced. I mean, no I haven't been in a gun-fight--but I come a lot closer to that than I do to casting Wall of Stone.

Marco wrote: * I *have* been in a "high speed" chase. I've been down behind a support column with a loaded assault rfile pointed at a person (with intent to kill if they didn't get the hell out of the zone I was defending). I've ridden horses. I've fenced. I mean, no I haven't been in a gun-fight--but I come a lot closer to that than I do to casting Wall of Stone.

I think that magic is a game designer or author empowering tool.

I think many people are looking at the title of this thread and thinking that it gives them free reign to post their own opinion of what they think magic is. Let me make it very clear that those kinds of post are OFF-TOPIC to this thread. I apologize for not saying that earlier. Start another thread if you want to look at magic in the abstract.

The topic of the thread is the discussion or refutation (since many people disagree) with my definition of seemingly-magical abilities (inclusing super tech, super powers, etc.) as things that necessarily empower the players with more control over the shared imagined space, relative to the GM.

PLEASE let's stick to that topic, so this doesn't degenerate into speculation and people talking past each other.

Jonathan Walton wrote: In my mind, killing someone with a gun is as alien an experience as shooting a fireball from my hand.

There is a particular way that some magic and other analogous powers can (in some systems) be more empowering than equivalent "mundane" alternatives. To wit, the magic version exempts the player from having to exhibit real-world skills to produce a certain in-game effect, which might not be the case otherwise.

PLAYER: I try to convince the bartender to help us find a hiding place.

GM: Okay, but what do you say to him?

PLAYER: Um, 'Hail, brother, we are fellow Zilchians in need of aid...'

GM: He scowls even more, and you realize that he's an Arcadian, whose ancestors were persecuted by Zilchians for five generations.

PLAYER: 'I mean, we need help to hide from the Zilchians who are chasing us...'

GM: Now he just looks confused.

PLAYER: Hell, I'm supposed to have a high Charisma, can't I just roll this or something?

GM: I suppose I have to allow that, but too bad, I was hoping this would be a role playing game...

This crap is avoided by:

PLAYER: I cast "Fast Friendship" on the bartender.

- Walt

Hmm, Walt has a point.

After all, it's probably possible to move a mountain just with normal actions, assuming you're an inventive player who knows how to use the resources given. But in "Nobilis," you just throw down some AMPs and narrate yourself picking the mountain up and setting it down somewhere else.

So is magic then also a "shorthand" for mundane actions? I'd agree.

Ok, I'll elaborate.

"Magic" in the meaning it seems to be used in this read is a game designer empowerment tool. It gives the game designer the ability to redefine what is possible within the game without having to take into account realism, verisimilitude, common sense, or anything else he wants to ignore.

Since this MAY extend the abilities of PCs, "magic" MAY be a character empowerment tool. This is usually the case but it depends entirely on the designer.

But is "magic" a player empowerment tool? No, it is not. "Magic" only exists in-game except for the the game designer who makes the magic system. This sounds ridiculous and overly pedantic, but since "magic" is not real, it has no ability to affect the players in any way, including empowerment.

The game designer MAY empower the players by giving them power to define parts of the game, and he MAY use the magic system for this purpose, but it is not the "magic" that empowers the player, it is the game system.

So Jonathon, my answer to your question, based on my short definition of what "magic" is, is NO.

Since "magic" is entirely defined by the game designer, it has no properties, attributes, or consequences beyond what he gives it. No necessary consequences of any kind can exist.

Since "magic" is only defined in-game context, it has no properties, attributes, or consequences in real world. The relationship between the GM and players can not be affected by "magic", or by the presence of "magic" within the game.

Still, I do think that since the "magic" systems are not limited by verisimilitude, most player empowerment to redefine the reality in a game that otherwise is fully GM controlled happens thru the "magic" system.

Walt Freitag wrote: There is a particular way that some magic and other analogous powers can (in some systems) be more empowering than equivalent "mundane" alternatives. To wit, the magic version exempts the player from having to exhibit real-world skills to produce a certain in-game effect, which might not be the case otherwise.
- Walt

Walt Freitag wrote:
This crap is avoided by:

PLAYER: I cast "Fast Friendship" on the bartender.

- Walt

Yes, "magic" does not NECESSARILY empower players in relation to the GM (Jonathon's question), but it USUALLY does since the GM can't draw on real world experience to support his decisions in cases where game system lacks precision. Charm spells are a common example of this.

I think it depends on the game. Lets go back to AD&D to make my point. I think we can all releate to that magic system. Actualy we are going to go slighly farther back. D&D was formed as an expansion of the idea of a tactical board game. Back in the olden days you were dropped off at a dungeon and sent to go do something. So you go you meet monsters and you handle them in a stratigic sort of way. Many times dungeon crawls can feel more like board games. To that end a quick examination of roles needs to be made:

THe Fighter: He takes care of the little people and the majority of the fighting. He also in essence acts as human shields for thouse peices that are less inclined to combat. In army turns they are a block of infantry.

The Cleric: He heals the fighter, battle feild medic, nothing fancy here.

The Theif: The thief can prefore a variety of roles on the battle feild he can scout out artillery, asses strengths of enemies before you encounter them, set traps, essentialy they are scouts.

Mage: They are artilery. They can kick out damage on a scale that is unrivaled by any other class. However, they suffer from many disadvantages and need to be proteched. A well placed spell can change the tide of a battle. Some battles would be impossible without a mage and a well placed fireball.

Artilery. Ever since then the magic user has been attemping to wriggle out from under the crushing burden of being the super vulnerable hunk of flesh that can sink continents. The problem here is that magic has become such an essential part of the AD&D expereince that sometimes it can be difficult to see how certain situations would be handled without magic. One person cited an example of making the players use magic in diffrent creative ways...well what if they didn't have a mage at all? Fantasy gaming in general becomes very diffrent without any sort of magic. Through one player are world of possiblilties are opened up, by taking it away it becomes an easyer way to see what exactly it is that it dose. All the sudden thouse 30 ice mefits are a real pain whereas before one fireball would of solved the problem.

So to answer the question I think many times magic is the very opposite of player empowerment. Infact a magic user can be this increadble ball and chain. At 4 hp's per level you need to make bloody certain that nothing scary gets ahold of him, you also have to stay out of the way of that fireball unless you want to get blasted. Mant battle plans are foucused specificaly on how to use the wizard effectivly, because if they aren't allowed for then much potential is wasted by the party causing a potentialy dangeouse situation.

The situation can be exasperated again if your little wizard freindwants to make some magic items. Then the play group has to wander far and wide to get all the bizzare ingreadiants nessisary, risking life and limb just for a sword. That seems less like empowerment and more like the players trying to keep up with an arms race.

Jonathan Walton wrote: I was reading some Forge threads, looking at various magic systems that people were working on, when something struck me:

Magic is really just a player-empowerment tool, resisting the GM's total control of the game. This is partially why it's so ubiqitous in roleplaying.

M. J. Young wrote:

I do have a couple of quibbles with what Windthin wrote: (I personally put forth the theory that whenever you have magic, you have the potential for things that the tech level of the setting would otherwise not allow -- better alloys through fire magic, better medicine through healing magic, without necessarily understanding the full force of it, so on).

The problem is that I would say the same thing about technology (and psionics and body skills as well)--that you can do absolutely anything with any one of these, if the limits are removed. You can argue that Star Trek levels of technology manage to obviate the need for magic by using technology instead (and you would be correct). So while what you say is true, that you say it that way suggests that magic is somehow more than these other things, when it's merely another approach to accomplishing goals.

M. J. Young wrote:

He further wrote: Good usage also takes into account, I feel, the full ramifications magic has upon a society; a problem with many settings is that magic is introduced and then the rest of the setting is left alone, to run its course rather than truly incorporating the magic into it. So you wind up with a "medieval" (I hate that word in conjunction with fantasy, but that's another rant) setting that also has magic tacked onto it, or a "modern" setting that also has magic tacked onto it.

This assumes that merely because magic is present it is ubiquitous; that doesn't follow.

It is pretty common in our age...