No.386332 [View All]
>Magic’s limits are often as important as the capabilities
>—at least, they are for making things interesting.
>Consider Unknown Armies. (It’s another game I worked on.)
>Magick in Unknown Armies (yes, it’s got that K) is versatile and powerful, but has severe limits, too.
>One of the principal ones is this: Magick cannot override human will. It just can’t.
>It can make you want something, or fear something, it can take over your body... but it cannot make you choose.
>Only you choose.
>The central issue of Unknown Armies is personal character, so having an inviolate character was essential.
>Acting under duress or having your body act against your directions—all that raises questions of identity. If my arms strangle someone, am I a murderer? Even if I tried to stop them?
>When you’re building a game, see if you can identify magic uses that are poison to your central
concept.
>If I’m doing an exploration game, I don’t want magic to take the trouble out of travel. For a game of revenge, I don’t want the PCs to level up, learn the Spell of Phantom Stalking Doom, cast it on the main bad guy, and then have a light supper while the magic flits off to what should have been the climax of the game. A quest game won’t be fun if there’s simple magic that leads the PCs where they need to go—or that leads their enemies right to them.
REIGN, p. 149
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No.388144
I tend towards the idea that "magic" is something of a blanket term. One know-it-all wizard might hear of something another wizard did and say "that's bullshit, magic doesn't work like that," because they have a very narrow understanding of what magic is. I tend to operate on the idea that magic is just the partial compatibility of other universes' (or planes') laws of nature. People who manage to harness these outworldly laws are performing "magic".
I find this approach to be pretty useful for setting tight limits to magic's capabilities while still allowing for a lot of variety and mystique. I tend towards low-profile magic worlds with room for skepticism. A pyromancer can't necessarily throw fireballs out of nowhere, but they can manipulate the spread of flames or give you third-degree burns with a simple handshake.
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No.388186
>>388126
>If you give it any noteworthy anti-magic properties, it just gets ridiculous fast.
Then all mythology is ridiculous because most of the answers to your hypotheticals is one pure silver coin, especially the demon rituals.
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No.388218
>>388126
>If you give it any noteworthy anti-magic properties, it just gets ridiculous fast.
Why? Why is it ridiculous that a silver amulet makes you immune to magic? Magic itself is ridiculous. Let it have an equally bullshit counter. Stop thinking in D&D.
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No.388240
>>388218
It's ridiculous because while silver is valuable, it's not exactly super rare. If magic is real and dangerous, why wouldn't every single person who could afford it have a silver amulet that makes them immune. It utterly trivializes something that should by all rights be an unknowable and to most folk, utterly terrifying force that violates all understanding of how the world works. An amulet that happens to be made of silver that protects you from magic is one thing. Any amulet made of silver because silver is just so damn special by itself means that unless you're a dirt farmer you've got nothing to worry about.
For the record, I'm not thinking in D&D. I've never even played D&D. I got into /tg/ through wargaming and tried a few other RP systems, but I feel D&D has too much of a "throw it all in" approach to the standard campaign settings for my taste, and also don't like how common magic is. My entire viewpoint re: magic is that it should be rare, powerful, dangerous to wield, and poorly understood even by those who can harness it.
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No.388249
>>388240
>why wouldn't every single person who could afford it have a silver amulet that makes them immune.
Why not? People get vaccines for shit. Maybe the rich put silver in all of their armor, and adventurers silver swords to fight magical things.
>magic is that it should be rare, powerful, dangerous to wield, and poorly understood even by those who can harness it.
Why? Because you like it that way? Magic doesn't need to be jack shit. If you're trying to replicate a medieval fantasy setting, you definitely don't want it to be. For the longest fucking time, people never depicted magic as throwing fireballs and shit - You don't summon a demon to fight, you summon it to teach you math or botany or some other shit. For the record, if you think silver is "too common", consider that for centuries people believed that iron was the ultimate defense against magic things.
Further, your points about rarity, power, danger to wield, and being poorly understood are completely senseless to the discussion. Magic being easy to counter does not make it rare, nor does it make it less dangerous (for instance, summoning something means not having any silver around, making you susceptible to possession or worse from a fuck up). It certainly doesn't make it easy to understand. And as for power - knowledge is power. If direct harm is needed, you can still make crops in the fields wilt, or otherwise cause havoc. Healing is still a possibility - being able to treat diseases and such is a pretty big deal. Or you can kill a healer, replace him, and kill his vulnerable patients. Monsters don't necessarily know better - You can charm a Roc or something and have it drop stones on a city from on high, where silver can't cock-block your actions. There's a massive host of possibilities, but you need to look at it through a lens more complex than "make people go boom boom".
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No.388251
>>388240
Dresden Files did it with Iron and our fair cousins really, really hate humans and want them dead because they can't enter cities freely but they're still dangerous and doesn't entirely stop their meddling, either.
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No.388473
>>388011
By furfag I meant wizard that has shapeshifting powers ala lycanthropy.
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No.388476
>>388111
I used lead as an example, but the metal I'm mentioning should be expensive and soft, so anti-magical weaponry should be quite crappy to fight something like an actual armed warrior. I used a "ton of lead" because lead is relatively expensive and the bigger the amount (in this case a fucking ton) the more effective it's anti-magical properties are. Such huge amount can't be carried by a man or a beast, but you could build lead fortresses/vehicles/tanks to protect yourself against magical warriors/battle mages/magic artillery. Some metals are better than others in reflecting/absorving/canceling magic. Stuff like lead, copper and steel can only have effect in huge amounts of said material, but stuff more expensive like really pure gold, silver, or platinum are way stronger, so you can make tools out of them that can deal with mages that aren't amateurs. You feel me?
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No.388480
>>387994
Forgot to say that by dark magic I mean magic that is focused in lies and deceiving your opponent and other kind of things socially considered as evil. Sacrificing people is a bad thing, and it would give you favor with the dark lord/god that you put in this universe, for example.
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No.388487
CONTINUATION OF MY AUTISTIC RAMBLING ABOUT MAGIC, PSYCHICS AND ANTI-MAGIC MATERIALS
A way I just came up for a light mage (priest of light) to get "godly favors" is by literally spreading the awareness of the light god through mass. If he does the ritual of mass, which is actually considered a ritual (at least considered in catholocism) he will get favors from the light god. The more people attend mass, the more he gets. He'll also get some money from the donations that the attenders offer, if they do.
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No.391239
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No.391532
>>388144
> I tend to operate on the idea that magic is just the partial compatibility of other universes' (or planes') laws of nature. People who manage to harness these outworldly laws are performing "magic".
I like that idea.
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No.391533
One idea for a setting I once had was that magic can not achieve things which the caster himself can not actually imagine. Casting a fire spell underwater hence would be very difficult because it defies conventional logic, and teleportation/portal spells likewise won't work unless the caster already has been to the place he wants to visit at least once (or you get someone who's been there to cast the spell for you).
At the same time, this issue can be circumvented by the used of assorted mind-altering drugs, even if this comes with the notable risk of having you do something which you severely regret later on.
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No.391537
>>391533
>The Fool is the greatest Magician
Scary. Imagine someone so intensively naive as to think they can literally reach the stars, or hold the moon.
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No.391542
>>391537
>tfw you're too autistic to understand death so you accidentally invent immortality.
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No.391544
>>391533
That would ultimately make it even more broken.
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No.391547
>>386332
Sadly, this kind of vague question that only has one clear answer: It depends.
It depends on the system, it depends on the setting, it depends on how you envision the nature of magic and the metaphysical rules of the fictional universe of the story you are telling. Ideally, you will have some rules and structures in place, and even if those rules still just boil down to "it's magic." those rules are still important, because as others have pointed out, what magic can't do in a given situation or setting is often more important than what it can't do.
Since every magic system can be quite different, I'd say the only universal rule for magic should be that magic cannot create more magic. No perpetual energy devices. No using a 5th level spell to loophole your way to a 9th level spell. No casting spells that allow you to cast more spells than you would normally. I wouldn't go so far as to say equivalent exchange because the caster can come up short for their effort, just that nothing a magic user does granting them more power than is supplied in the use of the magic.
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No.391621
>>386332
Depends were the magic comes from doesn't it?
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No.391623
>>391544
If you've never seen fire burn underwater before then how do you know how it'd workout underwater? Then you've got your deepest fears and the power of Listen and Believe, because it is powered by belief exploiting the wholes in that logic is also how you win.
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No.393642
>>391623
By this system all powerful wizards are literally just a bunch of easy-to-fool schizos. Sounds lame.
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No.393659
>>391533
>>391537
The best casters would be druids or barbarians because they would have almost no formal understanding of the physics the magic violates. This would create a justification for a conflict between magic and technology. In order to build better tech you have to understand the physics, but understanding the physics makes it harder to do magic. Taken to it's logical conclusion you'd have high-tech peoples who are totally unfamiliar with magic and high-magic people with near-zero understanding of materialism. They'd be tremendously alien to each other, to the degree of eldritch horrors.
>>391542
>>391544
>>391623
>>393642
You guys realize that "You can't do what you can't imagine" is different from "You can do anything you can imagine," right?
p -> q =/= !p -> !q
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No.393683
>>393659
It's still Mary Sue-ish and dumb as fuck.
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No.393698
in a world dominated by mentally limited folk. magic like that could work but it wouldn't be realistic for everybody to be like that.
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No.393919
>>391533
>specialized wizards being raised to stay as retarded as humanly possible throughout life
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No.393929
>>393919
The idea was more that Elder wizards would increasingly dangerous to the general public, partially because they simply had so much experience with all things arcane, and partially because they would continuously go batshit insane as they realized they could things that they shouldn't be able too.
Imagine how scary a Crossbreed between a Malkavian and a powerful wizard would be.
At the same time, it is equally possible that certain natural laws might take major offense at you trying to fuck with them, and will promptly fuck you right back.
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No.393937
>>393659
>p -> q =/= !p -> !q
I am glad that you brought logic into all of this because I am massively autistic when it comes to mathematical logic and I have no safe space in which to vent my autism.
The issue of what can be imagined is perceived very differently by different authorities. Some people think that there is a naive realism that limits reality. Other people think that anything that is logically consistent can become physically real, and thus true mastery of logic is equivalent to true mastery of reality.
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No.393938
>>393659
The major problem with RPG systems that attempt to put rules on subjective reality is that the player of RPGs are seldom truly sincere. The players often claim to be friends who want to have fun together, but often they truly hate each other. Thus they find it difficult to honestly admit when they are arguing at cross-purposes and they cannot resolve their differences because they operate from axioms that cannot be compared meaningfully.
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No.393964
>>393929
>The idea was more that Elder wizards would increasingly dangerous to the general public,
They'd become emotionally crippled from the abuse, nevermind schizos they'd be borderline sociopaths and animal children. Sociopaths especially have at least one thing that ensures they will be pissed and hate you forever if you do it because they are made by the environment (psychopaths are born that way), and only be satisfied with revenge. Any platitudes is just seen as an easy way out and merely lessen the revenge until he comes back cause he wasn't satisfied.
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No.394048
>>391533
My system uses something similar: Magic users are born with innate understandings of physical laws that either don't exist or are just unknowable to mundane humans. They can write down these "concepts" to create a single use spell that's limited by the reader's understanding.
The flip side is that reason will negate an effect so if someone is a quick thinker their reaction to a fireball is "oh shit... wait a second, that doesn't make sense" which will lessen or stop the spell. The human empire uses these magic users as batteries after lobotomizing them but has to hide the mage behind a lot of complex looking machinery because the skepticism of workers will harm the efficacy of the battery.
These magic users (Cursed) are inherently dangerous, they could flash broil a cow or drown a human in ambient moisture very easily. Their broken perspective from being trapped between two different versions of reality makes them completely insane in a cuckoolander sort of way.
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No.394438
>>394048
Hmm, I can understand this. Maybe add a "common sense" stat that acts as a magic defense kind of thing.
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No.397149
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No.397197
utility magics >>>>> any other magic
cave with dangerous dragon? use Telekinesis to collapse the ceiling.
want to collect the loot though? use Creation to make a 500 ft cube of lead land on its head.
need to raid a castle? use Move Earth to destroy its foundations
facing an army? use Glyph with Insanity on a bouncy ball, watch them kill themselves trying to catch it.
playing a high level character? True Polymorph a seige cannon into a shield, have fun when your DM throws you that beholder with antimagic rays.
tired of wandering monsters? Create Homunculus, send it to your destination while you and your friends hang out in the tavern, then Teleport when it arrives.
Want a sexy new body? use Magic Jar on that enemy barbarian, cast Death Ward on yourself, disintegrate your old frail wizard body and eat the ashes, then destroy the jar.
Want to kill the Tarrasque? Summon Allips to put its Int to 0, then use Unseen Servants to fill the comatosed Tarrasque’s nose/mouth with dirt, and watch it suffocate to death.
Want to kill the Kraken? Polymorph it into a camel, then Disintegrate/Powerword Kill it. When the camel’s HP drops to 0 the Kraken dies. Who’s bright idea was it to not give the Kraken legendary saves?
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No.397199
>>397197
>putting telekinesis in the magic tres instead of the psychic tree
Please read the thread.
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No.397219
Magic should be either unpredictable or depend on right materials and/or symbols and other things of value, and own skill, as the power comes not from caster but from their ability to understand or grasp the force of nature that is arcane forces. A wizard would then have to depend on odd trinkets and fluctuating and unpredictable but powerful force. Magic could be limited by it's own laws, or by amount of energy or materia that powers it being nearby.
The divine, nature spirit or demon given magic should be it's own, separate category that depends entirely on caster's contract with beings, with different pacts of multiple tiers, each with more strict rules. A god's basic pact may just involved basic magic but only involves following the basic commandments, while advanced spell giving pact will require to go on eternal mission, serving god's goals in some way. Basic nature spirit pact may require not harming natural creatures whereas advanced one will call for active protection and rooting out of all the proactive poachers and foresters. Basic demonic pact just involve some sort of regular offering that while requiring to do questionable things can be more or less neutral, like providing offering of stolen money and goods, although nothing stops you from robbing the evil merchant, or sacrificing rabid animals or violent criminals to the demon. More advanced demonic pacts would require things that are straight up wrong, you have to steal from impoverished and starving, hurt the innocent, defile the pure. The limitations would come from following the rules of contract and only using powers in ways the source of power would approve of.
Psychic powers should be apart from magical force, instead relying on development or natural aptitude. Think something like shaolin monk techniques, plus supernatural mind powers. You have born aptitude for this, or develop it trough years of meditation or practice. The source of power if your own mind, body and soul, so you're not dependent on outside force, but you must not overexert your body, and the more basic effects aren't as overtly magical or powerful as those of magicians or pact followers.
Alchemy, supernatural powered mad science, aether and morphic field science or whatnot should, being more or less scientific, thus be about predictable, reliable results. In a world where magic is a wild force, there could still be consistent rules magic always follows that could be exploited. It's pretty hard to distinguish a magician from a magic scientist when both depend on some items and own knowledge, but considering scientists rely on their equipment way more, you could argue they abandon the finesse that is controlling magic yourself in favor of more consistent straightforward results. Plus, there's a greater dependence on material, and where wizards may invoke symbolic value, scientists would rely full on physical properties of materials. So a wizard may fend off the lightning bolt with a golden pendant that has symbols of five lightning associated gods, the name of legendary hero who survived lightning unscathed, whereas scientist just puts on a lead suit or rubber boots. Mechanically this could mean scientists create or modify items that take up armor or other "major" slots, whereas mages concentrate on accessory slots - this would both allow synergy and make them distinct.
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No.397226
>>397219
What about warrior classes? How can they not get their asses kicked by supernatural stuff.
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No.397233
>>397226
>What about warrior classes? How can they not get their asses kicked by supernatural stuff.
We will make a new rule system, where the only warriors are called "grogs" and exist as bodyguards for the real player characters. And we will call this system "Ars Magica."
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No.397237
>>397233
>System centered around only 1 type of class.
Fucking gay. A good system should allow warriors, thieves, magic dudes and intellectual classes like strategists, lore-masters, bards, engineers...
That way gameplay, lore and roleplay can get deeper, and becomes funnier and better.
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No.397239
>>397237
>not knowing Ars Magica
Come on, anon.
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No.397243
>>397239
So it was an epic meme response?
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No.397244
>>397243
are you literally autistic? asking for a friend
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No.397253
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No.397254
>>397243
Shoot yourself for posting like a fag.
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No.409127
>>386332
>Magic’s limits are often as important as the capabilities
According to Sanderson’s Second Law, more important.
>If I’m doing an exploration game, I don’t want magic to take the trouble out of travel. For a game of revenge, I don’t want the PCs to level up, learn the Spell of Phantom Stalking Doom, cast it on the main bad guy, and then have a light supper while the magic flits off to what should have been the climax of the game.
That's one of he reasons why such things usually are both limited and given countermeasures in settings where they are standard.
The other is that otherwise one spell may start affecting balance of power too much. While "everything about one gimmick" can be good for one-shot books, anything longer than that risks to either overgraze the gimmick or simply get tiresome.
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No.409260
>>409127
>Spell of Phantom Stalking Doom
That is a sweet name for a spell and you can could make a whole campaign out of hunting for that one spell.
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No.409290
>>388240
You're forgetting that any world with magic is a foreign setting, which is not our world.
In our world, on Earth, silver may be rather common, but that's not a given for every world. Even if it isn't rare, there can always be an in-universe explanation why it isn't commonly used, or is hard to acquire, like perhaps the laws of the land or dangerous cartels or whatever. A magical theocracy, for example, would certainly hoard silver to make sure the plebs don't hold that shit, right?
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No.411198
>>409260
>That is a sweet name for a spell and you can could make a whole campaign out of hunting for that one spell.
>The real Phantom Stalking Doom is the friends we made and lessons we learned along the way
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No.416991
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No.416993
Test post, please ignore or delete.
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No.417007
>>386332
It depends on the setting and its source really.
Generally speaking, magic is anti-rational in nature. It's foundation rests in old real world belief systems like voodoo, the tarot, dreams, mind altering substances, religion and other mystical beliefs/traditions.
That's the base from which the idea of magic comes from.
Some settings then attempt to place logical restrictions on it (ie: reality will push back if you aren't careful, like mage in VtM).
Other settings suggest the source of it is nefarious in nature (Chaos in Warhammer).
Some settings base it on cycles (Earthdawn and Shadowrun ).
It all depends on the setting and its source, and therefore the limits on magic are inexorably liked to that source.
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No.417307
>>386332
Whatever the DM says is can not do, it can not do.
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