[Design] Magic: An Initial Sketch

[David Cake]

At 6:31 PM -0800 3/12/05, Lev Lafayette wrote:
>--- David Cake <dave at difference.com.au> wrote:
>
>>  At 3:42 PM -0800 2/12/05, Lev Lafayette wrote:
>>  >  In traditional cultures (slavery and
>>  >feudalism), magic becomes split into - to use the
>>  >Rolemaster terms - Channelling (supernatural,
>>  >priests), Essence (paranormal, wizards) and
>>  Mentalism
>>  >(psychic, mystics).
>>
>>	Personally, this doesn't really work for me much at
>>  all. Its
>>  a grand reductionist classification scheme for those
>>  things that by
>>  their nature fit poorly such schemes, and its
>>  imposing a single
>>  cultures view on the world.
>
>Personally, I think having a grand reductionist scheme
>isn't a bad thing in itself.

	Sure. I don't think its necessarily a bad thing, but I've 
never seen it work in a way that I felt really added to the game. The 
HeroWars one comes closest, but even then its requires significant 
tweakage and careful dealing with exceptions, and thats in a 
fictional universe where they can set the cosmology. I think using 
what is mostly the Rolemaster three way scheme is, umm.. unlikely to 
give good results.

>Further, rather than
>imposing a single cultural view on the world it's more
>about finding correlations among different cultures
>and deriving a workable synthesis.

	In theory, but in practice it tends to work a lot more the 
other way around.

>
>>	Many religions would strongly claim that their
>>  religious
>>  practices fit none of these categories. the category
>>  of psychic is
>>  essentially a modern concept, and one with
>>  relatively little
>>  connection to mysticism. Mentalism and bodily
>>  control have nothing to
>>  do with each other in many schemes. What are here
>>  clearly subdivided
>>  into Essence and Channelling are indistinguishable
>>  in many schemes
>>  (classical theurgy, for example).
>
>Classic theurgy is mainly derived from Channelling
>(invoking a diety cf.,
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theurgy).

	Mainly, but a good argument can be made that much classical 
theurgy in practice is doing exactly the same thing as your Essence 
users only anthropomorphising what you manipulate.
	'twas but a single example in any case. Taoist alchemy sits 
between your Essence and Mentalism schema, despite not having 
anything to do with Mentalism (but manipulation of the energies of 
your own body has been thrown in there). Many traditions sit 
somewhere on the border of Animism and Channelling. Where do medieval 
black magic traditions that outwardly use all the trappings of the 
church for black magic go (and must be performed by a priest) go?
	Its not so much that the questions can be answered, its that 
the answers compromise and distort the traditions game representation 
subtly.

>  Further, it was
>clearly noted that characters may gain abilities in
>multiple traditions, so too a school may have multiple
>traditions in its teaching.

	And that it is clearly necessary to use this in many cases to 
model real world magical traditions is evidence that the overriding 
three way scheme is misguided.
	I mean if you are modelling a magical tradition that says 'we 
use technique X which derives pwoer from Y, and technique A which 
derives power from B' then fine.
	But if a real world magical tradition is saying 'we use 
single technique X which derives power from Y' and your rules say 
'well, thats between Essence and Channeling (or whatever) so we model 
that as two separate skills', then its your rules that are at fault.

>  > and just have the concepts of achievable
>>  effects and
>>  methods, and magical traditions with are able to
>>  access some subset
>>  of those achievable effects and methods via their
>>  individual
>>  techniques.
>
>OK, I'll ponder on that, although you will notice the
>three-world model does make some logical sense.

	IMO it makes us much sense as, say, the old concept of 
dividing the Nations of the world into First, Second and Third World 
- gives you a 30 second overview that starts to become nothing much 
more than a rule of thumb when you start to look at actual examples.



>  I
>can't imagine how a character through meditative
>concentration influences body of people or physical
>objects with ease.

	Yet thats pretty much how sigil magic, a modern and fairly 
thriving magical tradition works, really.

>  I can see how a priest preaching to
>such people could do it, or a wizard with their arcane
>knowledge of the essence of objectis. Likewise, I
>don't think preaching to a rock would be that simple!
>etc

	Don't let the limitations of your conception limit your system.

>
>>	Its worth noting that the neat overarching schemes
>>  of games
>>  like RuneQuest, Ars Magica, etc almost all start to
>>  splinter once
>>  they hit actual cultures. Best to avoid that road at
>>  the start.
>
>I thought that RQ did quite a reasonable job actually,
>albeit they are missing a mystic/mentalist/psychic
>tradition.

	Indeed, which is why a mystic (explicitly not mentalist or 
psychic, though) tradition made it into the HeroWars rules, though 
then got removed in HeroQuest for, umm, several good reasons, one 
being general maths illiteracy in the rules designers. But RQ had the 
benefit of being able to construct its own cosmology (and still ran 
into some problems with the three fold division) - once it started 
having to deal with real world traditions, it fell apart - Land of 
Ninja features an entirely new magic system, and has some very odd 
sitting parts (ninja magic is sorcery?), Vikings too has entirely new 
magical systems to account for parts that can't be shoehorned into 
the system as is.


>At this stage I
>have been concentrating on more culturally specific
>examples e.g., most characters in the Outbreak of
>Heresy game have the magic ability "Pray" - which
>gives a bonus to their Spirit trait for the day. One,
>a gypsy, has also has "Divination" which acts not in a
>predictive fashion, but in a manner that gives them
>extra insight. A third, a Hussite, has the ability
>"Testify" (which only works on Christians) to force
>them to tell the truth.
>
>>	Its a difficult problem, and there are multiple
>>  strategys.
>>  You can just declare solidly that one is true in
>>  game, and others are
>>  approximations or minor variations. You can
>>  explicitly say some rules
>>  are cultural dependent, and you'll write new rules
>>  for new cultures.
>
>I'm tending towards the single cosmological argument.
>

That way lies trouble.

>  > Or you can come up with rules for dealing with
>>  multiple
>>  classification schemes.
>
>Good lord, that would make the rule book so thick and
>complex that it would require a PhD to play. Worse
>still, it would also be ignoring the real benefits of
>cross-cultural magical practises noted by
>anthropologists.

	No, you just design your rules such that cross cultural 
schemes aren't that hard.
	Rather than have a few base game mechanics that are declared 
to be the game manifestations of cosmological TRUTH, you have a few 
base game mechanics (like RQs POW or D&D 3Es caster level, Ars magic 
level of effect) that are either universal or easy to convert 
between. You have a few reasonable pieces that can be used to build a 
magical tradition from, and you apply a little case by case 
customisation of the pieces to write up a magical tradition. Its not 
that difficult.

	Rather than, say, have 3 overarching magical traditions, 
consider just running with your verb/noun combination, and a few 
related skills. Give magical traditions, whether they might be 
derived from what you see as Essence or Channelling, a selection of 
appropriate skills that fit them best.
	The problem is that while you can probably get together a 
reasonable set of verbs, and a reasonable set of related skills, the 
noun selections are going to be problematic. Cultures just don't 
break up the world the same way. To some cultures, water and air are 
two distinct and different things, to others they are both ably 
manipulated by the same weather magic. To some cultures its natural 
that the same magic should govern iron cooking utensils and iron 
weapons, to another the idea of the same magic governing womens 
things and mens things is laughable.
	My advice - embrace the problem from the start, rather than 
pick a scheme and try to shoehorn everything into it. Make rules 
where the noun schema isn't set in stone, one size fits all, but

>  >
>>	I think in game cosmological explanations for why
>>  magic fades
>>  away are unnecessary and don't really add to the
>>  game, myself. Unless
>>  your characters are actually going to live long
>>  enough to see the
>>  process happen,
>
>Or the characters are time travellers (meta-game
>issue)....

	And almost logical cosmological ones, but anyway....


>
>>  and its for some reason important to
>>  you to have your
>>  fascinating fantasy universe become mundane as they
>>  do so, there is
>>  no need for it. And do you really want to make it in
>>  game canon that
>>  the universe becomes less interesting?
>
>Extraordinary changes to technology, the possibility
>of transhumanism or encounters with extra-terrestial
>beings is hardly "less interesting".

	Well,  they only get their via the 'mundane present', during 
which your characters (devoid of magic)  probably grow old and die...
	but even with miraculous transformation, it almost certainly 
renders your original characters concerns and motivations and 
abilities irrelevent, and makes you start a new game.
	And hey, if they are starting a new game, who are you to tell 
them that they can't have a future where magic works? Its their game, 
why try to tell them what they can and can't have in their cosmology?

>Also, historical
>breakpoints in campaigns make interesting play. For
>example, many years ago I game I ran had the
>characters encounter the last dragon of Ireland - that
>*was* interesting....

	Sure. But rather than say 'here is the cosomology, here are 
some consequences' why not just say 'here are some suggestions for 
cosmologies. there aren't really game rules for how this might 
influence play, its just up to you, so choose what suits your game'.
	Cheers
		David