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Laws of magical "physics", and rethinking archetype distinctions
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7006289" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>At best, you'll end up with a world of ubiquitous magic, of the 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' sort. </p><p></p><p>What I think you'll find if you try to implement this, is that early on in party's career, the distinction between characters won't be well defined. Just as a 1st level wizard doesn't have a lot of magic, but isn't necessarily so much worse poking things with a staff than the burly 1st level fighter with a sword, that he's completely useless in combat, your initial party will have someone that's a bit better at the magic, and maybe someone who is a bit better at swinging the sword - but both could presumably cooperate together in the same endeavors. In essence a 1st level wizard is a 'untrained' at swinging a club, but the sort of problems he faces don't require significant skill so he can attempt them. Likewise, the 1st level fighter is untrained at conjuration or evocation or essence channeling, but the sort of problems he faces don't require significant skill so he can attempt them and only be 20 or 30% less likely to succeed than his sorcerous counterpart. Each will have only a few options the other doesn't.</p><p></p><p>But if the characters develop at all, if they increase in ability, then you'll quickly run into situations were the magic-y character can do things and face magic-y challenges the choppy sword swinger can't, and vica versa. They'll be operating in different areas. It will be pointless for the fighter to waste time at essence channeling given his much greater process with sword swinging. It will be pointless for wizard to keep trying to poke things with his staff using mundane martial effort, when his conjuration ability is now extraordinary. Each will have many options the other doesn't. </p><p></p><p>Even more to the point, most efforts don't require more than one character. Combat is central to most RPG narratives because combat is a definitive 'team sport'. But most problems aren't solved by a joint effort, but by picking the most suited person to the particular job. A complex job might require completing several different tasks in succession, and the group may pick several different persons to perform the job, but you generally won't see people working on the same task at the same time. Rather, the most charismatic character will handle the diplomatic task. The most technologically savvy character will handle creating and manipulating objects. The most skillful player will handle those situations that require displaying a particular skill. Think of a kitchen and working to prepare a great meal. Several people can work together, but if you have no skill at all in cooking, you're better off washing dishes. Your efforts - even those loosely under the direction of the chef - won't improve the meal, but worsen it (to say nothing of how they detract the chef). The same sort of problem will ultimately plague a skill system where magic is just another untrained skill. When is the last time in your gaming the party collectively faced a problem, and you resorted to the 'untrained skill' of the least competent member of the party to resolve that problem? </p><p></p><p>There is also I think fundamentally a misconception in your thinking. Magic doesn't usually rely on 'exception based design' out of inelegant thinking on the part of the designer. Designers over the years haven't gravitated to exception based design out of a fundamental error in their thinking. The reason for 'exception based design' is that the most fundamental question when dealing with magic is always, "What can't magic do?" Generally speaking, magic is a term that covers making reality obey your will. Novelists and other non-interactive storytellers deal with this by limiting magic to what is useful to the plot, but in interactive fiction this doesn't really work because everyone has forgone explicit control of the plot and is sharing the story through the medium of the rules. (It doesn't work that great in fiction either, but that's another topic, albeit one we'll have to address depending on how you decide to concretely implement your idea.) </p><p></p><p>Exception based design is the most elegant answer to the question, "What can't magic do?", because it reverses the question and turns it from an unmanageable seemingly infinite list and answers, "Magic can only do X, and cannot do anything not explicitly defined in X." Exception based design makes magic manageable in a game.</p><p></p><p>Opening up magic as physics to be interacted with by everyone even untrained won't change that in the slightest. What <em>can't</em> an untrained wizard do?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7006289, member: 4937"] At best, you'll end up with a world of ubiquitous magic, of the 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' sort. What I think you'll find if you try to implement this, is that early on in party's career, the distinction between characters won't be well defined. Just as a 1st level wizard doesn't have a lot of magic, but isn't necessarily so much worse poking things with a staff than the burly 1st level fighter with a sword, that he's completely useless in combat, your initial party will have someone that's a bit better at the magic, and maybe someone who is a bit better at swinging the sword - but both could presumably cooperate together in the same endeavors. In essence a 1st level wizard is a 'untrained' at swinging a club, but the sort of problems he faces don't require significant skill so he can attempt them. Likewise, the 1st level fighter is untrained at conjuration or evocation or essence channeling, but the sort of problems he faces don't require significant skill so he can attempt them and only be 20 or 30% less likely to succeed than his sorcerous counterpart. Each will have only a few options the other doesn't. But if the characters develop at all, if they increase in ability, then you'll quickly run into situations were the magic-y character can do things and face magic-y challenges the choppy sword swinger can't, and vica versa. They'll be operating in different areas. It will be pointless for the fighter to waste time at essence channeling given his much greater process with sword swinging. It will be pointless for wizard to keep trying to poke things with his staff using mundane martial effort, when his conjuration ability is now extraordinary. Each will have many options the other doesn't. Even more to the point, most efforts don't require more than one character. Combat is central to most RPG narratives because combat is a definitive 'team sport'. But most problems aren't solved by a joint effort, but by picking the most suited person to the particular job. A complex job might require completing several different tasks in succession, and the group may pick several different persons to perform the job, but you generally won't see people working on the same task at the same time. Rather, the most charismatic character will handle the diplomatic task. The most technologically savvy character will handle creating and manipulating objects. The most skillful player will handle those situations that require displaying a particular skill. Think of a kitchen and working to prepare a great meal. Several people can work together, but if you have no skill at all in cooking, you're better off washing dishes. Your efforts - even those loosely under the direction of the chef - won't improve the meal, but worsen it (to say nothing of how they detract the chef). The same sort of problem will ultimately plague a skill system where magic is just another untrained skill. When is the last time in your gaming the party collectively faced a problem, and you resorted to the 'untrained skill' of the least competent member of the party to resolve that problem? There is also I think fundamentally a misconception in your thinking. Magic doesn't usually rely on 'exception based design' out of inelegant thinking on the part of the designer. Designers over the years haven't gravitated to exception based design out of a fundamental error in their thinking. The reason for 'exception based design' is that the most fundamental question when dealing with magic is always, "What can't magic do?" Generally speaking, magic is a term that covers making reality obey your will. Novelists and other non-interactive storytellers deal with this by limiting magic to what is useful to the plot, but in interactive fiction this doesn't really work because everyone has forgone explicit control of the plot and is sharing the story through the medium of the rules. (It doesn't work that great in fiction either, but that's another topic, albeit one we'll have to address depending on how you decide to concretely implement your idea.) Exception based design is the most elegant answer to the question, "What can't magic do?", because it reverses the question and turns it from an unmanageable seemingly infinite list and answers, "Magic can only do X, and cannot do anything not explicitly defined in X." Exception based design makes magic manageable in a game. Opening up magic as physics to be interacted with by everyone even untrained won't change that in the slightest. What [I]can't[/I] an untrained wizard do? [/QUOTE]
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