D&D 5E What Does Your Magic Look Like

BlivetWidget · Jul 7, 2019

MNblockhead said:
@BlivetWidget Have you thought of putting together these for all the PHB spells and selling as PDF in DMs Guild?

These would make great handouts.

Thanks! It's not entirely out of the question, but it would require a different approach to what I'm doing now to be any kind of sensible for that number of spells. I automated the generation of linear spellscript (which is all I generally use), but I currently use PowerPoint with shapes and textboxes to get the 2D forms. Most automated ways of working with text don't support working with text boxes, unfortunately. I could potentially teach myself some pyautogui to get it done. But I think the most familiar approach would just be to use Pillow, though I would likely need to do a bit of fiddling to figure out exactly where all the rotated text bits go to line them up with the hexagram. Certainly doable in a day if I put my mind to it, I think.

But I'm not sure there would really be much demand for this level of intricacy. I think most people are less interested in a treatise on "fantasy chemistry" (currently I have about 25 pages of theory and diagrams to explain the system, though it could perhaps be distilled down to maybe 5 essential charts) and they would prefer to simply be told that a handful of completely random glyphs represent incredible arcane powers beyond their understanding.

In other words, I think most people are more interested in the "art" of playing wizard than the "science" of thinking like one.

Garthanos · Jul 7, 2019

I had a wizard who is old enough to not remember his real name He is called Master of Faerries (over a couple thousand) from an age in which there was a great purge and all the wizards hunted down, he has a background of being hunted by a vengeful rival but he knows not whom and it could be just mild paranoia left over from the earlier times.

His magic is described universally as little faerie spirits doing it for him. In fact many things he does including his great constitution is because faeries help him. They reabsorb into him or dive in front of attacks or help him move when he is fatigued. He does a spell to create a campsite they flamboyantly do it but only for a price they love fairy dust aka residuum ... he casts a spell "cloud of daggers" and it is they who stab the beast with their steely knives.

Sacrosanct · Jul 7, 2019

Imaculata said:
As a DM I often ask my players to describe their own spells. For example, when of my players casted the Many Jaws spell, I asked him: "What do the jaws look like?". He them described them as looking like piranhas flying through the air. I then also asked him: "And are you summoning it from a nearby source of water?", and he described them as being summoned from a nearby river.

In my experience players love adding their own flavor to the look of a spell. They love describing what kind of gestures and incantations their character makes too.

This. This is excellent DMing, and a great tool for DMs. DMs do almost all of the narrative descriptions because they are the ones running the game world. But by doing this, it can often inspire players to feel like they are also contributing to the world (without having any mechanical impact to how the DM wants to run their games), and can help players get into the game better, rather than just waiting for the DM to describe everything themselves. Which needless to say can be a trap to a less than good session, especially if the DM has a creativity block going on at the moment.

Tonguez · Jul 7, 2019

long before Bladesingers came out I had a wizard inspired by the whirling dervishes who was a Wind Dancer ie he was air themed and would 'dance' to cast spells. Things like shield was interpreted as the wind stirring around his body and obscuring mist was caused by kinking up dust from his dance. Featherfall and Flight were done by generating whirlwinds (still spinning) which I'd combine with lightning bolts from the static generated from the spin.

Imaculata · Jul 8, 2019

BlivetWidget said:
Haha, I joke! Everyone knows you don't actually need the bones to record your spells! But they are comforting, so keep a few with you anyhow.

To scribe the spells, you need to begin with the formula appropriate to your casting system. I use Reticulata notation, so I use the Reticulata Formula: Script = %targets not self?% (school) |casting time| [requirements] !prime resonance (based on elemental effect, or school again if not distinct; and note that elemental mixtures are the reverse of compounds)! /balance A/ \balance B\ :range: #area of effect# <attack, save> {duration} &targets self?&

Then I consult my aspect chart:

And from there, I consult the appropriate tables and equations to determine the proper symbol for each aspect. What you might call Mage Armor, I call Abjurer's Armor as a useful mnemonic (since the resonant value is "j" and I enjoy alliteration).

It is then a fairly straightforward matter to map the linear script on to a hexagram (around the outside, then in around the center).

And you're done. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. All you had to do was dedicate your life to understanding the fundamental properties of the multiverse.

I didn't know you played 3rd edition too.

Sacrosanct said:
This. This is excellent DMing, and a great tool for DMs. DMs do almost all of the narrative descriptions because they are the ones running the game world. But by doing this, it can often inspire players to feel like they are also contributing to the world (without having any mechanical impact to how the DM wants to run their games), and can help players get into the game better, rather than just waiting for the DM to describe everything themselves. Which needless to say can be a trap to a less than good session, especially if the DM has a creativity block going on at the moment.

Thanks. In fact, this came up again in last night's session. One of my players plays a Druid, and he summoned an Earth Monolyth (which is basically a gargantuan elemental). I asked him to describe what it looks like, and he described it as a gigantic stone wolf. See, I would never have thought of that myself, but it gave a lot of extra flavor to the battle.

BlivetWidget · Jul 8, 2019

MNblockhead said:
@BlivetWidget Have you thought of putting together these for all the PHB spells and selling as PDF in DMs Guild?

These would make great handouts.

As soon as I started thinking of algorithmic solutions to the massive quantity of spells, I should have known you had me hooked (I can't resist a fun coding project). For anyone considering a similar project, I ended up just using the Python keyboard module. Everything else produced sub-par results. But by taking control of the keyboard, I can open up powerpoint directly and just duplicate slides and edit text boxes at ridiculous speeds. You just have to lay out your slide so the text boxes are in the right order (okay, you don't have to, but it saves you a lot of effort).

So here is what I'm picturing for each handout. There are three levels of difficulty.
Easy: use it as is, so you can read the spell name.
Medium: cut off the spell name, and use the Chart of Elemental Cyclicity to translate the first line (which is just the spell name transliterated into script) back into English.
Hard: don't hand out the Chart of Elemental Cyclicity, and just give charts explaining the hexagram. Now to figure out the spell, you have to look at the hexagram and back the spell out from its properties like level, school, range, casting time, etc.

Example below. I figure maybe there should also be versions with no background? Having never done anything DMs Guild related, I'll have to figure that system out myself. What sort of price would you feel is appropriate? Something in the dollar zone? Though this is the end result of uncountable hours of work developing and refining the system, it wasn't done with any commercial aims in mind.

BlivetWidget · Jul 11, 2019

PS - I've managed to navigate the dmsguild submittal process and uploaded the pack of them. I did all the PHB and XGE wizard spells, so 292 by my count! There are detailed instructions for the three levels of arcana enthusiasm, as well as the 292 spell scrolls both with and without a parchment background (in case you want to save toner for a hardcopy handout). The wife convinced me to put it in the $4.99 zone (for a 292 handouts, non-setting specific, reusable and with 3 different ways to use it), but price point thoughts are welcome as well.

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/282310/Wizard-Spell-Scrolls-Handouts-PHB-XGE

TarionzCousin · Jul 11, 2019

Ideally, it looks like this:

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doctorbadwolf · Jul 11, 2019

I ran an introductory adventure (about halfway done, gonna play again soon) for my coworker, his wife, and had my wife as a ringer.

I asked him what his wizard's magic looks like, and he described his beard burning and smoldering, his staff end glowing with an inner fire at the top, and his Mage Armor is a heat shimmer like in the desert or a hot road, and his shield spell is a sheet of flame that forces attacks back.

Pretty rad for a guy who has never played any kind of RPG before.

Dannyalcatraz · Jul 12, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
I ran an introductory adventure (about halfway done, gonna play again soon) for my coworker, his wife, and had my wife as a ringer.

I asked him what his wizard's magic looks like, and he described his beard burning and smoldering, his staff end glowing with an inner fire at the top, and his Mage Armor is a heat shimmer like in the desert or a hot road, and his shield spell is a sheet of flame that forces attacks back.

Pretty rad for a guy who has never played any kind of RPG before.

Scary part: he’s running an Ice Mage...

(All that other stuff is an illusion.

)