How do we WANT magic to work (Forked Thread: ... medieval war...)

[Bumbles]

I don't like magic as a science in games. I know ideas like the Law of Similarity and the Law of Contagion, among others have some appeal in stories, but I'll be honest and say I don't enjoy such things in games.

It just seems to get in the way of the fun.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Is scientific magic how we want magic to be in our games.

If we allow PC casters then it has to be. They need to know how their powers work. The other alternative, and it's a perfectly reasonable one though outside the history of D&D, is to allow only non-magical classes - fighting men, thieves, barbarians, warlords and so forth.

I know one of my players definitely wants this; he detests the Sorcerer because it doesn't use Int and the implication that a sorcerer doesn't really understand what he is doing. Personally, I like it quite a lot - the wizard does magic, the sorcerer IS magic.

I prefer the sorcerer for that reason. I've always had kind of a hatred for nerds. Or a preference for cool people.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I like both scientific and mysterious magic - but it needs to be consequently one or another, not both mixed or both present in the same world.

Why can't it be both? Admittedly you might want to reserve the word magic for the mysterious stuff. But both types of power can certainly co-exist in one world. They do in the real world after all, which contains both the mysterious and the known.

 

[RangerWickett]

Magic in my game works how people think magic in the real world works: in TONS of different ways.

Voodoo practitioners approach magic differently than medieval alchemists, new age mystics, religious evangelists, or baseball players. (You don't think they're superstitious? Watch the routines they go through as they come up to the plate.)

If you think magic requires strict logic and a scientific approach, then that's how magic will work for you. If you think magic depends on belief and faith, well, when your faith falters, magic won't work anymore. If you think that you're special and that the world bends to your desires, then you're egotistical *ss, and you'd better keep a high self esteem when you go to fight Tiamat.

To accomplish this, though, you either needs tons of classes, one for each culture or mindset on magic; or you need a more flexible magic system, with templates that you can apply to represent how your Nordic rune magic is different from that kid's magic which he just made up because he watched lots of anime and thought it looked cool.

 

[Doug McCrae]

If you think that you're special and that the world bends to your desires

Then you'll be a magic-user, my son.

 

[Particle_Man]

I prefer magic not to be like science. Otherwise it seems too much like, well, science, which I don't really want to think about in my fantasy game when playing a magic-user.

Mind you there is a tension between this and me wanting elements of a game to be governed by rules (as opposed to whim). So at a meta-level I guess I do want magic to obey some rules.

Thus I am consumed by a Hegelian dialectic.

 

[Rechan]

Well. I think there's a difference between Science, and "it has rules".

Science is how it is treated. It's observed, quantified, measured and sterile. It's used to mimic technology in our world.

I think it's possible to have magic be, not necessarily MYSTERIOUS, but have a mythic feel to it. Exalted does this; there's only 3 levels of magic in Exalted. One of the spells in the first level cause all crops within a mile radius to immediately yield harvest, and all livestock become pregnant and give birth, within minutes. One of the Charms in Exalted (equivalent to say, a power in 4e), allows the player to know what someone desires most; you see what their price is, in the sense that if you give them the thing they desire, they would agree to any request.

The tone of that does not, to me, feel like "Latin for Fire / Bat Guano + Somatic Gesture = Fireball".

 

[Doug McCrae]

D&D's never been mythic. All its magic is pretty dull tbh.

 

[Corinth]

You cannot allow players to make use of magic without demystifying it due to the need to codify such access into the rules of the game. Therefore, mysterious magic requires that access to it be through NPCs and nothing else.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

You cannot allow players to make use of magic without demystifying it due to the need to codify such access into the rules of the game. Therefore, mysterious magic requires that access to it be through NPCs and nothing else.

I disagree. In any edition, some system similar to 2E Wild Magic could be employed, with spells having a chance of random effects. The player doesn't need to know the list of possible effects; a significant chunk could be "DM's choice," or the entire list could be kept secret.

Triggers for "random effects" might be over-casting (allowing caster to exceed spells per day limit at a risk), enemy rolling a "20" on a saving throw, caster rolling a "1" on a caster level check, caster blowing a Concentration check, caster trying a new spell for the first time, ongoing spells interfering with each other, or some other triggers.

Obviously this only works with some degree of trust between the player and the DM. But rigidly codifying everything so the player can figure out the exact odds and make the optimal decision is not the only way to play the game.