I keep Tinkerbell's head in an old ladies coin purse.

[Vael]

^ Oooh, I like that one. The other favourite of mine was a notion for Eberron Warlocks ... they tap into and channel magic from a bound demon, the demon has no choice in the matter. In fact, some warlocks believe they are reducing the demon's power, helping to hold it in its bonds.

 

[Scribble]

Wouldn't magic with a defined set of rules for how it works just kind of be science?

That would really bore me I think.

 

[Yora]

Not really. Pretty much everyone who described magic under the assumption that it worked has used very clear laws and rules.

The modern concepts of science and magic really are differentiated by the fact that one has provided sufficient evidence to convince people that it works, and the other does not.

 

[Umbran]

Wouldn't magic with a defined set of rules for how it works just kind of be science?

Not really, and here's why:

The defined set of rules in science make sense in context. They follow from one to other through use of logic.

The laws of magic can be just as binding, but don't need to make logical sense (they can, for example, instead make *poetic* sense, or no sense at all), and one does not need to flow elegantly into another. The can even be inconsistent, as magic can work on a qualitative, rather than a quantitative basis.

 

[jrowland]

It is a proven fact that keeping Tinkerbell's head in a dice bag will give a nat 20 on a d20 5% of the time.

 

[jrowland]

On a more serious note:

"Laws" of magic do exist, sort of, in the real world. Aleister Crowley developed some of these back in his day. Gygax even toyed with it in his "Dangerous Journeys" RPG.

Basically, the laws are along the lines of:

Law of Sympathy: Like affects Like. Voodoo dolls, for example, use the law of sympathy. A doll in the likeness of the person to be efected, peraps even a lock of hair, fingernails, etc. to "fuel" the magic.

Law of Opposition: Opposites Cancel. Fire defeat cold and visa versa. In a D&D context, a Fireball could be defeated (counterspelled) by a Coldball.

There are a bunch more, but it gets a little convoluted for my tastes. If I could have my druthers.

 

[I'm A Banana]

In other words... just how does magic work?



We don't know.

Shaggy2Dope, is that you?

[sblock]

Water, fire, air and dirt
<bleep>ing magnets, how do they work?

[/sblock]

 

[Empath Negative]

Magic just works. You can't explain that.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

How does magic work?

Because magic.

 

[GSHamster]

Wouldn't magic with a defined set of rules for how it works just kind of be science?

That would really bore me I think.

Have you read any of Brandon Sanderson's work? His magic systems are "hard", in that they have defined rules or principles, but it's still magic.