D&D General Should magic be "mystical," unknowable, etc.? [Pick 2, no takebacks!]

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

What does "magic like a science" mean?

Two words: Brandon Sanderson. He popularized the terms "Hard" and "Soft" magic system with Mistborn and the rest of the Cosmere. When people think of "Magic as science", they mean settings like the Cosmere where magic is basically a part of the laws of physics, and everything magical that happens in the setting can be explained by a particular application of magic.

This thread should probably be named "Should D&D's magic system be Hard Magic or Soft Magic". There is a spectrum, with some hard magic systems having soft elements (like the Knights Radiant from the Stormlight Archive) and some soft magic systems having hard elements (Bending from Avatar: the Last Airbender, for example), and there are even settings with both Hard and Soft Magic systems, but magic systems do generally fall into being "soft" and being "hard".

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The answer is:

It depends on the setting.

 

[Ath-kethin]

I picked "always mystical" and "clear rules," both.

My favorite magic system in a TTRPG is in Dungeon Crawl Classics. Magic has rules, which can be learned and studied. And those who learn and study magic can use it effectively and pretty reliably.

But using magic is risky, no matter how well you study it. There's always a chance you make a mistake. And those mistakes can be very costly.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Two words: Brandon Sanderson. He popularized the terms "Hard" and "Soft" magic system with Mistborn and the rest of the Cosmere. When people think of "Magic as science", they mean settings like the Cosmere where magic is basically a part of the laws of physics, and everything magical that happens in the setting can be explained by a particular application of magic.

This thread should probably be named "Should D&D's magic system be Hard Magic or Soft Magic". There is a spectrum, with some hard magic systems having soft elements (like the Knights Radiant from the Stormlight Archive) and some soft magic systems having hard elements (Bending from Avatar: the Last Airbender, for example), and there are even settings with both Hard and Soft Magic systems, but magic systems do generally fall into being "soft" and being "hard".

Yeah, but in this respect, pretty much all TTRPGs fall into hard magic systems with respect to the rules facing elements. The only way to use a soft magic system is to go free form.

This calls to one of Sanderson's Laws, which (to paraphrase) is that your ability to solve problems in a satisfying manner is proportional to how well understood (by the reader, not the characters) the magic system is. If you have a completely free form system, there's absolutely nothing to prevent a caster from casting deus ex machina at any time, and therefore it can be very unsatisfying for problems to be solved by magic.

Which is why the vast majority of RPGs have well defined (hard) magic systems. The game would be grossly unsatisfying if, anytime the GM presents an obstacle, the mages simply respond by casting Solve Problem.

Of course, just because magic is well defined from a player perspective, doesn't necessitate that it is understood equally well by the characters (this is even true of Sanderson's novels). They could even be obfuscated from the players (managed by the GM) and still count for hard magic.

 

[DEFCON 1]

In my opinion magic = sci/tech. No society that has a foundation of economics would allow for magic to remain in the shadows once it was discovered what it could do. Someone would ALWAYS pay good money to see it flourish for economic gain. Especially once it became known that the power of what 9th level spells could do-- as soon as any of this magic became known, people with money would rush to get as many of their employees up to speed on how to tap into it.

The idea that magic was only known by a select few individuals and was a complete mystery to everyone else is a bunch of hooey. It makes absolutely no sense.

 

[Fanaelialae]

In my opinion magic = sci/tech. No society that has a foundation of economics would allow for magic to remain in the shadows once it was discovered what it could do. Someone would ALWAYS pay good money to see it flourish for economic gain. Especially once it became known that the power of what 9th level spells could do-- as soon as any of this magic became known, people with money would rush to get as many of their employees up to speed on how to tap into it.

The idea that magic was only known by a select few individuals and was a complete mystery to everyone else is a bunch of hooey. It makes absolutely no sense.

Power (ie, money) has never been hoarded by the powerful to the detriment of those with less power? I think it absolutely does make sense. Certainly not in every setting (such as those with egalitarian themes), but definitely for others.

Moreover, if magic is dangerous and unpredictable, harnessing it as technology can be nonsensical. "Well, the magitech generators will generally turn into a demonic horror or go off like a nuke, on average within a 30 day window. But prior to all the death and decimation that usually ensues such a transformation, you can power 100,000 homes on a single generator. Score!"

 

[DEFCON 1]

Power (ie, money) has never been hoarded by the powerful to the detriment of those with less power? I think it absolutely does make sense. Certainly not in every setting (such as those with egalitarian themes), but definitely for others.

Moreover, if magic is dangerous and unpredictable, harnessing it as technology can be nonsensical. "Well, the magitech generators will generally turn into a demonic horror or go off like a nuke, on average within a 30 day window. But prior to all the death and decimation that usually ensues such a transformation, you can power 100,000 homes on a single generator. Score!"

You can to hoard the power all you want... but as soon as other people know what you can accomplish there is immediately an arms race on it. I mean, once electricity was discovered, did it remain locked away for centuries with no one except the inner circle of Thomas Edison able to use it? Of course not. As soon as it became known as a thing, everyone started working on it and with it and advancing their knowledge on it. And magic isn't unpredictable, because we have entire rulebooks explaining exactly how and why it gets harnessed, and rules for allowing people to gain the experience to cast 9th level spells in a matter of years if not months.

And yet in some of these campaign settings we're supposed to believe that there has been the knowledge and capability of making Wishes for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and yet no one has have bothered to mass produce the ability or the people to tap into it. To me, that's just silly. It's no different than all the talk in the past about how there are all these druids and nature clerics in these settings who know how to cast Plant Growth and yet the settings are still stuck in these medieval agrarian farming times. It's dumb, in my opinion.

As a result, I just handwave all these logical inconsistencies when I play and consider it a cost of doing business in the fantasy genre. And I don't blame anyone for it, nor feel the need to delve into the rule system to try and come up with some sort of explanation for why everything happens (as I've seen others here on the boards get all bent out of shape about it.)

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'm in the camp where magic, much like the divinity of High Powers, is based on faith and belief. If you are convinced that your magic is real, and the target has the slightest doubt that it may be possible that someone calls down lightning, the magic works. Its a matter of will and cunning surpassing the disbelieve of another person.

To us, magic is an Art, much like music or painting; there's naturally a part of science in it, but in the end it is the science of layering your own conception of reality over another creature's. A Grand Illusion, if you will, a Prestige trick so convincing and mysterious that the fabric of reality glitch for a moment and the Prestige actually happens and becomes real.

And like everything, practice makes perfect.

 

[Krachek]

It mainly depends on the setting, the DM and players interpretation.
I like to imagine that there are « others » spells and rituals not listed in the phb.
Many fantasy and games tie magic with personality, alignment, belief. Just a step aside Magic the gathering, has a totally different look at magic usage.

One sure thing, Dnd has no mechanics to handle magic other from what is listed in spells and classes description.

 

[Fanaelialae]

You can to hoard the power all you want... but as soon as other people know what you can accomplish there is immediately an arms race on it. I mean, once electricity was discovered, did it remain locked away for centuries with no one except the inner circle of Thomas Edison able to use it? Of course not. As soon as it became known as a thing, everyone started working on it and with it and advancing their knowledge on it. And magic isn't unpredictable, because we have entire rulebooks explaining exactly how and why it gets harnessed, and rules for allowing people to gain the experience to cast 9th level spells in a matter of years if not months.

And yet in some of these campaign settings we're supposed to believe that there has been the knowledge and capability of making Wishes for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and yet no one has have bothered to mass produce the ability or the people to tap into it. To me, that's just silly. It's no different than all the talk in the past about how there are all these druids and nature clerics in these settings who know how to cast Plant Growth and yet the settings are still stuck in these medieval agrarian farming times. It's dumb, in my opinion.

As a result, I just handwave all these logical inconsistencies when I play and consider it a cost of doing business in the fantasy genre. And I don't blame anyone for it, nor feel the need to delve into the rule system to try and come up with some sort of explanation for why everything happens (as I've seen others here on the boards get all bent out of shape about it.)

I wasn't just referring to D&D magic. Even limiting it to D&D, wild magic exists, and we can certainly imagine a setting where all magic is wild. Or a setting like Dark Sun where magic literally destroyed the world, and the few remaining super-powerful mages hoard their power.

To use a real world example, literacy was a means of betterment in ye days of olde, so why didn't every peasant learn to read and write?

There's a matter of capacity and opportunity. Sorcery requires natural talent, divine magic requires strong faith, and wizardry requires intelligence and study. Not everyone necessarily has both capacity and opportunity. If only 1 in a million people have the gift for harnessing magic, then mages are extremely rare. Maybe someone even tries a breeding program (or such) but all they discover is that the gift is truly random. What then?

Like I said before, what you say makes sense for certain settings (particularly those with egalitarian themes). I strongly disagree that it is applicable to all settings (even if we are to limit ourselves to just D&D).