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Designing holistic versus gamist magic systems?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7636793" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Well, you already know my opinion but I'll give it again in brief. </p><p></p><p>The premise is a sensible one if you define the premise as, "D&D magic isn't numinous and as such doesn't feel very magical. It might be nice for magic to be numinous." What is less sensible is the discussion of why D&D magic doesn't feel numinous and the complete almost lack of an implementation that might steer a DM toward effective and useable house rules for making magic feel numinous. </p><p></p><p>I have some ideas about how to go about it, though I admit that the ones I've play tested have been hit and miss. They work for making magic numinous, but they tend to increase the preparation and in game book keeping costs beyond the ability of a GM to keep track of thing, so I suspect only a small subset of my ideas are practical. Then again, at least I realize that some of the ideas I could give you aren't practical.</p><p></p><p>For now though, I'm going to keep my ideas to myself (who knows in another 13 years I might put out a pdf). I will point you however to a reading list of some of the things I've purchased that are most influential in my thinking:</p><p></p><p>'The Shaman's Handbook' - Green Ronin (The best class introduced to D&D since the early 80s.)</p><p>'The Book of the Righteous' - Green Ronin (The best RPG supplement ever written.)</p><p>'Mythos: The Animae' - Bards & Sages (This is a little tiny semi-pro publisher and hardly more than someone's house rule document, but wow do I really love how this guy thinks. Worth the dollar you spend just for how it prompts creativity.)</p><p>'Book of Eldritch Might III' - Monte Cook (A book that manages to be both terrible and incredible at the same time.)</p><p>'Classic Play: The Book of the Planes' - Mongoose</p><p></p><p>Now, honestly the actual rules in all of these books are IMO pretty unpolished and my house rules have evolved pretty heavily from where things are in these books, but if you are looking for ideas that show some direction toward actual implementations (in the D20/D&D system granted) that would be a place to start. D&D is what I specialize in, but I've dabbled in a lot of systems and I don't think you'll get there from mechanical changes.</p><p></p><p>The one caution I want to give you is that magic is always going to be the longest topic with the most rules in pretty much any fantasy game. This isn't because magic is 'tacked on' at the end after the "mundane" world is described, but mostly because in most RPGs mundane things never are described or are given rules. Google is the best rules supplement ever published for an RPG, because it lets you cover the mundane stuff. Need to know how much a bushel of corn weighs before and after shucking? Google. Need to know how many bushels of corn a field hand can harvest in a day? Google. Need to know how many bushels of corn can be harvested from an acre? Google. Need to know how many tons burthen a 120' long wood sailing ship tends to be and the approximate max cargo that it can hold in terms of cubic yards and tonnage? Google. And yes, all this mathy stuff did actually come up in the last play session we were in, but the rules for the mundane world are no where to be found in most RPGs.</p><p></p><p>The problem any fantasy RPG needs to deal with is that you can't answer how magic works in an imaginary setting by using Google unless you are a very well known intellectual property indeed, and even then probably not because few very well known intellectual properties have anything like game-able well described magic systems numinous or not. As such the more magical your world the more time you are going to have to spend describing it whether the magic is conceived in a "holistic" or "gamist" manner. Indeed, I'd suggest that contrary to what you are expecting, the more "holistic" approach (as you deem it) requires much more wordage than the gamist approach, as you can do magic with something like HERO - and then all you have is an explanation of what happens in a very mechanistic way and literally no coherent discussion of why without building a whole new system and setting out of the HERO toolkit that's probably going to be longer than the base rules.</p><p></p><p>Are to be really sharp and perhaps a bit too pointed, the fundamental mistake the author of the original essay makes (and the one you are I think unconsciously making) is to assume that the designers he is critical of are in some fashion "not getting it" and that it's enough to state that they don't get it in some vague fashion without showing any kind of contrary example that shows you do get it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7636793, member: 4937"] Well, you already know my opinion but I'll give it again in brief. The premise is a sensible one if you define the premise as, "D&D magic isn't numinous and as such doesn't feel very magical. It might be nice for magic to be numinous." What is less sensible is the discussion of why D&D magic doesn't feel numinous and the complete almost lack of an implementation that might steer a DM toward effective and useable house rules for making magic feel numinous. I have some ideas about how to go about it, though I admit that the ones I've play tested have been hit and miss. They work for making magic numinous, but they tend to increase the preparation and in game book keeping costs beyond the ability of a GM to keep track of thing, so I suspect only a small subset of my ideas are practical. Then again, at least I realize that some of the ideas I could give you aren't practical. For now though, I'm going to keep my ideas to myself (who knows in another 13 years I might put out a pdf). I will point you however to a reading list of some of the things I've purchased that are most influential in my thinking: 'The Shaman's Handbook' - Green Ronin (The best class introduced to D&D since the early 80s.) 'The Book of the Righteous' - Green Ronin (The best RPG supplement ever written.) 'Mythos: The Animae' - Bards & Sages (This is a little tiny semi-pro publisher and hardly more than someone's house rule document, but wow do I really love how this guy thinks. Worth the dollar you spend just for how it prompts creativity.) 'Book of Eldritch Might III' - Monte Cook (A book that manages to be both terrible and incredible at the same time.) 'Classic Play: The Book of the Planes' - Mongoose Now, honestly the actual rules in all of these books are IMO pretty unpolished and my house rules have evolved pretty heavily from where things are in these books, but if you are looking for ideas that show some direction toward actual implementations (in the D20/D&D system granted) that would be a place to start. D&D is what I specialize in, but I've dabbled in a lot of systems and I don't think you'll get there from mechanical changes. The one caution I want to give you is that magic is always going to be the longest topic with the most rules in pretty much any fantasy game. This isn't because magic is 'tacked on' at the end after the "mundane" world is described, but mostly because in most RPGs mundane things never are described or are given rules. Google is the best rules supplement ever published for an RPG, because it lets you cover the mundane stuff. Need to know how much a bushel of corn weighs before and after shucking? Google. Need to know how many bushels of corn a field hand can harvest in a day? Google. Need to know how many bushels of corn can be harvested from an acre? Google. Need to know how many tons burthen a 120' long wood sailing ship tends to be and the approximate max cargo that it can hold in terms of cubic yards and tonnage? Google. And yes, all this mathy stuff did actually come up in the last play session we were in, but the rules for the mundane world are no where to be found in most RPGs. The problem any fantasy RPG needs to deal with is that you can't answer how magic works in an imaginary setting by using Google unless you are a very well known intellectual property indeed, and even then probably not because few very well known intellectual properties have anything like game-able well described magic systems numinous or not. As such the more magical your world the more time you are going to have to spend describing it whether the magic is conceived in a "holistic" or "gamist" manner. Indeed, I'd suggest that contrary to what you are expecting, the more "holistic" approach (as you deem it) requires much more wordage than the gamist approach, as you can do magic with something like HERO - and then all you have is an explanation of what happens in a very mechanistic way and literally no coherent discussion of why without building a whole new system and setting out of the HERO toolkit that's probably going to be longer than the base rules. Are to be really sharp and perhaps a bit too pointed, the fundamental mistake the author of the original essay makes (and the one you are I think unconsciously making) is to assume that the designers he is critical of are in some fashion "not getting it" and that it's enough to state that they don't get it in some vague fashion without showing any kind of contrary example that shows you do get it. [/QUOTE]
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