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Designing holistic versus gamist magic systems?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7638685" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I think that it's a bad idea to try to chase down real world occultism as a solution to the problem, both from a perspective of what you will accomplish and from an economic perspective of making the system saleable. It would also I think directly contradict your stated desire to have "writing for fantasy fiction that feels fresh and original". Nothing feels staler and more trite than the Hermetic Qabalah. </p><p></p><p>I also don't find the article a particularly compelling starting point, as I said I found it confused and sometimes contradictory.</p><p></p><p>I think the important points would look something more like:</p><p></p><p>1) Things can go wrong.</p><p>2) Not everything is under the spellcaster's control. That is they can go wrong (or right) for reasons other than the spellcaster's performance.</p><p>3) There is a sense of depth to the magic of the setting. And in particular the mechanics of magic feel tied to the setting.</p><p>4) The setting is pervasively and spontaneously magical.</p><p></p><p>Where I typically see attempts to address these issues go wrong, is for example when implementing a system for "things can go wrong", things go wrong in a purely random manner that isn't proportional to the sort of magic that is employed. So for example I've seen random tables that regardless of the level of spell being cast, the result could be a potential campaign altering catastrophe of global implications. That's not sensible either as a game or a setting, first because it means that there is no balance and secondly because if that was a potential result then it should have happened long before when some NPC was messing with simple magic.</p><p></p><p>Likewise, D&D magic typically is viewed through either a gamist paradigm (it works this way for game balance) or else sometimes a narrativist paradigm (in setting magic may work by a completely different paradigm but regardless the mechanics replicates the rhythms of magic in fantasy narratives). But I'm often surprised by the fact that most players of D&D don't seem to have explained why D&D magic works the way it does from an in world perspective or worse even believe that it can't be explained and is solely a gamist construct, and that if we were going to make magic realistic we'd have to use a different system. But you can go a long way toward making D&D magic feel magical just by explaining it in such a way that mentally you aren't assuming that it works like magic in 'Order of the Stick' by Rich Burlew (and for that matter, despite all the 4th wall breaking, Rich does a great job of creating a deeply magical world).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7638685, member: 4937"] I think that it's a bad idea to try to chase down real world occultism as a solution to the problem, both from a perspective of what you will accomplish and from an economic perspective of making the system saleable. It would also I think directly contradict your stated desire to have "writing for fantasy fiction that feels fresh and original". Nothing feels staler and more trite than the Hermetic Qabalah. I also don't find the article a particularly compelling starting point, as I said I found it confused and sometimes contradictory. I think the important points would look something more like: 1) Things can go wrong. 2) Not everything is under the spellcaster's control. That is they can go wrong (or right) for reasons other than the spellcaster's performance. 3) There is a sense of depth to the magic of the setting. And in particular the mechanics of magic feel tied to the setting. 4) The setting is pervasively and spontaneously magical. Where I typically see attempts to address these issues go wrong, is for example when implementing a system for "things can go wrong", things go wrong in a purely random manner that isn't proportional to the sort of magic that is employed. So for example I've seen random tables that regardless of the level of spell being cast, the result could be a potential campaign altering catastrophe of global implications. That's not sensible either as a game or a setting, first because it means that there is no balance and secondly because if that was a potential result then it should have happened long before when some NPC was messing with simple magic. Likewise, D&D magic typically is viewed through either a gamist paradigm (it works this way for game balance) or else sometimes a narrativist paradigm (in setting magic may work by a completely different paradigm but regardless the mechanics replicates the rhythms of magic in fantasy narratives). But I'm often surprised by the fact that most players of D&D don't seem to have explained why D&D magic works the way it does from an in world perspective or worse even believe that it can't be explained and is solely a gamist construct, and that if we were going to make magic realistic we'd have to use a different system. But you can go a long way toward making D&D magic feel magical just by explaining it in such a way that mentally you aren't assuming that it works like magic in 'Order of the Stick' by Rich Burlew (and for that matter, despite all the 4th wall breaking, Rich does a great job of creating a deeply magical world). [/QUOTE]
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