D&D 5E DM's: How Do You Justify NPC's Having Magic/Abilities That Don't Exist in the PHB?

[pemerton]

I've never understood this impulse, in actually any context, TTRPG or straight up fiction as a whole, but it keeps coming up in these discussions. Magic is whatever system of rules you can use to supersede default physics; why would anyone with that ability not strive to systematize it? I cannot conceive of having a world with magic and not doing science to it.

Most people for most of human history have believed in magic of some or other variety. And most have not "done science to it".

This keeps coming up in these discussions, the urge to make something "mysterious" that I wonder if we're not expressing deeper aesthetic preferences or orientations to epistemology or some other, deeper orientation than just "what is magic?" I'm worried I'm suffering from some failure of empathy that's necessary for me to grasp why that is compelling to so many people.

For my part, if I want to run a sci-fi RPG I will do that - my favourite is Classic Traveller, which I really like (and have a lot of actual play posts on these boards if you're interested).

But when I run a FRPG I am deliberately choosing to run a genre that is different from sci-fi. Typically it is either REH-esque (or even HPL-esque) S&S, in which magic represent some sort of nihilistic limit on human knowledge or healthy capacity; or else is JRRT-ish romantic fantasy. Either way, magic doesn't need to be systematic.

Some FRPG systems make it more systematic than others - in Burning Wheel or Torchbearer (the former is my overall favourite, the latter my favourite at the moment) PC wizards learn spells from spell lists a bit like D&D, although prayer in BW can be more open-ended than D&D clerical magic and both can allow the GM a lot of latitude on a failure; whereas in Cortex+ Heroic (I run a homebrew fantasy version that is a variant on Marvel Heroic RP, and have used it both for Vikings and for LotR/MERP) magical effects can be whatever a player thinks of, within the limits of the descriptors for their PCs' abilities.

Even in Torchbearer there can be "unexplained" magic - in the adventure I'm hoping to run this weekend, I have a "seeing room" inspired by an idea in the old ICE MERP module for Southern Mirkwood and Dol Guldur:

Hall of Travel: A semicircular hall with a domed roof, with a throne on a round dais in the centre. Cartographer’s tools (paper, ink, pen, brush) sit on the arm of the throne.

The window looks out from the Bluff Hills across the plains. But the real power of the room is to use the room to send one’s spirit out of the room, in the direction the throne is facing. To rotate the dais requires a metal rod or similar, and requires an Ob 3 Labourer test (suggested condition: exhausted; suggested twist: break rod). Whoever sits on the throne seems to travel out across the land: the floor, wall and arching roof vanish, replaced with clear visions of the land below, the horizon all around, and the sky above. The traveller always hovers at least 1,000' above the ground, and can rise up to an altitude of 9 miles. The traveller cannot see into enclosed areas such as building or caves or under forest canopies, but a forest can be made to appear stripped of leaves (requires Ob 2 Will test). The traveller cannot enter a settlement, nor pass through a maze of mist and shadows. Use requires making a Nature test, either against Ob equal to overland travel toll (and costing a turn), or against Ob 3(if a turn is spent making a test; in this case, the Nature test does not require a turn). Margin of failure o the Nature test causes tax.​

Once I knew what I wanted to do, this was pretty easy to write up in Torchbearer terms. It doesn't need to fit any particular conception of what magic can or can't do.

Magic is the thing that lets you use different rules normal to do something more easily or more effectively than you otherwise could, or achieve something that was otherwise impossible.

It's also a thing that draws on mystical or uncontrollable forces, brings the intercession of higher (or lower) beings, etc.

Because everything in the universe has some sort of underlying principle(s) of physics that allows it to function as it does. Magic is no exception.

Says who? This isn't a rule in any FRPG I'm familiar with. Maybe the closest is Maelstrom Storytelling, though I don't know it well enough to be sure.

 

[pemerton]

I have to admit, it baffles me that people want magic to be consistent. It's magic. It's the opposite of consistent. If you want physics, that's why we have SF.

Right. I hadn't read your post yet when I made much the same point just upthread!

 

[pemerton]

in a typical RPG we're also trying to build a setting that's solid and consistent enough and has enough integrity that players can run their characters in it without fear of things not working in the setting physics (and yes, magic is 100% a part of a setting's physics) the same as they did in-game yesterday.

<snip>

Without this sort of consistency, in the fiction you've got Calvinball and at the table you've got a whole lot of very needless and avoidable arguments.

These claims aren't true. I know, because I GM RPGs which are not Calvinball at the table and don't approach magic in particular, nor worldbuilding in general, in the way you describe here. (I'm thinking of Prince Valiant, Agon, Cortex+ Heroic, 4e D&D and Torchbearer 2e in particular.)

It's not mysterious, either, why this is so: none of the RPGs I'm thinking of elevate Unmediated GM adjudication of the fiction as a principle of action resolution.

 

[Incenjucar]

Attempts to systemize magic in the world are commonplace throughout history, and eventually led to modern scientific practices. Mysteries are certainly an element, but so are trade secrets. D&D did not invent this stuff.

I personally prefer harder magic systems, but D&D's softish magic still follows rules, they're just a bit obscured by meta. D&D arcane magic is very strongly tied to symbolism and tapping into outside forces, which doesn't easily lend itself to easy equations. but you can see general trends.

 

[MichaelSomething]

This reminds me of a scene from My Little Pony...

 

[Shadowdweller00]

I have to admit, it baffles me that people want magic to be consistent. It's magic. It's the opposite of consistent. If you want physics, that's why we have SF. Magic isn't physics, sufficiently advanced or not. Magic works on Narrativium - it's capable of doing whatever you want it to do whenever you want it to do it.

Why does the shocking grasp spell work in water the same as on land? Magic. I can literally create a Wall of Fire spell under water and it works exactly the same as on land. Does fireball set objects on fire? That's up to you Mr. DM. That's your choice. Why? Because it's magic and it's completely inconsistent. Heck, fireball might set thing ablaze and fill up volumes and then a little while later, behave totally differently.

Why? Because it's magic.

I like magic to be...sorta consistent... in games I run because:
1) I think it helps with verisimilitude and how immersive the game feels to my players

2) I want my players to be able to make predictions, plan strategies, solve puzzles, and concoct schemes based on their understanding of how magic works within the game world.

 

[Lanefan]

Most people for most of human history have believed in magic of some or other variety. And most have not "done science to it".

When you're designing a setting you're not playing the role of a person living in that setting, instead you're the omniscient being that knows everything. You know how the setting's physics work because you're the one designing said physics.

And IMO just saying "physics work like the real world except there's magic" (which I don't think you have, but I've seen it elsewhere) is rather lazy design, and leaves too much room for later inconsistency if and when you're for some reason forced via the run of play to figure out the physics behind your setting's magic. Better, I think, to figure this out ahead of time...even if you only do it once and then apply that reasoning to every setting you run, which is what I did.

For my part, if I want to run a sci-fi RPG I will do that - my favourite is Classic Traveller, which I really like (and have a lot of actual play posts on these boards if you're interested).

But when I run a FRPG I am deliberately choosing to run a genre that is different from sci-fi. Typically it is either REH-esque (or even HPL-esque) S&S, in which magic represent some sort of nihilistic limit on human knowledge or healthy capacity; or else is JRRT-ish romantic fantasy.

To the non-GM participants in the game and the inhabitants of the setting, perhaps. But you-as-GM know more than they.

Says who? This isn't a rule in any FRPG I'm familiar with. Maybe the closest is Maelstrom Storytelling, though I don't know it well enough to be sure.

It's not a rule anywhere, just like the existence of gravity that works kinda like Earth's isn't a rule* or the existence of the strong and weak magnetic forces isn't a rule. It's a baseline assumption, mentioned only if it doesn't apply much like gravity is only mentioned if it doesn't work as expected. The difference is that unlike real-world physics it's on the setting designer to incorporate magic into the physics somehow, as we don't have a real-world version to default to.

* - space-based games excepted, of course; but I think most of those would qualify as sci-fi rather than fantasy...and even there the same ideas would apply, only you might also have to redefine some real-world physics as well (e.g. gravity) to suit the setting.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Why? Why can't magic be magical?

If I were a player and the DM kept on creating magic for narrative purposes - then that would disrupt my immersion and I believe my fun (including Agency). If my character's magic is always limited to RAW/RAI with strict limitations but the DM can go off script whenever they please because magic is magical how does that not affect my Agency?
As someone who cares about Agency I thought this would be obvious.

EDIT: The DM, IMO, needs to follow some sort of framework for magic.

 

[pemerton]

When you're designing a setting you're not playing the role of a person living in that setting, instead you're the omniscient being that knows everything. You know how the setting's physics work because you're the one designing said physics.

I've run a lot of RPGs, in a variety of settings. I don't think I've ever designed a setting's physics. I have sometimes considered a setting's sociology and/or theology and metaphysics, because to me these are far more central to RPGing than physics. But other times I have let those things emerge more-or-less organically via play; or have established them by reference to a known exemplar or paradigm (eg Let's play Vikings or Let's play Middle Earth or Let's play Victorian-ear Cthulhu).

And IMO just saying "physics work like the real world except there's magic" (which I don't think you have, but I've seen it elsewhere) is rather lazy design, and leaves too much room for later inconsistency if and when you're for some reason forced via the run of play to figure out the physics behind your setting's magic.

<snip>

It's not a rule anywhere, just like the existence of gravity that works kinda like Earth's isn't a rule* or the existence of the strong and weak magnetic forces isn't a rule. It's a baseline assumption, mentioned only if it doesn't apply much like gravity is only mentioned if it doesn't work as expected.

By gravity which of the following do you mean?

Things fall to earth - which has been common knowledge for all humans for as long as humans have existed; or,

All things fall to earth at a uniform rate of acceleration if air resistance is disregarded - which has not been common knowledge and as far as I know isn't obviously true in any FRPG I'm familiar with, given that none of them involve detailed calculations about falling things, ballistics etc; or,

The same physical factor that explains how and why things fall to earth also explains celestial motion - which is actively false in many FRPG settings.​

I've seen D&D module with magnetic effects that to the best of my knowledge are not explicable in terms of real-world magnetism (eg "lodestones" that pull and trap characters wearing metal armour).

I just don't see any evidence that FRPG settings need the sort of detail or rules established in advance that you say they do.

 

[pemerton]

If I were a player and the DM kept on creating magic for narrative purposes - then that would disrupt my immersion and I believe my fun (including Agency). If my character's magic is always limited to RAW/RAI with strict limitations but the DM can go off script whenever they please because magic is magical how does that not affect my Agency?

I don't quite know what you mean by "Agency" in this context. Nor what you mean by the GM "going off script".

When I, as a GM, design some element of the fiction - a NPC, a place, an object, etc - that is not explicable or definable by reference to elements of the PC build rules, how am I affecting anyone's agency? I mean, ochre jellies in classic D&D have abilities and behaviours that are not explicable or definable by reference to elements of the PC build rules. They might be a bit wacky, but I don't see how their existence is at odds with anyone's agency.

I also don't recall saying that a PC's magic is always limited to RAW/RAI. Why can't players perform improvised actions? (I posted an example upthread, from my 4e play. Someone else in this thread posted that 5e contains similar rules to 4e in this respect.)