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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8828609" data-attributes="member: 42582">Most people for most of human history have believed in magic of some or other variety. And most have not "done science to it".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.It's also a thing that draws on mystical or uncontrollable forces, brings the intercession of higher (or lower) beings, etc.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.</blockquote>

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