Freeform magic?

[Psionicist]

Hello there!

I'd like to hear stories about gaming with freeform magic systems - role-playing spellcasters without any strict rules (storytelling if you like) or spells. Rather than "casting 'Hold Person'" or "anyone level one spell that does damage" you describe what you do, how you do it and what's supposed to happen. Then what really happens is up to the dungeon master.

I think it'd be really interesting to try this, but before I do I'd like to hear what you think about this.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Laslo Tremaine]

I can only tell you about my experiences with Ars Magica.

I love Ars, and while the spontaneous magic system is pretty amazingly flexible, it is also pretty highly structured.

In my experience it had a tendency to really bog the game down. Any time the magi decided to spont a spell, the book wouild come out and the metagaming would begin.

"Let's see... I want a spell that will keep me dry in this horrible rainstorm. Would that be Perdo Aquam (destroy water) or would it be Rego Aquam (control water). Oh, wait, maybe I'd be better off doing a Muto Herbam with an Animal prereq (change plant/animal) to change my clothes into something waterproof."

"Ok lets go for Perdo Aquam first, let's see (checking the book, flip-flip-flip...) Damn, that's right, Perdo spells have a default duration of instant. That will make me dry but I'll have to keep recasting it. Ok how about Rego, hmm, (flip-flip) ah there it is! 'Cloak of the Duck's Feathers'! It's only level 5 so I can spont that easily and if I want to increase the target to group that should only bring the level up to 10, and I can spont that and only be fatigued for a short while. Ok, that's what I do!"

Meanwhile the rest of the group is going, "Um, is it really that crucial that your character stay dry?"

Now don't get me wrong. I love the system. It can just slow things down...

 

[Umbran]

The problem with fully freeform is that unless your GM is really, really careful, it gets out of hand. Magic very quickly becomes overpowered if there aren't some hefty guidelines about what it can and cannot do. Without limitations, magic quickly beomces the solution for everything. This can be fine for a one-shot, but it tends to ruin campaigns.

For another game with a fairly free form magic system, there's White Wolf's Mage: The Ascension. It has guidelines abuot what you can do, but little in the way of concrete spells. It is one of the best of systems with a good group, and it is a lousy system with the wrong group.

 

[s/LaSH]

I've always liked the idea of that kind of magic; it seems closer to most fictitious magic styles.

That said, I tried to develop guidelines for it some years ago using a homebrew system. Sadly, horrible things happened. Let me relate the story in brief:

Two mages met in mortal combat. One, a master of fire. The other, a master of the arts of Earth and shapeshifting. Who would prove the victor?

Well, the firemage rolled poorly, and failed to shoot fire while the earthmage turned himself into a werewolf, strolled over to the firemage, ripped his arm off, and beat him unconscious with it.

This proved to me that exact guidelines were strictly necessary for any freeform magic system. Namely, there's a world of difference between shooting firebolts that immediately dissipate, and becoming a werewolf-style combat monster for an indefinite duration.

Thus, I rehashed the framework and now have a magic system to rival Ars Magica. If I say so myself. I'm currently working to adapt it to d20 standards, which should be an interesting endeavour. It's based on a system of components that can be combined to, for example, create an armour-piercing firebolt or turn someone into a toad (or a ten-foot four-armed vacuum-hardened acid spitter, if I can convert the racial skill system over), all depending on the caster's power and not some abstract guidelines in a spell list somewhere.

The advantage of the system is that everything's quantified, which might not really count for 'storytelling' purposes, but it could be useful for a set of guidelines. Plus it means players do all the work, not the DM (who has to handle hordes of NPCs and monsters anyway). And I'm sure I'll have it ready semi-shortly, as the non-d20 system it's based on is just about ready for closed playtest.