Freeform Spellcasting

[Woas]

I was going to mention Ars Magica too as I'm a big fan. Ars Magica also has three 'tiers' of spell casting that are all freeform: spontaneous, formulaic and ritual (or are they called ceremonial?). Each one is like a different flavor of freeform magic too.

Ars Magica has always had a freeform spell system, and it works pretty well. It doesn't try to balance wizards with non-wizards; all PCs are wizards (at least most of the time).

Also, was it Ranger Wicket who worked on that d20 magic system supplement here for ENWorld Publishing? Elements of Magic I believe it was called. Maybe we can get him in here to talk.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

[*]The PC only gets one of the few magical "schools", and then tries to bend those rules to fit any circumstance - and the system usually lets him get away with it. For example, a necromancer uses his powers to speak with dead, cast a grave bolt that deals damage, develops resistance to poisons through a special disease spell he makes, makes ghostly illusions, etc....

Ahhh, so they try and turn their one school into a Green Lantern Ring.

I can see how that might be frustrating for some GMs.

 

[Wik]

Ahhh, so they try and turn their one school into a Green Lantern Ring.

I can see how that might be frustrating for some GMs.

Yyyup! You got it exactly. I had a huge problem with this when I ran it in the d6 Star Wars system, to the point where we had a "no-Jedi" rule - PCs could just dump all their skill points into one skill, and then argue for using that skill for everything.

Personally, I'll save myself a headache and go with something a bit more structured - the system I mentioned earlier, which I have seen in some games (just can't remember where) is a pretty good compromise in my book. But I also like older editions of D&D, where spells were often used in the way an engineer uses tools - I think most players have a story on how they creatively used one spell or another to save the day (my 3rd level character once used web to kill an ancient red dragon in 2nd edition, for example).

 

[Vicente]

Also, was it Ranger Wicket who worked on that d20 magic system supplement here for ENWorld Publishing? Elements of Magic I believe it was called. Maybe we can get him in here to talk.

I've played a pretty big 3e campaign with Elements of Magic - Revised Edition and it has been one of the best learning experiences I have had as a DM. For me there are two important things to take into account:

- Non spellcasters were boring compared to spellcasters (even more than in vanilla DnD). You need something to make them interesting or all the players will be spellcasters (they are too much fun with that system).

- If you have creative players, be ready to have a lot of plots and situations destroyed (or solved much faster) by creative use of magic. If you like to have a tight control over what happens in the game and how the plot advances, you aren't going to like this. If you enjoy more chaotic games and you like improvising, then you will have fun.

For me Elements of Magic is probably my preferred 3e book, it's a superb work.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I have never gone fully freeform, as I played 3.5 mostly.

I have made memorization a bit easier by allowing one "Free Slot" at each spell level that the caster can fill on the fly any time during the day. After the "free slot" spell is chosen, it is assumed that that spell was memorized at the beginning of the day.

It gave wizards a good boost and was marginally broken for clerics and druids, but it helped me, as the DM, to design encounters that needed a particular spell to get past it and generally mroe freedom in designing encounters.

 

[Set]

Ars Magica has always had a freeform spell system, and it works pretty well. It doesn't try to balance wizards with non-wizards; all PCs are wizards (at least most of the time).

That's the only magic system I've used that has a 'freeform' mechanic, and I loved it. I've also used the Freeform Psionics option in Trinity, which was pretty sweet as well, where you could increase the difficulty of the rolll (or spend more of whatever) to increase range, damage, etc. on the fly.

I've heard that Monte Cook's World of Darkness has a freeform magic system, but I haven't played that one yet.

Mage: the Ascencion had a freeform system, but, IMO, wasn't detailed well enough to be playable, and had some Spheres that ended up plainly better than others (you could do *anything* with Spirit, for instance, by calling up a Spirit that could do what you wanted, and could generally get away with anything via creative uses of Correspondence or Entropy).

I've toyed with a freeform GURPS magic variant, where one buys the Colleges seperately (at a much greater cost) instead of individual spells, and then uses the spell writeups as guidelines for what you can do with your College skill (kind of like buying Necromancy or Transmutation as mega-skills, and then making Spellcraft rolls at appropriate penalties to try and use your Necromancy skill to kitbash a Chill Touch or Vampiric Touch or whatever), but I didn't really think it was any better fleshed out than the Mage: the Ascencion rules.

IMO, Ars Magica is one of the few systems that did this well, although I'm also a fan of systems that have basic magic, and allow some specific tweaking in special cases, such as a Mutants & Masterminds Magic Array, where you have X number of 'spells' available, but can blow a Hero Point (their version of an Action Point) to do pretty much anything within that power level as a 'Power Stunt.'

 

[Wik]

If you like to have a tight control over what happens in the game and how the plot advances, you aren't going to like this. If you enjoy more chaotic games and you like improvising, then you will have fun.

I'm going to disagree with you, here. I am definitely a GM that likes fast and loose play, and I love chaotic games heavy on improvisation, and as I said earlier, I hate freeform magic systems (they are a dealbreaker for me).

I don't necessarily equate an entirely open, improvised magic system in the hands of the players with an improvised style of play - they are not at all related.

Generally (again, IME), freeform magic systems result in the most creative player becoming the most powerful, with the rest of the group watching from the sidelines... or a group of players that can custom-make "I-win" buttons - whether you're an improv GM or a railroader makes little difference.

Really, magic can derail play regardless of whether it's set or freeform. Ever play Shadowrun? there's a game that's notorious for allowing mages to completely bypass events, and it has a highly structured magic system. I won't even mention the time one of my players in an old SR2E game summoned a spirit in a bathroom stall in a Seattle nightclub to follow a Johnson home after the initial meet to get more information, breaking the entire twist of the game.

I guess what I'm saying is this: Magic in an RPG is always going to be "Creative" - regardless of whether it has structure or is "Freeform". However, structure helps limit the capabilities of magic-using characters, which is a necessity in any RPG. If not all characters are wizards, the reason is obvious - the non-wizards should have stuff to do. In games where all characters are wizards, the structure is still necessary - otherwise, it's a game where the most creative or vocal player wins.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I've long wanted to see the spell system in the Black Company D20 Campaign Setting in action (it was spun off to become True Sorcery). It looked very inspired.

As it was very much a toolkit to build spell effects it felt like it would involved far too much system mastery before one could become effective with it. Is there any toolkit/freeform spell system that doesn't require a deep system mastery to become capable?

 

[Aus_Snow]

Wik,

I think it is just as well I didn't enter the current RPG Design Contest, considering the kind of magic system I was thinking about writing up.

 

[RangerWickett]

Also, was it Ranger Wicket who worked on that d20 magic system supplement here for ENWorld Publishing? Elements of Magic I believe it was called. Maybe we can get him in here to talk.

Hi. And yes, before War of the Burning Sky, the various Elements of Magic versions (from Cyberzombie's original to my two published and one dustbin version) were the game products I most enjoyed working on. I love playing with magic.

My players used to say I didn't run D&D, though. I ran "Spellcasters are Cool."

I've played a pretty big 3e campaign with Elements of Magic - Revised Edition and it has been one of the best learning experiences I have had as a DM. For me there are two important things to take into account:

- Non spellcasters were boring compared to spellcasters (even more than in vanilla DnD). You need something to make them interesting or all the players will be spellcasters (they are too much fun with that system).

I discovered the same thing. The last 3e campaign I ran had 6 PCs. It started with one spellcaster and ended with four. And the non-mage fighter I granted the ability to shapeshift into four different elemental forms, whereas the ranger got a bow whose arrows could store the spells of the other PCs.

- If you have creative players, be ready to have a lot of plots and situations destroyed (or solved much faster) by creative use of magic. If you like to have a tight control over what happens in the game and how the plot advances, you aren't going to like this. If you enjoy more chaotic games and you like improvising, then you will have fun.

For me Elements of Magic is probably my preferred 3e book, it's a superb work.

Thank you. I'm always thrilled to hear that people enjoyed the book, and I hope it was worth the hassles it may have caused. I know I had a few gape-mouthed smile moments when my players did crazy stuff, like mind-meld with a large drake and offer to teach it how to cast fire magic. This was in a primordial world game, so basically one PC was responsible for why dragons breathe fire.

Or with Mythic Earth (which got way too overpowered at high level), when one PC learned to magically conjure technology. Nothing quite like summoning a rocket-propelled-grenade, or planeshifting an enemy helicopter to the fey realm where technology doesn't work.

I'm working on a 4e-ish version of EoM, which I'm currently playtesting in my newest campaign. Last night was the first session, and I was actually kind of proud of myself. For once, the players complained that my magic system was too under-powered!