Is Magic a Setting Element or a Plot Device

[Hussar]

I'm a big fan of Beneath Ceaseless Skies - a fantasy and SF fanzine (possibly a semi-prozine, I'm not sure) and I just finished a story that really ties into this topic. In the story - My Father's Wounds there is an order of "clerics" with magical healing abilities. They are ordered to a battlefield in order to provide aid to the soldiers. The order is neutral, so they heal both sides equally.

An interesting passage from the story:

The seventeen real Blacksmiths move quickly among the wounded. The survivors are bloody tatters. Both sides have learned if they don’t kill their opponent outright, the Blacksmiths will return them, refreshed, to the battlefield the next morning—so instead of running someone through and moving on, they have twisted the blade, cleaved their enemy open to the spine, gouged out their heart.

For a Blacksmith to heal even one man requires great strength. Though with faith, all things may be remade, reforging dead landscape into breathing tissue is still an exertion. The priests breathe life into a pile of dry rocks, mold the newly animated rock-flesh into a pink, quivering mass, wrench the bones of the ribcage open and squeeze the new lung until it pumps on its own. Even Father looks exhausted.

Earlier someone asked me what the tipping point was. This is a good example of where I would draw the line between plot element and setting element. The healing that is provided, the fantasy element in the story, actually changes how the soldiers behave. Instead of simply trying to put an opponent out of the fight, they actively search to kill opponents in order to prevent the clerics from bringing them back.

The fantastic element has a real, direct impact on how people act in the story.

To me, that's great.

 

[mmadsen]

Earlier someone asked me what the tipping point was. This is a good example of where I would draw the line between plot element and setting element. The healing that is provided, the fantasy element in the story, actually changes how the soldiers behave. Instead of simply trying to put an opponent out of the fight, they actively search to kill opponents in order to prevent the clerics from bringing them back.

The fantastic element has a real, direct impact on how people act in the story.

To me, that's great.

I think everyone here would agree that that's great, and that the fantastic elements should have an effect on how people act.

But there are two sides to this situation: (1) how the world-builder defines the fantastic elements, and (2) how those fantastic elements then affect how people act.

I think we all agree that if magical healing is cheap, easy, reliable, etc., then people will react to that fact and do things like finish off their foes, or take greater risks in training, or whatever.

If magical healing isn't cheap, easy, reliable, etc. though, then people won't act too differently.

One of D&D's flaws is that it provides players with lots of wahoo! powers with limitations that aren't so limiting, especially outside of a dungeon delve on a deadline.

A different definition of how magic works -- even a minor change -- can totally change the larger-scale consequences of magic. For instance, magic in D&D is often free, only limited by how much you can do per day. Change that and see what happens. What if spell slots aren't per day, but per week or per month? (If you don't want spellcasters made weaker, go ahead and give them a few more slots.) What if preparing a spell is as expensive and time-consuming as creating a scroll?

Changes like that don't reduce an adventurer's power nearly as much as they reduce a spellcaster's impact on the larger world.

 

[Hussar]

mmadsen - I think the major issue with D&D specifically is that the fantastic elements are added based on how they affect game play, rather than how they affect world building. Continual Light appears as a 2nd level cleric spell because by third or fourth level, the party is sturdy enough to be able to stay in the dungeon for somewhat more extended forays and trying to cart around dozens of gallons of lamp oil becomes more trouble than its worth.

So, we get a spell that means we don't have to cart around torches or lamp oil, but, it's still dispellable, so the DM can treat it as a resource as well.

Like you say, as soon as that gets applied to the wider world, it becomes very, very problematic.

Your solutions are from a world building perspective - how can we allow the party to have these resources without having such a broader impact. I don't think this was ever a criteria in design, particularly in spell design in the early days. And, since it got more or less set in stone at the outset, it simply got carried forward.

 

[mmadsen]

I think the major issue with D&D specifically is that the fantastic elements are added based on how they affect game play, rather than how they affect world building.

Yes, absolutely.

Continual Light appears as a 2nd level cleric spell because by third or fourth level, the party is sturdy enough to be able to stay in the dungeon for somewhat more extended forays and trying to cart around dozens of gallons of lamp oil becomes more trouble than its worth.

As an aside, D&D certainly strays from the "source material" here. The Fellowship, while in Moria, has to go without Gandalf's magic light when he exhausts himself holding a portal against the magical might of the (yet-unseen) Balrog.

Your solutions are from a world building perspective - how can we allow the party to have these resources without having such a broader impact. I don't think this was ever a criteria in design, particularly in spell design in the early days. And, since it got more or less set in stone at the outset, it simply got carried forward.

My solution is definitely from a world-building (magic-designing) perspective -- and, further, it aims to reduce unintended consequences across the board, rather than spell by spell.

4E's move to rituals for all world-affecting spells stemmed from a similar motive, but it raises the question of why magical artillery is so comparatively cheap and easy.

 

[Pentius]

4E's move to rituals for all world-affecting spells stemmed from a similar motive, but it raises the question of why magical artillery is so comparatively cheap and easy.

That part at least is fairly simple, at least for a broad suggestion. Some specifics might contradict it, but here goes:

Most attack magic in 4e is fairly simple. Just hurl a ball of energy at the problem. Literally with evocation, figuratively with the rest. Most of the enchantment spells and illusion spells that are attack powers are fairly straightforward. Grab an emotion and wrench it. Set up a basic illusion. It might not be very convincing under scrutiny(short term effects, then they notice it's illusion), but it gets the job done. Then the more elaborate stuff, that takes longer to cast, is set as rituals.

 

[Baron Opal]

...they turned the quest for liquid starlight...

Monte Cook, starmilk
As the Sky Falls

 

[S'mon]

4E's move to rituals for all world-affecting spells stemmed from a similar motive, but it raises the question of why magical artillery is so comparatively cheap and easy.

People put far more effort into magic that kills things than into alternative applications? That's pretty much how it goes with technology IRL. Often the not-killing-things stuff is just a byproduct of the killing-things stuff.

 

[Hussar]

For me, this is aspect is like a bit of horror or Monty Python jokes in an otherwise straight fantasy game. I don't mind it as a sauce, but I don't want it becoming an actual course. So magical hot tubs--good. Magical forge that lets them turn out something cheaply that is supposed to cost more, thus wrecking the economy of the game world--not so good.

Not that I mind squashing things like this that get out of hand. As far as I'm concerned, things like the Wall of Iron in 3E are presumed to have some unspecified drawbacks that make factory-like production of iron not worth it. It is more reverse-engineering than having to spell everything out, but I think it allows holes in rules to not have terrible effects:

1. The people of the game world are not universally morons.
2. If there was a way to exploit X easily, someone would do so.
3. No one has.
4. Therefore, the reality makes sense, but the game rules that model that reality are missing something that explains why it doesn't work.

Perhaps with wall of iron, multiple castings in short periods of time produce progressively poorer quality of iron. Or something else. It really doesn't matter until it comes up in play.

Not that I advocate deliberately littering the rules with opposed but unexplained drawbacks, or even outright paradoxes. It has to look semi-plausiable to a casual glance. But in general, the attitude of, "exploit the game model as if the game model perfectly matched the reality being modeled," is one I find distinctly not fun in play--and highly counter-productive to heroic action.

I missed this the last time I read.

I think this really does get to the heart of things. It's all about genre expectations. Walls of Iron don't break the world because that would wreck the genre, so, we just don't do that. Sure, we can come up with various work arounds and reasons why not, but, at the heart of it, that's why.

And, as reasons go, it's not a bad one. Don't read the rules as the reality of the setting, and we're pretty much good to go.

Where the problem comes is when you get more than one view at the table. Typically it's the DM vs Players. The DM has no interest in blowing up his world (figuratively) because it would screw up the game he's trying to run. The players have no real investment in this specific world, so, introducing world changing elements doesn't necessarily bother them.

So we get players trying to invent gunpowder, using (and abusing the crap out of) spells and effects that were never really intended to be used that way, harvesting monsters and various other fantasy resources to be used in all sorts of ways.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Monte Cook, starmilk
As the Sky Falls

Winner! More details on liquid starlight were found in his Books of Eldritch Might, also.

You must spread some Experience Points around before giving it to Baron Opal again.

I'll be back.

 

[Baron Opal]

Well, Dain didn't send Gimli out to escort the Ringbearer and defeat the Dark Lord. He sent Gimli's dad out to ask Elrond's advice about the failed Moria mission and Gimli accompanied him.

Now that you mention it, that sounds right. Still, I recall that they mention how dangerous the roads are becoming and that the only reason they were open was because of the Beornlings. Dain still should have equipped everyone properly...

Eh, I'm probably still just sore over Gimli being comedic relief in the movie.

In the story - My Father's Wounds there is an order of "clerics" with magical healing abilities. They are ordered to a battlefield in order to provide aid to the soldiers. The order is neutral, so they heal both sides equally... The fantastic element has a real, direct impact on how people act in the story.

That sounds like an interesting story and magazine as well. I'll have to check it out.

I think this really does get to the heart of things. It's all about genre expectations. Walls of Iron don't break the world because that would wreck the genre, so, we just don't do that. Sure, we can come up with various work arounds and reasons why not, but, at the heart of it, that's why.

That makes sense. What would further the realism of the setting, making magic more mundane than myth, I guess, would be that when you come to those decisions you adjust things across the board. So, if chopping up walls of iron is unacceptible to you and you decide that "broken" walls fade away you need to apply that to all magical effects. Does that change anything else in the system?