Magic as Plot Device -- With Rules

[mmadsen]

A standard complaint about D&D magic (and much RPG magic in general) is that it doesn't feel magical; it's too tactical, too well-defined, too scientific. Of course, if it's not well-defined, it's hard to adjudicate within a game -- and at least part of D&D's allure is that it's a game with rules.

What are some straightforward, easy-to-adjudicate ways to get that "plot device" magic feel -- without losing game-ability?

Ravenloft offers a few interesting elements. Evil acts (and evil spells in particular) draw a Powers Check -- the Dark Powers may take notice and grant the evildoer a twisted boon to draw him down the Path of Corruption. (Star Wars has Dark Side points that achieve much the same thing.)

Ravenloft's curses mix dramatic elements with game mechanics, giving penalties for less dramatic curses: a large penalty for mentioning game mechanics in the curse, another penalty for broad prohibitions (e.g. no spellcasting) rather than narrow (e.g. blinding headaches with every spell cast), another penalty for not tailoring the curse to the victim, another penalty for not including an "escape clause" (e.g. until kissed by a beautiful princess), etc. Naturally, there's a bonus for making a curse with your dying breath.

Rather than offering just one 3rd-level version of bestow curse (with bland effects: −6 to an ability; −4 on attacks, saves, and checks; or 50% chance of losing each action), Ravenloft gives examples of curses from embarrassing to lethal:

Embarrassing
Forked Tongue
Blackened Hands
Hair Turns White
Hungers for Raw Meat
etc.

Lethal
Torturous Death
Immediate Transformation into Monster
Must Kill Daily
etc.​

You could make an entire spell system out of Ravenloft's curses.

Ravenloft also modifies many plot-crashing spells (most divinations, remove curse, etc.), forcing characters to do a little detective work, to quest for a cure to the curse or disease that plagues them, etc.

Call of Cthulhu makes spells fairly rare, generally creepy, and very costly to learn or cast. Players fear the Sanity cost of learning and casting magic spells.

GURPS's alternate Unlimited Mana rules offer a surprisingly elegant solution: instead of providing spellcasters with a hard limit (whether in terms of fatigue points, power points, or spell slots), it gives them a soft limit they can cross -- with (unpredictable) consequences. "To draw too deeply on my Gift can lead to madness and death. Do not demand of me what you do not comprehend."

Also -- and this may sound trivial -- it gives spellcasters quite a bit of power, but power that does not return completely overnight. Much of the mundane nature of gaming magic is in its trivial cost. If you make a D&D spellcaster's slot monthly rather than daily, you don't change his adventuring behavior much, but you explain why magic isn't quite so ubiquitous.

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer game goes out of its way to emulate the "plot device" magic of the show. One of the simpler mechanics it uses for this is a roll to see if a spell works flawlessly. A spell can do any number of things:

Fails
Works
Works, but delayed
Works, but weakly
Works, but caster harmed
Works, but wrong target
Unexpected effect​

Thus, magic often comes at a price. Also, Buffy enforces strong "flavor" constraints: spells typically require research in an occult library, followed by long rituals with elaborate ingredients, etc. And, for a true "plot device" spell, the director can require a rare alignment of the stars (or whatever); it's actually encouraged.

Lastly, even D&D touches on "plot device" magic with its long history of the twisted wish spell. That's magic at a price.

(I presented these thoughts at RPG.net ages ago, but a recent thread here at EN World reminded me of them.)

 

[maddman75]

Coming here to post about Buffy.

The plot device-ness of a spell is in the hands of the Director. The way it works is a player wants to find a spell to do something, describes its effect to the GM. The player then does research, trying to find a spell that does what he wants. The GM has several choices

- If it wouldn't be a big deal, the player can find an appropriate spell. Especially when doing something standard.
- If you want to let them have it but throw in a complication, you can have it work but not exactly how they want. A witch detecting spell might require you to throw a potion on the suspected witch, to use an example from the show, where the player would prefer to just get the name.
- The Director can put off the spell, by saying they need the Rare Book of Dark Majick and they have to find it.
- If you want to let them use it, but sparingly, give it rare or costly components. Sure, I can do that Transmutation spell again. Just let me crawl into this mysterious cave and get some more demon eggs...
- If you want to let them use it, give it a one-time component. A priceless and irreplaceable artifact is consumed in the process, or the stars must be 'just right'.

And as said, you need just one success to cast a spell. You need one per Spell Level to cast it correctly. I disallow Drama Points on spellcasting rolls, it keeps the feeling of magic being unpredictable and dangerous.

 

[Dausuul]

Pretty much all the systems you listed above are "hazard systems," where spellcasters risk falling afoul of some mystical danger when they use their magic. To work well in play, I think any hazard system must adhere to the following:

• The hazard must be meaningful. If the PCs can easily shrug it off, it quickly becomes ignored.
• The hazard must not be catastrophic. It's neither fun nor magical to arbitrarily lose your character to a botched die roll.
• The player must have some control over the level of hazard faced, with incentives to "push" the hazard level higher in exchange for greater power.
• The hazard must not demand that the GM produce new story elements on the fly; requiring the GM to do substantial creative work when the hazard triggers (in the middle of a gaming session!) is asking for boring and ill-conceived hazards.
• The hazard must not arbitrarily alter the player's character concept, nor invite the GM to do so. Any permanent effects of magic use should be chosen by the player (at character creation, or during play). GMs and game designers often think it's funny to make PCs sprout tentacles. Players are generally less amused.

It's actually remarkably hard to come up with a system that meets these criteria. I think it can be done, though.

 

[mmadsen]

The plot device-ness of a spell [in Buffy] is in the hands of the Director.

Certainly much of the plot device-ness is in the hands of the Director (or DM), who can decide whether a spell (or 4E ritual) is even available, but it doesn't all have to come down to DM fiat -- or to pure DM fiat.

The not-so-magical D&D way -- at least the 3E way, in practice -- is to largely ignore spell components. No one goes on a quest for bat guano. It's not even treated as a limited resource. Even rare and powerful spell components are reduced to a gold-piece cost, perfectly fungible. Do you have the cash? Then cast the spell, or make the magic item.

This strikes me as a perfect opportunity to introduce some Gygaxian DM's Guide random tables. What does this ritual require? Let's see, 5th-level evocation, ooh, rolled a 20, roll twice, hmm, looks like someone needs to find a cockatrice egg and boil it in the fire of a red dragon's breath. Good luck with that!

The ritual-component table could be a random quest generator.

And as said, you need just one success to cast a spell. You need one per Spell Level to cast it correctly.

I see that idea as a wonderfully simple way to inject some flavor into magic, while giving players interesting choices to make.

The key, I suppose, is making sure the wizard has something useful to do if he elects not to take a crazy risk. It's no fun to make a choice between watch everyone else play the game or risk blowing up.

 

[mmadsen]

Pretty much all the systems you listed above are "hazard systems," where spellcasters risk falling afoul of some mystical danger when they use their magic.

Certainly most of them are, but notice how Ravenloft's curse system offers far, far more flavor than D&D's bestow curse spell by (a) distancing itself from pure game mechanics, and (b) relying on context. Cursing a liar who has deceived you so that he literally has a forked tongue is far, far more interesting than penalizing him with a -4 to attack rolls and saves.

Also, the "unlimited mana" system for GURPS introduces some hazards, but it also replaces cheap and easy magic, which replenishes over a few hours, with a bigger stock of magical energy that replenishes over weeks or months, so there's no sense of "use it or lose it"; spells become more like scrolls.

To work well in play, I think any hazard system must adhere to the following:

• The hazard must be meaningful. If the PCs can easily shrug it off, it quickly becomes ignored.
• The hazard must not be catastrophic. It's neither fun nor magical to arbitrarily lose your character to a botched die roll.
• The player must have some control over the level of hazard faced, with incentives to "push" the hazard level higher in exchange for greater power.
• The hazard must not demand that the GM produce new story elements on the fly; requiring the GM to do substantial creative work when the hazard triggers (in the middle of a gaming session!) is asking for boring and ill-conceived hazards.
• The hazard must not arbitrarily alter the player's character concept, nor invite the GM to do so. Any permanent effects of magic use should be chosen by the player (at character creation, or during play). GMs and game designers often think it's funny to make PCs sprout tentacles. Players are generally less amused.

It's actually remarkably hard to come up with a system that meets these criteria. I think it can be done, though.

I think some combination of the above systems could work nicely, with spellcasters casting some spells at low risk and others at high risk, with the risks being colorful, not just damaging.

Imagine combining some of the typical hazards from the "unlimited mana" calamity table, which follows, with some of the ideas from the Ravenloft curse examples:

10 The mage's skin and clothing crawl with strange energies, sparks, or other visual effect for 3d minutes, and his eyes glow bright, making Stealth impossible and frightening small animals and many "mundanes."
11 The mage is struck with violent headaches that prevent any action other than suffering (treat as physical stun) which lasts 3d turns (Or a number minutes equal to the cost of the spell that triggered the calamity, if a HT roll is failed - minimum 5 minutes). Result 10 also applies.
12 The mage becomes horribly nauseous and weak, taking a -4 to DX, IQ, ST and skills. This lasts a number of hours equal to the cost of the spell (minimum 2), after which the mage must make a HT-4 roll every hour to get over the sickness.
13 The mage is cursed with nightmares for 3d days (plus a number of days equal to the spell cost). After the first night, the mage is at -2 to DX, IQ, ST, and skills. The penalties last until the mage gets a normal night's sleep!
14 Any failed casting roll that the mage makes is treated as a critical failure! This lasts for 1d+1 weeks.
15 The mage's mind is bent. The GM should assign one debilitating (15-point) mental disad by fiat. It takes effect immediately, and lasts 1 day. Each day thereafter, the mage may make a Will roll to shake it off. If the spell cost was higher than 25, the disad lasts for (spell cost/25) days, rounded up.
16 The mage has weakened the binding forces around him. His Threshhold for the next 1d weeks is reduced by 2d+5. The mage is aware of a drop, but not of it's severity! Result 10 also applies.​

Presumably the fireball-tossing wizard would evolve into a not-quite-human entity, throwing off sparks, while a necromancer would slowly assume a cadaverous appearance, etc.

 

[Leatherhead]

A standard complaint about D&D magic (and much RPG magic in general) is that it doesn't feel magical; it's too tactical, too well-defined, too scientific

I have never agreed with this.That is just the result of abstraction that came from the need for balance. It's no different than the abstractions for physical combat in that respect. It's also quite funny considering how magic was handled in real life. Miscast tables can be fun, sometimes, but they aren't strictly necessary. They suffer the same problems as critical misses and beg the question: "Why and how is anyone even practicing this in the first place if it is so dangerous?"

In my mind magic isn't magical unless it is doing the impossible. If a magic spell is simply doing fire elemental damage, instead of "sword or arrow elemental" damage, it isn't all that special. (I also have an irrational hatred of cure spells that only restore hps, not because I am against healing but rather because they break immersion so rudely and demand that the game is rebalanced around them.) Magic dosn't have to be world shattering, it just has to be something different than what can be accomplished with mundane means.

 

[Byronic]

This whole thing reminds me of the magic system in WFRP (2nd edition), especially the Mana unlimited thing. Except instead of waiting till you go pass a threshold you have a chance of something happening every single time.

It also makes you think carefully how much power you want to invest, since the more power the more chance for things to go wrong.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Very good thread thus far; I look forward to future posts with interest.

RC

 

[Celebrim]

Things that are very common in my game, or which I'd like to be more common in my games, or which I'd like to see become more standard to the rules:

1) Unusual mishaps: All spell check failures have a chance of creating mishaps rather than failures. These mishaps do things other than just damage (though they can do that too). Spell failures due to disruption ought to be a bigger risk.
2) Terrain/Location related spell modifiers: Since 1st edition, its been a common assumption in my games that spells are inherently tied to the land, and that as a result some spells are harder or easier to cast in some places than others. Divine spells are easier in sacred spaces, and harder in profane ones. Certain places are particularly sacred to particular dieties, enhancing the divine magic of their priests and suppressing all others. A spell that conjures fire is harder if you are standing in the middle of a lake, the ocean, etc., than it is if you are standing in a volcano. Good luck conjuring water in said volcano or in the middle of a desert erg or a dry salt pan. And so forth.
3) Anyone can potentially curse anyone or bring a curse down on themselves: Better watch your words. Evil spirits are lurking everywhere just waiting for an invitation to make the lives of others or your own life miserable. This is not a world where you want to scream, "Go to hell!" to one of your loved ones. Right now I'm using something similar to the Ravenloft curse system. What I'd love to have is a fairy tale style Blessing system, for the consequences of good words.
4) The World is Animistic: Everything has a spirit. Trees, animals, even big rocks, probably have some sort of spirit that you can wake up, talk to, and which, if you offend it, might wake up on its own and express its displeasure. If you are going to have to cut down a tree, it's a good idea to apologize for it and explain how you are going to treat its wood with honor and for a good purpose. If you are going to fireball a monster in the middle of the forest, you might want to think twice about it just because harming and offending the trees might be a worse problem than the threat of the monster.
5) Magic is not fully controllable: Ever since 1st edition, I've tried to avoid dropping swords +1 into the campaign. Most items are unique in some way or the other. A typical item in my 1st edition games might have been a +1 dagger that strikes as a short sword (weapon vs. AC modifiers), has a +5% chance of a critical hit, is +4 on item saving throws, and has some wierd flavor property (always warm to touch, for example), and casts some 1st level spell once per day. In 3e, taking a page from GURPs rules on creating power stones, I assume that all powerful magic items tend to acquire wierd unexpected quirks regardless of the creator's intent. Items tend to be just a little bit wierd and unexpected. If you create some item more powerful than a scroll or potion, don't be surprised if it has some minor but wierd unexpected property. If you were to create a really potent item, don't be surprised if it has alot of wierd quirks.
6) Magic leaks: This doesn't typically come up in a campaign, since PC's tend to spend most of their time wandering, but my assumption has always been that magic is just a little bit (to use a modern concept) 'radioactive'. The more you use magic in a place, the more magical that place becomes and the more likely it is that the place develops quirks. This was partly inspired by all the flavor text in 1st edition of monsters being spontaneously created in places that were magical, and partly inspired by how Pratchett treats magic in the Discworld. Spellbooks (because you do alot of magic while they aer around) eventually get quirky. Libraries of spellbooks therefore get really quirky. Places where alot of epic or grand spellcasting took place have lingering side effects, and tend to attract magical beings or spontaneously create them. Ceremonial places become magically more suited to the rituals that take place in them, and are 'cranky' when you try to perform the wrong sort of magic.

 

[maddman75]

The key, I suppose, is making sure the wizard has something useful to do if he elects not to take a crazy risk. It's no fun to make a choice between watch everyone else play the game or risk blowing up.

This is a key component. In the game in question, the witch would certainly not expect to be casting spells in every situation. Indeed doing so, from canon, is a path to darkness and evil, where the caster sees his will as being synonymous with Right. PC witches can fight about as well as any other White Hat character, or distract the bad guys, assist the heroes, etc. It is not a difference between casting a spell or twiddling your thumbs.

The vast majority of spells in that game are noncombat. Combat magic is difficult and likely to hurt people around you if it goes wrong.