Magic like the real world

[SWBaxter]

From what you've written here, I strongly reccommend that you go to a Mage rulebook and read it, and see what of it you might adapt for your use...

The new version of Mage is coming out in a few months, might be best to wait for that if anyone's interested in Mage. If nothing else, the rules system should be cleaner (judging by the Vampire and Werewolf examples). I think previews have started to appear on White Wolf's site.

 

[Pbartender]

You could check out "Magic- The Science and Art of Causing Change" by 93 games. It attempts to do what you have described. It looks good, but I haven't actually used it or spent a lot of time mentally "play testing" it so I can't comment on the results.

RW - You really want to check this one out. I wrote a review for it on the EN World Reviews page... Look it up. It'll do a lot of the things you want it to do, it's designed for D20 Modern, and it includes a few advanced classes to go along with it. Very modular, very customizable. Skill/DC based, using the SRD spell effects as a foundation.

I think it's only $5 at RPGNow, and they've got a free preview PDF available that goes over the fluff behind the system. I think you'd like it.

 

[Mercule]

"Authentic Thaugmaturgy" is an interesting read. I don't much care for it, but it definitely developes and supports the paradigm it presents. I do recommend reading it.

"Mage: The Ascension" sounds like it might fill your needs pretty well. Beware, though. If you aren't a mage under those rules, you're just meat.

If you're at all familiar with the RPG "Aria", it's got a sort of metasystem for creating magic systems. I've got a system most of the way done up that was meant to give a "real world" feel. Email me at mercule at gmail dot com and I'll send you the Word files.

 

[Umbran]

I know other writers have done this but I first read it in S.K.

The Douglas Adams "Sombody Else's Problem" field will do it for the science-magic types

 

[boredgremlin]

The new version of Mage is coming out in a few months, might be best to wait for that if anyone's interested in Mage. If nothing else, the rules system should be cleaner (judging by the Vampire and Werewolf examples). I think previews have started to appear on White Wolf's site.

I have the old mage the ascension book. It has some neat ideas but it can be a big pain too. For those who havent read it, the 9 magic sheres (schools) are basically skills. Everything is on a scale of 0-5. 0 means you have no skill at all arent capable of that magic. All the other levels give you examples of what you could do but only about a dozen examples. for all 5 levels of capability. They work skills different. You roll a ton of D10's and have to have so many successes, but you could translate that over to a D20 DC pretty easy. The problem is that the DC changes depending on how big an effect you want, how far away it is, how much damage it should do and how long you want it to last. So basically every single time you cast a spell the wizard has to calculate a new spell DC. Its a really slow system if your character wants to do anything inventive.

For real magic you could take a spells level, give it a DC for that level and make it a skill check, probably include magic points or something so he cant just cast spells all day long. For high danger and low danger magic you could break em up by spell level. Say low magic is 1-4 or whatever and all the rest is high magic. I had an idea once to make low style magic do subdual damage to the caster. And high magic did subdual and the caster had to make a will save or temporarly lose wisdom. Like he was going crazy with the magic. Maybe make it a permanent loss if you want to be real mean.

 

[tetsujin28]

Another place to look is the 1922 Golden Bough by James Frazier, certainly one of the most exhaustive anthopological classifications of world magic and belief systems ever undertaken. You'll want the latest edition one because the 1890's version is like 12 thick volumes. It's a little dense. You'll know the basics, like sympathetic magic, from the basic D&D stuff but this goes into a lot more detail.

It's also insanely inaccurate. There's a reason it's no longer read in anthropology courses other than as a relic.

One of the best and most gameable 'real world' magic systems I've ever seen is in GURPS Voodoo, which uses initiation levels, being ridden by spirits, etc. Their Spirits book also does more with the Ritual Magic idea.

Both of those are great.

I haven't seen the urban fantasy book from Guardians of Order yet (Teflon Billy has it and has promised a review); usually the urban fantasy genre has a smattering of real world-based practices.

It's unimpressive, as far as the magic system goes. Lots of using the overly-complex Power Flux attribute.

And Mage, like Ars Magica, isn't like 'real-world' magic at all, but a filtering of real-world practices through a neo-Socratic lens.

 

[Shemeska]

Extremely simple: suppress any spell and spellcasting class. Then, seers, psychics, and the like must have Bluff as a class skill, and often Deceitful Belief as a feat.

*snicker* And remember, you can't be a psychic detective till you fill out the form at the back of the comic book and send in your $15 dollars.

And some guy named Randi keeps trying to bust you.