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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5242598" data-attributes="member: 4937">Can't you have a magic system that is both formulas AND willing the world to alter itself?I think you'll find that all magic depends on willing the world to alter itself.  How that is accomplished is the decoration of that core concept.  Even if how that is accomplished is 'Build a device designed by Nicolai Tesla, solve a complex system of differential equations, etc.', if the core concept is then buried beneath that, 'Will the world to alter itself', you've moved out of science fiction and into the world of fantasy.  In my campaign, magic - because it works and is real - involves manipulating real laws of the universe, creating real tangible effects, orderly manufacturing processes, and much application of perfect numbers and geometry to achieve a result.  Something of this sort must be an aspect of anything that is real, otherwise we mean by magic only 'things I don't understand'.  Even in this world, real believers in magic describe ostensibly plausible causes to explain why their particular thoughts would have real effects.  Something real must be behind the mechanism of anything that has a real effect.  But it is no less magic, because fundamentally the cause of the effect is thought.</blockquote>