Talking about magic rules.

[Doghead Thirteen]

Myself, my brother and our gaming group have been, over the last twelve or so years, gradually developing a rule system.

Currently, our combat rules are 90% fixed, but have one serious hole; magic. The system for ranged combat runs like a dream, and the melee combat is getting towards a good solid footing, as is car-chase and Netrunner-type operations. But, aside from a few false starts, magic is a yawning hole in the rules.

We cannot stand old-school D&D style 'spell list' magic, especially where you get to cast spell A once a day, and once you cast it, it miraculously vanishes from your memory, and you gotta read it out your spellbook again, and blah blah blah. Likewise, Shadowrun-style magic is not versatile enough, and Mage: the Acension style is the one we've never been able to work out how to actually use in play.

What we need is something fast-playing and versatile, but with a clear-cut 'you can do thing A, but not thing B'. Our rule system is designed to get in the way of actual roleplaying as little as possible, and any rule mechanic that collapses when everyone involved has had a few beers gets ditched or streamlined; we call this the Fosters Test.

Suggestions, anyone?

 

[Piratecat]

Have you seen the Expanded Psionics Guide? It converts to magic well enough, and I love the point-based system. Check out the rules here.

 

[Yair]

Do you want simple, or do you want non-Vancian?

For spells that can be cast any number of times and aren't forgotten, consider systems such as Elements of Magic (Revised, Mythic Earth, whatever) or Legends of Sorcery - these replace the "spell per day" with skill checks costing fatigue, damage, or so on. Legends follows standard spells, Elements uses more generic rules - not sure which you'd consider simpler. I believe Grim Tales follows a similar path.

This is still rather complicated, however. If you want simpler, you can go with alternate "casters" such as the Warlock (IIRC).

I think the simplest method would be to pare down Elements of Magic to a set of very simple guidelines. Something like a table of DCs per die of damage, penalty to ability score, or effect (such as paralysis, stun, and so on), or spell parameter increase (range = Close, Area = Cone) and so on. That still won't be too simple - magic just ain't simple.

 

[GlassJaw]

Shadowrun not versatile enough? I definitely don't understand that statement. The SR magic system is the best magic system of any game IMO.

You could also check out Grim Tales. It's simple and very fast but highly effective.

Really though, I would need more fluff details on what you want your system to accomplish before making specific recommendations.

 

[Doghead Thirteen]

Piratecat - Thanks, that link looks like an excellent resource.

Yair - We're going for an extremely fast-moving system, so the simpler the better.
A couple of our design criteria are;

No rule may require more than four dice to be rolled at one go.

No action may require more than four consecutive rolls.

We've pared it down so any attack, ranged or melee, is resolved in three rolls; to hit (1d10) location (1d10) amount of damage caused (varies.) Keeping the mathematics super-simple is also a necessity as several of our players are dyslexic and we're more interested in roleplaying than rolling dice and using calculators, but we want to keep the pyrotecnics to the maximum. We've never had a gaming session in which at least one thing didn't explode, and we like it that way.
The setting is sort of Cyberpunk meets World of Darkness meets Terry Pratchett on acid. It's a classless system in which humans are one of the weakest races. The setting has been developing alongside the rules, again since about 1995, and it's got pretty solid.

 

[Doghead Thirteen]

OK, done a bit of writing to start getting a feel for what I want the magic system to be like...

Magic is… like the most powerful drug in the universe. Once you’ve cast your first spell, once you’ve felt that rush, you’ll never be able to give it up.

Elsewhere in the galaxy, it’s a precise science. But then they’re not dealing with a system-wide thaumatic aura as rarified as the one we’ve got here on Earth.

Here on Earth, magic is like being in love with a beautiful woman who has six overprotective combat cyborg brothers. You’re messing with a power man cannot understand or truly control, and if you get it wrong you are so dead they’ll be able to bury you in a matchbox.

It’s not like it’s portrayal in pre-Change fantasy novels. We’re talking ancient rituals, Words of Power, stone circles and Beltane fires. All that stuff is there for a very good reason, and that reason is control. It’s no mistake that every Collegium in the galaxy teaches the three C’s – control, control and control.

Every magic user is a living Chernobyl reactor thirty seconds before meltdown – barely understood, barely under control and when it goes sky-high everyone within thirty kilometres is going to seriously regret it.

- Dr John Kirth, Harvard Doctor of Thaumatic Science, 12/02/2022

The whole game system is very slam-bang, with action movie physics in force. The combat rules are very fast-playing, there's no social system (that's all roleplayed without dice) and everything's sort of retro-Matrix; the guns are big, the cars have chrome and huge air intakes, and there's no such thing as cyberpsychosis.

I want the whole game to feel like it's taking place on the big screen.

(And yes, this is a heavily disguised bump)

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Check out some of the alternate magic systems for Iron Heroes.

http://ironheroesarcana.pbwiki.com/

I am partial to Jeremy Puckett's Magic System Fix.

What I like about the design concepts behind Iron Heroes is that it is encounter based. Unfortunately this was not a design decision that made it into the Iron Heroes magic system, but the spell wiki has some suggestions for that.

 

[Doghead Thirteen]

Thanks, will have a read.

What I'm aiming for is high-impact. I want using the rules to feel like you're straining to control a near-infinite force.

To throw it into contrast, in one of our campaigns the PC's got hold of a bunch of old 9mm handguns and associated ammunition. They started carrying one of these guns each as a way to tell each other to stop being stupid; they all had cybernetic armour that gave them a fighting chance against a present-day anti-tank missile, someone with a 9mm was a bit like a fully kitted-out level 20 barbarian running into a half dozen kobolds.

The reason for the power level of the game is simple. When events are playing out on a 40-foot screen in front of you, there's a certain awe factor involved. I'm trying to produce a game that reproduces that awe factor. I want the players to very nearly feel the kick when they pull the trigger. I want them to come away from sessions feeling like they've gone a few rounds with a berserk back-hoe loader.

With firearms and melee combat, I've got it dead on. Magic is still stymieing me.

 

[phindar]

Shadowrun not versatile enough? I definitely don't understand that statement. The SR magic system is the best magic system of any game IMO.

Yup.

A friend of mine brought this point up one time about Star Wars, the the SR system would be a much better fit for it than d20. But you know, we love SR. All the Jedi powers are there either as spells or phys ad abilities, and no d20 system has ever been able to sell me on guns, be they blasters or SMG's. I'm just spoiled from years of SR.

 

[Doghead Thirteen]

The only version of Shadowrun I've read is 4th.

That said, the problem is the magic rules don't do anything special. You could copy and paste the available effects into any other game system that used a fatigue/damage magic set, and they'd fit in seamlessly. For a non-conventional (as in, not D&D-style memorise/cast/it vanishes from your noggin/re-memorize/repeat) system, it's extremely conventional.