I've been kicking around an idea where modern stage illusion is all real. Saw a woman in half (without killing her), walk through a solid wall, throw a blanket over someone and turn them into a tiger, etc. I have no idea how to do this in a game system but it seemed appropriate to this thread.
It's a very good idea I think and oddly enough JM, (or maybe not, I'm a big believer in parallel invention and development - where one or more parties invent or create similar things without any real contact with each other, but just because the idea seems ripe for the age, or the idea seems ripe for the subject matter or problem to be addressed - I've seen it on numerous occasions) that's kind of what I'll be doing with the human Wizard.
In the game on the human world there will be no "real magic" in the sense of more traditional fantasy RPGs. Instead Wizards and Magi will be proto-scientists and occultists.
Many Wizards though will be able to create illusions which convince others that the illusion is real. Sometimes they will use "components" and props to do this, but sometimes they will use their mind and will to convince others that the illusion is real. Similar to mentalism and hypnotism. Allowing them to "charm" others and to "enchant" them. Of course the Wizard profession won't be limited to illusions and tricks, they will also be what today would be called a technical expert, a proto-scientist, inventor, and engineer. But creating illusions will be part of their capabilities.
I'm also trying to think about how to redo Psionics. I'm going to move it away from Jedi and Matrix type powers and more back to be what the Greeks called psuchic or psychic (meaning of the soul, or sometimes of the mind) power. Unfortunately the term psychic has such a wide-spread negative connotation with fortune telling and that kind of thing in modern times that I'm almost certain I can't use the term. I may have to invent a new term.
In any case people like Hermits and some Magi and Wizards and others (these capabilities won't be limited to profession or class, that is there won't be a psionic class or classes, there will instead be individuals who are psychically capable) will have psychic powers more like ancient Oracles, Seers, and Prophets. Interpreting dreams accurately, knowing the best course of action to take or direction to follow, predicting the future or possible futures, obtaining information by unknown means, sensing what others may be secretly implying based upon their behavior, or patterns of speech and other psychic and mental capabilities.
I'm also working on "Skill Suites" though I'll call it something else, that is very well developed sets of interrelated skills that individuals can learn independent of class or race, such as Survival Skills, Ingenuity Skills, Vadding Skills, Thieving Skills, Psychological Skills and so forth. That is to say that characters can learn individual skills if they so wish, or they can learn specific suites. And something else that I've been working on for years (but revising and improving lately) and that my group has used for years and years, Transferable Real World Skills. When where a player has a real world skill that is applicable to the game, he or she can write that into their character. But mainly all of those things are part of the modular design.
Overall I'm approaching this gaming project much like some of the work I've done in the past on things like the Renaissance Soldier project, or things like that. the intent is less to produce a "specialist" and more to allow the players to produce Renaissance Characters, characters who are good at a wide range of different skills and who possess a wide range of capabilities. So that they can operate successfully in nearly any environment or situation. None of the individual capabilities for the human characters may seem flashy and impressive, but you put them all together and you produce an incredibly versatile and flexible and capable individual.
As for the non-human characters like the Giants and Elves and so forth, they won't be nearly as versatile, but they will possess very powerful attributes of a different kind, and in some cases, extremely potent, though dangerous magic. So the humans and non-humans will be completely different in design philosophy and have very different types of, but complimentary capabilities. In that way they act very well together as a team, but are also nothing alike in nature or culture. Or that's what I'm shooting for anyways.
Characters will be differentiated by how efficiently they can convert their raw energy into the various forms. For example a fighter character might be able to convert raw energy into "martial energy" at 80 percent efficiency but only convert into "arcane energy" at 30 percent efficiency, and for a wizard character that might be reversed. Then there will be skills, powers, items etc. which give you different types of actions you can do, and each type of action has an "energy cost." For example casting a spell would cost arcane energy, attacking with a sword would cost martial energy, etc. Then there will be ways of reclaiming lost energy, storing energy in items, etc.
By the way Alex, I like that general idea. In the non-human world I'm not limiting magical power based on class, or necessarily even by race, though I'm doing it differently than you appear to be doing, just like in the human world I'm not limiting miracles and "Divine magic" to just clerics, monks, and hermits. In the non-human world magic will be diffused throughout the cultures and in the human world a miracle might happen through anyone.
So I like your idea. Another example of parallel development.
