Traces of Magic as Diegtic Investigation Tool

[Fenris-77]

Rolemaster has spells for detecting spell casting (I think in various RMCs, starting with the first one).

The issue I often had, as GM, was that players would look for these traces/signatures, and then I had to make decisions about what spells had been cast in an area, by whom, etc.

I think giving techniques for working out answers to those questions would be helpful. (The RMCs didn't provide any such techniques.)

So for this to work it needs to be something that gets previous prep, even just a touch. It could be generated to suit given the rules. But some pre-generation is always helpful.

 

[Fenris-77]

So I'm going to do specific conversion bits for BRP, SWADE, 5E and PbtA games. If there's another rules set that anyone thinks should be in there let me know.

@soviet - I'd love to get your feedback on the PbtA version of this, if you're willing to chat.

 

[soviet]

So I'm going to do specific conversion bits for BRP, SWADE, 5E and PbtA games. If there's another rules set that anyone thinks should be in there let me know.

@soviet - I'd love to get your feedback on the PbtA version of this, if you're willing to chat.

I would be glad to but I've never played or ran any PbtA games, only read them. I don't have much insight into them.

 

[Piperken]

...but system agnostic is hard, so if anyone else has cool ideas I'm all ears. Anything I use will get you a credit in the published PDF. The other reason I posted this idea si that I'd love to have people think about how they'd use the idea in their own games. I'm happy to expand on the mechanic at need. Anyway, I'd love to hear what people think.

Sadly don't have any game mechanics that come to mind that'd fit, esp. system agnostic.

I do think in cases where the magic directly affected something in a way that's observable, you should be able to just give a clue that points that magic of a particular kind was used, without necessarily requiring a check.

So for example, if a statue's head was taken clean off recently by a lightning bolt like spell, the statue's neck might have scorch marks, and the immediate surroundings near the statue might smell like ozone or the moment before a rainstorm hits.

It might be helpful too, to couch some magic details in more... mundane clues. Say the investigators come on a magic circle that was left at a site. PCs who know about magic circles, or even just handwriting, might look at it and go, oh, this person was very skilled; not only did they draw this whole circle without a mistake, they didn't lift the tool used to draw it once.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I can think of three aspects to magical forensics.

Power of the spell (mo power = mo residuum)

Time lapsed since spell cast (mo time = less residuum)

Environmental effects - this includes other spells & magical effects in the area but also events that may leave a residue of their own. This latter depends on the magic system. I'm cribbing from 1e Shadowrun here. In SR, because magic is an expression of life and mind and soul, events that have had major effects on any of these can create a background noise that obscures magical traces. SR specically mentions both positive and negative events. So a death camp and a center of devout worship both obscure magic, just with very different types of aura.

Detecting details of the spell like signare could either be a basic part of the spell or rely on raises/levels of success/whatever you want to call them.

Ooh, and just had a wild idea - the caster of a spell can reduce their residuum with levels of success when they cast (assuming the system uses casting checks.)

 

[kigmatzomat]

Shadowrun has all of this baked in. Most spell casters have Astral Sight, which can see magic and after effects. Assensing is the "perception" skill for Astral Sight . The duration of spells' astral imprint varies with the Force of the spell and environments can have Astral Background Counts that make assensing difficult. Various meritsl flaws and metamagic techniques can affect the skills or visibility of Astral imprints.

As for making it system agnostic...

 

[Fenris-77]

I would be glad to but I've never played or ran any PbtA games, only read them. I don't have much insight into them.

That's kind of hilarious. From your suggestion that the players get to ask a set number of questions that I assumed you did (super common in PbtA moves). Anyway, as you were.