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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lewpuls" data-source="post: 8437562" data-attributes="member: 30518">Hard magic systems have clear rules about how they work; they are predictable. Soft magic has no clear “system” and tends to lack any kind of connection between one spell and another—more or less random, certainly chaotic.[ATTACH=full]145730[/ATTACH] <a href="https://pixabay.com/illustrations/spells-magic-magic-book-magic-shop-4736341/" target="_blank">Picture courtesy of Pixabay.</a><h3>Types of Magic</h3>I only learned a few years ago, while talking with a friend, about the terms “hard” and “soft” magic systems. I knew the idea, of course. You could say that hard systems emphasize the natural and the known, while soft systems emphasize the supernatural and the mysterious/fantastical. But I don’t think that is always true, just a strong tendency.I recall well-known sci-fi and fantasy author Brandon Sanderson sharing at a Gen Con panel that a fiction writer can’t use the magic system as an important part of the plot unless that magic system has clear rules—in effect, a hard magic system. He evidently enjoys devising such systems.<h3>Hard Magic Systems in Your Campaign</h3>If you’re going to have a magic system in a game then the rules must be known (to the GM, at least) in order for the players to play. Magic systems in games tend naturally toward the “hard” side because the system has to be codified and explained in the rules. But they don’t necessarily need to be predictable. There can be chaotically random elements.“Wild” spell casters is a soft system more or less. If you’re not familiar with wild spell casters, after you cast a spell, you roll on a table to see what actually happens. An extreme example of this would be the wand of wonder or wild mages from Dungeons & Dragons. When the wild caster is low-level and casts a high-level spell then it’s likely to really go wrong, while if a high level wild one casts a low-level spell it’s much more likely to behave itself.World builders are going to tend toward hard systems, I think, assuming they record the results of their world-building rather than keep it all in their head.<h3>Soft Magic Systems in Your Campaign</h3>For novelists and movie makers, a soft magic system is clearly more useful than hard because you can make it do anything you want to suit the current situation. (I’m especially reminded of Glen Cook’s classic “Black Company” series, where magic is often used.) Moreover, you’re quite unlikely to see a hard system in a movie because there’s not time for exposition in the movie to explain how the system works.If you want a soft system in a D&D-style game, what can you do beyond something like the wand of wonder dice table with modifications for caster power and spell difficulty? One key is unpredictability. Maybe the addition of a deck of cards of side effects could help.Perhaps the best way to use a soft system are story-based games, where spellcasting rules are less codified. Alternately, the GM could create their own magic system and reveal how the system works in-game with checks and die rolls. That’s a lot of prework and requires no small amount of GM planning and player buy-in to the concept beforehand.Your turn: What soft systems of magic have you used in your campaign?</blockquote>

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