From: naam@cecer.army.mil (Ramez Naam)
Subject: Re: net.rpg: magic.ideas
Organization: US Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Labs
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 19:33:36 GMT

cffitzge@IASTATE.EDU (Charles F Fitzgerald) writes:

>I have mentioned before that I think magic is a very sticky kettle of
>fish, and it should not be added if not necessary.  If net.rpg is to
>be multi-genre, I believe it is necessary to add magic.  I also feel
>that it is necessary to know some things about the magic system before
>proceeding very far in the generation process.

[bunch of stuff deleted]

In my game system, there are 3 fundamental types of 'magic'.  I'll
describe the concepts behind them very very roughly (some of my players
might read this, and I don't want them to figure out too much about my
universe!)

System 1.)  Magic
The system that is just called "magic" in my game is very much a
science.  It's based on the idea that every living being has a "soul"
and that that soul is composed of magic.  Thus, to produce magical
effects, you manipulate your soul.  The effects are exact and technical.
No real mysterry involved.  I think that the loss of mysterry is made up
for by being able to have a VERY consistent magic system.  Instead of
having to look up spells, my players can usually rattle off the exact
effects, because spells are divided into types, which generally work the
same way.  
Magic in my world is further subdivided into Skill and Power.

Skill is normally based on the caster's Intelligence, although some
races have inborn, instinctive magic abilities, which are based on
Intuition, and still others have abilities based on their Willpower.
The Skill is a measure of how well the caster can control the spell.
Some spells have limits on their effects dictated by Skill, but not
many.  Magic is divided into subgroups called Fields, which are further
divided into Actions and Objects (8 of each!).  A magic spell has an
Action and an Object, and the caster's skill with the spell is the
crossindex (either geometric or arithmatic mean, depending on the GM) of
the skill in the Action and Object.  (It is also possible to buy skill
directly in a 'School' which is the intersection of an Action and an
Object...but I digress).  

Power is based on the caster's Karma (that's
what I call the magic power stat.).  Power can be gained in several
ways, some of which fatigue you, some of which mess up your
spell-casting ability for a time to come, some of which have a set
number of points a day, etc...(so the GM has complete freedom in how
magic is limited in his world... he can allow all types of power, or
just one, or 3, or whatever).

The effects of a spell are based either on the Total Spell Level, which
is the crossindex (again, either geometric or arithmatic mean) of the 
skill and power, or based purely on the skill.  

Anything that you can do, you can do with Magic.  Magic isn't mystical
to the trained practioner...it's a science.

System 2.) Invocation
This assumes creatures of a sufficient power level that their actions
are effectively incomprehensible to mortals.  It's a cop out magic
system, but fun to roleplay.  Basically, a character buys up skill in
invoking a certain god or power.  I allow just about any god in my
universe.  When a character wants to do something, he rolls on his
Invocation skill, and I crossindex it with how strong his god is in that
field (which I define using the same 8 x 8 matrix I mentioned in
"Magic"), how important this is to his god, and how well the invoker has
behaved, in his god's eyes.  Some gods/powers have very strict rules
(the ones that grant the most powerful abilities, generally).  Most of
these will refuse to grant any power at all to a character that has
invoked another god/power (unless it's a 'brother god' or something like
that.)  These gods are also the ones that pay the most attention, and
who are most likely to change in the level of power they grant based on
the situation.  Other gods/powers could care less (indeed, many of them
aren't sentient in the way that we understand it) how the character
lives his life, and whether or not the character invokes other powers.
Typically, Invokers break into two types--one type that Invokes a
certain god, and are basically priests;  and one type that invokes
several primal powers, each of which is very strong in a certain area,
and call themselves 'mages'.  

System 3.) Psionics
Psionics in my world are based on the idea that the universe as a whole
is sentient and that everything we normally percieve is sort of a
figment of the imagination of the universal sentience.  (yes, I know
that's a horrid circular argument).  This sentience is so vast, though,
that it effectively has sub-sentiences in it.  As one of these
sub-sentiences, if a psionic changes his view of what reality is, and
concentrates hard enough 'reality' will actually change.  The biggest
problem with this, though, is that any other sub-sentience is likely to
be very convinced that the universe actualy is the way it seems, and is
going to be increasingly sure of that as the piece of the universe that
the Psionic is trying to change becomes more and more important to the
observer.  Thus, it's almost impossible to use Psionics to affect
another person against his will (because anyone who's alive is very sure
that he's a human, and not, for example, a toad), and fairly difficult
to manipulate things that other people are very aware of and/or familiar
with.  However, it's very easy to manipulate things that the Psionic is
very familiar with.  Thus, Psionics are used almost entirely in private,
on possessions of the Psionic, or on a target who is not just willing,
but who _believes_ that something miraculous is about to happen.

(It should be a lot of fun playing Psionics in a technological society,
where people are sure they understand how things work, and that miracles
don't really happen...)



Wow.  This post has gotten really long, and I'm not really sure I
addressed anything.   If anyone is interested in more detail, they
can email me at the address below, or I'll post here if enough people
seem to be interested.  I'm not really in on this net.rpg thing (I have
a very strong basis for my own RPG, which I don't want to compromise),
but I'd hate to see it die off so soon.
--
Ramez Naam
naam@terra.cecer.army.mil
Organization: Junior, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA