From: hall@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Robert J. Hall)
Subject: net.rpg - magic
Organization: Boeing
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 20:12:08 GMT

In response to John Kim's recent post:

  Most of your thoughts about magic do not get into specifics, so it is
difficult to form areas of agreement or disagreement, other than to say
that you covered the general topic fairly well. What I'd like to know is:
what specific areas do you have in mind that will be common to all types
of magic? Will there be a common set of spells, or tools to define spells?
Can any one magic system cover all the bases? Or will there be a set of
modular rules that are plugged together by the GM to define the magic
system?

>	Skills are much more tricky. First, divide your magic up into whatever 
>subdivisions and specializations you can think of: enchantments,
>illusions, charms, etc.

There are an enormous number of different ways to do this. Do you settle
on one set, use lists for different magic systems, or include the various
categories in the spell descriptions?

>Many recent systems do this by distinguishing skill into Actions and
>Objects: Actions are skills in doing certain operations with magic, Objects
>are what is acted upon. So a magical command might be the action of 
>'Control' and the object of 'Mind'. This allows a wide variety of abilities 
>with fewer skills. One can also define Modifiers: skills which alter or 
>enhance effects. There might be a skill to make spells last longer, or a 
>skill in accurately directing spells, or in making them act at further ranges. 

Sure. I like to think about this as sentence structure. The spell, in its
most primitive form, is just a sentence saying what you (the Mage) wants
to happen. You have your nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, etc. The way
you put your spell sentence together could have a profound effect on how
it is carried out. Saying "Create some water over there" (while pointing)
is quite ambiguous and could have unpredictable results.

>	An important thing to keep in mind here is the degree to which your 
>system encourages specialization. Many GM's prefer a magic to be highly
>varied in their games. It is then important that it should be easier and
>more effective for a mage to diversify than to increase his power. The best
>advice I have for this is to put yourself in a player's shoes, and try to
>think of how you would build your mage. If neccessary, introduce a graded
>cost to skills or attributes, so that it is easier to improve a low skill
>than a high one.

This doesn't seem to be too different from what you'd expect from normal
skill progression. As long as there is a diminishing return from trying to
improve a set of skills, the player will either diversify or become 
a specialist.

>	Try to think of details here: how long does it usually take to work 
>magic? Many systems distinguish 'spells' which take only a few seconds, 
>'rituals' which take several hours, and 'enchantments' which take weeks. 
>Others just give benefits from longer times taken.

If you use an integrated difficulty system, then the type of spell and
the length of time used to cast the spell would be used to determine the
success. (Personally, I prefer a 'difficulty'-style magic to a 'power'-
style magic. The later is too much like physics.)

>	What effects does working magic have upon the caster? Is he fatigued 
>physically or perhaps mentally? Does he lose the magical energy he has 
>collected? Remember that it is often important for game balance that magic 
>take a significant amount of time to cast or to recover from.

Some other means of balance have been suggested here recently. IMHO, a
good set of tools could be created to maintain game balance, then the GM
can pick and choose which ones are appropriate for the genre.

It might be useful to try putting together an outline of the magic system,
then put the various options under each section. The section header can
describe the focus of the set of rules and what they are trying to
accomplish. The options can then describe specific features, and how they
would interact with other optional rules.

>	It is possible, but very difficult, to set up a more objective 
>difficulty scale.
...
>	This way, the players had a consistant estimate of how difficult 
>they thought a spell should be. Magic was rarely a sure thing, however, 
>because the intended targets would often have unrevealed secrets - so the 
>level of knowledge was often less than the mage thought. Note that this 
>completely changes the nature of game balance: magic does not conform to 
>game balance here, but rather defines it.

Sure. If you use a sentence-structure approach to casting a spell, then
the sentence itself will give information about the level of difficulty
by the specific type and amount of detail provided. Example:

  Cast my 'Whazzit' spell...

    ...on the other side of the portal.      -> Very Difficult

    ...at the creature casting that shadow.  -> Difficult

    ...at that scaly creature                -> Somewhat difficult

    ...at the Fighter called Joe Billy Bob   -> Not too difficult

    ...at my cousin Vinnie                   -> Fairly Easy

    ...on myself                             -> Too easy

>	That is, what is the position of practitioners in society. Are they 
>leaders of the community, like shamans, or are they reviled and burnt at 
>the stake? Or are they somewhere in between. 
>	While not a part of the magic system per se, this is very important 
>to the role which magic will play in your campaign. 

This is probably more important in a genre-specific setting, although
some hints and guidelines will no doubt be needed.

>John Kim                    | "ALERT: /Earth is 75% full - please delete 
>jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu | all extraneous people."
>Columbia University         | 

The question is: which are the extraneous people?
-- 
 Bob Hall                   |  if [ -bs message ]; then
 Boeing Computer Services   |      mv message /compost/heap/$$
 root@chicken.ca.boeing.com |  fi
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