Magic, why always so old?

[jseah]

I have seen many games, read lots of fantasy stories, went over many proposed magical plot lines.

One pattern I notice is that magic is *always* old. It has been around since forever, it was more powerful back then, artifacts of ancient powerful civilizations and/or fading elf things. Gods made the world and went to sleep, their tools left abandoned.

Why? Why the focus on old stuff? Is there not a story to be written about the new magic being more powerful than the old? A old mage struggling to understand the new complex magics his ex-apprentices are busily teaching to the next generation?
A past generation adapting to the changes in lifestyle created by magic?

Or how about a story where magic is new? It's a recent discovery and the hero/villian/sides in a multi-way war are racing to uncover how it works and hence gain advantage over the others?


This also applies in some form to post-apocalyptic. Always about how the world broke and dangerous stuff is left behind, nothing all that much about rebuilding better than before.

[Shadowknight12]

Because if it's not old, it's not magic. It's technology.

[LordShotGun]

Yeah I always want something like this.

[Amphetryon]

The larger reason at work here is that the protagonists generally need to use rare and hard-to-obtain magics in order to deal with the BigBad or similar threat. It generally makes for a less gripping story if the method of obtaining said magics devolves into "We must anon to the faraway Jay Cee of Pennie, in order to purchase our needed +1 Hacking Sword of Hacking, and with it slay the dragon!"

[hangedman1984]

you should probably check out Unknown Armies, all magick is new, and old magick doesn't work

[Ravens_cry]

This is an old trope in itself.
Tolkien used it, it was practically the focus of the Lord of the Rings in my opinion, but it is, much, much older. The oldest well known example I can think of is the Ancient Greek idea of the Ages of Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_Man). The term "Golden Age" in fact comes from this source.
As for why? I theorise, it's kind of a codified nostalgia writ large. There is a human instinct to call the Past "The Good Old Days". As for why nostalgia? Well, you remember been happy back then, you are not happy right now, therefore, it must have been better then. At least that's the train of "logic" I see.
As for inversions, Pratchett loves to have improved magic, the magitech computer Hex facilitating a lot of it, but things like Imps have also allowed tremendous progress. That's one reason why, along with the humour and the philosophical ponderings, I love his stories: the world moves.

[jseah]

The larger reason at work here is that the protagonists generally need to use rare and hard-to-obtain magics in order to deal with the BigBad or similar threat. It generally makes for a less gripping story if the method of obtaining said magics devolves into "We must anon to the faraway Jay Cee of Pennie, in order to purchase our needed +1 Hacking Sword of Hacking, and with it slay the dragon!"
Over-reliance on hero/villian plots? Or perhaps more why the magic has to be rare and hard-to-obtain?

Why does the magic needed to destroy the villian have to be rare? The heroes just have to be the first one to dare to try, or think of it, or any number of reasons they are the ones who did it.
And there's no reason why obtaining the required magic could be easy but getting rid of the villian with it couldn't still be fiendishly difficult (just impossible without it). And obviously the villian offs anyone who dares touch the thing.

[Lord Raziere]

This gives me an idea....a world where the protagonists don't need to go on stupid quests to get a certain artifact thing...they can get their swords enchanted and such by modern magic.

but the problem is, the enemies are just as self-improving in their magic and just as smart, so even when you are fully prepared and have the equipment necessary to take stuff down......its still very difficult and dangerous. the magical equipment stuff only minimizes the danger, not eliminate it entirely.

that and it can be quite the twist when you find yourselves facing weapons specially designed to kill humans like a holy weapon kills demons.

[Weezer]

I kind of like it, especially when looked at in contrast with sci-fi. So much science fiction is about society abandoning the old while embracing the new and examining the problems/changes that come about because of this. Fantasy however is the opposite, it is full of twilight empires looking back at their former glory, old mages studying ancient scrolls in an attempt to regain the power of their predecessors. Of course this isn't always true, but the themes are definitely staples of those two genres.

So essentially what Shadowknight said, if magic was new then it would be sci-fi

[Tvtyrant]

Why does the magic needed to destroy the villian have to be rare? The heroes just have to be the first one to dare to try, or think of it, or any number of reasons they are the ones who did it.
And there's no reason why obtaining the required magic could be easy but getting rid of the villian with it couldn't still be fiendishly difficult (just impossible without it). And obviously the villian offs anyone who dares touch the thing.

Because the villain has a gigantic plot, and you need a deux ex machina to get rid of them. In series where it doesn't work this way the villain is typically weaker then those where it is, and the heroes are stronger.

[Ravens_cry]

This trope is why I want to do a Stone Age campaign, where the most advanced tech is Neolithic, and the magic is primal and basic.

[Steward]

A lot of people portray magic as a kind of elemental or primal force, like gravity or electromagnetism. If that's how you view it, it pretty much has to be old, right? It's not like gravity showed up in the 1950s or anything. Now, one idea that you could do to make it more recent is to have it be recently discovered as you said in your post or make it into a skill or a form of technology that has improved over time.

[Amphetryon]

Over-reliance on hero/villian plots? Or perhaps more why the magic has to be rare and hard-to-obtain?

Why does the magic needed to destroy the villian have to be rare? The heroes just have to be the first one to dare to try, or think of it, or any number of reasons they are the ones who did it.
And there's no reason why obtaining the required magic could be easy but getting rid of the villian with it couldn't still be fiendishly difficult (just impossible without it). And obviously the villian offs anyone who dares touch the thing.
It is often the case that, if the world has plentiful magic with which to destroy the villain, it devalues that villain's impact on the world from the viewer's perspective. It becomes harder to justify the rise of the Great and Terrible Duke Dunderhead if the magic helmet that prevents his Spear of Mind Control from affecting the populance is widely available.

[Drachasor]

Part of it might have to do with the fact magic is mysterious, and the past is mysterious. Though, I agree the idea of things being incredibly old is truly ancient and dates back since the dawn of mankind more or less. It's a very enthralling idea to many people.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

An expansion of Ravens_cry's and Weezer's points (Note: The following is all speculation on my part and is backed up by no scholarly research whatsoever):

Fantasy can be interpreted as exploring "what was" in contrast to "what is." while sci-fi can be interpreted as exploring "what will be" vs. "what is." LotR was influenced to a degree by Tolkien's experiences in WWI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien#World_War_I) which had "taught him 'a deep sympathy and feeling for the Tommy; especially the plain soldier from the agricultural counties.' He remained profoundly grateful for the lesson. For a long time, he had been imprisoned in a tower, not of pearl, but of ivory." Thus, the conflict in LotR involved a fellowship of plain, country people and woodsy people and other associated-with-nature people against an industrialized, faceless enemy; he was longing for the "good old days" of pre-industry and reacting to the goshdern newfangled mechanization of war and the world.

Likewise, modern fantasy has been trending towards including guns alongside swords, adding steampunk and/or magitek elements to its worlds, and so forth. Why is this? Well, the modern conflict is no longer old, pleasant pastoral life vs. new, complicated industrial life, but rather old, personal, physical world vs. new, impersonal, digital world, so where industry and mechanization used to be the eeevil new invention, it's now the comfortable and normal state of existence compared to the eeevil new invention of the Internet. Fantasy tends to combine a nostalgic setting with modern values--e.g. LotR has the idyllic countryside as its setting and "The forces of the Central Powers Mordor and Isengard are Always Chaotic Evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlwaysChaoticEvil)" as its philosophy, while something like Eberron has the relatively magically industrialized world as its setting and "Goblins are People TooTM" as its philosophy, to combine the best of both worlds and make the Golden Age of the past seem even better by comparison.

Therefore, when magic is a force for good it's seen as a relic from the Good Old Days, and when magic is a force for evil it's usually just as old because Good and Evil have been locked in conflict since time immemorial and so on and so forth...and it can also serve as a subtle dig along the lines of "Back in my day, we didn't have to worry about [problem X], you newfangled [derogatory remark] just don't have the [property] to deal with [problem X] anymore!"

So...yeah. That's my take on it.

[erikun]

It sounds like you want Shadowrun.

That said, most settings that deal with magic try to maintain some "historical accuracy" and imply that magic is similar or related to old, mythic tales of wizards and dragons. And, to be fair, they have a point. If using some kind of internal energy to produce effects is somehow related to those legends, it will likely be called magic. If not, then it is more likely to be referred to as chi or psi abilities. Same thing, different description, just based on the "source" of the ability.

[jseah]

It is often the case that, if the world has plentiful magic with which to destroy the villain, it devalues that villain's impact on the world from the viewer's perspective. It becomes harder to justify the rise of the Great and Terrible Duke Dunderhead if the magic helmet that prevents his Spear of Mind Control from affecting the populance is widely available.
Not a hard counter. More like an enabler.

Duke Dunderhead and his mindcontrol spear could be defeated only by someone using a branch from a tree someone committed suicide on (plenty of those under Duke Dunderhead =P) to make arrows with.

That's relatively easy to get. They're all over the place and the Duke can't get rid of all of them. But trying to shoot the duke with an arrow isn't going to be easy. Not when he knows this, travels around with guards and wears chainmail when he goes out on tours.

EDIT:

Fantasy can be interpreted as exploring "what was" in contrast to "what is." while sci-fi can be interpreted as exploring "what will be" vs. "what is."
And so those stories I wrote about magic use approaching a knowledge singularity is more like science fiction than fantasy? =) Even though there is magic.

[Drachasor]

It sounds like you want Shadowrun.

Technically magic there is still really old, it just went on vacation.

If you like a dystopia though, Shadowrun is pretty good. Personally I prefer to have a world taken over by an evil jerk as opposed to the world being a filth-laden craphole run by countless numbers of evil jerks. That's just me though.

[Shadowknight12]

Not a hard counter. More like an enabler.

Duke Dunderhead and his mindcontrol spear could be defeated only by someone using a branch from a tree someone committed suicide on (plenty of those under Duke Dunderhead =P) to make arrows with.

That's relatively easy to get. They're all over the place and the Duke can't get rid of all of them. But trying to shoot the duke with an arrow isn't going to be easy. Not when he knows this, travels around with guards and wears chainmail when he goes out on tours.

How is this not old magic, again? Unless people started committing suicide on trees JUST as Duke Dunderhead rose to power. Which I find rather hard to believe. And even if this was, indeed, the case, how would the heroes know that the wood of such a tree has that power, if its effects are hitherto unknown? Divinations? Welp, we're back to old magic, then.


EDIT:

And so those stories I wrote about magic use approaching a knowledge singularity is more like science fiction than fantasy? =) Even though there is magic.

Technology and magic are the same thing in fiction. What each of them can or can't do, look like and behave like, is arbitrary and varies from work to work. The only thing that differentiates them is that magic is old and technology is new.

That or visual cues.

[jseah]

How is this not old magic, again? Unless people started committing suicide on trees JUST as Duke Dunderhead rose to power. Which I find rather hard to believe. And even if this was, indeed, the case, how would the heroes know that the wood of such a tree has that power, if its effects are hitherto unknown? Divinations? Welp, we're back to old magic, then.
How IS it old magic?

Until Duke Dunderhead came along, no one really paid attention to trees, whether anyone committed suicide on them.

When he comes along and some well-known fortune teller predicts his death by arrow-from-suicide-wood, suddenly EVERYONE knows a tree or two.
Not to mention that Duke Dunderhead's iron rule has caused a number of people to commit suicide (and some part due to his mind-control offing political rivals before seizing power. Irony!)

Fortune telling is an established magic of the setting. Duke Dunderhead's mind control spear is something the magic academy could make if they wanted to.

It doesn't have to BE old.


How is this not old magic, again? Unless people started committing suicide on trees JUST as Duke Dunderhead rose to power. Which I find rather hard to believe.
He has a mind-control spear. Hint! =P

[Nerd-o-rama]

CthulhuTech has human practice of magic, or rather open human practice of magic, be a very new thing that sparked a technological revolution. It existed before, as a set of natural laws, it simply wasn't discovered by general human society until maybe a hundred years before game start.

Arcanotechnological development happened wicked fast, though. We even managed to leapfrog the Mi-Go of all people in creating a magical source of infinite energy...

[Drachasor]

How IS it old magic?

Until Duke Dunderhead came along, no one really paid attention to trees, whether anyone committed suicide on them.

When he comes along and some well-known fortune teller predicts his death by arrow-from-suicide-wood, suddenly EVERYONE knows a tree or two.
Not to mention that Duke Dunderhead's iron rule has caused a number of people to commit suicide (and some part due to his mind-control offing political rivals before seizing power. Irony!)

50 years later, the average quiver of arrows more often than not is made of suicide wood. At that point, what tree didn't have someone suicide on?

[jseah]

Well, the modern conflict is no longer old, pleasant pastoral life vs. new, complicated industrial life, but rather old, personal, physical world vs. new, impersonal, digital world, so where industry and mechanization used to be the eeevil new invention, it's now the comfortable and normal state of existence compared to the eeevil new invention of the Internet.
Actually, this is another one.

Most to all magic I have seen centers on personal power. Magic is often portrayed as an intensely personal thing, one hero, one immortality-granting artifact, the sword when wielded by the strongest man can level cities.

I haven't seen one that isn't. Apart from Terry Pratchett, but that's just him. =P

How about a magic that works on grand scales? Anyone can use magic, but one mage is relatively useless. Many mages can change the world and forge entirely new laws of the universe. A magic that takes the effort of an entire civilization to construct. Like building one of the seven wonders?

Moses parted the Red Sea with the help of all the people following him. Did all that stuff with thousands of followers worth of prayer help. Then the egyptians decided that they didn't want it to happen again and built the pyramids involving even MORE people to rewrite the world and make magic disappear. *not serious*

[bigstipidfighte]

One sentiment that several people have expressed, and which I don't understand, is that if magic is "new", it must by extension be "easy to obtain". Why?

A powerful conjurer, planar scholar and abjurer migt have to work together to devise the ritual to close a portal to hell. Finsing them, enlisting their aid, gathering them together, and protecting them agaiunst the demonic hordes cld be just as difficult as travelling to the ruins of a dead civilization to discover clues to performing a similar ritual from ages past.

By the same token, the world's Artifacts and McGuffins aren't old, they're new, but they're still rare. Perhaps the artifact the PCs need to take down their BBEG only exists as a prototype or small-scale proof-of-concept version, and they'll need ot assst in it's completion before they can fight the good fight. If done right, I think this sort of plot could actually be more satisfying ot the players than having to find some long-lost weapon.

As far as whether that would be considered technology or magic, well... that's an argument that could continue all day, because we all know any sufficiently advanced technology is indestinguishable form magic. Say we found the remains of a culture on Mars where everyone knew magic; we'd assume their magic items were technology so far beyond our own we simply couldn't understand it, because that's how we view the world now. In contrast, an alien invasion a thousand years ago might as well have been the gods decesnding form the heavens to punish humanity, despite the fact that the alien tech is firmly based in science.

[Traab]

In a book I read, A Bad Spell In Yurt, magic has gotten easier to use over time. The old style of apprentice and master has faded away, and there is now a magical university, where wannabe wizards get trained for several years and basically earn themselves a diploma at the end, then go out and fill in advertised positions in various kingdoms. The way its described is that back in the old days, magic was wild, and incredibly hard to control. But as more and more people practiced it, it was like digging a ditch to drain water from a dam. At first the ditch is shallow and its hard as hell to contain the water magic in the path you want. But as more and more people use it that way, the ditch becomes deeper, and smoother, and better able to hold the water magic with less effort.

[Starshade]

The books by Terry Brooks got an archaic science using empire, and a newer magic using tradition of Druids, who originally was made to preserve science, but they discovered magic, and started using it instead. :smallsmile:
its simmiliar to Shadowrun somewhat, in that magic and tech waxed and waned, swapping place.

[Notreallyhere77]

The way I see it, the magic back then wasn't bigger or better or more powerful all the time. It's just that when historians look back, they only mention the Big Stuff; the construction of enormous portals, the mountain-shifting, the great floods, what have you. Storytellers naturally exaggerate these facts and paint a picture of the past that makes these events, however rare, seem commonplace. A repeated event that can only take place once a decade because of the energies involved seems a lot less rare when it occurs 17 times on a timeline.
It wasn't all epic spells and flying cities, but nobody really wanted to hear about 60% of the wizarding population never getting past burning hands. So yes, there were flying cities and wizards moving mountains on a whim, and even if those things happened centuries apart, they still get associated with the multi-millenial Golden Age.

And thus, the myth is passed on, with the smaller-scale stories lost to time. And young adventurers look for ancient magical empires that never really went away.

It's like now we listen to the classical composers and think all 17th-18th-century European music must have been amazing, because no one bothered to remember the hacks and mediocrities. No one seems to think about how for every Beethoven, there were dozens or hundreds of easily forgotten one-hit wonders and talentless schmucks doing the same stuff at the same time, just not as well.

Edit: Also, big magical effects last longer. That "permanent" wall of fire someone cast 100 years ago has likely fizzled out by now, and no one cares. That magical superweapon the size of a building? Of course it's still there. It was built to last. So when you do find magical artifacts from the Golden Age, it's not going to be some forgotten hero's cast-off boots of speed, it's going to be the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords.

[Glimbur]

Over-reliance on hero/villian plots? Or perhaps more why the magic has to be rare and hard-to-obtain?

Why does the magic needed to destroy the villian have to be rare? The heroes just have to be the first one to dare to try, or think of it, or any number of reasons they are the ones who did it.
And there's no reason why obtaining the required magic could be easy but getting rid of the villian with it couldn't still be fiendishly difficult (just impossible without it). And obviously the villian offs anyone who dares touch the thing.

I think I've seen this show before. The magic is Friendship, right?

[Hiro Protagonest]

"Magic, why always so old?"

Because you get a bonus to mental stats if you're old. :smalltongue:

[ClockShock]

Do the X-Men count as new magic?

[Shadowknight12]

How IS it old magic?

Until Duke Dunderhead came along, no one really paid attention to trees, whether anyone committed suicide on them.

When he comes along and some well-known fortune teller predicts his death by arrow-from-suicide-wood, suddenly EVERYONE knows a tree or two.
Not to mention that Duke Dunderhead's iron rule has caused a number of people to commit suicide (and some part due to his mind-control offing political rivals before seizing power. Irony!)

Fortune telling is an established magic of the setting. Duke Dunderhead's mind control spear is something the magic academy could make if they wanted to.

It doesn't have to BE old.

I think you're confusing two different notions.

The first is that something is old judging it on its own. That is, the magic that allows for the creation and functionality of a mind-control spear, suicide wood, fortune-telling and whatever else exists in a setting, have been available for a long time.

The second is that something is old because it has been available and known for a long time.

If you can't tell the difference between these concepts, we'll go with the suicide wood example. There's a difference, a crucial difference, between the wood having always had the power the story ascribes them (and people only realising this when the Duke rose to power) and the wood only acquiring power recently.

Things having magical power on their own and remaining ignored by the setting's races is relatively common. Just because people think it's new doesn't mean it actually is. It may well have had such powers from times immemorial and only have been discovered recently. Or practices falling into disuse and obscurity and being rediscovered without people actually realising they were rediscovering them, rather than inventing them. Or people finally finding a way to tap into laws of the universe (that logically have always existed) and managing to work out rituals/spells/etc that manipulate them.

There is a very important difference between that and things actually acquiring power on their own. The latter actually needs to be explained in greater detail, because it reeks of Deus Ex Machina, pulling things out of the author's rear, lack of planning and foresight when coming up with a setting, and/or a complete lack of seriousness in a work. I'm not saying that it will always be this case, but that's what the "greater detail" is for, to ensure that this "new magic" isn't any of the above cases.

You should clarify what, exactly, you are talking about. Magic being discovered recently or magic being created recently?

[navar100]

There are exceptions.

3E Eberron. True, the Great Empire has fallen and now the continent is full of competing nations after a Devastating War, another common trope, but magic is readily available. It is technology. There's nothing mysterious about it. You just need to learn how to use it.

Harry Potter series. Magic is hidden from the Muggles, but for the Wizarding world magic has always been and always will be. You go to boarding school to learn it. It's a natural thing you just do.

[Captain Six]

The whole "There but not known" thing is a whole different can of worms. How would you rate computers on that scale? Computers themselves are new but the physics that let them function have been around forever. Depending on the level of spellcraft complexity it might not be a bad analogy.

[jseah]

You should clarify what, exactly, you are talking about. Magic being discovered recently or magic being created recently?
Magic not known to society/people, becoming known to society/people.

Magic that has always been known is also possible. Everyone knows arrows made of suicide wood will kill people much better than getting rid of Duke Dunderhead who walks around in chainmail is pretty much going to need that or an army.
Now it's a race to obtain suicide wood for an assasination before the Duke clearcuts the entire country.

Also this:

The whole "There but not known" thing is a whole different can of worms. How would you rate computers on that scale? Computers themselves are new but the physics that let them function have been around forever. Depending on the level of spellcraft complexity it might not be a bad analogy.
Some explanation of how magic works to the reader could remove the "Deus Ex Machina" effect.

Of note is this article:
http://www.brandonsanderson.com/article/40/Sandersons-First-Law

EDIT:
Specifically, this quote from the article:

Sanderson's First Law of Magics: An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

[Lord Raziere]

Now that I think about it, if you look at the common fantasy hero story in the most analytical way possible, cutting out all the morality, its usually a tale of some guy willing to go find a nuke to destroy something powerful enough to threaten the entire world and use that nuke on the basis that its necessary to destroy said threat.

maybe I can use that, show a world where such powerful artifacts were the normal way to conduct warfare because they are so effective....and suddenly you have an eternal magical cold war world, paralyzed, always standing the brink of destroying itself...

[Ravens_cry]

The whole "There but not known" thing is a whole different can of worms. How would you rate computers on that scale? Computers themselves are new but the physics that let them function have been around forever. Depending on the level of spellcraft complexity it might not be a bad analogy.
Ah, magic the technology and magic the force of nature. It could be interesting to delve into in a more thoughtful fantasy story. A further delineation is 'natural' magic that creatures evolved to use as part of their defences, like how electric eels use electricity.
In especially magic rich worlds and/or areas, you could have creatures that use magic the way electricity the way is used by our muscles; they need it to survive.

[Arbane]

Now that I think about it, if you look at the common fantasy hero story in the most analytical way possible, cutting out all the morality, its usually a tale of some guy willing to go find a nuke to destroy something powerful enough to threaten the entire world and use that nuke on the basis that its necessary to destroy said threat.

It's worth noting that The Lord of the Rings does this _exactly_ the other way around. The Fellowship's quest is to DESTROY the most powerful remaining magic item in the world - the one thing Sauron could never have imagined anyone doing with his masterpiece.

[Dralnu]

Flip side is all those fantasy books that shamelessly lift all their plot elements from modern history and replace technology with magic.

I forgot what book series I read like 10 years ago, but I remember the plot elements clearly:
- Set in a fantasy version of WW2
- All the countries are renamed but are almost identical
- replace guns with wands
- replace airplanes with dragons
- replace bombs with.. magic bombs
- top secret new atom bomb is replace with... top secret new magical atom bomb

Darn, I wish I remembered the name of those books now.

[Ravens_cry]

That sounds similar to this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkness_Series).

[mint]

My answer would be: Because a lot of authors have found it to be a very useful trope. It is successful because it has functions like
explaining asymmetric levels of advancement in a world, building up the gravitas of a character, introducing mystery and discovery. Which is basically what everyone has already said.
It gives you access to a layer of wonder that you can selectively access to jigger together your world. It is like "A wizard did it... a long time ago".
I dislike it but it is so damn useful as a trope in fantasy worldbuilding.

[Gnoman]

Flip side is all those fantasy books that shamelessly lift all their plot elements from modern history and replace technology with magic.

I forgot what book series I read like 10 years ago, but I remember the plot elements clearly:
- Set in a fantasy version of WW2
- All the countries are renamed but are almost identical
- replace guns with wands
- replace airplanes with dragons
- replace bombs with.. magic bombs
- top secret new atom bomb is replace with... top secret new magical atom bomb

Darn, I wish I remembered the name of those books now.

As ravens_cry linked, that's Harry Turtledove's Derlavian War series. It's not quite as straight a replacement as it seems at first glance, though.

[Urpriest]

I love his stories: the worldturtle moves.

FTFY :smallbiggrin:

[Fiery Diamond]

I think you're confusing two different notions.

The first is that something is old judging it on its own. That is, the magic that allows for the creation and functionality of a mind-control spear, suicide wood, fortune-telling and whatever else exists in a setting, have been available for a long time.

The second is that something is old because it has been available and known for a long time.

If you can't tell the difference between these concepts, we'll go with the suicide wood example. There's a difference, a crucial difference, between the wood having always had the power the story ascribes them (and people only realising this when the Duke rose to power) and the wood only acquiring power recently.

Things having magical power on their own and remaining ignored by the setting's races is relatively common. Just because people think it's new doesn't mean it actually is. It may well have had such powers from times immemorial and only have been discovered recently. Or practices falling into disuse and obscurity and being rediscovered without people actually realising they were rediscovering them, rather than inventing them. Or people finally finding a way to tap into laws of the universe (that logically have always existed) and managing to work out rituals/spells/etc that manipulate them.

There is a very important difference between that and things actually acquiring power on their own. The latter actually needs to be explained in greater detail, because it reeks of Deus Ex Machina, pulling things out of the author's rear, lack of planning and foresight when coming up with a setting, and/or a complete lack of seriousness in a work. I'm not saying that it will always be this case, but that's what the "greater detail" is for, to ensure that this "new magic" isn't any of the above cases.

You should clarify what, exactly, you are talking about. Magic being discovered recently or magic being created recently?

For starters, unless you include the computers analogy I quote below as being a subset of the "created" rather than "discovered," the entire concept of magic being created makes absolutely no sense whatsoever unless the force creating it is divine or otherwise beyond the laws of the universe. Because using that stricter idea for "created," there is (barring any stances on "creation of the universe" or any religious beliefs) nothing whatsoever in the real world that is "created." You can't use the defining laws of the universe to violate the defining laws of the universe, that's self-contradictory. You can, however, apply laws in novel ways to create effects that do not appear to act in accord with those laws to people who don't know how the thing you created works - the computer type of thing. Either you consider that to be "creation," or "creation" of magic is logically impossible.


The whole "There but not known" thing is a whole different can of worms. How would you rate computers on that scale? Computers themselves are new but the physics that let them function have been around forever. Depending on the level of spellcraft complexity it might not be a bad analogy.

I think this is an excellent analogy, and this is the only form of "creation" that is not logically self-contradictory.


Anyway, on the main subject of the thread, I thought of an interesting/odd subversion of both "magic is ancient and being found/rediscovered" and "magic is being innovated completely." What if you had a story that began with the main characters living in a world that had been rediscovering magic for a generation or two (so they have some understanding of it) and finding powerful ancient relics that belonged to a legendary civilization supposedly full of magical wonders that existed in the distant past but was destroyed by some catastrophe, resulting in the loss of magic in the intervening time. The main characters come upon a device and activate it without knowing what it does. It turns out to be a time machine, which sends them back to when magic was first being innovated/invented/harnessed/initially discovered. They then, using what knowledge they had gleaned from studying "ancient" information in the rediscovery of magic, proceed to be forerunners of magical research and invention, leading to the creation of the mythical civilization.

[Fiery Diamond]

Double post due to my stupid internet connection and me getting preoccupied with something else. Sorry.

[Chauncymancer]

Because D&D in particular, and lots of other High Fantasy settings, model a now outdated concept of medieval history, with magic in the place of Roman Engineering, which had been almost totally lost almost 500 years earlier.
The default setting is implied to be post-Imperial, what with all the lost Empires: The 'current era' is a low point between two different Technological ages.

[NichG]

I've been in campaigns where the PCs were the ones to introduce magic to magicless worlds. It's really fun. Magic being new is really an awesome plot element (anything being new, really). You get to see the first stage where people are clumsily finding uses for things, finding that certain problems melt away and people don't know how to handle things yet. Plus if you're among the first to use it, you get to define how it will be seen by others to some extent - give Necromancy a good rep, etc.

One was a campaign where we were from the Slayers universe and opened a portal to Planescape. Though there were conversion pains, we managed to hang on to a few Slayers spells (unbelievably broken and over the top things), so we revolutionized magic in ridiculous ways.

Another, we kept visiting different worlds via portals we could request, and many of them had no tech/magic/etc. We ended up being hailed as the gods of magic in a few of them, despite being e.g. a level 1 Bard, introduced modern technology to primitive peoples, solved world hunger with Cornucopiae of Create Food and Water, etc.

I'm currently in a game where the PCs were essentially abducted to a land which seems to be the source of mystical things, and as we explore things we at some level create the basic rules of magic and introduce them into the world (e.g. one of the PCs became a vampire there, and we kind of spread that to the mundane world by turning Pope Pius III into one to save his life from an assassin)

I ran a campaign that involved a fantasy society deciding to explore space, and using massive teleportation arrays/etc to do so. The PCs in particular figured out a way to amplify magical effects to massive scale by using little 1st level spell-at-will items with an energy transformation field, and that was sort of their world's big advantage in the interstellar community.

[paladinofshojo]

I think it's more along the lines of trying to address the question of where all those powerful one of a kind macguffens come from....... The ancient empire of the precursors that discovered magic and magitech is nice to have as a memory the same way the Roman Empire was reminisced about during the dark ages.....but it would be completely boring or undesirable to have a campaign during said ancient empire.....This is due to several reasons......such as how the protagonists would be completely underpowered by citizens of said Empire...after all, if a few of their gadgets can be used to conquer/destroy the world....what kind of power would they have had in their hay day. Another reason is that the Empire is doomed to fail, since it would be boring living in a shining utopia society in which everything is solved by magic......the plot demands that the precursors must be eradicated....

[Knaight]

I think it's more along the lines of trying to address the question of where all those powerful one of a kind macguffens come from.
That is a bit chicken and egg though. There are ancient, one of a kind macguffens because magic has been decaying and is a pale shadow of what it once was, explaining said macguffens. We have magic in decay, so there must be ancient macguffens, which showcase the decaying magic. So on and so forth. They aren't really necessary, and stories where magic either basically isn't or is on the rise tend to work just fine.

[Mastikator]

Maybe magic is easy to learn and unreliable, and a zero sum game. Technology is hard to develop and slow, but reliable and a surplus sum game and in the end it is more cost effective. 50 of bullets is cheaper than a wand of magic missile, and with a gun, much easier to use. A lightbulb lasts longer and is much cheaper than a light spell. A power plant produces more energy than a lightning spell.

[charcoalninja]

An expansion of Ravens_cry's and Weezer's points (Note: The following is all speculation on my part and is backed up by no scholarly research whatsoever):

Fantasy can be interpreted as exploring "what was" in contrast to "what is." while sci-fi can be interpreted as exploring "what will be" vs. "what is." LotR was influenced to a degree by Tolkien's experiences in WWI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien#World_War_I) which had "taught him 'a deep sympathy and feeling for the Tommy; especially the plain soldier from the agricultural counties.' He remained profoundly grateful for the lesson. For a long time, he had been imprisoned in a tower, not of pearl, but of ivory." Thus, the conflict in LotR involved a fellowship of plain, country people and woodsy people and other associated-with-nature people against an industrialized, faceless enemy; he was longing for the "good old days" of pre-industry and reacting to the goshdern newfangled mechanization of war and the world.

Likewise, modern fantasy has been trending towards including guns alongside swords, adding steampunk and/or magitek elements to its worlds, and so forth. Why is this? Well, the modern conflict is no longer old, pleasant pastoral life vs. new, complicated industrial life, but rather old, personal, physical world vs. new, impersonal, digital world, so where industry and mechanization used to be the eeevil new invention, it's now the comfortable and normal state of existence compared to the eeevil new invention of the Internet. Fantasy tends to combine a nostalgic setting with modern values--e.g. LotR has the idyllic countryside as its setting and "The forces of the Central Powers Mordor and Isengard are Always Chaotic Evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlwaysChaoticEvil)" as its philosophy, while something like Eberron has the relatively magically industrialized world as its setting and "Goblins are People TooTM" as its philosophy, to combine the best of both worlds and make the Golden Age of the past seem even better by comparison.

Therefore, when magic is a force for good it's seen as a relic from the Good Old Days, and when magic is a force for evil it's usually just as old because Good and Evil have been locked in conflict since time immemorial and so on and so forth...and it can also serve as a subtle dig along the lines of "Back in my day, we didn't have to worry about [problem X], you newfangled [derogatory remark] just don't have the [property] to deal with [problem X] anymore!"

So...yeah. That's my take on it.

Just tossing this out there, I had often heard Tolkien being quoted as saying that LotR was expressly NOT an allegorical work and though themes and such would be influenced by his time in WW1, presenting the country folk vs. giant faceless enemy was not intended to mirror the Great War.

[Gnoman]

Nor was it inteded to portray the evils of industrilization, the angers of nuclear power, or ANY of the other things that have been attributed to it. Tolkien HATED allegory and considered it to be an abomination to literature.

[Heliomance]

Something I want to see is a world with magic actually exploiting and developing to its full potential, rather than stagnating. Think about it.

Our scientists and engineers have created devices that can think billions of times faster than we can. They send people soaring through empty sky in relatively thin shells of metal, held up by a loophole in fluid dynamics. They have sent humans to the distant silver orb in the night sky, across millions of miles, in an environment that would be near-instantaneously fatal without protection. They have utterly eradicated some of the worst diseases and plagues mankind has ever known. They have created artificial limbs almost as good as the real thing. They have deciphered the basic code of life itself. They can send messages and images across the entire world in less than a second, with perfect accuracy.

And they've done all that without magic, without supernatural forces of any kind. Imagine what they could do with it.

[Volthawk]

Something I want to see is a world with magic actually exploiting and developing to its full potential, rather than stagnating. Think about it.

Our scientists and engineers have created devices that can think billions of times faster than we can. They send people soaring through empty sky in relatively thin shells of metal, held up by a loophole in fluid dynamics. They have sent humans to the distant silver orb in the night sky, across millions of miles, in an environment that would be near-instantaneously fatal without protection. They have utterly eradicated some of the worst diseases and plagues mankind has ever known. They have created artificial limbs almost as good as the real thing. They have deciphered the basic code of life itself. They can send messages and images across the entire world in less than a second, with perfect accuracy.

And they've done all that without magic, without supernatural forces of any kind. Imagine what they could do with it.

Yeah, I've always liked magitech. Exalted has stuff like this. There, a lot of the magical arts were a mix between magic and science. To use one of your examples, they have artificial body parts that are better than normal (stronger, faster limbs, replacement lungs can breathe water, retractable razor claws in arms, nightvision eyes). Then again, in that game, all of the abilities that the powerful people (ie anyone other than your standard mortal) uses magic, and even that normal mortal can use it, if they can enlighten their essence (or just get an implant that lets them use magitech that usually needs Essence, the power resources used for the magic stuff, to be used). Oh, and they have genetic engineering down a hell of a lot better than us. The big examples are dinosaurs that piss heroin, but in general there's a whole area of Craft dedicated to creating life.

[Fiery Diamond]

The big examples are dinosaurs that piss heroin

...


Literally?:smalleek:

[Volthawk]

...


Literally?:smalleek:

Yep, their proper name is a Beast Of Resplendent Liquid, and there are different versions for different outputs. In the normal time setting, there's one type that makes longevity drugs, and another that literally eats opium and urinates heroin.

These are Exalted. If there's a problem, they just throw Charms, science (sometimesmost the time of the SCIENCE! variety), sorcery and general crazy-awesome at it until that problem becomes their bitch. In this case, the problem was they needed more drugs. Their solution was to genetically engineer giant dinosaurs to produce it.

EDIT: Huh, 'bitch' wasn't censored.

[Ravens_cry]

EDIT: Huh, 'bitch' wasn't censored.
Well it is a technical term for a female canine.
Perfectly acceptable within that context.

[Mando Knight]

In the Heroes system's main setting (which has eras for each of its sub-settings), magic's overall power ebbs and flows. In the "modern day" sub-settings for the system, (particularly Champions, though the grittier noir one that takes place in Hudson City is in the same time frame) magic is at an all-time high, on the rise since the 1700s (previous highs were in the Middle Ages and in prehistory). Most magic is therefore relatively new or unthinkably ancient.

The world's magic potential is also inextricably connected to the rise/fall of superheroes... whether magic is involved directly or not, it's magic's ability to bend the rules of reality that let radiation turn you into a fifty-foot-tall four-armed monster, allow you to develop a self-contained long-battery-life suit of power armor while you still have time to be a successful CEO, have that wacky doctor injecting you with cat DNA actually make you turn into a catgirl, or let a WW2-era scientist build an army of robots and superweapons with which to annihilate Detroit and terrorize the world... and still be fighting at the top of his game at a hearty 90-something.

[Stubbazubba]

If magic obeys predictable laws, then it really is simply a fundamental force of nature like the weak or strong force in physics. Magic being 'unexplained' is no different from technology: We do not know why the two opposed ends of a magnet attract and similar ends repel, we've just observed the degree to which it happens and the effects it produces, we know it is reliable, thus, we apply it to technology.

If magic is at the same level of predictability as magnetism, then it is only a matter of learning to manipulate and harness these fundamental forces in increasingly complex ways and there is no difference between magitech and technology, except that technology applies laws that exist IRL, whereas magitech applies laws that do not. So it's only an OOC difference.

[Cyrion]

As a counterexample- you might like Secret of the Sixth Magic by Lyndon Hardy. It's a sequel to Master of the Five Magics which has a magic system in which each discipline has a series of rules that govern it. In the Sixth Magic, someone comes along and starts changing the rules and changing the way magic works.

I very much like the premise of both books and the magic system, though the writing was unexceptional.

[Trekkin]

Something I want to see is a world with magic actually exploiting and developing to its full potential, rather than stagnating. Think about it.

Our scientists and engineers have created devices that can think billions of times faster than we can. They send people soaring through empty sky in relatively thin shells of metal, held up by a loophole in fluid dynamics. They have sent humans to the distant silver orb in the night sky, across millions of miles, in an environment that would be near-instantaneously fatal without protection. They have utterly eradicated some of the worst diseases and plagues mankind has ever known. They have created artificial limbs almost as good as the real thing. They have deciphered the basic code of life itself. They can send messages and images across the entire world in less than a second, with perfect accuracy.

And they've done all that without magic, without supernatural forces of any kind. Imagine what they could do with it.

Well, what defines the natural as opposed to the supernatural? Really, as long as magic works the way it usually does, it's perfectly natural. The difference, and it's a rather silly difference in my opinion, is that "magic" usually means "it's mysterious and only the mages understand it". Treated like that, nothing has a chance to become sufficiently widespread and integrated with the rest of mankind's knowledge about the world and become science and thus used in technology.

Really, if you want the closest thing to understood magic we have, look at magnetism. Most people don't have a clue about the physical laws driving them, but most people could probably build a motor with them with some wire and a bit of tinkering.

[Fiery Diamond]

If magic obeys predictable laws, then it really is simply a fundamental force of nature like the weak or strong force in physics. Magic being 'unexplained' is no different from technology: We do not know why the two opposed ends of a magnet attract and similar ends repel, we've just observed the degree to which it happens and the effects it produces, we know it is reliable, thus, we apply it to technology.

If magic is at the same level of predictability as magnetism, then it is only a matter of learning to manipulate and harness these fundamental forces in increasingly complex ways and there is no difference between magitech and technology, except that technology applies laws that exist IRL, whereas magitech applies laws that do not. So it's only an OOC difference.


Well, what defines the natural as opposed to the supernatural? Really, as long as magic works the way it usually does, it's perfectly natural. The difference, and it's a rather silly difference in my opinion, is that "magic" usually means "it's mysterious and only the mages understand it". Treated like that, nothing has a chance to become sufficiently widespread and integrated with the rest of mankind's knowledge about the world and become science and thus used in technology.

Really, if you want the closest thing to understood magic we have, look at magnetism. Most people don't have a clue about the physical laws driving them, but most people could probably build a motor with them with some wire and a bit of tinkering.

We have now answered the question "(expletive) magnets, how do they work?": It's magic!:smallbiggrin:

[Heliomance]

Well, what defines the natural as opposed to the supernatural? Really, as long as magic works the way it usually does, it's perfectly natural. The difference, and it's a rather silly difference in my opinion, is that "magic" usually means "it's mysterious and only the mages understand it". Treated like that, nothing has a chance to become sufficiently widespread and integrated with the rest of mankind's knowledge about the world and become science and thus used in technology.

Really, if you want the closest thing to understood magic we have, look at magnetism. Most people don't have a clue about the physical laws driving them, but most people could probably build a motor with them with some wire and a bit of tinkering.

For those of you that watch Doctor Who, think about it as the Carrionights' [sp?] science of words. If every time you wiggle your fingers and say the right words in exactly the right way it produces fire, but if you tilt your hands thirty degree to the right and say the words in Swahili it produces ice, then those are repeatable results which can be scientifically analysed. I'd still call it magic, though.

I think one of the core attributes of magic is that it doesn't require tools. Tools and foci can be very useful, yes, they can make it easier - but they're not required, not necessary. That seems to be quite a common factor.

[NichG]

For those of you that watch Doctor Who, think about it as the Carrionights' [sp?] science of words. If every time you wiggle your fingers and say the right words in exactly the right way it produces fire, but if you tilt your hands thirty degree to the right and say the words in Swahili it produces ice, then those are repeatable results which can be scientifically analysed. I'd still call it magic, though.

I think one of the core attributes of magic is that it doesn't require tools. Tools and foci can be very useful, yes, they can make it easier - but they're not required, not necessary. That seems to be quite a common factor.

Expanding on this, I'd say magic generally tends to be internalized personal power, whereas technology tends to be less personal, and (barring sci-fi situations where it might as well be interchangeable with magic) external.

A wizard gains the power to personally summon and fling fire by coming to some fundamental understanding of magic/the universe/whatever. Simply by learning more (figuring out or discovering new spells), the wizard directly gains personal power. With technology, the guy who understands enough to invent a flamethrower has to get together with the guy who understands enough to build the thing, and neither of them is going to be the one who ends up using it. A scientist can understand the mathematics behind electromagnetism, gravity, quantum mechanics, etc, but that knowledge alone does not grant any power to personally manipulate those forces.

[Gnoman]

I thing the essense of magic is that it breaks the laws of physics. Or, more precisely, that it follows a different set of laws, thus allowing it to do things that would otherwise be impossible.

[SITB]

Not true. Take for example "The Saga Recluce", magic is in fact the laws of physics in the world, magic users can simply manipulate those forces to some degree.

[mrzomby]

How IS it old magic?

Until Duke Dunderhead came along, no one really paid attention to trees, whether anyone committed suicide on them.

When he comes along and some well-known fortune teller predicts his death by arrow-from-suicide-wood, suddenly EVERYONE knows a tree or two.
Not to mention that Duke Dunderhead's iron rule has caused a number of people to commit suicide (and some part due to his mind-control offing political rivals before seizing power. Irony!)

Fortune telling is an established magic of the setting. Duke Dunderhead's mind control spear is something the magic academy could make if they wanted to.

It doesn't have to BE old.


He has a mind-control spear. Hint! =P

If I were the duke, I would just make diviners tell me where trees are that people hung themself on, and burn them to ash. I would probably also tell the diviners to search for the family+friends of the hanged person, along with anyone they met in the last week, and execute them anyway, as the most likely suspects to be trying and making arrows that could harm me. This would lower suicide rates by guilt(if you kill yourself, fine, but I will murder your family). I would also probably make diviners find anyone capable of wielding, or crafting a longbow, short bow, crossbow, arrows, or what have you, and quietly have them murdered(using the spear to frame an opponent)

Obviously, the Diviners are far too important, and dangerous, to leave alone, so I get any diviner i can to find OTHER diviners for me. I would use the spear to ensure loyalty from the diviners, along with a hefty paycheck of gold, while tracking where they spent it to be extra sure of loyalty(if they are giving their money to a rebel movement, murder and stealing all their items, valuables, and whatnot is the only option).

Also, what kind of weakness is "arrows made from dead people trees"? are normal arrows not enough to hurt me? Do these arrows somehow mess with my mental control over the populace? Am I somehow totally impervious to damage from anything that isn't one of these arrows? Can I adapt this imperviousness to include the arrows? can i cover myself with about 5 feet of some hard flammable material, light it on fire, and use it as a protection against the arrows, provided the fire can't hurt me? I assume the spell windwall doesn't exist, along with protection from arrows?

[Knaight]

Also, what kind of weakness is "arrows made from dead people trees"? are normal arrows not enough to hurt me? Do these arrows somehow mess with my mental control over the populace? Am I somehow totally impervious to damage from anything that isn't one of these arrows? Can I adapt this imperviousness to include the arrows? can i cover myself with about 5 feet of some hard flammable material, light it on fire, and use it as a protection against the arrows, provided the fire can't hurt me? I assume the spell windwall doesn't exist, along with protection from arrows?

Its a prophecy. There is no reason to assume that someone is somehow impervious to death in any way but the one described in the prophecy, its simply that it isn't how they die.

[Amphetryon]

Its a prophecy. There is no reason to assume that someone is somehow impervious to death in any way but the one described in the prophecy, its simply that it isn't how they die.
This just highlights one of the potential issues with divination in a lot of game systems; there are players who would immediately thwack at the Duke with other weapons to try to disprove the prophesy. Even without that particular variety of behavior, if the players happen to confront the Duke, have a means of preventing his escape, and weapons with which to attack him, only their respect for the prophesy's power in the game or some sort of GM fiat can save Duke Dunderhead, in many game systems.

[Knaight]

This just highlights one of the potential issues with divination in a lot of game systems; there are players who would immediately thwack at the Duke with other weapons to try to disprove the prophesy. Even without that particular variety of behavior, if the players happen to confront the Duke, have a means of preventing his escape, and weapons with which to attack him, only their respect for the prophesy's power in the game or some sort of GM fiat can save Duke Dunderhead, in many game systems.

Prophesy and collaborative storytelling can be tricky to mix at best, true. In this case though, having the players respect the prophesy with fiat as needed is fine.

[mrzomby]

But then whats stop the duke from removing any conceivable way for such a thing to happen? In sleeping beauty, the king and queen forbid her daughter from touching a pin, and removed spindles from the kingdom, in this scenerio though, we have an evil ruler who can divine what hes getting rid of.

also, the conversation was about how players should'nt have to find some ancient civilization in order to discover the one weakness of a BBEG, but rather look for "newer, more common forms of magic"

That makes it sound less like a "prophecy" and more like a "weakness"

[Amphetryon]

But then whats stop the duke from removing any conceivable way for such a thing to happen? In sleeping beauty, the king and queen forbid her daughter from touching a pin, and removed spindles from the kingdom, in this scenerio though, we have an evil ruler who can divine what hes getting rid of.

The ability of other characters in the world to use preventative measures, mostly. The diviner cannot see/access things on another plane, or outside his timestream, or within the cellar of a couple who have committed no crimes, or whatever other counter-divination technique works in the setting.

[Knaight]

But then whats stop the duke from removing any conceivable way for such a thing to happen? In sleeping beauty, the king and queen forbid her daughter from touching a pin, and removed spindles from the kingdom.

Yeah, and that worked really well. The duke needs to get rid of every single tree anyone has ever hung themselves on, anywhere. That's somewhat difficult to say the least.

[mrzomby]

Yeah, and that worked really well. The duke needs to get rid of every single tree anyone has ever hung themselves on, anywhere. That's somewhat difficult to say the least.

Divining+mind control

[Knaight]

Divining+mind control

And then yet another person hangs themselves. Its one guy against the world population of people who commit suicide in what is probably the most common way in the setting. Divining and mind control barely help at all.

[mrzomby]

And then yet another person hangs themselves. Its one guy against the world population of people who commit suicide in what is probably the most common way in the setting. Divining and mind control barely help at all.

I addressed that in my first post, if each person knew that committing suicide meant their family's lives could also be ended, that would be a large amount of people clinging onto life, or killing themself another way.

1. kill self on a tree, and have family die

2. kill self another way, and don't even register as an annoyance

this guy is also mind controlling a lot of the populace to do any footwork, and could easily get diviners to search for where to send these people.

[Tyndmyr]

Heh. As a villain in that setting, I could then "arrange" a suicide to get targets killed.

Useful.

[Amphetryon]

I addressed that in my first post, if each person knew that committing suicide meant their family's lives could also be ended, that would be a large amount of people clinging onto life, or killing themself another way.

1. kill self on a tree, and have family die

2. kill self another way, and don't even register as an annoyance

this guy is also mind controlling a lot of the populace to do any footwork, and could easily get diviners to search for where to send these people.

I highlighted the assumption that those with a dissenting opinion may not share. Not everyone in the setting has encyclopedic knowledge of the Duke's rulings, just as not everyone can name every law that applies to them in modern times.

[Knaight]

I addressed that in my first post, if each person knew that committing suicide meant their family's lives could also be ended, that would be a large amount of people clinging onto life, or killing themself another way.

This only works over the area you actually control. Meaning that someone from a different duchy, not to mention a different kingdom can still screw that little plan over pretty well.

[NichG]

Or some heroic NPC who wants to help the PCs ends the Duke's rule sacrifices his life to make a suicide tree on the spot. Seemingly impossible barriers thwarted by unbelievable acts is a staple of fantasy.

Mechanically, if you wanted to do this, give someone who is the recipient of a prophecy a pool of dramatic editing points using any one of a number of systems out there for dramatic editing, that can only be used to block things that thwart the prophecy. If they run out of points (e.g. doing something stupid like walking around all day on fire because thats not what they were fated to die from), then they run out of protection and the prophecy was false.

So in this example, if the PCs surround the duke, block off escape, and go to hitting him with swords, it seems to work perfectly. However, that was just the Duke's body double/twin brother/etc (4 points spent for continuity violation). Or, the PCs lie in wait knowing the Duke's schedule, etc, etc, but he never shows since he came down with dysentery the night before and canceled his travel plans, or whatever.

[randomhero00]

Actually if you really study mythology there is a big influence of "the children are more powerful [magically] than the parents."

Today I agree its not as popular of a concept, but its not always been this way. If anything it was reversed in older times, like roman/greek times.

[Tyndmyr]

Yeah...that is a problem.

For instance, in a game I'm currently in, I managed to, though a series of creative actions and lucky rolling, get awarded a geas. I cannot die by sword.

I get in a *lot* of swordfights now.

[Rockphed]

Yeah...that is a problem.

For instance, in a game I'm currently in, I managed to, though a series of creative actions and lucky rolling, get awarded a geas. I cannot die by sword.

I get in a *lot* of swordfights now.

Does that geas apply to dying from bloodloss due to a sword? Could a stiff wind kill you after you have been weakened by a sword?



I have seen many games, read lots of fantasy stories, went over many proposed magical plot lines.

One pattern I notice is that magic is *always* old. It has been around since forever, it was more powerful back then, artifacts of ancient powerful civilizations and/or fading elf things. Gods made the world and went to sleep, their tools left abandoned.

Why? Why the focus on old stuff? Is there not a story to be written about the new magic being more powerful than the old? A old mage struggling to understand the new complex magics his ex-apprentices are busily teaching to the next generation?
A past generation adapting to the changes in lifestyle created by magic?

Or how about a story where magic is new? It's a recent discovery and the hero/villian/sides in a multi-way war are racing to uncover how it works and hence gain advantage over the others?


This also applies in some form to post-apocalyptic. Always about how the world broke and dangerous stuff is left behind, nothing all that much about rebuilding better than before.

I think that to some extent our culture hasn't quite gotten over the various empires that have fallen and left barbarism in their wake. Possibly because the world has been dominated over the last 4 or 5 hundred years by countries that had disproportionate wealth (and power) to population ratios. Spain, France, England, Germany, the US and Russia, respectively. All of which can, to some extent trace their roots back to Rome. So we want to know what will happen if our world fell apart. We don't always want to look at an Earth after the end, as in The Postman or Battlefield Earth, so we look at it through the lens of fantasy.

Part of this might be because attempting to guess what will happen next is really hard. People with PHDs in economics or political science or whatever have a hard time, but authors want to tell stories anyway. So they skip a few steps. Everybody knows that eventually our world will fall to nuclear war. Or aliens. Or Cthulhu rising. Or whatever. So they jump past that to the interesting part.

Science fiction tends to assume that the Earth isn't going to kill itself any time soon, so they skip past the awkward leaving the solar system to the interesting interstellar war.

I do agree that a world or work where magic got introduced to the modern world, or a normalish iron-age world, would be interesting and result in lots of neat interactions.


The way I see it, the magic back then wasn't bigger or better or more powerful all the time. It's just that when historians look back, they only mention the Big Stuff; the construction of enormous portals, the mountain-shifting, the great floods, what have you. Storytellers naturally exaggerate these facts and paint a picture of the past that makes these events, however rare, seem commonplace. A repeated event that can only take place once a decade because of the energies involved seems a lot less rare when it occurs 17 times on a timeline.
It wasn't all epic spells and flying cities, but nobody really wanted to hear about 60% of the wizarding population never getting past burning hands. So yes, there were flying cities and wizards moving mountains on a whim, and even if those things happened centuries apart, they still get associated with the multi-millenial Golden Age.

And thus, the myth is passed on, with the smaller-scale stories lost to time. And young adventurers look for ancient magical empires that never really went away.

This would be an interesting thing to throw at players. I think it would be even more interesting if the players managed to figure it out before you introduced the first villain(who would be using one of those once a century events to make himself invincible).


I've been in campaigns where the PCs were the ones to introduce magic to magicless worlds. It's really fun. Magic being new is really an awesome plot element (anything being new, really). You get to see the first stage where people are clumsily finding uses for things, finding that certain problems melt away and people don't know how to handle things yet. Plus if you're among the first to use it, you get to define how it will be seen by others to some extent - give Necromancy a good rep, etc.


One sentiment that several people have expressed, and which I don't understand, is that if magic is "new", it must by extension be "easy to obtain". Why?

A powerful conjurer, planar scholar and abjurer migt have to work together to devise the ritual to close a portal to hell. Finsing them, enlisting their aid, gathering them together, and protecting them agaiunst the demonic hordes cld be just as difficult as travelling to the ruins of a dead civilization to discover clues to performing a similar ritual from ages past.

By the same token, the world's Artifacts and McGuffins aren't old, they're new, but they're still rare. Perhaps the artifact the PCs need to take down their BBEG only exists as a prototype or small-scale proof-of-concept version, and they'll need ot assst in it's completion before they can fight the good fight. If done right, I think this sort of plot could actually be more satisfying ot the players than having to find some long-lost weapon.

I was thinking of trying to combine these ideas. The campaign opening would go something like this:


Legends will tell of a singular band of heroes, whose deeds were the stuff of legend. Legendary legend. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Not really sure where to go from there.

[Eric Tolle]

And they've done all that without magic, without supernatural forces of any kind. Imagine what they could do with it.

Well they COULD weaken the fabric of reality enough that the Many-Angled Ones that await hungrily in their non-euclidean realms can break through and exterminate humanity. Fortunately, there's a government agency on the job. (http://www.nesfa.org/reviews/Olson/AtrocityArchives.html)

The neat thing about the Laundry series is that while some principles of magic might be ancient, truly effective magic is a new thing, dating back to the 20th century. It's also heavily entwined with quantum mechanics and advanced mathematics. Also, with computers, magic is easy. All too horrifyingly easy....

If you want another book where magic is a modern thing, check out Stanwick's The Iron Dragons Daughter (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitle3k4x5pvi). This is a thoroughly modern faerie, complete with a magical-industrial complex. It also takes the reassuring, nostalgic tropes of fantasy, and curb stomps them repeatedly, in the process creating a crapsack world that makes the actual medieval era look paradisical.

Oh yeah, let's not forget Anderson's Operation Chaos (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chaos_(novel)), which has magic possible due to a fairly recent technological advice. It's notable that magic works in addition to the laws of physics, not instead of them; weres have to worry about conservation of mass, and to transmute matter with a philosopher's stone you need as much energy as a particle accelerator does to do the same thing.

[kaomera]

Part of it might have to do with the fact magic is mysterious, and the past is mysterious.
This is why I like old magic, anyway. If someone was building Stonehenge or the pyramids today, you could just go look and see how they where doing it, and ask them why.

[jseah]

If I were the duke, I would just make diviners tell me where trees are that people hung themself on, and burn them to ash.
Yeah, so it's a race to get suicide wood before the duke burns or chops down all the forest in the whole country.


Also, what kind of weakness is "arrows made from dead people trees"? are normal arrows not enough to hurt me?
It was just an off-the-cuff example and obviously not very well thought out. But I'm referring to a general idea, specific difficulties can be dealt with when they appear. (like above)

The idea is that magic does not have to be old and the new stuff is better than the old stuff. Progress and change can be themes that drive stories just as well as tradition and decline. But more of the latter two are seen than the former.

[Reaper_Monkey]

Something I want to see is a world with magic actually exploiting and developing to its full potential, rather than stagnating. Think about it.

Our scientists and engineers have created devices that can think billions of times faster than we can. They send people soaring through empty sky in relatively thin shells of metal, held up by a loophole in fluid dynamics. They have sent humans to the distant silver orb in the night sky, across millions of miles, in an environment that would be near-instantaneously fatal without protection. They have utterly eradicated some of the worst diseases and plagues mankind has ever known. They have created artificial limbs almost as good as the real thing. They have deciphered the basic code of life itself. They can send messages and images across the entire world in less than a second, with perfect accuracy.

And they've done all that without magic, without supernatural forces of any kind. Imagine what they could do with it.

But think, out of all of those things we have done - how far have they propagated?

We went to the silver orb in the sky, a generation or two ago - but never since.
We send people up into the sky in thin metal shells to travel around the world at super fast speeds, but to use one you need money and a huge amount of security checks - forbidding large amounts of the world from doing so and massively restricting its utility.
We have eradicated diseases, but there are still hundreds we don't even bother to try to eradicate despite having the tools and resources to do so.
We create artificial limbs and even organs - but still there are many who don't have access to them and many more who die or suffer from even simpler injuries that modern medicine has been able to deal with for tens of years now


We have done a great many things - and no doubt will continue to, but this doesn't mean we have exploited and developed these things to their full potential. Much of what we do can be said to be stagnation in comparison to what we could be doing. Perhaps this is why all magic items are always so old, noone has the resources or drive to do them again once they've been done once?

[Tyrrell]

Ars Magica has a pretty unique take on old vs. new magic.

The default PC's in the game are part of a 450 year old organization that has pretty much the best magic that humans have ever wielded. The characters can, if they wish to spend the time in research, create not just new spells and devices but actually change the magic rules of the game (to give an analogy in D&D 3.5 terms, although the concept translates very poorly, a character could put in a decade of toil in the laboratory and perhaps change the definition of medium range to be twice as long, add more spells to the spells per level table of their class, develop evocation spells that bypassed MR, or something of the sort. Change the underlying rules that the magic system uses). The organization that the PC's belong to is something that is entirely unprecedented in the world's history.

But because the magic in the game is described in such detail there is conceptual room for other magical traditions and forgotten magical traditions to have been able to do many things that the modern wizards, despite their competence, can't. In the setting the viking rune carvers were able to easily create effects that weren't "operationally" magical (in other words they couldn't be dispelled or resisted using dispel magic or magic resistance), the Canaanite necromancers used be be able to contact the spirits of the dead without having any sort of a connection to them, the hyperborian hymnists could cast spells with a duration of 20 years, ancient fertility cults were able to construct rituals to instill certain characteristics into a child during gestation, the so called learned magicians can influence fortune and luck, and so on. These are all things that the modern wizards in the game can't do. But that doesn't mean that the ancient practitioners and foreign of magic were better (in fact, as a rule, they were/are much worse), it just means they had/have a different set of tools then the PC's have.

[SiuiS]

Wow, this thread is a gold mine. I will exploit it to my fullest capability :smallbiggrin:


Yeah...that is a problem.

For instance, in a game I'm currently in, I managed to, though a series of creative actions and lucky rolling, get awarded a geas. I cannot die by sword.

I get in a *lot* of swordfights now.

Better hope you never get clobbered while fighting in a river and drown, or get worn down and then knocked onto a broken tree-branch, or something similar :smallwink:
I honestly think the entire point of a geis, narratively, is to set up a surprise ending. Which of course makes me think that getting a geis is a death trap, from the player end of things.

Duke Dunderhead is nigh unbeatable! He sunders the deadwood arrow, and slays most of the team. The wizard is out, the fighter is barely conscious and boldly holding the duke at bay. The cleric's staff - a gift from thegrand abbot of casterly, for heroic deeds three books ago - is broken into shards, still clutched in his cooling fingers. The rogue, sick of this blasted duke, loads the biggest chunk of staff she can into her crossbow, levels it at the duke, and fires while he laughs maniacally!

Under the boughs of the First Tree, (planted to commemorate the founding of the 9,000 precepts) the Grand Aboot has been fasting. Weeks of seeking divine guidance, no eating, barely drinking, and being exposed to the elements, all finally catching up.

Duke Dunderhead chokes on his own blood, wide-eyed. He paws at the broken shaft, now fused to his cervical vertebra by force. And then it is explained that the cleric's staff was taken from the First Tree, which the Grand Abbot just died under, functionally at his own hand.

-

Magic being old is really just a case of (as has been explained) the gloss of history. Over the last hundred years, so much has happened. Over the last 1,000 years, even more has happened. Those events Whig stand the test of time from back then loom greater in the mind, simply because we can still see them despite their greater distance.

Are they greater? I don't know. I would like to think, in a D&D-esque setting, that the party wizard could make a mcguffin, if they knew how. But first you have to know what the mcguffin does, why it does it, and why it works. That's really what is hard to find. The mcguffin is probably just something Vallynior, the Ever Mighty did when he entered his local talent show. I mean, there's only one, there has to be a reason no one ever made more of them.

Maybe that could be fun? Players get to the hiding place of the mcguffin, break t, and have to find out how to build a new one to beat the bad guy. I feel it has been done before, though.
That, or a "you had the power all along".

[Rockphed]

Why is there only one of the macguffin? A few ideas:

The creator only every needed the one. He was the only one in his time who could make it, or even understand how, so there is only the one.

It requires some great cost of the creator. All their memories before a certain day. The heart blood of a first born child who is still innocent. 20 years of their life. Not necessarily something impossible to give up, but something hard.

It takes something rare or unique to create. Say a virgin's innocence. Or a complete dragon egg shell(and dragons normally eat their eggshell.) Or the first rays of sun on mid-summer's day.

Or, the original use the macguffin was put to imbued it with more power than it had when forged. Think of the sword of griffindor, which absorbs only that which makes it stronger.

Or, as magic ages it starts to do unexpected things. So "The Lance of Dulhimnor" which has myriad powers started out as a simple flaming spear. However, when it spent 50 years in a vault, it started changing, and after another 200 years it now can summon a flaming horse, call lighting, and protect the wielder against any and all fire. In another thousand years, it might be the only weapon that can kill a 10,000 year old ice giant, or it might cause sheep owned by its wielder to give birth to twins.

[Eric Tolle]

Yeah, so it's a race to get suicide wood before the duke burns or chops down all the forest in the whole country.

I don't see why he'd bother. At the worst he'd gain the same vulnerability that any other duke has, at the cost of the death of an enemy. Hell, I'd spread around a dozen prophecies of that sort, with varying numbers and styles of suicide needed ("No really, he can be killed by a cast from the base of a tower five people have jumped off of, honest!)

Of course the smartest thing would be to arrange things so that the various factions are convinced they'll lose out of the duke dies. Now that's modern magic.
.

[Fiery Diamond]

Why is there only one of the macguffin? A few ideas:

The creator only every needed the one. He was the only one in his time who could make it, or even understand how, so there is only the one.

It requires some great cost of the creator. All their memories before a certain day. The heart blood of a first born child who is still innocent. 20 years of their life. Not necessarily something impossible to give up, but something hard.

It takes something rare or unique to create. Say a virgin's innocence. Or a complete dragon egg shell(and dragons normally eat their eggshell.) Or the first rays of sun on mid-summer's day.

Or, the original use the macguffin was put to imbued it with more power than it had when forged. Think of the sword of griffindor, which absorbs only that which makes it stronger.

Or, as magic ages it starts to do unexpected things. So "The Lance of Dulhimnor" which has myriad powers started out as a simple flaming spear. However, when it spent 50 years in a vault, it started changing, and after another 200 years it now can summon a flaming horse, call lighting, and protect the wielder against any and all fire. In another thousand years, it might be the only weapon that can kill a 10,000 year old ice giant, or it might cause sheep owned by its wielder to give birth to twins.

I like that last one.

[Wulfram]

A magic sword which was wielded by the Kings of Men down the centuries is cooler than one you bought in a shop somewhere.

Though an epic quest to help a legendary smith create a weapon for you to wield in defence of the Kingdom can be cool too.

[jseah]

A related question:

Magic is often mentioned to be strange and mysterious. eg. this thread:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=213282

Why is this so?

A related, more detailed question...
I presume that the reason why mysterious magic is preferred is because it gives the players / readers / characters a chance to explore the unknown.
But a simple fact is that when something is explored, it becomes known. The kind of magic that was referred to in that thread was something that cannot be explored, cannot ever be explained definitively or understood.

If mysteries are there to be explored, explained and solved, then an unsolvable mystery appears to be self-defeating. What then is the point of inserting an unsolvable mystery? Especially one as big as an entire magic system.

[kaomera]

A related question:

Magic is often mentioned to be strange and mysterious. eg. this thread:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=213282

Why is this so?
Strictly as a matter of personal opinion, mystery and strangeness are part of my definition of "magic". If a system becomes completely quantifiable (especially in the fluff, but this can happen mechanically as well), it stops feeling like magic for me, and most often in an RPG it just starts feeling like mechanics. That creates a big disconnect between me and the "reality" the characters are inhabiting. And it's not strictly the way the game / system handles this stuff, but how players tend to react to it. It makes it much harder for me to imagine these characters in that reality, and not just seeing plastic mans on some bits of colorful cardboard. That's certainly not true of every player - I know some who seem to feel quite the opposite. For example I'm not really a fan of most steampunk stuff because it tends to "industrialize" magic, but a lot of people just love it.

[jseah]

I presume then that magic isn't there to give players a chance to explore it.

What do you use magic for in your games? Or, what is its intended role in a story for you? Why use magic?

[Shadowknight12]

I presume then that magic isn't there to give players a chance to explore it.

What do you use magic for in your games? Or, what is its intended role in a story for you? Why use magic?

Because it's there. If it's there, it will be used. And abused. Just like everything else in the universe.

[kaomera]

I presume then that magic isn't there to give players a chance to explore it.
I'm not 100% sure I understand exactly what you mean. I think I may be thinking of a different thing when I read "explore" than you meant, maybe?

What do you use magic for in your games? Or, what is its intended role in a story for you? Why use magic?
I feel like, ideally, magic adds mystery and weirdness to a game. It's not that searching out the origin / meaning / function / mechanics behind, let's say, a magic sword needs to be fruitless. But completely defining how the entire magic system works seems a pointless and counterproductive labor. There needs to always be more out there, one more twist or wrinkle that you didn't quite expect... Or maybe you did? Having enough consistency that players can make educated guesses (and IMO, the flexibility to take a good / clever guess and adopt it / run with it) is a good thing.

But anyway I've never really seen players dig that deep. Most of them are just interested in how many plusses that sword has. I, personally, like having the flexibility to expand on that: "Hey, why did everyone start acting odd as soon as I drew my nifty new magic sword?", stuff like that.

[jseah]

But completely defining how the entire magic system works seems a pointless and counterproductive labor. There needs to always be more out there, one more twist or wrinkle that you didn't quite expect... Or maybe you did? Having enough consistency that players can make educated guesses (and IMO, the flexibility to take a good / clever guess and adopt it / run with it) is a good thing.
This is just it. When players understand enough about the magic system to use it, look at some new thing and say "aha, so that's how it's done!", and innovate under the magic system, then you are allowing the players to understand how the magic system works.

Just because you understand how every bit of the magic system works does not mean you cannot be surprised.

Science does not end at the Theory of Everything. Neither does magic.

[Gnaeus]

Also, in early history, military technology was sometimes sketchy. If you are casting a bronze sword, there could be impurities in the metal. It might have been badly made. A sword that has been in 100 battles without breaking is reliable. It is better than a new sword which has not been tested in that manner. It gets a certain justifiable, magic-like aura.

[Rockphed]

Also, in early history, military technology was sometimes sketchy. If you are casting a bronze sword, there could be impurities in the metal. It might have been badly made. A sword that has been in 100 battles without breaking is reliable. It is better than a new sword which has not been tested in that manner. It gets a certain justifiable, magic-like aura.

Like in Guards! Guards! where Carrot has a sword that looks more saw than sword, but is very, very durable?

[kaomera]

This is just it. When players understand enough about the magic system to use it, look at some new thing and say "aha, so that's how it's done!", and innovate under the magic system, then you are allowing the players to understand how the magic system works.

Just because you understand how every bit of the magic system works does not mean you cannot be surprised.

Science does not end at the Theory of Everything. Neither does magic.
I think we may be working on different scales here? (Also, you're assuming that there is a theory of everything that might actually be correct?)

If you correctly understand how every part of a system works, I don't see how you can be surprised by the results of that system. But I also don't see why that means you couldn't understand enough of the system to do things with it.

For example: I know some things about chemistry and physics, enough to do some basic stuff. My knowledge in the area tends to be simple and practical (mainly baking), but you can take that kind of knowledge (only generally much, much more of it and more variety) and make reasonable predictions about more complicated, less practical stuff, like subatomic particles and such. You "know" how things work, at least until some kind of evidence comes along and proves that you're actually wrong.

I guess it's more or less a "law" of the magic I imagine that you will always, if given enough time, eventually be proven wrong about that sort of thing, or even about some of the practical stuff. (The practical stuff being things that have concrete rules and such - imagine the fun if the universe suddenly decided to adopt a new edition of the natural / scientific laws and stop supporting the old edition...)

edited to add: Just to bring this back on-topic, perhaps the old stuff gets to play by a slightly different set of rules? I've personally always leaned towards viewing druidic magic in that light - that it's what you had back before the divine / arcane split, knowledge that the gods had given to (or had stolen from them by) mortals that allowed those mortals to reproduce some measure of the powers of the gods...

[DefKab]

I personally beleive magic is so old for this, controversial reason:

When Richard Gatling first made his Gatling gun, he said he was terrified of the result. The simple process of designing such a destructive weapon taught him an irreplacable respect for the danger and lethality of the gun.
That kind of respect, some people say, was mirrored by the civilizations who developed firearms in the first place.

The theory is that the simle act of producing a lethal weapon teaches the whole of society a respect for the weapon. If another society, previously unaware of a firearm, were to be introduced to it, it would like the respect, and thereby abuse the firearm.

Basically, Civilization A makes guns, and is too afraid to use guns. Civilization B finds guns, and, without the developement process, abuses the gun, leading to an unusually high murder rate.

Magic is old, and its power is terrifying and lethal. It's been around long enough that the WORLD has learn to respect magic. Few people try to abuse it, because the lesson is long learned.

IF magic was new, EVERYONE would try to use it, and to use it for their own mean. It was be a terrible, destructive enviroment.

Give everyone an atom bomb, and life as we know it will cease to exist.

[NichG]

If you correctly understand how every part of a system works, I don't see how you can be surprised by the results of that system. But I also don't see why that means you couldn't understand enough of the system to do things with it.


I just have to chime in here, this is usually not the case in science. We have very good theories for how, e.g., 2 or 3 particles behave to really astounding degrees of accuracy. But if you look at assemblages of 10^23 particles, you get surprising new phenomena. It's not because the physics is different, its because applying a set of rules 10^23 times can give you things you can't just read off from the rules themselves.

For example, Newton's laws of motion work really well for things like billiard balls, but if you make a disordered pile of about 3000 billiard balls, the forces in the pile will be this weird distribution of high-pressure chains with regions of no pressure in between. It'd be hard to guess that if you hadn't studied the bigger system, either with a computer or experiment. Similarly, certain shapes of rigid objects will automatically pack together to form a crystal or other big structures when shaken, and its not really easy to say what a given shape will do without trying it. You've got all the physics - if you write a simulation using Newton's laws, you get the right structure - but knowing how the single object works doesn't tell you how things work together.

[jseah]

I just have to chime in here, this is usually not the case in science.
It is not usually the case for anything at all really.

It also works in reverse.

Just because you know the rules for the big things, does not mean the same rules apply to small things. Especially if the "rules" for the big things you "know" are really just approximations of the small thing rules applied in large scale.

EDIT:
You could go this way and have magic develop in the same manner. The players can always discover something new, something unexpected, by digging deeper or building bigger.

[Talya]

Bah. "New Magic" is hardly rare. How many times did we need to adjust the phase frequency on the deflector dish? Recalibrate the Heisenberg compensator? Stabilize the containment field?

"New Magic" doesn't get used in all settings because it tends to have a different flavor than "Old Magic."

[Gnoman]

I personally beleive magic is so old for this, controversial reason:

When Richard Gatling first made his Gatling gun, he said he was terrified of the result. The simple process of designing such a destructive weapon taught him an irreplacable respect for the danger and lethality of the gun.
That kind of respect, some people say, was mirrored by the civilizations who developed firearms in the first place.

The theory is that the simle act of producing a lethal weapon teaches the whole of society a respect for the weapon. If another society, previously unaware of a firearm, were to be introduced to it, it would like the respect, and thereby abuse the firearm.

Basically, Civilization A makes guns, and is too afraid to use guns. Civilization B finds guns, and, without the developement process, abuses the gun, leading to an unusually high murder rate.

Magic is old, and its power is terrifying and lethal. It's been around long enough that the WORLD has learn to respect magic. Few people try to abuse it, because the lesson is long learned.

IF magic was new, EVERYONE would try to use it, and to use it for their own mean. It was be a terrible, destructive enviroment.

Give everyone an atom bomb, and life as we know it will cease to exist.

Did you lift that theory from Jurassic Park, or have more credible philosophers than Michael Chricton explored it? I always found it an interesting viewpoint, but never saw it dealt with in-depth.

[bigjeff5]

A couple of magic systems I like:

Rick Cook's Wizardry series:

Anybody can use magic, it is a function of the universe. If you can say the words and wiggle your fingers in the proper manner, the spell will go off without a hitch. The hard part of this magic, and the reason Big Magic was rare, is that you must perform the spell perfectly to get reliable results. A spell to make a dozen roses appear in your hands, if said with the wrong inflection or with the angle of your arms just slightly off, might call down lightning or cause a nearby lake bed to dry up instead. It's not something that is safe to mess around with, and amateurs who try magic without guidance tend not to live very long. There is nothing special about wizards, except that the most powerful are simply capable of remembering and performing a whole lot of spells perfectly. They've also had good luck performing spells for the first time, else they probably wouldn't have lived so long.

Old, potent magic of the past tends to be lost because, of the creator's peers, either nobody is capable of safely reproducing the feat, or the creator guarded the knowledge until his death, after which a wizard is taking an enormous risk to attempt to reproduce even a relatively straightforward spell with no one to guide them.

This has a lot of room for creativity, and in the books a computer programmer from our own, non-magical universe attempts to make magic easier and more reliable by getting creative with the most simple spells and constructs.

In this world magic is very old, but an innovation in creative magic use transforms magic very quickly into something far more potent (practically speaking - it was actually always as potent, just too hard) and creative. Here new magic is designed, not just discovered.

Jim Butcher's Dresden Files:

Here, magic is an internal, personal thing. There is no spell that casts a fireball, you must learn to harness your own internal energies, shape them with your imagination, channel them through your will, and finally unleash them with words of power that have personal meaning (Dresden's first fire spell is "Flickum Bickus" - two made up Latinish words which you can probably guess the origin of HINT: it made a small flame for lighting kindling). While you can read about ways to do certain things, in order to duplicate someone else's spell it must be internalized in order to be cast. The wizard has to essentially use the other's spell as a template and create their own. Just copying them won't work.

There are a lot of rules in this magic regarding what does what and how, but the vast majority of it is really just a sort of mental crutch to help the caster focus on the correct things in order to shape the magic into what they want to do. If a wizard had a powerful enough imagination all of the magic could simply be cast with no tools or devices or reagents or formulas of any kind. The most powerful wizards have the most energy to draw upon and are the most creative with their use of that energy.

Most significantly, in Butcher's world magic doesn't last very long at all. The vast majority of magic cannot withstand the renewing light of dawn without serious protection, and even then each dawn continually drains the magic from all but the most powerful artifacts over time. These artifacts tend to be extremely rare, and are generally created only by divine beings from items with great spiritual significance and with strict restrictions on their use, lest they become impotent (i.e. sword incorporating one of the nails of the Cross that can kill anything and gives divine protection to wielder, but must be freely given to and wielded by a righteous defender, or else it becomes nothing more than a sort of sharp hunk of metal).

Thus, the vast majority of the magic is new, even if the process for creating it is old, and new magics are being developed/discovered all the time.