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View Full Version : How does one mix Magic and Technology WITHOUT Magitek or Punk?



Geordnet
2013-05-10, 01:21 PM
Maybe I just haven't been around enough, but it seems to me that any setting with magic in a post-Medieval level of technology will invariably be some form of punk (steampunk, cyberpunk, etc.) and/or involve magitek. Which aren't bad things in and of themselves, but they change the effective tech level of the setting.

It just seems to me that something is lost in that change. Either it's high tech pretending to be low tech, or the functional difference is so small there's little point to it. Instead of "X with Y", it's "Y dressed up as X", or vise-verse.

There are a few exceptions. Call of Cthulu seems to avoid this well (although I'm not familiar enough to say for certain); perhaps Horror is just well-suited to such subversions. Settings with preexisting cultural/technological dichotomies (such as in a Western or the Age of Sail) would probably be able to integrate magic easily too.

But what if I wanted to add magic to, for instance, Early Modern Europe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_modern_Europe), but still have it feel like Europe in the 16th-19th centuries?

Lord Haart
2013-05-10, 01:46 PM
In before: Arcanum. Although that's more like 19th century (i'm culturally biased, though, and thinking in terms of russian progress, which is traditionally powered by well-bred slowpokes) with magic that doesn't quite mix with technology.

JusticeZero
2013-05-10, 02:22 PM
Magic is a technology by definition. Just start with a mindset that the magic rules are in your physics textbook and ignore machinery as a dead end curiosity of no value. The people in fancy robes with staves and beards, however, are archaic and ridiculous nerds. All this knowledge is in your public library.

caden_varn
2013-05-10, 02:40 PM
Really depends how potent and common you want magic to be. If the magic is sufficiently powerful and common, technology becomes fairly irrelevant. One of the major features of the time period you are talking about compared to now is the time and effort required to travel - if teleportation, or even magical communication, is commonplace, it makes a major difference.
So you really have to limit magic - either make it very rare, or make its capabilities at most on a par with what the technology of the day can do.
The thing with magic is it can be capable of as much or as little as the designer wants it to be - you need to think through the consequences of the magic you let into the setting to ensure it does not allow major advantages over the technology of the time.

JusticeZero
2013-05-10, 02:50 PM
'Look Jorge! With the aid of ten months wages of polished glass lenses, I can poorly duplicate the effects of a cantrip that is in the workbooks of most educated primary schoolers!'

Your entire technology base is in that right there. Furthermore, it is not the epic 4+th spells that really affect things, it is how much can be done by a level 1 nonadventurer.

faustin
2013-05-10, 02:55 PM
Amethyst rpg: as in Shadowun, the magic has returned and transformed the entire world; as in arcanum, magic and technology donīt mix well, and neither of them has a clear advantage over the other ( dedicate mages can accumulate with the years a lot of personal power, but scientist can create tech devices which can be used by anyone), so races and individuals take sides in the conflict.

Grinner
2013-05-10, 03:15 PM
It all depends on how you define magic, first. It's usually defined as an effect brought about by an act of will (often augmented by intense symbolism), but then the definition diverges based upon the whims of the author.

In D&D, arcane magic bears little difference from science. It should come as no surprise, then, that magitek is the logical conclusion of that paradigm. However, sometimes an artificial distinction is made between magic and science which prevents magitek from developing (i.e. Shadowrun).

Then there's other paradigms where magic is inextricably tied to the magician. Either it can't function without a willpower actively directing it, or the magic itself is alive and can't be subjugated. In the latter case, it tends to be a spirit with which the magician makes a pact.

Lorsa
2013-05-10, 04:42 PM
Most modern settings (which will have current-day technology in it) that I know of are some form of punk-settings. For many people it simply makes it more of an interesting setting rather than straight up normal world, magic or not.

The world of darkness have both technology and magic, and it is a punk setting as well. I am sure it would be possible to construct a technology-magic setting that is all shiny and nice though, perhaps a challenge for yourself?

fusilier
2013-05-10, 04:45 PM
I would second what caden_varn said. If magic is common and all pervasive, then it will have some sort of an impact on society. So if you want society to feel like a historical society, you need to limit magic. I prefer to make it occult (i.e. hidden); not commonly known, or so subtle that it's not clear if it really was magic (usually a bit of both). So there may be powerful magic, but it's kept well hidden in secret societies, and weak magic that might be known publicly, but is so subtle that a sceptic could decry it as merely a "trick".

Quellian-dyrae
2013-05-10, 04:57 PM
One way to do it is to say that magic is easier to advance on a personal level, but has to be developed personally and can't really be mass-produced or used on a large scale (obviously, things like permanent spells and items either don't exist or require some constant energy source, like a ley line or something). Technology is much harder to "level up" so to speak, but once it advances, it can be replicated and mass produced by anyone with the resources to do so.

Likewise, the resources to power magic, though renewable, come in vastly smaller packages than the resources for technology. Even a powerful mage only has so much energy and recovers it at a fixed rate (and to really make it work, recovery should diminish as expenditure increases, so you can do your basic stuff fairly routinely, but the big spells or massive repeat castings are tightly limited), compared to the vast and basically constant production capabilities of modern (or post-modern) civilizations.

Want to create a lavish feast of delectable food for dozens of diners with a standard action? Magic. Want to keep a nation fed? Technology.

Geordnet
2013-05-10, 07:29 PM
Magic is a technology by definition. Just start with a mindset that the magic rules are in your physics textbook and ignore machinery as a dead end curiosity of no value.

This is what I want to avoid at all costs. What you describe is science. It is science applied to imaginary rules, and trying to pretend it is not science, but that is absolutely what it is.

This can be fun, but it's not what I'm looking for. If I wanted something analyzed and understood, I'd just look at my real-life physics textbooks. Maybe google some hypothetical physics as well. Or, I'd read some hard sci-fi.

What I mean by "magic" is "that which is explicitly not understood". The whole point is that you don't know how it works. If the answer to the question "how does magic work" is anything other than "by magic", it sort of takes the magic out of wondering about it.

Of course, I understand that achieving this ideal is more or less impossible, but as it stands Harry Houdini is a more magical person than Mordenkaien, so there's lots of room for improvement.



Amethyst rpg: as in Shadowun, the magic has returned and transformed the entire world; as in arcanum, magic and technology donīt mix well, and neither of them has a clear advantage over the other ( dedicate mages can accumulate with the years a lot of personal power, but scientist can create tech devices which can be used by anyone), so races and individuals take sides in the conflict.

Both are prime examples of what I'm trying to avoid though. And the "science" you mention is just more magic, pretending to be something it's not.



I am sure it would be possible to construct a technology-magic setting that is all shiny and nice though, perhaps a challenge for yourself?

By "not punk", I don't mean "shiny and nice". I mean that I want something that's closer to the "realistic" end of the balance between Rule of Cool and Realism.



Really depends how potent and common you want magic to be. If the magic is sufficiently powerful and common, technology becomes fairly irrelevant. One of the major features of the time period you are talking about compared to now is the time and effort required to travel - if teleportation, or even magical communication, is commonplace, it makes a major difference.

Right, sufficiently advanced magic just becomes another form of technology. That's what I'm trying to avoid.



So you really have to limit magic - either make it very rare, or make its capabilities at most on a par with what the technology of the day can do.
The thing with magic is it can be capable of as much or as little as the designer wants it to be - you need to think through the consequences of the magic you let into the setting to ensure it does not allow major advantages over the technology of the time.

I would second what caden_varn said. If magic is common and all pervasive, then it will have some sort of an impact on society. So if you want society to feel like a historical society, you need to limit magic. I prefer to make it occult (i.e. hidden); not commonly known, or so subtle that it's not clear if it really was magic (usually a bit of both). So there may be powerful magic, but it's kept well hidden in secret societies, and weak magic that might be known publicly, but is so subtle that a sceptic could decry it as merely a "trick".

Ah, now this is what I'm looking for. A subtler, "low-magic" approach. That would work nicely.

Keeping with the "Early Modern Europe" example, how would this approach be applied there?



EDIT:

One way to do it is to say that magic is easier to advance on a personal level, but has to be developed personally and can't really be mass-produced or used on a large scale (obviously, things like permanent spells and items either don't exist or require some constant energy source, like a ley line or something).

That's an interesting approach, and is definitely worth looking into. It still seems to be a bit closer to the "technology" side, though, since if magic isn't innate (or if 'the gift' isn't very rare) then it's simple to institutionalize the teaching of it.

headwarpage
2013-05-10, 08:03 PM
I figure you have ~3 options:
1) Hidden magic. Magic is practiced by a few individuals, but not generally known to the populace at large. Think of the Dresden Files, or any other setting where the world goes about its business unaware of the existence of magic.
2) Rare magic. Magic is only available to a select few, so the rest of the population has to use technology. Often seen when magic is an inborn gift, or otherwise limited by factors that people can't control. Anyway, most people can't use magic, and they don't have ready access to people who can, so there's a strong incentive for them to develop technology, and technology advances largely independent of magic.
3) Costly magic. Magic is so costly/difficult that there's a clear incentive to look for technological alternatives. Whether it requires a literal deal with the devil, sacrifice of life energy, celibacy, your firstborn child, or simply 30+ years of dedicated study, you have to make a major personal sacrifice to use magic. Anybody can do it, but the cost is almost unbearably high. So magic can do some fancy things, but there's a strong incentive to look for a nonmagical option.

I'm sure I forgot something. What's the fourth (and fifth, sixth, etc.) option?

warty goblin
2013-05-10, 09:40 PM
Get rid of the idea of magic as intrinsic to people entirely. Make it extrinsic, the intervention of supernatural, often divine beings. Nobody *does* magic, something intercedes on their behalf to provide protection or blessing and strength. You may cover yourself in protective charms, amulets and runes, but ultimately those are merely offering and invocations of a being with genuine power.

Now nobody can mass manufacture cars that run on magic. Somebody might have a vehicle that's powered by magic, because it is a specific gift to them. You can't just nip down and buy a magic sword, it has to be earned as a reward from something outside of the human realm.

And of course the supernatural is fickle. Sometimes it just can't be assed to do jack for you, sometimes there's something else more important going on. And it doesn't like whiny little buggers either; favor is earned through action and devotion, not sitting around moaning. It is both a dangerous enemy, and a dangerous ally.

hiryuu
2013-05-10, 10:30 PM
This is what I want to avoid at all costs. What you describe is science. It is science applied to imaginary rules, and trying to pretend it is not science, but that is absolutely what it is.

This can be fun, but it's not what I'm looking for. If I wanted something analyzed and understood, I'd just look at my real-life physics textbooks. Maybe google some hypothetical physics as well. Or, I'd read some hard sci-fi.

What I mean by "magic" is "that which is explicitly not understood". The whole point is that you don't know how it works. If the answer to the question "how does magic work" is anything other than "by magic", it sort of takes the magic out of wondering about it.

If no one can describe it, then no one can use it. Period. Science is a method of describing how something works. Science is not the process of telling you that "X doesn't work," it's the process of figuring out how X works. If "magic" is inherently unpredictable, rules for it can't be defined, and it is effectively useless.

I'll say this again: science is a method of description, not an energy force.

Science describes things using a distinct methodology. It can be applied to almost anything that affects the world. It is concerned with observing the effects of a phenomena on the environment and then extrapolating what that effect means. It is a process of discovery and understanding what those discoveries mean.

If you find that boring, you have never met a scientist. Listen to Carl Sagan or Neil Degrasse Tyson talk for THIRTY SECONDS and you will learn that being able to describe something makes it more amazing and fantastic. Seriously. Listen to them. The way scientists talk is seriously how wizards should talk. They should be amazed by everything and filled with a sense of awe and wonderment about the tiniest things.


Of course, I understand that achieving this ideal is more or less impossible, but as it stands Harry Houdini is a more magical person than Mordenkaien, so there's lots of room for improvement.

Houdini was a freakin' wizard.


Both are prime examples of what I'm trying to avoid though. And the "science" you mention is just more magic, pretending to be something it's not.

The only difference between science and magic is cultural.


By "not punk", I don't mean "shiny and nice". I mean that I want something that's closer to the "realistic" end of the balance between Rule of Cool and Realism.

Realistically, any process in which you ask a question and then try to achieve answers to that question using evidenciary materials collected by you or another person... IS SCIENCE.

Science is the process of creating controlled situations in which phenomena are recreated and then described. If you are capable of casting spells, you are capable of creating controlled situations.

At which point, congratulations! You're doing science! You might not call it science, but that's what it is.


Right, sufficiently advanced magic just becomes another form of technology. That's what I'm trying to avoid.

Hold on. I have a thing for this.

http://i675.photobucket.com/albums/vv115/gaias_hiccup/litcrab014.jpg


Ah, now this is what I'm looking for. A subtler, "low-magic" approach. That would work nicely.

Keeping with the "Early Modern Europe" example, how would this approach be applied there?

It doesn't matter if it's commonly available or not: a particle accelerator is technology, but who has access to or understands one of those? And how applicable is it to daily life? It could be the same thing for magic - how useful is it to the common person?

Check out the stuff the Islamic alchemists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy_and_chemistry_in_medieval_Islam)were doing. These guys were trying to work out how the world around them worked, but some of their experiments were extremely bizarre and esoteric, and probably useless for most people. Also check out Heron of Alexandria. The guy was a boss. For stuff about wizards that might help you out, check out Cunning Folk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunning_folk). They do kind of what you're asking.

Ars Magica also has a really good approach to this, with a very esoteric magic system and the entire goal of the setting is to fiddle with the, well, fiddly bits without knowing how they work.

navar100
2013-05-10, 10:56 PM
You could just reflavor flavor text. In 3E, Artificer could be reflavored into magical technology. In Pathfinder, you have the Alchemist as a magical "scientist" or "chemist".

Grinner
2013-05-10, 11:06 PM
hiryuu's tirade reminded me of something. The chief difference between your stock D&D wizard and a proper occultist is that the D&D wizard functions in the abstract; he can simply command the powers that be with nothing more than an unintelligible whisper. There's no drama, and there's no pageantry. There's just the cause and the effect.

Meanwhile, the occultist is wrapped up in the mystique of his esoteric philosophies. He doesn't just cast Fireball or Sleep. He invokes invokes the thirteen Celestial Spheres while standing over the Seven Seals of Yutar the Magnificient. By comparison, the D&D wizard seems absolutely mundane.

I don't think there's a mechanic out there that can compensate for poor fluff.


http://i675.photobucket.com/albums/vv115/gaias_hiccup/litcrab014.jpg

I'm curious. Did you actually have it on hand? :smalleek:

Hida Reju
2013-05-10, 11:13 PM
I think its not a case of magic and technology having problems mixing its that Magic breaks economy in a market.

Either its so expensive that its not worth using to recreate daily life effects. By requiring power sources or burning out the people using them or its so simple that it makes doing any technology meaningless because you can just get a mage to do the work in seconds what takes days of work to do.

A more real example, can magic build a permanent house?
If so how long does it take?
How much resources did it take to do it?
How often can it be performed?

The closer to "Instantly, for nothing, and often" you become the less often anything other than magic will be used.

Same goes for healing why become a doctor if healing can be done easy with magic?

The closers to instant/infinite/complete healing you get to the less people will care about finding out why biology works and how to do surgery.

So they key to having both is setting and mechanics.

You have to have a setting that supports it and mechanics that do not crush economy.

One without the other just does not work it will just feel forced or out of place.

hiryuu
2013-05-10, 11:26 PM
hiryuu's tirade reminded me of something. The chief difference between your stock D&D wizard and a proper occultist is that the D&D wizard functions in the abstract; he can simply command the powers that be with nothing more than an unintelligible whisper. There's no drama, and there's no pageantry. There's just the cause and the effect.

Meanwhile, the occultist is wrapped up in the mystique of his esoteric philosophies. He doesn't just cast Fireball or Sleep. He invokes invokes the thirteen Celestial Spheres while standing over the Seven Seals of Yutar the Magnificient. By comparison, the D&D wizard seems absolutely mundane.

I tirade a lot when it comes to occultists/wizards. I run a setting where everyone is effectively a magic user and most of the setting conflict/PC action is in exploring your culture and magic's effect on it and involving yourself in the process of improving your magic by improving your understanding of your place in it and with it.


I'm curious. Did you actually have it on hand? :smalleek:

I do. I actually have a lot of angry literature crab >_>

Friv
2013-05-10, 11:39 PM
This is what I want to avoid at all costs. What you describe is science. It is science applied to imaginary rules, and trying to pretend it is not science, but that is absolutely what it is.

The essential definition of magic is "science applied to imaginary rules", is the problem. If you cut out a boar's heart at the full moon, you can imbibe a section of the boar's power. It happens the same way every time. You figure out the conditions, and the result is a benefit. If you are capable of having a trained mage, there are rules, and if there are rules the system is explicable.

Magic leads to alchemy leads to science. It's all a single continuum, not two unconnected spheres. If your society has developed the scientific method, someone's going to apply it to science, and you'll get wizard universities and people gauging the effects of flame spells to figure out what blends of wood-ash produce the best results and so on. Which is what you don't want, so...


What I mean by "magic" is "that which is explicitly not understood". The whole point is that you don't know how it works. If the answer to the question "how does magic work" is anything other than "by magic", it sort of takes the magic out of wondering about it.

What you're actually looking for isn't magic, it's miracles.

Miracles can't be quantified or reproduced under laboratory conditions. They just happen. And if things just happen, they will remain outliers in a society built around magic, because you can't study to learn them, and you can't just build more if one breaks down. Getting ahold of a miraculous relic or a man who can speak to the winds and have them answer is a unique event, and one that will be either a valuable curiousity or a thing worth the price of a small kingdom.

In a setting that contains miracles, each miracle is something that science builds itself around. Individual societies, organizations, and battlefields will each develop technologies and devices that are based around the singular or small collection of useful oddities that they control. If one kingdom has a spring that turns maidens into gold, they will start quietly developing social mores based around early marriages and pairing off, to remove temptation; they might accept maidens as tributes in place of taxes, for the value of the massive amount of gold that they will become if executed. A temple has a flute that, if played by a man of faith, causes grapes to grow. They have created a robust wine industry around it, which funds their charitable activities. A man can understand cats. He can't make them understand him, and everyone mostly thinks that he's a crazy guy who lurks in the town square screaming at the local feral animals to leave him alone.

Geordnet
2013-05-10, 11:55 PM
If "magic" is inherently unpredictable, rules for it can't be defined, and it is effectively useless.
For the players, perhaps. The GM can still govern the unpredictable with dice and a hefty dose of ad-hoc rulings.


Science describes things using a distinct methodology. It can be applied to almost anything that affects the world. It is concerned with observing the effects of a phenomena on the environment and then extrapolating what that effect means. It is a process of discovery and understanding what those discoveries mean.
You don't have to tell me. I've just been trying to find a good way to put it.


If you find that boring, you have never met a scientist.
Oh no, I love science. :smalltongue:

But that's also the reason why I don't like to see it pretending to be something it's not. It's like makeup on a pretty girl, or steak sauce on a good steak. It's intended to make it better, but it's doing the opposite. If I wanted science, I'd go for real science.



Realistically, any process in which you ask a question and then try to achieve answers to that question using evidenciary materials collected by you or another person... IS SCIENCE.

Science is the process of creating controlled situations in which phenomena are recreated and then described. If you are capable of casting spells, you are capable of creating controlled situations.

At which point, congratulations! You're doing science! You might not call it science, but that's what it is.
Well then, logically we must preclude that possibility for magic to remain unscientific. If the player does not actually control the magic he uses, that would make it more difficult.

Perhaps then, magic is ornery? Perhaps it does not want to be studied, and the best way to fail at magic is to think too hard about it. There aren't even set gestures or incantations for spells; a wizard really can't do any more than mutter, wave his hands around, and hope for the best. The trait which is most essential for wizards, therefore, it not intelligence, nor intuition: it's luck. It's just an anomaly with no logical reason for it, and in fact trying to run tests about it is most likely going to make it stop. For the duration of the test, at least; further frustrating the would-be scientists. :smallamused:

Try applying science to that kind of magic. :smallbiggrin:


EDIT:

You could just reflavor flavor text. In 3E, Artificer could be reflavored into magical technology. In Pathfinder, you have the Alchemist as a magical "scientist" or "chemist".
:smallsigh:

You're missing the point. The point is that "magic" seems to be nothing more than just a reflavoring, when it should be more than that.



What you're actually looking for isn't magic, it's miracles.

The difference being as arbitrary as any other definition of magic. :smalltongue:

If a spring turns maidens into gold for no apparent reason, how can you tell me that isn't magic? That most definitely, positively, absolutely is magic.


What I which to isolate is that element of the unknown, the unexplained. When your uncle pulls a quarter from behind your ear; before you understood how it was done that was magic. Lightning was magic since before the dawn of human history, and in many ways is still so today. Even technology can be magic, if you don't know how it works. It's that fleeting sense of awe and wonder that I'm seeking.

Grinner
2013-05-11, 12:18 AM
Well then, logically we must preclude that possibility for magic to remain unscientific. If the player does not actually control the magic he uses, that would make it more difficult.

Perhaps then, magic is ornery? Perhaps it does not want to be studied, and the best way to fail at magic is to think too hard about it. There aren't even set gestures or incantations for spells; a wizard really can't do any more than mutter, wave his hands around, and hope for the best. The trait which is most essential for wizards, therefore, it not intelligence, nor intuition: it's luck. It's just an anomaly with no logical reason for it, and in fact trying to run tests about it is most likely going to make it stop. For the duration of the test, at least; further frustrating the would-be scientists. :smallamused:

Try applying science to that kind of magic.

Umm...Isn't that the "living magic" several people have brought up already?


Then there's other paradigms where magic is inextricably tied to the magician. Either it can't function without a willpower actively directing it, or the magic itself is alive and can't be subjugated. In the latter case, it tends to be a spirit with which the magician makes a pact.


Get rid of the idea of magic as intrinsic to people entirely. Make it extrinsic, the intervention of supernatural, often divine beings. Nobody *does* magic, something intercedes on their behalf to provide protection or blessing and strength. You may cover yourself in protective charms, amulets and runes, but ultimately those are merely offering and invocations of a being with genuine power.

Now nobody can mass manufacture cars that run on magic. Somebody might have a vehicle that's powered by magic, because it is a specific gift to them. You can't just nip down and buy a magic sword, it has to be earned as a reward from something outside of the human realm.

And of course the supernatural is fickle. Sometimes it just can't be assed to do jack for you, sometimes there's something else more important going on. And it doesn't like whiny little buggers either; favor is earned through action and devotion, not sitting around moaning. It is both a dangerous enemy, and a dangerous ally.


What you're actually looking for isn't magic, it's miracles.

Miracles can't be quantified or reproduced under laboratory conditions. They just happen. And if things just happen, they will remain outliers in a society built around magic, because you can't study to learn them, and you can't just build more if one breaks down. Getting ahold of a miraculous relic or a man who can speak to the winds and have them answer is a unique event, and one that will be either a valuable curiousity or a thing worth the price of a small kingdom.



Also, it seems that I've forgotten to make my customary Unknown Armies plug. Anyway, the short of it is that most of the magic the layman is capable of employing isn't obvious. Avatars of the Warrior are capable of fighting better than other men, but they still aren't superhuman. Tilt rituals can alter probability dramatically, but their effects can be dismissed as good luck.

The really powerful stuff can only be employed by the most psychotic people. Their worldviews are so twisted that they understand one aspect of reality completely, and they can employ this understanding to dire effect. But even then, they don't blow their spells flagrantly. After all, no one wants to piss off the Sleepers...


What I which to isolate is that element of the unknown, the unexplained. When your uncle pulls a quarter from behind your ear; before you understood how it was done that was magic. Lightning was magic since before the dawn of human history, and in many ways is still so today. Even technology can be magic, if you don't know how it works. It's that fleeting sense of awe and wonder that I'm seeking.

I've already told you that no mechanic can substitute good fluff. You don't want to isolate the unknown; you want something original. You want an entirely new way of looking at the world.

You want Unknown Armies. :smalltongue:

Cerlis
2013-05-11, 12:24 AM
basically steampunk/magicteck cant really exist if magic can be used as a fuel source. Most Gnome (Warcraft) technology that utilizes magic does so by using mana as a power source. Also if the chaotic nature of magic warps and breaks technology (espessially if magic=chaos and technology =law) than it makes it also impossible.

And i think Legend of Korra and Justice League show how the presence of magic and the supernatural forces Normals to adapt, via technology


Also only bad games games i dont like have magic so common place you can go down the street and ask someone to cast a lvl 1 spell for you for free (or at all). Even in settings where there are hundreds of casters in a city it should still be difficult to master even level 1 spells.


Also Warlocks and sorcerer's (and every person on the forum who says "buy magic items") is proof that just because someone can cast level 1 or above spells, doesnt mean technology is useless. Good job casting Dancing lights. to bad we need to light the whole castles ALL night.

Candles are technology.

PlusSixPelican
2013-05-11, 12:26 AM
Want to create a lavish feast of delectable food for dozens of diners with a standard action? Magic. Want to keep a nation fed? Technology.

Can I sig this?

Also, have them exist as (mildly) antithetical, so magic can't be reproduced technologically, and magic breaks technology in large doses (like an EMP). Likewise, technology is a useful tool in helping fight magical malfeasants. Play it up as a romanticisim v. enlightenment dealie (with magic on either side, although most pick romanticism to represent magic) and you have yourself a setting.

Science Officer
2013-05-11, 12:27 AM
I think magic can be not-technology.

If you read up on real-world occult practices, as well as (and the two are often closely linked) a lot of your "New Age" philosophies (you know the ones, even if that's not the right term) operate under frameworks antithetical, or even hostile to scientific/technological world views.

These would reject empiricism, naturalism, an objective view of reality, oppose testing and falsifiability, and urge you to tap into your intuition, imagination, the collective unconscious, the whisperings of the lizard-demons from beyond the seventh veil, etc... Of course, in reality this produces little in the way of practical results. But we are imagining fictional worlds...
I'll call these perspectives "mystical" to separate them from the "magical" systems of many games.

So yes, one would be entirely correct to say that if a repeatable experiment produced repeatable results regardless of time, location, and experimenter, then that approach to understanding the phenomena would be a scientific/technological approach and the phenomena would be a natural one. Even if the experiment was to carve a pentagram into a wax seal and the result was to turn a stone into snake, that would simply be a result of the natural forces in that world. If the magic-users of a setting approached magic in such a way/the magic in a setting worked that way, one could rightly call them scientists, for they explored the forces that exist in their world in a scientific way.

But what if we were to leave the realm of empiricism behind? What if experiments are not universally applicable and reality is, in fact, highly subjective? Let us imagine a setting where mystics are drawn to understand the workings of the universe, not through experiment and practice, but by, well, any other means. Each working within their own or a shared philosophy, the mystics evoke works of wonder in the world around them. These would be a lot like what Friv described as miracles, except that they could be studied but not in a scientific way.

They could not be mass-produced or taught, and studied only by those with the right aptitude/mindset. "The Tao that can be taught is not the true Tao". Maybe all mystical philosophies work equally well, maybe some work better than others, maybe there is only one. It's up to you in creating the setting.

Anyways, I tried. Hope this helps.

hiryuu
2013-05-11, 12:42 AM
Well then, logically we must preclude that possibility for magic to remain unscientific. If the player does not actually control the magic he uses, that would make it more difficult.

Perhaps then, magic is ornery? Perhaps it does not want to be studied, and the best way to fail at magic is to think too hard about it. There aren't even set gestures or incantations for spells; a wizard really can't do any more than mutter, wave his hands around, and hope for the best. The trait which is most essential for wizards, therefore, it not intelligence, nor intuition: it's luck. It's just an anomaly with no logical reason for it, and in fact trying to run tests about it is most likely going to make it stop. For the duration of the test, at least; further frustrating the would-be scientists. :smallamused:

Try applying science to that kind of magic. :smallbiggrin:

That it actively defies testing is a testable feature.

Electricity is actually pretty ornery. Fire is so ornery that it took is tens of thousands of years to actually figure out how it worked at all (seriously. We've known about oxygen for a very brief amount of time - imagine not knowing that people are made of the same stuff other mammals are made of, or that people aren't even mammals at all... that's the status quo for most of our history). Like I said, look up Islamic alchemists and people like Heron of Alexandria.

For the record, here's a secret: inquiry isn't about repetition of experiments, but repetition of observations. If you can get several sources of independent information to agree on what happened, then you're doing science again. That is, you don't have to have someone cast fireball more than once, because it will leave behind scorched trees, people who can agree that guy shot fire, and you can even determine if he was using things you already know produce fire (even if they only produce it sometimes in certain situations). To have something that you can't investigate with a scientific process at all would require something that doesn't interact with any part of the world an observer can get to or be affected by... and at that point, what's the point?

If you want magic to be mysterious and still affect the lives of the characters, at sine point you're going to have to face the fact that on some fundamental level, it's operating by a set of rules. Even if that rule is "as a GM it does what I want." Saying "it works because it does" is also kind of jerkbag GMing, too, so be careful there.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that mystery and wonder and awe are all very personal things and deeply rooted in cultural and individual opinion. Honestly, I find a system that can't be described, interpreted, or investigated to be dull, pointless, uninteresting, and devoid of mystery.

Geordnet
2013-05-11, 12:47 AM
Umm...Isn't that the "living magic" several people have brought up already?
Is it? I'm not familiar with the context. :smallconfused:


I've already told you that no mechanic can substitute good fluff. You don't want to isolate the unknown; you want something original. You want an entirely new way of looking at the world.
Hm.. Probably so. There is indeed no substitute for creativity.

How about we get creative here then, and come up with such a novel way of thinking? :smalltongue:



And i think Legend of Korra and Justice League show how the presence of magic and the supernatural forces Normals to adapt, via technology
That's intriguing by itself, but I'm more asking about how to include magic in a way that "normals" don't have to adapt.



Even in settings where there are hundreds of casters in a city it should still be difficult to master even level 1 spells.
The way I'm looking at it, there might be one or two magicians in a city. More often, none at all.


EDIT:

That it actively defies testing is a testable feature.
Not when you frustratingly cannot even find a subject wizard to participate in your meta-test. :smalltongue:



and at that point, what's the point?
The point is that while you can conclude that this person throws fireballs, you have absolutely no idea how.

Grinner
2013-05-11, 01:11 AM
You know, I was just thinking. Your stated purpose is that you want to implement magic in an early modern European setting in such a way that it won't crossbreed with the inventions of mankind. So, how about the actual magical practices (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_magic) of early modern Europe?

Being ceremonial in nature, you won't get the archetypal spell-slinger though...

fusilier
2013-05-11, 01:16 AM
Ah, now this is what I'm looking for. A subtler, "low-magic" approach. That would work nicely.

Keeping with the "Early Modern Europe" example, how would this approach be applied there?

If it were *me*, I would look at relevant historical thoughts about magic. They existed through the time periods you described, but changed. In the 16th century, it would be a bit more similar to some form of fantasy magic. By the 19th century, it might take on different forms, some of which might have been thought to have a more scientific basis.

I don't really know enough to provide an overview of magic beliefs during those times, but I can provide an example from the earlier period that might fit: A charm. Perhaps something that's supposed to bring the wearer good luck, or protect them from harm. It's not all powerful, so the wearer can still be harmed, but maybe it lessens the chances of it. More importantly if the wearer believes that it does some good they will continue to carry it.

In the 19th century, there was certainly a belief in ritual/ceremonial magic (seances were popular), and there was also a lot of study into things that are probably more closely modeled by Psionics (Psychical Research), but might be seen as a kind of magic.

For the earlier period, especially if you are using D&D, see if you can get a copy of "A Mighty Fortress Campaign Sourcebook", that might help out. It provides enough generic information to be useful for any system; I've used it for GURPS campaigns.

Then you might want to check out some of the GURPS sourcebooks: Steampunk will be useful for the 19th century -- with most GURPS sourcebooks, a lot of the information is historical, and they provide suggestions for how to play the game with different levels of magic. Not sure about the late 17th to 18th century, there are some GURPS books that cover that period (Swashbucklers and Napoleon), but I don't recall there being much about magic in either of them.

JusticeZero
2013-05-11, 01:53 AM
The point is that while you can conclude that this person throws fireballs, you have absolutely no idea how.

That's still a lot to work with in a scientific sense. You don't need to know the mechanism to study the preceding and antecedeng events, the circumstances, the effects, the replicability, and if some guy can lob fireballs more or less on demand, you can proceduralize it into something.

Eldan
2013-05-11, 07:32 AM
That's still a lot to work with in a scientific sense. You don't need to know the mechanism to study the preceding and antecedeng events, the circumstances, the effects, the replicability, and if some guy can lob fireballs more or less on demand, you can proceduralize it into something.

Quite. As soon as you have a person who can throw fireballs repeatably, you can start studying it, ending up with science.

And no matter how much mysticism you add, science can study it.

Magic changes with the person attempting it? Statistical analysis to find the factors separating the people.
Magic changes over time? Gather more data until you find a pattern. There is always one.
Magic is random? We have statistics, stochastics and chaos theory for a reason.
Magic is alive? Living beings follow rules. You will, at some point, end up with a kind of diplomacy and rituals. Which can be studied and made more efficient.

Really, I can't think of anything off-hand science couldn't study.

Zombimode
2013-05-11, 07:51 AM
Really, I can't think of anything off-hand science couldn't study.

Anything transcendent, for starters.


In general, I don't get the fuss about it and why some people are so adamant about defending their particular view on magic. After all, its fiction, and different people have different preferences on fiction.

JusticeZero
2013-05-11, 08:15 AM
Sure, but anything beyond our experience isn't going to actually be useful for anything. Which is how you can have magic exist and not dominate things I suppose, but it doesn't make it very useful to have a mage around. Being useless that is, not being transcendental which is what we have now, which is indistinguishable from not having magic. "Oh, we have magic, but it can't actually have any lasting effects, any real effects at all, or do the same thing twice, or be able to choose what you're doing really. It's like being a Rod of Wonder, but only for illusion/charm effects." Or something of the sort. Just making the effects entirely ephemeral/illusionary would go a long way. "Yeah, a wizard can conjure up amazing feasts, but then you get hungry and have to sneak down to the kitchen to get some bread or something so you don't starve."

LibraryOgre
2013-05-11, 09:08 AM
What I mean by "magic" is "that which is explicitly not understood". The whole point is that you don't know how it works. If the answer to the question "how does magic work" is anything other than "by magic", it sort of takes the magic out of wondering about it.

Of course, I understand that achieving this ideal is more or less impossible, but as it stands Harry Houdini is a more magical person than Mordenkaien, so there's lots of room for improvement.


I think you've hit the nail on the head, right here. If magic works by a system... if spells can have repeatable effects, even if those spells are made up on the fly... then you're dealing with a technology. Where you run into a problem is that most magics in human history have worked according to a system... it may be the more formal systems of modern thaumaturgy or "if you leave milk for the pixies they will not harass your cattle"... but the core of most magic in human history is "Do X to achieve Y." "Poke this doll with a pin to cause harm." "Say 'Bloody Mary' three times into a mirror and she will come." "Don't feed the mogwai after midnight."

The magic that doesn't strictly adhere to that is usually called "miracles". Or "luck".

Geordnet
2013-05-11, 09:43 AM
You know, I was just thinking. Your stated purpose is that you want to implement magic in an early modern European setting in such a way that it won't crossbreed with the inventions of mankind. So, how about the actual magical practices (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_magic) of early modern Europe?

If it were *me*, I would look at relevant historical thoughts about magic. They existed through the time periods you described, but changed. In the 16th century, it would be a bit more similar to some form of fantasy magic. By the 19th century, it might take on different forms, some of which might have been thought to have a more scientific basis.
I don't really know enough to provide an overview of magic beliefs during those times, but I can provide an example from the earlier period that might fit: A charm. Perhaps something that's supposed to bring the wearer good luck, or protect them from harm. It's not all powerful, so the wearer can still be harmed, but maybe it lessens the chances of it. More importantly if the wearer believes that it does some good they will continue to carry it.

In the 19th century, there was certainly a belief in ritual/ceremonial magic (seances were popular), and there was also a lot of study into things that are probably more closely modeled by Psionics (Psychical Research), but might be seen as a kind of magic.

For the earlier period, especially if you are using D&D, see if you can get a copy of "A Mighty Fortress Campaign Sourcebook", that might help out. It provides enough generic information to be useful for any system; I've used it for GURPS campaigns.

Then you might want to check out some of the GURPS sourcebooks: Steampunk will be useful for the 19th century -- with most GURPS sourcebooks, a lot of the information is historical, and they provide suggestions for how to play the game with different levels of magic.

That certainly is a very good idea. I wasn't aware of these practices, I'd always of this period as a time when superstition was being swept away by rationalism, at least amongst the upper class.



Being ceremonial in nature, you won't get the archetypal spell-slinger though...
I'm just glad I have the excuse to do away with that archetype. :smalltongue:



Not sure about the late 17th to 18th century, there are some GURPS books that cover that period (Swashbucklers and Napoleon), but I don't recall there being much about magic in either of them.
My dad is not only a huge military history buff and wargamer, but Napoleonics is his favorite. In fact he took a class on Napoleonic tactics at West Point, and he even has several pictures, busts, and statuettes of Napoleon littered around the house. :smallredface:

It's even the fact that I already know so much about this period that made me want to adapt it to fantasy.



That's still a lot to work with in a scientific sense. You don't need to know the mechanism to study the preceding and antecedeng events, the circumstances, the effects, the replicability, and if some guy can lob fireballs more or less on demand, you can proceduralize it into something.

Quite. As soon as you have a person who can throw fireballs repeatably, you can start studying it, ending up with science.

And no matter how much mysticism you add, science can study it.

Really, I can't think of anything off-hand science couldn't study.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, right here. If magic works by a system... if spells can have repeatable effects, even if those spells are made up on the fly... then you're dealing with a technology. Where you run into a problem is that most magics in human history have worked according to a system... it may be the more formal systems of modern thaumaturgy or "if you leave milk for the pixies they will not harass your cattle"... but the core of most magic in human history is "Do X to achieve Y." "Poke this doll with a pin to cause harm." "Say 'Bloody Mary' three times into a mirror and she will come." "Don't feed the mogwai after midnight."
I understand that it's impossible to make it impossible to apply science to magic. I just want to make it hard enough that nobody has a problem with it not being scientifically analyzed in-setting, and opaque enough that the players can't quite figure it out themselves.

Part of this will require that the PCs don't have much access to magic, and/or the PCs know much more about magic than their players.

Hm... What sort of systems exist that have magic more "free-form"? As in, the rules on magic aren't for it doing specific things, but how it could do anything? (I've heard that Mage: The Ascention does something like this, but don't know the details.)




The magic that doesn't strictly adhere to that is usually called "miracles". Or "luck".
With that kind of magic, do you know who the mightiest wizard of all would be?

Rincewind. :smalleek:

hiryuu
2013-05-11, 12:00 PM
Part of this will require that the PCs don't have much access to magic, and/or the PCs know much more about magic than their players.

This can be as frustrating as GMPCs.


Hm... What sort of systems exist that have magic more "free-form"? As in, the rules on magic aren't for it doing specific things, but how it could do anything? (I've heard that Mage: The Ascention does something like this, but don't know the details.)

Already listed one, but there are others:

Mage
Ars magica
Mutants & Masterminds (if you swing it right)
Witchcraft

Despite appearances, Shadowrun's magic (which is based entirely on cultural perception and opinionated memetics, which is why I am surprised there are not more Naruto-style mages and super saiyans.) is eminently capable of being studied and even in-setting they're starting to getting it right (corp mage schools re designed to indoctrinate children into the corporate culture).

LibraryOgre
2013-05-11, 03:59 PM
Hm... What sort of systems exist that have magic more "free-form"? As in, the rules on magic aren't for it doing specific things, but how it could do anything? (I've heard that Mage: The Ascention does something like this, but don't know the details.)

That's the thing... while Mage (and Ars Magica) have these free-form spells... ones you can create at a moment, or do frequently... they're still within a comprehensible system. Want to create a solid object? That's Matter 3 Prime 2. Why? Because Matter 3 covers making patterns, and with Prime 2 they will exist for some time. While people may have different methods of coming to this answer... different paradigms... they can still talk about things in the abstract as being Matter 3, Prime 2.



With that kind of magic, do you know who the mightiest wizard of all would be?

Rincewind. :smalleek:

Or Longshot.

Geordnet
2013-05-11, 04:14 PM
This can be as frustrating as GMPCs.
That would depend, I think. If the players go into the game understanding unambiguously that they don't control magic, then it'll all depend on the GM. It could be used to great effect, or abused to even greater.



Already listed one, but there are others:

Mage
Ars magica
Mutants & Masterminds (if you swing it right)
Witchcraft
I'll look into those, then; see if any are what I'm looking for. (I'm worried about making magic the focus when I want it to be subtle in the background.)



Despite appearances, Shadowrun's magic (which is based entirely on cultural perception and opinionated memetics, which is why I am surprised there are not more Naruto-style mages and super saiyans.) is eminently capable of being studied and even in-setting they're starting to getting it right (corp mage schools re designed to indoctrinate children into the corporate culture).
Shadowrun is the epitome of what I'm trying to avoid.



That's the thing... while Mage (and Ars Magica) have these free-form spells... ones you can create at a moment, or do frequently... they're still within a comprehensible system.
And so is any magic system that isn't entirely ad-hoc by the GM. :smalltongue:

I'm not looking to be perfect, just better than what D&D does.



Or Longshot.
Rincewind is an actual wizzard though, and the reason I pointed him out is that he's explicitly the worst wizard in Discworld. :smallwink:

Asheram
2013-05-11, 04:16 PM
I understand that it's impossible to make it impossible to apply science to magic. I just want to make it hard enough that nobody has a problem with it not being scientifically analyzed in-setting, and opaque enough that the players can't quite figure it out themselves.

With that kind of magic, do you know who the mightiest wizard of all would be?



It sounds like you wish for a system in where magic is completely random, can't be taught, doesn't abide by the laws of physics even in the slightest and since it's random it's not even sure if the outcome would be beneficial.

There'd exist only one spell and the only difference you can make is how much will you put into it.

edit: It wouldn't even be called a spell since a "Spell" is defined as "A magical effect or influence induced by an incantation or formula."

Grinner
2013-05-11, 04:30 PM
I think you need to look at this from a player's perspective. If I were playing, having arbitrarily determined results accompany this indescribable magic would seem silly and unfair. You could design a system where all magic is reliant upon an Intuition trait/mechanic, but doing so would make it boringly simple from my perspective.

You mentioned that you were trying to get a sense of novelty out of the game. I don't think that constantly shifting the cause of an effect and shoving it into black box is the way to go. In fact, it's exactly the opposite of what you want to do. Novelty is the feeling you get when you discover something new. If the players aren't allowed to poke at the cause and the effect, they don't get to explore. Simultaneously, if the rules are laid out clearly and concisely, then there's no need to explore.

I think you need an emergent system.

paddyfool
2013-05-11, 04:40 PM
I recommend looking up an RPG called Victoriana, which has various kinds of magic available in a 19th century setting. I only tried it once, and we only used two of the various magic systems available in that game, but it seemed to do this rather well... especially as some of the types of magic were generally suited to fairly subtle supernatural effects.

EDIT: This review should tell you more. (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14825.phtml) What it says tallies pretty well with my experience with the game, although they left out one of the magic systems (I believe it was called shamanism, and my own witch doctor character rather specialised in it... basically, a form of ritual-based magic with a variety of effects).

Gildedragon
2013-05-11, 05:04 PM
Hard for me to say something that hasn't been said but I'll try.

Historically magic has been a technology: a cultural adaptation to the environment, and one that aimed to solve particular problems.
A practitioner of magic will act in a sort of scientific way: you entreat so-and-so with offerings of this-or-that, avoid calling x on y dates, ceremonies are performed clockwise, not widdershins... &c.
Patterns will be repeated if people enact them.
This will only be reinforced if there is an actual effect from the ceremony.

Now if you want a wilder magic that cannot be controlled:
Well for one PCs oughtn't be magic users. You've made their main class feature random (or effectively so) in effect.

Consequently, no magic practitioners. Since get dangerously unreliable results, the tech of magical practitioner dies out, or is a side practice. Also this keeps the PCs from feeling cheated of a possible class.

Rather magic has to be outside. Traditions, large complex rituals, and powerful entities are the sources of magic. For example:
Cleric is now a Profession (cleric of X) skill. And tradition says that if a priest of particular piety that performs certain ceremony at a certain time and place, those who witness it will be healed of their ailments.

Now, saying that it doesn't have rules is bad for the game. That the DM has a guideline for adjudicating things (and that the players know it) is part of the concessions of power that make the game a game as opposed to someone just telling a story. After all if the players have to rely on the DM feeling benevolent to interact with magic in the world: you might as well remove it from the world.

BWR
2013-05-12, 11:31 AM
Phil and Dixie (http://www.airshipentertainment.com/growfcomic.php?date=20091011) has some amusing comments on the whole magic & science debate in a D&D context.

LibraryOgre
2013-05-12, 11:51 AM
Then, of course, you have GOG points.

In HoL, the group got 1d6 Grace Of God points per session. GOG points could be used to stave off certain doom through amazing happenstance. However, if you tried to use a GOG point when the group was out, the HM was encouraged to be fiendishly cruel in destroying you.

Scow2
2013-05-12, 11:56 AM
I think what you're trying to do would ultimately make Magic boring and uninteresting.

The big limiter of magic? Make sure it's a personal thing, and skill that's developed. It takes a master of magic to train another, and he could only train one (Maybe two) people at once, because although magic is predictable for one person, another can't copy his techniques and get the same results. Make it non-vehicular, not random.

To offset the 'hard to train' aspect if you still want magic users is to make it "Potentially easy to pick up", with Player Characters and Spellcasting NPCs being "Exceptional" in their ability to channel the energies in the universe. The vast majority of people go their entire lives without ever learning how magic works for them, while others stumble upon their own link to the arcane by chance. (I like the idea of "Everyone's able to learn. Most never do" approach, because it doesn't feel QUITE as arbitrary as 'The universe picks some people as winners, the rest are losers)

D&D's weird about Spell-Slinging, because of the nature of Vancian Magic. You still have to prepare and perform extensive rituals to 'cast spells'. What makes it Vancian is that you hold off on 'finalizing' the spell you want to cast, triggering its effect. Emphasize the preparation part of Vancian magic to make it work.

While it's possible to industrialize magic, its personal nature and arbitrary nature make it very, VERY difficult. Perhaps by having the predictability that allows a "Magipunk" setting flat not work. It might be a good idea to make tweaking spellcasting kinda feel like programming (Oh, hey etymology!) - everyone has a different approach, and some spells work but have wonky bugs if you try applying them to unusual situations - most of such involving attempting to apply scientific rigor to making spellcasting more accessible. A cabal of mages can spend centuries trying to find ways to make magic readily available to everyone, always tantalizingly close to success, but never actually panning out. The more questions they answer, the more questions appear - and the answers they find render previous knowledge void (Which will then pop up again, rendering the 'new' knowledge void).

faustin
2013-05-12, 12:21 PM
Maybe the type of magic you are looking for, is the one of Pendragon first edition, which system can be summarized in two words:
SH*T HAPPENS
That is. There is no magic system, because magical elements are outside the control of the PJs. Miracles, monsters, demons, witches, and wizards, etc... are, ultimately, antagonist or plot devices.

Starshade
2013-05-12, 01:46 PM
Would magic who goes by a different name fit the description, like Star Wars and its force? Specially if one uses some expanded universe ish Sith Magic, force Sorcerers, etc, It got lots of stuff possible not seen in the movies.

Fibinachi
2013-05-12, 03:19 PM
Pfah. I tried opening my mind to the lizards from beyond the 7th veil once, and all I got was a headache, a cold and a surprise trip into a desert covered in the blood and bones of creatures unmentionable while a parasitic sun howled in the sky, forlornly seeking the warmth it had long since spent. Total bummer. 3 / 10. Would not contact through obscure, forbidden and esoteric practices again. Don't tip.

--
I think, maybe, what you're possibly missing is that: Anything that happens can be studied as part of a system of events

You can actually run a fairly cool "Magic is lowkey and different" by stripping out a few classes of D&D 3.5 and replacing some bonuses. I wouldn't recommend it, since a lot is built around the assumption of vancian magic, but it can be done.

You might want to try Riddle of Steel? It's an old system, it has really wonderfully intensive 1-1 combat rules, and the magic is both different, strange and able to do amazing things while remaining balanced against warriors (Since it can do stuff, sure, but it takes time - and in that time, someone will have cut you through). You end up in some problems later on, in a long running game, but it can be done quite well (eventually there's little reason for a powerful mage to do anything, since most things can be achieved with magic + time + effort, basically).

Maybe you could even try Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2. Edition. Magic is alien and other and scary, and any mage has an initial flat 10 % chance of miscasting and getting stacking insanity points and a slight chance to get pulled into the aether and killed by demons.
--

But everything is very much in how you decide to flavour your campaign and the way you describe things. If you want magic to be an inherent Other force, something different, and strange and curious, you can very easily do so by describing it as, well, different, strange and curious.

Take the new Lord of the Rings movies (not the books). Gandalf and Saruman are obviously powerful wizards, and it's clearly a magical world, but you can't really say that any specific part of Middle-Earth as depicted in that most recent trilogy is awash with magic. That's a good balance of things being clearly magical, but not bargin bin dooms-day-machine.

hiryuu makes a lot of very good points, ultimately.

Even in a standard campaign of D&D, 3.5, and Pathfinder when I ran it again, it was easily possible to make magic seem weird. Take away any spellcasting of the players, and make it an NPC only thing, then eventually allow them to learn a few neat tricks later on through study and blood. That means you've removed the inherent barrier in all of your problems (players are curious and want to make things work) by offloading them unto NPCs (magic the results ARE discordant and weird, but you'd have to spend 50 years in a tower to figure out why, and you don't have that time!) and can safely progress through the power of DM fiat and making things up.

You can imbue magic, when its done, with a sense of consequence. Even vancian spell casting can make magic seem important as long as you keep it consistent with the world. I had a campaign where the players hadn't encountered any form of magic that wasn't a 1-3 level cleric for 8 sessions, with a very specific and limited list of "Interventions" (Ie: cleric spells fluffed as "nicely asking the diety above to step in") so the moment they met a 6th level wizard who proceeded to glare at them and toss, with a twist of a hand, a fireball, everyone got really, really worried.
Also burnt.

Work with the background details. Have less casters appear openly, if at all. Toss in red herrings in the form of: "People swear by leaving milk out for the pixies! It'll bring you luck!" and "Eating the heart of your enemies give you strength". If the players do any of these, they quickly find out nothing happens. Then they've been tuned to thinking "Baseless beliefs are baseless", so when they encounter a pixie and it wants milk, or else it'll curse them, they're going to be suddenly forced to wonder what they know / what they can figure out / what parts of other people's stories make sense.

Also: Pilfer some books on magical traditions from somewhere. It's a great eye opener into certain random aspects.

hiryuu
2013-05-12, 04:04 PM
Here's what I do:

Have multiple sets of physics.

I have one, true, correct set of operators. Do not tell the players this. This is for you, so you know how to make the world react to certain stimuli.

Have a set of physics you tell the players, based on what their culture knows.

My players are only just now, after about ten years of playing in the same setting, finding out that the perceptions of the current scientific establishment are not complete (and that the PCs' cultures are just flat-out wrong about lots of things).

Make every magic item unique. Give it a history, a story, and a curse as well as a benefit, and rather than basing them on spells or giving bonuses, give them weird abilities. A sword that salivates when coated in blood and gives its wielder the ability to stand perfectly still, sword point down, and look exactly like a statue to observers (but gain no qualities thereof). A helm that allows its user to "hear" violent intent as a low rumble but washes all color from the world. An indestructible copper piece that can be telekinetically moved up to the speed of sound by its user but ensures you'll never earn an honest buck again.

Scow2
2013-05-12, 04:55 PM
I thought the objective here was to make a setting that doesn't devolve into dungeon-punk style "Magic EVERYWHERE!" systems. Why the heck are people taking that to mean "Players don't get magic, ever."

You can only have Magitek if the arcane is transferable, vehicular, and can be applied in excess. You don't need to take it away from the players.

warty goblin
2013-05-12, 05:00 PM
Or everybody takes the much simpler approach and just decides the setting isn't magitech, and don't try to turn it into magitech. You're making it all up anyway, which means it only works by communal cooperation.

Grinner
2013-05-12, 05:03 PM
Pfah. I tried opening my mind to the lizards from beyond the 7th veil once, and all I got was a headache, a cold and a surprise trip into a desert covered in the blood and bones of creatures unmentionable while a parasitic sun howled in the sky, forlornly seeking the warmth it had long since spent. Total bummer. 3 / 10. Would not contact through obscure, forbidden and esoteric practices again. Don't tip.

...This...is...a bit unsettling? Well done. :smalleek:


You can only have Magitek if the arcane is transferable, vehicular, and can be applied in excess. You don't need to take it away from the players.

This just about sums up the problem. Interestingly, it also describes D&D very well. Perhaps WoTC missed their calling?

Edit:
Or everybody takes the much simpler approach and just decides the setting isn't magitech, and don't try to turn it into magitech. You're making it all up anyway, which means it only works by communal cooperation.

That's a good idea, but it's also flawed. The mechanics are the primary means through which a player interacts with the game world; they define the game world just as much as the fluff. D&D's mechanics (assuming we're talking D&D here) do a very good job of encouraging that sort of play, since humans naturally seek any advantage they can get.

Scow2
2013-05-12, 05:16 PM
This just about sums up the problem. Interestingly, it also describes D&D very well. Perhaps WoTC missed their calling?Magic is only vehicular because of the way characters are built, and Read Magic. By default, UMD is a very rarely-taken skill, and sorcerers and wizards aren't very common, making up less than a fraction of a percentage of the population. And adepts usually have no idea what they're doing.

Lorsa
2013-05-12, 05:34 PM
By "not punk", I don't mean "shiny and nice". I mean that I want something that's closer to the "realistic" end of the balance between Rule of Cool and Realism.

Well, punk settings, as far as I understood, are defined as more dark and grim society, dystopias. As for how realistic you can get with magic I suppose that depends entirely on what you want magic to do.

Like I said, nWoD is a game that features current-day technology along with magic. Eclipse Phase might not have magic per se, but it has psychic powers which in extreme cases can extend to telekinesis and other stuff. It has plenty of technology too.

warty goblin
2013-05-12, 05:52 PM
Well, punk settings, as far as I understood, are defined as more dark and grim society, dystopias. As for how realistic you can get with magic I suppose that depends entirely on what you want magic to do.


I think that's really only true of cyberpunk. Something like steampunk is, to my understanding, people basically deciding they like an aesthetic and using it for crazy adventure times. Or at least that's how it's always looked to me.

Eldan
2013-05-12, 05:59 PM
I think that's really only true of cyberpunk. Something like steampunk is, to my understanding, people basically deciding they like an aesthetic and using it for crazy adventure times. Or at least that's how it's always looked to me.

Nah. That's just Victorian Fantasy. Something becomes Steampunk when it incorporeates both steam-based schizotech and the social problems of the 19th century. Industrialisation. Colonialism and Imperialism. The Great Game. The emergence of labour unions and socialism. Class stratification. Without that, it's not punk.

SarahV
2013-05-12, 06:23 PM
The trait which is most essential for wizards, therefore, it not intelligence, nor intuition: it's luck. It's just an anomaly with no logical reason for it, and in fact trying to run tests about it is most likely going to make it stop. For the duration of the test, at least; further frustrating the would-be scientists. :smallamused:

The first thing I thought of when I read this is: you want magic to be an ART, not a SCIENCE. Think of things like music, or comedy, or painting... to a point, competency is very important, and people can teach you how to be competent (unless you are particularly untalented). But to be truly great (in this analogy, to achieve any kind of powerful magic) one has to transcend competency and have a unique understanding of something that no one can quite explain. Extreme subtleties of timing, emphasis, volume, color, texture, and so on can make an enormous difference to the emotional response to something in ways that science cannot really explain. So anyone can train to do the basics, but only someone who is both talented and put in thousands of hours of study/practice can achieve something truly great in a way that science cannot really define.

So, analogy: anyone can go to school for X years, study really hard and learn how to create a light that lasts for ten minutes or a glass of water or something simple like that. Some talented individuals can intuitively grasp the indefinable, unteachable subtleties needed to make that light spell become a fireball and the glass of water into a torrent... done by feeling, intuition, emotional response, etc. rather than scientific analysis.

Eldan
2013-05-12, 06:28 PM
The problem is, you'd still have to put that into rules if you want players to use it. That means you have to quantify it.

Geordnet
2013-05-12, 06:54 PM
Maybe the type of magic you are looking for, is the one of Pendragon first edition, which system can be summarized in two words:
SH*T HAPPENS
That is. There is no magic system, because magical elements are outside the control of the PJs. Miracles, monsters, demons, witches, and wizards, etc... are, ultimately, antagonist or plot devices.
Yes. :smalltongue:

This is pretty much what I've meant by "Magic" all along.



The first thing I thought of when I read this is: you want magic to be an ART, not a SCIENCE.
Again, this looks what I'm seeking.


Too many posts to respond to:

I recommend looking up an RPG called Victoriana, which has various kinds of magic available in a 19th century setting. I only tried it once, and we only used two of the various magic systems available in that game, but it seemed to do this rather well... especially as some of the types of magic were generally suited to fairly subtle supernatural effects.
This seems to be very much like what I'm looking for, thanks. (I'm not sure about how close, though...)

...Now, how to apply this concept to other eras?



I think you need to look at this from a player's perspective. If I were playing, having arbitrarily determined results accompany this indescribable magic would seem silly and unfair.
You're still thinking of magic as something you should have control over. Do you have such a problem with large-scale weather, or the mechanics of orcish politics, or the precise details of your setting's history? All of these are governed by systems usually unknown to the players and/or which ultimately rely on the GM's arbitrary decision. Why must magic be any different?


You could design a system where all magic is reliant upon an Intuition trait/mechanic, but doing so would make it boringly simple from my perspective.
It depends entirely on how well-written said system is.


You mentioned that you were trying to get a sense of novelty out of the game. I don't think that constantly shifting the cause of an effect and shoving it into black box is the way to go. In fact, it's exactly the opposite of what you want to do. Novelty is the feeling you get when you discover something new. If the players aren't allowed to poke at the cause and the effect, they don't get to explore. Simultaneously, if the rules are laid out clearly and concisely, then there's no need to explore.
You're right about me wanting novelty. But you're mistaken about what I intend to do. I don't mean to throw magic out the window entirely -I just want to avoid understanding at the start; and additionally being able to extrapolate future cause/effect pairs.



I think you need an emergent system.
Please elaborate. :smallconfused:



Rather magic has to be outside. Traditions, large complex rituals, and powerful entities are the sources of magic. For example:
Cleric is now a Profession (cleric of X) skill. And tradition says that if a priest of particular piety that performs certain ceremony at a certain time and place, those who witness it will be healed of their ailments.
This is certainly something I'd like, have magic separate from level. Ironically, it becomes more than a tool than ever before -a new spellbook is essentially a weapons upgrade- but in all I think it makes more sense. Not sure it'd fit with what I'm going for here, but it's something I'd certainly like to see more of in general.


Now, saying that it doesn't have rules is bad for the game. That the DM has a guideline for adjudicating things (and that the players know it) is part of the concessions of power that make the game a game as opposed to someone just telling a story. After all if the players have to rely on the DM feeling benevolent to interact with magic in the world: you might as well remove it from the world.
That's essentially what I'm doing. I'm starting with a world with no magic, then trying to put just a little bit back in to adjust the flavor without being overpowering. Magic is to be something "out of place", weird. The question is, can this be done well?



Phil and Dixie (http://www.airshipentertainment.com/growfcomic.php?date=20091011) has some amusing comments on the whole magic & science debate in a D&D context.
Yep. Again, this is what I'm trying to avoid.



Would magic who goes by a different name fit the description, like Star Wars and its force?
Yes; the name is irrelevant. Star Wars has the Force right, but as space opera it's not the kind of setting I'm looking for. A better question would be how one might integrate magic in hard sci-fi/speculative fiction.


So far, here's what's been collected:

Magic relies less on procedure and more on unquantifiable qualities/intuition.
The primary governing force of magic is GM fiat, with a bare minimum of rules necessary for the game.
Magic is primarily subtle, with large-scale effects very rare/powerful magic.
The PCs can't be primary spellcasters, because studying magic in-depth requires a lifetime or more of work, leaving no time for adventuring.
Magic is not controlled by/come from the caster, it comes from/answers to an external force/only itself.


Any other 'rules' to add?

Grinner
2013-05-12, 07:12 PM
So far, here's what's been collected:

Magic relies less on procedure and more on unquantifiable qualities/intuition.
The primary governing force of magic is GM fiat, with a bare minimum of rules necessary for the game.
Magic is primarily subtle, with large-scale effects very rare/powerful magic.
The PCs can't be primary spellcasters, because studying magic in-depth requires a lifetime or more of work, leaving no time for adventuring.
Magic is not controlled by/come from the caster, it comes from/answers to an external force/only itself.


Any other 'rules' to add?

When attempting to cast a spell, state a desired effect and roll a number of d6s equivalent to your character's Wisdom modifier. Consult with the chart below to find the result of each roll.


{table="head"]Result|Effect
1|Consult with the DM
2|Consult with the DM
3|Consult with the DM
4|Consult with the DM
5|Consult with the DM
6|Consult with the DM
[/table]

edit: forgot the blue

neonchameleon
2013-05-12, 07:30 PM
It's actually quite simple. Magic is all about bargains. No human (or PC race) has ever or will ever be able to cast a decent spell (a couple of minor spells like Summoning Circles, and some protective magic that works only against magic, yes). All humans can really do is create a summoning circle, which is the equivalent of posting something on a message board or sending a text message. Then, if they are lucky, they get an answer from a demon, an elemental, a djinn, or whatever. And the negotiation starts. The summoned creature has power and desires, and can offer some of that to the summoner in exchange for ... whatever the summoned creature wants or the summoner offers. Different demons have different desires and are willing to give their summoners different favours. And the magic granted (whether a power loan or a favour) is tied specifically to the contract made at the summoning or other bargain.

Geordnet
2013-05-12, 07:45 PM
When attempting to cast a spell, state a desired effect and roll a number of d6s equivalent to your character's Wisdom modifier. Consult with the chart below to find the result of each roll.


{table="head"]Result|Effect
1|Consult with the DM
2|Consult with the DM
3|Consult with the DM
4|Consult with the DM
5|Consult with the DM
6|Consult with the DM
[/table]

edit: forgot the blue
That makes the rules for spellcasting pretty much the same as those for shoving the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch up Smaug's throat, doesn't it? :smalltongue:

Asheram
2013-05-13, 03:05 AM
That makes the rules for spellcasting pretty much the same as those for shoving the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch up Smaug's throat, doesn't it? :smalltongue:

A plot device and a railroading tool.

Would you be the GM for this or would you like to play it?

faustin
2013-05-13, 03:40 AM
Again ,for hidden, subtle yet useful, ritualistic magic in a modern setting, you maybe want to take a look to GURPS Voodoo or Hoodoo Blues (http://www.vajraenterprises.com/!hoodoo/).

Heliomance
2013-05-13, 04:13 AM
It's actually quite simple. Magic is all about bargains. No human (or PC race) has ever or will ever be able to cast a decent spell (a couple of minor spells like Summoning Circles, and some protective magic that works only against magic, yes). All humans can really do is create a summoning circle, which is the equivalent of posting something on a message board or sending a text message. Then, if they are lucky, they get an answer from a demon, an elemental, a djinn, or whatever. And the negotiation starts. The summoned creature has power and desires, and can offer some of that to the summoner in exchange for ... whatever the summoned creature wants or the summoner offers. Different demons have different desires and are willing to give their summoners different favours. And the magic granted (whether a power loan or a favour) is tied specifically to the contract made at the summoning or other bargain.
Still possible to apply science to. You build up a database of the beings that most commonly answer such rituals, complete with personality profiles. You note any modifications that make it more likely to attract the attention of a particular being. You record what each one is motivated by, what sort of bargains they tend to strike. You record what each one seems to be able to give, and what price they tend to ask for varying degrees of service. And while you still won't get perfect results, you'll be able to make things a lot more reliable than drawing a summoning circle and hoping for the best.

Heliomance
2013-05-13, 04:38 AM
It's actually quite simple. Magic is all about bargains. No human (or PC race) has ever or will ever be able to cast a decent spell (a couple of minor spells like Summoning Circles, and some protective magic that works only against magic, yes). All humans can really do is create a summoning circle, which is the equivalent of posting something on a message board or sending a text message. Then, if they are lucky, they get an answer from a demon, an elemental, a djinn, or whatever. And the negotiation starts. The summoned creature has power and desires, and can offer some of that to the summoner in exchange for ... whatever the summoned creature wants or the summoner offers. Different demons have different desires and are willing to give their summoners different favours. And the magic granted (whether a power loan or a favour) is tied specifically to the contract made at the summoning or other bargain.
Still possible to apply science to. You build up a database of the beings that most commonly answer such rituals, complete with personality profiles. You note any modifications that make it more likely to attract the attention of a particular being. You record what each one is motivated by, what sort of bargains they tend to strike. You record what each one seems to be able to give, and what price they tend to ask for varying degrees of service. And while you still won't get perfect results, you'll be able to make things a lot more reliable than drawing a summoning circle and hoping for the best.

Actually, I'm very interested in a setting exactly the opposite of what the OP wants. The main difference between technology and magic, in my view, is that technology has a very high startup cost (research) but a very low upkeep cost (once a level of technology has been reached, anyone can use it, no restriction on uses per day). Magic has a low startup cost (you don't need to build on anything to get started, it's all there) but a high upkeep cost (training one mage doesn't let anyone other than that mage benefit from magic, except by the direct service of that mage, limitations on how much mgic it's possible to do in a given period).

What this results in is a society that has magic stagnating technologically, because as mentioned,


'Look Jorge! With the aid of ten months wages of polished glass lenses, I can poorly duplicate the effects of a cantrip that is in the workbooks of most educated primary schoolers!'

You need to get to a certain level of technology before it starts to have any benefits over magic, and if you have magic there's no imperative to pay that startup cost of research. I can't think of any realistic way to have a setting with proper integration of magic and science, unless magic was unavailable until the scientific method was already a well-established method of thinking, and technology had advanced far enough that people could see that continuing to research non-magical things has benefits even with magic.

neonchameleon
2013-05-13, 06:09 AM
Still possible to apply science to. You build up a database of the beings that most commonly answer such rituals, complete with personality profiles. You note any modifications that make it more likely to attract the attention of a particular being. You record what each one is motivated by, what sort of bargains they tend to strike. You record what each one seems to be able to give, and what price they tend to ask for varying degrees of service. And while you still won't get perfect results, you'll be able to make things a lot more reliable than drawing a summoning circle and hoping for the best.

All you've really done there is replaced grimoires by only slightly more detailed databases. And you probably don't have enough observations for more than the equivalent of a few good grimoires anyway unless you pester the demons (which is going ot annoy them).


I can't think of any realistic way to have a setting with proper integration of magic and science, unless magic was unavailable until the scientific method was already a well-established method of thinking, and technology had advanced far enough that people could see that continuing to research non-magical things has benefits even with magic.

Magic can only be used by the few. Or the old fallback All Magic Is Evocation (or otherwise limited to a few spheres). Or magic is dispelled by the touch of cold iron and other such interactions.

Geordnet
2013-05-13, 10:24 PM
Still possible to apply science to.

Of course it's still possible; making it completely impossible wasn't the objective. It just needs to be opaque enough that the Players won't be able to accurately predict what's going to happen in advance, and that it's understandable why it hasn't been "industrialized" in-setting yet.

"Eldrich Pact" magic fulfills these two requirements adequately, so long as the bargain-making process is roleplayed out or done off-screen by NPCs, and that the cost of such deals is tangible story-wise.

It's only one way to do it, though, and I'm still on the lookout for more.



A plot device and a railroading tool.

Would you be the GM for this or would you like to play it?

It's already present in every RPG you've ever played that doesn't rely entirely on random encounter tables. (In which case, why do you need a GM?) Call it an "ugly truth" if you will, but I think it's a silly taboo to ignore the fact that in the end everything comes down to GM arbitration.

All I'm doing is taking that GM arbitration out into the open. I understand that if you've got a bad GM, giving the GM more control would just make things worse; but by the same measure I believe it would give a good GM the ability to make things even better.

If you cannot abide this, or fear the risk is too great, you need not play in any such games! Nobody's forcing you to do things my way.



I can't think of any realistic way to have a setting with proper integration of magic and science, unless magic was unavailable until the scientific method was already a well-established method of thinking, and technology had advanced far enough that people could see that continuing to research non-magical things has benefits even with magic.
I seek not integration of the two -in fact that is what I am trying to avoid. I want to have the two exist in the same setting utterly independent of one another.

Bezzerker
2013-05-13, 11:13 PM
One way I can think of to drive home the point that Magic is strange, is to have detectors register when it's in the area.

All detectors. Regardless of what they are tuned to detect. Always to the maximum that can be accurately displayed for that detector.

But none of the devices will sound any alarms, even if the device would normally set off an alarm if a certain threshold is passed. A person will only notice if they are actually looking at a device.

I bet that would start to unnerve the players after a while, if they manage to notice this little detail.

Tholomyes
2013-05-13, 11:22 PM
I've done a 19th century feel, with magic decently. The way I did it was through having a far off nation who has a more tech than magic focus. Through a sort of silk-road sort of transition, higher tech levels, and 19th century ideals came to a highly magical area.

But as for how to make it work, from a storytelling perspective, I didn't find it that hard. Maybe it's just I really like the works of Victor Hugo, so I found it easy to replace the Medieval setting of most Fantasy with 19th century France.

faustin
2013-05-14, 02:20 AM
"Eldrich Pact" magic fulfills these two requirements adequately, so long as the bargain-making process is roleplayed out or done off-screen by NPCs, and that the cost of such deals is tangible story-wise.


Unknown Armies. Adepts are guys with a unhealthy obsession (alcohol, drugs, money, TV, etc...) which grants them powers to defy reality, at the cost of self destructive acts.

Heliomance
2013-05-14, 04:50 AM
I seek not integration of the two -in fact that is what I am trying to avoid. I want to have the two exist in the same setting utterly independent of one another.

I think you missed the paragraph before that, where I said I was interested in exactly the opposite.

Geordnet
2013-05-14, 03:56 PM
One way I can think of to drive home the point that Magic is strange, is to have detectors register when it's in the area.
Even stranger would be to sometimes have 'detectors' (which in itself is too vague a term) read at max, sometimes at minimum, sometimes as normal, sometimes impossible values, and sometimes at simply incorrect values. Sometimes alarms won't go off when they should, or do go off when they shouldn't; other times they'd go off exactly as designed. To have magic always behave in such a readily noticeable pattern is just asking for Science to be applied to it.



I've done a 19th century feel, with magic decently.
I'd be interested in hearing more details. :smallsmile:



I think you missed the paragraph before that, where I said I was interested in exactly the opposite.
What, you mean this one?

Actually, I'm very interested in a setting exactly the opposite of what the OP wants. The main difference between technology and magic, in my view, is that technology has a very high startup cost (research) but a very low upkeep cost (once a level of technology has been reached, anyone can use it, no restriction on uses per day). Magic has a low startup cost (you don't need to build on anything to get started, it's all there) but a high upkeep cost (training one mage doesn't let anyone other than that mage benefit from magic, except by the direct service of that mage, limitations on how much mgic it's possible to do in a given period).
That is "Integration": "magic" is integrated into society. (That makes "Magic" just another technology, just with an unusual set of advantages and limitations.)

I'm looking for something where magic exists, but belief in and practice of it is no more widespread than the analogous real-world superstitions are/were.

Tholomyes
2013-05-14, 04:53 PM
I'd be interested in hearing more details. :smallsmile:

Ok, it's been a while, so I might not have all the details right, but it was essentially, as I said before, a campaign heavily influenced by the works of Victor Hugo. I drew upon some homebrew rules for guns (not sure where I found them, somewhere on line) which were essentially the default assumption of weapons for martial characters. Plenty of them had melee side-arms, but guns were the assumed weapon.

I remember that being a terribly large amount of work, and I wish I could find my notes on it, but I had some really neat rules alterations (since heavy armor wouldn't be effective in such a timeline, I had rules for AC bonuses for normally heavily armored classes; I had some changes to class features, like an alternate precision damage mechanic for rogues, since sneak attack would be less useful as written, stuff like that). To match the feel of the 19th century, there were still clerics of deities, but players were equally encouraged to have divinely powered characters draw their spells/abilities from an ideology rather than a deity.

As for the campaign itself, it was fairly political, with the backdrop of a nation very similar to Post-Napoleonic France, with several Factions trying to vie for political control, between the old Royal house, an alliance of Aristocrats, who wanted more of an oligarchy, Factions loyal to the Disgraced Emperor, and of course Radical factions in favor of a Republic. It became largely a Law-vs-Chaos rather than a Good-vs-Evil struggle.

Since the game was pretty urban, magical creatures were rarer, and less in the forefront than they would be in normal games. The party might encounter Zombies in the sewers, or might be attacked by Hobgoblins on their way to a more rural area, but the vast majority of their foes would be sentient humanoids, due to the nature of the urban campaign.

Magic was integrated into the setting, but rarely mixed much with technology. For example, the revolutionary faction might use printing presses to publish their message, and they might use guns for fighting, but they also might carry Potions of Invisibility or Scrolls of Dimention Door to escape from police. I had toyed with the idea of artificers to give some sort of magitek, but felt that that would be too much for the setting, so I left it out.

The campaign didn't last as long as I would have liked, mostly for Real life reasons, but I think it worked pretty well. Part of what I'd recommend is having a good grasp on the literature of the time, since most of my decisions were subconscious, just trying to capture the feel of Victor Hugo's works. Were I to do it again, I might not use D&D for the system, since a lot of the system didn't really fit with the feel I was going for, but in other ways, it was actually pretty neat, to see unique twists on the archetypal fantasy classes, such as philosopher clerics, rather than priestly ones.

Grinner
2013-05-14, 07:44 PM
What, you mean this one?
That is "Integration": "magic" is integrated into society. (That makes "Magic" just another technology, just with an unusual set of advantages and limitations.)

I'm looking for something where magic exists, but belief in and practice of it is no more widespread than the analogous real-world superstitions are/were.

You're completely ignoring the human element.

Gildedragon
2013-05-14, 08:39 PM
but belief in and practice of it is no more widespread than the analogous real-world superstitions are/were.

So... universal?
because that's kinda what the case is. esoteric practices occur in virtually all cultures ancient and modern, and at varying social strata and with varying degrees of specialization.

Malinowski makes some interesting points about how magic is a technology and how it acts in the social world in "Coral gardens and their magic"

Geordnet
2013-05-14, 08:58 PM
The campaign didn't last as long as I would have liked, mostly for Real life reasons, but I think it worked pretty well. Part of what I'd recommend is having a good grasp on the literature of the time, since most of my decisions were subconscious, just trying to capture the feel of Victor Hugo's works. Were I to do it again, I might not use D&D for the system, since a lot of the system didn't really fit with the feel I was going for, but in other ways, it was actually pretty neat, to see unique twists on the archetypal fantasy classes, such as philosopher clerics, rather than priestly ones.

Hm... Well, that does sound interesting; enough to think that maybe I'm coming from the wrong angle (keep magic integrated, just demolish the stereotypes of it). The philosopher clerics are particularly intriguing; I'd pair them up with enlightened magi and blur/break down the line between divine and arcane magic. Yeah, I like that -I'd go so far as to coalesce all magic into a single source, but with specialties. (I'd even get rid of the notion of combat casting entirely, forcing magic into a purely supporting role.)

And your suggestion to get familiar with contemporary literature makes sense, I'll need to make sure that I do that...



You're completely ignoring the human element.
How so? :smallconfused:



So... universal?
because that's kinda what the case is. esoteric practices occur in virtually all cultures ancient and modern, and at varying social strata and with varying degrees of specialization.
But how it many people in those cultures actually practice magic like you'd see in D&D? Especially in a culture akin to Early Modern Europe (the "Enlightened Period")? :smallconfused:


Malinowski makes some interesting points about how magic is a technology and how it acts in the social world in "Coral gardens and their magic"
I'm not talking about that sort of culture, I'm talking about a culture in which technology is based on the scientific process. :smalltongue:

Grinner
2013-05-14, 09:40 PM
How so? :smallconfused:

People do things to satisfy their needs, right? If magic doesn't solve their problems or even actively harms them, then what does it do for them? Why would they bother with it? How can they justify the risk for absolutely no benefit?

Why got you onto this anyway? Do you not like how D&D treats wizards? If we understood you better, we could better address your concerns.

Geordnet
2013-05-14, 10:03 PM
People do things to satisfy their needs, right? If magic doesn't solve their problems or even actively harms them, then what does it do for them? Why would they bother with it? How can they justify the risk for absolutely no benefit?
You make a good point, that might actually help to explain why it isn't widely used. If the cost of magic is such that it is acceptable to a few people, but not to most, then it would make sense why it is an obscure practice.



Why got you onto this anyway? Do you not like how D&D treats wizards? If we understood you better, we could better address your concerns.
No, I don't like how D&D handles wizards. At least, not all the time. I mean, it's okay in an of itself; but sometimes I just want a wizard whom actually looks like he came out of folklore. This is one of those times.

I want magic that looks like it could have actually existed in the real world (or at least an alternate history) in the period the setting is based on. At the very least, it should be possible to imagine it having actually existed at some point in our past, in a vaguish general sense.

Cerlis
2013-05-14, 10:14 PM
You make a good point, that might actually help to explain why it isn't widely used. If the cost of magic is such that it is acceptable to a few people, but not to most, then it would make sense why it is an obscure practice.



No, I don't like how D&D handles wizards. At least, not all the time. I mean, it's okay in an of itself; but sometimes I just want a wizard whom actually looks like he came out of folklore. This is one of those times.

I want magic that looks like it could have actually existed in the real world (or at least an alternate history) in the period the setting is based on. At the very least, it should be possible to imagine it having actually existed at some point in our past, in a vaguish general sense.

I dont know. the way the books depict Raistlin's casting seems pretty "realistic" and its exactly DnD.

I know alot of people here are stuck on the notion that the way players molest abuse misuse magic in the system is suppose to be how it actually works.

Geordnet
2013-05-14, 10:36 PM
I dont know. the way the books depict Raistlin's casting seems pretty "realistic" and its exactly DnD.

I know alot of people here are stuck on the notion that the way players molest abuse misuse magic in the system is suppose to be how it actually works.

I don't know the books to speak of, but if it's D&D then magic is probably still a part of "normality".

I want magic to be special, a specific exception to the usual rules. In my eyes, a Light spell is as mundane as a torch, if practically every adventuring party has one. I would much rather have the darkness be a significant obstacle that the PCs have to overcome, so that when (If!) the PCs find a magical lantern that never goes out, it is seen as a miraculous godsend.

That one magic lantern in a world where light must be struggled for would be worth more than a thousand permanent Light spells in a world where every 1st-level wizard knows it.

Beleriphon
2013-05-14, 11:04 PM
I'll look into those, then; see if any are what I'm looking for. (I'm worried about making magic the focus when I want it to be subtle in the background.

From a game rule perspective M&M (at least second and third edition) work on the basis that the description of an effect is more relevant than the actual effect rules. A blast of fire and a canon shot could use the same rules (ranged damage) to resolve the attack but work differently in terms of how characters would react to them.

JusticeZero
2013-05-14, 11:08 PM
That one magic lantern in a world where light must be struggled for would be worth more than a thousand permanent Light spells in a world where every 1st-level wizard knows it.
So you want your game to be essentially indistinguishable from a no-magic game?

Geordnet
2013-05-15, 12:26 AM
From a game rule perspective M&M (at least second and third edition) work on the basis that the description of an effect is more relevant than the actual effect rules. A blast of fire and a canon shot could use the same rules (ranged damage) to resolve the attack but work differently in terms of how characters would react to them.
The basis I would prefer to start from is that the cannon shot would be modeled as realistically as possible (which is nothing like a blast of fire), while the fireball would be a plot device with its effects entirely roleplayed and/or done ad-hoc by the GM (or at least homebrewed with the exact details kept secret).



So you want your game to be essentially indistinguishable from a no-magic game?
Kind of. :smalltongue:

I did say earlier that I wanted to start with a no-magic setting, then adding just enough magic to make it different. It should be entirely possible to have an adventure or even a campaign in the setting without even a hint of magic (even though you probably won't ever play such a campaign). But at the same time, it's possible to have a wizard cast spells that would be considered epic level in D&D... But only when necessary. (And you definitely shouldn't ask him to do it on demand.)

The primary advantage of a Wizard in such a setting is his knowledge, not his fireballs. Pre-scientific revolution settings could see such a wizard in a mentor role, or filling a support role similar to a modern "scientist" class.


What I would think would be the ideal wizard would be to have a special character, outside the normal class and level system. It's powers would be in theory unlimited... But the player must play the exact role that the GM gives him (usually this will involve only aiding and enabling the other characters, never taking the glory or the gold for himself). Violating this rule will cause the player to lose control of the wizard, whom is reverted into an NPC.

So, basically you've converted magic into a purely RP system, outside the normal mechanics of the rules. Unfortunately, this is by definition an unenforceable system, which means it's impossible to do well unless you have a group that perfectly meshes together -in which case it doesn't matter what system you use. It's a Catch 22. You can see my dilemma... :smallannoyed:


Anyways, I figure that failing that, the next-best thing would be to just go the opposite direction from the norm: drain the world of magic instead of saturating it.

Bezzerker
2013-05-15, 12:39 AM
Even stranger would be to sometimes have 'detectors' (which in itself is too vague a term) read at max, sometimes at minimum, sometimes as normal, sometimes impossible values, and sometimes at simply incorrect values. Sometimes alarms won't go off when they should, or do go off when they shouldn't; other times they'd go off exactly as designed. To have magic always behave in such a readily noticeable pattern is just asking for Science to be applied to it.

Science will be applied regardless of your intentions as a GM. Your players will find some pattern, even if you try and subvert the pattern as often as possible.

The main issue with trying to create Magic that is truly random and defies all attempts to quantify it, is that no one will use it if Magic cannot be performed on command.

Whether it's contacting some eldritch being to bargain for power, waving around a specially crafted stick in a precise pattern, or saying the right words in the right place, Magic has to be able to be repeatably done for anyone to consider using it. Otherwise, Magic is simply bizarre coincidences, nothing more.

If it can be repeatedly done, then Science will be applied to it at some point. Even if it's by an NPC, they will want to try and make the Magic they use better, to get a bigger Fireball, and so forth.

Gildedragon
2013-05-15, 12:50 AM
But the player must play the exact role that the GM gives him (usually this will involve only aiding and enabling the other characters, never taking the glory or the gold for himself). Violating this rule will cause the player to lose control of the wizard, whom is reverted into an NPC.

That is a terrible option. Why even bother playing if the DM is the one calling the PC's shots. In fact it'd strip the player of all agency.
The system you want cannot have the PC's do magic because it relies on DM fiat, rather than on the PC's inventiveness and will.

Geordnet
2013-05-15, 12:53 AM
Science will be applied regardless of your intentions as a GM. Your players will find some pattern, even if you try and subvert the pattern as often as possible.
Of course they will, trying to piece it together was the whole point of having it mysterious in the first place! :smalltongue:

It just needs to be able to keep the players from piecing everything together until the end of the campaign. (The next campaign will have an entirely new set of rules which must be learned from scratch.)



The main issue with trying to create Magic that is truly random and defies all attempts to quantify it, is that no one will use it if Magic cannot be performed on command.
Truly random magic is just one of several options. And people gamble all the time, especially if they think the odds are in their favor.



Whether it's contacting some eldritch being to bargain for power, waving around a specially crafted stick in a precise pattern, or saying the right words in the right place, Magic has to be able to be repeatably done for anyone to consider using it. Otherwise, Magic is simply bizarre coincidences, nothing more.
And the problem with that is...? :smallconfused:



If it can be repeatedly done, then Science will be applied to it at some point. Even if it's by an NPC, they will want to try and make the Magic they use better, to get a bigger Fireball, and so forth.
Assuming they can poke into things Man Was Not Meant To Poke Into without suffering the consequences...

A good wizard knows enough, but not too much. The ones who know too much as a rule go insane, killing themselves or becoming evil wizards. :smallwink:




That is a terrible option. Why even bother playing if the DM is the one calling the PC's shots. In fact it'd strip the player of all agency.
The system you want cannot have the PC's do magic because it relies on DM fiat, rather than on the PC's inventiveness and will.
It relies entirely on the cooperation and good will of both the GM and the player. The GM gives the player ultimate power because he trusts the player not to misuse it. The player in turn plays the role the GM gave him. (Which does NOT mean following a script written by the GM. It means doing what you think the character as described to you by the GM would do. It's no different than what an improv actor does, from what I understand. It's pretty much what RP is; the only difference is who decides what the character is like -the player decides the exact actions either way.)

This relationship works because both parties cooperate in good faith with each other. The player gets to be a powerful character, but willingly holds back this power. The GM says how this power is to be used in broad terms, but allows the player freedom to use it however he wishes within these boundaries. Any conflict between the two is worked out in a civilized manner, and if no satisfactory agreement can be reached then the relationship is willingly broken.

At least, that's how it would ideally work. Even I'm not naive enough to think that it's likely to happen in practice. :smallyuk:

hiryuu
2013-05-15, 01:32 AM
And the problem with that is...? :smallconfused:

If you don't know that's a problem, you've probably never had to write a cohesive story. Making story elements completely inexplicable is such a basic, gaping mistake that I'm having trouble getting into the mode of thought that wants it to happen. The inability of plot elements to build on each other is literally useless in a narrative, and magic that does things just because it does them is a pointless exercise. That is the first thing we learn in specfic.

Regardless.

I also suggest looking at the Medieval Player's Manual (http://www.greenronin.com/store/product/grr1403e.html) if you can find it, most specifically the section on Charisms. That's a good example of a way to keep magic mysterious and in the player's hands.

Actually, most of the Mythic Vistas line is really nice.

L5R could also work.
WoD Mirrors has an interesting approach, as well.

One final approach is to talk to the players about it beforehand. "I want magic to be mysterious, so be prepared for me to pull the rug out from under you multiple times."

That might actually work.

Heliomance
2013-05-15, 02:17 AM
What, you mean this one?

That is "Integration": "magic" is integrated into society. (That makes "Magic" just another technology, just with an unusual set of advantages and limitations.)

I'm looking for something where magic exists, but belief in and practice of it is no more widespread than the analogous real-world superstitions are/were.

yes, I know that that's integration. That's exactly my point. My post wasn't an answer to your question, it was a related side topic. I personally am interested in finding or building a setting that has a greater than usual integration between magic and technology - as I stated, the exact opposite of your question. It's a valid post for the thread as it is remaining on the super-topic of integration between science and magic, but I'm looking in a completely different direction to you. Responding to my post with "that's the opposite of what I want" when my post said "this is the opposite of what the OP wants, but I'm interested in it" isn't particularly constructive.

Geordnet
2013-05-15, 08:32 AM
If you don't know that's a problem, you've probably never had to write a cohesive story. Making story elements completely inexplicable is such a basic, gaping mistake that I'm having trouble getting into the mode of thought that wants it to happen. The inability of plot elements to build on each other is literally useless in a narrative, and magic that does things just because it does them is a pointless exercise. That is the first thing we learn in specfic.
I don't see how magic that does stuff just because would prevent plot elements from building upon each other. The story wouldn't be about magic, it'd be about the characters' reactions to this extremely random force in their lives.



I also suggest looking at the Medieval Player's Manual (http://www.greenronin.com/store/product/grr1403e.html) if you can find it, most specifically the section on Charisms. That's a good example of a way to keep magic mysterious and in the player's hands.
I'll look into it.



One final approach is to talk to the players about it beforehand. "I want magic to be mysterious, so be prepared for me to pull the rug out from under you multiple times."

That might actually work.
Oh, that one's a given in any case. :smalltongue:



Responding to my post with "that's the opposite of what I want" when my post said "this is the opposite of what the OP wants, but I'm interested in it" isn't particularly constructive.
It wasn't clear that you were talking about the same thing in that part of your post; I thought you had switched topics.

Scow2
2013-05-15, 09:41 AM
I'm looking for something where magic exists, but belief in and practice of it is no more widespread than the analogous real-world superstitions are/were.
So... absolutely ubiquitous? :smallconfused:

Historically, everyone practiced superstitious beliefs, and prior to the rise of the Catholic Church, "magic", and a lot of "Witchcraft" as well - and the Church just replaced those with prayers of similar form and function. If you don't practice any superstitions or dice-magic yourself, can you really call yourself a tabletop gamer?

The biggest practitioners of 'Magic" were alchemists and witches - both being proto-scientists and pharmacists, respectively. Even Sir Isaac Newton was an alchemist, and he's one of the most famed scientists of all time.

Etymologically speaking, Glamour (Which has an archaic definition synonymous with enchantment and magic) and Grammar (Which has an archaic defintion synonymous with learning), are both corruptions of the same damn word. By trying to take the science out of magic, you are also taking the magic out of magic.

Geordnet
2013-05-15, 02:55 PM
So... absolutely ubiquitous? :smallconfused:
Perhaps I misspoke there. I meant no more common than I thought they were at the time, before this was pointed out to me. I certainly didn't think through all the implications, either. :smallyuk:
(That's actually true of several things I've said on this thread...)



If you don't practice any superstitions or dice-magic yourself, can you really call yourself a tabletop gamer?
No, I call myself a wargamer. One who's much more familiar with historical wargames, especially of the hex-and-counter variety, than with RPGs. :smalltongue:



By trying to take the science out of magic, you are also taking the magic out of magic.
Let me put it this way:

There are two sides to a discovery. One is the thing after the discovery, where it is well-documented and understood. The other is before, when it is seemingly arbitrary and mysterious.

What I mean by Magic is stuff on the "before" side, and by Technology I mean stuff on the "after" side. Everyone who's said nobody would use Magic by my definition is right, I've realized; "not something that people in general use" is in most cases implicit to my definition of Magic.

Now, the examples you gave, especially Sir Isaac Newton, are remembered because they stood upon the apex of discovery: they started out not understanding things, but they then gained that understanding.

But as it stands, "magic" is on the wrong side for this process of discovery to occur. Magic can follow rules, but they cannot be known to the players at first. How difficult these rules are to figure out and how many layers of complexity they have will determine how long and interesting this process is.



Basically, what I think I'm looking for now is a system for building systems. A set of rules for generating a new set of rules each adventure or campaign, so that things can stay balanced while still being fresh and new each time.

hiryuu
2013-05-15, 03:12 PM
Perhaps I misspoke there. I meant no more common than I thought they were at the time, before this was pointed out to me. I certainly didn't think through all the implications, either. :smallyuk:
(That's actually true of several things I've said on this thread...)



No, I call myself a wargamer. One who's much more familiar with historical wargames, especially of the hex-and-counter variety, than with RPGs. :smalltongue:



Let me put it this way:

There are two sides to a discovery. One is the thing after the discovery, where it is well-documented and understood. The other is before, when it is seemingly arbitrary and mysterious.

What I mean by Magic is stuff on the "before" side, and by Technology I mean stuff on the "after" side. Everyone who's said nobody would use Magic by my definition is right, I've realized; "not something that people in general use" is in most cases implicit to my definition of Magic.

Now, the examples you gave, especially Sir Isaac Newton, are remembered because they stood upon the apex of discovery: they started out not understanding things, but they then gained that understanding.

But as it stands, "magic" is on the wrong side for this process of discovery to occur. Magic can follow rules, but they cannot be known to the players at first. How difficult these rules are to figure out and how many layers of complexity they have will determine how long and interesting this process is.

That is going to turn the game into a game about the discovery of how magic works. I think that's what people have been trying to say. If you put "terra incognito" on a campaign map, expect players and PCs to drop everything and go there. If you tell them magic isn't understood, well, guess who's going to lock themselves in a basement with piles of research materials? By the same token, guess who's gonna get bored and angry when it seems out of their reach.


Basically, what I think I'm looking for now is a system for building systems. A set of rules for generating a new set of rules each adventure or campaign, so that things can stay balanced while still being fresh and new each time.

Oh, you want Mutants & Masterminds, then. Definitely. M&M is essentially a toolbox. Ignore the "hero" bravado it's got and pull the PL down to, say, 6 or 8, tweak healing times, and it does gritty fantasy fairly well. By the same token, you're free to describe things however you want and the end result is gotten by tinkering with base powers - as someone said before, the result of a cannon blast or a fireball is about the same by the rules, but the descriptors (how you would react to, counter, or attempt to escape it) are different.

Beleriphon
2013-05-15, 04:01 PM
Oh, you want Mutants & Masterminds, then. Definitely. M&M is essentially a toolbox. Ignore the "hero" bravado it's got and pull the PL down to, say, 6 or 8, tweak healing times, and it does gritty fantasy fairly well. By the same token, you're free to describe things however you want and the end result is gotten by tinkering with base powers - as someone said before, the result of a cannon blast or a fireball is about the same by the rules, but the descriptors (how you would react to, counter, or attempt to escape it) are different.

That was me, and yes M&M using the same rules for magic and everything else works pretty well. Its an abstraction, but the important part is how powerful and effect is and how that effect affects a character. Most damage effects are resolved against Toughness, but they could be Will or Fortitude. Whether the attack is a sword, a gun shot, a cannon round or a bolt of fire they all use the same GAME rules to resolve the attack. Some may be more or less powerful, but the integrated rules system works nicely for ease of game play.

Descriptors are as, if not more, important than the base effects. For example if you have a fire bolt then it should set the surroundings on fire. Cannon shot will leave furrows in the ground. These aren't "rules" from the way the effects work for damage but rather a function of the way such and attack would work.

On the flip side resisting attacks are all handled the same way. There are ways to improve or impair your resistances to some kinds of attacks, but they are all done the same way.

Grinner
2013-05-15, 04:05 PM
Basically, what I think I'm looking for now is a system for building systems. A set of rules for generating a new set of rules each adventure or campaign, so that things can stay balanced while still being fresh and new each time.

I'm not sure that's quite the most effective approach...

The decision to incorporate magic into a game should be driven by purpose. It should say something about the game's world. Magic incorporated into a setting just for the sake of having it there begs to be exploited as a technology. If it doesn't have a higher purpose, people will put it to work for a lower purpose.

Take Unknown Armies for instance. According to the game, the world is periodically reborn, but the shape it takes is determined by a celestial planning committee of gods. The thing is that these gods are all human, but they got themselves elected to this committee by the virtue of being extremely powerful magicians.

Basically, if you incorporate magic into your game as a fashion statement, then expect people to trivialize it, because it is trivial.

Edit: If you really want your magic-system system, just make a couple of charts describing the conditions which facilitate or limit magic. Combine this with a couple of generic magic systems (D&D psionics, D&D Vancian casting, etc.) and edit the spell lists to taste.

Excession
2013-05-15, 05:50 PM
Basically, what I think I'm looking for now is a system for building systems. A set of rules for generating a new set of rules each adventure or campaign, so that things can stay balanced while still being fresh and new each time.

Alternatively, or possibly just another way of putting it, a system that is complex enough that when the players (or in-world scientists) see only a small part it they cannot make inferences about the whole. You can even have the part that they see chosen randomly. Imagine if, each time you level up and gain more magical power, you randomly expose part of this system to them. You could even run the random exposure as a sort of game with a risk vs. reward element to it. Bet big and you might get more magic, or your head might explode.

I'm imagining a "magic tree" of similar complexity to the passive skill tree (http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree) from Path of Exile. There are repeated patterns in different parts, fractal like, but nothing is precisely the same. Maybe you can only see one or two steps from where you are, and each advancement has a small chance of going in the wrong direction. Imagine if, in the process of researching a way to make plants grow faster (D&D "plant growth"), a failed experiment makes a carrot explode. Now you can throw exploding carrots at your enemies (D&D "fireball").

Done right, this is a magic system I would like to play a sorcerer in.

One open question though, do the players get XP if the enemies die during character creation? :smallwink:

Verte
2013-05-15, 07:21 PM
Well, first of all, I would probably investigate the folklore of early modern Europe first. There was still a lot of superstition then, and obviously it wasn't based in fact. What I would do is divorce the aims of the campaign from magical research, so that the PCs aren't likely to be spellcasters. I would also veil magic in secondhand rumors in most instances. It would be understood that there are a lot of superstitions, but they vary by region and community. There are systems in place, but they are the purview of wise men and women who oftentimes have spent their lives trying to understand the fey beings of just their particular community. These people are also often considered to be either half-mad or on par with snake-oil salesmen. Sure, there are scholars who have written bestiaries or transcribed rituals, but their accuracy is circumspect and there are only a few dozen copies in print anyway. The most widely distributed texts about magic describe how to discover witches, and again, those are rife with errors. I personally wouldn't directly expose the party to magic until these other elements of the setting had been introduced first. At that point, they would need to decide if they want to sift through lots of difficult to find, largely inaccurate information in order to find an answer or if they want to continue towards their original goal.

As to why people in such a setting would use magic if it was unreliable - well, in desperate situations, magic or communion with spirits or what-have-you would have at least a small chance of working. A person who's gravely ill may turn to a ritual or the horn of a mythical creature if everything else has failed for them. This is especially the case if contemporary medicine itself is not very sophisticated or reliable. Lots of people in real life don't consider whether their actions are statistically favorable before taking them, so if even only 1% of the time magic works, there would be people who would turn to it if the rewards were good enough and the costs low enough.

Geordnet
2013-05-15, 08:45 PM
That is going to turn the game into a game about the discovery of how magic works. I think that's what people have been trying to say. If you put "terra incognito" on a campaign map, expect players and PCs to drop everything and go there. If you tell them magic isn't understood, well, guess who's going to lock themselves in a basement with piles of research materials? By the same token, guess who's gonna get bored and angry when it seems out of their reach.
Assuming they can get their hands on the research materials... Or that them trying to find out as much as they can is a bad thing. :smallwink:

A good analogy would be me writing "here be dragons" on the Moon. If the players can manage to get there, I'll gladly tell them what they find. :smallbiggrin:



Oh, you want Mutants & Masterminds, then.

That was me, and yes M&M using the same rules for magic and everything else works pretty well.
I'll look into it, then.



The decision to incorporate magic into a game should be driven by purpose. It should say something about the game's world. Magic incorporated into a setting just for the sake of having it there begs to be exploited as a technology. If it doesn't have a higher purpose, people will put it to work for a lower purpose.
Assuming they can put it to work, any more than they could put a hurricane to work.

Basically, magic is a force of nature. Like other forces of nature -weather, earthquakes, volcanism- it is very difficult to predict and impossible to control. There are underlying patterns, but they are so layered and complex that we still don't know all the details, such that for practical purposes they might as well be random.

The point of having magic in the setting is to remind the players that no matter how much they learn, no matter how powerful they become, the world is always bigger than just them.



Alternatively, or possibly just another way of putting it, a system that is complex enough that when the players (or in-world scientists) see only a small part it they cannot make inferences about the whole.
That's certainly one way to do it. The only problem with coming up with a complex-yet-balanced system without risking the players being exposed to it. (As in, it needs to be kept completely private.)



Well, first of all, I would probably investigate the folklore of early modern Europe first. There was still a lot of superstition then, and obviously it wasn't based in fact. What I would do is divorce the aims of the campaign from magical research, so that the PCs aren't likely to be spellcasters. I would also veil magic in secondhand rumors in most instances. It would be understood that there are a lot of superstitions, but they vary by region and community. There are systems in place, but they are the purview of wise men and women who oftentimes have spent their lives trying to understand the fey beings of just their particular community. These people are also often considered to be either half-mad or on par with snake-oil salesmen. Sure, there are scholars who have written bestiaries or transcribed rituals, but their accuracy is circumspect and there are only a few dozen copies in print anyway. The most widely distributed texts about magic describe how to discover witches, and again, those are rife with errors. I personally wouldn't directly expose the party to magic until these other elements of the setting had been introduced first. At that point, they would need to decide if they want to sift through lots of difficult to find, largely inaccurate information in order to find an answer or if they want to continue towards their original goal.

This is pretty much exactly what I'm thinking of at the moment. :smallbiggrin:

Beleriphon
2013-05-15, 09:10 PM
http://www.d20herosrd.com/

For Geordnet. That's an SRD for the third edition of M&M. I'll point out now that the default assumption of the game is superheroes so much of what you'll see is based on Power Level 10 (superhero like Spider-Man or Nightwing). AT PL6 to PL8 you get talented normals to low level superheroes. Most fantasy characters in literature are probably somewhere in that range.

It would actually work nicely since the game lets you add modifiers to the effects. These can be positive or negative. Heck you can even have an Unreliable flaw (it works 50% or the time, or it works five times before you need to recharge). You can make abilities require skill checks. The game has the Ritual advantage which lets you build "spells" on the fly with a skill check, but they take a while before they go off. If you want to keep the feel of a powerful, barely controlled power enforce the Side Effect flaw on magical abilities. You can even summon demons if you want, but be warned the only way to make it an affordable power is to make the summoned creature unfriendly to you.

fusilier
2013-05-15, 10:05 PM
Basically, what I think I'm looking for now is a system for building systems. A set of rules for generating a new set of rules each adventure or campaign, so that things can stay balanced while still being fresh and new each time.

GURPS. It's what I use, and basically I do what you just described. Gurps magic is a bit unusual, you have to start with very weak spells and build up to more powerful ones. -- start is not quite the correct term -- You need low level spells to access the more powerful ones.

A friend ran a low-level Victorian era game with magic. One of the characters had the "Make fire" spell. He carried around a box of small sticks, and would light them as if they were matches. :-) Most people didn't notice.

Selein
2013-05-16, 03:27 AM
I recommend checking out the book Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell by Suzanne Clarke. It takes place during the Napoleonic wars in Europe and focuses on the title charactors. The last 2 wizards in Europe.

Furthermore, in the Dresden Files series (which takes place in modern day Chicago, U.S.A.) magic causes technology to malfunction. The lower level the technology the less it malfunctions but of course u can change it however you like.

NEITHER HAS TECHNOMAGIC or ANY TYPE OF PUNK

Ashtagon
2013-05-16, 03:56 AM
A very obscure example of what the OP wants is the Terra setting from Torg.

http://www.amazon.com/Torg-Terra-Where-Reality-Adventure/dp/0874313538

It is set in the 1930s, and mostly has contemporary 1930s technology, except that "pulp powers" exist, which can be used by "sorcerers", or used to make magical devices. The rules that surround magical devices make mass production of them unreliable, which means everything tends to be a one-off knocked up in a private lab and used to equip a superhero or villain.

faustin
2013-05-16, 05:57 AM
I think "Eldritch Pact" is the best option: all magic consist in contact and bargain with entities like the Fairy Folk (I think there is a thread about them here): alien, capricious, volatile, devious and ultimately unfathomable. While there are general rules about how to deal and appraise them, there are no safe lines. And there is always a price for their services, maybe stepper than the caster thought in a beggining.
Incantation from the Other Side (http://paizo.com/products/btpy8fgo?Incantations-from-the-Other-Side-Spirit-Magic)could be a good start.

Kami2awa
2013-05-16, 07:39 AM
A couple of ideas:

What if magic has only just been discovered? No-one really knows how it works yet; and it exists alongside technology because there hasn't yet been time to for magic to replace it. A mage then becomes less like a technology user (press button A to achieve magical effect B) and more like an explorer who doesn't know exactly what he's going to find. Could be represented for PCs by "Discovery" skills and gradually accumulating magical experience. Yes, there are hard and fast rules... but good luck finding out what they are.

What if magic works fine, but it's concentrated in artefacts which turn up every so often and no one knows how to make? They could be relics from aliens, lost civilisations, and so on. In sci fi this often gets called "ClarkTech" and is used to introduce impossible devices like FTL drives into otherwise Hard SF settings. Yes, they are technological artefacts, but they remain distinct from all other technology in the setting through their sheer incomprehensibility.

Heliomance
2013-05-16, 10:38 AM
Assuming they can get their hands on the research materials... Or that them trying to find out as much as they can is a bad thing. :smallwink:

A good analogy would be me writing "here be dragons" on the Moon. If the players can manage to get there, I'll gladly tell them what they find. :smallbiggrin:

<snip>

The point of having magic in the setting is to remind the players that no matter how much they learn, no matter how powerful they become, the world is always bigger than just them.

The average player's reaction to things like that is "Challenge accepted". If you put things like that in your game, unless you're exceptionally lucky, no matter what plot you had planned it's likely to turn into the players plotting how to go to the moon.

As an example, I'll tell you about Operation The Sky Is Made Of Money. That happened when one group of players in Eberron heard about the orbiting shell of Siberys dragonshards above the planet. The campaign was then about getting together enough money to build an airship that could get up there and harvest them.

Scow2
2013-05-17, 12:27 PM
Assuming they can put it to work, any more than they could put a hurricane to work.

Basically, magic is a force of nature. Like other forces of nature -weather, earthquakes, volcanism- it is very difficult to predict and impossible to control. There are underlying patterns, but they are so layered and complex that we still don't know all the details, such that for practical purposes they might as well be random.

The point of having magic in the setting is to remind the players that no matter how much they learn, no matter how powerful they become, the world is always bigger than just them.Hubris is a defining trait of humanity. And more often than not, they turn out to be right. Anything larger than people in the universe will not stay such. You're talking about the forces of nature being difficult to predict and impossible to control, yet we do so all the time - or at least in the prediction. Not always from day-to-day, but if we were unable to predict the currents of nature, we would not have civilization as we know it. Farmers and sailors would never have developed.

Knowledge, science, and understanding isn't a binary thing. It is a contiuum.

Geordnet
2013-05-17, 02:13 PM
Hubris is a defining trait of humanity. And more often than not, they turn out to be right.

Most of the good stories are about them being wrong, though. :smallamused:

Scow2
2013-05-17, 04:18 PM
Most of the good stories are about them being wrong, though. :smallamused:Even in those stories, they're usually right, but went about the issue the wrong way.

chaosgirl
2013-05-17, 06:46 PM
Maybe I just haven't been around enough, but it seems to me that any setting with magic in a post-Medieval level of technology will invariably be some form of punk (steampunk, cyberpunk, etc.) and/or involve magitek. Which aren't bad things in and of themselves, but they change the effective tech level of the setting.

hmmm not sure what you mean by "Punk" but I've always liked the way Unknown Armies handles magic.

Magic users in the setting are by default, not very mentally healthy. They generate mana by performing obsessive ritualistic actions that each individual magic user THINKS will generate them mana.

Then when it comes time to cast a spell the magic user says "Ok GM I want to try to do THIS using magic"

The GM says "Ok, spend X points of mana" and then after the mana is spent tells the player if the character is capable of performing that magical feat. Its irreverent if the magic user has been able to use magic in a smiler way in the past, because magic is weird, yo.

That said there is alot of rebelling against the man in the setting, so that may be punk

Geordnet
2013-05-17, 07:38 PM
From the sound of it, the only think I'd care for in Unknown Armies would be the mechanics of casting, and even that's not guaranteed. The fluff, the style, etc. are all unappealing to me. :smallyuk:

chaosgirl
2013-05-17, 07:47 PM
From the sound of it, the only think I'd care for in Unknown Armies would be the mechanics of casting, and even that's not guaranteed. The fluff, the style, etc. are all unappealing to me. :smallyuk:

To each there own, I think it's the bees knees my self

Bogardan_Mage
2013-05-17, 08:07 PM
My approach to this is that magic is an art. Some of it can be taught, but learning that isn't going to get you very far. You can't just learn a ritual by rote, it simply won't work. Each individual mage must find out how magic works for himself personally.

The upshot of this is that science gets along just fine with magic, but technology does not. Science can make observations and describe the physical effects of magic, but that's of very little practical benefit to producing magic. The closest you could get to "magitek" would be a wizard conjuring the raw materials to make a machine, but the machine itself would still be completely mundane.

I'm not sure if that's exactly what you're looking for.

Grinner
2013-05-17, 09:05 PM
From the sound of it, the only think I'd care for in Unknown Armies would be the mechanics of casting, and even that's not guaranteed. The fluff, the style, etc. are all unappealing to me. :smallyuk:

Really? By my count, you've received three separate suggestions for it. I would think there's something to it. :smallamused:

As for the casting mechanics, it's probably worth pointing out that magic in Unknown Armies is really complex. There's actually two different kinds with two different mechanics, one centered around being in touch with humanity and the other centered around being in touch with only yourself. Then there's an additional kind, ritual magic, which encompasses two different subsystems and a bunch of one-off spells.

Excession
2013-05-17, 09:23 PM
That's certainly one way to do it. The only problem with coming up with a complex-yet-balanced system without risking the players being exposed to it. (As in, it needs to be kept completely private.)

I would be careful with anything that looks like taking away player agency. Sufficient randomness can take the place of ignorance, while not requiring the player to give up as much control to the GM. They just give up control to the dice instead. This avoids any sense of the GM being "out to get" the players, even if it's just the DM keeping a straight face while the player pursues a dead end path. Having the randomness occur at level up rather than whenever you cast avoids making magic too dangerous (or slow) to use.

I would also note that just because the game has rules for magic, doesn't mean the world has to. The game rules can be an abstraction or representation of the world rules, but they don't have to match precisely. It does require a separation of in-game and meta-game knowledge though.

Deffers
2013-05-17, 09:36 PM
Geordnet, for a while I was thinking about maybe imagining up a system for your problem that I could suggest, because it actually sounded like fun. Then I realized, in a way, I kind of already had found the answer in a non-TRPG format. A video game mod, in fact! Tell me what you think of the idea, which is further down this post after a not-so-brief introduction.

Y'see, there's this Minecraft mod called Thaumcraft. You may have heard of it if you're big on Minecraft, but if not it basically adds a magic system to the crafting game (focused on crafting and "rituals" which mostly just mean placing blocks).

Now, the game lets you make a helpful, handy grimoire called the Thaumonomicon which explains the magic system in the world. It also houses a research tree for discoveries you can make.

I realized that, with a little bit of tweaking, you could probably at least use very similar mechanics for your magic system, and then basically just NOT GIVE YOUR PLAYERS THE MAGIC INSTRUCTION BOOK.

Since I first played Thaumcraft with a truly enormous modpack, when I encountered magical creatures or phenomena I was all like "what the whaaaaaaa..." For example, if an area becomes overloaded with magic, random phenomena will occur. Like lightning on a clear day! Or maybe a fairy will pop into being. It might be nice, or it might be a jackass that zaps the crap out of you the second it sees you, depending on the element. You randomly get buffed or debuffed sometimes, as well, at random times. The normal zombie enemies will sometimes become faster and get glowing red eyes, as well.

The idea was simple. An area has a level of magic, and then actions (which in your system would be defined by you) modify that magic level. If it becomes lowered or heightened through, say, a spell being cast, more magic will either come in or flow out of the area into nearby areas. This change in magic level results in freaky-ass stuff randomly happening. To make stuff, you generally had to find through experimentation the optimal combination of magical elements inherent to every single thing, and then release them into the environment.

So what I was thinking for your system is, say there's a wildfire. All those plants being burned release plant essence which has to be released. Maybe someone traveling through the burned field later might see a will o' the wisp. Or they may feel sluggish. Or a plant might just spontaneously bloom.

That would explain why rituals performed in darkened basements SOMETIMES have a chance of working... or they randomly might not. Maybe sacrificing a chicken releases life essence into the air, which interacts with the eldritch essence of your magic sigil to sometimes summon a spirit. Or you might just feel vaguely like you accomplished something because magic just likes to screw with you.

And then never tell the players this is how it works.

Draw up a system by which you could hypothetically refine or operate these essences (in the video game, it was just a cauldron you threw stuff into) to, say, enchant items. That way, magic is only intrinsic to magical creatures which are created by magic in the first place. Everyone else just gets to make the items. See if the players can figure it out! They'll have to draw their own conclusions as to why destroying eight chiseled stone idols and a bar of iron in a magic destructo-pit, then doing magic-looking gestures (performed by a wand in the original mod, but you could do anything in your game and my next examples will reflect this) will get you most of a bar of gold, and then a little earth elemental might spawn out of nowhere and toddle about. But the next time, they get slightly less gold and a cataclysm of lightning shuts off their destructo-pit and for a single second they see a screaming face where the fire once was. The next time, they get a ton of gold, but the next village over someone goes mad for no reason and they won't be able to tell if it was the magic or a coincidence. Maybe give them a more refined method of sucking the essence out of things later on to let them make more complex but no more reliable items. For example, an advanced mage in the mod can make a special cloth circle that lets them temporarily open a transimensional hole in a wall. But the time it stayed open for was random, I'm pretty sure. You could get caught in rock if you didn't move through it fast enough. That could be an interesting magic item to reward players who SERIOUSLY work at this magic thing.

The way to make magic an element people turn to is to give it SOME effects which are reliable, even if it's some of the time (in this case, the gold) but then have other random effects (the little earth elemental, the lightning). The best part is there's way more than just the four classical elements and light and darkness. There's things like the essence of protection, or the essence of seeing, or the essence of poison, or the essence of specifically crops, or the essence of meat. I once made a hovering lantern archon of elemental bacon instead of light, is what I'm saying here. And it was awesome.

That'd make it so you can make a system that, when the players invest interest and time in it, they'll get something grand and somewhat unknowable out of it. Because you're rolling the dice, you can figure out what their strange experiments will result in.

Er, assuming nobody's played Thaumcraft before. And even then it might take them some time to figure it out despite that!

If this came off as gibberish or I need to explain further stuff, please let me know. It's a big jump from a video game, even one as open as Minecraft, to a tabletop RPG. Even if the mod clearly was obviously inspired by DnD and Ars Magica. But I just thought the idea of a system of magical elements and magical flow generating effects might be sufficiently open-ended and mysterious to be what you were looking for.