How to make magic a evil or corrupting thing? Tips for a low magic world.

[Zen]

I always hated the way that magic is described in high fantasy . As an unlimited resource of wonder and free help available to all without restriction.

To me, power always have a price. All power demands sacrifice. It is not just grab a book, a wand and say some magic worlds and magic is done. Magic needs to be occult , mysterious and ultimately be able to corrupt the user if he is not careful, after all, power always corrupts so cosmic powers must corrupt immensely. Mages need to go insane more frequently.

But I never found a setting that approached this more mystical side of magic rather than a substitute for the technology. Worlds such as " Warcraft " played with this theme showing arcane magic as an addictive drug, the power pulsing in the spellcaster veins. But did not elaborate rules for it.

The only book I've seen with something like this was Lankhmar, a book I bought when I was very young (and did not even know what rpg was) because I was a big fan of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber in that book magic is divided into black and white . Since the first is inherently evil and slowly corrupts and destroys the user and the second rare, hard to cast and slow but able to heal (There is no divine magic in this setting) magic is not a very common thing.

Furthermore it has the elemental magic that is more limited and also carries burdens such as the burns and disfigurement for the fire mages, gills to the mages of sea and something similar to the ice king trasformation in "Adventure time" for the ice mages. Beyond that fire mages can only use their power in the presence of fire , sea mages only in contact with the sea and ice mages only in cold places . Nevertheless it is a start but I never liked the dualistic division of magic in this book and the effects of corruption were too simplistic .

Magic to me to be something difficult and dangerous. I wonder if any of you are aware of of any setting or book that describe rules for magic the way I imagine?

Thanks and sorry for the wall of text.

[Morph Bark]

Sounds like you would be very interested in the first MUHA contest's entries. The very theme of that contest was 'power has a price'.

I cannot currently link it with this device, but it is in my Homebrew signature under 'contests organized', if you can see my signature.

[Blue_C.]

Try this on for size:

Sanity: Casting Spells (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/sanity.htm#castingSpells)

Sanity rules are interesting in that they work for 3.5, Pathfinder, and 4.0 with few modifications, mostly in determining how to regain sanity. But this could be what you're looking for.

The only experience I have with these rules was in a short low level campaign I ran where the primary antagonist was a good-aligned organization I dubbed "The Mental Hygiene Police" in my notes, but referred to as "The Guard" in campaign. They really, truly, wanted to protect the world from the horrors that was robbing the countryside of their sanity, and to that end sponsored both mercenary patrols and therapeutic hospitals, but they also got it into their heads that they could do a lot better if they ran the entire country. So they went for that, and I left it up to the PCs if they would aid that effort, or combat it.

It was probably the most story driven campaign I'd ever written, and the sanity rules added a lot to its atmosphere.

[CrazyYanmega]

In the Dark Sun 4E setting, Arcane spellcasting literally draws life energy from the surrounding environment, killing anything surrounding you. You could make this more extreme by having a spell require the life energy of souls or living beings equal in number to the level of the spell.

[Waker]

You could use the Sanity rules that were linked. Ability Burn might be useful, especially in conjunction with the sacrifice options associated with spells in some books like Book of Exalted Deeds. When a character has to take penalties to ability scores that they can't just heal away with more magic, they might be slightly less likely to rely on it.

[Balyano]

I can't remember where I remember it from, but I remember a long time ago I heard about a book where magic inherently cost those around you. A man might cast spells in secret and nothing happens to him, but his friends die or his daughter might start missing body parts. Things like that, not really the best choice for an rpg though.

Perhaps magic works by channeling spirits. Different spirits have different powers, personalities, goals, ect. When you cast a spell you make a will save based on the power of the spell being cast, but not a terribly hard save, but it gets harder as you cast more spells in the day. If you fail the spirits start having an effect on your state of mind, causing sanity issues. If you roll a 1 on the save you get temporarily possessed by the spirit in question. Whether or not the player keeps control of the character and just plays it different depends on if the player is willing to do it right, otherwise dm takes control. Spirits have their own goals and some of them are crazy and aggressive. Have a sanity score that erodes with failed saves but restores after resting, but a possession permanently lowers it by 1.

[NichG]

I can't remember where I remember it from, but I remember a long time ago I heard about a book where magic inherently cost those around you. A man might cast spells in secret and nothing happens to him, but his friends die or his daughter might start missing body parts. Things like that, not really the best choice for an rpg though.


The short story 'The Alchemist's Daughter' has something like that. There's a kudzu-like bramble that grows on magic - use magic, and the bramble might take root in your neighbor's farm, destroying their crops. Worse yet, the bramble's scratches infect people with a degenerative illness. In the book its so bad that the bramble literally forms a wall around one of the few remaining cities. So of course magic use is punishable by death.

[Mighty_Chicken]

It requires slightly more work, but you could use Spell Points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm).

Then enforce that casters get conditions similar to Fatigue and Exhaustion when they use a certain amount of SPs. But to hurt wizards and sorcerers as well this magical fatigue also penalizes their casting abilities.

So for example, you could decide using 1 third of SPs leaves the guy "Magically Fatigued" (-2 to Str, Dex and casting ability, can't run; stacks with mundane fatigue) and when he uses another thirds, he's "Magically Exhausted". These conditions can't be healed by magic, just by resting.

Another idea: When the guy uses half his SPs he's "Magically Tired" - that's -4 to the aforementioned stats. Then come up with a anti-nova rule, for example if a caster spends a number of SPs equal to her level or more (except 1st level spells), she must make a Fortitude check or get a -2 bonus to For, Dex and the casting ability. This penalty for "going nova" should stack up to 2 or 3 times.


And I'm not even talking about permanent penalties yet. The price of power can be all fluff here: it's obviously not safe to health or sanity to use too much magic, just like it's obviously not safe to your life to suffer hit point damage everyday as fighters do. This way, the idea is that you go insane, corrupted or cursed by using magic "if you are no careful"; but PCs are always being careful, except if they choose PrCs or feats reflecting their corruption.

Or you could simply say that if a someone casts a spell while "Magically Exhausted", or other serious condition related so SP spending, she starts losing Sanity or gaining Taint when she casts a spell. Maybe you could you Sanity for some classes and Taint for others? Maybe you could come up with different stuff - I was trying to come up with Chaotic (rather than evil) Taint, I was calling it Bad Luck. It could be mechanically just as harsh, but less horror themed, to say that people that use too much magic aren't necessarily being corrupted, but paying the cost of power by living a riskier life and losing their belongings and their relationships, which is what Bad Luck does to people in legends.

[Balyano]

If you really want to make it despicable have it so you must make sacrifices to restore you magic. Starts small, you have to sacrifice a chicken every month to ensure you can cast your 1st level spells. You hit 3rd level and not you need to sacrifice a goat, or no 2nd level spells, if you manage to get a chicken instead of a goat you are restricted to 1st level spells till next new moon. As things go up the kind of creature needed goes up, for 9th level spells you have to make human sacrifices. For epic spells they have to share your bloodline.

[Realms of Chaos]

I rarely see this type of stuff get used because while it's easy to perform in a specific campaign, it's quite difficult to get across systematically. To back this up, I'd like to point out that:

1. Social Stigma is hard to "standardize": First some may assume that the fact that magic is making your eyes glow red as your face slowly melts off may mean that nobody ever wants to deal with you... ever. Even so, just about anything you could say about stigma in most games will be viewed as "just fluff" in the sense that most D&D binders aren't constantly terrified of clerics and most players using orcs aren't killed on sight. Stigma can be used in your games to great effect, certainly, but making it truly standard is another beast altogether.

2. Punishments Have to Be Extreme: Munchkins and Minmaxers exist out there. There are playerse who would gladly have their characters eat orphans while all of their own limbs are chopped off to gain telepathy. If the ultimate punishments of magic could be ignored by a player, some will find a way to ignore them, completely undermining the point in having costs in the first place.

3. Death Cannot Be the Ultimate Punishment: Despite what I just said, something as simple as death can't be the ultimate punishment, either. Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42355) is the Bio-mage, a caster that burns their own lifespan to cast spells. The problem with this class is that a player with no particular attachment to their specific character could potentially burn through character after character while making new biomage after new biomage. In your game, you may state that players can't be replaced in this way or even that a character dead means a player who is booted from the campaign permanently. Trying to apply death as a punishment for a system, however, is much trickier for this reason (I personally recommend something like possession so each "burnt out" character makes a new foe for the entire party).

4. The Punishment Has to Be (Somewhat) Random: If each spell you cast permanently lowers your hp by 1 or increases your Corruption score by the spell level, your players will know exactly how much they can afford to get away with and can go hog wild because of this. If your player ever know for 100% certain that THIS casting won't hurt you, they aren't really paying any price at all for it and there is no danger. By the same token, a party that knows someone has reached the breaking point may turn on that former ally as a mercy kill. As such, whatever punishment is imposed has to deal with chance to some degree. Elevating % of penalties, variable "damage", random tables, and hidden values could all be your allies in this department.

[NichG]

OOC evil version: every spell cast permanently lowers the hp of the character of the player to your right by 1.

[Grek]

First, let's clear up some misconceptions:
1. Evil Magic =/= Low Magic. If magic is evil, that doesn't mean it won't be used. It just means that it's going to be used by evil people. Example: the Warcraft universe. A Lich King summons demons and releases a magical doom plague. High Magic, but also very Evil magic.
2. Risky Magic =/= Low Magic. Despite it being a terrible idea, people still buy lottery tickets and visit loan sharks every day. If you give people the option to sell their soul to a magical loan shark, they will do so. In droves.
3. Costly Magic =/= Low Magic. Just because something is expensive doesn't mean there isn't a near universal demand for it. Examples: Houses, Cars, Medicine.
4. Disfiguring =/= Undesirable. It may seem obvious, but it needs said. If there were a magical potion that cured cancer at the cost of growing a pig snout, the maker would be fabulously wealthy.
5. Avoiding Magic Costs does not make you a Bad Player: The opposite is true. A reasonable character will take proper precautions when dealing with dangerous things, and only use those things if they can find a way to make it worth the risk. You don't get to be an expert demonologist by making bad deals.

I personally recommend that you pick a metaphor: Is Magic addicting, like Drugs? Is it unhealthy, like Steroids? Is it bad for the environment, like Pollution? Is it dangerous, like Radioactive Fire? Is it gross, like Sewage Treatment? Is it difficult, like Calculus? Is it expensive, like a Bad Loan? Is it unnatural, like <insert perversion here>? Is it criminal, like Arson? Choose (only) one and and stick with it.

[Mighty_Chicken]

Grek, your post is excellent but I want to disagree about something.

Parkour is risky and hard/costly (it costs time to exercise and stamina, more or less what many forms of "costly magic" would cost). Most healthy human beings should be able to learn it, but because it is risky and costly, few people ever tried it.

Also, consider culture. It is not exactly historically accurate that people in the medieval age thought opening up corpses was sinful, but suppose it is. Wouldn't it be a convincing explanation of why medicine did not progress as fast as in the first centuries of modern age?

I'm building a setting right now where arcane magic is like yoga (not stretching yoga, I mean psychic yoga): it is not considered sinful, but virtuous; but exactly because of that its use is very restricted. It is considered wrong to use it vulgarly.

Also, some societies and cultures are definitively not interested in progress. Actually it's fair to say most societies in history did not care about changing themselves and their way of living, which is what progress it; rather, they actively and militantly fought to preserve what they had always been.

So, if the use of magic is morally restricted by society, cases of people "doing it wrong" openly will be few and far between, with probable punishment coming from all directions. So Evil/Immoral Magic does equal low magic in most conditions.

Combine it with risky/costly and you have the vast majority of magic users behaving pretty conservatively. For example, most would only do what is considered proper by the rest of society (including themselves, probably), wouldn't risk their lives and welfare everyday with powerful/riskier magic just like scientists and zookeepers don't, and would consider their resources thoughtfully. And habits are powerful: so you give me one of those conservative-behaving wizards, and even if I asked him a not very immoral, practically risk-less and pretty much inexpensive magic, he would probably say no, because he's used to think like that, that magic should be used in a restricted way.

Unless he's different; unless you invaded his tower and robbed his books; unless he doesn't care about his society's mores (the equivalent of a meth-using nymphomaniac who believes in flat earth); unless he's a PC, a person destined to be set apart from other mortals.

This is how Evil Magic, Costly Magic, etc quickly shape a setting into Low Magic.

[Grek]

That's pretty much my point exactly. The thing that determines whether magic gets used frequently or infrequently is how society views it, not whether it's evil or expensive. If it's socially acceptable to use magic, then it becomes a decadent toy for the rich and powerful, rather than a shameful trade for the sinful and wicked.

[Mighty_Chicken]

Yes, but there's also habit. People are (rightfully?) conditioned not to start doing things that are risky or costly or immoral (evil); and when they do start, they usually impose restrictions on themselves. That's how magic is restricted (into Low Magic) even without society restricting it. The "price of power" restricts it.

So there's always the risk someone just says "screw it", to the rest of the world's awe, just like in RL sometimes people say "screw it" to immoral or risky research. But it's a rare occasion. Result: we do live in a world where, though science is considered a good thing, it is not as advanced as it would be if we did not care about ethics or risks. In this case, society is involved because science and technology affects everyone. But we also live in a world with not-so-much Parkour being practiced. Society is almost indifferent to it, but few people practice it anyway because it's risky.

[puctheplayfull]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned, but the d20 Call of Cthulhu system sounds like what he may be looking for. The spells each have an ability cost and some also have a sanity cost. You can use the sanity system they have, or another of your choosing (though you may have to adapt the sanity costs of the spells for another system). This gives casting magic a high cost, and makes it very dangerous. From there you could use rules similar to the rules the drug rules to make magic addictive...

On the other hand, there is a very limited magic system in Monte Cook's Iron Heroes (a sword and sorcery setting) that is very dangerous since a failed roll can cause the effect to rebound on the caster, or literally blow up in his face. It's not addictive, but it is dangerous.

[Yitzi]

2. Punishments Have to Be Extreme: Munchkins and Minmaxers exist out there. There are playerse who would gladly have their characters eat orphans while all of their own limbs are chopped off to gain telepathy.

Someone who'd do that sounds like a good big bad for an adventuring party...and there's no rule that the DM can't play the good adventurers going after the players' villians...


In your game, you may state that players can't be replaced in this way or even that a character dead means a player who is booted from the campaign permanently.

Or simply require an in-character reason for doing that sort of thing...

[OzymandiasX]

Another system to consider for negative side-effects of magic are the Star Wars RPGs. Though the specifics change a bit between versions (Original, SW d20, SW:Saga), the concept is that use of The Force (ie. Magic) will corrupt anyone who isn't consciously working to not be corrupted.

It comes down to GM discretion, but Dark Side points are gained by using the Force in a petty manner (to win a card game) or for violent or evil purposes (obviously this gains more DS points).

Something like this could just as easily be applied to magic as The Force. And the cool thing about the system is that I think it really reflects what you're talking about... the corrupting power of magic. A wizard may never go insane/evil if he is super cautious about only using magic when necessary and in a moderate way... while a wizard who unlocks powers and uses them without heed of the consequences will quickly succumb to the 'Dark Side' of magic...


This (or a similar system) could easily be implemented where using magic recklessly accumulates some sort of Corruption Points that eventually cause bad things to happen.

[Grimsage Matt]

For standard casters, give them Blood Power (http://www.purpleduckgames.com/fblood-power) as a bonus feat, and no other way to cast spells. Give Clerics and Druids a lower HD, a d4 should work. Of course, this means many will become Blood Mages (http://www.purpleduckgames.com/s-m3).

Another path is to become a Chaos Mage (http://www.purpleduckgames.com/chaos-mage), whose powers, while great, are also limited, and carry a chance of backlash. Still, Chaos Magic might be the thing your looking for (http://www.purpleduckgames.com/qcmg).

[The Dragon]

Another system to consider for negative side-effects of magic are the Star Wars RPGs. Though the specifics change a bit between versions (Original, SW d20, SW:Saga), the concept is that use of The Force (ie. Magic) will corrupt anyone who isn't consciously working to not be corrupted.

It comes down to GM discretion, but Dark Side points are gained by using the Force in a petty manner (to win a card game) or for violent or evil purposes (obviously this gains more DS points).

Something like this could just as easily be applied to magic as The Force. And the cool thing about the system is that I think it really reflects what you're talking about... the corrupting power of magic. A wizard may never go insane/evil if he is super cautious about only using magic when necessary and in a moderate way... while a wizard who unlocks powers and uses them without heed of the consequences will quickly succumb to the 'Dark Side' of magic...


This (or a similar system) could easily be implemented where using magic recklessly accumulates some sort of Corruption Points that eventually cause bad things to happen.

I actually really liked how the force was handled in SWd20. It was broken as hell, (jedi are Better Than You™) of course, but I really liked that you were using your hit-points to fuel the fire.
It worked for about as long as it took the players to figure out that you could use the force to heal hit-points.

I have often contemplated homebrewing a similiar class for d&d, although I'd probably make it a wizard chassis with the spells being from a list of my design, and not tied to skills.

[MoleMage]

I had been back-burning an idea similar to this for a few weeks now, and you've inspired me to flesh it out some.

The gist:
Magic is not the domain of mortals (even elves, though they are closer than most mortals), and using requires reaching into forces "outside" (other planes, vestiges, gods, or even strange creatures on the prime material plane). However, each time one does so, there is a cumulative chance that those forces overtake the person, causing effects ranging from physical deformities to outright possession.

The different classes have different methods to mitigate this buildup (Wizards prepare spells ahead of time, Sorcerers' familiars can take some of it by proxy, etc), but not remove it entirely. Spellcasters can use spells they know spontaneously without their normal mitigation, but the penalties for that would be much more severe (exact numbers still to be determined). If I build the system right, you can use as much or as little as you like and tweak the numbers to fit the mood you want.

[forsaken1111]

I played in a game where there were two simple rules to keep it a low-magic setting.

1. You may only take one spellcasting class, and that class cannot make up more than 1/2 of your total character levels.
2. Cantrips and other zero level spells took up a 1st level spell slot.

This means any casters are, at maximum, 1:1 multiclass with some other class. In practice it meant most people simply took 1-2 levels of a casting class if at all.

Also 'unlimited' or alternate casters like warlocks weren't allowed at all except by special events ingame (we did have one person gain a single gestalt level of warlock via an infernal pact but that character self-destructed shortly thereafter).

Combine something like that with a system like the sanity costs above and you'd make magic very rare indeed.

[Kislath]

You could always make low magic something that is simply enforced, either by Gods or by the local authorities.

Imagine a Theocracy where "witches" are routinely burned at the stake, or just put such a fear of spellslingers in the people that they would attack a witch either on sight or in gathered mobs.
The church could even have it's own Holy Order of assassins who serve as witch hunters, roaming around and killing mages wherever they find them.

You could also simply set a level limit. For example, some God or other got fed up with mortal spellcasters one day when one of them did something especially annoying, and he put a whammy on the world limiting magic to only 2nd or 3rd level.

Either of these could make playing a Mage a bit more interesting.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

One idea I came up with was based on Adventure Time, where most magic-users are insane and the really powerful sane ones almost never use it.

What if magic-users were mentally incapable of telling whether their magic was successful? The mental gymnastics necessary to convince reality to bend to your will require the magic-user to convince himself of the thing he's trying to accomplish. A magic-user will always be thoroughly convinced that his magic worked, ignoring any evidence to the contrary. This process is so thorough that a magic-user will assume that anyone who tells him, "hey, dude, you didn't actually turn yourself invisible" is ignorant ("I'm smarter"), mistaken ("you must be blind"), or lying ("whose side are you really on?")

This means that most magic-users do not have many friends, they eventually shun friends and family because they believe that they are working against them. They also have odd quirks which they acquire based on spells that have lingering effects on their consciousness. Magic-users grow more and more bold and confident as they become insane because they overestimate how good they are at magic ("yes, everyone else makes mistakes, but I never do!")

Smart magic-users will always put a solid duration on any magic they use (which minimizes but does not eliminate the madness). Wise magic-users will use magic sparingly. Permanent magic items are coveted because magic that comes from a magic-user is horrifically unreliable.

[Eulalios]

A few people already have dealt with this problem in game design.

You might be interested by Greg Stafford's rules for Runequest (Spirit Magic); or
Jonathon Tweet's rules for Ars Magica (Wizards' Twilight); or
Dave Gaiders' rules for Dragon Age RPG (the Fade).


What if magic-users were mentally incapable of telling whether their magic was successful? The mental gymnastics necessary to convince reality to bend to your will require the magic-user to convince himself of the thing he's trying to accomplish. A magic-user will always be thoroughly convinced that his magic worked, ignoring any evidence to the contrary. This process is so thorough that a magic-user will assume that anyone who tells him, "hey, dude, you didn't actually turn yourself invisible" is ignorant ("I'm smarter"), mistaken ("you must be blind"), or lying ("whose side are you really on?")

^ OR This. Brilliant, really, in lending the spice of comedy to even the most dread of spellcasters. "No, what do you mean, of course my animate skeleton is rending your heart from your chest!" :smallconfused:


"hey, dude, you didn't actually turn yourself invisible" ("you must be blind") :biggrin: priceless....

[Mighty_Chicken]

A few people already have dealt with this problem in game design.

You might be interested by Greg Stafford's rules for Runequest (Spirit Magic); or
Jonathon Tweet's rules for Ars Magica (Wizards' Twilight); or
Dave Gaiders' rules for Dragon Age RPG (the Fade).


Well, don't just stand there giving us references. Explain us a little bit of why each of those systems are interesting.

[MoleMage]

Alright guys, the corruption system I've been working on has the framework done. I'm still working on the more detailed bits (I bit off a lot to chew, so the chewing is going to be slow going), but the link to the progress thread is here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=334322).