Best Magic System

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Pretty simple, really. I want to run a High/Medium Magic, All Spellcaster game for my players sometime, but I can't decide on the system. I could go Ars Magica, as Magic is what it's designed to do. I could adapt Mutants and Masterminds 2E, because it does everything. Or I could just ban non-spellcasters in a D&D 3.5 game.

What does the Playground think? If you had to play a Spellcaster Only Game, what system would you use, and why?

[JusticeZero]

Depends on what you want the high spellcasters to be doing.

Ars Magica, the magi are mostly sitting in their labs studying, that's the best way to advance, and sensing some adventurers out to quest and do errands. Occasionally they take time out to do something.

DnD, the casters are mostly doing a combination of fussing in their lab/library and wandering around killing monsters. The homebody stuff is streamlined a lot, since that mostly isn't what they're doing. Also, there was a lot of fluff about how the schools of magic differed internally but they never DID anything with it, which makes it much harder to differentiate the spellcasters.

If you put four Wizards in a room together and let them scribe off each other, which is the obvious best tactical thing to do, they aren't going to be very different from each other. They'll be somewhat different, but it's not as flexible as Ars Magica is going to be on the same point.

If you go with something like a PF Sorcerer group you see some differences from bloodline and such, but they have other issues - mainly, the fact that they cannot do anything like research, etc. - they gain power by hitting things only, and lose a lot of the flavor of "we're a bunch of magicians!" in favor of something closer to the magical equivalent of "We're the X-men!"

Honestly, I prefer Ars Magica for the feel of being a bunch of mages, but we also found we had a lot of fun passing the GM duties around (Ars Magica is designed as a troupe game, with lots of support for not actually having one specific GM but instead trading it around for various subplots), dealing with village administrative stuff, and building up our base. It's not as good for kicking in the door.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Depends on what you want the high spellcasters to be doing.

I suppose that makes sense. The basic premise of the campaign would be a pseudo-Italian Renaissance city-state ruled by Mages and locked in constant backstabbing competitions.

So I would expect them to be constantly dealing with other mages, specifically spying and assassinations with a touch of politics on the side, all using magic.

[Grod_The_Giant]

M&M is always a pretty fantastic choice. You might wind up with very similar characters, though.

I'd also throw in the Dresden Files RPG. It's got some of my favorite magic rules. Evocation (battle magic) is great-- it's powerful, dynamic, versatile, and surprisingly well-controlled, between quick buildups of mental stress and the occasionally flubbed control roll. Thamaturgy (everything else) is... well, I haven't been in a game where it's been used a lot... it's incredibly versatile, and is controlled largely by time investment. It's also often dependent on GM fiat to set DCs-- there are guidelines, but they're a bit vague. On the plus side, the system offers good support for enforcing a variety of different casters, and manages "power corrupts" themes pretty well.

[saxavarius]

I'll put in a vote for the Slayers d20; all spells all the time, no spell slots, no spells know.

[JusticeZero]

..a pseudo-Italian Renaissance city-state ruled by Mages and locked in constant backstabbing competitions.. constantly dealing with other mages, specifically spying and assassinations with a touch of politics on the side, all using magic.

That's basically a lot of Ars Magica's core play. DnD/PF isn't so good at that stuff. The spells you'd use for that stuff get pretty odd and absolute.

[Anderlith]

Shadowrun 4th Edition

[Lorsa]

I would go with Ars Magica since the magic system is really solid. I've had a lot of fun with that game.

Or possible Mage: The Awakening. Another all-spellcaster game and while it's made for a modern setting adopting it to a medieval setting should be possible.

[Black Jester]

As usual, GURPS is the standard other games try to achieve (and fail). There is no such thing as one magic system, it is a set of various tools to build your own one, depending on personal tastes and preferences; there are so many good ideas in here that it you can easily select the one best suited for your campaign. Within this vast selection of opportunities, however, the ritual/path magic system from Thaumaturgy is very, very good and offer both flavor, internal consistency (the one necessary criterium or any good game) and just fun things to do without making it overtly powerful. As usual, I wish most non-GURPS alternatives were half as good.

[Asmodai]

I say it greatly depends on the flavour you're after, but I have found Dark Ages: Mage to be a vastly superior game to Ars Magica, while treading most of the same ground. It opens things up more then Ars Magica and deeply intertwines your casting with the flavour of your magic. It's a standard WoD game, so the system is simple, but the Magic system is quite a bit different from Mage. Rather then giving you totally free reign over what kind of magics you can build from the Spheres, you gain Pillars - Pillars are thematic parts of a school of thought covering a wide base of effects that you can combine into practically anything. I'd also love to recommend DA: Grimoire if you're looking to get into it. It's good stuff.

Other then that, I'd go with Mage: The Ascension/Sorceror's Crusade. While not as thematically intertwined as DA:Mage, it's an excellent system that gives the characters quite a bit of freedom in defining who and what they are and building any kind of Magic you could possibly imagine.

[GoatToucher]

The problem with MnM is that it pretty much gives you carte blanche to have All The Powers! with minimal expenditure of power points. You buy up your magic power and then spend a point a piece adding more and more alternate powers to it. Aside from a couple powers like a force field or flight that stand outside the array, you have an express train to plot-destroying/threatening versatility.

[Mordar]

Definitely, unquestionably and unhesitatingly...RoleMaster. So flexible, so fun...but it does take capable, experienced players/GM to really get it right (and get past the "ChartMaster" mis-characterization).

Power point system, risk/reward mechanics, hundreds of available spell lists, and best of all...the ability to create a spellcaster from any template/reference/style you can dream up.

- M

[laeZ1]

I love the magic system for WhiteWolf's Mage: The awakening. It rewards both creativity and mechanical understanding.

Doesn't sound like what you're looking for, though. I'd say a good backup is running Pathfinder, and only allowing the Oracle and Sorceror class. Moreso than any other D&D edition (at least in my knowledge), Pathfinder characters can vary from each other extensively, even when they are the same class.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The problem with MnM is that it pretty much gives you carte blanche to have All The Powers! with minimal expenditure of power points. You buy up your magic power and then spend a point a piece adding more and more alternate powers to it. Aside from a couple powers like a force field or flight that stand outside the array, you have an express train to plot-destroying/threatening versatility.

"Everything but the kitchen sink" arrays are technically possible, but the book tells you not to use 'em. Particularly in an all-mage game, I'd expect you'd want to police magic arrays even more closely than usual. Thus, instead of having one enormous "magic" array, you'd have a fire magic array, a conjuration array, and an abjuration array.

Also, plot-destroying? If a character is capable of undoing your entire plot simply by having, oh, a mind reading power, it probably wasn't a very well thought-out plot. There are plenty of ways for NPCs to protect themselves.

[tensai_oni]

The problem with MnM is that it pretty much gives you carte blanche to have All The Powers! with minimal expenditure of power points. You buy up your magic power and then spend a point a piece adding more and more alternate powers to it. Aside from a couple powers like a force field or flight that stand outside the array, you have an express train to plot-destroying/threatening versatility.

And then the game master tells you to knock that off and apply less cheese to the character.

If you approach M&M with a RAW, "it's in the book so I can do it!" perspective like with some other systems, you'll break the game. Oversight and cooperation between players and the GM are required to maintain the game balance. Such is the price of a versatile gaming system... if you consider the need for players to trust and work with rather than against each other to be a price.

But I don't think M&M is that good for magic-heavy games. The best way to handle it would be to split the Magic power into several schools - divination, necromancy, etc, and limit players to which powers they can alternate off each school.
I had fun with Dresden Files, but magic is only a small facet of the game's overall fluff and crunch alike, so building a mage game only on that seems like a waste of potential.

[Saidoro]

Legend is good for everything.

[Matticussama]

But I don't think M&M is that good for magic-heavy games. The best way to handle it would be to split the Magic power into several schools - divination, necromancy, etc, and limit players to which powers they can alternate off each school.

This is the best way to handle it, IMO.

Let the players choose a theme and then limit the players to that theme. You can either stick to the D&D schools of magic, or create a new set to better fit your world. If you're an Evocationist then you can build all the blasty powers that you want, but no summoning, healing, mind control, etc. If you're an Enchanter then you can have mind control, confusion, luck control, etc but no blasty damage or transmutation. Transmuters can have shape powers, alter form powers, etc. So on and so forth.

So long as you limit each player to a particular theme that is enforced at the table, then M&M can work out quite well. Also, limit their arrays to 3 or 4 similarly themed powers, that way they don't just build 25 different abilities into a single array. M&M as a system gives you immeasurable flexibility, so long as the players aren't jerks and don't try to take advantage of it.

[Gavinfoxx]

There are a few verb/noun systems that are based off of Ars Magica. One I know of is World Tree, which is... really setting specific. The whole book is incredibly setting-tied, but it's still interesting. I think one or both of the Mage games by White Wolf use a verb/noun system too. I think one of the gurps books has a verb/noun system in it somewhere...

[Eldan]

I think a good magic system shouldn't be defined by how flexible it is, or how easy it makes it for the mage to do whatever he can think of. A good magic system should have limits and pose problems to the mage. So I actually dislike many of the more magic focused games.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I think a good magic system shouldn't be defined by how flexible it is, or how easy it makes it for the mage to do whatever he can think of. A good magic system should have limits and pose problems to the mage. So I actually dislike many of the more magic focused games.

Dresden Files. You can automatically summon as much power as you want-- though the more you summon the more damage you take-- but the tricky part is controlling it. Fail the roll, and you either blow up large parts of the environment around you, or you take even more damage.

[Eldan]

Yeah, that one I do like.

[Mordar]

I think a good magic system shouldn't be defined by how flexible it is, or how easy it makes it for the mage to do whatever he can think of. A good magic system should have limits and pose problems to the mage. So I actually dislike many of the more magic focused games.

I believe a lack of flexibility is a huge detriment because magic should be MAGIC!, not a dull application of a mechanic where it simply emulates science (like a blaster mage, for instance), or a small handful of very limited specific abilities.

I do not mean flexibility = every user of magic can do every thing ever thought of, and without risk, though.

I specifically lauded flexibility from this standpoint: If I want to play a thaumaturge, I can. If I want to play a tribal shaman, I can. If I want to play a shaolin/wushu supermonk, I can. [Pretend I listed several more options here that I cut for sake of space and time] And, most importantly, that they not just be "re-skins" of wizard or cleric, choosing from the same pool of spells as every other wizard or cleric, but actually different both conceptually and in practice.

Now, the mechanics must be robust enough to support this sort of system - risk/reward (the overpower element like that you praise in Dresden), a sensible power-point system so you're not likely to outshine everyone else (...and then demand an 8-hour rest after every second encounter), and a large enough array of balanced spells/spell lists that encourage real thought and debate within the player, because not everyone can do every thing.

A flexible magic system does not exclude limits of potency, or make it easy for the magic user to "do whatever he wants", or curtail posing problems - it just adds flavor to the setting, gives choice to the player and opens up a wonderful array of stories (and problems) to the character.

- M

[Eldan]

I don't even really mean limits of potency, or limits of what you can build.

I mean limits on the flexibility of a given caster. I think a flavourful system should include two things as well:

A kind of laws of magic. Things that can not be done conventionally. Raise the dead, maybe. Time travel. Seeing the future. Create precious metals. Whatever fits your world.

And second: specializations. No mage should ever be able to do everything. They should be specialized on a subject or a few.

[CombatOwl]

There are a few verb/noun systems that are based off of Ars Magica. One I know of is World Tree, which is... really setting specific. The whole book is incredibly setting-tied, but it's still interesting. I think one or both of the Mage games by White Wolf use a verb/noun system too. I think one of the gurps books has a verb/noun system in it somewhere...

The "realms" system in GURPS Thaumaturgy is basically just a direct rip from Mage. Only difference is that Mage has a fixed set of spheres while GURPS lets the GM come up with their own list of realms. OTOH, there is an actual Mage: the Ascension conversion for GURPS 3rd edition, so that's an even more direct copy...

Thaumaturgy does have a ton of magic systems in it, though. All of them are better than the one in the basic set for 4th edition.

[illyrus]

I'm more of a fan of the more WoD Mage and similar magic systems to games with spell lists like D&D. Figuring out the right mix of effects (especially when they're limited by consequence and total power) to get the desired result is more interesting to me then having an encyclopedic knowledge of spell lists and a good logistical mind to have what you need available when you need it.

I'm not saying one is more difficult or a better way to handle magic than the other, just what I personally like and my own reasons for it.

[Edenbeast]

I think a good magic system shouldn't be defined by how flexible it is, or how easy it makes it for the mage to do whatever he can think of. A good magic system should have limits and pose problems to the mage. So I actually dislike many of the more magic focused games.

That's what I like about Warhammer Roleplay, both fantasy and 40k, where you have the risk of choas manifestations when you're casting spells. I've been in a game with only wizards in a whfrp 2nd edition that I really enjoyed. There's a supplement called Realms of Sorcery adding more depth to spellcasting.

[Tebryn]

Chrono Cross had the best magic system bar none. And one of the most interesting and unique at that. Hitting enemies to unlock spell slots, every character has spell slots with "Mage" types having more and "Warrior" having less but more health. A great system with balance you'd never believe.

[Edenbeast]

Chrono Cross had the best magic system bar none. And one of the most interesting and unique at that. Hitting enemies to unlock spell slots, every character has spell slots with "Mage" types having more and "Warrior" having less but more health. A great system with balance you'd never believe.

I think "best system" is a matter of taste as much as saying broccoli is the best vegetable. In the end you can try 100 systems and then go with the one that works for you, or have experience with 5 and go with the one you enjoy the most. That's one thing the OP should realize. You ask what's the best vegetable and you get a whole list of various types of cabbages, carrots, potatoes, beans, and what not, and then make of it what you want.

[Jay R]

If you want to invent your own magic system, and you enjoy fiddling with numbers, nothing is better than Fantasy Hero.

[Of course, if either of those conditions doesn't apply, then everything is better than Fantasy Hero.]

[Emmerask]

Pretty simple, really. I want to run a High/Medium Magic, All Spellcaster game for my players sometime, but I can't decide on the system. I could go Ars Magica, as Magic is what it's designed to do. I could adapt Mutants and Masterminds 2E, because it does everything. Or I could just ban non-spellcasters in a D&D 3.5 game.

What does the Playground think? If you had to play a Spellcaster Only Game, what system would you use, and why?

D&D 3.5 is actually not bad for a spellcaster only game, you have a lot of variety in the classes and you can cover every aspect of an adventurer party just with casters.

As for what is the best, for me its either rollmaster (was already mentioned)
or dark eye.
Both have the problem though that casters only become powerful at later stages of the game and a caster only group will have a ton of trouble, but since both are point buy systems you could build your chars to be at least semi competent in other areas (like swordfighting etc)...

though that doesn´t really sound like what you actually want^^