RPGs that don't use Vancian Magic?

[Dr. Cliché]

Just curious as to whether there are any RPGs that don't use Vancian Magic?

I'm especially interested in ones that don't use the first 'rule' of Vancian Magic:

"Magical effects are packaged into distinct spells; each spell has one fixed purpose. A spell that throws a ball of fire at an enemy just throws balls of fire, and generally cannot be "turned down" to light a cigarette, for instance."

[KillingAScarab]

What genre would you prefer? Do the rules need to be a part of the base game? Mage: the Ascension has flexible spellcasting built into it, but isn't your standard high fantasy sword and sorcery game, at all; it's set in a modern not-very-nice world where magic is difficult to perform. Pathfinder has the Spheres of Power rules, which I think are supposed to work similarly, and magic is common-place in the usual setting, but that book is from a third-party publisher. D&D 3.5 has two alternate magic systems: psionics and Incarnum. Psionics has specific pre-packaged effects but you can invest more resources into them to make the numbers larger. Incarnum has self-generated magic items which have slightly different effects depending on available chakra binds (affected by class level), plus some ability to make the numbers larger.

[CharonsHelper]

"Magical effects are packaged into distinct spells; each spell has one fixed purpose. A spell that throws a ball of fire at an enemy just throws balls of fire, and generally cannot be "turned down" to light a cigarette, for instance."

Having specific rules to allow that is rare, but I've seen systems where more out of combat uses (such as lighting a cigarette) don't use up significant daily resources.

[Zombimode]

Just curious as to whether there are any RPGs that don't use Vancian Magic?

I'm especially interested in ones that don't use the first 'rule' of Vancian Magic:

"Magical effects are packaged into distinct spells; each spell has one fixed purpose. A spell that throws a ball of fire at an enemy just throws balls of fire, and generally cannot be "turned down" to light a cigarette, for instance."

I think there is a bit of confusion of terminology. The effect you describe has not really anything to do with Vancian Magic.
Vancían Magic describes a System where spells are prepared beforehand and the Magic User is limited to this preselection. The spells in question could be quite flexible.
For instance the spells could be as broad as "Fire", "Ice", "Life", "Darkness" etc.
As Long as the Magic User has to prepare, say, 2 Fire spells, 1 Life and 1 Darkness spell, this would be Vancian Magic.

An example for an non-vancian Magic System that still has the behaviour that you describe would be 3.5 Psionics.

Those to concepts are thus unrelated.

What is of interest for you is wether or not Magic is defined as distinct spells or not.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Just curious as to whether there are any RPGs that don't use Vancian Magic?

Most of them?

[Eldan]

Most of them?

I was just about to say. Are there any except D&D that have anything similar to Vancian?

[Dr. Cliché]

I think there is a bit of confusion of terminology. The effect you describe has not really anything to do with Vancian Magic.

I was going by this definition:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VancianMagic

[Segev]

I was going by this definition:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VancianMagic

Fair enough. It is true that prepackaged "spells" of specific effects are a crucial component to Vancian Magic. The reason people are saying that that isn't what defines it is because the part to which most refer when saying "D&D uses Vancian magic" is the notion that you memorize spells, and then forget them when you cast them. Or, in 3e terms, you prepare them ahead of time, and then cast them.

Technically, even D&D sorcery isn't really "Vancian" anymore, though it is recognizably related.


That said, what you asked about is a lack of pre-packaged spells. Generally, there are surprisingly few systems which have "magic" that isn't in some sense bundled into specific spells. Mage is the biggest I can think of. I know Alpha/Omega also has more of a "build your own effect" vibe. Dresden Files uses the FATE system and is based on a series where "spells" are a "build your own package" deal.

BESM and Mutants and Masterminds 3e allow you to build most effects as "magic," though you do have specified powers that can be used in relatively specific ways.

[Max_Killjoy]

I was going by this definition:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VancianMagic

I've always considered the distinct "prepackaged effect" part and parcel of "Vancian magic", along with the need to prepare in discrete "slots ahead of time.

[CharonsHelper]

I was going by this definition:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VancianMagic

Fair enough.

#1 is true of most games to some degree, as otherwise you would have to have magic be incredibly broad and likely ill-defined.

#s 2&3 on that list are what really differentiate Vancian Magic.

[Mutazoia]

If I remember correctly, Iron Heroes magic system has you build your own spells, deciding what effect and how much power, etc. when cast, so you are not stuck with pre-packaged spells. Magic is, btw, an option in that system. The rest of the system assumes no magic at all.

[LibraryOgre]

I've always considered the distinct "prepackaged effect" part and parcel of "Vancian magic", along with the need to prepare in discrete "slots ahead of time.

Whereas I would say the "distinct, prepackaged" aspect is common enough that it's not distinctly an aspect of Vancian magic; Harry Potter's spells are pretty distinct, but they're not Vancian, because they don't require pre-preparation. Star Wars' Force Powers (WEG and Saga) are pretty pre-packaged, but they're not Vancian.

To the OP's desires, there's a lot of systems like that. Mage has been mentioned. The old Dragonlance Saga system worked that way. Ars Magica includes prepackaged spells, but Spontaneous magic is very freeform.

[8BitNinja]

Are you looking for a system that uses mana? Or are you looking for a system where the potency of spells can be jacked up or toned down?

[Lorsa]

I think you need to try Ars Magica. It really is one of the most interesting magic systems I have seen.

[RazorChain]

I think you need to try Ars Magica. It really is one of the most interesting magic systems I have seen.

Of all magic system from all the different RPGs I've played, Ars Magica has the best.

It first establishes limits of magic, what magic can and cannot do. It then breaks the magical arts into 5 techniques; Creo (I create), Rego (I control), Perdo (I destroy), Muto (I change), Intellego (I perceive)

Then you have 10 forms: Ignem (Heat/Fire), Auram (Gases and wind), Aquam (Liquids), Terram (Earth and metals), Herbam (Plants), Animál (animals), Corpus (body), Mentem (mind), Imágonem (image and sounds) and Vim (Power, Magic, Spirit)

To make a spell you combine 2 or more techniques and forms, like with Creo Ignem you can make a fireball, the higher you have in your Creo and Ignem stat the more powerful effect you can cast.

Spells are in 3 categories, 1st is formulaic which is very close to vancian magic where the magus casts a spell according to a formula to get the same effect again and again. 2nd is improvised magic which where the magus makes up a spell on the spot, it's harder to do but much more flexible and adaptable. 3rd you have ritual magic which are powerful rituals that can surpass normal spells both in scope, duration and range.

In fact the system is so good that I've adapted it to Gurps, which is the system I use most these days.

[Max_Killjoy]

Of all magic system from all the different RPGs I've played, Ars Magica has the best.

It first establishes limits of magic, what magic can and cannot do. It then breaks the magical arts into 5 techniques; Creo (I create), Rego (I control), Perdo (I destroy), Muto (I change), Intellego (I perceive)

Then you have 10 forms: Ignem (Heat/Fire), Auram (Gases and wind), Aquam (Liquids), Terram (Earth and metals), Herbam (Plants), Animál (animals), Corpus (body), Mentem (mind), Imágonem (image and sounds) and Vim (Power, Magic, Spirit)

To make a spell you combine 2 or more techniques and forms, like with Creo Ignem you can make a fireball, the higher you have in your Creo and Ignem stat the more powerful effect you can cast.

Spells are in 3 categories, 1st is formulaic which is very close to vancian magic where the magus casts a spell according to a formula to get the same effect again and again. 2nd is improvised magic which where the magus makes up a spell on the spot, it's harder to do but much more flexible and adaptable. 3rd you have ritual magic which are powerful rituals that can surpass normal spells both in scope, duration and range.

In fact the system is so good that I've adapted it to Gurps, which is the system I use most these days.

Based on something a fellow member of my group found online years ago, I adapted a vast chunk of Vampire oWoD thaumaturgy, etc, to use that system of techniques and forms. I still have the Word doc.

[Dr. Cliché]

Of all magic system from all the different RPGs I've played, Ars Magica has the best.

It first establishes limits of magic, what magic can and cannot do. It then breaks the magical arts into 5 techniques; Creo (I create), Rego (I control), Perdo (I destroy), Muto (I change), Intellego (I perceive)

Then you have 10 forms: Ignem (Heat/Fire), Auram (Gases and wind), Aquam (Liquids), Terram (Earth and metals), Herbam (Plants), Animál (animals), Corpus (body), Mentem (mind), Imágonem (image and sounds) and Vim (Power, Magic, Spirit)

To make a spell you combine 2 or more techniques and forms, like with Creo Ignem you can make a fireball, the higher you have in your Creo and Ignem stat the more powerful effect you can cast.

Spells are in 3 categories, 1st is formulaic which is very close to vancian magic where the magus casts a spell according to a formula to get the same effect again and again. 2nd is improvised magic which where the magus makes up a spell on the spot, it's harder to do but much more flexible and adaptable. 3rd you have ritual magic which are powerful rituals that can surpass normal spells both in scope, duration and range.

In fact the system is so good that I've adapted it to Gurps, which is the system I use most these days.

Wow, that sounds like really interesting system. Cheers.

[Thrudd]

Just curious as to whether there are any RPGs that don't use Vancian Magic?

I'm especially interested in ones that don't use the first 'rule' of Vancian Magic:

"Magical effects are packaged into distinct spells; each spell has one fixed purpose. A spell that throws a ball of fire at an enemy just throws balls of fire, and generally cannot be "turned down" to light a cigarette, for instance."

That isn't really the feature that defines the "Vancian" magic system. (That being spells which are imprinted in a special part of the mind and then disappear after casting them, as well as the magician having a very finite capacity to store such spells.)

Regardless- the World of Darkness Mage games do that. D6 Fantasy can potentially do that (it's a completely customizable setting agnostic system). GURPS can do that.

[wumpus]

If you want to see D&D done with "mana", look at the dungeons and dragons online rules (you would probably have to go back to the original release if you can find those rules written down, adjusting the rest of the game to deal with powercreep would be a problem).

In such a system I would recommend two sets of poker chips: one for hit points and one for spell points. Don't run out of either... (In DDO you have to rest [at as rest shrine, no one encounter a day quests here] to get back spell points. Any other means gets *severely* expensive*).

* ok, eventually clerics could burn undead turns to give *someone else* more spell points. You probably would want to start with earlier rules.

[Anonymouswizard]

"Magical effects are packaged into distinct spells; each spell has one fixed purpose. A spell that throws a ball of fire at an enemy just throws balls of fire, and generally cannot be "turned down" to light a cigarette, for instance."

To concentrate on this idea, the big ones to mention are all in the same 'family'. In order of oldest sibling to youngest sibling.

Ars Magica: This is the most interesting way I've seen of codifying magic. It's been over, but the way the effects are separated is awesome. While there is a list of example spells, a lot of it is working out how hard a particular effect is, or working together to build a formulaic spell. It is, however, academia the RPG, expect lots of fighting over papers, roleplaying sitting in a tower reading books, and the fire mage getting banned from the library. Most adventuring, if it happens, is likely to be done by nonmagi while the magus characters work in the lab.

Mage the Ascenion: Here flexible magic is the king. In Ars Magica it can still be very important whether or not you have a formulaic spell, in Ascension rotes might be nice to have, but a lot of the game is 'do I have the spheres to do that?' Magic is split into 9 areas/spheres, Correspondence, Entropy, Forces, Life, Matter, Mind, Prime, Spirit, and Time, each rated from zero to five (zero is no knowledge in that area, five is mastery). Additionally magic use is governed by a separate stat called Arte (although houseruling casting to also use the sphere's rating is not uncommon). Rotes make your magic better, but at the end of the day it's more important to be able to hide your spells from witnesses by making them 'believable'.

Mage the Awakening: Take Ascension, solidify the magic as hermetic gnostic instead of Ascension's 'anything goes', rename Entropy to Fate, and have a Death sphere for zombies that pinches some bits of Fate, Life, and Spirit, and add a ton of example spells and make rotes better, and you get Awakening.

[8BitNinja]

Of all magic system from all the different RPGs I've played, Ars Magica has the best.

It first establishes limits of magic, what magic can and cannot do. It then breaks the magical arts into 5 techniques; Creo (I create), Rego (I control), Perdo (I destroy), Muto (I change), Intellego (I perceive)

Then you have 10 forms: Ignem (Heat/Fire), Auram (Gases and wind), Aquam (Liquids), Terram (Earth and metals), Herbam (Plants), Animál (animals), Corpus (body), Mentem (mind), Imágonem (image and sounds) and Vim (Power, Magic, Spirit)

To make a spell you combine 2 or more techniques and forms, like with Creo Ignem you can make a fireball, the higher you have in your Creo and Ignem stat the more powerful effect you can cast.

Spells are in 3 categories, 1st is formulaic which is very close to vancian magic where the magus casts a spell according to a formula to get the same effect again and again. 2nd is improvised magic which where the magus makes up a spell on the spot, it's harder to do but much more flexible and adaptable. 3rd you have ritual magic which are powerful rituals that can surpass normal spells both in scope, duration and range.

In fact the system is so good that I've adapted it to Gurps, which is the system I use most these days.

10 stats for magic? I thought that The Elder Scrolls went overboard with 8.

[Max_Killjoy]

10 stats for magic? I thought that The Elder Scrolls went overboard with 8.

5 and 10, so in a way it's 15.

I played a lot of a homebrew system that had 12 schools of magic, and the "level" of spell you could cast with each one was limited by your skill in that school.

[jayem]

Of all magic system from all the different RPGs I've played, Ars Magica has the best.
...

That does sound good, a nice mix of flexibility and predictability.

[Satinavian]

10 stats for magic? I thought that The Elder Scrolls went overboard with 8.

There are games out there using the same idea with 30+ stats. And other games with an improvable skill for every single spell.

Always liked Ars Magica personally.

[jayem]

5 and 10, so in a way it's 15.

I played a lot of a homebrew system that had 12 schools of magic, and the "level" of spell you could cast with each one was limited by your skill in that school.

I guess though that 15 is pretty much it, and being (at least) pseudo 2D covers a vast range of 'Vancian' spells.

Morrowind may only have 8, but then you have 100 odd binary do I have waterball things to log, and each spell has it's own damage/duration/areaofeffect (of which half of the numbers are duplicating the ones you already had).

[RazorChain]

10 stats for magic? I thought that The Elder Scrolls went overboard with 8.

Looks like you've never played the skill monkey in a skill based system.....you might have up to 50 skills.

In a game called The Art of Magic where everyone rolls a magus and the focus is magic, I don't think 15 is going overboard. It's like telling a DnD player that keeping an excel spreadsheet over all his magic items is going overboard.

[Max_Killjoy]

I guess though that 15 is pretty much it, and being (at least) pseudo 2D covers a vast range of 'Vancian' spells.

The 5x10 setup adapted from Ars Magica is broad and flexible enough that you can fit just about any "pre-modern" spell into it, and a great many "modern/scientific" effects as well.

The challenge isn't finding a combination that feels right, so much as it's getting the required skill ratings set for a particular spell such that it's balanced and fair for the particular campaign setting/atmosphere.

[Anonymouswizard]

Looks like you've never played the skill monkey in a skill based system.....you might have up to 50 skills.

In a game called The Art of Magic where everyone rolls a magus and the focus is magic, I don't think 15 is going overboard. It's like telling a DnD player that keeping an excel spreadsheet over all his magic items is going overboard.

As someone who hates D&D5e because it's hard to skillmonkey (my favourite archetype along with casters, to the point I'll spend 40PP on skill ranks in Mutants and Masterminds), the Ars Magica system works great due to it's verb/noun structure. It gives 50 different basic spell types, while allowing for more complex spells by combining even more skills (although I forget how using multiple bound work, and multiple verbs is even worse because the core doesn't mention it).

As it is, a Magus likely focuses on one or two nouns (and maybe specialises in a verb, Perdo is the specialty of the sample character). It's not my favourite fantasy game, but the magic system is awesome.

[Knaight]

I was just about to say. Are there any except D&D that have anything similar to Vancian?

There's various fantasy heartbreakers, and then there's some deliberately retro games that take a lot from D&D (ACKS, Torchbearer). If you dilute the definition enough that discrete spells is all it takes to count then it's pretty ubiquitous. With that said, there's also tons of cases where the discrete spell system is replaced with a different magic system*. Ars Magica has already been mentioned, but I'd add Barbarians of Lemuria, FATE 2e, Fate 3e, GURPS, Mage, several systems for Fudge, and on a borderline note finish up the off the top of my head list with Chronica Feudalis.

*Then there's lots more that don't use Vancian Magic because they don't use magic at all, but that's a pointless technicality.

[Jama7301]

Non-Fantasy, but I'm a fan of Shadowrun's casting system, where casting can take a toll on the caster in the form of Drain. If the caster just NEEDS that extra effect, they can overpower their casting, at the risk of their own health.