Getting away from Earth, Air, Fire, and Water

[tuftears]

Just some random noodling on RPG magic systems that don't involve the archetypal four elements. octantis complains correctly that the four elements see an awful lot of use - they're cliche, but we use them anyway because everyone understands them and recognizes what power these elements possess.

But what other systems could we devise if we got away from 'elements are the building blocks of magic'?

First, to make an effective magic system for an RPG - one that can be used by players, you need to be able to attack, defend, buff, debuff, and perform utilitarian functions with it. It should be obvious how you can perform these functions. With the elements, you can create some amount of an element that is magically charged, then manipulate it to attack the enemy or shield yourself. Stretching a point, you can use 'water' to heal yourself, because of the strong association water has with healing, 'fire' to energize yourself, 'earth' to make yourself stronger, or 'air' to make yourself faster.

The Arcane Element - here, magic is simply a force of creation and destruction. Your understanding of the key concepts allow you to control it better, some undefined affinity to magic allows you to summon more of it. This is pretty basic and boring, really, so in an RPG the designer's liable to pretty it up by throwing in concepts like 'Kaballah' or 'schools of magic' and 'complex rituals to build up power' - but the point is that there are just two variables - strength and cleverness.

Elemental magic is really just a subset of 'magic is a force'. Perhaps it's a statement - 'my character is of such a personality type so he'll naturally be strong in this kind of magic.'

Spiritual Invocation - I initially suggested 'Tarot' where players would be able to channel the powers of the Major Arcana, but really the root system is 'call on powerful spirits who embody archetypal concepts to assist you'. This system seems weak because it's unclear for many spirits - say, Hestia, goddess of the hearth - how you could use the powers granted to assist you in a fight. That's not necessarily bad though, you could say someone who was a devotee of Hestia is strong in defense and utility, but weak on offense. And you could allow players to choose several spirits that they could invoke. Still, I think it leaves players too much at the will of the GM for whether something they have in mind will work. GMs would have to give players a list of spells they know they can work, and balancing those lists with other players' capabilities could be difficult.

Avatars - Pokemon comes to mind as a good example where the PCs' powers manifest themselves through their guardian beasts, but also S-CRY-ed where PCs can conjure up entities that either stand apart or meld themselves with the PCs' bodies. This is something I'd like to toy with more in an RPG framework - if you could design your own magical guardian, what abilities would you give it, and what form? Actually form might almost be more important than abilities, as it's an outward manifestation of your PC's inner characteristics. Pokemon does feature strong elemental associations for its creatures, but the presentation is important.

Wild Magic - while it might seem incompatible with allowing players to choose what they want to do with magic, I think there's a certain appeal in building up the idea that magic is an untamed force; think of Schmendrick in the Last Unicorn, forever to be an apprentice, having difficulties casting even the simplest spells, but at the right moments, magic pours through him, he simply is the magic, and then great things happen. In an RP setting, potential would be balanced by control. The more control you have, the less potential. You describe what wondrous things you want to have happen and then the GM rolls a die, and if the powers that be like you, it happens. If you have luck points to spend, you can reroll them. The GM can also just make it happen if the GM really likes your idea.

Oddly enough, I'm not sure most PCs would actually want to be Schmendrick. It'd be frustrating to know most of your attempts at casting a spell would fail, and you might often get great successes only on trivial matters you didn't care about.

By default if you're a magician with great control over your powers, it plays out like The Arcane Element and then it gets boring again, but then your powers are limited too.

Comments

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

I like the *concept* of "elements" to break up magic, for the sake of organization, though the Aristotlean set ... has its shortcomings. Ditto for the daoist set of five. Many systems oppose Fire and Water ... but it's really Fire vs. Ice. D&D has a sort of unadvertised system of acid/fire/ice/electricity/sonic, for damage types, which doesn't quite mesh perfectly with the Classic Four.

I think AHQ introduced me to the idea that "magic" should be divided into specialties, with their eight "colleges" of magic ... though they were poorly defined, and frequently added onto. Still, it was a start, and it wasn't all about "energy types."

... er, more later.

[traveller-blues.livejournal.com]

And I was immediately reminded of:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0345.html

-Traveller

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Perfect. =)

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Sorry, making quick notes on little breaks. Anyway, I wanted to say I like the idea of breaking "elements" (literal or otherwise) along different *functions* of magic, not just different flavors of damage-dealing. It has its place, I suppose, but when magic is reduced to an elaborate version of rock-paper-scissors, once the PCs figure out the scheme, it's only an excuse for them to make sure they break out the flaming swords when fighting ice golems, and then switch to wind magic versus rock monsters, or whatever - if they even have that luxury. I like the idea of elements as "themes" so you can extrapolate what sorts of powers *should* fit in that area. E.g., fire = destruction, water = healing ... or whatever.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Well, what I'm kind of getting at is, how can we make 'working with magic' interestingly different? Magic is all about feel, so it should feel fun to play with magic - you should have an innate grasp of what you can do, and a lot of that is conveyed by saying that you can work with 'elements'. But what other systems could you do that with?

Now, you can also say 'you can create' or 'you can transmute' and such, and that makes a reasonably different system, but if you lock players into only being able to do one or two different types of magic, they're then lacking offense or defense or utility... And if players can do it all, you're back at the basic It's All Magic system.

Arguably you can say a mage who can create things can then create weapons, or create bolts of destruction, but then it becomes kind of a 'best person at powergaming wins' which is a little icky.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

I haven't exhausted all I have to say on the topic, nor am I saying "Hey, let's go back to fire/water/air/earth!" I'm just working late at work, with the only occasional break, and there's only so much I can cram into an entry at a time, and so I'm addressing bits at a time.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

<3

I am curious what other magic systems spring to mind for you since you've played with a lot of them.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Might have to right an LJ entry when I get home. Afraid I'll overload the comments, and this is way too disjointed for me to seem the least bit coherent.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

One thought: Nonexclusive, overlapping "elements." Different "elements" for lack of better word, may have their own attack spells, for instance, and several might have protection, and several might have healing - but some fields are naturally *better* at certain areas.

AHQ offended my sense of fairness when they gave a healing spell to the Fire College, when certain Colleges had none at all. It made more sense for Jade (plant/druid) and Light (holy/priest), and perhaps even Gold (alchemy/alchemist). At least Light had a slightly *better* healing spell, though.

I was about to suggest that I think of how "traditional" superheroes usually have various stunts they can pull, but they're all justified by whatever physics-breaking central "super power" the character has. Flash is ridiculously fast. Iceman makes ice. Hulk is super-strong. The trouble is, the most iconic superhero of them all, Superman, fails to fit a decent theme; he just has a grab-bag of ridiculous powers that are only thematically tied because we've grown up associating them with Superman.

... oops, break over. More later.

[cjthomas.livejournal.com]

Ars Magica works on a system with 5 types of action (create, investigate, alter, destroy, control) and 10 types of target (animals, liquids, gases, human body, plants, fire/heat/light, appearances/senses, sapient mind, solids, magical energy). Because generalists spread their points too thin, you end up with people choosing to be good at one or two actions and one or two targets.

You'd be *amazed* at how creatively people can apply a limited set of tools to a wide range of problems. The system isn't perfect (it's easy to come up with effects that should kill people a lot more easily than the difficult "kill outright" spell, for example), but it's an elemental-type system that ends up being very different from the usual 4/5 element scheme, despite being derived from it.

-Deuce

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

True dat. I kind of want to avoid systems where the object is 'out-clever the GM' though.

[cjthomas.livejournal.com]

More like "cleverly use your tools to the fullest"; the GM generally wants you to stay alive (after toying with you in a cat-like manner, of course). Both the GM and the players have a good idea of what the players can do with both orthodox and un-orthodox applications of magic, and the adventures are tailored to have at least one (and usually multiple) solution approaches that would work. Your mileage may vary.

Real PCs(tm) tend try to out-clever the GM no matter what, so I'm not really seeing the down-side };>.

-Deuce

I'll set your toenails growing inwards!

[traveller-blues.livejournal.com]

Hestia -- protection wards for that oh-so-problematic time when the party has to camp for the night. Also, minor fire-making cantrips, despite having wet wood, and the ability to cook tasty food from nothing more than rat corpses, black pepper, an onion, and a rock with dubious lichen thrown in the mix.

At its core, magic is the manipulation of energy/potential to bend or break the laws of physics. The real 'problem' is that the imaginative ways we have doing so fall into classes of stunts:

Produce X from nothing.
"Conjure rain of turnips" isn't terribly useful. "Conjure ice storm?" Sure makes sense when you're a mage that wants to destroy the orange crop.

Destroy X with force.
Usually, fire is the vehicle of choice for destroying most objects, followed by water, then air. TK force (aka the spiritual weapon, Hadouken, etc) is another variance. But it's all about 'what can really destroy item X' plausibly? "I cast 'Destructive Casaba Melon!" Great if you're the Iron Chef. When confronting an oncoming army? Not so much.

Warp initial state A to final state B.
Transmutations fall in this category.

Move item M to place N.
Which includes 'look Magistrix, no hands on the knife... kathunk!'

Temporarily enhance/debuff person K.
Here's something that doesn't really use elements for most physical core stuff, and in fact, the usual schtick is 'animal' or 'insert 'famous mage' name here.'
This class also includes 'force less-than-100% effectively hostile state' on creatures, such as Sleep, Charm, Jedi Mind Trick, etc.

------------
Okay, for the too long, didn't read crew:

Simple magic system.
Make, Destroy, Move, Change.

Add keywords as necessary.
Make Fire. (How large?)
Destroy Straw House With Air.
Move Mountain With Elemental I Make.

Something like that.

-Traveller

Re: I'll set your toenails growing inwards!

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

That's a little similiar to the 'True Language' system of magic that rowyn devised for her Honored game - if the native characters knew the words, they could make spells very much like the system you describe. It cost them some of their 'mana' to learn these words, and it cost the teacher a lot more to teach it, but mana could be replenished twice a day.

Anyway, I lump that under the 'Arcane Element' system... I guess what I'm shooting for is 'ways of thinking about magic'. You manipulate forces in Arcane Element; you appeal to forces for help in Spiritual Invocation; you summon up forces in Avatars. And you basically hope you get lucky in Wild Magic.

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

The biggest, crazied element system is in the "Elemental Companion" for Rolemaster, which has over 2 dozen elements, and the description of a holy war between the Polars (who believe that elements should be paired) and the Triads (who believe that the elements should be grouped in threes). Could've been Rolemaster's best book, with all the spells using the same formal rules but having different critical tables.

I'd love to see an avatar-based magic RPG. It's more like having two characters -- yourself, and your avatar. It's very popular in anime, and it lends itself very well to storytelling, but you rarely see it in RPGs.

Way too many RPGs have wild magic, already. (See Rolemaster.)

Marvel Superheroes had an interesting theory where magic was separated into Personal Magic (the weakest, but the easiest, and powered by your own hit points, always guaranteed to work), Universal Magic (stronger, had random chance of failure, could achieve effects Personal couldn't, harder to learn), and Extradimensional Magic (the most powerful, but requires a compact with some extradimensional entity, who will want favors done for them in return for their power).

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I'll think about the avatar-based magic system for a bit. Tarot RPG isn't going anywhere... Possibly because it's too vague, people thrive off of being able to get immediate results, IMO.

[caffeinewabbit.livejournal.com]

They should make a system based on the actual periodic table.

"Oh yeah? Well, I cast my Magnesium based spell!"

[cjthomas.livejournal.com]

Like this? };>

-Deuce

[gen.livejournal.com]

What we do on TK is just have one 'element' which is 'the mist'. Just the weird stuff around you that makes everything real.

We divide the magic types into four schools. Psionics, Magic, Faith, and Imagination. You can only assert things against people with psionics and magic (and thus, those are the only ones that take resistances or weaknesses into account). Faith and imagination are things like holy light and healing and illusion or making things out of the air.

It's a fairly generic system, but sometimes simple is better.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

'assert'? It sounds like an interesting system though, since none of those magics are in and of themselves elements, they're more different styles of 'where do you get your magic from'.

[gen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the only element is 'mist', although it can be twisted and bent to do different things.

By 'Assert' I mean do something that the person can resist. Making a rock into a shiny gem is one thing, because the rock can't really resist you. Making a person into a shiny gem is much harder, because the person has will and probably doesn't want to become a shiny gem.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Ahh, okay, right, PVP. So Faith and Imagination aren't inherently PVP type - you create the illusion without anyone it's specifically targeted against, and everyone who sees it probably gets a chance to disbelieve it, I'd guess. And no point in resisting heals. <_<

[wordslinger.livejournal.com]

I like your suggestions very much... will come back to reread them after a pile of homework is done.

:) I can almost see one of your short stories based around this system. (sigh) It's been a long time since we had one of your good stories, Foofly One!

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Which system? >_>

[rowyn]

Lately I've been a lot more interested in the "perform utilitarian functions" side of magic than in the combat side that seems to dominate most RPGs and stories.

The trouble with Schmendrick is that his powerset is a plot device. Most gamers want to feel that it's the choices of the PCs that have the most impact on the game and that their actions drive the plot. That it's their cleverness and solutions that make things work out. With Schmendrick as a PC, it's a GM ruling or a die roll that does those things, and either way it feels more like reading a book than playing a game.

Were you thinking of having all four of your types of magic in one game? It seems like any one of them would be enough to hang a story off of, without needing the others to complete the system.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

You're right, there'd have to be more to what the players were and were not able to do than a simple die roll saying what they want succeeds or not, otherwise they'd get frustrated quickly.

So, maybe the players might have cards representing Action (Spades), Consequence (Diamonds), Circumstances (Hearts), and Force (Clubs). At any time, a player might have up to ten cards (based on character level) drawn from the deck. The player can perfectly cast a spell when he has all four suits. At any time the player casts a spell with fewer, he can control only those aspects, the others are random (dice roll). Mages could discard and draw new cards in an effort to have the random factors align.

To make spells not all cost four cards which would leave mages pretty powerless, you might discard the most powerful (highest numbered) card you've played. If you don't have the four suits, then you can cast with fewer, but you're basically hoping that the cards the GM draws from the deck to finish your spell will be of the correct suit; if they aren't, then something goes wrong in one of the aspects you didn't control.

Mostly I'm just brainstorming here on how magic can be handled differently and interestingly, than 'I command (element), do X'. No intention to put them all in one game. More of an intention to try and come up with something fresh and new and worth playing.

Trying to put all four magic types in one system would be... Possibly too much.

[rowyn]

I like the mechanic with the cards and each one controlling a different aspect of the spell. It's simple to execute and understand but allows for complex ramifications. It'd be interesting to see how it plays.