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

[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.