quote:Original post by NightWraith
Some of you may have read my post in the Game Design forum asking for help giving mana names to various categories of spells. (If you want to it is here). And this got me thinking, what other ways (and what other catagories we can use) are there of grouping spells together besides the traditional Good/Evil and(boringly un-orriginal) Earth, Fire, Air and Water categories. That still make sence to the end user.

Ok, there''s function, but this almost always is : Attack, defence and the panicy I dont know what to call these "misc" group.

But there must be other ways we can group that are still friendly to the user and would give the game a bit more of an originality feel to it.

Take, for example what I am doing (something a bit like sacrifice). I WAS going to be just as un-orriginal and group my spells in 2 ways, Function (Summoning, Attack, Potions and Misc [yuck]) and Mana type (Light and Shadow, a bit less used than Law & Chaos, Good & Evil, Life & Death.. but not exactly original). After having a major re-think (since my implementation idea of this in the game wasnt going to work), I got rid of the Functional Catagories, and rethought my Mana catagories. Taking a few logical steps and a bit of thought I came up with... Elemental (the least originally used one of the lot) as a grouping for weather type spells and units, Enchantment as a grouping for all the Farie tale type spells and units (those that can be considered Faree creatures like Elves and Trolls), Light (I wanted to keep one of the orrignal Mana types, and this seemed the more "generic" one) which I used for things like invisibility, and fire type stuff, the connection being Light -> Heat -> Fire. And finally I had the idea that Necromancy could have something to do with the manipulation of Life Force (in what ever way you want to see it) and so that catagory was born and not only did I lump in there all your Zombies and other Undead, but also the "Good" life spells like Healing.

There must be otherways of looking at all this... thoughts?

You could do the AD&D Abjuration, Conjuration, Illusion School-system of Magic. You could split the schools into Wizardry and Sorcery, then decide which ones would be the "evil" ones, wizards or sorcerers. That''s all I can think of off the top of my head.

This one is a little OT, but you gotta dream sometimes, right?

Do you really need "strong" grouping? How many spells do you plan to have? Wizardry 1-5 have a great (I think) spell system with 25 spells per caster type (mage or priest) and they are ordered them by... level. After a relatively short time, you know what each spell does, so I don''t really see a reason for inventing such groups for a certain number of spells. Of course, if you plan to have more than 50 spells, this might be a little too chaotic.

Then there''s the system Wizardry 7 uses. They have six groups of spells (fire, water, air, earth, mental, divine) with 96 spells overall. For casting a spell, you have to know what spell you need (the names can be a little confusing at times) AND where to find it. I think it''s a good example for overkill at times.

What I actually liked was the kind of system used in Ultima Underworld (magic runes). All spells were made up from runes (a set close to futhark), each given a certain "power" like creation, negation, death, life, elements, ... without any specific grouping of the complete spells at all. Of course, this was in better times when players still knew that pen&paper are essential things to have close even in a CRPG. You had a list of spells ready and you simply chose by putting three runes in a tray.

Based on that concept, I''d like to at least try a "backwards" method where not the spells are grouped, but the groups make spells. You could "build" your spells from groups. Like, when you want to make up a spell, you just go through a creation tree. Perhaps on the first level, you choose between creation, modification and destruction, on the second you could chose elements, mind and perhaps even reality, and so on. If made intelligently, this could be about the first "logical" magic system. Of course, it would take some (or more) time to creatie it, but I think it''s promising.

So, how exactly does magic work in your world? Once you know that, the divisions between types should be more obvious. I think that divisions created by construction and function will make more sense than arbitrary divisons.

Just a different angle.

Grouping your magic... well theres a few ways of doing that. And all of them are cliche so I''ll just skip all of that.

Maybe you could make your magic item specific? Or involve items in magic (other than something like alchemy, finding ingrediants is lame). I just got this idea from Thomas Convent''s ''wild'' magic. He had a magic ring that although he couldn''t say words and get it to work, it just kind of did what he wanted done. Although in your case you''d need to have some user way of triggering it.

The magic system I''m using in my game ties with the battle system... Magic is not cast, its comboed. Basically, the more buttons you press, the faster your attacks start slicing, and then as the combo continues, the damage obviously becomes magically as you get swirly lights...

I''m just listing here:

You could group magic as lawful/unlawful
maybe god-inspired (godly magics)/heretic magic?
Demonic/Heavenly
Imbued(requiring something physical? casters blood? maybe damages things on the physical plane, or requires a catalyst from the physical world)/Free Magic (does not effect the physical world, something like confusion for example)
Love/Hate?
Practiced (like a fireball spell) / Wild (like a resurrect spell, spells that are less frequently used... maybe cannot be cast easily, or require certain events in order to gain them)
Lore Magic (like something learned in scholars school, involving reading runes and scrolls)/ Other Magic (Magic that is spontanius, bards music for example).
Protector/Destroyer (I think you can guess)
God1/God2/God3/God4 (Magic is gained from other entities, kind of like sacrifice as you get spells from different gods).
Sacrificial/Beneficial (Sacrifical is magic used to kill [maybe make it give the caster a bonus if enough damage is delt], Beneficial is like a heal spell [maybe give the caster a bonus if the spell does much good]).
Rune Magic / Verse Magic (runes are written, scrolls, magic items etc, verse is like a chant, or a memorized spell)
You could do Tech / Magic
Maybe Nature / Unnatural (Nature is healing, fire, elements.. unnatural is curses, resurrections, necromancy, mind control)
Inspired/Terror (For inspired your mana is others belief in you, Terror is others fear of you. IE, wizards could not cast spells if no one believed in their magic ability. [That could make a good plot element and character motivator])
White Tower/Black Stronghold (Magic is taken from Ancient Temples that represent the forces of good and evil. could be a good story element and scenery.)
Logic/Chaos (Logical magic is the magic behind certainties and altering probabilties like age, ressurection, some summonings of Normal creatures. Chaos magic is the power of uncertainties, like forces of nature, summing Demons or other worldly creatures.)
Combat Magic/Conservative Magic (combats right in the front (a fireball, a heal spell, rage, haste), Conservative is like blessings, (increased tohit, increased %tohit, increased defense, anti poison). Conservative can''t change anything on the battle field, it just alters the likely hood of things happening (knock outs, really powerfull attacks, strength of magical attacks... etc)
Mens Magic/Womens Magic (if you want a gender split...)
and alternativly
Young Magic/ Old Magic (maybe different magic styles, or maybe a persons spell set changes as they age. Fireballs and fury for the young; Flaming swords and haste for the men; Red Dragon summoning and teleport for the old =)
*I''m running out of ideas...*
Lore Magic / Spontanius magic (lore is scrolls, runes etc, spontanius is emotional, music and love etc)
Constructive/Destructive (constructive is life, water, earth. Destructive is death, fire, wind).
Hand Magics/head Magics (hand is conjuration, summoning, fireballs, etc. Head is mental stuff, haste, courage, endurance modifying effects.)

I think my ideas are really starting to imitate themselves... so I''ll stop with that list.

How about culturally? Look at the real world: How many Hindu mystics supposedly perform feats such as lying on beds of nails, standing on swords, or causing lengths of rope to levitate? How many european mystics "performed" the same feats? How many european mystics supposedly cursed victims with lycanthropy? How many Hindu mystics supposedly did the same?

Each society would have it''s own way of going about magic, and this would lead to a different set of effects.

For example: A "savage" culture might commune with the spirits of nature, being able to call storms, control animals, etc.
Another might value strength of body above all else, so their mages might be nearly invulnerable, but would not have many other powers.
Yet another might work through a random element, like tarot cards, and would have a wild, varied array of powers.

There should be at least some logic as to why each cultures magic is the way it is, such as where their mystics draw their power from. The groupings could be fairly arbitrary in this case, but as the players grew accustomed to the world, they would learn what the mages of the various cultures were capable of.

They''re coming for you!