There''s a recent thread on the topic of "real" magic, but its been mangled by some juvenile who thought it''d be funny to stretch out the column width and destroy line-wrapping, making it difficult for me to read. Besides this one is more specific to my own magic system; I''m just looking for input. I wanted to generate some more discussion on this topic as I work on my MMORPG design. As I mentioned in the previous thread, my own system is intended to be a sort of "mind over matter" system (NOT psionics!) involving a Star Wars style "Force." I mentioned that this force/magic was utilized through a quality not unlike the concept of religious faith. To get into just a little more depth, the planet upon which my game takes place has a "force" of sorts which amplifies intelligent belief (not just thought). This element would exist naturally just as gravity exists. It is also amplified by the presence of life, especially intelligent life. In the previous thread Inmate mentioned the concept of "Ether" which just might work well for the game.. I might even call this "force" Ethereal Energy or something. As I mentioned the system is based on belief. In other words, a character could create water by "believing" that an actually empty glass was full of water. The point was made in the previous post that a person could merely "believe" his enemy out of existence, which caused me to take the time to expand on some of my original ideas. Here are my thoughts: The person using this "magic" would expend physical energy when exercising this practice, and any task would have a certain difficulty associated with it. The categories of difficulty are: 1. Acts Involving Inanimate Objects Difficulty: Task +0 2. Beneficial Acts Involving Living Creatures Difficulty: Task +10 -(Target''s Intelligence Modifier) 3. Neutral Acts Involving Living Creatures Difficulty: Task +15 4. Creation Acts Involving Inanimate Objects Difficulty: Task +20 5. Hostile Acts Involving Living Creatures Difficulty: Task +20 +(Target''s Intelligence Modifier) 6. Destruction Acts Involving Inanimate Objects Difficulty: Task +50 7. Creation Acts Involving Living Creatures Difficulty: Task +100 7. Destruction Acts Involving Living Creatures Difficulty: Task +100 +(Target''s Intelligence Modifer) (Actual numbers are relative to each other, they don''t actually mean anything yet but give an idea of the difficulty of the task.) The "Task" is the original difficulty of the task -- that is to say, acting upon an existing inanimate object as simple as an empty glass is very easy, while something as complex as a human corpse would be very difficult to act upon. Then you add the difficulty modifier for the category, which in this case is 0 -- if the human were still alive, the difficulty would depend on the nature of the action (beneficial, neutral, or hostile) and would be considerably more difficult. Creation and Destruction of course involves the forming or dispersing of matter from/into surrounding energies. Creating and destroying life are abilities those on Earth would associate with deity. As such, it is virtually, though not completely, impossible to perform such incredible acts in this game. So, on to my question. Basically I''m just looking for input -- what am I missing? What doesn''t make sense? What can I do better? And of course, I''m always interested in other examples of a Life-Energy type magic system. **************************************** Brian Lacy ForeverDream Studios Comments? Questions? Curious? brian@foreverdreamstudios.com "I create. Therefore I am."

quote:If you have Creation/Distruction Involving Living Creatures so close togeather, why have would the Creation/Distruction Involving Inanimate Objects be futher apart?

To answer that question I need to get into more specifics of the game, which could potentially raise more questions than it answers..

Destruction is inherently more difficult than creation. However, with regard to the creation and destruction of life, both are virtually impossible because life itself has a will to exist naturally. I know I said that these were only relative values, but consider a difficulty of 100 as being "impossible for an ordinary being." Creating and destroying life are reserved for those that are closer to deity than they are to humanity. While it will be possible to achieve such a status in the game, it will be extremely uncommon. Furthermore, the average human would have an intelligence rating of something like 20, meaning that destroying a human being is "beyond impossible" for another human.

Note that "Destruction of Inanimate Objects" has only a 50 modifier -- so, consider this the most difficult type of action a natural human can undertake.