Magic systems that are fun - Suggestions?
Author
I remember dungeonmaster had an interesting system where you would combine different symbols and experiment with different combinations of them. I'd like a magic system to make you experiment to find different spells. One problem though is the internet. Once one person has found a spell it's posted all over the internet so other people don't have to experiment in the same way. This might or might not be a problem for the game experience. I know that I'd check the net in these kind of situations (not at first but after a while) because I wouldn't want to miss any spells - which sort of works against the whole "research spells" idea. A possible solution to this would be to add a random seed that's stored with the character data which makes all spells unique for a specific character. That way a certain combination would be a "heal 2 hp" for one character while "destroy universe" for another ;)
Quote:Original post by e-u-l-o-g-y
ToohrVyk
Sounds interesting.. I've also thought about adding the elements from the environment as components for spells. Would you use mana as well as trigger-energy or how would you limit the power of and amount of spells one is able to cast? Do you have any suggestions to interface (I guess this is a simple point and click for the different elements) and would the items be used up/drained?
My idea was to use environment components. The key here is that these components are not permanent: they appear and disappear, and the frequency with which they appear depends on the quantity of the element. Thus, a little amount of fire would generate the fire-symbol rarely, while a building on fire or a large funeral pyre would create it very frequently. The same goes with the power of magic items. Also note that you can "see" symbols before you see the generating creature (for instance, if I see a moon symbol appearing, I can assume a werewolf might be around).
Power is also described in terms of conversion efficiency. First, there is the absolute conversion efficiency (for instance ice into fire creates large losses of energy, while wood into fire or water into ice is done much more efficiently). Because of this, certain powerful effects, like fire, are completely useless in certain areas. Second, there is the personal conversion efficiency: whenever you use a symbol, its maximal throughput depends on your skill, as a wizard, of manipulating this symbol. A very powerful death mage would have near-infinite throughput when using death symbols (and would be at home in a graveyard, crypt or near undead), while a fire mage would have a near-zero throughput when using water symbols.
Another power-affecting detail is distance: you can create effects at a distance, but this reduces the personal conversion factors (since you're further away). Thus, you have to choose between casting "fury to fire at blood" and reducing your fury/fire throughput based on your blood-symbol throughput, or "fury to fire at air", casting a fireball at high fury/fire throughput but which can miss. The best option is, of course, to cast "fury to fire at blood" in melee range, but that's also more dangerous. Note that drawing energy from a remote source (as opposed to creating an effect there) does not cause such problems. You may use a moon symbol from the sky to hit something on the ground without any loss as long as the effect is created next to you.
As for the interface, a circle appears in the direction of the symbol. Move the view to center it on the symbol, and click to use it (the symbol disappears, and is placed in the current magic sentence).
Author
ToohrVyk
Now that's something I'd like to see! Seems like a great magic system which might be lots of fun. Is this system supposed to be realtime or would it be possible to pause like in NWN and some other CRPGs? I would suspect that it might be irritating trying to cast magic if some of the components are "flickering". You could make it possible to "bookmark" different combinations and adding a button or hotkey for this. That way it would be easy to cast spells even though the components are rare - and you wouldnt have to recreate the same button clicks over and over again if you're for instance throwing alot of fireballs.
Now that's something I'd like to see! Seems like a great magic system which might be lots of fun. Is this system supposed to be realtime or would it be possible to pause like in NWN and some other CRPGs? I would suspect that it might be irritating trying to cast magic if some of the components are "flickering". You could make it possible to "bookmark" different combinations and adding a button or hotkey for this. That way it would be easy to cast spells even though the components are rare - and you wouldnt have to recreate the same button clicks over and over again if you're for instance throwing alot of fireballs.
I went to a 1 day seminar about magic in writeing. One of the things that they covered was that magic is not seen as magic nowdays. We tend to view magic as a technology.
So even by using runes and materials to create a large array of posible combinations, players will sort through these and then post on the internet the best posible combinations (or even jsut share them with their friends who also play the game). This then brings the problem back to the same as D&D. There are a set of "Spells" that you just select the one you need from. The runes and material system will just mean that it is more difficult to make the game do what you want (they end up fighting the interface instead of the monsters).
What we could do is use another system altogether. What if you had to get ytour magic from the environment. What if the componets of the spell were in the area, not items like runes or other components.
Example:
A mage wishes to cast a fire spell. To do so they will need some source of fire or heat. They could light a fire (torch or such) or even stand in the sunlight. The bigger the fire the more powerful the effect. By standing on rocks they could cast spells with the earth element (and the bigger the rock - or even the type of rock - the more powerful the spell).
You could then have the casting of the spell "use up" the manna in the area (eg a fire spell will extinguish the source fire, etc) and eventually the mage would have to switch to another spell or use another source.
Another aproach (or could even be used in conjunction with the above system) is to have certain items that the mage can enchant with magic. These iteam can be used to create the spells (eg ratteling a bone neklace could be some sort of damage/curse spell). The item could also be used to store the energy of a "source" if you were to use the above system.
As these items are jsut vessles for the power of the mage, they are a bit more than just the runes (if you use D&D as a comparison, then they work more like a potion or scroll).
So to store a spell that requiers both earth and fire elemental powers, you might need to craft a vessle with those aspects to it (say the ash from a fire in a clay pot). The quality and materials the vessles are made from would give the maximum levels of power it could hold.
This would also expand any crafting system you have in your game as createing these vessles and their trade would become a major part of the economy (much like the trade in religious amultes and relics in the middle ages).
Mages might need to perform rituals (simple spells) in which to gather the energies of the componentes and stor them in the vessles. World of Warcraft touched on this idea slightly with the Necromancer and the spell that would create a "Soul Stone" if you were casting a certain spell when a creature died.
Lastly we could use spirit charming. Instead of the mage casting the spells, they would use spirit familiars to do it. The mage would have to summon and convince the spirit to serve them (bribes, charm, threats, exchange of services, bindings, etc). Each spirit would be unique in its abilities and spells it could cast (could be randomly generated from a set of available abilities, or another way) and the mage might have several of them at any one time.
The mage must actively maintain the spirit familiars (through sacrifices, rituals, etc) in a simialr manner to how they employed them in the first place.
You could also use the vessle idea from the above system. The spirit might have to be bound to an item for the mage to use the spells. The more powerful the spirit the better the materials and construction of the vessle (this would be a bit like the Genie in the Lamp).
If the player has to construc vessles (items) to hold the power or spirit, then these could be group rituals. In an MMOG this would give mages reason to work together (and relates to another thread about massive/ritual spells in RPGs).
So even by using runes and materials to create a large array of posible combinations, players will sort through these and then post on the internet the best posible combinations (or even jsut share them with their friends who also play the game). This then brings the problem back to the same as D&D. There are a set of "Spells" that you just select the one you need from. The runes and material system will just mean that it is more difficult to make the game do what you want (they end up fighting the interface instead of the monsters).
What we could do is use another system altogether. What if you had to get ytour magic from the environment. What if the componets of the spell were in the area, not items like runes or other components.
Example:
A mage wishes to cast a fire spell. To do so they will need some source of fire or heat. They could light a fire (torch or such) or even stand in the sunlight. The bigger the fire the more powerful the effect. By standing on rocks they could cast spells with the earth element (and the bigger the rock - or even the type of rock - the more powerful the spell).
You could then have the casting of the spell "use up" the manna in the area (eg a fire spell will extinguish the source fire, etc) and eventually the mage would have to switch to another spell or use another source.
Another aproach (or could even be used in conjunction with the above system) is to have certain items that the mage can enchant with magic. These iteam can be used to create the spells (eg ratteling a bone neklace could be some sort of damage/curse spell). The item could also be used to store the energy of a "source" if you were to use the above system.
As these items are jsut vessles for the power of the mage, they are a bit more than just the runes (if you use D&D as a comparison, then they work more like a potion or scroll).
So to store a spell that requiers both earth and fire elemental powers, you might need to craft a vessle with those aspects to it (say the ash from a fire in a clay pot). The quality and materials the vessles are made from would give the maximum levels of power it could hold.
This would also expand any crafting system you have in your game as createing these vessles and their trade would become a major part of the economy (much like the trade in religious amultes and relics in the middle ages).
Mages might need to perform rituals (simple spells) in which to gather the energies of the componentes and stor them in the vessles. World of Warcraft touched on this idea slightly with the Necromancer and the spell that would create a "Soul Stone" if you were casting a certain spell when a creature died.
Lastly we could use spirit charming. Instead of the mage casting the spells, they would use spirit familiars to do it. The mage would have to summon and convince the spirit to serve them (bribes, charm, threats, exchange of services, bindings, etc). Each spirit would be unique in its abilities and spells it could cast (could be randomly generated from a set of available abilities, or another way) and the mage might have several of them at any one time.
The mage must actively maintain the spirit familiars (through sacrifices, rituals, etc) in a simialr manner to how they employed them in the first place.
You could also use the vessle idea from the above system. The spirit might have to be bound to an item for the mage to use the spells. The more powerful the spirit the better the materials and construction of the vessle (this would be a bit like the Genie in the Lamp).
If the player has to construc vessles (items) to hold the power or spirit, then these could be group rituals. In an MMOG this would give mages reason to work together (and relates to another thread about massive/ritual spells in RPGs).
Author
Edtharan
A couple of your points sounds like what both ToohrVyk and I were talking about earlier, but good points anyway. I couldn't agree more when you say that the magic is gone from magic systems - and that's really the reason for this post. Like I wrote earlier, todays systems take away much of the experimentation and creativity in spell making. And like you said - the systems that tries to remedy this usually just end up making you fight the systems rather than the opponents. So what would be a good, creative system?
I liked both the systems ToohrVyk and you suggested but they also have the same problems as other systems when it comes to experimenting and being able to just look stuff up on the net. Any suggestions on how to prevent this? One way would be like I said to attach a random number to the character which randomizes the spell creation in some way. I don't see this as a good solution for the system ToohrVyk suggested but it could work for other systems. But then there's the problem of explaining these differences ingame. It could be each persons "soul" in combination with the chaotic powers of magic or something like that but it would need an explanation.
Edit:
It's not only a problem with looking things up on the net, but it's also a problem with replayability. It's not a "new" experience if you remember/have written down all the spells from the previous time you played the game.
A couple of your points sounds like what both ToohrVyk and I were talking about earlier, but good points anyway. I couldn't agree more when you say that the magic is gone from magic systems - and that's really the reason for this post. Like I wrote earlier, todays systems take away much of the experimentation and creativity in spell making. And like you said - the systems that tries to remedy this usually just end up making you fight the systems rather than the opponents. So what would be a good, creative system?
I liked both the systems ToohrVyk and you suggested but they also have the same problems as other systems when it comes to experimenting and being able to just look stuff up on the net. Any suggestions on how to prevent this? One way would be like I said to attach a random number to the character which randomizes the spell creation in some way. I don't see this as a good solution for the system ToohrVyk suggested but it could work for other systems. But then there's the problem of explaining these differences ingame. It could be each persons "soul" in combination with the chaotic powers of magic or something like that but it would need an explanation.
Edit:
It's not only a problem with looking things up on the net, but it's also a problem with replayability. It's not a "new" experience if you remember/have written down all the spells from the previous time you played the game.
RE: Edtharan post and e-u-l-o-g-y's reply
You arent going to get away from sharing spells. Whatever solution you come up with will have to be implemented on the computer and that means it will have to be fixed.
Even if you say you need a burning building to cast that mega spell everyone will soon learn how to do it (even though they need to do x random things before it comes to life) because it still is the same spell.
Clicking on moon, fire and blood would indeed be nice because it means you can only use that spell in certain conditions but it would still be the same spell.
I suspect that the only way to truly make magic magical is to allow everyone to build their own spells.
My idea (which I never intended to share with you) was to get the runes from Ultima VII. They are basic things and hardly copyrighted. Each rune has a type of effect (for example the spell ignite in Ultima 7 was In Flam, rune In and rune Flam translating to ignite, usually a candle). By mixing the runes you can create your own spells, just like the alphabet.
Ignite (in flam) is useful only for lighting a candle but IN FLAM FLAM FLAM might cause fire damage. Someone will immediatly say in flam * infinity but you limit that by
A- each time you memorise a spell you consume all reagents (including runes).
B- Limit number of memorised spells
C- make duplicating effects more expensive (to create first FLAM 1 fire symbol, second Flam 2, third FLAM 4 etc).
You could then use the previous idea to generate the reagents that enable you to enchant runes.
Finally you go DnD by forcing mages to be in a safe place (camp, tavern) to memorise spells.
Because you have a huge alphabet of spells you are going to have loads of combinations and even though some will be extremelly popular there will be quite often some that are a lot more useful
Heal yourself throw firebal
throw firebal
throw firebal and lightning
throw firebal throw firebal (fires a firebal that once it hits the target it fires again in the same direction)
throw multiply explode (throws spell, once it hits it multiplies in several small range directions and then each of those explodes)
heal explode heal (heals you, explodes dealing dmg all around and at you, heals you again)
fire shield, fire explosion (protects you and then throws a fire explosion around you)
speed throw slow (enhances your speed and then fires a slow spell)
multiply heal (fires a short range multidirectional heal spell)
the combinations are ENDLESS!!!
Mind you I am blatanly copying "Legends" spell system with the exception that im adding some dnd effects (memorising spells mostly)
You arent going to get away from sharing spells. Whatever solution you come up with will have to be implemented on the computer and that means it will have to be fixed.
Even if you say you need a burning building to cast that mega spell everyone will soon learn how to do it (even though they need to do x random things before it comes to life) because it still is the same spell.
Clicking on moon, fire and blood would indeed be nice because it means you can only use that spell in certain conditions but it would still be the same spell.
I suspect that the only way to truly make magic magical is to allow everyone to build their own spells.
My idea (which I never intended to share with you) was to get the runes from Ultima VII. They are basic things and hardly copyrighted. Each rune has a type of effect (for example the spell ignite in Ultima 7 was In Flam, rune In and rune Flam translating to ignite, usually a candle). By mixing the runes you can create your own spells, just like the alphabet.
Ignite (in flam) is useful only for lighting a candle but IN FLAM FLAM FLAM might cause fire damage. Someone will immediatly say in flam * infinity but you limit that by
A- each time you memorise a spell you consume all reagents (including runes).
B- Limit number of memorised spells
C- make duplicating effects more expensive (to create first FLAM 1 fire symbol, second Flam 2, third FLAM 4 etc).
You could then use the previous idea to generate the reagents that enable you to enchant runes.
Finally you go DnD by forcing mages to be in a safe place (camp, tavern) to memorise spells.
Because you have a huge alphabet of spells you are going to have loads of combinations and even though some will be extremelly popular there will be quite often some that are a lot more useful
Heal yourself throw firebal
throw firebal
throw firebal and lightning
throw firebal throw firebal (fires a firebal that once it hits the target it fires again in the same direction)
throw multiply explode (throws spell, once it hits it multiplies in several small range directions and then each of those explodes)
heal explode heal (heals you, explodes dealing dmg all around and at you, heals you again)
fire shield, fire explosion (protects you and then throws a fire explosion around you)
speed throw slow (enhances your speed and then fires a slow spell)
multiply heal (fires a short range multidirectional heal spell)
the combinations are ENDLESS!!!
Mind you I am blatanly copying "Legends" spell system with the exception that im adding some dnd effects (memorising spells mostly)
Quote:Original post by e-u-l-o-g-y
ToohrVyk
Now that's something I'd like to see! Seems like a great magic system which might be lots of fun. Is this system supposed to be realtime or would it be possible to pause like in NWN and some other CRPGs? I would suspect that it might be irritating trying to cast magic if some of the components are "flickering". You could make it possible to "bookmark" different combinations and adding a button or hotkey for this. That way it would be easy to cast spells even though the components are rare - and you wouldnt have to recreate the same button clicks over and over again if you're for instance throwing alot of fireballs.
I realize my explanation was not perfect. I meant that the component disappears when you use it in a spell, not simply by itself. This means that you can easily deplete the fire from a candle (because it is infrequently generated) but that from a brazier would pop back on seconds after you've used it.
Secondly, the point is that resources are limited, but spells are powerful. The key here is that people should not be throwing a lot of fireballs at everything, for two reasons: first, this would unbalance the game world (a flick of the wrist and the city's archmage can launch a nuke-like fireball on an enemy city? feh), ans secondly it breaks the highly-flexible aspect of magic. Unless you're next to large amounts of an element, you have to find alternate ways to deal damage or protect yourself. After a fireball, you're going to wait for at least half a minute, in most cases, for another fire symbol to appear in the same place (quite the reason why torches aren't used inside buildings anymore, and replaced by cold light) unless you're already in the middle of some fiery destruction. So, in the mean time, you will have to perform some other tricks, like maybe turning earth to water under the enemy, or using a symbol of Wild Magic that randomly appeared out of thin air, or maybe start your casting with a "Create fire" spell on nearby wood.
Even then, your average-level spell is not something like a measly fireball. We're talking about transmuting blood into fire, or maybe water into blades when it's raining, or even transmuting anything to death. The difficulty of finding the symbols and casting the spell is offset by some awe-inspiring destruction. So finding yourself out of fire now and then isn't that big a problem...
Finally, the personal conversion factors are IMO a good key to replayability. Play a Water/Iron Mage and live in a rainy area. Play a Death/Moon Mage and scour graveyards at night to raise undead. Play a Fury/Flesh Mage and turn yourself into an invulnerable berserker. Play a Mind/Air Mage and become a nigh-invisible stealthy assassin or thief. Even if you read this up on the net, finding an efficient, portable item that generates symbols of Death, Iron and Fire with regularity and also managing to get your throughput high enough to allow for the spell to succeed will slow you down for a bit until you are finally able to create a Forgecorpse (steel-boned burning skeleton).
Quote:Original post by ToohrVyk
Finally, the personal conversion factors are IMO a good key to replayability. Play a Water/Iron Mage and live in a rainy area. Play a Death/Moon Mage and scour graveyards at night to raise undead. Play a Fury/Flesh Mage and turn yourself into an invulnerable berserker. Play a Mind/Air Mage and become a nigh-invisible stealthy assassin or thief. Even if you read this up on the net, finding an efficient, portable item that generates symbols of Death, Iron and Fire with regularity and also managing to get your throughput high enough to allow for the spell to succeed will slow you down for a bit until you are finally able to create a Forgecorpse (steel-boned burning skeleton).
yeah... but it still means you are bogged down by your initial choice of character. Even though its really hard to get a few spells there still are a limited number of them... so you are back to DnD with everyone having the same spells or wanting to have them.
However if you say that the spells depend on the combination of reagents then it becomes different. Please note that I dont mean Fireball needs X and Y but if you mix X with Y you get a firebal: the type and ammount of reagents creates the spell and any combination is valid.
I really think the only way is to increase the number of spells so that almost any type of magic can be created.
Quote:Original post by BloodWarrior
However if you say that the spells depend on the combination of reagents then it becomes different. Please note that I dont mean Fireball needs X and Y but if you mix X with Y you get a firebal: the type and ammount of reagents creates the spell and any combination is valid.
I'm pretty sure I said that. Note that spells depend on the choice of symbols, on your current throughput for said symbols, and on the grammar skeleton you're using for your spell.
Quote:I really think the only way is to increase the number of spells so that almost any type of magic can be created.
Is that really desireable? This would result in a magic system with a large amount of different effects, but not necessarily a fun magic system. In fact, this is usually more prone to ending up in a large amount of useless spells and an ever larger amount of unbalanced spells, which generally stops being fun after a short while.
A game will generally be funnier with hand-designed individual spells, because more work was put in the spells and more quirks and unbalances were removed, and replay value can (as I said earlier) be handled by creating career paths: you can't try out a game as a warrior and a mage and a thief and a priest at the same time.
My system promotes magic research and diversity in two ways:
- By making effects clear through the use of a grammar skeleton and simple elements (instead of complicated sentences), anyone can invent a spell in any situation.
- By reducing spellcasting to selection of quantified symbols from the environment (instead of choosing the precise amounts of each element) spells can be made up on the spot, encouraging flexibility instead of "invent spell, bind to key, mash keyboard".
Quote:Original post by ToohrVyk
By reducing spellcasting to selection of quantified symbols from the environment (instead of choosing the precise amounts of each element) spells can be made up on the spot, encouraging flexibility instead of "invent spell, bind to key, mash keyboard".
I've always liked the idea of a magic "vocabulary". Your system of contextual magic requires a little extra attention from the player, which I find engaging. Unfortunately, some people hate that. If you don't put in a key-bind-and-mash function, a lot of people will whine about it.
I think what is more important is figuring out other ways to use magic. In Japanese RPGs, magic is either a)highly damaging, b)highly healing, or c)completely useless status effect spells that don't help at all.
In my turn-based mage game, I'm modeling spell effects after magic: the gathering cards. I'm putting special effort into creating nonviolent spells like "control magic", "bind creature", "precognition" and so on. I think more useful magic would help RPGs more than a new magic interface would.
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