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Old 05-21-2009, 07:52 AM   #16
Sergeytov
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Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: The Lost Cause of Magic

Wow, lots of replies.

Having had some more time to ponder most of yesterday's replies, I got to thinking about some things in this thread. Namely, that I may be a bit harsh on the Forgotten Realms/D&D system in feeling like it has little personality simply because it's so prevalent. In other news, water is wet. :>

I also tried to think about what might make a magic system more interesting for me, personally. What I came up with is simple to say, harder to do: Create/examine the 'backstory' of magic in a theme. If a theme has multiple types of magic, it probably needs to be answered for each.

1) Where does magic come from? Internal? Faith? Demons? Technology? Mystical pink unicorn blood?
2) How does a character acquire the ability to use magic? Similar question, but different enough. Is it practice? Innate? Do certain deals or rituals need be done?
3) Does the 'source' of magic have an agenda? Divine sources might be 'providing' magic to influence the mortal realm, while 'innate' magic in and of itself doesn't have an agenda.

And so on.

Notably this doesn't discriminate against common or rare magic, or even how reliable it is?

If one thinks about it, even the Forgotten Realms magic types can answer these questions reasonably well (part of why I think I was being a bit harsh when I initially posted). Doesn't mean I find it exciting still, but I appreciate it a touch more.

Ultimately? We don't just let our characters be one dimensional, why do such an injustice to the magic in games?
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