Mechanics (Magic System)

[T-Bone]

SPACE SAVED

[T-Bone]

DN, is there a particular reason you guys chose to limit Magic to Elementalism?

[T-Bone]

Okay, first thing for any magic system, we have to decide how powerful magic is. If magic is a game changer, it needs to be limited in some way IE Magic Points. If it isn't a big deal, than Magic can be rolled for like any other skill.

Now assuming we want Magic to be big an awesome, it needs to be limited in some way. I'd suggest adding a 'Magic Point' attribute. So that each spell will cost a certain amount of magic points, and once you're out of magic points, you can't cast anymore magic till it recharges. This is the standard in most RPG systems.

Aspects do indeed need to specify magic, perhaps in the way Bud described it. Now some games define the type of magic you can do. Black, White, Purple, Thamuturgy, Elemental, etc. And we can do that to limit the variety. The advantage of this, no one tries to push the limits and breaks the game. I can come up with about 20-30 spells per tree, and for every Aspect a person can pick a few spells to be adept in (as in can cast them without fail), and then the rest of the spells can be attempted, but have a chance of failing. The level of a spell determines it's magic point cost, and how hard it is to cast it if someone is not adept at it. So for example...

Max is a Novice Mage who uses Purple magic. Purple Magic is magic 'From within'. Meaning the Mage uses his own spirit to call forth the magic. He wants to cast Sleep 1. A Level 3 novice spell. He's not adept at it. When he took the spell, he put a single rank into it. So he needs to make a roll at 1, and he must meet the spell difficulty. So he makes the appropriate roll under the Fate system, and only gets a 2. The spell fails. Next turn, he tries casting Paralyze 1, a spell he is adept at. The spell goes off automatically, and his target needs to make a save.

I hope that makes sense. This is a balanced system I'm taking from another game and tweaking it for FATE rules. So if this is the direction we want to go, a few of us can come up with spell lists and such. This system also lends well to being able to level skills often. Maxing out a spell list means devoting all your time to magic. That means that your non-magic skills will take a hit, but that's how it should be anyway. A skilled swordsman wouldn't have time to be a Master Wizard, and a Mage wouldn't have time to be a fighting Champion.

Of course we can also make magic free form and have people invent their own magic. If that's how we want to do it, we'll all have to take a look at it case by case. It'll be a little more difficult that way, but it can be done. It's much easier to define magic before hand.

Of course, magic could not be a game changer and just be mundane. if that's the case, one of the other systems would be better. My proposition works only if we want magic to be a game changer in terms of what can and cannot be done.

[T-Bone]

You don't draw the magic from material components. Some system require components to focus the magic. You draw the magic from within yourself, or from external spirits or something like that. So worrying about material components is a meh prospect.

I love Nature magic. Druids can do some pretty cool things in DnD that Mages can't and vise-versa.

Inspir's list also lacks White magic, Black magic, and Thamathurgy. Three important staples.

When I say each discipline needs a spell list, that doesn't mean it has to have set-spells that everyone can use and only use. I mean defining the magic each list does. It'd be silly for example if everyone had a "Healing" spell in their list. But you define spells and what their effects are, then the characters can describe how their presented. So two characters throwing 'Fireballs' might describe how the magic is done differently. We set limits as to what magic can do, and give the players creative license in their RPs to decide how their magic works.

So if I want to throw my fireball, perhaps Quadz has them rain from the sky. Maybe KCD will wind up and toss one like he's throwing a baseball from his hand. My I throw a poker chip and it explodes in a burst of flames. Everyone has creative license to make them look as cool or as ridiculous as they want.

[T-Bone]

Conguration is about summoning creatures to fight for you.

[T-Bone]

That's more in line of what I was suggesting.

[T-Bone]

That recap sums up a decent system. Just need to hammer out the details.

Anyone want to help me build the magic disciplines?