Magic

Magic is a supernatural force in fantasy settings and the ability of some characters or objects (even the very land of the setting) to use that force to gain powers that do not naturally occur in the real world. In role-playing games, a magic system or magical system is a set of rules that regulates the magic and magical effects that can be produced in the game world.

Characters who can use magic

Characters that use magic may have different rules to non-magical characters, for instance access to spells or similar mechanical systems, and they often have specific traits defined in the game system that are associated with magic use.

It is common in traditional role-playing games for magic use to be determined by character type. For example, the classes in Dungeons & Dragons are split between magic users like wizards and non-magical characters like fighters. Magic classes also indicate how the character's obtained their magic, with wizards obtaining magic through long years of study, sorcerers having it as a birthright, and warlocks making deals with powerful entities for it.

However, it may also be possible for any character to acquire magic abilities, regardless of character type. This may be because the relevant traits are open to all characters (suggesting, in the fiction, that magic is abundant in the setting and anyone can learn it), or because no such traits are necessary. The latter will often indicate that every player character in a game is a mage of some kind, such as the aptly named Mage: The Awakening.

Magic systems are often designed to balance the game rules between available character types, meaning there may be trade-offs and limits for playing a magic-using character (e.g. relative physical weakness or slow development of magical power compared to physical skills).

Magic systems: Resources and resolution

A common feature of magic systems is either abide by its own environmental or physical law of nature, or use a method of limiting both the quantity and quality of spells that can be cast by a magic user.

Magic points

Main article: Magic point

A magic point is a unit of measure that indicates either or both the amount of magic that can be utilised by a user, and the amount of energy that they can harness to perform magic. Magic points are often abbreviated to MP, and a magic point system is the most common method used to regulate and thus limit the number of spells that can be cast by a magical individual. Such a system provides magic users a specific amount of MP, and each spell causes a specific number of magic points to be consumed upon being cast. Many systems that use magic points assign a magic user a maximum number of magic points that he can have at any one time, which is different for each magic user. There is almost always a way to restore lost magic points, usually by sleeping or drinking potions. Sometimes, even consuming certain kinds of food items may result in the replenishment of magic points.

A few systems that use magic points do not have a maximum number that may be stored, but instead make it more difficult to recover or gain new magic points.

Examples of magic points limited systems include Rolemaster, High Adventure Role Playing, GURPS, and Tunnels & Trolls.

Skill-limited

Main article: Skill

A skill-limited magic system breaks the spells down into a number of skills or other statistics. Performing the magic usually requires a skill check: a dice roll, modified by character statistics. The more difficult the magical effect, the higher the difficulty of the die roll. Such systems are often limited by an increase in the difficulty of the skill roll based upon the number of spells in a certain time period that have already been cast.

It is common in skill-limited systems for a spellcaster to be able to combine multiple magical skills to perform effects not covered by the skills given. Typically, such combinations are more difficult than the basic uses of the Skills.

Examples of skill-limited systems include Talislanta and Ars Magica.

Spell slots

Main article: Spell slot

A magic system that is limited by a number of spell slots will give a spellcaster a certain number of spells per day that may be cast. These spells may be divided by level, or limited to certain types of spells. When all of a spellcaster's slots are used up, he or she is no longer able to perform magic until steps are taken (usually sleeping and re-studying the spells) to recover the spell slots.

Spell-slot systems often employ a rationale that the spell is forgotten when cast, or that the caster has a finite supply of the ingredients required to cast the spell. In the first case, the spellcaster must re-memorize the spell from a source of such, typically a grimoire. In the second case, the caster must hunt up new ingredients and prepare the equipment needed to cast the spell.

Examples of spell-slot systems include Dungeons & Dragons in all of its editions, and HackMaster.

Hybrid systems

Many magic systems combine features of two or all three of the above. As an example, Mage: The Ascension uses a skill-limited system that may be augmented by spending quintessence to lower the difficulty of a magical skill roll. Rolemaster employs a spell-point system, but includes devices called spell adders, that grant additional spell shots with no associated spell-point cost. Ars Magica uses a skill based system, but a mage can only cast so many spells before becoming too fatigued to continue. High Adventure Role Playing also uses a hybrid system between the magic point system and the skill system, and to some extent the spell slot version, which requires a skill roll based on the strength of the spell effect limiting the total number of spells cast in a day by a magic cost system with the caster having a certain set of magic points available each day. As in Rolemaster there are item that can reduce the magic point cost for spell as well as item like spell adders that allow extra spells to be cast without the expenditure of magic points.

Magic systems in the fiction: Tropes and narrative

As well as the mechanical rules applied by a magic system, magic can be defined and limited by rules in the fiction, affecting the fictional positioning of characters who use it.

What magic can do

Different settings set different expectations about what magic can accomplish. In fairy tales, magic can transform someone into a frog, but it would be unexpected for someone to throw a fireball (common in traditional epic fantasy). In modern occult stories, physical transformations such as human to frog would be similarly out of place.

In some games, these limitations are explicitly set out as laws. For instance, in Ars Magica, spells are bound by the Lunar Limit, meaning they can't reach beyond the moon, and it is also not possible for magic to revive the dead. For another example, James George Frazer defined two common laws for sympathetic magic in The Golden Bough, his book on comparative religion and magic, which are the Law of Similarity ("like produces like") and the Law of Contagion (contact between two things creates an ongoing connection between them). Such "laws" are largely narrative and evocative, as they don't necessarily restrict the actions of characters beyond the actual rules of the game. In other games, the laws are merely implied by the rules that exist.

Other games may use thematic magic systems, like games that revolve around the manipulation of elements (generally the four or five classical elements conceived by various ancient cultures around the world).

Where magic comes from

Magic tends to fall into one of two categories: either it is a part of the natural world of the setting, or it is an uncanny intrusion into the world that is potentially dangerous merely by its existence. In either case, magic may originate from one of many different sources, such as:

• the energy of living things,
• sapient thought,
• features of the world (objects, locations, stars or celestial bodies, etc.),
• cosmic or primordial energy,
• another plane or dimension.

Magic system construction

In some games, particularly generic games, the GM creates or customizes a magic system. For instance, in GURPS, there are over a dozen example magic systems, with suggestions for altering the mechanics or available effects depending on how the GM wants magic to work in that world.

Specific examples

• The spells and magic systems of Dungeons & Dragons were inspired by Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, with its ideas of magic-users memorizing spells, casting them and forgetting them.
• Tunnels & Trolls introduced a magic system full of silly (and humorous) names like "Take That You Fiend!" and "Too Bad Toxin".
• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay had a simplistic magic system and Games Workshop long promised a "Realms of Sorcery" book to correct this problem, but they rejected the complete manuscript they received from Ken Rolston. Hogshead Publishing ultimately published Realms of Sorcery (2001), which finally updated the rushed magic system in the Warhammer rulebook.
• The magic system of Nephilim was thematic but required complex calculations.
• Middle-earth Role Playing used a magic system based on Spell Law from Rolemaster.
• Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game featured a revised magic system from The Journey (1982).
• Beyond the Supernatural debuted Palladium's new Potential Psychic Energy (PPE) magic system as well as a system of ley-line based-geomancy.
• The second edition of HârnMaster was a simplified version of the game that extracted out the magic systems into Hârnmaster Magic (1997) and Hârnmaster Religion (1998).
• Changeling: The Dreaming's original magic system used "Cantrip Cards" which were sold in collectible packs.
• For the magic system of Ars Magica, all magic is based on five techniques and ten forms, and by combining those two elements (e.g., as "Creo Ignem", or Create Fire) a wizard could generate any type of spell.
• A Magical Medley (1997) included a collection of FUDGE magic systems.
• Demon City Shinjuku (2000) advanced the magic system of Big Eyes, Small Mouth.
• The magic system of Sovereign Stone expanded the game's dice-rolling system; magic could take some time to cast, so each turn a magician accumulated points toward a total until the spell finally went off.
• The Encyclopaedia Arcane series of alternative magic systems began with Demonology: The Dark Road (2001), Mongoose Publishing's first perfect-bound 64-page book.
• Mongoose's RuneQuest (2006) included a new rune magic system that required characters to quest after physical runes.
• Street Magic (2006) expanded the magic system of fourth edition Shadowrun.