The Campaign Builder's Guild

Because I'd like to discuss this subject. I am particularly interested in hearing from people who have written their own magic systems, but if you have interesting insight on prepackaged systems (say, for example, the standard D&D setup), I'd like to hear about your ideas, as well.

(I also want to say at the outset that I'm not particularly interested in mechanics themselves, directly. My interest in mechanics involves how they affect the tone and feel of magic in a world-- mechanics can and do speak to issues such as what kinds of effects magic-users can produce, how often and how intensely they can produce them, and what sorts of limiting factors mitigate their power. Those are all things that I'm interested in, but I don't need to get much more nit-picky than that.)

Anyway, I'm brainstorming about some different schools and traditions of magic in my setting, and I got to wondering about what you all find appealing about various approaches to magic, and what you think falls flat.

Do you use a complicated or simple approach? Do you prefer a system like D&D's, where a spellcaster has the potential to learn thousands of differently nuanced spells, or a system where a magic user has a broad area of focus (such as "fire" or "mind reading") and flexibility to work within that narrow subject? If the former, how do you keep things manageable, and how do you give magic a theme or tone (if you do so at all?) If the latter, how do you give magic variety, and how do you set limits for what spellcasters can and can not do (if you do so at all?)

I guess the big problem for me (there are also several smaller ones) is that talking about magic is talking about selective bending of the laws of reality-- it wouldn't be magic if the methods and effects were possible for Joe Mundane. So in writing about magic for people to use, I have to try to balance being too stingy with the power, and being too free and undefined with it (which leads to chaos for two reasons: players have no idea what their actual magical capabilities are, and things can get quickly out of hand and rather silly (unless gratuitous use of magic is part of the tone you're shooting for anyway.))

I think part of the problem with the D&D system of magic is that it's too micromanaged by the writers. The urge to exhaustively catalogue every tiny detail of the system has led to massive, complicated lists of effects, which grow larger with each new book published. Players of highly-advanced spellcasters have to comprehend tens of thousands of words of text, just to understand what their spells can do (this is not counting the basic chapter overviews, just spell effects!) That is an unnecessarily large amount of detail, and it's a big reason why few people ever bother to examine and understand the system well enough to use it fluently.

There is also a great deal of thematic redundancy in the lists, as a result of this same micromanaging. For example, just look at how many ways there are to get an effect like "hurt things with fire." (I can think of about ten, just off the top of my head, and I haven't cracked the PHB in over a year.) I think I'd prefer to have a single, more flexible ability called "hurt things with fire", and the ability to employ it creatively to produce a variety of different effects, in a variety of different magnitudes as my character advances.

I also have a problem with the directionless nature of D&D magic. Such care is taken to ensure that spellcasters have a huge variety of abilities (from sending messages in magical "invisible ink" to climbing into holes in reality using rope to conjuring invisible armor to altering reality with a wish) that nobody ever gets a clear, thematic sense of what a magic user can actually accomplish (unless that answer is "all sorts of things.") I am pretty sure that I prefer an arrangement where any individual spellcaster's capabilities, while still flexible, can be summed up in one fairly brief sentence. For example, "spellcasters of Tradition XYZ can commune with spirits of the dead, bless or curse other people, and survive indefinitely without breathing air or drinking water." This still provides a lot of power and flexibility, but gives me a much clearer picture about what Tradition XYZ is all about than if I were to say, "they can do pretty much anything in this giant book of disparate effects."

I guess I'm rambling by now. But I'm grappling with a bunch of large-scale dilemmas, and I want to hear your ideas. If there's interest, I can talk a bit about my particular project and the specific choices I'm confronting here, but I'd really like to hear about what pushes all your buttons in a general sense.

Personally, my views have changed over time. I used to think that DnD magic, slightly altered, was a good idea. Then I split the spells into four categories and restricted them slightly for Goromor, because I thought that would bring some theme to the world. I think the Mahi, though, was probably my favourite DnD-linked magic system. It was mainly mental magic, as well as some ability to 'bend' the world and the laws of physics, and each caster's ability was defined quite restrictively.

After the Mahi I went nearly completely freestyle and adapted my Aelwyd magic system, which basically works off the concept of a tiny, restricted amount of abilities which are each extremely diverse in their use. This has been adapted and used across my campaign settings, and is now in the form of Free Magic in Wonders. I like this kind of magic system the best - you choose your abilities as you become more powerful, and each ability grants you the power to do almost anything you can think of with that theme.

I agree, the D&D magic system has its issues. Its one of the few things I'm looking forward to seeing in fourth edition.

As it stands, you could strip the entire system of all flavor, eliminate certain effects, and go from there. If you do this, I could see a combining of several spells into one 'power,' and then choosing a theme (say 'plants,' 'fire,' or 'ice') so that your generic 'hurt lots of things in a huge radius' can be either spikes coming up from the ground, a fireball, or perhaps just a whole bunch of icicles.

It might even work.

But I also think that the outer wrapping of fluff is just as important. If you do it cleverly enough, you need not even change the system. For example, my arcanists in Dilandri use the standard D&D system with a power point alteration. But when you add in the crystals as a focus, restrict two or three of the schools, and give everything they cast a theme, the system does not look like D&D at all.

I have several magic systems in mind.

One is just mind fighting; a system that uses the same identical mechanics used for weapons but with a separate but equal set of stats: 8 stat system
It has similarities to the d20 3.5 warlock in that the magicians can cast their spells an infinite number of times.

Another magic system I've been observing in development is part of a project called "Spell Lists for Everyone", where every character gains SoDs and save boxes that act as a buffer so that PCs don't get womped by one ubber Wail of the Banshee.

The third is a very weird mechanic I developed for my  Battles of the Star Angels and Space Devils
You can find the mechanics in this thread
This one is supposed to mimic AT Fields.

May your septic system develop a 2-way gate to the Eighth House, LC.  And may the Unbound Entropics there eventually get sick of the waste and crawl up the pipe to get you one late night.

How dare you ask such a great, must-answer question?  AArg.  There is no time breathe right now, but I am going to have to answer this, or I'll never be able to live with myself.  "Can we talk about magic", indeed!
(I'll edit the answer into this post as today goes on)
Link to Celtrician spell rule page


I don't think you were rambling at all.  Magic is one of the three cornerstones on which a RPG system is created; covering a lot of ground is normal.  There is a lot to it.
One of the first things I looked at when I created my systems was what kind of a cosmology/system/setting was I trying to support.  I think a lot of your problems are similar ones, in that the Vancian, 'fire-and-forget', interdisciplinary approach that is used for D&D setting might not mesh well with your ideas.

[blockquote=LC]Do you use a complicated or simple approach? Do you prefer a system like D&D's, where a spellcaster has the potential to learn thousands of differently nuanced spells, or a system where a magic user has a broad area of focus (such as "fire" or "mind reading") and flexibility to work within that narrow subject? If the former, how do you keep things manageable, and how do you give magic a theme or tone (if you do so at all?) If the latter, how do you give magic variety, and how do you set limits for what spellcasters can and can not do (if you do so at all?)[/blockquote]
Complicated, honestly.  I'd love to say it is not, but to get the effects I wanted, and to reinforce teh player experiences and behaviors, I needed to step up the bookkeeping.  I have a system where a caster uses some personal energy to trigger a spell, and then pulls power from different sources to power it.  the ability to draw and channell any of the 15 power sources (including the personal power) is a skill.  You mentioned Fire, The House of Fire is a source of energy for spells, and fire spells cost spell points from spirit (the personal store) and from the House of Fire.  
I guess that answers the areas of focus, as well as the tone.  I didn't want a PC to break a level,  then be able to cast a spell that had nothing in common with the spells that caster had been casting.
One major reason we did this is that we wanted the different specializations to be more than just a list of spells that could be cast.  A Church of Chaos (Orcus) will normally have decent ability in Spirit, Very Good Chaos, decent Restoratove, and decent death magic, and poor at most other types of spell ability.  The Steel Libram Sages of Igbar might have decent Spirit, Very Good Mentalist skill, Above average Artificer.  We want to have real Pyromancers, and real Artificers, and mentalists...Not just different spell lists. -(from Celtricia Wiki)

[blockquote=LC]
I guess the big problem for me (there are also several smaller ones) is that talking about magic is talking about selective bending of the laws of reality-- it wouldn't be magic if the methods and effects were possible for Joe Mundane. So in writing about magic for people to use, I have to try to balance being too stingy with the power, and being too free and undefined with it (which leads to chaos for two reasons: players have no idea what their actual magical capabilities are, and things can get quickly out of hand and rather silly (unless gratuitous use of magic is part of the tone you're shooting for anyway.))[/blockquote]
This sounds a lot like the 'low-magic vs high-magic' question.  One of the primary issues I see come up in threads is the magic level question. How prevelant is magic in the mileau? Is it a 'high-magic' world, or a 'low magic' world?  

But there is more to it than that. Many games have similar ratios of high, mid, and lower level magic. Another question is what is the frequnecy distribution of ability?  How common is magic?  How common is high magic, versus how common is more pedestrian magic?  I wanted a system that allowed for magic to be used in place of technology, but that still made powerful magic very, very inaccessible.

When I created the spell point system for Celtricia, I set it up to be as flexible as possible, so that casters can blow all their points in one spell, or cast lots of little spells, or use rituals to cast tougher spells. I also do not differentiate between divine spells and others, as they actually all come from the same sources of power.

 
But I also set things up so that I could have a magic rich world, but where even middle level magic is rare, and high level magic is a thing of legend. Igbar, as an example is a small walled city of thirty thousand souls. Bards, mages, sages, priests, alchemsits and other people who can manipulate the void-bound sources of spell power abound. However, There are no priests capable of casting a Full Ressurection. Raise Dead is possible at 5 of the churches.

Higher level spells obviously cost more spell point. But they also have unfavorable spell successes, and pull from more spell sources. All spells need spirit points, which is the trigger, the part of the spell that comes fropm the caster. Beginner spells and cantrip pull from Spirit and one or 2 other spell point sources. Tougher spells will pull from 3, 4, or even 5 sources, so a caster must be 'fluent' in many disciplines to cast any medium or higher power spells.

More coming

I'm not sure how to answer your questions effectively with the mess my setting/magic system is currently in LC, but I will describe what I have intended and my main ideas for how it will work.

For starters, I've recently jumped from D&D into the WoD system for fantasy, and am working on creating a simple magic system for it that uses very generic "powers" with a lot of potential as Stargate mentioned. I'm not sure yet how I want to have magic be manifested, but am looking at both the Wizard's method, and the Sorcerer's method (which would include psionics and similar powers as well, since their most important differences to me always seemed to be the flavor). I'd like to keep both but depending on how things develop, I may end up using only one or the other, or at least use one in a very limited form. For example, the representation of traditional D&D wizardry may amount to the use of books to actively read and cast spells which are too powerful or not otherwise obtainable through natural magic, or sorcery may be a kind of "Spellfire" sort of thing that pops up once every blue moon.

The nature of magic is also taking a new, possibly more "realistic" direction in that I'm tossing most flashy spells. I'll still have things like raising the dead, sucking life-force from victims, enchanting your fists with lightning, magical flight, invisibility, etc., but things like fireballs, lightning bolts, and the like are being changed drastically. You'll often see a wizard with a torch, or happen to see them more often during storms, because the use of elemental damage in my system/setting relies on having an active source to manipulate. You can draw and expand bolts of fire from burning flames, and you can affect storm clouds to cause lightning to strike just where you want it to. Elemental damage itself is also being changed, as I'm looking to entirely remove any distinction between the damages: fire and lightning damage just burn (even though lightning is probably more severe); cold "damage" just causes hypothermia and all of the other effects like frostbite; acid damage is a relentless burn.

Other than what I've mentioned, most magic you can think of from D&D and other sources is present in one form or another. Necromancers, summoners, transmuters, abjurers, and the like are all over the place. The organizations and individuals who wield magic are all different, but they tend to be fairly focused in what they can do (there's little of that "Hey Jim, what'd you spend your gold on?" "OMG MORE SPELLS WHEE" mentality you get from the regular wizard). I'm sure there are other things to tell, but I just went blank.

I use magic in a funny sort of way. Essentially it reflects a kind of war for control of reality. I've also used it to make racial differences more sharp. (this is stuff I haven't yet entirely written about for my game setting btw)

As examples I do use domains for priestly spells. I have a limited number of wizards in the world--they are limited to being solitary practitioners or part of a particular order to reflect a sense of odd ecclecticism. Elves tend to a form of elementalism, while Dwarves are artificers and Gnomes are mentalists--a modification on the old 1st Ed. D&D illusion focus. It is possible to gain magical ability by means of demonic pacts. Finally there is psionics which I refer to as a form of magic in game called 'witchery'.

Disorganized thread response powers, activate!

Quote from: LVThis sounds a lot like the 'low-magic vs high-magic' question. One of the primary issues I see come up in threads is the magic level question. How prevelant is magic in the mileau? Is it a 'high-magic' world, or a 'low magic' world?

One is just mind fighting; a system that uses the same identical mechanics used for weapons but with a separate but equal set of stats: 8 stat system
It has similarities to the d20 3.5 warlock in that the magicians can cast their spells an infinite number of times.[/quote]After the Mahi I went nearly completely freestyle and adapted my Aelwyd magic system, which basically works off the concept of a tiny, restricted amount of abilities which are each extremely diverse in their use. This has been adapted and used across my campaign settings, and is now in the form of Free Magic in Wonders. I like this kind of magic system the best - you choose your abilities as you become more powerful, and each ability grants you the power to do almost anything you can think of with that theme.[/quote]The nature of magic is also taking a new, possibly more "realistic" direction in that I'm tossing most flashy spells. I'll still have things like raising the dead, sucking life-force from victims, enchanting your fists with lightning, magical flight, invisibility, etc., but things like fireballs, lightning bolts, and the like are being changed drastically. You'll often see a wizard with a torch, or happen to see them more often during storms, because the use of elemental damage in my system/setting relies on having an active source to manipulate.[/quote]May your septic system develop a 2-way gate to the Eighth House, LC. And may the Unbound Entropics there eventually get sick of the waste and crawl up the pipe to get you one late night.[/quote]Thanks, I think!

Longer letter later. I want to reply to everybody I've missed, and get some more detailed thoughts posted about some of your ideas. This discussion is already proving to be incredibly useful to me, so I thank you all for fueling my fires.

I'm putting something together so that magic is accessible to just about anyone, but is only practical to a few.

It's built into that "stunting" idea I had a while back.

To repeat my old mantra, I'm a large fan of the way Mutants and Masterminds handles magic (mechanically).

Essentially, you have points you spend on powers (these points also are spent for ability scores, skill points, physical abilities (such as regeneration) etc, so you aren't just using the points for magic. With these points and the list of powers, you can add modifiers, link them, etc to create pretty much anything you can dream up. When you buy the magic power, you choose a base power - the default setting your magic takes (for combat oriented games, this is usually a damage effect). Then, for an additional point each, you add new powers to that list. What you can buy really is only limited by your descriptors, so an elemental mage would describe his powers using elements (I send forth a ball of fire that saps away strength from heat, (a damage power that works in an area at range), create a wall of ice, (a power that creates objects with the ice descriptor), etc) while a necromancer could have the exact same powers (ranged area damage and create object) but different descriptors (I create a sphere of necromantic energies that opens wounds and saps life force or I summon a wall of the souls of the damned.)

After you buy those powers, that is what you can do, until you gain more points (either from the DM giving you points or levelling up, if that option is being used) However, if you need to make something up on the fly, you can exert more effort, becoming fatigued the next round, to stunt a power.

The advantages to this system are that it is greatly streamlined - instead of having 10,000,000,000 spells to look over, you only have a few dozen powers that you work with to create the desired effect - and that, because a lot of the spell is in the description, the GM can set mandatory descriptors that all spells have. Also, this eliminates the need for minute details to explain how each spell and effect interact - if a damage effect has a fire descriptor and is doing damage to an object with the ice descriptor, then it would deal more damage (Probably a moderate more amount of damage, so about one and a half times more). Common sense dominates most of these abilities. Plus, they lack the arbitrary and irritating restrictions of vancian magic.

That being said, the system is not perfect. Especially if you want non-flashy or subtle, you're not going to want M&M in all cases. Also, it requires a good GM-Player relationship, so the GM does not override good player thinking and the player doesn't constantly attempt things that don't make sense with his descriptors (A fire based mage attempting to summon demons after the player suddenly "realizes" his fire is infernal in nature, when it was established at creation it was elemental, for a less extreme example - for a more extreme, a fire mage trying to stunt a mind reading effect.) However, with that relationship, it can fit almost any flavor you want.

On a more general note...

Magic, to me, seems to fall under three choices for an overall. It can:

A) Not have any relation to physics, instead dealing with spirits, mind reading, ESP, etc - stuff that doesn't fall under what physics deals with.
B) Work with physics as its own system, where existing energies are manipulated to preform effects (Drawing powers from ley lines and nodes is the most typical example of this, as is (to an extent) magic where energy is drawn from the user then gradually replenished, implying that the amount of magical energy is a constant, like any other energy form.)
C) Grab physics by the throat, choke it to death, and then dance around its corpse. (Where no existing energy is required - the users just says words, and BAM!, stuff happens. Divine magic also falls under this.)

All three options have their merits, and they are not mutually exclusive to a setting (You could have witches dealing with A, wizards dealing with B, and mages that can do C). Vancian magic is firmly a C system, while Psionics falls under B. Type A magic can be very interesting, but harder to work with in a RPG setting and less fun to certain types of players - and tends to always force type A users in a behind the scene roll.

Granted, I'm almost positive I'm leaving things out, but I wanted to give you my initial thoughts. If you want a less micromanaged magic system, you don't necessarily need point based, just one that relies on descriptors to govern interactions. Imagine a system where you could work damage dealing spells like this.

QuoteDamage
Level 1: Deals 1d6 + Int/Wis/Cha bonus damage.
Level 2: Deals 1d6 + Int/Wis/Cha bonus damage.
Level 3: Deals 2d6 + Int/Wis/Cha bonus damage.
Level 4: Deals 2d6 + Int/Wis/Cha bonus damage.
Level 5: Deals 3d6 + Int/Wis/Cha bonus damage.
etc

Reduce by one level:
Either deal damage in a 5ft/level area around you, or a 10ft/level line or cone in front of you or add a bonus to spell's damage equal to the ability modifier of your choice.

Reduce by two levels:
Deal damage in a 5ft/rank area anywhere within 100ft/rank of yourself or in a 10 ft/level line or cone originating at any point within 100ft/rank of yourself or deal 1/2 damage again the next round.

Reduce by three levels:
Deal damage to any target you can accurately see without making an attack roll, or simultaneously cast another spell on the same target, also three levels lower.

Increase by 1 level: [Cannot increase above character's level]
Target gets fort/ref/will save for half damage. (If already has been reduced to an area, this modifer cannot allow a ref save)

Increase by 1 level: [Can increase above character's level]
Caster must touch target as opposed to casting at range.

Increase by 2 levels: [Cannot increase above character's level]
Caster must make a Fort save against spell's level after modifiers are applied. If fail, they are stunned for one round

Increase by 1 level: [Can increase above charater's level]
Caster suffers from Con drain equal to the spell's level after modifiers are applied.

spell, counter [discriptor] spell, strenghten [ability] spell, heal spell, animate dead/items/pictures/whatever spell, etc) and they lower the level at which they cast it to create other effects, while able to raise the level at which they cast it by adding negative modifiers - so a character could create a fire cone at normal rank damage, but the target gets both a fort and reflex save. Of course, the various modifiers are only samples - the actual system would have a good number (say, one or two dozen), some/many of which would be universally applied, while each one would also have its own, specific modifiers (maybe one or two, three for more complex effects). Modifiers would be purchased attached to the spell, so a player could, at level 5, buy a level 3 damage in a 10ft radius area that they could cast anywhere within 500 ft of themselves - and, as they leveled up, all spells they had would level up to, so at level 20 that spell would be level 17.

That'd be it. No 10000 spells, and if a player wants to improvise a modifier for a level reduction like any other modifier and the GM approves of it (with the GM deciding what the level reduction is) then the player can cast it. You could cover almost all spell usage that way, simply linking abilities and weakening them with modifiers - 100 times less restrictive, IMO. Sure, it'd need some playtesting to balance with fighters/theives/etc, but their is no reason that fighters/theives/etc can't have their own abilities that have similar mechanics. If you want a class to be a 2/3 or 1/2 or 1/4 caster, then you just reduce the rate at which they gain new spell levels accordingly.

That's off the top of my head. As a final word (and shout out to Green Ronin), people who have played it have said True20 system's magic works in a similar manner. My copy hasn't arrived yet, so I'll fill you in once I get it, but the point is this: to create magic that allows for a wide variety of options without creating a overwhelmign variety of options, allow the players to mix and match. To narrow it, limit by descriptors - a player of a tradition that has the ability to speak with the dead, curse and bless, and survive without air or water must make sure their spells are based off of one of those abilities. (No throwing fire balls, but it's fine curse people in an area with weakness, and a fire tradition person couldn't gain insight into a ruler's methods by speaking to his murdered uncle, which XYZ could do - but, by the same token, XYZ would have no summoning abilities, while fire person could maybe summon fire elementals.)

I'm rambling now, so I'll stop. :P    

EDIT: Added more info to my improvised magic system...I think I'm going to actually write that whole thing out soon.

QuoteI want to hear more about this, really. What sorts of themes are there, and what can you do with them? What things have players done with magic that have surprised or impressed you? Does this sort of flexibility lead magic-using characters to overshadow non-spellcasters?

It works on spell points, and is slightly like psionics, but more versatile. In the Wonders version, you learn 'components', which can be used alone or in a group in one spell or weaving. Alone, these components cost about two spell points, and they fit into three categories (which cannot be used together) - Attack, Object and Improvement (in simple terms). A 'fire' attack component is a 1d4 fire touch attack. However, using extra spell points, you can turn this into a ranged attack, a cone, or even a fireball (although that last would be very weak without some other augmentations). You can increase the dice amount and dice size, although both are quite costly, and there are special augmentations for each Component. Fire, for example, can be made 'Real' (and do Fire Damage rather than Heat Damage, which is another thing altogether) and be used to light candles, can be applied to a weapon as a coating and so on.

Because of the small amount of Channeling (i.e. Spell) points that a mage will get in a day, they're actually not all that scary to a non-mage. They rarely enter into battles in Wonders, flavour-wise, simply because they have little potential to affect anything unless they're EXTREMELY powerful. Of course, if they work together tactically...

For my world, I decided that I wanted a very distinct magic feel to my setting, rather than a magitech system. To figure this out, I started with the question:
 * What is magic?

My answer (for non-magitech):
 1. The supernatural.
 2. That which cannot be explained.

So for Phaedoras (my world) I wanted to be sure that any magical effects were not the product of laws, sciences, rules or whims. My solution: make characters unable to use magic directly.

For the entire world there are four sources of magic:
 * World Magic
 * Elder Magic
 * Spirit Magic
 * Shadow Magic

World magic encompasses everything that is simply magical with no reason. There are springs that can heal wounds, fiery pits to subterranean hells, and people that can see the future. World magic is very rare, typically subtle, and completely unpredictable.

Elder magic is the term used to describe the effects of an artifact from eons past. These artifacts always have a fixed ability, and are thus "magic items." They cannot be made, however, and are almost never as boring as a +1 sword.

Spirit Magic is interesting. I wanted to have "spellcasters" in my world, but I wanted to keep magic out of their hands. Enter spirits--beings capable of doing the supernatural, yet inherently non-real; bound to a plane that is ethereal. Shamans are able to see and interact with spirits (usually by taking hallucinogenic substances) and make pacts with them. In the future, they can call upon the spirits for favors, and ask them to change reality. This sort of magic is very subtle, and is usually along the lines of changing the wind, boosting natural healing or giving someone a luck blessing. Powerful spirits ignore weak shamans, and so a shaman must prove him or herself in order to gain the acceptance of great fey.

Witchdoctors are like shamans, but instead of bargaining with spirits, witchdoctors trap spirits within items (called totems) and learn to torture them into using their magic. This form of magic is much more visible (earthquakes, windstorms, curses, conjured wards) though it eats away at the witchdoctor's health to use, often leading to dementia or death.

Lastly, shadow magic is the force that seeps into the world from the shadowy nether. This can warp creatures into demons, cause sickness, or even blight the landscape into a twisted blight. The only way characters can use this magic is by letting it into their bodies, warping themselves temporarily. This is obviously dangerous, and true skill with shadow magic is not learning to channel more, but learning to channel less. An example of shadow magic might be turning one arm into a giant claw, or getting a surge of energy that removes fatigue.

Phadoras is a world where I want mysterious, subtle magic, where even the spellcasters don't know what they can do.

To finish, I'll leave you with this list of limitations (any of which can be bypassed by world magic):
 * Magic cannot bring the dead back to life
 * Only shadow magic can heal a wound directly.
 * Magic cannot conjure things. (Though witchdoctors can create magical shields or battering rams made from nothing)
 * Magic cannot imbue a thing with life--though an unliving thing can become a vessel for a living thing.
 * Magic cannot force a person to do something against their will (elder magic is an exception) (magic can warp perception)
 * Fire and lightning must have a source. Shadowchanellers can warp themselves to breathe fire, artifacts can spawn flame and witchdoctors can call lightning from the sky, but nothing can summon an orb of fire.

Well, I don't have a fully worked-out magic system for my world (yet) but I have some thoughts on what I'd like to accomplish.

When you look at magic in myths and literature, you mostly see a couple of archetypes. One is the mystic - drawing on internal power, divine gifts, or some other source, they are able to bend reality to their will. The other is the scholar - through long study they come to understand deep truths about reality that give them the ability to manipulate it in ways that mundanes, with their limited knowledge, cannot.

In my world, the picture is a hybrid. The metaphysics is explicitly dualistic, with the physical world and mental/spiritual world coexisting. Those with strong will (strong mental/spiritual aspect) have the ability to manipulate the physical world through force of will alone - but they also need deep study to understand the nature of reality so they can manipulate it effectively. Different cultures or different schools would concentrate on particular aspects of the world. An individual spell caster can focus on one or two aspects and learn more powerful and subtle techniques, or cast their net widely but be limited to the simpler and weaker abilities.

The effects I'm looking for are something like this:

1) Specialization is rewarded but not so severely that you can't usefully branch out a little.

2) Spell casters know what they are doing. It is based on your spiritual strength (Mana Level) and knowledge (represented by skills or feats). Spell casting temporarily weakens your spirit in much the same way that heavy exercise weakens your body.

3) Semi-casters and even non-casters can pick up casting skills the same way that casters do, but it won't amount to much without the class advantages that casters have.

I'm kind of leaning toward using feat chains to represent this for a couple of reasons. But mainly, just as other feats give characters special abilities compared to those who don't have the feats, spell feats give a caster the ability to "selectively bend reality" in ways that aren't available to other characters.

[blockquote=LC][blockquote=LV]Complicated, honestly. I'd love to say it is not, but to get the effects I wanted, and to reinforce teh player experiences and behaviors, I needed to step up the bookkeeping. I have a system where a caster uses some personal energy to trigger a spell, and then pulls power from different sources to power it. the ability to draw and channell any of the 15 power sources (including the personal power) is a skill. You mentioned Fire, The House of Fire is a source of energy for spells, and fire spells cost spell points from spirit (the personal store) and from the House of Fire.
I guess that answers the areas of focus, as well as the tone. I didn't want a PC to break a level, then be able to cast a spell that had nothing in common with the spells that caster had been casting.
One major reason we did this is that we wanted the different specializations to be more than just a list of spells that could be cast. A Church of Chaos (Orcus) will normally have decent ability in Spirit, Very Good Chaos, decent Restoratove, and decent death magic, and poor at most other types of spell ability. The Steel Libram Sages of Igbar might have decent Spirit, Very Good Mentalist skill, Above average Artificer. We want to have real Pyromancers, and real Artificers, and mentalists...Not just different spell lists. -(from Celtricia Wiki)
Simplicity is not necessarily a virtue, in and of itself. Nor is complexity. [/blockquote]

I am trying not to concern myself with specific mechanics too much at this early stage (and they never seem to translate from one project to the next as easily as ideas do, anyway), but I am quite interested in the "flavor" of your different power sources, the different mortal traditions and organizations of magic users that draw upon them, and the distinctions that grow forth from that. [/blockquote]

Hmm.  Oe of the first things I mentioned was that I developerd the mechanics to fit my setting, so I think I have to agree with your idea-gathering methodology.

Here is the list of power sources that the caster's can use.
Animist SP  --Powered by the Animal Oversoul
Artificer SP   -Powered by reaching out to the echoes of the Creator's Song in the Void
House of Air SP-Powered by the the Endless Sky on the Second Station (Since the House of Air was destroyed).
House of Chaos SP-Powered by the Well of Chaos on the Eighth House, which forces the void apart.
House of Death SP-Powered by the Polar Well of Death on the House of Death, Zevashopal.
House of Earth SP-Powered by the Endless Solidity of the House of Earth.
House of Fire SP-Powered by the Well of Fire on the Third Station (as the House of Fire is no more).
House of Life SP-Powered by the Polar Well of Life, on the House of Life.
House of Order SP-Powered by the Well of Order, which binds the Void together, on the Ninth House.
House of Water SP-Powered by the Endless Sea on the House of Water.
Mentalist SP-Powered by the Humanoid Oversoul
Necromantic SP-Powered by the conduit from the House of Death to all the Soul's End Journeys
Restorative SP-Powered by the Well of Life, on the House of Life.
Shade Sp -Powered by the void itself.  (unknown for millenia, not used)
Spirit SP--The personal power of the caster's trained mind.

Again, the manipulation of any one of these is a separate skill.  House of Water ability is it's own skill, and as a caster gains levels in that skill they can manipulate more power from the House of Water, have better spell success % with those spells, and they get points back faster after casting them.
Higher level spells don't just cost more points, they generally have more types of spell powers sources needed.  Think of the soources as ingredients, so that creating a flaming sword spell will cost spirit (to activate the spell), Fire, and Artificer.
But each of these sources is also part of the cosmology, so that caster's using chaos magic pull the power for that spell right out of the Eigth House, which is also where the entropics dwell.
Spell system creation is a chance to make the cosmology of your world, the very physics of it, more real to the players.  As an example, Demons (Unbound Entropics) have huge Chaos resevoirs because their home plane is the Eigth House.  They also have huge spell resistance of chaos magic, but are more susceptable to the Power of Order.    
Of course, this scrapping of spell systems has meant redoing my own spellbook.
Spellbook

So as to the tradition it creates, each and every guild, church, or school (on the scenic 'World of Factions' is better or worse at teaching some combination of these 15 spells abilities.  [blockquote=Me, earlier]A Church of Chaos (Orcus) will normally have decent ability in Spirit, Very Good Chaos, decent Restoratove, and decent death magic, and poor at most other types of spell ability. The Steel Libram Sages of Igbar might have decent Spirit, Very Good Mentalist skill, Above average Artificer.[/blockquote]

Don't know if that made it more clear, but I hope I added flame to the fire.

QuoteAlso an idea that resonates well with me. I'm trying to associate various different magical traditions with culture rather than race (that is, they're learned styles that can be taught to outsiders, not innate or genetic traits), and to create some distinctly recognizable styles.

Really, I'm quite interested in hearing about your impressions of your system, and your recommendations for people with similar ideas. What works, and what doesn't?

Actually since I'm mostly after just working out my homebrew and not so much after publishing things I cheerfully rob here and there like a magpie.

For the Yasgs, whose magic is based on ancient philosophies and bargains and is a decadent remnant of a forgotten empire, I use the magic system from Conan, which is point based for power usage and has a very small strict list. Certain kinds of bargains are required to learn certain schools of magic, so that for instance the priesthood of Derketo can use prediction spells but not necromantic ones and so on. This is not so much a total restriction as 'this is what you were able to be taught'. There are ways (usually corrupting ways) of learning more than one school but it requires you to break oaths and the like and there are consequences for that.

For the Elves in general magic is similar to certain psionics but I stole the system from Pendragon where areas have resonance which adds to your power. Generally an Elf in the city has less magical power than an Elf in the woods. Some of the effects they can do with a lot of magical power stored up or on a ley line or the like can be devastating. At the same time it is costly to the life force and accounts in part for the retiring nature of the elves--they recover faster in areas that have greater magical resonance.

For Dwarves I stole from Earthdawn. Ghosts of ancestors teach them crafts and arts that others cannot learn simply because they have no connection to ancestral lore. Depending upon the ancestry in question is the ability to learn things from rare artificer gifts to arts of using fire as magic. If I did a Dwarvish character creation table it would include types of abilities granted by ancestors and levelling feats as appropriate.

Gnomes are the only Illusionists in my game world, to give them a uniqueness. They have an innate ability to understand this magical craft that other races only have a rudimentary sense of. It has a lot to do with their somewhat secretive and shy nature.

Wizards in my setting are actually aliens. Elves believe they are actually tearing power out of the world whenever they do magic. This is generally true--while it does have an effect upon the wizard it has a greater one upon the world itself. Ironically wizards have more in common with things like aberrations than most other humanoids.

Clerics are fairly traditional D&D clerics with domains per deity and so on.