Grammar Casting

[sparkletwist]

Being a bit of a nerd myself, I like this idea, though I couldn't help but think that your "fireball" looked more like the source code to some higher level scripting language for an RPG engine, rather than anything a player might use. ;)

However, to actually get that technical, there's a game in there, somewhere. A computer game, I mean-- something like a cross between core war and a "mage duel" (chaos, mtg, etc.)

[Eladris]

This may be tangential to the discussion -- I'm a bit busy to try and catch up on its origins -- but I've developed something similar to a "language" for magic for a previous game.  It was very setting dependent but I used runes, starting with a base rune representing an element (fire, water, air, shadow, life, death, earth, etc.) and an action rune (ward, enchant, portal, etc.), to describe most of the spells in the PHB.  Players (well, the two magic users in the party) could develop new spells by mixing and matching runes or researching new "adverb" runes.  

It was quite fun and well worth the work if you've got a creative group.

[LordVreeg]

This may be tangential to the discussion -- I'm a bit busy to try and catch up on its origins -- but I've developed something similar to a "language" for magic for a previous game.  It was very setting dependent but I used runes, starting with a base rune representing an element (fire, water, air, shadow, life, death, earth, etc.) and an action rune (ward, enchant, portal, etc.), to describe most of the spells in the PHB.  Players (well, the two magic users in the party) could develop new spells by mixing and matching runes or researching new "adverb" runes.  

It was quite fun and well worth the work if you've got a creative group.

That's great.  Runic casting, with the grammar twist.