Celtricia...in small, bite sized chunklets

[LordVreeg]

I've been doing this Celtricia thing for a while.  Quite a while.
Also, I've been posting here for a while on said setting.And after a pretty short time, I started receiving those, "Like the idea, don't know where to start' responses.  
So I don't expect miracles, but have just plugged along.  Also, I've been aided by the fact that I am still transfering hundreds of pages of handwritten notes onto the wiki.

I've tried a few times to do an overview, as well as rebooting once already.  And I end up with the same issues.  Besides, what am I looking for for feedback?

So A new experiment, with a new, 'Meta' twist.  I'm going to post on pretty precise topics, about why I did the things I did in my setting design, and ask for opinions and how people answered the same question themselves.

First up...
I'll post on magic, on makeing a system match the fluff you want your world to have, as well as matching the type of game you want to run.  I'll try to post theat in the next few days,  I have the Mistonians tomorrow night.

[Biohazard]

I`m not sure if it was isomage or fourwillows, but someone mentioned a one-page approach to setting writing. You could try doing that as an intro thing maybe - it`s something I plan on doing soon. For every element of your setting you could devote a typed page to it - themes, politics, geography, magic, races, etc. Your system would obviously require much more than a page to do anything other than just give examples about... but it'd be a very good intro to the setting. I wonder if maybe everyone should be doing them...

[Ishmayl-Retired]

I whole-heartedly support this thread and everything that comes with it.

[LordVreeg]

Vreeg's First rule of Setting Design.
"Make sure the system you choose matches the game you want to play, or else the game will eventually match the system".

This rule relates to the magic systems more than most. Part of what makes a Fantasy Role playing game is the magic.  Whether it be the One Ring, Stormbringer, Memory, Sorrow, or Thorn, magic permeates our settings and our inspirations.  How many countless gaming threads have been wasted trying to figure out Gandalf's Level, when Tolkien's 'System' was really the issue?  

The 2 main questions you really have to answer when you create/abuse/houserule-the-shit-out-of/Adopt a magic system are:
1) what does it do to the setting?
2) what does it do to the game played at the table?

In terms of the first question, without getting too technical, there is a 2 dimensional frequency distribution that needs to be looked at that, which asks 2 questions.  How common is magic, and how common at what power level?  Tolkien has little magic, but those that can wield are powerful.  Same with Eddings Belgeriad.  Moorcock's Elric series involved lots of casters, as did Lieber's Lankhmar, and many had powerful magic.  
All of these examples are really, in a big picture,  different frequency ditributions.  Which is why certain game systems that try to engulf literary sources end up looking stupid.
Do you want to have all magic be rare and unusual?  Or do you want magic stores where PC's can actually buy and sell magic items?  [note=Power level]  Understand, that this frequency is tied to balance, in terms of game play.  This is how this part applies to the game as it is played.  I run a Low Hp game with high damage, so I don't want PC's just chucking mega damage all over the place.  This also applies to the whole power-growth thing.  How fast do you want your PC's to gain power?[/note]These 2 things are mutually incompatable.  So one cannot use the same system to create both types of setting.  I wanted to make magic somewhat common, especially plebian magic, as it was growing in use since the elder eras where it had been guarded.  But I needed powerful, or even middling magic, to be rare.  
ANd you can create a system to do this.  You just have to work at it.


Secondly, Powersources need to make sense in terms of the setting, as do spells.  This is still more fluff relatd, though the spells effect the gameplay heavily.

AS a GM, the source of magical power is important to the whole Genesis/cosmology/Creation Myth of the setting.  Again, our Tolkien example had almost all magic use tied to Valinor and any connection there.  Brust has Witchcraft and other mental/self-sourced stuff/Empire magic/and Pre-Empire Chaos stuff.  Big-picture,  it is all just a different system.  Elric's Elemental and Alignment pacts?  Very different.  And again, a different system.
And contrast all of the above with divine magic vs other types. Understand that Divine magic and power sources are the same conversation.  Not placing any judgement here, just trying to place this common vehicle where it belongs in this discussion.

So Once again, 2 questions come from this that need to be answered for any setting.
1) What is the source(s) of magical power, and how is the power accessed?
2) And what type of spells would LOGICALLY be powered by this/these sources.

I'll be a little honest here.  I have a disdain for GM's who just chuck a spell list at a game.  This guy is a wizard, so he can choose Magic Missle, Light, Write magic, comprehend languages...without even explaing why the source of this new wizard's magic would cover all this wildly disparate effects.  One reason I like and commented heavily on LC's Hen_gan and other magics was that after a few conversations, he was changing and shaping the different discipline's spells and effects to the source and discipline.  Other GM's looked at it and loved it, but the underlying reason was the deep logic behind the spells and the power sources.  
I really wanted.  Fire mages, Bards with mentalist magic, Artificers, Necromancers...and this was the system I wrote, complete with Creation story, spell teachings, and spells to go with it.  Your spells and effects define your casters, the organic vessels of the magic in your game.  Short-change them, short-change the game.  I Magic Missle the darkness and the DM.

Thirdly, How does magic power return?  
This is a little more important for the game play at the table, though it affects the behavior pattern of NPCs.
Soime folk take a simple view, some take a harder one.  But if and how people have to husband their abilities is critical for the game.  CAn the PC's get their power back in a day?  Or does it take longer the more they use?  Do devices help?  And why does it come back/  What is the vehicle for this power return?



I'm sure I am forgetting a few things, in my wine-besotted mind.  But this gives an overview of questions that I really need to be addressed when you create a system to go with your setting, magic-wise.  It also is why I I look a little askance at some of the conversation that I read about other settings, honestly.  'I'm not sure what system we are going to use yet', is a statement to mean that says that a writer hasn't asked these questions yet,[note=CBG]Campaign Builders Guild, Y'know?  Not Fluffy writers guild  [/note] that their beautiful, evocative setting is actually a novel setting, not an Campaign setting.  Creating fluff is a talent, and some people are incredibly skilled at it.  But creating Fluff with a Playable, balanced system that could survive Roleplayers and gaming?  
Only then is it a real campaign setting. Only then is it really worth calling a Campaign Setting.  I love a lot of what I read, and I try to comment and enjoy and be as helpful as I can be.  But a Setting that can't survive playing, that is not internally consistent and balanced, is like a car made of lingerie and feathers.  It may look nice, but it won't take you anywhere.


PleasE feel free to respond with thoughts, opinons, comments, and hate mail.   I choose to spend most of my posting energy here due to the talent and sincerity I find ensconced with these metaphoric walls. As I said on the chatsite to other enlightened folk, it's a viewpoint I think should be heard and might change some perspectives, but it is not a commandment.

[Llum]

Campaign Builders Guild, Y'know? Not Fluffy writers guild

Speak for yourself sir! :p

I've said it before, I do not table-top. I never have. So I most definetly fall into the Fluffy writers guild category. That being said, these are some interesting questions here.

Usually I work out how magic will work, why certain spells can be cast, what spells can be cast and all that jazz. Something I have never really done is wondered, how does magic come back? I will have to apply this question to current settings (Div 2.0, Hen Mut, the Bronze setting and the newest egg).

All this being said, where would you classify a setting that was made for a Wargame (like SDragon is doing), or for a computer game? or a board game? card game?

I think that as long as it works, and is internally consistent, and the author/creator/writer/conworlder can answer the questions you ask, then even if is never played, it's a campaign setting :P

[LordVreeg]

[blockquote=Lluminous]I think that as long as it works, and is internally consistent, and the author/creator/writer/conworlder can answer the questions you ask, then even if is never played, it's a campaign setting [/blockquote]
If it can be played, if it could, hypothetically survive those nasty players, I SUPPOSE we'll let it slide.  (JK)

[FREAKIN' AWESOME HORSE]

I'm going to go ahead and agree wholeheartedly. Magic has to be clear and reasonable from a certain standpoint... it is hard to justify it just being there to serve whatever purpose someone would desire. Even if someone doesn't take the time to write out the explanation for magic's function in their setting, what is given should be detailed in such a way as to hint at a method. And the system, well, that's a given complication in any case where a GM and players try to put one side of gaming with the other. I seem to repeat myself a lot on this, but there are systems like the Star Wars Saga Edition one that are very mutable and agile gaming-wise, while there are others that must be used for specific fluff (or be built for a setting).

The biggest problem I find is people (including myself) have a hard time letting go of certain magical effects that they don't really need but want to include anyway, just in case someone who plays in the setting wants to use that effect, even if it completely breaks the image that's being aspired to for the setting. Examples could be flashy magic, or magic that involves any sort of teleportation... There is also a fine line that arises when cutting out various effects, where on one side you'd be seen as actually creating a specific, tailored set of magical powers, and on the other side you could just be seen as afraid of giving players any powerful abilities.

In Haveneast, I've never put a lot of work into the roots of magic... but I know it has strong ties to the existence of life/unlife (and those states' ties to The Nightmare). When the world was young and populations were small, magic in Haveneast was weak (although in The Nightmare, there were huge populations of mythic creatures that wielded powerful magic), but as they grew, so did the potential of magic. There are subtle differences in the way magic affects and acts from beings whether they're living or dead - living beings tend to use their own bodies as recharging batteries both to cast spells and to take a beating from magic, taking time to heal their wounds in the same way they might whether pricked by a needle, scratched by a cat, or gutted by a sword. Undead beings also regenerate magic strength over time, but where they're not living their power pool actually comes from the living - which could have minor effects along the lines of chaos theory across the world when it comes to the emergence of plagues and the like. Pacts with dark powers that grant unholy magic function as an inverse of the norm, but they only really exist with living beings; so all of a sudden you've got living casters who are dealing damage to themselves and the world for power (and sold their souls more often than not, too). This is pretty easy to translate to a system.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I think I can both agree and disagree.  I agree that magic should be thought-out prior to picking a system.  I disagree that means having to explain all the in-world rules for it.  I find that many things are much more interesting if you don't explain them, not because they're inexplicable, but because it mimics the "common knowledge" of the setting so you can understand it better.

[LordVreeg]

Trollish Horse, I think of Haveneast as a duality (with a few pieces sticking out), and on the two far ends of the continuum I see Logic/Sanity/Life and Madness/Chaos/Death, with the mirror between the Nightmare and Haveneast in the center, the zero point in the line.
On the two ends are where power comes from.  But that's just the feeling I get.  

[FREAKIN' AWESOME HORSE]

Trollish Horse, I think of Haveneast as a duality (with a few pieces sticking out), and on the two far ends of the continuum I see Logic/Sanity/Life and Madness/Chaos/Death, with the mirror between the Nightmare and Haveneast in the center, the zero point in the line.
On the two ends are where power comes from.  But that's just the feeling I get.  

That's pretty much it, yeah. I'm a big fan of dualities.

I think the least a DM should do, if they're just going to toss a spell list at players, as you said, is toss a narrowed list that fits a theme. Doesn't matter if it's all fire spells and necromancy or it's spells that fit that old Bugs Bunny cartoon's witch - polymorph, divination in liquids and potions, maybe some flight/invisibility - it definitely needs to make sense, as has been said.

[LordVreeg]

I think I can both agree and disagree.  I agree that magic should be thought-out prior to picking a system.  I disagree that means having to explain all the in-world rules for it.  I find that many things are much more interesting if you don't explain them, not because they're inexplicable, but because it mimics the "common knowledge" of the setting so you can understand it better.

When we create a setting, do we draw a false map or one with holes all over it, based on mimicing PC/Common Knowledge, or do we create a GM map and a seperate PC map?
When we ascribe characteristics to an adversary, do we specify the hit points or damage that can be taken or special abbilities, or do we leave it blank, because it 'mimics common knowledge'?

SCMP, we all do things differntly.  And I am totally on the page that says the fluff defines the crunch you need, so the fluff has to come first.  But until you have the fluff and crunch worked out, it is still a hypothetical Setting, not a 'Campaign Setting'.  If you don't explain or haven't thought out the underpinnings of the Ssytem, especially the magic system, you don't HAVE a Campaign setting yet, you have a Hypothesis.

One of the things I am bringing forward here is not just the idea of creating a magic system that can be lpayed, or even the critical function of creating/finding/houseruling a magic system that matches the seting (as opposed to just slapping some generic system on it).  It is that we are building campaign settings, ultimately.  AS LLum and I talked about above, this does NOT mean people have to ever play in it to Validate it.  It does mean that it Can be played in.  

That's one of the reasons I started with the Magic system.  There are important parameters one needs to designate to make it work.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

'I'm not sure what system we are going to use yet', is a statement to mean that says that a writer hasn't asked these questions yet,[note=CBG]Campaign Builders Guild, Y'know?  Not Fluffy writers guild  [/note] that their beautiful, evocative setting is actually a novel setting, not an Campaign setting.  Creating fluff is a talent, and some people are incredibly skilled at it.  But creating Fluff with a Playable, balanced system that could survive Roleplayers and gaming?  
Only then is it a real campaign setting. Only then is it really worth calling a Campaign Setting.  I love a lot of what I read, and I try to comment and enjoy and be as helpful as I can be.  But a Setting that can't survive playing, that is not internally consistent and balanced, is like a car made of lingerie and feathers.  It may look nice, but it won't take you anywhere.

But you also say:

Vreeg's First rule of Setting Design.
"Make sure the system you choose matches the game you want to play, or else the game will eventually match the system".

So shouldn't a setting designer create as much of their setting's internal workings as possible before deciding which mechanics will fit them best?  By your statement one should either be starting with both mechanics and setting during design or should never post until they have completed both aspects for one part.  The former has the danger of breaking your rule by letting what already exists in mechanics twist the ideas rather than the other way around.  The latter means that there is much of the setting design process that must be done alone, not a method some people want to go through.

[Lmns Crn]

God, I love threads like this. I feel like I am attending a setting design masterclass. I am reading and rereading the long post about guidelines on designing a magic system, and there is really a huge amount of information to think about here.

Here's a quick thought.

The biggest problem I find is people (including myself) have a hard time letting go of certain magical effects that they don't really need but want to include anyway, just in case someone who plays in the setting wants to use that effect, even if it completely breaks the image that's being aspired to for the setting. Examples could be flashy magic, or magic that involves any sort of teleportation... There is also a fine line that arises when cutting out various effects, where on one side you'd be seen as actually creating a specific, tailored set of magical powers, and on the other side you could just be seen as afraid of giving players any powerful abilities.

no caster[/i] can teleport, throw fireballs (or similar damage spells, etc.), conjure things from nothing, go invisible, turn you into a newt (or whatever), fly... the list goes on. These are staple abilities for magic-users in a lot of systems, and if I'd started with one of those systems and cut all this out, it'd feel butchered. Since I'm building additively from scratch, though, it just feels like I chose to go in different directions.

[LordVreeg]

More later...I am at work...
but this....

[blockquote=LC]One watershed moment I discovered was when I made the switch from designing "subtractively" (i.e., taking an existing system and pruning/adjusting it into shape) to designing "additively" (starting from nothing and building up.)[/blockquote]

Me too,
and
Fuck yes!!!!!!

(Sorry, but this was a huge memoment for me as well.  It was over 2 decades ago that it occurred, but I remember the flash of light when I realized that my Houseruling combat, magic, skills, creation, interaction, monsters, and every class was the wrong way to go.)

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

When we create a setting, do we draw a false map or one with holes all over it, based on mimicing PC/Common Knowledge, or do we create a GM map and a seperate PC map?

Third option: don't draw a map.  Just make it up.

SCMP, we all do things differntly.  And I am totally on the page that says the fluff defines the crunch you need, so the fluff has to come first.  But until you have the fluff and crunch worked out, it is still a hypothetical Setting, not a 'Campaign Setting'.  If you don't explain or haven't thought out the underpinnings of the Ssytem, especially the magic system, you don't HAVE a Campaign setting yet, you have a Hypothesis.

It's really more of a personal thing myself, I should have said that.  I try to do what you suggest, and all the energy goes out.  If something's explained fully I feel like there's no reason to go on.  I'm an explorer: it's not about the end but the journey.  So my personal style and philosophy is that I'd rather have holes now and see what's in them later.