Orthogonal division of magic based on MTG-style colours

[Usamimi]

(Inspired by the moe colours and spell points vs spell slots threads)

Under this philosophy, spells are divided not by school or by level, but by colour. There are four colours of magic:

Blue

Blue magic primarily focuses on indirect and control effects such as buffs/rebuffs, illusions, and field effects. Blue spells typically deal less damage, but have powerful rider effects.

White

White spells generally focus on buffing, protection and restoration. White relies on group buffs.

Black

The school of black magic focuses on debuffs and sacrificial effects. Black spells gain power by trading HP and cause damage-over-time effects.

Red

Red magic is direct and explosive. Red spells prioritise direct damage over debuffs, and Red debuffs typically cause damage.

Each colour has a set of traits defining it thematically: Black is corrupting and sacrifices others, Blue is indirect and innovative, Red is direct and destructive, and White is restorative and constructive.

Each colour has a built-in drawback: Blue has few plain damage dealing effects, Black is incapable of healing ex nihilo, White has few generalist debuffs, and Red has poor indirect effects.

This system assumes spell points divided by colour, but the general philosophy can work with any system. The number of colours has been kept low to prevent bloat.

[Thaluikhain]

Er, isn't that still a lot like dividing them by school? Excepting you've cut them down to 4. Avoiding bloat seems a reasonable goal, yeah.

[Usamimi]

Er, isn't that still a lot like dividing them by school? Excepting you've cut them down to 4. Avoiding bloat seems a reasonable goal, yeah.

There are similarities with traditional D&D schools, but the colours are broader.

Colour bloat would lead to shrinking design space for each colour or increasing redundancy. In this system, neither are desirable.

[OgreBattle]

The trap you need to avoid falling into is "Red magic does explosions!" but then every other magic has an indirect but just as effective way to cause explosions and earthquakes and killings and so on

A free floating system is hard to examine when there's no setting or story or artist intentions known

"Focus on buffing" is rather mechanics oriented, it can be tricky describing a setting that way as you run into "is an aura of fire Red fire magic or White buffing magic? Is temporarily gaining super strength to punch a mountain destructive red magic or just white buff magic"

What kind of story you want to tell is the key

[Username17]

This is almost completely word salad. White is defined by character role, Black is defined by resource management system, and Blue and Red are defined by how much damage their attack spells do. None of these are even mutually exclusive. You could easily imagine a spell that caused blood to explode out of your body and damage you to heal all your allies in the field that was White, Black, Blue, and Red.

-Username17

[Thaluikhain]

Going off on a bit of a tangent, couldn't you allow spells that were constructed of more than one colour? So, for example, decide to put 3 points of red into an attack, 2 points of black into turning some of the damage into 2 points of blue or white to buff or heal someone? I was thinking instead of having spells where you had set points costs, you have some sort of formula and make your own spells whenever you cast them.

Though, quite probably very fiddly to get right.

[Usamimi]

The trap you need to avoid falling into is "Red magic does explosions!" but then every other magic has an indirect but just as effective way to cause explosions and earthquakes and killings and so on

Noted. Feedback is desired in all projects, including thought experiments.

A free floating system is hard to examine when there's no setting or story or artist intentions known

This is a thought experiment.

"Focus on buffing" is rather mechanics oriented, it can be tricky describing a setting that way as you run into "is an aura of fire Red fire magic or White buffing magic? Is temporarily gaining super strength to punch a mountain destructive red magic or just white buff magic"

Describing colours primarily in mechanical terms was a mistake. “Buffing” is too vague to be meaningful when all colours have some type of buffing ability.

[Usamimi]

This is almost completely word salad. White is defined by character role, Black is defined by resource management system, and Blue and Red are defined by how much damage their attack spells do. None of these are even mutually exclusive.

The poor descriptions and vague definitions of each colour lead to overlap beyond acceptable parameters. The colours will be made more exclusive.

You could easily imagine a spell that caused blood to explode out of your body and damage you to heal all your allies in the field that was White, Black, Blue, and Red.

Since the healing is a leech effect, and the damage is the cost, not the primary effect, it would not be White or Red. Not all spells that damage would be Red. Red spells would deal more damage than others, generally.


Each colour is currently an arbitrary collection of mechanical effects and design philosophy. The descriptions of each colour are what can be expected given a generic spell of colour x.

[Username17]

Each colour is currently an arbitrary collection of mechanical effects and design philosophy.

That was exactly my point. As you currently had things laid out, the mechanical effects and design philosophies weren't comprehensive or incompatible, allowing you to trivially design spells that encompassed elements from all four.

The underlying purpose of dividing up the magical space has to be considered. What is your reason for dividing things up at all? In most cases, it's to provide role protection by limiting what a particular kind of spellcaster can do. As such, explicit statements of what a magic category can't do are more important than explicit statements of what it can do.

This is in contrast to your original sketch, in which Black and White have a couple of ideas of things they could do well, but no explicit statement of things they couldn't do. As such, it's not much use for role protection, because no action is explicitly barred to either of them. Can they dispel magic? Levitate? Transform into a giant snake? Turn enemies into stone? Surround enemies with walls of thorns? Summon giant turtles? Speak to trees? Teleport across the continent? None of those things are explicitly off the table for White or Black. Or Blue or Red for that matter.

-Username17

[Ice9]

One thing I notice - this is a very combat-oriented division of magic. If the game this is for only has combat magic, then fine, but otherwise you're likely to end up with the "one school (probably Blue in this case) ends up with everything besides combat" issue.

For example, what color gets:
Travel?
Shapeshifting?
Divination?
Mental Influence?
Environment / Object Manipulation?

[Usamimi]

One thing I notice - this is a very combat-oriented division of magic. If the game this is for only has combat magic, then fine, but otherwise you're likely to end up with the "one school (probably Blue in this case) ends up with everything besides combat" issue.

For example, what color gets:
Travel?
Shapeshifting?
Divination?
Mental Influence?
Environment / Object Manipulation?

The colours were originally designed around combat applications, hence this blind spot. I am currently brainstorming alternate definitions of each colour.

[Usamimi]

Each colour is currently an arbitrary collection of mechanical effects and design philosophy.

That was exactly my point. As you currently had things laid out, the mechanical effects and design philosophies weren't comprehensive or incompatible, allowing you to trivially design spells that encompassed elements from all four.

The underlying purpose of dividing up the magical space has to be considered. What is your reason for dividing things up at all? In most cases, it's to provide role protection by limiting what a particular kind of spellcaster can do. As such, explicit statements of what a magic category can't do are more important than explicit statements of what it can do.

This is in contrast to your original sketch, in which Black and White have a couple of ideas of things they could do well, but no explicit statement of things they couldn't do. As such, it's not much use for role protection, because no action is explicitly barred to either of them. Can they dispel magic? Levitate? Transform into a giant snake? Turn enemies into stone? Surround enemies with walls of thorns? Summon giant turtles? Speak to trees? Teleport across the continent? None of those things are explicitly off the table for White or Black. Or Blue or Red for that matter.

-Username17

The purpose of dividing magic into colours was to split the capabilities of spell casters into multiple spell lists, making them easier to balance.

Your advice has been helpful.

What is your opinion of a colour system which defines its’ colours with a set of keywords tied to each colour, which defines their abilities, and a “colourless” list which covers generic abilities that do not fit any colour?

Example: Gold is the colour of divinity, purity, and protection. Its’ abilities destroy undead, prevent damage, summon Gold aligned creatures, and heal damage/status effects.

Is this format serviceable?