Making Spontaneous Magic Work

[Mask_De_H]

Is it possible to design a system that can make ad-hoc effects on the fly without arguing with your MC? You need clear guidelines, but can you make clear enough guidelines that players can design an effect off the top of their heads?

One way I thought of doing this was just to have a laundry list of effects that had certain costs and you just picked a la carte from them. If the outputs are known, then it's just a matter of fluffing the ability to taste.

[Koumei]

The D&D Joke Book tried that. It was not a startling, award-winning success. If you wanted to let people combine effects, or alter the parameters of effects*, then you can discard the idea of something balanced, too.

*You could probably do it by killing way more trees and putting the allowable changes + costs in every single effect rather than a separate list that has the same cost whether you're doubling the duration of a Dazzle effect or a Paralysis effect. Kind of like the Augment system of psionics.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

In HERO, you have "power tricks", which let you do the odd stuff you sometimes see in comics, like using your super strength to crush a lump of coal into a diamond in your bare hand. The caveats there are: if you use the same trick in varied circumstances, the GM can force you to spend character resources getting that exact application of your power permanently (or a variable power pool if you consistently use the same approaches often), and that the power trick is a skill that costs more than a narrowly defined skill (like hacking computers).

[Mask_De_H]

Sakuya, so you pay for the trick if you do it once? Or is it bought as a skill only once you hit a certain threshold of use?

Koumei, yeah, each spell effect would have specific modifiers based on what kind of spell it is because different effects should have different costs based on what the effect is. Increasing the effective targetting range of a single target spell versus a burst spell versus a personal spell versus action denial fundamentally means different things. That could quickly become unwieldy and as you said kill a lot of trees.

What might work is a freeform magic system where there are very specific game mechanical things you can do with it, but the flavor could be whatever. So you can attack, buff, debuff and summon, but the way you did it depended on your style of magic. That make any sense?

[Koumei]

Well, at that point it's not really a freeform system, you're just pulling from a list of spells like a Sorcerer, but that's okay. There is a certain number of discrete effects which is "too many" to be sorting through on the fly. There is a certain number that is "too few" to really feel like people are doing varied and interesting things. Try to find something between those two numbers.

And that's basically how Pokethulhu (a joke system) works. You have ATTACK, SCARE, BIND, EVADE, and FAST ATTACK (which is triggered as a result of a particularly successful EVADE and is thus the same move). And then you apply a type and name+flavour it as you please.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

Sakuya, so you pay for the trick if you do it once? Or is it bought as a skill only once you hit a certain threshold of use?

You buy the skill once. The GM is advised that the skill is not meant to be a substitute for Variable Pool Powers, and to bring down the hammer if its threatening to be superior to them, other than an explicit threshold. It's Mother-May-I, but a lot of HERO is, it's basically geared around the GM doing a line-item veto on problematic character builds. You get the Mother-May-I out of the way during chargen for the most part.

[Grek]

For a spontaneous magic system, what you want to do is build in a bunch of "magic physics" that tie into the rules just like the normal physics engine of running and throwing and lighting shit on fire does. Then the magic abilities let you take actions within that physics engine that don't have a one-to-one correspondence to a mechanical effect.

[spongeknight]

Is it possible to design a system that can make ad-hoc effects on the fly without arguing with your MC?

The short answer to that is "no." Anything that requires two separate people to agree on what an undefined effect actually accomplishes in game terms is going to result in an argument by necessity. For instance, if you have the power to shoot fire out of your hands, what exactly does that mean? Can you use that power to fly by using the fire as propulsion, like the fire-benders from Avatar? Is the flame hot enough to melt metal? If so, how long does it take to melt a given piece of metal? Could you shoot fire down a guy's throat and burn his lungs from the inside? Can you make the fire into shapes, like a whip or a sword? Does it gain properties of its form, or does it always act like normal fire?

You get the idea. Unless you spell out exactly what your spell does, a player will ask the GM to do all sorts of unexpected things with it. The GM either allows the effect, meaning the player can now do that thing whenever he wants in the future, or the GM disallows it, causing the player to try and present his case for why it should work. Even if both the players and the GM are always civil during arguments, the GM will think a power works one way while each and every player will have a different idea of how the power works. Reconciling those differences in head-canon will be arguments by definition.

[Blade]

What might work would be to tie the "mana cost" no to the individual elements of the spell, but to the in-game effect. Something like:

- Just fluff: 0 point
- Minor boost/minor hindrance/remove minor hindrance : 1 point
- Major boost/major hindrance/remove major hindrance : 4 point
- Solve a major problem: 10 point
- Overpowered : 50 points

So if the mage does just a tiny effect that would end up killing all the enemies, it would still cost him 10 points.

If he uses a fireball just to light a cigarette, it costs him 0 points (or 1 if he does so to impress someone), if he uses it to burn someone or create a flame sword it's 1 point, if he uses it to kill someone directly it's 4 points. If he uses it to fly, it can be anything from 1 to 50 points depending on how important the ability to fly is in the current situation.

It doesn't make any kind of sense in universe (unless it's a universe where drama impacts the physics of the world), and you need to have players who can agree without nitpicking.

[Username17]

A pure effects-based system like HERO can give people effects that have essentially no GM argument required. Variable power pools do work, and GM arguments about what they can and cannot do are not usually a thing. However, HERO variable power pools require a lot of math, and players who want to use them have to do a lot of number crunching before they sit down at the table.

It is possible for me to imagine a system that was less math-heavy and still let people produce effects on the fly in a very explicit and repeatable fashion. I don't think it's ever happened, but I could imagine something like that existing.

-Username17

[fectin]

It's not just possible, it's done. Danger Patrol equipment does it.
Admittedly, that only works because Danger Patrol resolves all rolls exactly the same, and all equipment behaves exactly the same way no matter how you fluff it, but there is all ready a functional degenerate implementation.

[Ice9]

What might work would be to tie the "mana cost" no to the individual elements of the spell, but to the in-game effect. Something like:

- Just fluff: 0 point
- Minor boost/minor hindrance/remove minor hindrance : 1 point
- Major boost/major hindrance/remove major hindrance : 4 point
- Solve a major problem: 10 point
- Overpowered : 50 points

Sounds like a results-based system, and yeah, those are easy to do on the fly. Not very satisfying to me personally, because there's no aspect of invention with it, just pick what you want to do and describe it how you like. But it works for some people.


Effect-based, like HERO, is another way to do it. With experienced players, you can sometimes work a VPP in real-time. Especially during combat, because that's pretty slow already so you have plenty of time between turns. And there are effect-based systems simpler than HERO.

I have mixed feelings on this, personally. If the freeform magic is not the point of the game, and you just want to get some results that work, then it's fine. For a game really focused on the magic, I find it a little unsatisfying. Because while unlike a results-based system there is still some invention, it's kind of limited, and there's only so far you can dig into things.


Source-based - Mage and Ars Magica have a couple things in common:
1) They're both about the magic.
2) They're both source-based (well, source/effect hybrid really).
3) They both have balance issues and arguments about what sphere/word can do what.

So obviously, it has a lot of pitfalls. And I'm not even sure it can be done right. But that would be my ideal system, for this type of game.

[Stubbazubba]

At least conceptually, there's nothing impossible about a Choose-Your-Own-Effect chart/charts and letting you flavor it with whatever power is on your character sheet. Preferably you keep those charts relatively all-inclusive, and have a backup way to determine the cost/difficulty of a novel effect not already covered (but that should be rare).

The key is how you design those charts. Damage against a single target should cost less than the same damage against all targets in an area. Healing an ally you touch should cost less than the same healing from 400' away. Inflicting Fear should cost less than inflicting Death. You could make a chart for each type of targeting (single, multiple, area). Then price the gradations in target, range, effect, duration, etc., appropriately to the target type.

So if I want to use Water Magic to form a ball of water around an enemy's head, obscuring their vision and drowning them, I'd go to the single target table. The target for this spell is any single creature, but with a physical requirement ("they breathe through a nose") that reduces the cost. For range, we'll say Medium. Effect is three-fold; minor penalty to attacks/checks, minor penalty to AC, and the drowning condition. Duration is "save ends." To put arbitrary prices on these, we'll say any creature = 4, -1 for the physical caveat, Medium range = 4, each penalty = 3, so 6, the drowning condition = 5, and save duration = 3. The total cost = 21, which could be (or be converted to) the cost in spell points, a Water Magic DC, or a Water Magic spell slot level.

Pricing everything would obviously be the hard part, but with a good table you could go through and figure out how to price a spell effect in the time it takes to wait for your turn. Especially if you streamlined some of the categories. Then you would just need to bar some effects from certain sources (e.g. Fire can't inflict drowning).

[fectin]

Fire sure can inflict drowning; just combust out all the oxygen.
And if "drowning" and "fire" are themselves just fluffy ways of describing damage (or forcing an endurance test, or whatever), you don't even need to put restrictions on it.

[Stubbazubba]

Fire sure can inflict drowning; just combust out all the oxygen.

I suppose if they were immune to fire and you wanted to kill them through suffocation, then yeah.

And if "drowning" and "fire" are themselves just fluffy ways of describing damage (or forcing an endurance test, or whatever), you don't even need to put restrictions on it.

Depending on how much you want to make source mean anything, this is true. My post began with the "source is just flavor" premise, so I should be consistent: nix the restrictions. Source is just flavor painted on afterwards with whatever tortured logic you need to get from point A to point B. Somehow water burns people, but at least Heart isn't necessarily a lame power anymore.

[OgreBattle]

Is it possible to design a system that can make ad-hoc effects on the fly without arguing with your MC? You need clear guidelines, but can you make clear enough guidelines that players can design an effect off the top of their heads?

One way I thought of doing this was just to have a laundry list of effects that had certain costs and you just picked a la carte from them. If the outputs are known, then it's just a matter of fluffing the ability to taste.

I think this should be approached as primarily a stunting system that magic can also participate in. So instead of "this is a blinding spell" you have "these are the rules for obscured sight, can be caused by sand in the eyes, a flash of light, etc."

There's also an old thread about how many conditions a game of D&D needs:
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=250192 :

Let's say that you decided that your six basic conditions were going to be tied to the six basic stats:

• Fatigued happens when someone pops you in the Strength
• Slowed happens when someone pops you in the Dexterity
• Sickened happens when someone pops you in the Constitution
• Shaken happens when someone pops you in the Charisma
• Distracted happens when someone pops you in the Wisdom
• Confused happens when someone pops you in the Intelligence

OK, now each of these basic conditions has three secondary conditions that are each keyed to a Save, but each of the secondary conditions has two entrance points. That means that there are Nine Secondary Conditions: Three "Fort", Three "Ref", Three "Will".

• Exhausted (Fatigued or Slowed)
• Poisoned (Sickened or Confused)
• Pinned (Distracted or Shaken)
• Dazed (Fatigued or Distracted)
• Entangled (Slowed or Confused)
• Blinded (Shaken or Sickened)
• Insane (Distracted or Confused)
• Frightened (Fatigued or Shaken)
• Nauseated (Sickened or Slowed)

Now, you have finishing states, these finishing states end combat one way or the other:

• Dropped
• Asleep
• Paralyzed
• Petrified
• Panicked
• Charmed

Having a finite list of mechanical effects that can happen in your game really help with designing spells on the fly.

Basically if your game has rules for grappling/disarming/sundering/pushing that work alongside "I stab it for damage", then your game has rules for blinding/ensnaring/disarming with fire alongside "I burn him for damage"

So just as you can use a spiked chain to deal hitpoint damage as well as trip, Iceman can use ice blasts to deal hitpoint damage as well as trip. Having hero weapon guys and magic wand guys use the same rules to get the same end results also helps in keeping both on par with one another.

It is possible for me to imagine a system that was less math-heavy and still let people produce effects on the fly in a very explicit and repeatable fashion. I don't think it's ever happened, but I could imagine something like that existing.

Might as well discuss that here.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Having a finite list of mechanical effects that can happen in your game really help with designing spells on the fly.

As the 4E D&D developers discovered.

[Dogbert]

Short answer: No

Long answer: The more open your system is, the more open its implementations are to debate.

So far, I haven't seen an effects-oriented system I can't break six ways into Sunday (Except perhaps Hero, which I won't touch with a 6-foot pole until I have proof that 6E no longer requires a scientific calculator for chargen).

And yet, they'll always be by far and large my favorite systems. If I have to choose between freedom and balance, I'll choose freedom any day of the week.

[Foxwarrior]

Really? You're all going on about areas of effect and debuffs? That fruit hung so low I plucked and ate it five years ago.

Wake me up when you start talking about how to implement effects like resurrection, teleportation circles, the range of mind-effecting stuff, illusions, summoning, and so on.

The problem I had with my otherwise perfect system, you see, was that most of the coolest things you can do with magic are bundled up into individual effects that can't easily be split into parts.

Just look at Magicka, which obviously copied me: they weren't satisfied with the mix-and-match portion of the game, so they added predefined spells.

[Mask_De_H]

Those would be effects in the system, I would assume Foxwarrior. Resurrection is tricky, but teleportation circles are just a movement power, mind-effecting stuff could use the same or similar targeting rules as non-mind effecting powers, illusions would be dependent on what mechanical effect the illusions had, summoning would have some sort of pre-fab or build point system and so forth.

I would also like to discuss a less math-heavy variable pool power system. I'm not really familiar with HERO, so what makes it math heavy in the first place?

[Foxwarrior]

I don't think I expressed the problem correctly then. The problem is that each cool effect is nearly atomic. Only the targeting limits, costs, and number of effects glued together vary much in the build-a-spell schemes, but those are just trappings.

Put another way: let's say that I've already decided that the mind control spell I'm going to cast on this guy will have a touch range, be a standard action, and have whatever physical and mental requirements I can add to it that don't matter. What choices do I get about the spell's actual effect?

[Josh_Kablack]

1. If you don't speak HERO, you have nothing worthwhile to contribute to this discussion. Really, it's that relevant.

2. Power tricks and the Power skill are not the pertinant aspects of HERO.

3. There are still loads of ways to break HERO VPPs and +x variable advantages. As pointed out above, all the crazy math is just there to move the mother-may-I to before combat.

4. If you wanted to do something along the lines of HERO VPPs, but with less math you should go by number of powers, not number of points in powers, and definitely not two different types of points. It would also probably help to go with flat addition/subtraction for modifiers instead of HERO's adding advantage fractions to 1.0 and then multiplying before yoy add limitation fractions to 1.0 and dividing.

[Hicks]

ON HERO VPP: As a guy who has played with a cosmic VPP in HERO(admittedly only in 5th edition), there really isn't that much math involved; leave the calculator at the door. The hardest part was getting enough restrictions on the power pool (not the control cost), so you can get enough powers with the maximum points limit allowed by your MC. So you take "gestures" for -1/4 and "incantations" for another -1/4 and "Obvious Accessible Focus" for a magic wand of -whatever and run two or three powers simultaneously, like Flight and Armor and Force Field or Growth and Density Increase and Strength, then make them cost not endurance to use, and have a floater power reserved for a RKA or on touch teleport with megascale distance used to transport enemies into the sun. Or just tell the game to fuck itself and pick up some crazy points multiplier power like multiform (a 5/1 return on your investment) or duplication (5/1 or better return) or summoning (same boat as duplication). The rabbit hole gets pretty deep when you duplicate into 5 copies of yourself, each duplicate with a VPP that has duplication and multiform. But all those multiplier powers have a big-ass STOP sign that warns the MC you're about to bend the game over and make it squeal like a piggy, deliverance style.

The cool thing about cosmic VPP mages is although they can do anything they can't do everything all at once, and can weirdly be swarmed if enough different enemies are presenting enough different threats. I mean the best functional mage I've ever had can only do 4 things at once, and I can pretty much guarantee that one of those things is flash defense, mental defense, armor, force field, lack of weakness, desolidification, missile deflection, invisibility (all targeting senses), or characteristic (STR) to break entangles. That's like nine things that can shut him down without even mentioning all the bullshit you can pull of with a "No Normal Defense" adder on an enemy attack that only has a specific "life support" counter. There is no way for a cosmic VPP to successfully counter all that at once, So the standard MO was to let the rest of the party tank a round or two while I tried to figure out how to cut the knot we were entangled in, sometimes literally entangled with the entangle power.

TLDR: if you want a totally on the fly magic system like a cosmic VPP in HERO, you should get ~4 simultaneous effects, tops, with restrictions.