Sorcery

> How do we get away from the modern concept of flashy magic?
Treat magic as an NPC. In fact treat everything as an NPC. Give your warriors a bonus if they really take care of their sword with all of their heart, or name them; make the PCs fear angering the forest. Give the city ears and eyes, and make the ravens of the battlefield pledge their loyalty to those who provide for them.

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In my mind, the core appeal of magic is that it tends to reflect things which are very important to us (as humans) but which physics ignore in real life. Subjective things.

This is why I usually find magic systems which boil down to "magic is just a form of energy like any other" boring. How can it not be boring to say "magic is just ordinary"? Why did you include magic if you wanted to make it mundane?

In real life, obviously, you can't make a river part before you by issuing an incredibly stern command, or playing a beautiful song. The water doesn't care how commanding you are, or how beautiful the music is, it can't even hear you. A person of pure heart will be electrocuted just as surely as a person of terrible guilt because electricity doesn't care about your crimes. Sacrificing your most valuable bull will not bring you good weather because the weather doesn't recognise value, or bulls, and isn't really even a thing, it's just a vague category of atmospheric phenomena. A shooting star does not portend great events because even if comets could see the future they wouldn't consider anything happening down here a 'great event'. Reality, on the whole, doesn't give a shit about humans or anything humans consider important. It CANNOT give a shit because it doesn't think.

That's the hole magic is filling. It turns reality from something mechanical and uncaring into something that reflects what humans think matters. That doesn't mean reality cares about our wellbeing, it could be intent on fucking us over at every opportunity. But it does at least recognise that we exist and thinks we are significant enough that our thoughts and feelings merit some response.

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Most magic systems define enchanting items as taking ordinary, non-magical items and adding a property of "magic-ness" to it. Thus, a sword might be well-crafted out of superior steel, but it is not magic. In pre-scientific views, though, crafting of steel is itself a magical process. The hardness of the metal is part of the magical-ness of the sword.

Basically, magic should be part of the setting, seen in everything, even if it's not called such. That smith who knows how to make a sword that doesn't shatter throughout many battles is imparting magic into the blade and making it a potent weapon. By making it with skill and with secret methods and naming it, he is making it magical just as if he'd performed a holy ritual over it or inscribed it with runes.

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Okay this might sound whack but hear me out. What if you started with the Slayers RPG and western shamanism?

The Slayers RPG has a system that essentially means that anyone can cast magic, and can try to cast any spell of any level, but wizards just have a higher chance of it not going tits up on them because they know what they're doing.

On top of that you stick a house rule in that goes off the old Crowley style beliefs that any magic you cast will come back on you three fold, so if you try and curse a guy bad shit also happens to you but if you try and do something nice then nice things happen to you, only make it so you still take the brunt of the positive or negative backlash of what you attempted even if the spell fails.

That way everyone can try any spell, but if you fail and you were trying to fuck with someone not only does the spell not work but shitty things will happen to you, but if you try and do something altruistic, like heal a party member or something, then even if you fail the universe recognises that you were trying to be a bro and lends you a helping hand.

On top of that your wizard has a much wider variety of spells they can access, and has a much better chance of them working, so they can still choose to go full fireballs everywhere, but they will constantly have shitty things happen to them (unless they pact with a demon or some shit), or they can choose to do subtle game changers, like calling a fog down or casting dancing lights, which are not really offensive enough to bring a world of shit down on them, but might give them mild headaches or stomach problems, explaining why all the veteran wizards are kind of crotchety.

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Well, to get the effect that other anon mentioned, you'd have to lift the default Magic out of the game and modify Witchcraft.
Essentially, all things are inhabited by little gods and spirits. They have their own agendas and methods to which mortals are not privy, and only wise sages would even really be aware in detail. So, if a feudal lord sees his swords as so much steel, as tools for his use, the little gods will soon die and leave them ordinary swords.
But the so-called barbarians, who must work hard to have a sword forged, no the value of it, and their care, their respect feeds the little god of their blade.
As for the ravens... I've associated ravens with a Fae who delights in storytelling. If you fight great battles that feed his animals, Papa Raven will see to it your story becomes legend. If you carve out a legend, Papa Raven will watch over you through his animals.

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I don't want hermetic mages. I want magic that is found in all of the world, and anyone can interact with it--though that doesn't mean everyone does.

By the way, a couple other alternatives for sources of magic (instead of divinely granted or through years of study) are by joining a magical society and being taught secrets (less "nerd" and more "RL druids"), or by undergoing a spirit journey and gaining power from it (as seen in some RL American Indian mythos).

>oh, and a third alternative method

Or, by learning a craft and doing it REALLY WELL.

I mean, by some definitions of magic, knowing the right herbs to treat poisons and how to sew up a wound so that it wouldn't fester is magic--secrets that not everyone is privy to, that have great power. Knowing how to forge a Damascus sword would be another form of magic in this line of thinking--the formulas for the carbon amounts and time of heating would be closely kept secrets.

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I like the idea, though in some ways I want to make magic less a profession, and more something that people do as part of other professions. The blacksmith does magic when he makes a fine blade--and when he makes a masterpiece it's no surprise when it exhibits behavior beyond what a normal sword should do. The annual village sacrifice and ritual for good weather actually has an impact no matter who the people doing it are, though the elders who have done dozens of them are able to make sure everything is performed to the best manner. The woman who has learned the language of the ravens and earned their trust has no ability necessarily to perform any other magic; just as the man who has created a falcon's hide that lets him take the shape of a falcon can't necessarily speak to birds. Not everyone learns to do things that are magical, but nearly everyone can interact with something in a magical way by doing a normal thing so well that it becomes magical. If you ask the river to part for you and then remain high because you have to warn your village of a raid by barbaric northmen, it might do so because you sang it a truly beautiful song--but if you can't sing, it might or might not heed you because of your plight--and if that's no good, you might convince it with a threat or by making an offering to it. Or you might piss it off and it attempts to drown you.

Does that make sense?

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While I was typing this out, a thought came to me:

You have a die pool system. At some point, perhaps by being very good at a thing, or studying under a master, or whathaveyou*, you would get additional "magic dice" to roll with the skill. Starting with 1 magic die, of course.

You would roll your magic dice whenever you rolled for that skill, separately. Each success on the magic dice would add one minor magical effect to whatever was being done.

So the master blacksmith is making a sword. He rolls his regular skill dice in the skill to see how well he does at making the sword, then he rolls his magic dice (let's say he has 2). One comes up successes and one fails. He can use his success to add one of a number of effects, there should be a list but people should also be encouraged to make up other effects of a similar power. He chooses to make this sword preternaturally sharp. So the sword gets a bonus to damage or penetrating armor or something (whatever would make sense in System X's combat system).

*Perhaps different things for different categories of skills (though that could get burdensome if there get to be too many skill groups), or perhaps just a list of things that can get you that, and you get magic dice by doing one (or more) of a list of things.

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That could be one way to do it, but I like even better that you just have smithing dice. You don't do anything* different to make the sword magical, you just make that sword REALLY WELL, and at certain levels of results, you start to see "magical" properties take shape. It's not that you're enchanting it, it's that you're taking "metal" and making it "sword"--the better you make it "sword" the more it will act like the nature of what a sword is meant to be.

*you could do things like runecrafting or plunging it into a bath of maiden's tears to be quenched, or heating it with coal made from a lover's tresses, that sort of thing, as well, to increase the possible potency. But that's part of the crafting. A different way of "training" the piece of metal into being the essence of a sword, just like you train an unhelpful puppy into being the very essence of a tracking hound.

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Interesting.

Perhaps you could also "aim" for certain aspects by performing certain acts in the creation of a thing, like inscribing a rune or leaving it under a waterfall for a full day and night at some step in the process. Of course you'd have to actually know in-character what to do for that.

Or perhaps things like that are pre-reqs for the most potent of aspects.

>>26010694
I like this. Making a blade that gained strength as the moon gained fullness, for instance, would be something involving smithing the sword during the full cycle of the moon, and only at night.

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I was actually thinking of something closer to those lines.

Make a non-magical thing? No big deal.
Make a semi/low magic item? Alright, maybe you've gotta get some rest for a few days, you're spent.
Make a real, legit magic thing? Prepare to have little willpower for a week or two, just sapped. And it might be a month before you feel back to your old self.
Make something really great? Well man, get yourself a nurse because you're going to be hurting for the next month. And it's going to be years before you can recover that part of yourself.
Make something Epic, that gets into songs and stories generations hence? You'll never be the same.
Then of course there was the Master Smith Turor Al'eson, who crafted his masterpiece, The Sword to Shear the World, spoke, "It is done," and died.

Or or or I just had a thought: people change over time, we're not who we used to be. That's how you replenish yourself. Change, growth, seeing new things, feeling love and heartbreak, changing who you are, building that piece back with the things that built it the first time.

That's how you recover from the truly great works.

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The magically imbued sword by virtue of being well crafted is something I like, a LOT.

When monsters can shrug off most swords but a well-wrought blade can puncture them (aka damage reduction/magic in 3.5 terms), it's now less "because a wizard made it 'magic' and thus magic-science says it can penetrate" and more of a clash of concepts and beliefs.

The monster's hide tells swords that they cannot pierce it, because they are mere sticks, wielded by mortal men. But the sword made by a master smith knows this is a lie, for it is a Sword, and the essence of a Sword is to kill. And it does.

THAT is magic.

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All things have what men call their essences. An essence is more than what the thing is; it is both what it is and is meant to be.

Magic is not a thing. Things exist, you can see them and hear them and touch them, and all things have their essence. Magic is the word we use to talk about the truth of things, their essence.

A sword is to cut.
Armor is to protect.
A pot is to cook.
A net is to catch.
A man is to create and change.

And it is in that: creation, that man makes things. Man, creating, changes the essence of a thing that he is creating. Often this is intentional. Sometimes it is but a byproduct of his work. He moulds the raw into the complete, and it is through this Man alters the essence of a thing, destroying its old identity and giving it a new one. It is through this that man changes the essence of iron and of coal into one of a sword. Or of a pot, or of armor. There is no limit to the essence a man might impart to a thing, but to impart is to use his own essence. His strain, his pain, his sweat, his breath, they must be put into the act of creation, or the object will be naught but a thing, without the essences of what it is meant to be.

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The bit of issue with it as written so far is that we have essences of a thing being both what they are (so something everything has) and what they should be (something nothing can truly attain).

But things that have not been touched by man have their essences too. Rivers, trees, mountains, the sun, the moon, the iron beneath the dirt.

When man takes a piece of iron and begins making a sword, he destroys some of the essences it has, and tries to give the iron new ones. Essences like sharp, and cut, and strong, and deadly. But if he fails, has he only destroyed some essences and not imparted others? The sword is still sharp and will cut and kill--just not to the extent of one that was well made.

When changing a thing, more importantly than giving essences, Man gives it a new identity. The identity of sword. Without using naming as a magic system (where knowing something's true name gives you power over it), I'd say that magic is knowing/shaping the identity of things and the essences that embody them. A powerful sword is powerful because you gave it a strong sense of identity as a Sword, which in turn gives it the essences that a powerful sword has.

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And now to clarify.

An identity: what you are as a concept. You can have multiple identities, tied to different concepts. Ulaf the Smith, Ulaf the Father, Ulaf the Strong. The stronger you identify yourself as something, the more of its essences will be part of you. For Man, identity usually comes from effort; you cannot identify yourself as a warrior if you have never lifted a sword, because your heart knows that to be a lie.

An essence: part of an identity; what it is, what it does, and what it should be. Swords are Weapons, they Cut, and they should be Sharp. Walls are Barriers, they Defend, and they should be Strong. An identity can have many essences; the stronger the identity, the more essences it will have.

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That's a good point. I think now that in that, Man should not be listed as having creation so much as change. He can change the ore into an iron pot, for example. The changing of a thing's essence is a power of man, doing this with tools and other things.

In the conceptual mechanics I'm writing up right now, everything has a numerous multitude of mundane essences, these are basic things like metal having the essence of melting, or strong men having the essence of being strong, a sword having the essence of cutting.

Then there are tiers above that, it goes: Mundane->Least->Lesser->Great->Fantastic->Pure. These are nice names I think, but just palaceholers. The idea is that a regular, non-magical sword would have the mundane essence of cutting, but if you've got a really nice sword, it might have a Great essence of cutting, enabling it to cut through anything that doesn't have an opposing essence of Great or higher.

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Well, the rolls and bonuses are all over the place, so it feels disjointed right now. Essentially leading to >>26013836

As I get it, magic tends to have some common causes:

Grace: Granted by something with power or influence.
Nature/Law: Occurring by some law or cycle.
Purpose/Fate: Influenced by symbolic or proper actions.

After rechecking, seems you're working mainly on Grace as the real source.

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I treat bardic skills as a craft, sort of. So if you sing a song that convinces the river, the better the performance roll, the longer or wider it will open before you. If we're going with the little gods method, you just convince the resident god and it's a lot like dealing with an invisible, intangible NPC who communicates purely through the behaviour of the river.
If we go with essences, it's trickier. Maybe if your essence is Persuasive? I wonder if that means your reputation, your personal myth, is a measure of your power...

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Now that I give it some more thought, that kind of works with the idea that while you can INTEND to work magic, you don't necessarily have complete control over its actual manifestation. Someone suggested previously that when you made a magic sword, you wouldn't necessarily get to choose what aspects were imbued into it—at least, not unless you made specific efforts, e.g., forging at night underneath the moon. In the same way, one could simply pluck at the strings of their harp with the intent of enticing nature to notice their plight—but the exact effect might be up to interpretation, unless the singer had learned beforehand from some canny hermit that the river in question was a particular fan of heartfelt ballads (or whatever).

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What I like about this as a setting is that from what's been posted so far, it's very much a setting where speaking to sages and seeking out knowledge is worth your while. Maybe it's to get a new way of forging steel, or a means to align the blade to the moon, or knowing that a particular river is fond of certain songs. But knowledge equals power here, and that makes it much less of a good idea to just murderhobo your way through it.

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It might take long study to find out what kind of song a river might like, or careful conversation with locals. Then you practice, and prepare, and finally you compel the river to help you, briefly. It might take some kind of effort to build a rapport for future aid.

I have this idea of a grizzled, limping monster-slayer with a well-kept sword and pack of scrolls. He comes into town and just explores awhile, talks to farmers and hunters alike, spends hours staring at a river or sitting in the forest.
Eventually, he plays a song on his pipes, and the forest rustles in approval. He waits for nightfall, and draws his sword, blade gleaming green in the dark. When the hulking monster that has been haunting the villages comes, he plays the pipes again, and the forest snares the creature's feet, scratches its eyes.
Its his arm behind the ensorcelled sword that kills the beast, but with neither sword nor forest he couldn't prevail.

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>>26014721
It's why you have to apprentice a lad. He's got to learn the role from the man teaching him. It's why a young man raised to be a farmer who likes to spend time with men in the watch might find his way there; maybe being rescued by a wandering swordsman gives him ideas in a more essential way than wayward ambition.
But, as for failing the... crafting.
Those men might grow up being best fit for a noose, despite your best intentions. A man is not a tool, afterall, and his own will can bend your lessons astray.

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Can you self identify as whatever you want whenever you want to?

Not easily, no. To make it analogous to the example we've been using this whole thread: consider crafting a sword. It requires time. It requires significant physical exertion. It requires special circumstances (in this case, the location of a forge + the tools and materials used to shape it, at the minimum). And if you want it to be particularly "magical," it requires a bit of yourself.

The takeaway is that changing something's essence is hardly a simply process. The complexity will vary, of course, but to be able to fundamentally alter something's identity on a whim would be miraculous for even a talented sorcerer. If a simple lump of iron requires so much effort to fashion into something else, do you really think fashioning a human being into an entirely different creature is going to be simple?


Maybe that's how shapeshifter druids work? Either they're very adept at wrapping themselves in identities, or they're so good at holding on to their own identity it's child's play to change their physical form.

I like the idea that being a druid isn't just about understanding what makes up the identity of another creature and being able to wrap yourself in its form, but having a firm enough grasp on your own identity that you don't loose yourself in the process.

I'm imagining something along the lines of Animorphs (bear with me), where remaining in an animal form for too long is dangerous. In this case, though, the rational would be that the more time you spend as a wolf, the harder it is to remember being human. You start to get used to the sounds and the smells that you never picked up on; the fur on your back starts to feel like YOUR fur, and those sharpened implements of death must be YOUR teeth. As the taste of a rabbit's blood fills your mouth, the taste of your wife's rabbit stew slips out of your mind; as you run through the night alongside that pack—YOUR pack now—the faces of the men you once called your brothers become the strange, indefinite shapes you call Humans—though you don't know where that word came from, and soon even it feels out of place in your head...

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In 3.x, I'd say it'd be something like "Roll a Will Save, the DC being the intended Animal's CR or HD. For every hour above your WIS (in normal form), make another save, the DC increasing by 1. Failing the save means you think you are the animal, and stay that way way. You get a chance to re-roll once a day."

Some things would increase the DC, I'd say.
>Animal is reptilian/avian/fish | DC +1
>Animal is an insect or other thing | DC +1
>Animal has limbs you don't have (wings, multiple legs, etc) | DC +1
>Animal is a different size category | DC +1 per category
>Animal can do something you could never learn to do (flight, intense speed, breathing under water) | DC +2
>Animal is magical/mythical | DC +3
>Animal is prey, but you've been acting like a predator | +1
>Animal is a predator, but you've been acting like prey | +1

Certain things would trigger (or even lower) a will save, such as seeing your lover or true companion, being reminded of home or old memories, perhaps certain spells.

All Druids have a certain animal (chosen at birth/character creation/character initiation/after an intense change in their life, like death and resurrection, loss of a lover, birth of a child) at which they get an animal they can always turn into or out of without having to make a Will Save.

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Essentially, shapeshifting is all about not forgetting Who You Are. Wearing two identities at once isn't just physically and mentally taxing—it stretches the confines of what should be possible in a very weird sort of metaphysical way, where "You" means way more than it's supposed to, and even reality kind of gets a headache just thinking about that. Eventually, you have to snap back into one form or the other—and the longer you spend immersed in a foreign identity, pushing your own to the back of yourself so as not to muddle the transformation, well... the easier it is to just slip down into that new identity when the rubber band finally snaps, so to speak.

I'm not sure if that's feasible to implement in an RPG, but fuck, it'd be cool.

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I'd probably implement an Integrity scale, or for greater ease base it off Willpower as I do for most magical stuff. Your Willpower is a measure of your ability to hold onto your own identity - some stimuli can be ignored, but some things you might have to roll to resist. And if you fail the roll and give in to the beast too many times, maybe it gets harder to change back. Parts of the beast come back with you - mannerisms, instincts, drives. The worse it gets, the more physical traits come back.
The frightening thing is a strong-willed person who gives in is still strong willed enough to be caught between beast and man, rather than becoming wholly beast.

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Inherent
Extraordinary
Mythic

Swords are inherently sharp. Being Extraordinarily Sharp makes it able to cut through some things, like armor, whereas being Mythically Sharp makes it deal more damage and cut through other things, like spells, lies, or awkward silences. (but only one of those things)

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To distill a few of the main points of the kind of magic system in this thread:

1) Everything is alive. Everything. Not everything is always awake though.
2) Magic is not an energy source or a tangible thing, it is the phrase used to describe things with a strong identity, or the act of giving an identity to something.
3) Everyone can do magic. No-one is a "magic expert". The closest thing would be a sage, whose knowledge of secrets gives them power--but power that anyone else could use as well.
4) Magic is everywhere, even if you don't see it blatantly every day.
5) Interacting with magic does not mean throwing fire from your hands, it means changing the identities of things.

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Ok, so my one gripe I'd have with a completely fiat/narrative system is that it would depend completely on the DM. Reading old myths is sometimes tiresome, because magic happens more or less exactly as the gods like--it would be very hard to avoid the feeling of riding on a rail. Some metric would make players feel a little more in control.

The Ebberon setting was the epitome of making magic boring as fuck (at least for me, in what I enjoy about fantasy).

I also would not enjoy a system where it was a single roll against a "spellcraft" skill.

Perhaps you need a system of rituals and sacrifices--multiple skills or metrics, integrated with the players other abilities. A master black smith might have magic just as powerful as a loremaster, just with different focuses.

Spend more time for bigger effects, with broad powers for players to narrate the effects. The results, limitations, and flavors of the magic would be defined by setting. A grimdark setting, for example, would focus on blood sacrifice, ritual scarification, etc.

A Tolkienesque setting might reward those who are humble and use magic only at great need.

Lazy or greedy spellcasters would be punished, while those who take their time and think things through will gain more power.

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Marriage is a form of magic.
Childbirth is a form of magic.
Blood oaths are a form of magic.
Rites for the dead are a form of magic.
Coming of age is a form of magic.
Creating a sword is a form of magic.
Raising crops is a form of magic.
Taking the shape of a beast is a form of magic.
Offering a cow to bring the year's rain is a form of magic.
Honing one's skill in battle is a form of magic.

All of these things change and manipulate the identity of a thing, and therefore have power. Some have more potency than others, but all are magical.

Magic can be more potent in a circle of standing stones, or atop a mountain, or underneath a full moon. Knowing these places and times, knowing the correct ways to perform magical acts, these are things that grant men power.

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>I mean, by logic if anyone can learn how to make a magic sword and if anyone can forge a sword (with enough skill, such as to add the magic to it) why isn't there a booming industry for these things?

Simple. There's a few things to consider:

1) Learning to forge even a sword that is Asleep requires years of apprenticing to a smith. Then further years to gain the skill to make swords that are Awake. To regularly make Awake swords is something that a master smith could do, but instead he's more likely to spend months or years trying to craft an Attentive sword that men will sing of for years to come.
2) The population of the setting should not be so numerous that there are thousands and thousands of smiths. Think the Norse, or dark age Europe. A city of a hundred thousand people isn't something you'd find.

tl;dr: not everyone can forge a sword, and rather few can forge a sword with actual power within it.

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I'd say it'd rely on belief/faith/emotional connection. Eg, there's more power in my childhood home for me than for my parents, who had five houses before that. But in the same way, there's a lot of power in Stonehenge, for me, because I've grown up with lore and fantasy and books in which Henges = Druids = Magic, but someone from a culture with know knowlege of it might not find it at all magical.

BUT, perhaps a place imbued with repeated collective magical/spiritual significance would have Awake or even Attentive aspects even for someone who doesn't know that they do, and they could stumble across it and go "My Magic Senses are Tingling", but could also find it after looking in a book for the nearest convergence of magical energy/faith/etc.

Similarly, a cleric or a bard could convince a big group of people that this totally normal field is the place where a great battle between good and evil was fought, and good won, and therefore the battlefield is ++ for fighting the good fight.

(I had a DM refer to these places, as well as places where Leylines Converge, as a Felcrest, and I've gleefully stolen the word.)

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This works for both of you, I suppose. Say your Spellcraft/Knowlege (Arcana)/Occult/Magic roll was just to know "Well, if I forge a sword under these situations/do these things, it'll have this effect." So you can roll to know that when a sword is poured into a mold you can sprinkle a mix of cinnamon and powdered hen's teeth into it and it will become hot when its Name is called. Figuring out the sword's Name is an entirely different issue.

I'm thinking of stuff like the chains that held Fenrir, which were made from the roots of a mountain, the hair of a woman's beard, the footfalls of cats, etc. The DM (or the Sourcebook writers, but that seems less fun) can give out strange components that have to be collected in order to make a magical weapon. Bonus points if it's something like "I roll Knowledge (Arcana) to try to figure out how to make a sword that will slay the dragon."
"You recall a snippet of an old poem. 'Northern Pirates carry blades with chill winds of the fall, but moonforged steel can make a blade that's colder than them all.'" And that's all you get. To be fair, one assumes the DM wants you to be able to slay the dragon, so however you interpret Moonforged to mean is more important than what the rules say it means.

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These are great, I am much of thanking. I really like the idea of bards and language being magical. This is a rather low-magic setting coming off an apocalyptic plague, so the resources for traditional wizardly schooling simply do not exist. Education is sparse as well, but there is some magic inherent to language that the superstitious people take as godly.

I decided early on the most a mortal soul (as opposed to immortal soul) could master was the equivalent of third level spells. I think it's really awesome that in Conan the Barbarian, we explore this wild, untamed world and fireball is the most complex arcane magic available.

Divine magic on the other hand I want to work more ritualistically and be more inspired by Celtic myth. Druidism will be important in some areas. I have a cosmology planned that is similar to the Norse, wherein the gods have one world and the "Wyrdyr" have their own, with the human world in the middle. The distinction between gods and spirits is important.

I'm planning a mythic world inspired more by legend, where thematic monsters may be encountered and the gods may or may not be involved, where the characters will be recorded in epics. I want to bring something hopeless, mysterious and frontier to life. Does this sound like a good idea?

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>does the circle of stones merely mark the place where a great king planted his sword in a previous age?
This. As >>26034576 said, magic is something caused by actions. You don't get to be a mystically good warrior by wishing really hard, you get to be one by constant training and shaping your identity.

Doing it like this also means that the world is full of secret places, times, and so on for the PCs to discover, and test, and utilize as part of their magic using efforts. I would love to run a game where the PCs know a secret is more valuable than any shiny bauble, and would seek out sages to find a new way of smithing or shaping the weather.

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Yeah--Characters who wanted to be great at casting spells would keep a spellbooks or grimoire instead of a list of spells. They can always roll against their lore skill, but you don't need to search your memory for a secret name if you have it written down.

Right now, I'm pondering a system where magic comes from "somewhere else" for a grimdark setting, rather than a holistic/animist form. Characters bind spirits of varying power to do their bidding... which can go well or ill depending on skill.

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Eh, it's not nearly done enough, although if people like it I can start streamlining it.

Basically the class, The Magician, (developed for 3.x because it's what I know) can tell objects to do things. At 1st level they can only use a Noun and a Verb in a sentence, and have to roll Charisma to see if the object will do so. Unoccupied objects are easy, but held/attended objects are less so. At this point Objects won't do things they're not designed for. A book will open, but it won't sing to you. A sword will attack, but it won't burst into flames.

At every other level, the player can select from a number of Grammars (similar to Rogue Talents) that allow them to form more complex sentences. Adverb, Adjective, Direct Object, Indirect Object, Preposition, Plurals, Compountd Sentence, Time words (eventually, repeatedly, etc). They also gain the Fast Talk ability, which allows them to say a number of words per round equal to 6 + their INT + 1 for every 4 Levels of Magician.

The Caster can also take more time to make something happen by using Diplomacy to, essentially, convince an object to do something, explaining patiently why it ought to. Knowleges can be rolled to determine if, say, a River is moved more by moral arguments or emotional ones.

Objects usually only do what they'd naturally do (plus some wiggle room for basic 3D movement. "Sword, fall!" is a good way to Disarm, and "Hat, Hover!" is a good command for trench warfare) but a Magician can bluff a thing into something it's not. "Sword, you're on fire!" And the sword is like "Holy shit, yes I am!" [Essentially, this is casting "Burning Disarm", but flavor!]

I don't know if Magicians should be able to affect living beings or not, although if they can there should be some fairly steep saves.

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Thanks. I saw a thread about the Truenamer, read all the stuff for it, declared "This is overcomplicated and shitty, and can only be made unshitty by more complications and STILL doesn't get at the feeling of what they're aiming for." So I started working on that.

Basically in combat, I'd imagine a character of an appropriately high level going "Axe, accurately strike the Goblin's Leg." You'd roll for attack, using Magician Level instead of BAB and with +1 to the roll for the "Accurately", and the Goblin would take negs to speed from his leg being hit. Or maybe I prepared an action to yell "Arrow, miss!" when an arrow is flying at me.

And then maybe I really need to get up to the top of a tower, but I've got a minute or two. So I bend down and roll Diplomacy and Bluff while talking to some random weed, tricking it into thinking it can grow as tall as the tower, and then explaining very pleasantly why it ought to do so. Zoom, it starts growing, and in a moment I can get to the top of the tower.

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 Anonymous 07/15/13(Mon)23:46 No.26040227
Replies: >>26040753

    A friend of mine was talking to me, he mentioned that this reminds him of the philosophical concept of "Ideal Forms" that Socrates and Plato wrote about (according to my very brief google-fu, feel free to correct/history major boner at me).

    What if we go at things from that angle? Instead of thing + magic means the thing can do more things, thing + magic means the thing can't do less things. Magic removes (or maybe creates) limits.

    A sword has a limit to what it can slice through. Things of a certain hardness or thickness won't be cut. Magic removes that impossibility, or at least lessens it. The more magical a thing becomes, the less limits it has, as it moves towards the notion of the ideal form. A sword which can cut anything. A shield that can block anything. A chalice that can hold anything. A couch that can...be perfectly comfy...forever....

    I'm not sure how this works for things that weren't made to be used though. Any ideas?

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Plato didn't just apply it to made things, though - he felt there was some transcendent, supernal realm where one might find true Red, and all other reds we know are but a shade of its... Redness. Likewise, there would be an Ur-Apple. It's why he was so down on art - he felt that since a perfect form must exist somewhere in nature, attempts at their reproduction are lies, and artwork depicting those reproductions is damned lies.
Fucking Plato.

I'm not sure this serves our purpose, but I can see how you came to it.

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