Magic Gayman Thread

ITT we will:

For magic systems, I think the Elder Scrolls hit a sweet spot by including a spell-crafting system (with the exception of Skyrim). It's a shame many other rpgs don't utilize that. It would provide a great wizarding experience.
What are your thoughts, anons? Come share your magical insights.

Call me a sperg but deliberate word munching started to piss me off recently.

Didn't mean to irk you, user. Usually I would use the correct spellings, but I was afraid my post would be seen as too dull.
Whimsy is not my strong suit.

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According to /fringe/, you can get wizard powers right now.

If you fapped you won't. It's your fault.

Then that means almost every "wizard" on here isn't a wizard?
Wew lad.

Otherwise half of the world would be flying around shooting lightning.
Or what, did you think you'll get great powers that easily?

Well of course not.
One of the requirements to acquiring that is paying the price. Now, the question is if masturbation can disqualify someone from wizardry, what can put oneself back into the track? What must one give up or supplement?

M80, you only lose Wizard status via losing virginity to succubi. You lose a wee bit of MANA by fapping, which is something that can be restored.

I think watching yuri and managing to not fap to it can help somewhat.

And in the event yuri isn't attractive to the aspiring wizard?

I always wanted to have a game that procedurally generated its magic, either like an arpg where spells might drop as randomly generated loot, or an open world game where you would conduct "research" and a generated spell would pop out. You could have things like chain ice that explodes on impact or other whacky combos that would help reduce that feeling when you get the best spells and there's no where else for a mage to advance.

Well maybe watch yaoi then, it could either gross you out that your mana gets restored because you just saw the animu equivalent of a double nigger and your purity rises to max, or you will like it which means you're a literal faggot and couldn't be a wizard in the first place.

Now this is a splendid idea.
I think one way to help implement this in a great way is to provide multiple sources of magic. Like you said, spells should certainly be dropped, but I also think scrolls, grimoires, staves, wands, orbs, runes, and other objects of magical potency should be dropped.
In addition, this items should have a certain logic to them and should be able to be combined (e.g., scrolls should be able to be compiled into grimoires, individual runes should be combined into rune mosaics or other objects, etc.).

Yeah, nah.

I'm all for adding variety to the things dropped. What kind of uses did you see for these items? I would think it would be interesting if they could apply modifiers to your spells. For example, say you do get the spell of chain ice explosions, maybe you find a rune that increases the number of times it chains (something like support gems in Path of Exile might do). Then you take that rune and combine it with other runes to maybe make a better chain upgrade or a new type of area of effect upgrade? Maybe have each type of item provide changes to specific parts of the spell system? (e.g. runes can modify spell area, scrolls modify damage typing/range, etc.) I'm still kinda stuck in this random spell mindset though, so I'm interested in your ideas.

Runes are probably going to be the most flexible of the items, as they can stand on their own and be combined for a variety of effects.
Ideally, merely wearing a particular rune would affect all pertinent spells (depending on the effect in question). Ideally, there might be whole items crafted with runes (or carved full of runes, like a rune stave).

As for the random spells, I would presume that there needs to be base effects (ice damage, fire damage, conjure creature, heal self, and so forth) in order to provide some system of randomization.
The question here is how many base magic effects can we include in the magic system without 1) putting too much strain on the game engine, 2) providing enough diversity that players won't encounter the same spell often, and 3) providing vastly complex spells near higher levels.
One thing should also be considered: unique spells. If we're going to base the magic system on randomized drops that one can research, should we implement unique spells that have already been researched by better, older wizards? Perhaps they might have tremendous effects but would not be able to be used until a much higher level?

I need to go to bed, but I'll be back tomorrow. Keep the ideas coming, user.

With pleasure

Generic term for wizards, sorcerers, artificers, and other such civilized varieties of magic user.
All the attached pictures are mages.
A mage who got their powers through study and dedication to the craft of magic.
Almost always old as balls.
Some may have a cause, righteous or not, but most simply do not give a shit.
Is most likely to practice metamagic.
First pic is a wizard.
A mage who got their power through a lucky dice roll.
Alignment may lie anywhere on the axes of good/evil and lawful/chaotic, but is always on the dickish side of the dickish/chill axis.
Unlike wizards, sorcerers actually give a shit, mostly about their image.
Incapable of metamagic.
Second pic is a sorcerer.
Practically not even a mage, but they get counted anyway since they do magical shit.
Never actually shows up to cast spells.
Typically doesn't even show up at all, preferring to just make a magic sword or something and ship it to some farm boy.
I do not have a picture of an artificer due to how little the fuckers actually show up.

I like the idea behind this.
Maybe just have a few core-tech spells, like counterspell, while everything else is mashed together from various magic bits.
For instance, you can make a basic fireball by combining fire element with a bolt projection, and can tack on additional effects like making the burn victim's flesh rot off their bones or feeding their soul to a demon by adding the components related to those effects.

Why didn't the blue wizards ever get any attention? Given that Tolkein never delved into them, I'd love to see them explored in some supplementary media, especially video games.

Given the raw amount of shit in Middle Earth (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings doesn't cover even close to 5% of the mythos), there is a wealth of material that video games could explore. It's sad that there hasn't been any real Middle Earth game that wasn't about The Hobbit or LotR.

Battle for Middle Earth 2 had an expansion pack with Angmar and the war in the north, and LOTR: The Third Age was a thing.
Not sure what else there is though.


I just realized that this general sort of thing has actually been done before in a tabletop card game.
Pic related.
We should still keep going though, I want to see where this ends up.

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It's always easiest if you break it down to the etymology.

- Mage, comes from magus (related to magice, "magic"). Pretty simple etymology, straight from the origin of magic. Essentially a direct synonym for magician.
- Wizard comes from Old English for "wise", and originally connoted a sage or a scholar, rather than a straight magician.
- Sorcerer came form Medieval Latin for fortune teller, but with a connotation for one who influences fate. Later became "conjurer of evil spirits".
- Artificer just means "craftsman". In the context of magic, it would probably be one who works on imbibing magic into materials through runes, special engravings, and the like.

So, in essence:

- A mage is the core category of all magic users.
- A wizard is, as you said, a scholar, and would as such primarily be skilled in the elemental and physical magics. Would not dabble with spirits or summoning, as that involves messier things like pacts and social interaction, rather than raw empirical work. They don't actually perform as much magic as most other clades of mages, instead devoting all time to research and discovery. The scientists of magic.
- sorcerers are the lower pragmatic ones with more focus on actually using magic rather than studying it. By lack of full understanding and study, these typically channel their power through spirits, summons, and interaction with otherworldly forces. Will do bits of study, but only to the ends of actually being able to perform. Won't usually study the roots of their trade for its own sake. The artists and musicians of magic.
- Artificers understand the work of the wizards, but don't do research. They have instead focused on the pursuit of fully using the findings and methods of the wizards in the most practical and efficient ways possible, and channeling the work of the wizards in a way that anybody could use them without having to actually spend 40 years reading books. The engineers and programmers of magic.

I definitely think it makes sense to have spells made of given components (like damage range, damage type(s), resistance piercing, target cap, range, aoe type, etc.). Spells would then be made by either randomly combining these components, or maybe providing the player an option to combine them. I usually think of this in the context of a diablo-like arpg where your spells would come as loot or whatever, but if the game was less inclined to complete randomness, maybe have the components themselves drop randomly and be combined by the player in some manner. So for the case of making a basic fireball out of say fire damage and bolt projection, the fire damage component might drop as something like [Damage: 10-20, Type: Fire] while the bolt projection might drop like [Target Type: Single, Range: 20m, Hits: 1]. Combining the two would then give you a single target fireball with 1 hit, 20m range, that deals 10-20 damage. If you're letting players combine these components, it makes more sense to package them in bigger clumps so they don't just use the highest damage, range, biggest target cap, etc. An example of a game that lets you do this to an extent is the MMO Ryzom, where you learn spells/skill which are made of damage, range, costs, etc. You can then recombine them to make your own skills, and chose to pay the cost of the spell with different resources or by jacking up the cast time. I would suggest that players need to find components and maybe make them only able to be used in a single spell before getting used up. Maybe there could be both complete spells and components that drop, with a bias towards complete spells being slightly stronger than components when dropped to account for the lack of customization? Unique spells could be rare drops of complete spells, or there could be unique component drops, maybe something like a component that lets you use two damage types or two targeting types?

I realize this is just a block of idea vomit, I'll try to format better in future posts

I got some bits from that.
I think it would help to have a visual aid for this sort of thing.
With that in mind, I give you a rough draft of a tree for this sort of thing, brought to you by oekaki.

These are your spell bits, which you use to make spells to cast, or in the case of forging magical items.
For elements, you have the pure modifiers that can only change what spells do, and the modifier/prerequisites, which modify spells as well as making advanced deliveries.
You make spells by combining modifiers and deliveries, with the only rules being the need of a delivery and some incompatibilities between elements.

Strength of spells is adjusted by magnitude and duration.
The number of modifiers in a spell is kept in check by mage skill, so if you want to summon a balrog you need training in fire, demon magic, and summoning, while a basic fireball just needs you to have fire magic and knowledge of bolt-type deliveries.

I'll even write out the delivery types for you.
Creates a raw manifestation of the element modifying it.
Cannot be modified by more than one element.
Exactly what it sounds like, though unlike elementals you can add extra modifiers, so while a straight beast summon might get you a wolf, adding a demonic modifier gets you a hell hound or cerberus.
Fires a raw projection of the element at a target.
Projects a barrier of the element, can also be cast as a wall.
Gives the caster properties from the element.
For instance, earth alter self makes your skin stone, fire makes you a fire elemental temporarily, nature lets you regenerate, etc.
Creates magical items with properties of the element.
Can be combined with other deliveries to make more powerful objects, such as swords that shoots lightning or a shield that can build a wall out of ice.

Holla Forums, where did we go so wrong?

I like the idea of tying specific skills to specific spell components. You could have a root skill for different types of components, which then branches off to get more specific. This could not only set specific level requirements for each component (e.g. need lvl 10 Damage to use a 20-30 Fire damage component), but allow for increasingly specific "metamagic" type bonuses to components for specialization in skills (e.g. at level 25 bolt delivery, all bolt-type spells gain X range). Such a skill tree system could look like pic related, with you gaining experience based on the components of the spells you use.

There should probably be a cost component to spell construction as well, so players can vary how they want to pay for spells. Maybe an added set of "Efficiencies" components that can change how you pay the cost. This way, players could specialize in say blood magic or spells with cast times or even material components to make their magic even more personalized.

It was very rigid and still based on the overused Wizardry system where each character has a mana pool.

I'd like to see a revisit to limited magic based on one of the alternative systems.


The Arx Fatalis system of drawing out rune words in mid air was one of my favorite though. Precasting spells beforehand was a good idea, but you could only hold so many slots, and casting in the middle of a fight was hectic.

i like fairies

I feel like Illusion is always forgotten in every game/system. It is always reduced to invis, fear or courage. Here's what Illusion magic really does:


That's just the first few I could think of, Im sure there's more

Also, I have a thing for glyphs, sigils, runes and writting magic in general. Only arx fatalis comes close to letting me draw my magic

There's plenty of music inspired by the Silmarillion and the other various sources that aren't films, but I've never even seen an vague suggestion for a game based on it. I wonder why.

I know FFXV will probably be not good but what about the magic crafting system? Kinda neat.
/shill

I really wish that there was a game where magic was strong, but technically challanging. An user once likened spellcrafting to coding and so that you could do a lot of crazy stuff if you had the ability and/or patience to craft it. Personally I'd like to see it, if for no other reason than it'd be a nice take on a usually simple concept. Especially if the setting itself lets me be a hermit that just sits around writing spells based off of old "scripts" I found in ruins.

You could get many of those effects in action games (make the opponent do X animation instead of attacking/defending), but in RPGs it does boil down to status buffs/debuffs.

Couple more terms

Instead of studying (wizard) or getting magic through lucky fate or magical bloodlines (Sorcerer) a Warlock made a pact with a magical being unrelated to gods of any sort (a fae spirit or demon, or even an elemental, the thing's morality doesn't matter, any sort of magical critter) for magic powers.

A mage who specializes in conjuring things from where-ever the fuck, be it flames from the center of the earth or a magical being who is either helping him out or being commanded by him.

A mage who specialized in a field, like a specific element (Pyromancer, Aeromancer, Aquamancer, Terramancer, Fulgurmancer aka lightning in latin, Necromancer aka skellytons, Psychomancer aka mind shit, the list goes on) It's like a college major title for mages

Doesn't cast spells (unless he's also somthing else), but mixes chemicals or mixable things to do spells for him. An Alchemist can craft a magical bomb and set it off when he pleases, while such stuff done by a wizard would have to be a very complicated spell without assistance.

Casts spells in the name of the LAWD, whatever that lord is, usually ends up being a healer when undead or demons are involved, unless they did the smart thing and brought protective gear with them, like say a fuckin' mace.

Like the preist but less healing, more smiting because DEUS VULT. Also, outside of the super god powers, basically a like the real Templars when it comes to gear, in that they're fully armored and packing real men weapons.

Illusion is kind of a strange school of magic since the actual mechanics behind its spells differ greatly, manipulating light and space to create invisibility and darkness, atomic and magical composition for illusory objects/structures and mimicry, and a targets mental states and senses for calm and fear. Illusion effectively combines lightbending, mindbending, and artificing, making a very complex school of magic.

I generally consider priest, cleric and paladin to be classified based on what powers they receive from whatever god they follow, priest being a caster, paladin a fighter, and cleric a bit of both, completely unrelated to alignments, ideologies, and schools of magic as it is entirely dependent on what god they follow. They would mostly be a sort of sub-class based on whatever your base class is and depend on your faith for how strong they are, and can even change if you decide to change classes or follow a different god.

Vancian magic should be buried, excavated incinerated and scattered across the winds. The concept is not bad, but it is never used well.

I like what I see from my absence, guys. This thread is going places.

From what I understand, Tolkien said that the Blue Wizards went off to the East and spread rebellion against Sauron's influence.
He also provided a a pair of names for each one, all the pertinent information is on the wiki.

That looks at least interesting enough.
Have you played it before, user? Is it any good?

You certainly have a point; mana pools are a bit overdone within video games, so it would be nice to see some more variety in the way magic is cast and powered.

I agree, but I think that illusion is overlooked more often because developers either aren't creative enough or overlook the whole magic system entirely.

There's going to be a fifteenth one? Can't they let the series die with some dignity?

I'm afraid the only way we would get something like that is if the developers were fine with not having mass appeal to make a profit.
It would be a labor of artistic vision, not a corporate money grab (good artistic vision is rare enough, let alone artistic vision with technical skill).

Illusion is probably less about the magic ability and more about understanding people and being able to make more believable illusions.

I really fucking like necromancy, I don't even know why. Maybe because I'm generally a horrorfag and the macabre of this type of magic speaks to me.
What games actually do necromancy well? A game where you can play as a necromancer should require you to actually revive spooky stuff instead of just summoning them. Bonus points for being able to revive only the different parts of the body.

There are so many cool things that games could do with necromancy but rarely go into.

>Experimentation with dark forces, creating different abominations and making your own undead minions I only saw this done once in a minecraft mod
>Undead waifus

I really want more games to do necromancy well. Do you guys have any suggestions? Bonus points if the necromancers are not portrayed as evil

play Lost Magic for the DS. You draw your runes and combine them in order to discover the large number of spells there are. It's pretty fun.

Same here. It seems so Tumblr-esque

Arcanum have a great lore about necromancy (white and black necromancy) and you can talk with souls of dead NPC.