Realistic Magic in RPG's

[Ice9]

This is enough. I suggest remote neck snapping. It's both low power and low precision. Much lower precision than firing a crossbow.

Actually, there's more than one factor to precision - what you're doing (telekinesis is easy), how small/precise a thing you're applying it to (correct angle on neck would be moderate), and how precise a change you're making (easy, as you don't care about overkill). And then there's the power (not sure how much force it takes to snap a neck, honestly).

So this would be a fairly easy spell (although not as minimally easy as stated). However, you do have to hit the neck, which is going to be fairly hard on a moving target. And if you hit that same neck with - pretty much any weapon, actually - it would probably be equally fatal. Again, being able to kill someone is no more "instawin" than having a gun.


Edit: Thinking about this, I realized that using TK on the neck directly would probably run into the "using magic on a living creature" clause and increase the difficulty considerably. Not that I think it needs to, balance-wise, but for consistency it probably should.

Also, this raises the issue of whether clothing counts as "part of you" and is thus protected, or is separate, and thus a huge liability. I'm inclined to say that at least normal clothing (maybe not armor or diving suits) counts as part of you, because I don't want to encourage/mandate everyone going around nude. The explanation is "morphic field", which you are free to throw out as illogical - if you don't mind the results.


As far as teleportation and raising the dead - it depends how realistic the setting is supposed to be. In a setting where magic manipulates physics as we know it, then no, you can't do that. If you want your setting to have phlebotunum like quantum teleportation or wormholes or "spirit waves", then just assign a difficulty to them and you're good to go. This is more a setting factor than a system one.

[Just another user]

1) Mechanical Changes: Causing a door to open, or a crossbow to fire. Telekinesis is in this category, but generally uses a lot of power.

This is enough. I suggest remote neck snapping. It's both low power and low precision. Much lower precision than firing a crossbow. And roughly the same amount of force required to open a well stuck door. If you can't pull off remote neck snapping then it would seem like you have too little power or precision to do anything.

Or you could use a knife to cut his throat, it is equally simple, much less force needed and you don't even have to learn magic.

[Korwin]

Principle I
The precision and power of an effect are added together to determine the difficulty of casting it. Doing something which affects a single grain of sand and leaves the ones next to it untouched is of massive difficulty, even if all you do is make it one degree hotter.

The bigger the thing is, the easier you can change it?

What is more important in the difficulty, power or precision?
It sounds precision may be the more difficult.

Seems counter-intuitiv.
But anyway, how about changing the floor into water (and as soon as the head is under water) and back.

[Just another user]

What is more important in the difficulty, power or precision?
It sounds precision may be the more difficult.

I think they should be two separate stats.

I like the idea that you can have a mountain shattering wizard with no precision at all or a very fine manipulator but that can't handle anything more heavy than a pen or any combination that lies between the two.

[老子]

So this would be a fairly easy spell (although not as minimally easy as stated). However, you do have to hit the neck, which is going to be fairly hard on a moving target. And if you hit that same neck with - pretty much any weapon, actually - it would probably be equally fatal. Again, being able to kill someone is no more "instawin" than having a gun.

Edit: Thinking about this, I realized that using TK on the neck directly would probably run into the "using magic on a living creature" clause and increase the difficulty considerably. Not that I think it needs to, balance-wise, but for consistency it probably should.

If you can't use magic on living creatures at all Ice9, then you really can't do much of anything interesting with magic. I grant that in the long run that may be balanced, but it also kind of defeats the point of having magic in the game. Similarly if you declare that hitting a moving target with magic is too hard then magic is pretty much useless in the majority of situations.

Secondly you don't have to hit the neck, you hit the head with rotational force in one direction, and the body with rotational force in the other. These are two relatively large targets--it's not precision work. The reason this is insta-win while using a weapon is not is because snapping people's necks is an insta-win. If you manage to sneak behind the guard and snap his neck your DM is a dick if the guard doesn't die. Obviously you can't physically use that technique in combat, but you can with magic. And saying it doesn't work "just because" has abandoned our search for "realistic" magic. If neck snapping can be said to be non-lethal "just because" then we can impose any restriction on magic "just because". It's balanced, and makes sense in a game, but isn't "realistic". And that's my point, "realistic" when it comes to magic is not balanced, you need arbitrary restrictions to prevent magic being strictly better than non-magic.

[Quantumboost]

You could easily make a system to handle variable power and precision with multiple types of effects as well. A general precision skill, a general power skill, and specializations.

Hm... thinking...

It would probably be best off with a concentration/exhaustion mechanic of some sort. Concentration as a limit on per-round power output, exhaustion limiting how long you can maintain things. Those would probably be enough to keep things within reasonable limits. Having higher skills could lower concentration costs or something.

Then break up the sorts of magical effects you want into related categories, put it on a point-bought skill system. Then comes the math and testing, which is the harder part.

[Ice9]

If you can't use magic on living creatures at all Ice9, then you really can't do much of anything interesting with magic.

I wasn't thinking so much "impossible" as "significantly more difficult". That aside, you can do a hell of a lot without using magic on living creatures. Spying, creating otherwise unobtainable objects, causing anywhere from mass destruction to invisible sabotage ... and remember, you can still do to people without using magic directly on them - launch a swarm of knives, set the air on fire - just can't turn their blood into lava (not easily, anyway).

Similarly if you declare that hitting a moving target with magic is too hard then magic is pretty much useless in the majority of situations.

There are other situations besides combat you know. And for that matter, are guns useless because you can't always get a perfect headshot? The difficulty doesn't have to be insanely high, either.

The reason this is insta-win while using a weapon is not is because snapping people's necks is an insta-win.

Shooting someone in the face is an insta-win too. The trick is that in many systems, important characters get some kind of special resource that means they actually don't get shot in the face until the final shot that kills them. Snapping someone's neck with magic works the same damn way - if you're not out of the special resource, then your neck didn't actually get snapped. This makes as much or as little sense as it does with any deadly force.

The bigger the thing is, the easier you can change it?

To an extent, yes. As size increases, precision decreases, but power (often) increases. So depending on the exact numbers, there would be a "valley" where things were easiest, and got more difficult in either direction.

[Korwin]

Similarly if you declare that hitting a moving target with magic is too hard then magic is pretty much useless in the majority of situations.

There are other situations besides combat you know. And for that matter, are guns useless because you can't always get a perfect headshot? The difficulty doesn't have to be insanely high, either.

I get the impression this hypothetical system could be summarized:
Use our RL-tech and reflavor it to magic.

[Just another user]

If you can't use magic on living creatures at all Ice9, then you really can't do much of anything interesting with magic. I grant that in the long run that may be balanced, but it also kind of defeats the point of having magic in the game. Similarly if you declare that hitting a moving target with magic is too hard then magic is pretty much useless in the majority of situations.

Secondly you don't have to hit the neck, you hit the head with rotational force in one direction, and the body with rotational force in the other. These are two relatively large targets--it's not precision work. The reason this is insta-win while using a weapon is not is because snapping people's necks is an insta-win. If you manage to sneak behind the guard and snap his neck your DM is a dick if the guard doesn't die. Obviously you can't physically use that technique in combat, but you can with magic. And saying it doesn't work "just because" has abandoned our search for "realistic" magic. If neck snapping can be said to be non-lethal "just because" then we can impose any restriction on magic "just because". It's balanced, and makes sense in a game, but isn't "realistic". And that's my point, "realistic" when it comes to magic is not balanced, you need arbitrary restrictions to prevent magic being strictly better than non-magic.

first; are you saying that the only interesting use for magic would be to kill things?

second, we are talking about magic, everything about it would be arbitrary, saying that you can turn air into chlorine is arbitrary, saying that you can remotely apply force to a object is arbitrary, saying that you can create a force field is arbitrary. What the OP is asking is about magic that use a scientific or science-like approach/rationalization to how it works, there is no reason there can't be a pseudo scientific reason for which you can't use/it is harder to use magic on a living being for example.

[Korwin]

first; are you saying that the only interesting use for magic would be to kill things?

No he is saying its easier in an quasi-realistic system

second, we are talking about magic, everything about it would be arbitrary, saying that you can turn air into chlorine is arbitrary, saying that you can remotely apply force to a object is arbitrary, saying that you can create a force field is arbitrary. What the OP is asking is about magic that use a scientific or science-like approach/rationalization to how it works, there is no reason there can't be a pseudo scientific reason for which you can't use/it is harder to use magic on a living being for example.

Uhm, did you read the thread?
Give an example: Magic does "...something..."
In almost all cases you can use the same effect to kill. And you usually only need a fraction of the same "power".

Yeah you can "theoretically" come with some pseudo-science explanation why its harder to kill.
But so far, the examples of this explanation where broad statements and didnt solve the problem 100% (or the magic couldnt do anything anymore).

[Just another user]

first; are you saying that the only interesting use for magic would be to kill things?

No he is saying its easier in an quasi-realistic system

mmmh, no

If you can't use magic on living creatures at all Ice9, then you really can't do much of anything interesting with magic.
...

Similarly if you declare that hitting a moving target with magic is too hard then magic is pretty much useless in the majority of situations.

To me it seems he is saying that if you can't use magic to kill things then magic is both uninteresting and useless (in the majority of situations)
I see nothing about it being 'easier'

second, we are talking about magic, everything about it would be arbitrary, saying that you can turn air into chlorine is arbitrary, saying that you can remotely apply force to a object is arbitrary, saying that you can create a force field is arbitrary. What the OP is asking is about magic that use a scientific or science-like approach/rationalization to how it works, there is no reason there can't be a pseudo scientific reason for which you can't use/it is harder to use magic on a living being for example.

Uhm, did you read the thread?
Give an example: Magic does "...something..."
In almost all cases you can use the same effect to kill. And you usually only need a fraction of the same "power".

Yeah you can "theoretically" come with some pseudo-science explanation why its harder to kill.
But so far, the examples of this explanation where broad statements and didnt solve the problem 100% (or the magic couldnt do anything anymore).

If you want specific reasons of why magic can't just kill someone like that you should first explain what kind of magic you are thinking about.

for example I could say that because magic is an expression of the will of the wizard, and the strongest will is the will to life then every time magic is used to attempt to kill someone the survival instinct of the subject is strong enough to disrupt the spell enough to make it fail or to weaken it considerably.
Of course this is true only if magic is an expression fo the will of the wizard.

[Korwin]

If its an expression of the wizards will (his mind), how would you argue an "scientific" explanation for magic?

... if you can't use magic to kill things then magic is both uninteresting and useless

You got it reverse.
If magic can do interesting things (example: fly) you can kill (example: kinetic bombardment).
And if you have an Bomber in an Medival world you have an imbalance.
Like when the USA is bombing some third world contry.

Hmm, maybe if you wanted an RPG with asymetric warware in it?

If you base your magic-system on RL-science your Players will want to use RL-tactics and will be pissed if you use bullshit answers why they cant.

And I honestly think you cant design a system where there are no bullshit answers inherent in the system and the magic-system resembles RL-science.

cu

[Quantumboost]

You got it reverse.
If magic can do interesting things (example: fly) you can kill (example: kinetic bombardment).
And if you have an Bomber in an Medival world you have an imbalance.
Like when the USA is bombing some third world contry.

This is like the first time setting whatever this is in a medieval world has even been brought up.

Additionally, if you can fly, that just means you're applying a force on the order of a person's weight to that person. That means that kinetic bombardment via magical technique in the proposed semi-system (i.e. more precision and more power are significantly harder to pull off) is actually a high-level version of that. I seriously don't care that (using a familiar example) mage hand is a cantrip just because telekinesis is powerful and deadly. We're talking different orders of magnitude here.

Hmm, maybe if you wanted an RPG with asymetric warware in it?

If you base your magic-system on RL-science your Players will want to use RL-tactics and will be pissed if you use bullshit answers why they cant.

And I honestly think you cant design a system where there are no bullshit answers inherent in the system and the magic-system resembles RL-science.

cu

Physical Magic
"Any magic sufficiently analyzed is indistinguishable from science!"

First, there isn't such a thing as magic in the real world. We've never managed to register what have been positively identified as supernatural effects, most of the cases of positively-identified "magic" were just cases where the scientists were tricked. So on some level magic that is based on and fairly consistent with the laws of the universe as we understand them is going to have to work in some sense on things we don't fully understand yet. And really, that means quantum physics.

Note that manipulating quantum physics is powerful in the sense of enabling people, but not necessarily going to break things. I mean, my laptop computer has lots of parts that are based on quantum principles, but that doesn't mean I can cause someone across the room to explode by manipulating probability. Really this is used to accomplish several relatively minor things, which can be intensified or localized or combined to the point where you are actually are doing something fairly impressive, if you have enough skilll to pull it off.

Also, people all have natural magic. This is called antimagic and it works basically like magic resistance in Shadowrun 4; it increases the threshold you need to pull off in order to get a magical effect to affect another person. This basically acts by stabilizing things at "normal" inside the person's body. You can totally learn to increase your own antimagic via the same general sort of magical training that increases other magical abilities. Also, you can get your own antimagic to work in the same direction as an effect you cause, which basically just means that causing magic to happen inside your own body is easier than causing it to happen elsewhere.

Non-antimagic effects involve manipulating a few basic quantities: Energy, Momentum, and Entropy. Energy manipulation is pretty basic and involves adding physical energy to systems. Momentum manipulation lets you exert forces on things or redirect them. These are very specifically linear forces, not angular forces, because those are the ones that you can actually exert (even when rotating a doorknob, you're going through a bunch of very small linear forces rather than directly applying any sort of "torque"). Extremely high-level Momentum manipulation might be able to directly change angular momentum, but that would be on things like electrons, which are really wierd and I'm not sure why you would bother except for academic purposes. Entropy lets you do things like put information in things and shift equilibria and things.

So the lowest-level spell effects are things like:

Increase the temperature in an area by several degrees.
Cause a system in equilibrium to shift its equilibrium point slightly in a particular direction. This would be both things like chemical reactions and electronic systems, meaning you can create tiny voltages or slow down your metabolism. This is also dependent on how much motion the system has in that direction; causing someone to sober up more quickly is easy because the liver actually already does that actively. Producing cyanide in a person's body is more difficult to pull off because the body doesn't naturally go down that reaction path much.
Exert a force equal to maybe 5% of your weight on an object. Exerting force on yourself is significantly easier than a similar force on an object and probably involves manipulating gravity waves or something. Or just exerting that force on the Earth. Equal and opposite reaction and all that.

And yes, a whole bunch of mages working together in concert could plausibly reverse entropy in an area by combining these effects in concert. Meh.

As mentioned previously, these effects become more and more difficult to pull off the less collateral effect you want (i.e. heating something in someone's hand, pushing someone's legs and not their whole body), and to pull off a greater effect (shooting off a lightning bolt rather than creating a 9-volt difference). You also have to aim them, which usually requires line of sight unless the thing you're trying to affect is stationary and you know where it is.

And yes, you can probably use some of these effects to kill people if you can put enough power into that. If you have a basic understanding of chemistry you can just make some thermite and throw it on them, it's not actually hard.

[spasheridan]

I create a 9v difference between the contact points off the persons cell phone's CPU. Since it uses something like .5 v at that location I've increased the voltage on that cell phone CPU by a factor of 20. The cpu on that device melts from thermal overload.

Now I do the same to the CPU of the smartlink in the gun in his hand...

SO - my cantrip can destroy any electrical device?

[Quantumboost]

A "cantrip" would be "create a 9-volt difference over a fairly large area". How big is the CPU in their cell phone's CPU? Now divide that by, say, 1 meter and multiply by 9V. That's the potential difference you're creating over the size of the phone's CPU. That's the sort of default "precision" size I'm talking about.

Adding enough power would also allow you to short out that person's phone, and all the electronics in the area that aren't shielded.

Granted, that's a datapoint that would have to be accounted for when determining how to cost things.

[Korwin]

You got it reverse.
If magic can do interesting things (example: fly) you can kill (example: kinetic bombardment).
And if you have an Bomber in an Medival world you have an imbalance.
Like when the USA is bombing some third world contry.

This is like the first time setting whatever this is in a medieval world has even been brought up.

Yeah, and? Thats part of my problem, nothing concrete in this thread

But I have to remove my objection... see later my proposal

Additionally, if you can fly, that just means you're applying a force on the order of a person's weight to that person. That means that kinetic bombardment via magical technique in the proposed semi-system (i.e. more precision and more power are significantly harder to pull off) is actually a high-level version of that. I seriously don't care that (using a familiar example) mage hand is a cantrip just because telekinesis is powerful and deadly. We're talking different orders of magnitude here.

Huh, that was only an example for: if something cool is there (flying) --> you can use it to damage/kill.
Yeah, the next question is, how much can you carry, how high can you fly, etc. But the basic problem is there.

Physical Magic
"Any magic sufficiently analyzed is indistinguishable from science!"
...snip...

[edit]: How about cancer, or boosting diseases.


My try on an Semi-Scientific-Magic:
You dont have Magic, you have Technologie (Nanobots, DNS-changes, Force Fields) controlled by an AI.

Basically this setting:
There will be Dragons

An Uthopia, Humans barring accidents are immortal, can change their bodies (Merfolk, Flying people, etc.), can swim in the sun, etc.
WTF read the book. Its free

The Keyholders (the ones who can give the AI orders, or change standing orders) have an disagreement, war follows.
Huge quantities of energy are wasted. The non-Keyholders are without power and are only humans again.

A few years later...

If you know the right Passwords (spells) you can give the AI orders, as long as the new order doesnt violate standing orders and enough energy is there (your own bioenergy, a fussion reactor, sun collectors, whatever) the order is carried out.

So you can have effects, that used directly on the human body would kill, cant be used on the human body.

Voila spells.

[Quantumboost]

Huh, that was only an example for: if something cool is there (flying) --> you can use it to damage/kill.
Yeah, the next question is, how much can you carry, how high can you fly, etc. But the basic problem is there.

The problem you're trying to point out is not a problem. Seriously, your argument as far as I've seen boils down to "magic kills people". No shit. Fireball in some form is present in almost every magic system I've seen. Shadowrun, D&D, Warcraft III. And fireball is a spell specifically designed to hit people with fire so they die.

I don't care that you can kill people with magic. You can kill people with guns or grenades or laundry detergent, it isn't a big deal that you are able to kill people. The only possible concern I have for this is how difficult to trace you can make it and how difficult it is to prevent. And bombarding a dude with rocks when it's traceable to you is a good way to get hit with a premeditated homicide charge.

None of us can stand against all of us.

[edit]: How about cancer, or boosting diseases.

If you can get the necessary precision and power into the effect, and you can overcome the target's natural antimagic, you can indeed cause cancer. I fail to see why a highly skilled biomancer focusing on a high-level effect should not be able to cause harm as well as healing within their area of expertise. It would, however, mean that "he died from cancer" can possibly warrant a police investigation.

My try on an Semi-Scientific-Magic:
You dont have Magic, you have Technologie (Nanobots, DNS-changes, Force Fields) controlled by an AI.

Basically this setting:
There will be Dragons
[...]
If you know the right Passwords (spells) you can give the AI orders, as long as the new order doesnt violate standing orders and enough energy is there (your own bioenergy, a fussion reactor, sun collectors, whatever) the order is carried out.

So you can have effects, that used directly on the human body would kill, cant be used on the human body.

Voila spells.

...while that's definitely interesting, it's what I'd classify as "Sufficiently Advanced Technology". Seems magical, but clearly on the technology side of the line (however fuzzy it is).

[Ice9]

Actually, the nanotech idea can be pretty interesting - I remember a setting like where a war had caused the end of civilization and left tons of nanotech laying around. Wizards were those that had discovered passwords, Clerics recieved their power from the "gods" (powerful AIs on satellites, but cut off from earth), magical creatures were the descendants of artificial lifeforms created as weapons, servants, or pets. And in that type of setting, magic is very easy to balance, because spell level is based on access codes, not on how much energy the effect uses - so death spells are higher level because you need a police/military access code to use them. Even spells/day work, as wartime rationing of nanogrid access.

However, it's also interesting to see how far you can go with magic that's limited only by basic principles.


It occurs to me that if the question in this thread is "can you make a realistic magic system that isn't auto-win?", then the answer is "well, duh". Just say that all magic takes at least an hour, during which the caster and target must remain perfectly still, and even then it mostly gives you stuff on the order of spoon bending. And it causes a big rainbow flare, so you can't even use it stealthily. Done.

A more interesting question would be: How many capabilities can we give to magic, without arbitrary limitations, before it becomes an auto-win?

But the basic problem is there.

If magic being able to kill people is a "problem", then I suggest a "psychic" approach, where magic can only detect things, not make physical changes. Still anywhere from world-shaking to mildly useful, depending on what information is available. Personally, I'll consider magic balanced if low-level magic can't go much deadlier than guns/grenades, and mid-level magic can't go much deadlier than military hardware. Yes, this makes any mage a walking security crisis, which seems fine - good reason not to tell people that you are one.

[Username17]

I think the point is that leverage being what it is, if you can magically pull a book off the shelf and fly it across the room into your hand, you can rip someone's fucking eyes right out of their skull or separate their spine from their foramen magnum. It really doesn't take much force to fucking murder a dude if you get to arbitrarily decide where that force goes.

If you can do pretty much anything you have a weapon that is probably at least as good as a gun in any kind of "real world" situation. And if you're trying to have a game where people fence and beat on each other in some kind of prolonged, "exciting" scenario, that's a non-starter.

Of course, if you're planning on going all technobabble, it shouldn't be a problem. Having people be able to wave their hands and raise or lower someone's temperature by 10 degrees (pretty much instantly fatal, by the way) is not substantially different from being able to twiddle your fingers and pull the trigger on an automatic shotgun - the target is still totally dead.

-Username17

[Korwin]

The problem you're trying to point out is not a problem. Seriously, your argument as far as I've seen boils down to "magic kills people".

Ah sorry, my point was basically the same as 老子
I used less hardcore/extreme examples, but the point was the same.

It occurs to me that if the question in this thread is "can you make a realistic magic system that isn't auto-win?",

Thats one half, the other half is:
Is the magic still something you/the PC's want to use.

[RandomCasualty2]

A more interesting question would be: How many capabilities can we give to magic, without arbitrary limitations, before it becomes an auto-win?

Depends on what you classify an arbitrary limitation.

I mean somewhere there has to be some limitations.

[Korwin]

...while that's definitely interesting, it's what I'd classify as "Sufficiently Advanced Technology". Seems magical, but clearly on the technology side of the line (however fuzzy it is).

And the problem is here, where?

"Any magic sufficiently analyzed is indistinguishable from science!"

[Ice9]

It really doesn't take much force to fucking murder a dude if you get to arbitrarily decide where that force goes.

Hence the precision requirement - targetting a specific organ is more difficult, and aiming at it is like trying to stab someone in the neck.

And if you're trying to have a game where people fence and beat on each other in some kind of prolonged, "exciting" scenario, that's a non-starter.

Well, once you go cinematic, you're leave realism behind anyway - I don't see why the "protagonist power" that keep bullets and grenades from killing you doesn't also keep magic from killing you.

Of course, if you're planning on going all technobabble, it shouldn't be a problem.

It's true there's less balancing issues in a modern setting, and that's what I was mainly thinking of. I'm not sure it's impossible to balance in an ancient setting, but it might be harder.

[Parthenon]

I think an important part of realistic magic is that the whole world should somehow be based on magic. So, for example, wound healing is affected by magic as standard, and you can curse someone by stopping that magic occurring or regenerate limbs by putting more magic into the limb to heal. Cancer works by some cells mutating and by a sudden influx of growth magic, whether by a stray spell, a curse or a build up of magic not used by the wizard.

That could be pretty cool. So, the flu is both a virus and a demon that infests your body and multiplies to other people. Both modern medicine and banishment would get rid of the flu.


As another example, planes fly because they utilise various physical characteristics of air and the shape of wings. In the realistic magic world fireballs work by using the magical characteristics of fire and how incantations works in the setting.

So, to talk about how realistic magic works, you need to talk about how the setting works. And the only explicit talks about this have been a suggestion of generic fantasy that has been shot down and the current world which really won't work.

[RandomCasualty2]

Hence the precision requirement - targetting a specific organ is more difficult, and aiming at it is like trying to stab someone in the neck.

Yeah, you'd probably always want to say magic requires some kind of aim. Placing a spell on an area you can't see (like an internal organ) is going to be rather difficult.