If magic can be studied methodically and employed in predictable manner, isn't it just science?
>>94803502Reality is that serious wizards would never call magic magic, only the superior magic they don't understand. They would call it "Art" or "Power", not magic.
>>94803502Exactly, so don't. Magic is magic because there is no explanation in the end. Principles, sure, but no rules.
>>94803502No.
>>94803532Depend on if you want magic users to be scholars studying it in academia's or to be unwashed, hermit mystics on drugs in caves.
>>94803502Traditionally speaking magic is procedural and reproducible: you do the thing (the ritual) and if you don't make mistakes you get what you want, but making mistakes could cause potential dire consequences (like offending the entity you're bargaining with, etc...).
>>94803502>, isn't it just science?Magicnounmag·ic ˈma-jik Synonyms of magic1a: the use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forcesb: magic rites or incantationsSciencenounsci·ence ˈsī-ən(t)s Synonyms of science1a: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific methodScientific Methodnounprinciples and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypothesesBeing magic does not preclude it from being studied scientifically. These are not opposed systems. Incantations and rituals, ie spells, can be studied scientifically. This does not make them "a science", as if once you start studying it then it loses its nature as supernatural effects, incantations and rituals, and strange physics. The science of magic, the collected knowledge of its effects, laws, and equations is still magic. It is also literally the foundation of the Arcane arts and especially how wizards work in D&D. The Arcana skill in 5e is literally the collected scientific knowledge of how a subtype of magic works, namely the scientifically studied arcane.The problem youre experiencing is conflating two meanings of magic, one meaning incantation or supernatural effects, with another meaning awe. wonder, or pleasure and then thinking that once these wondrous effects are studied they become a boring ol science, devoid of awe, wonder, or pleasure.Beyond this, magic has been a consistent and studied phenomena that was expected to give the same results everytime, to be reproducible every time, and generally be more like D&D than any modern new age woo woo conception of the mystic arts that expects it to be random or unreliable.Wonderfags fuck off
>>94803532That's also true of technology tho
>>94803502
>>94803502Magic is as much a science as blindfolding yourself, spinning in a circle, and then trying to throw darts at a board to get a bullseye is; it's not guaranteed and it's mostly luck.
>>94810213So in game mechanics, a fireball or lightning bolt should be just as likely to kill you, kill your friends, miss, fizzle, miscast into a different spell, or kill the bad guy?
>>94812415Sort of. Not exactly equally, but that's why you roll the dice, to see what happens.
>>94803502Traditional games?
>>94810213>>94813090What system do you use in your games to represent this chaotic and unpredictable form of magic?
>>94813540You don't need a whole new system. As I've already said, use dice.
>>94813661You could probably do better than just rolling and referencing a table.Perhaps having the GM draw from a tarot deck would be a slight step up.Right so, the Player can attempt to produce an effect constrained by certain parameters.> For example, a character learned in [Pyromancy2] would only be able to magically influence sources of heat or flame.First, the player must express a target (self-explanatory) and intention (what they'd like to do with their magic).They then allocate and roll dice from a dicepool to determine how close their spell adheres to their intention and how potent the magic is.Their magnitude of expertise, represented by the number after the skill, determines their dicepool. > For example, an [Illusionist4] has a dicepool of 4. When creating illusions they can allocate 2 dice to potency and 2 to adherence, or all 4 to potency, or any other combination.This magnitude of expertise can be fleshed out by having each level modify or add features to the primary definition of the skill. The precise details of these advancements could be pre-designed by the GM (Pyromancy3, +1 hit on cast during Noontime), or proposed by the player with GM guidance (Acceptable proposals could be added an as official advancement options in future games).Afterwards, regardless of how well the Player rolls, the GM draws a card from the Tarot to produce an event.Using magic to do something is not an action, its an event.It will never produce a reliable and reproducible effect.Sure, skilled practitioners can wrangle it vaguely into form, but it always spirals out into a unique novel way.Each card represents a nebulously broad concept and the GM needs to interpret how it would apply to what the spell-caster is trying to do.Provides unpredictability, but is structured enough to not just devolve into the GM needing to make things up constantly.This heavily leans on the GM's ability to improvise interesting and creative interpretations of the Tarot.
>>94803502It's just a fucking placeholder for shit that doesn't exist in real life. It ain't that deep in spite of what the magic is poetry faggots trying to say.Also, what was the OP pic?
>>94813661>use diceYeah, I'm asking how you, personally, use dice to determine the results. Whatever you want to call that. A player at your table declares their intent to cast fireball at an enemy. What are the steps of dice rolling you use to resolve that fireball or see if it doesn't go as planned?
>>94814259Have you never played a tabletop game before? Player wants to cast a spell, he rolls a D20, I use a table to decide what happens.
>>94814333what chart? show us you fucking retard, assuming you're not a larping no‐game faggot?
>>94814333>Have you never played a tabletop game before?I have, that's why I'm trying to ask what system you're using, because you keep being really vague about it.
>>94814368You're not at my table (or any table), so no.>>94814369>confused by what dice are>confused by what tables are>confused how players cast spellsI've told you exactly what I do, no vagueness at all, and anyone who has actually played ANY tabletop before wouldn't need more explanation.
>>94814515Janitors won't agree this is a troll post, but it is. They won't ban you, but they should. This is the cancer killing /tg/: vague nogames posting that talks around fantasy concepts without any intent of ever aligning with a game, or even a setting or a story or a concept. Just endless shitposting arguing about fantasy genre semantics for the sake of filling the catalogue.
>>94803532We have no idea what gravity is. It could be magic. I’m not even joking.
>>94814595It really isn't. What's trolling is to be needlessly hostile like you've been for no reason. I was polite enough to entertain your thread detour into mechanics, because I've noticed you never get interactions and felt sorry for you. Turns out that you actually don't even know how games work, to the point of thinking roll tables are vague, and there's a good reason nobody interacts with you.Congratulations on not actually contributing but trying to claim anyone else is a troll, though. Really stand out work.
>>94814595And filling the catalogue it does, so they'll never ban him.If he's even a human, that is, pretty likely you were arguing with a chatbot.
>>94814515>I've told you exactly what to doYou've said to roll a d20 and then decide what happens based on a table that you won't share. >You're not at my table>so no.Excellent way of saying that you don't actually have any idea for what such a table could or should look like. Every additional post you make without sharing a table is a concession that there isn't a table.
>>94814650I'm not the anon you were arguing with before, I just got here. All you have to do to prove either of us wrong is to name a mechanic or a system, because so far you have done neither.You referenced the existence of d20, but what you describe as your assumption for how spells are supposed to be cast doesn't align with DnD at all. Thats simply not how vancian casting works. So if you want to be pushing an alternative system, its up to you to define what it is or mention what your point of reference is, otherwise your entire stance is smoke and mirrors and you could be randomly determining what your argument is with each post and nobody else could tell the difference. If rolling a d20 and consulting a table is all it takes to make casting a spell 'mystical and mysterious' because its random, than in dungeon and dragons Fighters are more magical than wizards are because a sword can miss and fireball can't.
>>94814676>You've said to roll a d20 and then decide what happens based on a table that you won't share. And what about that confused you? D20 means a 20 sided dice. Players roll that and get a number. The number will correspond to a table I have that tells me what the outcome is. No, you don't get to have my table, you can make your own if you genuinely have the capacity.>Excellent way of saying that you don't actually have any idea for what such a table could or should look like.Nope, just a way of saying I think you're rude and aren't worth any of my tables. Trying some bullshit playground game to make me post my tables won't work, I'm now far too invested in you never seeing them. Because, again, you aren't worth it.
>>94814684>All you have to do to proveThe level of arrogance is amazing. I don't have to do shit, you don't matter.Back to the topic at hand: yep, magic can be made less of a science and more of an art. Depends how you want to pull it off, really.
>>94814704>Trying some bullshit playground game to make me post my tables won't workI can't get you to post something that doesn't exist. You're the one trying to claim that such a thing is even possible, but you're simply wrong. >>94814751>Back to the topic at hand:Nobody gives a shit what you think about the topic at hand, because you're wrong.
>>94814595I'm also a newcomer to this thread and I generally lean towards the permissive about what should be "allowed" on /tg/ because I think as a whole the board is at its best when people are having fun and engaging with each other even if it occasionally veers a bit into off topic tangents.However, I agree with you that there's a sort of epidemic of evasive argumentative posting that just sort of ruins the board. It's bare minimum engagement without any substance.I don't mind being called a shithead dickhead if you have an actual point and are willing to back it up, but this sort of posting is just vague and devoid of value.>>94814650Question how was he needlessly hostile by simply asking you to produce the alleged table that you use for magical randomization. If you do use it during your own games and reference it regularly surely it should be no trouble to produce it or even simply name the system it's in reference to.Like I said in my reply to him I lean towards the permissive side in what belongs on /tg/ I think Fantasy worldbuilding has a lot more /tg/ relevance than /lit/ relevance, however if you're going to make a worldbuilding thread don't try to smokescreen and pretend to talk about a game that doesn't exist. It's tasteless and annoying.Furthermore, it's not a thread detour to discuss mechanics on the traditional games board. Discussing mechanics is a natural consequence of trying to talk about fantasy on a board dedicated to the discussion of games.I will offer a sincere apology for my comments if you can produce your alleged table that you use for your as of yet unnamed game. (I will accept it's a homebrew game as an answer even as I still like to believe the best in people.) or even an admittance that you simply came into this thread for worldbuilding and have nothing related to mechanics at the moment.But I'm almost certain you will continue to act indignant and avoid the direct questions because you simply do not wish to be genuine.
>>94803502Stop making this thread.
>>94814210You probably could do that, it would certainly make it more dynamic I guess to have your players draw cards, but the dice thing basically does the same mechanical thing but with my own ability to easily adjust as needed (for example, varying the probability of outcomes based on level, location, etc, is easier with dice than with static cards). Personally, I've always liked the idea of tarot cards to give a player some buff or "get-out-of-jail-free" card, and they can play it when they really need it, and they get to draw a new one during special events, but I've never been able to balance it properly.But you're right that both really rely on the GM being able to improvise, though that's the fun part of being a GM. You get to on the spot decide what a roll table translates to in context of the moment. A really bad roll with a misfired burning hands in an open field might instead result in the player immolating themselves and everyone around them. A fizzle result might just be that the cone is smoke rather than fire, so the enemy ends up blind for however many rounds, so not necessarily a bad thing but not what was intended.
>>94803502no, since you are still with weird esoteric powers.
>>94803502Casters in most fantasy games already perform extremely predictable and controlled magic.
>>94814234It was just some lewd anime slop, to pair perfectly with the lack of actual interest from the OP.
Magic is purest psychology. The mind's eye. It's a way of looking at the world. Magic to one is not magic to another. It is the birth of religion. It is personal. What is wizardry to the witneser may not be magic to the wizard. That wizard either sees what they do as magic, or they don't. Their bar for magic could be completely different. If it's no longer seen as magic, ask yourself what made it magic in the first place. That of wonder and mystery, "I wonder...", etc.A good example to look to is Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The elves don't see what they do as magic. It doesn't enchant them. They're too used to it. It's just art to them. It only enchants men and hobbits. The elves look to the Maia/wizards the same way men and hobbits look to the elves. The bar for magic is higher for the elves than it is for men. Gandalf goes out of his way to enchant. To inspire. To guide. It's his role. Being a magician is a station. It's putting on the pointy hat. He doesn't abuse. Gandalf uses blackpowder for beautiful enchanting displays of fireworks. Saruman uses blackpower as a terrible power in industrial warfare.
>>94822309 (literally me samefagging to myself)This. It's all about familiarity. Exposure. The wizard in the science-fiction setting is the mad scientist poking or hanging at the edges of understanding. Perhaps they're some crazy old man in an asteroid lair studying some alien anomaly that they're taking advantage of. Perhaps they're geniuses hidden in some underground bunker funded by secret government agencies dabbling at cutting edge weaponry. Etc. (I might samefag later but for now I'm abandoning this thread)
>>94821879>it was slopInterest, diminished.
>>94803502What was the image
>>94803502No, it’s technology, or an “art” if you prefer. Science and magic are not equivalent categories, science is a method of study and magic is a method of performing certain actions to obtain practical ends. The nature of the knowledge required to do this changes by the setting, but in a setting where it can be learned through experimentation and observation, that process of study could be scientific, but you’re not doing “magic” until you use what you learned to wave your hands and have lighting bolts shoot from them. And no matter what your approach is, whether the spells were crafted in a wizards laboratory or handed down by the gods, you do need observable rules, otherwise there’s no tension in your narrative. Magic without clear limits easily becomes a crutch to solve narrative problems.
>>94823545I think this whole tedious thing boils down to two positions:>if it can happen, it must therefore be natural, and since science is the study of nature then magic is just science we haven't understood yet>magic is the word for when something happens that doesn't follow the fundamental rules of reality, even if you were omniscient and knew every rule, therefore it is separate from science which studies the functioning of those rulesSince both are so abstract that they can never be proved either way, it's ultimately just a game of semantics.
>>94822309>Magic is purest psychology*.*in Tolkien's setting.
>>94828155Nope. In all settings. Magic is the chemistry in the brain leading up to “Wow, it’s like magic!”.
>>94828232>In all settings.Don't be silly. Many settings have actual magic and not just "any sufficiently blah blah blah", we've been over this before with you.
>>94814368>accusing someone of larping in a rpg threadnice
>>94813540>>94814259>>94814368>>94814595>>94814684>>94814779the cancer that is killing /tg/
>>94828417Yep, they'd genuinely rather shitpost accusations than to actually contribute with their own mechanics. Which leads me to believe they don't have any.
>>94803502No, because science follows cause and effect while magic does not.
>>94828491Yeah, it'd be pretty silly to claim to have a fun and interesting way of mechanically implementing magic in your game, but then not actually contribute anything when people ask you for specifics.
>>94828417>actual discussion of traditional gamesLook at how the nogames shrieks and recoils when people actually discuss traditional games.
>>94821879>>94822390Normiefag tourists ought to kill themselves, if you wanna know the truth of it.
>>94828317>Many settings have actual magicI don’t care how weird or hocus pocus or wibbly wobbly woo your magic is. A sufficiently advanced, higher dimensional alien will be capable of analyzing your “magic” to the point where it’s not magic. Their idea/bar for magic will be different from your own. Magic IS “magic”. It’s an angle. A point/sleight of view. Your magic is still physics. Deal with it. Magic has never not been a stage, like religion. Exposure and familiarity. It’s quite literally stage magic logic. A black box that’s white within. The white rabbit hiding within the black hat. It exists the same way cold, or darkness, exists. Holes. An absence. An absence of information, an intrusion of mystery, wonder (“I wonder…”), but also wondrous appreciation (“it’s like magic!”) of a thing! But it’s still not a thing. It’s deeper than that. Why do you want to deny people their own mind’s eye image of magic? It’s personal. “Magic depends on the author.” is indistinguishable from “Magic depends on the culture.”, in truth.
>>94831517They want magic to be magic no matter the perspective, I think.
>>94828660If you can't contribute yourself, you don't get to demand specifics, nogames.
>>94831517>A sufficiently advanced, higher dimensional alien will be capable of analyzing your “magic” to the point where it’s not magic.We've been over this as well. In some settings, this is correct. In other settings, even the MOST advanced being can't analyse it to fit with reality, which is why it's magic.Honestly, just read the last two dozen threads where people have explained this very simple concept to you over and over.
>>94831845>even the MOST advanced being can't analyse it to fit with reality,Then how do you implement it in a tabletop game, which by its nature has an omniscient GM who has the final say on what happens in the reality of the game world?
>>94831857>Then how do you implement it in a tabletop game, which by its nature has an omniscient GM who has the final say on what happens in the reality of the game world?Well, for one, you're confusing things happening within reality as things happening because of reality, which is the fundamental difference in "magic" vs magic settings. And that primary point aside, see >>94813090
>>94831845>>94831873The most advanced being in a setting can't analyze a d20 table?
>>94831887>Well, for one, you're confusing things happening within reality as things happening because of reality, which is the fundamental difference in "magic" vs magic settings.
>>94831893>things happening because of reality,You mean like a character performing an action to cast a spell? >>94814333Waving your hands and chanting in our world does nothing. If it causes a spell and a d20 roll, then that's something happening within reality because of reality.So again, why can the most advanced being not analyze a d20 table?
>>94831928>You mean like a character performing an action to cast a spell?Nope.>Waving your hands and chanting in our world does nothing.Because magic doesn't exist here.>If it causes a spell and a d20 roll, then that's something happening within reality because of reality.Nope.>So again, why can the most advanced being not analyze a d20 table?Again, see >>94831873
>>94831960>>If it causes a spell and a d20 roll, then that's something happening within reality because of reality.>Nope.Wrong. Again, see >>94831887
>>94832074Okay, I see you're struggling, but you were really close to finally getting it so I'll go that extra mile just for you.You've admitted yourself that "Waving your hands and chanting in our world does nothing". Cool, so we've established we can use our reality as a baseline. Now, the reason that you can't cast spells doing that in our world is because magic doesn't exist, right? Not aliens doing some advanced tech, not a hologram being projected out to make it seem like it works, not anything else, it's that you and I both know that magic doesn't exist, hence waving your hands and chanting does nothing.So what is it that we would need for our baseline reality to make those spells work?
>>94832134>So what is it that we would need for our baseline reality to make those spells work?Well, as you established, magic doesn't exist in our baseline reality, so what you want is an alternate reality with different laws of physics where someone waving their hands and chanting does things.
>>94832172Ha, I made it as EASY as possible for you to understand, and you're still such a dishonest stupid cunt that you couldn't bring yourself to say "magic". I think we're done here.
>>94832189I assumed you were using this question to clarify what you said here >>94831873 about the difference between "things happening in reality" and "things happening because of reality".If you don't like me using the term reality, why did you use the term reality? >you couldn't bring yourself to say "magic"Because it wouldn't actually address anything you've said in any level of detail. I think we're done here.Right, glad we established that the sort of magic you're talking about isn't possible in tabletop games, where by default there is an omniscient GM who has the final say on what happens in the both the reality and any hypothetical non-reality of the game.
>>94803502What game are you talking about?
>>94831845>even the MOST advanced being can't analyse it to fit with reality, which is why it's magicThe Source wouldn’t understand Itself? Let me ask you this. Does God consider himself a god? Are his miracles capital-m Miraculous, to him? Is a human a god to an ant for that matter?
>>94832172>so what you want is an alternate reality with different laws of physics where someone waving their hands and chanting does thingsSo magic is just superpowers to you? Cool. In some settings superpowers aren’t called magic. “When everyone’s super, no one is”.
