What are your preferences for how elemental spells, abilities, and/or beings/creatures are handled in your games and/or settings? How would you advise someone on the best way to create an original elemental system for a game and/or setting in general, both mechanically and/or narratively? And after the stock answer of Avatar and its RPGs, what's worth looking at for ideas/inspiration? If you have any great elemental images that's fine too!
>>97463158What secondary abilities/kinds of spells do you like to give mages of each element outside of manipulating the physical element itself? I always liked combustion benders in Avatar being able to blow stuff up at a distance, just for me.
>>97463158>in your games and/or settingsThere shouldn't be any "or". Games should take precedent on this board.
>>97463158>originalAside from the fact that isn't possible anyway given the way inspiration and creation works, the best way to go would be to at least use something other than the generic four-pronged air/earth/fire/water or five-prong earth/fire/metal/water/wood (or air/earth/fire/lightning/water).
>he's back
>>97463158How do you reconcile elemental magic with the periodic table of elements? Especially in urban fantasy settings and the like. I tend to prefer it being symbolic of the four states of matter, do you have a different approach?
is it really "elements" if it isn't hot, wet, cold, and dry?
>>97463387Summon elementals and move through their chosen element, heal from it at high levels.
>>97465163The five metaphysical elements combine in the forge of creation to become the physical elements.
>>97465239Hello fellow alchemist, have you extracted white phosphorus from piss lately?
>>97464283Goddamit, we were free of him for merely a month.
>>97463465If we had a worldbuilding board I’d agree, but until we do, this is the best we have
>>97470009There's a worldbuilding general.
>>97463158>Fluff and AtlAI don't typically allow it for my players because I have yet to see an elemental class not be shit or broken, but an NPC throwing fire or water? Kino.
>I post thread>with garbage image>without offering my own thoughts>without responding to anyone participating in the thread^ we are here ^>instead arguing with critics who actually like the board about how they're the ones who hate discussion and are nogames
Since we're on the topic, while researching pre-Hispanic mythologies, I came across a group that I found difficult to categorize because they technically handle opposing elements.The Ikoots, according to their creation myth, are children of the sea goddess, making them waterbenders; but their founding myth makes them descendants of the lightning god, making them lightningbenders.So, waterbenders who can also lightningbender.
>>97479854I like this. Expanding on that, the races being a product of two of the creation deities coupling up.The Humans being the descendants of the water and air deities, the Dwarves from earth and fire, the Elves from fire and water, Gnomes from the earth deity jerking it one day.
>>97463158Do you prefer mages to be limited to one element like in Avatar or able to use multiple elements? What are the pros and cons of each?
>>97470025And no one is required to use it.
>>97483400Either or, pick your poison. Player wise? I like to stick to one, but players will typically like to dabble in at least two.
>>97483400Avatar doesn't have mages.
>>97463158Earth, wind and fire is all I need
You are so obsessed with this topic literarylord
>>97483837Nobody is required to use a toilet to take a shit, either.Guess that makes shitting in the streets okay, huh?
>>97484077>Avatar doesn't have mages.Close enough, and Sokka calls Katara's bending "magic" in an early episode.
>>97463158What’s the biggest mistake most creators of elemental magic systems make?
>>97492575Bumping threads that interest nobody.
>>97463158>after the stock answer of Avatar and its RPGsObligatorily, we have to cover Avatar and its RPG.With the four elements of water, earth, fire, and air, not only are people born with the natural potential to bend, to manipulate, the elements in various ways, but the ability to do so is multifaceted. Bending is physical; it requires movements of the body in a way that is very directly inspired by martial arts, and learning new techniques takes diligent practice, and gets easier with experience. But it's also highly philosophical. Your bending is derived from some part of your own thinking, not just in how it's implemented, but is fueled by it at its core. When you lose your own sense of self, or when your thinking becomes too counter to the nature of the element itself, your ability to it can weaken, or even be lost in extreme cases. The potential to generate or manipulate the elements varies in understanding between the different elements, and there are rare examples of high potential techniques that require a great deal of training or aptitude to unlock.In Avatar Legends, each player has a training, including options of martial arts, technology, or one of the four elements. Learning new techniques requires you to train, and may in turn require you to push your mind set, or to actively do something that helps align your thinking with how the technique works. Not all of your abilities are locked to techniques though, because you can also use moves to apply your skills to more general problem solving in a number of ways.>>97489894Notably, bending is not magic, even if it would look that way to us. It's a somewhat esoteric, but pretty comprehensible part of the world the characters live in. It is, in a sense, so mundane to them that the word "magic" doesn't describe it accurately. Sokka only thought of Katara's waterbending as being magic because he never got to meet another waterbender in his life, due to the ongoing genocide of his people.
>>97489894>Sokka calls Katara's bending "magic" in an early episode.People who are colorblind think apples are grey.Guess that means red doesn't exist.
>>97493775Adding to this, it's worth noting that bending is not an automatic "I win" button compared to not having bending. It does give some people things that they can do that will threaten people who don't have bending, an ability that feels insurmountable. But when you actually look at the fighting, nonbenders can threaten benders as equals or betters just fine. It turns out that someone with martial training has the same kind of discipline to the people who train their bending. And they are doing that in a world where benders exist. To us, the idea of having to fight a guy who can throw fireballs while you only have a sword is ridiculous, but in that world, swordplay includes the understanding that this situation could come up. Aang, someone who can control the air as an element, is captured by a group of highly skilled archers. Piandao is a swordsman that can fight and defeat firebenders whose power is amplified by Sozin's Comet just with raw skill, despite the fact that his age is slowing him down a little.
>>97489894>>97494437Doesn't Katara also immediately correct him and say it's not magic?
>>97495179Yes. She literally does. It's a well-written scene. It looks like it's two siblings bickering (and it is), but it's also introducing the concept of bending to the audience and explaining that it isn't magic.
>>97494437To them it doesn't. "Magic" is a matter of perspective in some cases.
>>97465163You don't and double down on classical elements, or whatever you are using.If you don't have alchemists and other science adjacent fields working within your setting's magic system, then you've failed. Real life alchemy even assumed both traditional elements like fire as well as modern elements like gold or mercury, it's how we got the periodic table to begin with.
>>97497923There is no "to them", the energy waves we see as color still exist regardless of who receives them.A faulty perspective doesn't change what is.
>>97499099>Given by Ancient Dragon Turtles>Allows manipulation of certain elements>No clear physical origin of powers beyond "Magically" gifted by higher powersBending is Divine Magic that the gods stopped caring about controlling on their own to the point it became a genetic quirk. It's magic.
>>97501089It's still established as a natural part of their world, so even though there's a sort of mysticism to it and it isn't possible for us in our world, it's still not supernatural or unnatural in their world.So, not magic.
>>97501213>WrongMysticism = MagicSupernatural = Magic
>>97501089This is kind of arguing semantics. If you want to be actually, strictly correct, it's possible for the kinds of stuff that we would call magic, or like a magical ability, to not be considered magic in the context of the setting that it exists in. This would probably be because it's actually mundane in that setting.For example, bending in AtLA looks to us like some kind of spiritual magic, but they wouldn't call it magic. It's VERY commonplace, and well-understood by the people who engage with it. It's viewed more like having a martial arts talent that extends past your own body and into the world around you. However, the fact that their vocabulary still has the word "magic" at all implies that there are stories about things that aren't viewed with this same lens of mundanity. Bending is explicable and normal, but maybe something else isn't.In a similar fashion, if there was a fantasy setting where everyone breathes fire, they wouldn't think of that as being magic. They have no context in which that seems strange, so they wouldn't think of it as being magic. But then, if some strange man walked into town and he had the ability to call down lightning from the sky, that could be so out of place and strange that they put the label "magic" on it to describe how it doesn't neatly slot into their understand of how the world works.
>>97505300Can you elaborate further
>>97505315Kill yourself.
>>97505315For what reason? Are you confused about something in particular?
>>97495298Are there any other places where bending is referred to as magic?
>>97463158>PreferencesElements can come up for individuals who select to be holistic practitioners emphasizing effects that deal with a specific element, but I usually don't make them the theme of functionality. More often it's cultural rather than mechanical.>Best way to make an original system both mechanically and narratively.Reduce your hinges on the sentence. There's too many variables to actually answer it at all succinctly. If you have an actual application question that can be answered, but you've hit the "So broad it doesn't fucking amount to anything unless you're trying to get the board to write an essay for you."Use your brain, come back with a real question rather than just generating junk data.>Stock answer of Avatar.Avatar isn't even the stock answer, it's the stock answer for people who don't know anything about the hobby and didn't realize that the ATLA RPG is just PBTA with a few extra steps. I don't like GURPS for being an over-complicated mess but it would probably be a better system for it.>Elemental Images.
>>97511393No, not really. Because again, Sokka's perspective that bending is basically magic comes from his lack of exposure. If he'd grown up in an era where the waterbenders of his home hadn't been killed or captured prior to his birth, or even grown up outside of the southern Water Tribe, he wouldn't have any reason to think of bending as magic. But to him, at the start of the story, it's just this weird thing that his sister does. And her yammering on that it's a part of their heritage means nothing to him, because he's more agitated by sibling bickering than he is actually caring about what it is.
>>97511493I agree that it's simpler than not. Just do what you think is fun, no table will ever have it perfect. And AtlA is not the end all be all of Bending Magic. Thus, when you make an NPC, you can have them control an element, doesn't mean you have to build a whole class for that sake. If players get jealous, explain they can work towards such a skill, but you're free as a DM to insert any magical realm into your games as long as the players are having fun.
Can you elaborate further?
>>97514340Avatar is a cartoon about people born with the ability to manipulate the elements with martial arts.
>>97517864Does AtlA have its own RPG?
>>97520492Yes
>>97463158Ancient cultures believed that the elements were the basis of the physical universe, what about less material things? That is, what if each of the four elements also represents/holds dominion over more metaphysical concepts? Like maybe Earth is stability, Fire is Transformation/Change, Wind is Communication, and Water is Reflection. What other concepts would work for each element?
>>97523219Scorpio and Pisces are messed up on that.
>>97520492It's Avatar Legends.
>>97524732>Scorpio and Pisces are messed up on that.I just found it online, and I don't pay enough attention to that kind of thing to notice.
>>97463158Fire is a chemical reaction, why is it even considered an element compared to the other 3?
I'm trying to put it together in a way that it's sort of a spectrum like a color wheel rather than strict categories We're starting in no particular place you have plants goes to Earth Stone lava fire smoke wind lightning storms water ice etc so having an affinity for something also grants its adjacent properties
>>97465163>Summon Elemental (Uranium)
Bump
>>97489894>>97495179It's not magic, it's waterbending. An ancient art unique to their people.
>>97520492Yes but it's PbtA slop and bending just feels tacked on to it
>>97501089>>Given by Ancient Dragon TurtlesKorra slop, not canon
>>97501213Some people don't get this. Probably the same people who got mad at Sokka for not believing in the fortune teller bitch in that one episode, because "CHARACTER LIVES IN MAGIC WORLD BUT NOT BELIEVE IN FORTUNE TELLING???". Because one is established reality in the world doesn't mean every random bullshit is. Same for people taking Ty Lee's aura bs literally.
>>97542085As someone who has ran the game for over a year's worth of sessions, I disagree. Bending is baked into the thing pretty neatly in terms of the regular PbtA style play.The biggest point of contention though, is the combat system. Bending isn't only about fighting, but the fighting is very divisive. The combat encounter rules work out as a kind of snappy, short way to show off and get into more specific mastery as you focus in on the fights. However, finding the groove for it is difficult, and many players find it hard to connect to. For the people it clicks for, they often find it to be enjoyable and see its potential. BUT, whether or not the way mechanics feel in real play matters for enjoyment, and for the people who have trouble wrapping their head around it, it is understandably, and quite fair to say, less than ideal. It works, but it's just not a clean and easy experience for most to grasp, and it stands out as being unusual even among PbtA games. From my own experience, I found that my players always struggled with this, until they had seen enough examples of what I could do with the NPCs that they were fighting, and then they could understand what I was seeing that they weren't.
Unbump
>>97463158Hey, are there any special considerations for elemental spells and shit in urban/modern fantasy settings, especially with how they interact with chemistry?
>>97546293>HeyHi.
>>97546293I can't think of any specific examples, but you could do a lot of this in Mage. Since it takes place in a ficitonalized version of the real world, the knock-on effects of what you do match up with reality. You could totally do some chemistry shit with your magic.
>>97463158My system already allows any player to wield any sort of supernatural power they can imagine, so I have no need to invent anything.
>>97463158>>97483400>>97523219>>97546293>>97465163Do you have any thoughts of your own on the matter?
>>97547859>My system already allows any player to wield any sort of supernatural power they can imagine, so I have no need to invent anything.What system is that?
>>97558721Yeah. That's thematically meaningful. Katara didn't do it alone though. Zuko had his own hand in it, which spits in the face of his forebears.The Hundred Year War of this setting was started by Sozin, who had good intentions but was an extremist who overestimated his ability to even pull off his plan. He started the war very late in his life, and got mired in conflicts with the Earth Kingdom that he couldn't swiftly end. When he was too old and frail to do anything anymore, and could finally see the error of his decisions, he lamented that his son Azulon was ambitious and hungry in a way that meant he wouldn't be able to stop it. Azulon was arrogant, and was supplanted by his own more cruel second son Ozai. Ozai raised his children to be his weapons, and threw Zuko away for being too soft and too questioning. Zuko's fight with Azula is a statement that not only was he not weak for being different than his father wanted, but that his sense of self was stronger for finally deciding to live for his own self instead of fracturing himself for someone else's favor. He risks his own life to protect Katara, the kind of person his forebears wanted to kill, in an act of selflessness, not only defining that he's different from them, but proving that unity was always better than assumed superiority when Katara gets the better of Azula.More than that too, Zuko is balanced, and Azula is not. Despite her extreme levels of talent, she is an emotionally broken person for being taken in by Ozai's desire for his children to be obedient weapons, while Zuko healed himself and rejected that. The dehumanizing side of the royal family's ambition, extending not just to their enemies, but to their own blood, facilitates this outcome.
>>97463158What are some underrated elemental systems in fantasy settings?
If it isn't the PbtA system, what IS the best system for an Avatar campaign? I want to play my Water Tribe OC
