Gentlemen, today I have become a bonafide wizard. Tell me about your favorite spellcasting systems and mechanics
Magic is whatever the fuck I, a godlike fifth-dimensional being who sees everything under me as playdough physics, say and want it to be.
Genuinely I've been so disappointed by TTRPG magic systems that I've abstracted it back from a player facing mechanic into something more mystical or setting specific. Or in simpler terms, players don't really play "Wizards" and more play Healers or Sages, and gain magical abilities based on class features or equipment.
>>98926905All magic is relative. Magic is in the sixth dimension to those in the fifth dimension.
>>98926905I am a 7th dimentional alien that sees everything as mystism and magic you are wrong anon.
>>98926930>math nerds who see math as magic
>>98926900Use the nondominant hand to feel like a stranger.
I remember that GW had a Wizard game idea in their magazin.
>>98927979There also existed a LotR minigame.
>>98927272That would be cheating.
>>98926930>>98927193What’s wrong with seeing nature as magic again Is it because the atheist community doesn’t like that word
>>98928703Why are you having a melty
>>98928744This one time I told my physics professor “well if you don’t see nature and science as magic or divine, then you don’t exactly love or appreciate nature and science, do you?”, and he fucking LOST it in me. Not my fault some soulless greying out old as fuck boomer has his amygdala freak out whenever it confronts a force of beauty, awe and wonder. Incredible stuff. They’re threatened by your amazement and your love and appreciation for the world. They despise enchantment. They especially so despise the omnipresence of mystery. To admit that ignorance is a total constant.“How DARE you be enchanted by what is known and unknown!”
>>98928789lost in on* me
>>98928795Nah he clearly lost it in you. Absorbed by you.
>>98928314And arcane duell
What in the goddamn is this retard whining about?
>>98928789why do you need to see something as magical or divine to appreciate it?i appreciate a flower. I don't worship it or think it's magical. it's just a flower. you can appreciate and love completely mundane things.
>>98929043I think the point is that it’s more so a feeling or a sensation than hocus pocus anon
>>98929043When the deep sea biologist discovers face to face a new form of deep sea life, all luminously coloured and deeply alien, confronting the awe, wonder and mystery of the encounter, THAT is magic.
>>98926900It's really hard to pick a favorite, I just really like coming up with different mechanics for powers, be they magic, spells, or other things.
>>98926907you should try Mage the Ascension
>>98929255
>>98926900I like the flavor of the game Eon (Swedish). Magic is found in nature, and to wield magic, you need to generate mana of the appropriate elements. So if you want to use fire magic, there needs to be fire nearby. A torch might be enough, but having a fireplace close will increase the chance of success. Trying to generate nature essence in the middle of a town might be hard unless you're close to a park. There's a system where you can try to convert essence into another element. Spells have a list of needed essences to cast that spell. Casting undead or holy magic is pretty hard unless you're in a graveyard or a site of a battle, or in a shrine.The magic rules were like 2/3rds of the base rulebook, which was thick as hell. good times.
>>98926907same, except i play an actual wizard because what you just said is lame, and i just tell my gm what my magic does on the spot because i clearly know better
>>98929115Mage just sets you up for disappointment when you go through the effort of studying philosophy and real life magic just for all the faggots around you to have "I just do it." as their paradigm.
>>98931621
>>98926900Mage the Awakening, the original and uncut version where they didn't have the rest of the WoD horning in. It was a very good standalone with solid mechanics that allowed for a lot of freedom within the parameters of a magical set. When they aet everyone else in, they had to dumb it way down so that Mages didn't keep turning vampires into lawn chairs and werewolves into living room rugs.
When fluff writing, there's often this question - "if anyone can learn magic, why doesn't everyone learn magic?" And it's either not answered, or it's answered by having magic be commonplace, making it mundane, or some justification confines magic use to a specific caste, bloodline, etc. I feel there's an easy solution, though. Just say that becoming a wizard - a novice, a level one wizard in D&D terms - takes decades of monastic study. To become a wizard, you have to go into apprenticeship before you're ten years old, typically, and spend your entire life from that point on in strict learning and meditation. Chanting mantras, girding yourself against insanity while simultaneously dismantling your own ego. Sometimes taking psychedelics, going through painful rituals, or memorizing pages upon pages of nonsense words that mean nothing to you. And then, when you're 65, you will lain the groundwork to cast your first spell. I think this works great to integrate "generic wizards" in your tabletop fluff. Why aren't they more common? Because it's a lifetime wasted on /x/fag shit that doesn't pay off until most people's retirement age. Why is an old man wizard accompanying a party of twenty somethings, and they're all level one? Well, he's as much of a neophyte as they are, he only just completed his training. But now that his mind is spell-ready, he can level up at the same rate as the fighter and ranger. It explains why you'd have evil wizards, or at least untrustworthy ones... Any wizard who comes into being quickly confronts his own mortality, so half of them get into necromancy and such to extend their lives, just given the sheer amount of time they need. They'd be disconnected from normal society, every one the product of a cloistered existence, but the sheer utility of magic means that kings of every nation would nevertheless sponsor their court wizards, or otherwise peasants may deliver food and supplies to wizard orders whom repay them via ritual and divination.
