I Hate Magic

[MorganL4]

I Hate Magic

Magic should be more than just power from a potion.

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So, could you elaborate on why you hate Magic: The Gathering?

You said you wanted magic to mean something, to not simply be inherent. You wanted the power to be drawn from somewhere.
In the card game mana, is not just a replenishing blue bar, it is physical land. Each spell cast (instant, sorcery,creature)
requires that the caster sacrifice the energy provided by that plot of land. Different types of spells require different types of land. Some of the most powerful ones require a combination of types. The sorcerer (player) who is casting their spells is calling on the powers of angels and or demons, forest spirits, or ancients of the deep. There are many times when a sorcerer will fail because he/she could not harness enough of the right kind of land. In addition, certain creatures will gain buffs from being around other creatures that either actively or passively complement them.

With the exception of hand symbols the card game seems to have much of what you claim to desire in a magic system... So why the hate?

 

[zerragonoss]

I defiantly agree that magic could use more love and depth beside being a stat stick. I do however almost completely disagree on what magic is and should represent. Not that I think you are wrong or that their is not plenty of room for many iterations just putting different opinions out their. To me magic has always been the expression of human will over the physical, not them being a part of something bigger. Than again I don't actually believe in anything bigger than human will than expect possibly human wills so take that as you will. because of this magic should be deeply individual but also should build off of those how came before most of its not lost but passed down as living will. I also don't think this has to be personal that its possible for ti to become widely commercialized for many types that are in books and taught in schools, others may only work is crated on your own or passed down directly though. Also really tired of the whole past is better in video games we need more worlds that are getting better not ones who lost all the cool stuff in the past.

As a separate note its all game mechanics that tend to be under loved stat sticks, not just magic. Sword-fighting for example, is a art that people have dedicated their lives to and is insanely complex. With different swords fighting quite differently. In a game you are lucky if they have different reach and attack speed for you slow and heavy attacks.

 

[Xanrae]

What annoys me endlessly is not how magic is used by casters, but how it is used by EVERYONE.

Think about Skyrim. Every single racial power except the orc one is magical; even your magic hating Redguard can cast a magical buff to regenerate stamina, and most likely ends up with several healing spells during his career. Mass Effect? Half of the classes have biotic abilities and the other half is probably shooting biotic ammo or throwing lift grenades. Diablo? Hell, any ARPG that attempts to make melee combat exciting and gives them some sort of earthquake ability. Pretty much every class in an MMO is either a mage or a spellsword. Etc.

Not to mention how every zone transition is a portal. Portals are infinite kinetic energy if mounted above one another and once commercially exploitable will make all road transportation obsolete, but it never happens in games. Looking at you, GW2 and your stupid Asura gates.

--

Personally I'm okay with the fireball throwing kind of wizard because the "mysterious, powerful" Gandalf type doesn't work in a video game about direct combat (for a taster of what happens then, see Skyrim's master level spells. They're all variations on "stand still for 4 seconds casting, then win the fight" and it sucks). You can always explain it away as the mage spending a couple of hours precasting the spells at daybreak so he can finish casting them in battle with a click of his fingers.

I do prefer more physical magic though: to summon a lightning bolt, bring a thunderstone and throw it at the point where you want the lightning. Don't just call up a poison cloud, but a mass of crawling insects that emerge from the ground. Don't just let warriors slam the ground unless they follow an earth totem of some description. For a series that has no problems with throwing around magic, I appreciate that the Tools of Lorkhan in TES may well be ancient nuclear technology without a warning label that is now considered "divine" after a few misfortunes.

Imo magic that borders on being explainable (maybe that thunderstone is a natural capacitor?) is more interesting than just energy guns. It also isn't rocket science to implement and certainly does not come at the cost of gameplay, which the ideas in the article most definitely will.

 

[Vuliev]

Interesting, but I'm not sure I entirely agree. Having played a number of the (for lack of a better word) "positive" implementations you've mentioned, my own conclusion is that video games won't have the freedom or creative capability of their tabletop/pen-and-paper cousins, simply because of the intrinsic limitations present in the medium. At least, for the time being. Breath of the Deep is a wonderful spell in CoC because the process of envisioning your victim drowning on land easily gets the emotions flowing. It's a particularly cruel spell, due in large part to its specificity--but if the casting it in a game only amounts to a series of button presses, followed by an only partially randomized choking/drowning animation, that cruelty gets lost in the process.

IMO, truly deep spellcasting in games will have to come once we have all (or majorly) immersive virtual reality, and I'll give an example from one of my finest D&D moments to illustrate this.

Basic plot of the campaign: pseudo-Roman times, with "barbarians" and "Romans" in the west, and another, very enigmatic, culture in the east. The plot kicked off when escaped from the gladitorial pits, and in the process, discovered that there is a sinister plot in the works by an organization called (something I don't remember, but they're very fire-based.) I am a druid, one of the barbarians, and my clan specialized in fire and stone magics. Somehow, I ended up as the reluctant leader of our little band of barbarians and exiled Romans. Long story short, our trek took us to a mountain cave where some prophetic thing told us what we needed to do.

We come out on the other side of the mountain, and at the base, we're ambushed by a member of that fiery organization. We gear up to fight (the druids wildshape, which becomes important in a bit), our warrior goes in, and is quickly crippled by a torrent of fire. It's immediately apparent that he's going to wreck our shit, and that we need to run. We start to run to the nearby forest, and the fucker sets the forest on fire in response. Knowing that we needed time, I try and cast a water spell (Sleet Storm) on top of the boss and our abandoned comrade, hoping to hamper the boss enough to run in and drag our warrior out. But since my specialty is fire and stone, I fuck up. What was only supposed to be a basic sleet storm becomes a deluge, and there's no way I'm going to be able to get to the warrior, let alone drag his ass out of the storm.

By this point, the forest has started to blaze hard. Everyone else is already in the forest and trying to outpace the blaze. Regretfully, I turn and sprint my Dire Wolf ass to the forest--but as I approach the forest edge, my guilt becomes too much, and I stop and turn. I see a huge puff of smoke and steam from the center of the storm, and realize that the boss has blasted out the middle of the storm to unhinder himself. I steel myself, sprint back to the storm, and leap through the curtain of sleet. Warrior guy is already dead, and boss ready to rip my ass a new one. IDGAF, righteous anger says "fuck this guy, you're going to kill him." I know my fire spells aren't going to touch him, so what do I do? I start burning my prepared spells to use them for Summon Nature's Ally IV.

Now, the boss is almost surrounded by Dire Wolves and my Dire Wolverine companion. He starts to lay down fire, and then one of my Dire Wolves trips him with a Bite. Boss is down, and my wolves and I start literally mauling him. Of course, he's a boss, and still does a fuckton of damage even while hampered. I end up having to summon ~7 wolves over the course of the fight, losing each one in the process. At one point, I order my wolverine companion to run, because he'll take my stories back to the clan (tradition and all that.) At the end, I'm down to my last couple HP, but the boss is bleeding out and crippled. I wildshape into a badger to try and dig and hide, but boss gets a second wind from seeing me so close to death, and summons up one last fire spell and kills me.

Everything in blue is a player action that current games can't really allow for outside of QTEs, scripted/linear sequences, or cutscenes. Everything in red is a dynamic system response that is beyond the capabilities of current tech; they'd have to be part of the same scripted sequence that follows the blue actions. Now, not all of the things I highlighted were spells--but truly deep and dynamic spellcasting has to be part of a system with that same level of freedom and creativity. In pretty much any tabletop RPG, the success of any particular storyline hinges primarily on your DM (or equivalent), and their ability to quickly adapt to player choice in ways that can't be easily predicted by the players themselves. To a slightly lesser extent, the success is also determined by player creativity

The flip side of all this is the appeal to players. Not every game needs rich spellcasting, and not every game should. There are plenty of avenues to satisfy the itch for good magic, and once technology advances enough, more games will be able to accommodate good magic.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

I've actually long felt this way about magic; that game developers have cheapened the stuff by simply turning it into superpowers. My dislike of magic also extends to other reasons (namely that I have trouble trusting or liking something as a plotpoint if it has no clearly defined rules), but I find that I could easily tolerate magic in RPGs if they would simply stop treating it like... well, like guns, I suppose.

 

[loa]

If magic is rare and world changing like in berserk or conan, how would you use that as a game mechanic, for example, in a diablo game?
I don't see a sorcerer collecting frogeyes, mushrooms and the blood of a virgin reigning fire onto his enemies after a ritual that takes 1 hour translating into farming mobs at all.

 

[DoPo]

The dresden files handles magic the way you say it should. More evidence to why it needs a game franchise.

There is a PnP RPG. And it's good. Try and get a copy of it - Evil Hat Productions deserve your money, they are good people. It not only allows magic, but you can also play as any of the other types - vampires, half-vampires, lycantropes, even as just a mortal badass like Murphy, if you wish. And it works out. Furthermore, it features some gorgeous artwork:

Spoiler: observe

That's Molly, by the way. It's set before Turn Coat, I believe - definitely before Changes.

SNIP OF EPIC PROPORTIONS

That's very true... If the game had been ABOUT mages, like you HAD to pick a magic class, I feel the game would've been MUCH better for it. They could've spent so much more time fleshing out mechanics to fit the lore into the gameplay. Like you said the lore is incredibly rich but then none of that stuff is in the gameplay... I was basically just trying to be diplomatic when I said DA:O wasn't that great but yeah after thinking about it, it was awful.

Actually I feel like Bioware have a habbit of this, Biotics in Mass Effect basically get COMPLETELY ignored, when there's a reasonable chunk or lore surrounding it, it's almost as if they didn't expect anyone to pick the spacemage class.

I wouldn't call DA:O awful but it didn't manage to convey the magic very well. You do see demons, you hear people talk about them and so on but it just failed to make it feel properly dangerous. You're just being told it is.

But yeah, biotics in Mass Effect weren't as well done, IMO. I don't mean gameplay-wise, as it's actually OK for them to be...well, OK - you do manage to see them briefly in play, so there isn't much chance for them to fail. Still, you're not even told well what it is they are going through - the doctor remarks, like, once about some side effects of older biotics, the only squad member that has them doesn't display much discomfort. There was one scene with him being a bit silent (which made the doctor remark about him having headaches, I believe, and then mentioning the other side effects) and there is one time the group of...erm, activists, decided to spread word but it wasn't much of an explanation. They could have explored the side effects more than just waving in the air and saying "Yeah, it's bad". At least DA:O shows some of the nasty side of magic.

 

[Weatherking]

Someone should make a game about actual real life sleight of hand type magic, or maybe a cart life style thing about being a street magician. I think that could be cool.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

If i might comment, could game companies turn to anime for ideas how to use magic better?

Toaru Majutsu no Index, for example, uses a collection of different Christian, Shinto, Norse and even Hindu mythology for the use of symbolistic magic. They use the theory that an item that copies an original magic item gains some of its power; this can be weapons, idols, even people.

Just something I wanted to comment on

(P.S. this is my first post so if the format does not work, tell me why)

That show weirded me out alot at first. I took many double-takes when I saw that a Protestant (Anglican specifically) was using Norse runes from the Elder Futhark to summon a creature with a Latin name. I kinda wish each group had a separate religion and magic (Norse Pagans use runes and volva priestesses use Seidr, Catholics use prayers and rituals, ect ect)

 

[Norman Rafferty]

"Magical thinking is thinking that one's thoughts by themselves can bring about effects in the world or that thinking something corresponds with doing it." (Source: Wikipedia)

Magical thinking can refer to "associative thinking" -- for example, I wore my lucky under-wear today, so my favorite sports team won the match. Magical thinking can include the "like produces like" theory -- for example, if I make a tiny doll in your image, with pieces of your hair and skin, then if I poke needles in it, those needles will cause stabbing pains in your body. Magical thinking also includes the idea that anything rare or difficult has intrinsic value because of its rarity and difficulty -- for example, how you cited the Elder Scrolls quests, where performing difficult tasks earned unique rewards.

As you addressed with your core thesis, most "magic" in an RPG isn't the result of magical thinking. Instead, there's a "Flintstone effect", where medkits are replaced with potions, where guns are replaced with wands, where airplanes are replaced with flying mounts, etc. Magic is treated like technology, a resource that can be scientifically understood, and reproduced, without consideration of unique events and thus it can be mass-produced and sold.

The core problem with magical thinking is that, as a rule, a hard-core gamer isn't a magical thinker. A hard-core gamer buys game guides and reads web pages to learn the real mechanics behind a game -- after all, it's a computer program, at some point it's the crunching of numbers. We really haven't seen a lot of rewards for magical thinking since the days of Infocom and the like, where puzzles had to be solved by finding new ways to apply X to Y. (Look up the "Enchanter" series, or the really bizarre -- and magical -- "Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It.")

 

[Tiamat666]

I wanted to post that the generally mediocre Ultima VIII excelled at two things: atmosphere (mostly thanks to the great background music) and the innovative and elaborate magic system. You beat me to it.

I liked the article, I too have wanted to see more magic done this way. The only game I've ever played where magic was arcane and obscure like that was Ultima VIII: Pagan and I loved it.

The quest in Pagan was entirely about learning the four schools of elemental magic, and they each had distinct casting methods. It's been a long time since I played it, but I remember earth magic was cast by putting components into a bag, closing it, maybe saying some magic words, and when you opened the bag you'd have a token that could be used to do something like summon a zombie (earth school was necromancy).

The fire magic was especially complex, you'd place components like sulfur and candles at specific locations around the points of a pentagram on the floor and an item to be enchanted in the center. When it was all done you'd have charged up a wand to cast fireballs, or a medallion to summon demons (who if I'm remembering correctly were just as likely to kill you as your enemies).

 

[tce11]

One example I can think of is the GFs in FFVIII. It's not exactly that ingrained into the actual mechanics of the game, but within the context of the story it's a pretty interesting system. You obtain most of them by going to some crazy location, then by fighting the GF, but it's never like you actually beat or control them, the battle usually ends with something like "Oh you're pretty good for a human, I guess I'll help". It seems more like they're just allowing you to summon them for a bit of fun on the side, but don't really care.

Then later you find out that using GFs drain your memories, and have possibly all sorts of terrible side effects, but have to choose to keep on using them in order to be strong enough to keep fighting.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

If i might comment, could game companies turn to anime for ideas how to use magic better?

Toaru Majutsu no Index, for example, uses a collection of different Christian, Shinto, Norse and even Hindu mythology for the use of symbolistic magic. They use the theory that an item that copies an original magic item gains some of its power; this can be weapons, idols, even people.

Just something I wanted to comment on

(P.S. this is my first post so if the format does not work, tell me why)

That show weirded me out alot at first. I took many double-takes when I saw that a Protestant (Anglican specifically) was using Norse runes from the Elder Futhark to summon a creature with a Latin name. I kinda wish each group had a separate religion and magic (Norse Pagans use runes and volva priestesses use Seidr, Catholics use prayers and rituals, ect ect)

You are referring to Innocentius i assume?

 

[econael]

I agree with his critique in general, magic should be done better in modern games, but he failed to do his research and talked about Skyrim too much.

There's a plethora of games where the casting of spells was done in a way that he requested.

e.g. *Sacrifice *(Interplay) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERAOfr8at8g
The sorcerers wave their hands around and speak in a magic language.

e.g. Baldurs Gate 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6LbhhoOSIw
The sorcerers wave their hands around for a prolonged time, building the spell before they fire it off.

e.g. Neverwinter Nights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg8238Rv1MM (Video is from NWN2 but NWN did this as well)
The mages would always pronounce magic words and often use handsigns and runes.

e.g. Arx Fatalis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LueGiUasvFk
You would have to know the runes and draw them in first person view with your mouse in order to cast!

 

[yamy]

Vampires the Masquerade did a really good job of this, I think. Which isn't surprising since its origin as a tabletop.

'Magic' in its traditional form is only available to the pc if you play as Tremere, which gives you a number of trade offs in terms of abilities as well as being universally lauded by the vampire community for using blood magic, which is reflected during character interactions. This was even more obvious when you play as the Malkavians, whose unique magic of seeing the future makes them all go mad- something that everything character in the game you encounter remarks on. It was also an ability that the player had no control over.

Magic in the game is very much in line with the occult and was truely terrifying whenever you or your opponents used them, and they are perfectly contextualized in where your power comes from because..well...you're a vampire and your source of power, naturally, is blood. So the more magic you use, the more blood you need to consume to replenish it or run the risk of losing your humanity and going on a blood-thirsted rampage.

So yeah, I think alot of the things in the article were done pretty well in that game. Magic being rare and powerful, links to historic understanding of magic, comes with costs and dangers and inherently associated with evil and darkness.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

If i might comment, could game companies turn to anime for ideas how to use magic better?

Toaru Majutsu no Index, for example, uses a collection of different Christian, Shinto, Norse and even Hindu mythology for the use of symbolistic magic. They use the theory that an item that copies an original magic item gains some of its power; this can be weapons, idols, even people.

Just something I wanted to comment on

(P.S. this is my first post so if the format does not work, tell me why)

That show weirded me out alot at first. I took many double-takes when I saw that a Protestant (Anglican specifically) was using Norse runes from the Elder Futhark to summon a creature with a Latin name. I kinda wish each group had a separate religion and magic (Norse Pagans use runes and volva priestesses use Seidr, Catholics use prayers and rituals, ect ect)

You are referring to Innocentius i assume?

Yes. I believe it is a reference to a saint/pope named Innocentius.

 

[DoPo]

Vampires the Masquerade did a really good job of this, I think. Which isn't surprising since its origin as a tabletop.

'Magic' in its traditional form is only available to the pc if you play as Tremere, which gives you a number of trade offs in terms of abilities as well as being universally lauded by the vampire community for using blood magic, which is reflected during character interactions. This was even more obvious when you play as the Malkavians, whose unique magic of seeing the future makes them all go mad- something that everything character in the game you encounter remarks on. It was also an ability that the player had no control over.

Magic in the game is very much in line with the occult and was truely terrifying whenever you or your opponents used them, and they are perfectly contextualized in where your power comes from because..well...you're a vampire and your source of power, naturally, is blood. So the more magic you use, the more blood you need to consume to replenish it or run the risk of losing your humanity and going on a blood-thirsted rampage.

So yeah, I think alot of the things in the article were done pretty well in that game. Magic being rare and powerful, links to historic understanding of magic, comes with costs and dangers and inherently associated with evil and darkness.

I'd like to expand on this since...I'm WoD nut and all. It's probably going to be boring for anyone not into magical systems in games, so skip it if you will. For the rest - I suggest my first post here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.406470-I-Hate-Magic?page=2#16928979] as some extra reading. Anyway - VtM vampires also own and control magic however, it's different from the magic in Mage. Other Disciplines (the inherent supernatural abilities of vampires) are not, however, considered magic. For what reality cares, they are...inherent abilities. No more special than walking corpses who drink blood. And blood does fuel Disciplines, as well as the vampires, however in the PnP game, it's not always expended - a vampire who knows Dominate does not pay blood any time they use it, while, for example, Celerity costs Vitae to be activated for a short while.

Still, vampiric magic is different than that. It is a...loophole in the undead condition. In a way, that is. Blood magic works because it is fundamentally built on top of the vampiric curse and manipulates it into serving a purpose different than holding together a corpse. And because of this, blood magic always reflects the Curse in one way or another - it could deal with blood (in fact, you can see the Tremere wielding the Path of Blood in Bloodlines - stealing the enemy's Vitae and so on), or is otherwise corruptive and/or static, cold in nature. And it always consumes blood to enact - sometimes "normally" just making it disappear from the vampire's veins, other times blood needs to be worked into a ritualistic manner for the spell to work. At the end of the day night what it does is use the likeness principle to transfer certain properties of the blood (so, the Curse) into an effect into the real world fulfilling the will of the vampire.

Thaumaturgy is heavily based on this principle - it's called "sympathetic magic" - like produces like - an effect is enacted or mimicked on a smaller scale to be transferred and activated on a larger one. Mystical connections are often used to get the smaller scale - a lock of hair or a drop of blood still carry mystical ties to the human (or vampire) they originated from. Still, other connections can just be in symbolic likeness - one of the magical effects the Tremere know involves putting a live spider in the vampire's mouth which would allow them to move on walls similar to an insect. And so on.

It's important to note that Thaumaturgy is not, in fact, the only blood magic around. The Tremere like others to think so but that is not correct. The Giovanni (you also see them briefly in Bloodlines) are necromancers, for example, who learn actual vampiric magic, however, theirs carries more the stench of the grave, death, and corpses and manipulating those. It's not just raising zombies or strictly necromantic stuff (they can also summon ghosts, for example and affect them and so on) - there are other uses that still heavily revolve around the matter. There is also Assamite and Setite sorcery (no Assamites or Followers of Set in Bloodlines, though) which are an older form of blood magic but still operate somewhat the same as Thaumaturgy. The Tremere magic is more formulaic in nature, though, still they all employ the same principles of bending and twisting the Curse to affect the world. Then, there is Koldunic sorcery - one of the staples of (not all) Tzimisce (Andrei doesn't know any, though) it is...interestingly more tied to nature. Not something you'd immediately expect from the clan known to shape flesh like clay for shits and giggles and doesn't know what compassion or mercy is - they can also command the elements - the water, the fire, the air, etc. It isn't, however, that surprising, considering why they can do it - basically, there is a demon lord bound sleeping somewhere under the Tzimisce's homeland whose influence has seeped into the ground, the trees, the nature, and even into the Tzimisce (though not all) themselves. Using their "nature magic" is inherently tapping into the power of the demon. And then...there is Abyss Mysticism. Oh this is...not fun. The Lasombra clan's special Discipline is manipulating shadows and darkness. It's more than just absence of light, though, it's actually exerting control over a realm made entirely of darkness - the Abyss. And the Abyss Mysticism expands on that - it's actually about trying to exploit the Abyss. It is filled with things that have no shape or form but malevolence and hunger - the mystics can summon these or even command them and the Abyss itself into doing stuff. The realm, however, is completely inhuman and quite malevolent, in fact, holding many secrets but human and vampiric mind may not actually be able to handle them. It's sort of straight out of Lovecraft's stories.

There are actually more vampiric magical styles but these are the major ones. At any rate, vampires have mostly managed to tranform most occult practices into magic in one form or another - there is even vampiric voudun and so on. In fact, vampires can be granted magic from demons (aside from Koldunic) but...that's not exactly the same or common. Or safe. Anyway, from the Mage perspective, blood magic is closer to the mortal magic in that it's static in nature, i.e., vampires do not twist and bend reality, so there is no Paradox. They do need blood as a power source, though, which mages recognise as Tass (erm...think "mana" but outside of a mana pool. Like a mana potion) with inherent properties that are both corrupting (from the vampiric nature) and static (for they are walking corpses frozen at the time of their death).

 

[Rotten_Karma]

All Magic (or any other interaction) can be distilled to a series of If...Then statements. What separates the authors "real world" examples from say magic in TES, or DnD, or whatever else, is two things: Fluff and internal consistency.

Fluff is just how the person performs the magic, whether its the "Will and the Word" from David Edding's Belgariad Series, Allomancy from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trillogy, or any Vancian Magic like in DnD. Essentially fluff is how you meet the Conditions for the If statement. Part of this comes from DnD 4th ed CharOp, since many abilities and classes just don't function in 4th ed. Instead of fluffing a character and then trying to make it able to defeat a rat in single combat, one would just make an optimized character then just fluff it how they want it to function. For instance if one wanted to make an Assassin type character, one would not pick the Assassin Class, but instead create a Ranger or Rogue and fluff it as an Assassin. The same can be done for any Magic. Mechanically there is no difference between a character slowed by a spell that causes vines to grow from the ground around a mob's feet, a spell that turns the ground to mud, or a spell that simply causes the mob to lose some control of his legs. In all cases the mob is slowed. The "how" is just fluff and can be pretty much anything. Skyrim's fluff is just the mage is a conduit to the aetherius, and takes many years to master his art. Of course if it took the player many years, no one would ever use magic, as the first players of Skyrim would just now be able to barely summon a scamp, while the mighty warriors would have slain everything that moved. Also it seems the Author does not know much of the lore of TES. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Magic As an aside, game play wise it makes no sense to waste 30 seconds of the players time every time the player wants to use a spell. (I'm looking at you JRPGS.)

The other part is internal consistency. Internal consistency is how the magic relates to itself. For example, how are knotted ropes under a bed, and Dog spirits related? They aren't. Magic does not exist in the real world, so to base fantasy magic off of real world beliefs is just silly. In any world where what we would call magic exist, there would be people that study and MEASURE it. Even extremely random magics could be studied in the same manners we study Quantum Mechanics in this world. Further more inconsistent magics do not build verisimilitude. To contrast, a system like the already mentioned Allomancy have very well defined rules, well defined effects, and well defined cost. This helps prevent the random make crap up that less well define magics lead to. (see Star Trek, and the "USS Make Sh*t Up", for a poorly designed magic system, or for that matter Star Wars.)

Finally, games require rules. The more well defined a magic system is the easier it is to implement. Further more a well defined magic system for Pen and Paper games allows the DM to adjudicate on the results of strange cases. A video game can make you go to the bottom of the Chasm of Doom 3000, to get the ritual of OMG 5000, but that just fluff. What really matters is effects of the ritual, and the cost of those effects. The cost/benefit analysis can only be done in that system and in the end determines if the magic system worth bothering with.

TLR, learn to read

 

[Valkrex]

So... Dark Souls. You can get magic, miracles, and fire blasts, but you need to have specific items equipped and the right stats for them to work. You can buy some from merchants, but more powerful ones need to be found in the environment, and are often guarded well or hidden in clever ways.

For miracles one must have high faith, sorcery requires high intelligence, while pyromancies require one to offer souls to be improved.


As for the strongest of these abilities, such as Sunlight Spears, The Gravelord Sword Dance, Chaos Fire, and others, you actually DO need to pledge yourself to a covenant.

If you want Sunlight Spears, not only do you need to pledge yourself to the Warriors of Sunlight (in which you gain favor and upgrades by offering Sunlight Medals gained by helping other players) you need to offer the soul of a very powerful being. Chaos Fire requires joining the Servants of Chaos, and offering Humanity to gain stronger versions of the pyromancy gained. The Gravelord Sword Dance requires you to pledge yourself to Gravelord Nito, and offer the difficult to obtain Eyes Of Death, to get this ability.

The Eyes themselves are sinister as they are used to curse other players, and have more powerful enemies appear in their worlds. If you choose to walk the Path of the Dragon, you must pledge yourself to the last Everlasting Dragon, and by offering Dragon Scales, you may become part Dragon. The Darkwraiths invade, and kill other players, and pillage their humanity to gain favor.

Break faith with your covenant, and you lose these abilities until you regain their favor, and some covenants, such as the Forest Hunters, become openly hostile if you do betray them.

As for the good and evil part, Sunlight Miracles are only given to those who dedicate their time to helping others, while the Dark curses of the Gravelord Servants and the powerful lifedrain of the Darkwraiths are only given to those who actively harm others.

In order for these to work in combat, one must be holding a catalyst for sorceries, a talisman for miracles, or a pyromancy flame for pyromancy. Miracles actually require one to pray in order to cast! Pyromancy flames come from being at one with nature as Laurentius of the Great Swamp would tell you. Catalysts are awarded to graduates of the Dragon School of Vinheim.

So looks like Dark Souls gets it somewhat.

 

[popa_qwerty]

If i might comment, could game companies turn to anime for ideas how to use magic better?

Toaru Majutsu no Index, for example, uses a collection of different Christian, Shinto, Norse and even Hindu mythology for the use of symbolistic magic. They use the theory that an item that copies an original magic item gains some of its power; this can be weapons, idols, even people.

Just something I wanted to comment on

(P.S. this is my first post so if the format does not work, tell me why)

The funny thing about this is that the manga is serialized by Square Enix's Monthly Shōnen Gangan.