I Hate Magic

[likalaruku]

I don't really have an opinion on it. For me, Magic was for people who can remember shit like names of spells, & what spell is in what hotkey, & are good strategy, while my dumb ass prefers to use the Hulk Smash approach of using swords, blunt weapons, & arrows on the closest thing to me that moves (which is why I don't play multiplayer games with friendly fire).

 

[Sol_HSA]

I also have a beef about how magic is handled in most games, and I've written about it as well.. the way most games (including baldur's gates etc) handle magic, you might as well give the magic users Kalashnikov of Piercing +3 and be done with it.

Magic should be difficult and unpredictable. Powerful and dangerous. Rare and amazing. Unfortunately, balancing that with "fun" is tricky, as it can easily become frustrating.

 

[I.Muir]

Magic the quest for power sounds like an interesting game
Would buy

 

[Gatx]

I feel like what the article is basically saying is that magic needs to be better contextualized? I mean you have all kinds of more creative and original types of magic out there that's not shooting fireballs, but it'd be hard to represent that in gameplay, and even harder to let players actually do that stuff.

Personally as far as gameplay goes, if they let you do cool, creative things with magic that can't also be done with a bow and arrow (like using magic in Magicka) then I'm good.

Filling a guy's longs to drown them on land sounds cool when you read the flavor text, but in a game I imagine it'd look just like he was taking some damage to his health, with maybe a couple water splash effects. Just saying.

 

[marurder]

This piece reminds me of what I read in the old 2nd Edition DND DM guide, it went along the lines of this;

Magic - how will you deal with magic in your world? Will it be a common everyday thing used by the many? Will mages be in every town selling scrolls and potions for all to use? Or will it be less common? Perhaps feared (because of being less common it is 'different' which leads to an anti-magic theme throughout the world.

Will the players be able to find a wand of fireballs easily? In a world where magic is commonplace the wand is a slight advantage. In a world where magic is rare it will be a game changer, the possessor of the wand can annihilate a good part of the opposing forces army with a single item.

I think the whole problem with magic in games is this -

EVERYONE wants to be a Jedi

Follow me here. Nobody wants to play a starwars game where you can NEVER have the power. Where YOU are on the FAR weaker side. We all want to platy our fantasy of force lightning-ing and chocking/pushing our enemies all over the place. It is too easy to attain too quickly, there is no respect for the power.
Some games put in a 'the power gets stronger as you play' mechanic - but this could also be said of weapons in games such as Fallout or spaceship combat. You get the big guns/spells later.

We have been fed a system where we use 'mana', the first game i can recall this is Diablo/Warcraft 2. Perhaps it was here before then, but I wasn't playing that kind of thing. DND games tend to balance the power much better (through slots) meaning casting is a bigger tactical choice then 'CAST BOOM x 10 > drink potion, repeat'

Magic has become an abstraction, trivialized, all flash no substance in many games. Only seen in combat and not IN the world.
To the author
I will point to Bioshock Infinite. The flying city. We accept it because the story talks about science the whole time, would you accept it if it were talking about the mechanics of magic?

 

[DoPo]

We have been fed a system where we use 'mana', the first game i can recall this is Diablo/Warcraft 2. Perhaps it was here before then, but I wasn't playing that kind of thing. DND games tend to balance the power much better (through slots) meaning casting is a bigger tactical choice then 'CAST BOOM x 10 > drink potion, repeat'

Actually, D&D's Vancian casting is a terrible way to balance things. Spellcasters get to throw nukes several times a day, while the "mundanes" get to throw sticks and stones all day long. Guess which one wins fights. Also, most of the times, when the spellcasters run out of spells, the group just rests until they recover them and then moves on. So the advantage of the mundanes of being able to throw sticks and stones (as opposed to pebbles and toothpicks from a depleted spellcaster) is none, as it doesn't come into play. Not to mention that spellcasters can usually still manage to find a way to throw bombs even after the slots run out - wands, scrolls, magic artefacts and the like.

While you could claim that spellcasters still need to choose their spells, that's also not an issue - there is reconessance to be done - going to the red hot glowing mountain McVolcano to fight some fire giants? Well, pick up fire protection and spells that deal with fire. Heading to the icy canyon of McIcyness - do the same with cold. If there is no information available, then they can still scry and stuff - there is an entire school of magic about making the DM just flat out tell you stuff. Well, the DM can lie but in that case, he may as well give up and remove magic altogether. Finally, there are just some spells that are universally useful. OK, unless the DM flat out starts dropping anti magic fields like spilled water, and dispels like mosquitoes, in which case the DM has just given up.

I believe it was Unearthed Arcana in 3e that introduced some variations of spellcasting that actually seemed interesting. Also, the Psionics in 3e offered an alternative casting system that was interesting and workable, too. But most of all, it's the Tome of Battle that actually made the mundanes more interesting and balanced to play by offering them stuff to do other than sticks and stones.

But D&D is just flawed - GURPS has even better systems for handling magic and powers. Namely, several of them, and you're also not inherently limited - it's quite possible that anybody would be able to sling spells - some better and more than others but still. Or characters can also just have other kinds of powers to compensate easily.

In fact, that's probably a better way to do it as a whole - just give everybody powers, similar to what D&D 4e did. After all, it does make sense - magic is supposed to be powerful and mysterious and shit but legends also have people conning gods or being mighty enough to shatter rocks with bare hands, cheating death - the literal personification of it, and so on. Being able to do extraordinary stuff without magic isn't that new a concept and the player character(s) are supposed to be the chosen ones and the heroes most of the time, so it does fit perfectly.

 

[Malisteen]

adding hand animations and some spoken words might help immersion slightly, but if you really want a more classical feel to your magic, the problem is in their effects. Any game with magic that manifests such overt and physical effects as bolts of lightning, physically summoned monsters, teleportation, and swords that cause enemies to burst into flame is going to have that video-gamey feel. You can't have it both ways - either magic is subtle, mysterious, and symbolic, or it has direct and overt physical effects. These styles of magic are basically mutually exclusive.

 

[SiskoBlue]

This fits in with my theory of "believability". It seems the movies, stories and themes that are most popular at an any given time match what people find more believable. The idea of Dracula and Frankenstein seem fairly implausible nowadays but the idea of people being satanic (Dracula) and the idea of reanimation and stitching up people was looking quite plausible in the 20s and 30s. Then the atomic age and the idea of UFOs made Superman and other "affected by radiation" heros seem more plausible. Computers led to robots and robotic powers in one form or another like the Bionic man. Terminator. Cyborgs.

Lately the themes seem to be Zombies, Batman and Spiderman, and the tail end of X-men. Zombies are nearly exclusively "virus caused" zombies. Batman doesn't have "magic" powers, and Spiderman and X-men are gene mutations. All things we find more plausible than gods, radiation and plain medical tweaking and machinery. It's also why I think Michael Bay was pushing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as aliens and not mutated humans.

Looking at the Marvel movies it seems that's where they've put the work in. Iron-man is fine and plausible, little change there. The Hulk is a bit harder but still based in gene manipulation. The odd one out is Thor from magic land. They change him to what? An alien? A being from another dimension that comes through a wormhole. Scientific explanation for a god.

People are willing to suspend their disbelief, but like Robert's argumets about magic, it's so much better if it taps into what we feel is right and makes more sense. At least that's my theory.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

He was propubly overthinking about the concept of magic in most games. Some games don't want to use it as a way to expand their universe, but rather as a fun clechee that fits the fantasy theme and is rather fun. I mean, isn't burning skeletons fun?

But overall, I agree with magic being more sacred and therefor rare, but it overall depends on the designer. When thinking about the idea of exploring the world to find stronger items, I think of Terraria, magic is rather rare there and the player to earn the abulity to fry things has to go from the abuss to the castles in the sky and is something that is not given at first try.

Also about the spells being more creative. It would make a great game mechanic not to give the player the abulity to kill NPC's directly, but give spells like the one that summons flowers, it would be one of the first spells the player would get and would be completely useless in face to face, but at one of the stealth levels you would hear in one of the conversations between guards that one has allergy. Then the player would create some flowers next to him to make him move away from his post.

It is propubly a bad example, since making the spells situational is a bad idea, but something is a simmilar tone.

We don't need assalt rifles, we need portal guns. Items that are limited in direct combat, but are usefull if you use your head.

Also using magic to help the player explore the world.

Cool.

 

[Shadowcreed]

I like how magic works in most cases - I'ts a massive massive plus for me if they can justify the nature of it and give reasoning why this works as such. Dark Souls for example demands you to use a Pyromancy Gove as a tool to cast fire magic; there's a whole story behind why this exists and how it works - though what I dont get is they let you 'buy' the spells. Just like that. It sort of looks like a scroll but as far as I know they never explain why it is that if you need this in order to work with the pyromancy glove. The same applies for Miracles and Sorceries, both need a tool (Talisman, Catalyst) to operate. Especially for Faith, having to 'learn' a certain miracle is a little wonky to explain isn't it?

EDIT: moreover, these spells have certain charges. In order to cast them again after you've depleted the casts you first need to rest at a bonfire. While ths makes sense for the Pyromancy glove (rekindle the flame in the glove at a bonfire) - how does this make sense for miracles/sorceries?

 

[Kargathia]

I'd argue that Magicka pulled this off quite well. It's hardly the serious kind of dark sorcery tapped from the unknown places of the world, but it sure does convey that you're meddling around with powerful forces you can't control.

Captcha: "abra cadabra". I lol'd.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

In D&D 2nd Ed (anything after that can Bite Me), you only got new spells by copying them from an existing source and trained in it's usage by a higher level mage. But in the pen and paper games, the DM didn't make you go through with the actual VSM (it's a 2nd ed term) every time you wanted to cast Magic Missile. And unless you were significantly high level and/or had enough wands to make Greenpeace come after you for deforestation, you generally had only enough spells for a single encounter.

These mechanics won't work in a computer game, not anymore, not really. We have become addicted to the 'fast paced "Press X for Fireball" spam' types of games.

Now while Fus Ro Da may have been magical the first couple of times you used it, I imagine the charm would wear thin somewhat quickly having to "Press X for Fireball" three or four times a minute.

I could never play a magic user in Baldur's Gate. They ran out of steam too quickly.

 

[Sicram]

I actually like elemental magic... but mostly when it's done Last Airbender style. There we have symbolic movements that actually do something. I, in some cases, hate magic which are arbitrary human made symbols. Why would the arcane fabric react to some made-up words and/or symbols? I could go with the dragon shouts in skyrim and with symbols invoking magic... if it was magic that created those symbols and that by recreating these "natural" symbols one would open a channel to the arcane dimension, or somesuch. The dragon speech is walking a fine line for me in this case. Burried dog spirits, I could go with that, knots under beds? Yeah, no.

While I also like spellcasting in skyrim I really dislike the ease of getting it and learning it, instantly. I doesn't give a sense of reward, unless you go through the quests which give you those high-end spells.

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

The Sorcerers and Sorceresses (and witchers) in Witcher universe lose something quite important and that is the ability to have children in exchange for great power and long life, also they are not very well liked and most of the ordinary folk do not trust them. So I guess the magic in the witcher books is done well according to your standards.

 

[thirion1850]

Magic: The Gathering and the original Guild Wars did magic the best in my opinion. Then again, it's no surprise that I play a mesmer or necromancer.

...Or Black/Blue.

 

[barbzilla]

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)

I'd really love to see a game use the principles of Alchemy from Fullmetal Alchemist. Mainly the "you can't create something out of nothing. Everything requires something of equal value" part. I think that could make things pretty interesting.

My m8s and I have been using their magic system in one of our campaigns for about a year now, and it is very fun. The best part is that it encourages learning. If you don't know what chemicals do what or what compounds do what, you will be very limited in your magic.

 

[thiosk]

You must hate friendship too, because friendship is magic.

You monster.

 

[Sordin]

Loved the article but can anyone actually give me any examples of games that aren't table top RPG's that handle magic in this way? Because I would love to play one.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

I completely agree. I've been yearning to see a game that truly captures the cultural implications of magic.
Look at films like Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away or even many of the better movies made about the Arthur legends (like Mists of Avalon): that's how magic is done.

Today games just seem to put magic in there as an excuse to show off "cool" special effects and feel "badass". Personally, I am less and less impressed with that kind of thing when there isn't a meaning, a valuable tale behind it all.

 

[EeviStev]

I don't disagree with the article, but at the same time I don't see why magic should be the one thing you hate. What about melee fighting? Typically if you want to swing a melee weapon you equip it and hit the attack button. No effort is put into becoming proficient with the particular weapon you chose, and the method of attack (read: button pushes) is the same regardless of the weapon.
And crafting- usually we just select the ingredients we want to use and press the craft button. I can't think of any games where in order to craft we have to find the right materials, tools and facilities, and manually handle all three in some hyper-complicated ballet that could all fall apart if we didn't pump the bellows enough or use the correct cross-stitch to sew our pouch together.
Magic as it is used in games is a mechanic, and the only place it has to be as complicated as described in the article is games which cater specifically to gamers who want it to be as such. That is not to say said games wouldn't be off-the-chain fantastic, but imagine an RPG with all of the class abilities being that involving. It would be a niche game at best and, I imagine, a bastard to develop.