Let's talk about magic.

[MetalShadowChaos]

Toaru Majutsu No Index actually uses that concept as the defining line between the two in it's whole 'Science VS Magic Premise', in that some people were born with innate powers, but they're biological, and enhancable and studyable by science, rather than just being 'magic'. Magic was actually created by the tapping into the power of Gods done by those jealous of those with innate powers. However, anyone who has accessed innate latent powers from the science side is physically torn apart by magic, as a sort of inbuilt form of malice against the science side.

 

[Mikeybb]

And here was me all excited for a thread about Magic: the Gathering. Thanks OP.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke. I'd like a game based on tech so advanced it's like magic.

I planned a campaign once which inverted that statement and ran with it.
"Any sufficiently advanced understanding of magic is indistinguishable from technology."
A world of thaumaturgical engineers, elementalist technicians, digital conjourers and the like.
Similar to some of the presentation of magic in The laundry files, with their computational demonologists etc.

Magic as an understood element and component of the scientific study of the universe, taking it's place as part of physics.

 

[Aetrion]

Well, if you really think about it, we don't actually understand why the laws of our universe work the way they do, we just know how they work, and that they can be relied upon to always work the same. In a world where "magic" was a thing wouldn't the same kind of understanding of the laws of magic eventually make magic into a perfectly mundane science?

After all, the natural world is everything that exists, so in a world where magic is proven to exist it couldn't be considered supernatural.


I think the closest thing we have to magic in reality is the idea of quantum superposition. In quantum mechanics simply observing what's going on changes the outcome, because it collapses it from a superposition of all possibilities down to just one. So that's the one example in reality where there is some possible interaction between human awareness and how the natural world behaves.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

This kind of thing is a lot easier to run with with things like DnD where you get checks for your intelligence affecting how your character does stuff. You have to BE the brain of the group. Or be a sorceror in which case you just use your sweet, sweet charm to get the universe to do what you ask it nicely.

But on that note, Pillars of Eternity was pretty good for this as your stats/actions effected what you could and couldn't say/deduce. So being a wizard meant you could smart-guy through some situations that the fight might not. BUT the fighter might have a higher will or strength option instead, encourages you to play different classes.
Man, Pillars was really fun...

 

[Aetrion]

In Pillars the stats worked differently though. For example, you could make a wizard with 20 might and it'd be a pretty powerful character all in its own right, because might in PoE doesn't mean "how strong are you physically?", but simply "How strong are you at whatever you do?" A high might wizard just casts really strong spells, but not as quickly and not as steadily for example.

 

[TranshumanistG]

Imagine a world where a witless thug could rise to power because they had magical inclination and had no moral objection with abusing that power.

I believe, that's what sorcerers are.

 

[Gray-Philosophy]

I can only second the suggestion to have a look at Magicka. While it doesn't offer much lore behind how it works, the way you can combine different elements for various effects is just plain fun to play around with. You can even hurt yourself if you screw it up or walk into your own wall of fire.

In terms of games with a good lore or reasoning behind how magic works, I honestly haven't found anything extraordinary myself.

I'm also getting tired of magic just being used as an excuse for convenience and for things that can't otherwise be explained. So I took it upon myself to try and come up with my own idea that's a bit more "sciency", for a game concept that I'm writing.

Basically "magic" in this world is a naturally existing particle of sorts, with a range of different properties that enables it to interact with phyiscal objects. Any living creature can essentially produce it and interact with it, kind of like we naturally produce electricity in the real world, but actually controlling it takes immense practice and willpower.
What it allows you to do is just really advanced telekinesis, perhaps comparable to Bending in the Avatar series. Pick stuff up, warp it, throw it, break it etc.
Because of the way it works, the "spells" you can cast always depend on your surroundings. For example, you'll need a source of fire to do anything fire related. If you're under water, you can forget about anything fire related. Furthermore, because it's technically all physical, you can also risk hurting yourself if you're not careful.
Despite being a natural part of the world though, the use of magic is still such an unknown and rare phenomenon to most inhabitants that few believe it even exists. Also, instead of having mana governing your magical capabilities, casting things will deplete stamina instead because it's supposed to be physically exhausting to do.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Sadly they aren't games, but the coolest magic systems I know are in The Kingkiller Chronicles and Mistborn books.

The first has two systems. The first, the most common one, is sympathy, a kind of energy manipulation. It's a mix of alchemy and physics and is mostly used in artificing. It works by creating links between objects, the more similar the objects the better the link and the less energy is lost when applying energy to one of the objects. For instance, a link between two halves of the same stick of butter is really good. When you then apply heat to one half, the other half melts almost just as easily. However, when you link a stick of butter and a twig, and you set the twig on fire, the stick of butter barely heats as the two objects are so dissimilar.

What makes it so awesome is that this gives you untold possibilities on how you want to apply it. It's a really basic system; all it entails is creating links and degrees of energy conservation. Links can also be set with certain runes, which is called sygaldry. And with that the sky's your limit.

There's also Naming, which is more traditional magic but a lot more primal and rough. You can call the true Name of the wind (title drop of the first book) for instance which then either whips up a gale or pushes a small amount of air in a choking person. It's often very unconcious and extremely rare, and a lot of people in the books either call it strange demonic nonsense or doubt it exists altogether. People using sympathy aren't much trusted either.

Magic in Mistborn works by ingesting and 'burning' metals, with each metal giving a different power. For instance, ingesting and burning steel gives you the ability to push against other metals. This too is quite rare, with most people who can only being able to burn one metal. Extremely rare are people who can burn all of them, and then the awesome synergy between metals comes out. It also helps that Newton's Third Law is also a thing; a person pushing a coin shoots the coin away, but the same person pushing against a metal roof pushing themselves away. So you get these awesome Magneto-esque battles, but actually better because they're still governed by physics.

Metal burning could work in a videogame, I'd say, and Sympathy and Sygaldry would be just the best in a tabletop RPG.

 

[Scars Unseen]

And here was me all excited for a thread about Magic: the Gathering. Thanks OP.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke. I'd like a game based on tech so advanced it's like magic.

I believe Numenera [http://www.numenera.com/] works on that principle, and there is a video game in the works based on it: Torment: Tides of Numenera. [https://torment.inxile-entertainment.com/] It's the spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, which is one of the best CRPGs ever made.