In toying with better ways to use magic-I think mana is outdone-I came up with a little thought: Close your eyes concerened parents: method 1 is drugs. Basically, any sphere dealing with astral or mental stuff needs a hallucegin, ala Black Sabbath, any physical spells need some sort of stimulant, etc. This I think lends itself to some good playability. For instance, in my kingdom, most of these drugs are illegal. This causes the PC to go to the poor sections of town, or maybe set up smuggling runs, etc, plus it adds a definite downside to longtime magic users-ever see The Osbournes? It also has some little effects, which add to the general detail level: the drug Sunshine is taken by pricking onself with the thorn, causing "Sunpricks" this drug is popular with the nobility, and their clothes have adapted to it: long, thick sleaves to cover the "Suntrails". A racec of people whip their children with Feralvine, which causes them to loose some of their grounding in the human world, and become part beast, for children, this is permanent, although for adults it is, for the most part, temporary damage. There is always the risk using it, of the child completly seperating from reality. Needless to say, these people are vicious fighters, and tend to make good druids, but are bad at being FACs (freindly aligned characters). What do you think?

kind of original, but we already have systems that use runes for casting which sounds like your idea.
you could use something like concentration or magic stamina, but mana is just the name used to represent those i think.

this is an interesting idea, and i like how you fleshed out some of it (i.e. the "suntrails" and stuff)... but from my, um, experimenting days, i can assure you that any magical effects due to drugs don''t actually affect anyone but the guy who does the drugs... you could end up with a hero who tripped for a week and thought he saved the world, but really just sat there staring at trees and smoking cigarettes!

Mixed feelings.

To be honest, I''ve considered a similar problem in a game concept I''m working on - but in the end, it comes down to marketability. Will a publisher take on a game that encourages drug use, regardless of the rating - and will the public outcry be worth the potential profit, assuming it''s a killer design? I can already see Laura Bush on TV holding up a copy of the game (free advertising!) and condemning it as the root of all corrupt morals in our country.

But ignoring all that, I''d argue with your drug methodology. Instead of thinking of them in scientific terms, go alchemical. I wouldn''t use a hallucinogen simply for astral or mental spheres, as you put it - too generalistic. Hallucinogenics would be good for reality-warping spells - sort of a transference of the caster''s altered state into the real world. There are also different types of stimulants - caffine is a stimulant, for example, and could be used to heighten awareness. Again I''d avoid the modernistic terms - cacao bean sounds better than caffine, poppy better than heroin/cocaine.

For astral abilities, relaxants would be better served. Sedatives would be good for hypnotic states. Various poisons might be good for offensive magicks (mage has to "expel" the energy from the poison from his body), etc.

Interesting concept, but incredibly controversial.

controversial could help sell though, look at GTA 3. people say its because they can do anything, but the only things you can do have to do with crime. Its because they break the law that they like it.

True, but games have always had people beating up on other people; jacking cars is a new twist, but still not as controversial as you''d think.

Drugs, on the other hand, will have every preventive group stepping up to the podium. D.A.R.E. alone could cause a developer enough grief to hang the project. It''s the hot-topic among teen use, more so than teenage sex and teenage smoking.

Again, it''s a cost-benefit analysis; video games already get a bad rap for influencing teen behavior, any game that actively promotes drug trafficking and drug use will automatically call down the wrath of the conservative Right upon themselves. It would not surprise me, either, if the state attorney generals got involved to have the game removed from the shelves. Would that be within their legal rights? There is no answer, but do you want to be the developer to fight it in court?

I''m not against the idea, I''m just pointing out the harsh realities of trying to market it.

Most Shamanistic magic is affected by drugs (to be precise, drugs are used to put one in touch with suitable spirits, who you then convince to perform the magic for you).

There is, of course, more than one way to ask the spirits to skin a cat. I believe that creating a paste and spreading it on the face, arms, or entire body is a common one. Then there''s the ever popular bong.

I would suggest that if you want an inventive magic system, let people do different kinds of magic. After all, the real world people certainly believe in a wide variety of kinds of magic.

To my mind, the common kinds are: invocation - a spirit possesses your body and either you exercise its abilities, or it controls your body itself (which leads one to investigate exactly to stop it doing things you don''t want it to); summoning - a spirit is called up and constrained to do your bidding; ritual - a particular sequence of apparently non-magical actions are performed which causes a magical effect; alchemy - a chemical is created with magical properties; transcendalism - the magician gains the ability to control reality with his mind.

Of these, only ''transcendalism'' suffers from the you-can-do-anything-unless-we-put-in-mana problem. The others have inherent limits - a powerful ritual may take years to complete, or require hard to discover words/herbs/people; a powerful summoned spirit may be hard to control, and may not turn up at all if you aren''t advanced enough; a powerful invoked spirit may easily usurp control of your body, effectively killing you.

Note also that these methods are interconnected: you may have to perform a complicated ritual to gain access to Niflheim wherein grows the rare Ice Bloom which is needed for an alchemical potion that will enable you to invoke a spirit that is able to summon a God who can grant you temporary transcendance - and each part of this sequence would have to be seperately researched and possibly performed by different members of your party, or by NPCs.


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