Iron Chef Carnage, repetition might really be a problem, I have to think on it...

Perhaps the name is not enough, qualifying the class of entity might work : eg. "goblin hank"
Or perhaps, the public name + secret : eg. Garouphff Hank
Then hank can also be used for another entity.

And I don''t want all my party members to know my names, because I only give it to true friends, and as it''s me the only magus a hundred parsec around, no one will heal me I want casters to be a rare occurence else they will absorb all the mana of the world.

Scaught, I think that if something isn''t perceived by anybody well, then it''s existence doesn''t matter... But modifying the perception of a whole world would be quite difficult.

I would also like to go from generic to specific, like a derivation tree, each object inheriting it''s parents names as attributes : wooden chair inherits from wood and chair so spells targetted to both these things would target it.
For basic objects like this, I think an ownership could allow to be more specific. This is rodion''s wooden chair. Translate this to the Secret Magical Language and it''s done.

Not a unique word for each instance of a chair...
But one for each living entity.

If you have other ideas to manage the volume of word needed...


------------------
"Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Arius there was an age undreamed of..."

quote:

---

Original post by DungeonMaster
Some readings gave me this idea for a magical system wich could solve some of the problems with magic in rpgs.

Imagine a game world where everything has a common name and a "secret" magical name.

---

Are the readings you mentioned the Ursula''s Le Guin "A Wizard of Earthsea"?

Hmm...I''d personally try to stay away from incorporating ownership into the vocabulary. Material possession is so unmagical. (is there really such a thing in the universe as "rodion''s wooden chair"?)

I think stored vocabulary needs only to be important True names. Or even based on the player (some statistic, experience, or even a fixed number per player). For the rest of the language, using generics would have to suffice - or maybe you even limit those as well. (You have 50 words you can use for magic - you have to decide the balance between names and the other parts of speech (verbs, adjective/adverbs, prepositions) )

Or, if that gets too complicated, maybe just slots for sentences and each user maintains a personal dictionary away from the adventure, and the act of forming a sentence (spell) takes effort such that you can''t just form them when needed.
This way, too, if you were to learn a new word out in the world, it wouldn''t be immediately useful - you''d need time (and your dictionary) to form it into a useful sentence.

As for the actual generation of words - that''s pretty easy. Just hash the original word by some function to get its generic name. For objects that have True names, store a seed value with the object and use that to generate a "random" name. Since the object will keep the same seed, it''s name will be the same each time. (and going back to my previous idea, you can somehow transform the seed by a player''s seed/name and that way encrypt the secret words so that players can''t share easily).

This method requires very minimal additional storage and is fully automated - you won''t be burdened with creating all the names yourself. (in my work-in-progress game, I defined a grammar and phonemes for name generation - my mini-world has thousands of locations each with a pronouncable name - and each random every time. And because it is all data driven, it is trivial for me to drop in a whole new language that names their towns in entirely different ways.)

One last thought on uniqueness of words - it might actually be amusing to have homonyms (words that sound/are spelled the same as other words, but don''t share a meaning). (eg, you intend to cast "unlock door", but it just so happens that the magic word for ''door'' sounds exactly the same as ''trousers'', so not only does the door unlock, but your trousers end up around your ankles as well. )

Yep Advanced Bug, this is one of the best fantasy books ever in my opinion...

Scaught I agree that ownership is not a very natural or magical thing, still it can be usefull as it is a basis of many people thoughts and if magic is a language then it is based on the semantic transformation of thoughts.

I don''t like current name generators, however pronouncable...
I would prefer to build my own language based on the few linguistic rules I know...

I like the homonym part very much though....

------------------
"Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Arius there was an age undreamed of..."

Back to ownership for a second, I think it can be a very magical concept. In one of the first books I read as a little kid, "The Misenchanted Sword", the main character had a sword that had been misenchanted (But you guessed that already) by an old hermit. It had a few problems, and was bound to kill him one day. Neat little book. One of the intentional aspects of the enchantment, however, was something called a "spell of true ownership". Only he could draw the sword, and if he was away from it, then the magic would contrive to return it to him. As a plot element, the spell was incredibly powerful, so it would do things like create a spectral man to carry the sword to his tent, or cause earthquakes to unbury itself from the yard. I thought that was a neat feature, and it might have a place here, since the magic system proposed has an individual element to it.

It could even be combined with the half-assed heritage system I defined, so that the guy who inherited Ulrich the Bold''s name also inherits the power to use his stuff. Excalibur tests become possible, and it would be possible to have equipment bound to you. A certain sword could give you better defense against fire magic, but won''t work for anyone else. Or you could have a blade enchanted so that it could never cut you, then give it to your enemy as a peace offering.

Hmmm...I guess I had "binding" and "ownership" as distinct concepts in my head - the former being by force, the latter by choice - but interestingly enough, the "ownership" here isn't "master owns sword" but more "sword owns master". In each case, it's the will of the sword that is the active agent, and passivity of the owner that is the object:
- I, the sword, must return to my master
- I, the sword, will (not) allow myself to be unsheathed
- I, the sword, imbue fire resistence on whom I choose
- I, the sword, refuse to cut
Here, the lucky "owner" of the sword is entirely passive in their role, and, as it were, inconsequential. You could be anyone - it just happens it's you.

But what happens when you enchant a sword in conflicting ways? (the "don't hurt me" sword you gave to your enemy gets a more powerful "bloodlust for you" enchantment put on it) Dare you imbue it with ego as well, to undermine its own will or potential for will - a sort of back door

What about a sword with loyality? Fears? Dementia? Desire? All of these can be a function of pure will (a will without intelligence, as it were) - and maybe because of this, magic is all the more dangerous. I would hate to add fire resistence to my sword of extra hurting and iron ore finding to have it end up schizophrenic, deciding that it wants to point its way to the nearest ore vein right before it does its extra bit of hurting to unfriendly Mr. Goblin.

[edit: formatting]

[edited by - scaught on January 14, 2003 7:42:55 PM]

I guess I did a poor job of describing the binding idea. I''ll try again.

The sword has no autonomy. It doesn''t choose who it gives fire defense to, it doesn''t feel a "need" to return, and it doesn''t decide who to cut. It''s bound by the magic, which comes from the will of the caster, the only free will involved in the process, unless you count the sword''s owner''s mindset in the equation for potency or whatever.

As to conflicting spell, that''s something I should have mentioned. In the book from which I totally ripped off this idea, magic was a very dangerous field. The military sorcerers took the sword (until it returned to the guy, of course) and tested it. They used all sorts of divining spells on it, and when they had it pretty much figured out, they decided that it was too dangerous to try to disenchant it. A conflicting spell would cause random effects, usually destroying the sword, killing its owner, the sorcerer trying to break the spell, and owing on the magnitude of the spell, killing, crippling, or magically altering anyone and anything within a mile of the site.

So, if you get a sword with a "Don''t cut Jimmy" spell on it, and you, without checking it''s other enchantments, cast a "Kill anyone who stands in front of your holder" spell on it, and then draw it while Jimmy is standing in front of you, then one of four things will happen:

1. The sword''s "Don''t cut Jimmy" magic will override other spells, and the sword will do nothing.

2. The bloodlust spell will win out, and it''ll chop Jimmy to death.

3. They''ll balance out, and Jimmy will be clubbed to death (this is really a loophole, since it kills the guy standing there without actually cutting Jimmy)

4. It''ll blow up, and everyone takes a thousand points of magical fire damage.

That''s pretty much the idea.