I'm moving some of my ideas over from MMORPG.com to see if they get more feed back here For those of you who have played Shadowrun, some of this idea will seem familiar...in third edition it is one of my favorite magic systems i've seen to date, and seems the most "real". First thing I'd do is get rid of mana. Instead of magic using an obscure concept of points, have it do non deadly damage (IE Stun/bruise damage) except in the case of extreamly powerful spells that have been pumped up by the caster. This represents the draining power of channeling magical power through the caster. Then give the caster the ability to absorb some of the damage before moving on...so if the caster knows his limitations he can cast all day long, but if things get hairy he can pull out the stronger stuff that will wear him out. Damage caused by spell casting only goes away with the passage of time and cannot be healed by magic. Damage stacks with normal damage but the caster merely falls unconcious if he falls below 0 hit points if part of that is stun. Second I'd give casters alot of flexibility that they don't have in other games. I'd get rid of flashy particle effects that everyone sees during the initial spell casting phase. I'd let only other casters see this spell effect. A non magic user seeing a casting of a fireball would see some hand movements and then a fire ball. A caster would see a unique set of lights and effects that they could use to figure out what was being cast and then throw the appropriately modified spell out that could actually work as a counter spell to the one being cast. A caster able to switch around the effects of a spell would be interesting (I.E. instead of casting a fireball it actually becomes ball lightning etc.) Third A caster can only handle so much energy at one time. Let him divide up his casting power amongst seperate things. Some might go to protecting his group members from incoming spells, while another bit of it goes to casting, and then even some held back for active spell defence. For what ever amount of energy he pumps into one of the three categories it weakens his ability during that time in the others. (think of a triangle GUI with a curser in it. where ever that cursor is in that gui represents the amount of power spread out amongst the three. The caster could change the cursor whenever he wanted to. Fourth Add in Ley Lines, or areas where magic is more potent, weaker etc. Make places where magic doesn't work as intended.... Fifth I'd add in some useful spells that are not combat, or transportation oriented. I.e. Shelter Spells, portable vault spells, Psycho-kinetic spells, etc. etc. Ideas presented here are free. They are presented for the community to use how they see fit. All I ask is just a thanks if they should be used. [edited by - robert4818 on May 30, 2003 9:07:23 PM]

I like the idea of getting rid of mana. Only question would be, how would a player know that a spell would drain them completely if you didn''t have a mana metaphor? Also, the mostly non-fatal spells idea is interesting. Would you allow looting of unconcious foes, or would you have to kill them before you can access their inventory/dropped items? If you use the former, it could be irritating for another human player to have his/her stash raided while unconcious, and if you choose the later you''d end up with all mages being adept at sneaking in for the kill with a knife. Perhaps some more clarity on this would be good.

The second idea of allowing another character to see you casting, try to figure out what you''re casting and then counter/change it sounds interesting, but I don''t think it''d work in a real-time environment. You''d have to have relatively slow combat or the non-magic characters would pummel your mages into the ground before they can get the first hand-flick out.

I REALLY like the idea of having magic potency change depending on location. Very neat.

Non-combat and non-transportation spells would be cool, but you''ll have to be careful to balance the play so that hack''n''slash players in mage disguises aren''t forced to use them, but can do so if they wish for a more meangingful game.

Your third idea about power is a little confusing. Can you elaborate a bit more on it?

A magic system that I heard about a wile back was a sort of macro language built into the game. By assembling the correct keywords in the correct order, you were actually able to ''program'' your own spells into the computer. It was a pretty neat idea too. Never heard whether it ever got used or not. Could make a nice complement to this system, allowing players to spend time on experimentation to combine spells for more and better effects.

I very much like the idea of having magic effects visible only to other casters. I don''t think that the casting effects would have to slow the spell so much that non-casters would have too much of a speed advantage. Consider, in a fighting game, you can read your enemy''s moves just by recognizing the pre-attack animations. In some fighting games, the fact that some characters have very similar pre-attack animations is is actually an advantage they have over other characters. For instance, in Super Smash Brothers: Melee, Bowser''s ''wind-up'' for Horn-Butt looks a lot like his wind-up for Shell Grind. Those attacks are different enough that if someone confuses Shell Grind for Horn Butt and tries a running grab, they''ll probably be killed instead grabbing ol'' Bowser by the horns.

So, I think just making the animations all look the same to non-casters and only showing the special particle effects to casters, even if there is only a few moments of pre-attack effects, other casters will have time to recognize and counter spells.

I have to admit that power is a bit vague....I''ll try to clear up as best I can. First I took this magic system from the PNP game Shadowrun...(with some twists, but this part comes straight from the game) Well close to it, anyways..I messed up one part. The "Power" represents in that game a set of dice called spell pool, These were extra dice you had that you could use to do one of 4 things with. You could apply dice to your spell casting rolls there by increasing your chances to hit with the spell and increasing your chance to deal more damage. You could use the dice to work as spell defence for yourself and partymembers, Taking away from the power of an incoming spell before it even had a chance to affect another player. You could use it to help you dispell summoned spirits. And you could use it to help absorb drain. I like everything except the third one for an MMO. (Though being able to dispell another players pet would be interesting) In the PNP game it was actually extra dice you added to your normal rolls, I would rather see something like this.

As a player advances, his power rating goes up. Power rating represents the power of the spells that he can cast. If a player has 15 power points He can place all his points into spell casting. He can cast increadibly powerful spells, but has no defence agains incoming ones, and he can''t absorb the stun from the spell as well. If he places all his points into spell defence, incoming spells do very little damage to him or his party. On the other hand he can only cast very weak spells himself, and again he has little chance of absorbing the drain very well. If all points are placed in drain, he can cast his spells all day long, but he''s not going to do as much damage. These points are able to be reallocated every 5-15 seconds to adapt to the situation, but cannot be changed while casting a spell.

Needs a little more work i''m sure, but I hope this clarify''s stuff.

get rid of mana (sounds of)
i suggest add "energy"
fighter need energy, magician need energy, running need energy.

in another word stamina.

Ooo I love magic system design :-)

I personally don''t think mana needs to go... Mana represents either a person''s magical energy, or their magical stamina, however you want to explain it. What I personally despise is the player KNOWING, say, "I have 216 mana out of 345". Personally, I advocate the complete removal of numbers from games-- no health numbers, no stat (str/dex/etc) numbers, no "+1" on weapons, etc. Instead, have some sort of visual representation of these things-- most games have health/mana/stamina meters instead of numbers on the main GUI screen, but reduce it to numbers when the player enters the menus... Especially for a multiplayer game, this puts another nail in the coffin of any "real role playing".

But I digress... D&D uses a system of memorization instead of mana ''cause it''s a lot easier on the players to keep track of. Computers have the advantage of being easily able to keep track of a lot of numbers and quickly do calculations. And besides, no offense, who are we to decide how "real" a magic system is? Maybe in one universe the only way to really do it is to memorize spells, and you can cast as many as you have memorized without worrying about any "stored" energy or any kind of "power" or "stamina" when it comes to magic... Or maybe in another universe, everyone has a certain capacity for power, and just like capacity for holding one''s breath, it can be exercised and increased. Or perhaps another universe has multiple methods-- much like the spells-vs-prayers implemented in a lot of MUDs...





Here''s a little story... There''s a series of books by Roger Zelazny called the Amber chronicles, upon which a narrative role-playing game was created by Eric Wujcik. The basic idea is there are infinite universes and the players assume the roles of characters who have the ability to move between them. (It''s a LOT more complex than that, and a very good read if anyone''s looking for something new to get into.) There''s been countless rumors of SciFi Network movies, computer games, and even a card game based on it, but nothing has ever materialized. Anyway, the design of the RPG is very different than most because it was designed to be diceless, mostly numberless, and paperless. There are NO random number generators, the characters do not have "official" character sheets, and there are no calculations or tables used during such things as combat. It''s a very flexible and an incredible system if you have a GM that can handle it, but it''s not easy.

Unfortunately, it is my opinion that the magic system is VERY weak. Amber DOES have the idea that magic works differently in different places... In some universes, magic comes very easily. In others (such as out Earth), magic is difficult, but still possible. In some, magic completely does not exist. However, it uses a system much like D&D, but instead of memorized spells are partially cast, and "hung" (usually on an object) to be completed and cast later. (There''s also a completely seperate conjuration and "words of power" systems.) In a game where there are infinite universes-- where players can go to absolutely any world that they can imagine, I find it very odd that there is ONE way of sorcery. The explaination I''ve gotten is that there ARE many type of magic in some of the universes, but this is the only one that works (almost) across the board.

bah.

Not good enough for me. In a game where a player could''ve learned to fight from anyone in any universe, I find it too restrictive for there to be only one magic. Therefore, when I run a game, I let the players design their own system. First they must decide history things, such as where they learned the magic, how they learned it, and who from. They must also decide what they derive their magic from (nature, inner energy, etc). EVERYTHING else is up to them: how "universal" the magic is, how they castthe spells, how they memorize or prepare the spells, even how often they can cast, how long the effects last, and if they have any "limiting factors" such as mana or magical stamina.

This may sound like it''s highly open for abuse, but it is the responsibility of the GM (me) to maintain game balance. If someone declares that their magic is capable across all universes, can be cast as often as they like with no preperation time, and has no limiting factors, the spells that they cast will be VERY weak. Fireballs will be no more powerful than throwing a burning wad of paper at their victim. Now I''ve never had to take it this far because I''ve got a good group of roleplayers, but you should get my point. I suggest to players that they should probably pick from a pre-existing system of magic-- such as using D&D''s system, or a mana-based system seen in many computer RPGs. It seems to work out well, because each magic is unique and "special" to the player, and it also stems role play since I force the players to write a history.





So while this would be impossible to implement in a videogame RPG, I do think a multisystem game would definately work. As previously mentioned, I''ve seen MUDs that implement as many as three different systems-- mana based magic for you typical mages, a prayer system (based on standing with one''s god) for priests, and a much more difficult system of the player gaining death and disease (or slowly becoming undead) in return for spells/conjurations for necromancers.

-Desco-

I''m going to do an analogy of this magic system to a weightlifter.

For toning muscles a weightlifter doesn''t need to actually max lift, he does it by lifting the max weight he can lift and still do large repetitions. In the same way, in this magic system a caster can cast the right spell and do a large number of them and still be effective. Without slowing himself down to much.

On the other hand the wieghtlifter can choose to max lift and then he''ll only be able to do a few repetitions before he tires himself out the trade off here is building muscles as opposed to more energy being exerted. The same way a caster can choose to cast powerful spells and quickly make himself VERY tired. These spells are more powerful, but at a greater cost.

Finally you might decide to try to lift more than is really good for you, and end up spraining your back. This is represented by casting more powerful spells than are good for you, instead of taking stun damage, you start taking physical damage.

Interesting thread. An idea I was considering for mine is what I call concentration. Each mage will have the ability to concentrate (determined by intelligence and constitution perhaps). Each spell will require a certain amount of mana and a certain amount of concentration. Mana is a one-time hit just like in every other MMORPG on the planet. Concentration is different, though. The longer the duration of the spell, the more concentration is required. Offensive spells like a fireball will require a short burst of concentration, but after that, it will quickly regenerate. Buffs and area of effect spells, however, will reduce your available concentration permanently until the the magic is dispelled (either by more magic or by the original caster).

Physical and magical attacks against the wizard will likewise drastically effect his concentration. As he gets older, he may learn to maintain his concentration in the heat of battle, but initially, care must be taken to avoid direct confrontation.

Also, distance will affect concentration. If a mage casts a buff on a character, and then that character runs off to join another group, the amount of concentration required to maintain the spell will increase logarithmically. Eventually, if the mage doesn''t manually dispell the buff, his concentration will deplete and the buffs will fizzel. When the caster''s concentration is depleted, undefined things will start happening with his magic (spells will break up, they may become less powerful, and new spells probably will not cast at all) until concentration regenerates (when unhindered, concentration will increase quickly).

The beauty of this system is that it keeps a caster from indiscriminantly casting buffs/area of effect spells. It always bugged me in AC, for example, when wizards would setup high level unmanned bots in the middle of town that would buff characters for money. This system would prevent that and similar "unrealistic" magic abuses. It also limits the number of buffs/spells which can be cast at any given time so that I do not have to do some cheesy memorization system (like EQ and DAOC). Mages would quickly learn which combinations of spells were effective, while leaving enough concentration to maintain armor/protective buffs. Otherwise, they may find themselves (and their party) defenseless in the heat of battle.

bpopp (bpopp.net)

Some games already introduce this idea. Another way to look at it is if your using magic points in your game, you lose those magic points until the buff is gone.

Another couple of things I''d like to see...those these would require modifications to the chat system of games as well. The main change in the chat system is the removal of global chats. (and the impossible removal of IRC) so that guild planning would have to take place inside buildings or secure areas. Then you could have magic spells such as Scrying, and Dome of silence etc. The ability to use magic as a spying device to tap into other chat channels and such. Also I think magic could be used for certain classes to be able to communicate globally makeing them needed for communications.