I think that there should be random side-effects in games with magic / magic weapon use, these should not necessarily be dangerous, but worrying, disturbing, puzzling or awe inspiring. Each time you use a magical item there should be a small chance (15%-24% ?) that it emits a random side effect, this side effect could be anything from butterflies / or spiders being conjured into existence neaby the caster. The side effects wouldn''t be that serious (certainly for a low level spell), but maybe higher level spells could have more serious consequences, like warping the world around them by shattering windows and mutating nearby creatures into other things... and creating strong winds. Weapons should also sometimes seem to malfunction... ? The reason why this should happen in some games, is because it helps to create uncertainty and doubt, the player wonders what is going on when an imp is shot screeching out with their triple fireball spell. (5% chance?), and start being creeped out by skittering insects being attracted to them when they use their ring of Harmony. Weapons seeming to malfunction when they are used, would worry the player, is it going to break (okay maybe you don''t want them to think this incase they stop using it to preserve it...). Imagining a wand bulging at the seams, or for a second turning into a serpent. It could even depend upon the personality and behaviour of the caster, (subconscious leakage ?), thus if the user is a good character mildly beneficial side effects could occur. As with everything, moderation is the key. You wouldn''t want every magical spell/weapon to do this, nor for them to do it every time, but if they did they just often enough, it would add a more supersticious aura to the game, and play psychological tricks on the player. Is this a cursed weapon ?

In the magickal system I developed, the chance of a random effect increases in probability if the same spell is used repetitively. This prevents spellcasters from using the same spells over and over again.

I think this is much better than a general random chance of miscasting.

Good idea, although what I am talking about here is not misfiring spells (as the spells work fine, just have strange effects on the world). Also in this sideeffect system, I think it would be cool if when you used a magical weapon, it would slowly tend towards a random sideeffect and this would become engrained in it... this would add some interest when buying used weapons, what will they also do?

One interesting thing to note is that to get good combinations of effects you''ll need a lot of variables that can be affected. I''ve been thinking of something similar: mysterious alien artifacts and how using or encountering them could have wildly different effects. I thought that, unless I wanted them to be limited like the Shrines is Diablo, I''d have to come up with many more things that could be changed. For instance, you couldn''t have a magical aging affect if you''ve got no age variable.

If you can stand the horrible voice acting, btw, you may want to check out Enemy Infestation. It''s got a science fiction theme, but it''s one of the only games I''ve seen were weapons have random effects each level. (You''re fighting monsters, and sometimes have to use hairspray cans, fire extinguishers, and such as weapons, and have no idea how the monsters have adapted.)



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Just waiting for the mothership...

Hmm... I''m not sure if I like the idea of random side-effects or not. You gave conjuring butterflies as a side-effect example. What purpose does it really serve? No, let me say that differently. Things that don''t really serve a purpose are fine if they add to the feel of the game. But what I want to know is, how do you justify butterflies coming out of nowhere as a result of a fireball spell?

If you''re going to have spell side-effects, I think they should be more relevant to the actual spell that is being cast. And if it''s going to have risk thrown in at high levels, you might as well link it with some sort of misfire on the spell, or at least a partial one. Perhaps your wizard tries to cast a concentrated flame spell that is too powerful for him to handle, and he loses control of it, so it becomes an area-effect spell that damages allies as well as enemies. Maybe you could do some sort of combinational magic system, where the player can build up larger spells from smaller components. The line between what the wizard can handle and what he cannot wouldn''t be perfectly clear, so if a player wanted to construct large, powerful effects, that''s where the risk would come in, that he might have his characters attempting something above their level of ability.

Of course, if the random effects idea somehow fits into the construction of your world and the nature of magic within it, then by all means, do it. I was just wondering what the basis for it was.

One other thing before I stop ranting here... when you say weapons malfunctioning, can you be a little more specific? Does this somehow link into the side-effects of magic in the air, or is it something you''d put in separately? I can understand malfunctions if you''ve got a really complicated, experimental weapon (like a handheld fusion cannon or something) -- but for most weapons, I can''t think of malfunctions as an occurrence that would come up very often, if at all. I already gave the exception of high-tech stuff, but how would a sword malfunction?

The point of this whole thing is just to make sure that anything you add to your game makes perfect sense in the context of the world, because things like this that are designed to add uncertainty to the game can end up adding high levels of frustration instead, and it''s not easy to tell when you''ve stepped over the line... until you start getting nasty E-mails from your testers, that is.

-Ironblayde
Aeon Software

slightly tangent, I think you could take care of the RPG leveling question by making the more powerful spells / magic items have inherent defects that balance them out.

Armor of Invulnerability? Sure we got that, but it weighs a ton and you can bend down to pick up anything. Sure hope you brought your squire along.

Enchanted sword? Sure, cuts through dragon hide like butter. Of course it''s also a wee bit tricky to sheathe.

Massive Column of Flame Spell? We got that too. Of course, if you use this in an enclosed area (like a dungeon) it soaks up all the local oxygen.

Minor Flame spell? No that one doesn''t have any asphixiation risk, but it''s really only good for marshmellows.

The real question, Adventurer, is if you feel lucky....

A fun way to do this would be to have each spell composed of a string os short words or cubcommands:


Fireball --> Eep okk okk urp whee foo

Fist of Death --> Zong kay eep whee okk zang

Conjure a goblin --> Eep zip okk urp whee foo

This would all be fairly transparent to the user, unless you wanted to do something like in Nox. But did you notice that the Fireball and the goblin spell only differ by one component?

You could have this set of variables/components such that, if one (or more!) of the components is screwed up, you get a different spell, or screwed up effect. You could then change the percentage chance of "spell mutation" (I''ll copyright that later) based on whatever factors you please.

There''s an even better way to do this, but that''s another post.

- gollumgollum

The magicl sideeffect of a spell could be made not totally random, but associated with the part of the world the character is in. For example if the character is exploring a volcano where there is lots of heat and fire "magic" ice spells may be harder to cast or water spells could emit steam reducing visibility as a side effect.

"slightly tangent, I think you could take care of the RPG leveling question by making the more powerful spells / magic items have inherent defects that balance them out."

That is definitely a gameplay balance / AD&D technique that should be adopted more often. An AD&D example that I particularly liked was the animated small wax figure that would fight for you, but was very vulnerable to flame.

Obviously I things like butterflies would go with a Create light spell, or a rainbow spell etc. maybe .

okay, what if when you got really low on mp, wierd stuff starts to happen to you. If the magic is the power of the mind and you get low on this ability, then you are getting low on the power of your mind, so maybe odd things will happen to you, or you will feel weird, like kind of woozy.

How about the player has certain types of magic, fire, ice, earth, space, whatever. He doesn't learn new types of fire and ice, but instead he has the ability to put more power into his magic, or concetrate the magic into a smaller area, or both. So you could cast a small fireball to hit one person, a weak fire spread to hit all enemy, a powerful fireball to burn one person, a napalm bomb to really burn everyone, and so on. It would be a kind of slide bar thing, vary the amount of power in the magic and the range of the magic and this would vary the amount of mp the magic takes.

Another thing, what if the magic had some kind of effect on the space-time continuum around you? And then, what if you cast this really powerful, really concentrated spell and it opened a rift in the time-space continuum. What would come out of the rift? Would you get sucked in? Maybe this could be a gameplay element, like everyone always tells you never to concetrate too much power into too little a space because it will do something really bad. Then later, you decide to do it just for the hell of it and you find some new place, maybe it's good, maybe it's bad.

Also, if it doesn't tear open the continuum, it could bend it, making things that were straight no longer straight and things that were hard no longer hard. So maybe your physical weapons wouldn't work so well after casting that space warping magic. Or, maybe this warping will change your path, so one that was once impossible because of a huge chasm is now possible because the chasm has closed (I guess this is kind of like the spectral shift idea of Soul Reaver)

I like that idea of the enviroment affecting how well you can cast some magic.

shut up
*Voltron pulls out Blazing Sword*
Viewers: "It's over!"

Edited by - capn_midnight on September 22, 2000 2:36:14 PM