Nicolas,
that's an excellent concept you have there. I can see one flaw, though, or see it as a possible improvement.
Instead of limiting yourself to 7,8,9 then 4,5,6 etc.
you could use the whole keypad for each "step" in your casting.
Think of it as using the circle menu in Neverwinter Nights, for example.
possibly you could use the 5 to come back one level.
I am only suggesting that you can have a much larger number of combinations, if you think your idea through.

The original concept itself is great :) Although you are only really describing a User Interface, rather than a magic system. This sounds just like a runic system with some oomph :)
I love the idea, myself, especially for combat. For someone who has played fighting games before, this makes so much sense, doesn't it? The problem is that people are getting more and more used to playing with the mouse. And in this case the keypad is usually not used all that much... (well, since I switched to WASD I haven't used it, personally)

One I was thinking about: you could, instead of having to repeatedly type a key, simply hold it for more or less a long time (with some power bar filling up as a visual aid, maybe). This would add an element of, say, elasticity to spellcasting. Something that is very much lacking, IMO.
We would get closer to the gameplay of a fighting game, where timing, not just remembering a set of keys, is essential to success :)

Imagine translating a fighting game into a duel of magicians... aaaaah, the possibilities :) [rolleyes]

Nicolas, I really like your concept... in fact, I was thinking of sth similiar last summer :-) sth about multiplayer game for 2-8 players who are playing mages, wizards, necromancers, druids etc. (each profession fights using magic), and in the simplest version, they fight with each other (or team vs team, or CTF, or domination, or ... etc.).

You could imagine that as Quake deathmatch, but with camera above heads (like in Crimsonland), and without normall weapons - instead, you cast spells... BUT, unlike other games - you won't press left mouse button to summon Big Ass Demon ;-) For simplicity, let's say we're going to cast fireball. In order to do it, you can do sth like this:

1. Summon fire in place X - it will stay there for a while. Of course, you can summon as much fire as you like - from small torch to BIG camp-fire - it all depends on how much mana you spend and how much time you devoted to casting it.
2. Now, let's say you summon wind - let it blow through fire, direction: enemy. Obviously, fire should turn to regular fireball if wind was strong, or flamethrower - if wind was rather weak.
Of course, you can cancel flamethrower version at any moment, and make wind much stronger - fireball would fly, but it won't as powerfull, as it would be at the beginning.
3. You can also use telecinesis to "punch" fire, which would make it fly somewhere. Punch fire in the center, to make it fly in all directions - Nova spell anyone?
4. You can use wind to throw enemy on already summoned fire - probably harder, but certainly possible.
5. If enemy mage has summoned fire and thinks that he will use it for casting fireball (target: you), don't worry, use your wind or telecinesis for self defence - just cast one of those spells on that fire, as you would do with your own...

Of course, using this system to cast spells in realtime fight would be hard even for experienced fpp players... so, there's another concept: frozen spells. You cast spell normally, but it won't activate untill ie. 5 seconds (or any number you want).
So you can have some time to summon three relatively big fires (sorry for this sentence, I don't know english grammar very well :-/) near each other, and to cast hurricane (enchanced wind spell) at them, which (in theory) should create sth like fire wall. Or, use telecinesis to pull out standing nearby tree, throw it at fires - tree will start burning - and then... throw it at enemy :-] effectively hurting him by fire and tree's weight and momentum.

OTOH, watch out, cause he can use tornado to re-throw that tree at you... or he will simply use more mana for telecinesis, grab tree from your "hand", suppress flames with summoned ice (or normal wind, but little colder) and animate tree - which would turn into might ent... which would go and kick your ass! :-))


See where I'm going with it? :-) Possiblities are endless, you are limited only by your imagination and magic powers... and mana level... well, uhmmm, sadly - also by programmer's skills and abilities - it would be VERY hard to create a system, in which you could be as free, as I explained in my post. Obviosly, having good physics system would help a lot :-)

I think it would be very cool game, if such system was properly implemented... anyone heard of similiar, already existing game?

[Edited by - Koshmaar on March 9, 2005 3:35:14 PM]

Making the magic system logical and easy to control is nice, but does not put the mystery back in to the magic; almost on the contrary. Also, the original poster was interested on how to make learning magic more concrete. Here's a couple of thoughts on how to do that.

Now, I'll assume you have some sort of ritual magic, i.e. you utter all sort of syllables and wave your hands or whatever (sacrificing stuff, chanting, praying, playing musical instruments, speaking in tongues, hopping about, taking all sort of wierd stances, whatever). Now, each spell is basically a sequence of these actions. At the beginning of each game you generate a sequence for each spell. The lenght of the sequence should be proportional on the power of the spell, e.g. a simple healing spell is very fast to cast and a mass genocide spell is very lengthy. Because spells are randomly generated, you actually have to learn the spells either by trying them out or by studying spellbooks, being taught by other mages etc. There can be very rare spells that you can only learn from spellbooks that you'll have to find from exotic places. Casting these spells is done by actually performing (rather, making the character perform) these actions.

Of course you'll think now that the system is poorly balanced as even a starting mage can easily cast the Nuclear Holocaust spell if he knows the spell. This is where character skills start to play an important role. A starting mage is not good at, say, chanting. Now, certain spells might require that there is a chant component that requires a certain amount of skill or otherwise the spell will fail. Also, if you need a material component (e.g. some blood of a certain creature), the quality of the material will affect the result. When a spell fails, nothing happens, or if you are unlucky, some other spell (usually disastrous to the caster) is cast instead. The power of the spell is proportional to the success of the character and the quality of the material component (if any); if the required components of the ritual are prepared well (e.g. you chant very well), the spell becomes more powerful. The most powerful spells could have components that are nearly impossible to find or at least very expensive, or just very hard to succeed in if a skill is required.

There could be several rituals to represent the same spell. The shorter versions of the spells can be more difficult to cast (requiring more skill), which means that when you gain skills, older spells become easier to cast and more powerful. All the parts of a spell take game time, so shorter spells can increase the caster's life expectancy.

Now, the spells can be as described in the post by Koshmaar; each spell is actually a part of a bigger spell. In order to cast a fireball you need to create fire and then make it move, but in addition to that you'll first have to learn how to do those things. Of course this makes spellcasting take a lot more time, but magic is supposed to be hard anyway. The Diabloesque style of casting 100 fireballs a minute is overkill and makes magic too mundane to be mystical.

As for using this system, you could configure the keys (numpad keys or otherwise) to represent the different syllables or whatever you use for the rituals. Now, since spells can become rather lengthy, you could also make them into macros that you can assign to keys. Of course you can argue that that would again make casting too easy, but RPGs should be more tactical and less reflex-based games anyway. You'd still have to learn the spells.

Does this sound plausible at all?

That's some great ideas you got there man :)

I was thinking also, that to compensate the problem of timing,
that is, the fact that most spells have to be typed on the fly, you could introduce some more elements.
First, dissociate the typing from the actual casting.
Make each elements that have to be typed associated with a visual cue, say a gesture, or some chanting, or whatever else you can think of.
As you gain level, those elements take less and less time.
When an enemy starts casting a spell, you can see them doing it, and because it takes time, you could interpret on the fly what they are about to cast, giving you time to start casting a counter spell.
Say, a message could pop up over the enemy if your magician has enough knowledge, or is familiar with that perticular form of magic, telling what element is being "spelled out" shall i say. Say, in a runic system, if your character knew it, the name of the runes would appear over the enemy player as he casts.

This also has a very nice side effect, which is to tie the in game skills of the character, with the actual skills of the player.
This reduce the typing frenzy, slowing the game to a manageable level, and more importantly, to a network friendly level.

Then add some funky things like the magic feats you can acquire in DnD 3.5 (silent casting, still casting, fast casting, etc).
Then add the possibility of storing your cast spells for later use (at some calculated cost), in the form of scrolls or whatnot...

I think this could really go somewhere. And if you think that it's a too complicated system, I think you shouldn't underestimate your players. After all, every likes to be able to take pride in the skills required to do what they do.
But then again, that's my personal opinion that it's more interesting and rewarding to drag the player upwards rather than try to level the field at the bottom, where the lowest common denominator resides. It's all down to your target audience I suppose.

Oh, and it's perfectly OK to discuss UI design, you know. I wasn't giving out or anything. Just pointing out something I thought was interesting.
Because let's face it, the design of the interface is as important as the magic system itself. If you have a great background idea for your magic, but your interface is crusty, or just too simplistic, what's the point, eh?

PS: you know, it's free to register, not to be a zealot or anything [wink]

Just for a little perspective, there's a little spell that comes from either Candomble or another afro-Brazilian religion that might serve as an example of how magic "works" in the real world...

The spell is for finding a new lover. You need a brand new pen, a clean piece of paper and new bottle of a sweet, fruit soda. Basically, you're supposed to drink half of the soda, then write your name and a few words about who you want to meet on a piece of paper. Then, you go to a market square or a park or other busy place and leave the paper under the bottle. Finally you muster up some joy into your heart and you say a prayer to the Iwuji or some orixa (deity) offering praise and asking for a new lover.

that's more of a ritual, but that's a cool example in any case :)
rituals are generally not cast "on the fly". They take more time to prepare but that's because their results are generally also much more profound, definitive, etc.
Essentially, the more you invest into a spell (time, efforts, components), the more you get out of it.

Oh yes, you might wanna check this out, too (a book on "real" magic; sadly haven't managed to get my hands on it yet)

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Original post by Anonymous Poster We-ell, it sounds to me like you brought nothing really new. You simply tweaked the previously proposed systems. In a definitively good way, that is. You took the numeric Pad keys from my UI, Koshmaar's verbal and somatic parts of a spell, molded them in a different wording, and voilà! you've got a system. the only really new thing you brought, which I personally is a good thing but hard to implement the way you describe it, is the random generation of spells. You say that each spell is different for everybody, but you can learn them from someone else? could be tricky. If it is only a randomization of the numpad keys functions, then, it has close to no interest. If it is a complete randomization of ALL the components of a spell, then i am unable to understand how one can learn from someone else a different combination. It would invariably result in a different outcome, wouldn't it?

Actually I didn't mean that the spells were randomized for each character, but for each game world/session/whatever. Every time you play the spells are different, but for all the characters in one single game session the spells are the same. The point being, of course, that they are random so that you can't learn the spells in one game and then know everything beforehand in the next game. After all, the thread title regards the study of magic, which is what the character should do, not the player. If the spells are the same every time you play, there is no studying for the character, but rather for the player.

And rituals can add more restrictions to spells; you might need prepared components (heart of a wolf sacrificed at the shrine of obsessive-compulsive behaviour), a certain location (the temple of malice), a certain time of day, or a combination of similar restrictions (in order to cast Mass Genocide you need to travel to the town of Zorankahas and insult the spirit of the moon thrice).

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Honestly, instead of haphazard spells, using different numpad keys, why not let the magic be purely instinctive, and let the learning be part of a strategic use of your fingers? [...] Honestly, i don't see a need for randomization of spells. It would only make it trickier to learn something. And if most spells are to be attack spells, then, trying them out without succeeding is bound to get you killed, since you won't succeed everytime, notwithstanding the fact that you could create self-inflicted wounds through misspelling.

I already commented the reason for the randomization (learning spells is basically a character action), but as for trying out different spells and getting killed, well, that's just to make it less appealing trying to find that spell of mass genocide in the beginning of the game. Still, if you were really desperate (say, you were in a cell in an orcish prison and you were to be executed anyway the next morning) or had learned that some of the components are safe to try (e.g. you learn from a fortune cookie that sacrificing rats will never cause you harm), you could still try out the spells. The moral is that there is not really many reasons why you shouldn't be able to cast the spells by trying, so there needs to be something to discourage you from doing so too early in your magical studies... And you could learn partial rituals and trying to find the last part is not as dangerous as having to ad-lib a whole ritual from scratch.

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As for your criticism of Magic not being about reflexes, well, that is true. Mostly, anyway. I will willingly admit that most of what you see in Harry Potter is not what one would have refered to as being magic beofre Harry Potter came to Grand Public's awareness, but now that it has, most people will readily think that a magic duel is something that can happen between two rival mages, and that it happens in very much the same way J.K. Rowlings described it. Now Magic IS about reflexes, and being able to cast the right offensive or defensive spell in exactly the right moment.

Actually I criticized RPGs, or rather, Diabloesque games requiring too much reflexes, as one of the basic ideas is that it is the character who actually does all the fighting, spell casting, etc. Character skill and reflexes, in that sense, are what matter. The player brings in the tactical thinking.

Still, if for philosophical discussion alone, the way I've been thinking of implementing magic is actually twofold (note that this is not what I described above, but rather a more complex system that I simplified earlier); you have inherent magic, which is about using your willpower to alter the universe (all you need to do is to think; "use the force", so to speak) and then ritual magic (or spirit magic), where the whole point is to humor/honor/amuse/whatever the spirits enough by doing things and then the spirits use their inherent magic skills to do the bidding of the performer.

Basically inherent magic would be very hard and could require some form of energy (e.g. mana), but you would have complete control. This kind of magic is about mental powers and has nothing to do with reflexes per se.

Then again, ritual magic would be relatively easy, since it is not you who is doing the magic. No special energy is required (unless you need to climb a mountain as a part of the ritual or something like that), as all you need to do is to perform the ritual. In this type of magic you have practically no control. The spirits do as they will, and might ignore you even if you performed the ritual correctly. This kind of magic is about reflexes etc. as you actually need to move about and do things.

I could tell you about the other issues in the magic system that I've been trying to design (e.g. if your character dies and is strong enough spiritually, you could actually become a spirit, being able to possess mortals and use your inherent magic while not being able to interact with the world physically; that's the way to deal with character death, not respawning... [grin]), but I fear it would soon be far beyond the limits of the thread title... Still, this example shows that there is no one interpretation on what magic really is. Whether it requires reflexes or not, should be a matter related to the character, not the player (IMHO).

One other thing about magic is that the system that has been described here is very straightforward and causal. Then again, why not have magic be a little chaotic? That is, you can't always be sure of what happens.

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As for the shorter spells being more powerful as you become more powerful yourself, [...]. Well, would a mage even be able to take damage AND be able to cast at the same time, or would you consider that casting a spell is a little like making a combo in sword-fighting, and taking a hit stops your combo? that would favour short casting spells, but would lower the damage, but would a longer spell be able to defeat a more formidable opponent if someone could hold him for just a little longer?

What I meant is that the shorter spells are more difficult to cast, and as you (the character) gain skills, the success rate for the shorter spells increase and thus it becomes more feasible to use those spells. Short spells are inherently more powerful exactly for the reason you provided — you don't always have the time or the ability to concentrate long enough in order to succeed in those longer spells. All spells would still gain power as you progress in skills.

And I do like the idea of having the maximum spell length proportional to the stat related to spellcraft even though I snipped it from the quote.

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Original post by ahw I was thinking also, that to compensate the problem of timing, that is, the fact that most spells have to be typed on the fly, you could introduce some more elements. First, dissociate the typing from the actual casting. Make each elements that have to be typed associated with a visual cue, say a gesture, or some chanting, or whatever else you can think of. As you gain level, those elements take less and less time.

I'd say typing shouldn't be necessary for casting spells as such. After all, I wouldn't like to make my RPG a reincarnation of Typing of the Dead, but still you should be able to use the different components separately for trying out different combinations or for rarely used spells you don't want to bind to a key separately. You should be able to bind spells to the desired keys so that when you press the key for Mass Genocide, the character performs the ritual as if you had typed it component by component.

I don't know if gaining levels should shorten the time the casting takes (the timing of the spell could be crucial), at least not necessarily a lot — that was the idea of having shorter rituals. But what I would like to see (and hear) is that as you gain levels, the performance actually gets better, e.g. if you have a very low chanting skill, chanting sounds really horrible and falsetto... [lol]

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When an enemy starts casting a spell, you can see them doing it, and because it takes time, you could interpret on the fly what they are about to cast, giving you time to start casting a counter spell. Say, a message could pop up over the enemy if your magician has enough knowledge, or is familiar with that perticular form of magic, telling what element is being "spelled out" shall i say. Say, in a runic system, if your character knew it, the name of the runes would appear over the enemy player as he casts.

Actually learning spells from seeing someone perform them was one thing I was thinking about earlier but forgot to mention it. If you have enough skill in spellcraft and high perception, you should certainly learn at least parts of rituals. Using this for counterspells I had not considered, great idea!

For simplicity, the UI could have a separate list "Book of Rituals" in which you have all the rituals you know (or partial rituals, if you only know parts of them) and you could have an UI for arranging the desired rituals onto the desired keys on the keyboard.

well, u'd be surprised to know there _was_ a game entirely based around the concept of "Magic Research"... SpellCraft
One of those games I wish were updated to todays technology and graphics :)

Oh, and you should try and email a staff or something. Simply look up their email in their profile.

you know the keypad system sounds pretty nifty, and runes in Underworld and Arx got tiresome to click or draw (tho drawing was still nifty, after a while you just wanna get em done. You could buffer them for this reason).

BUT (there's always a butt) how would you cast, say, a Create Food spell? in Underworld there was a food rune, and a create rune.
So, as a modification to the keypad scheme, i propose this:

have each stage of the phrase use the entire keypad.
This is what the AP who really needs to register ;) described:

 create  attack    defend    7 8 9negative neutral  positive   4 5 6  heat   movement  matter    1 2 3

So in elements, besides heat, movement and matter, you could have:

heat   movement  electricityfood    metal       rockair     water       dirt

and in actions you would have besides create, attack, defend:
transform bridge... can't think of anymore.
(attack should be project)

Neutral/positive/negative could be placed along more adjectives, like in Underworld: Great, Minuscle, Poisonous, weak, etc etc.

So a spell would consist of 3 keystrokes, for example:
Project Great Food (throws tomato!) =)

Project Poisonous Air would... well its pretty self descriptive.

And Defend Negative Movement should protect you aganist projectile weapons!

So anyways. thats all. Oh, adjectives could be contextual to Elements, but if so, the order should be: Action, Element, Adjective.
If not, the standard Action, Adjective, Element should do.

About the OT, learning.... you could still have to enable each of these 'keys' via a rune or a studied papyrus or something =)

An almost exact example of your numberpad system was used in a little game called Amulets & Armor. The player finds Runes and then combines them quickly using the keypad, so you may want to have a look at that. ;D