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Original post by Wush This is something I am thinking about once in a while, when you have a spell building system how do you maximize the uniqueness of each players spells? (how do you make them one of a kind)

By way of similie, I give an example of a loot item, a throwing knife.

It could be a Superbly crafted knife, forged by an expert blacksmith, or it could be a Poorly crafted stick, yanked from a tree by an orc. The knife could be in good condition: A well-oiled blade or recently sharpened stick, or it could be in poor condition (Rusty/Blunt/Worn by use).

Then it could be treated: Dipping it in snake venom, or other vile toxins. Then it could be enchanted with magical runes, spell rituals, and so on. What started as a 'throwing knife' becomes virtually unique by the end of the process, not only as an idividual item, but also the item in it's current state.



So too with a magic system. We could create a "fire" spell that starts with a piece of flint, maybe similar to burning hands. Then enhance it with a feather and tar, so that it flies and sticks. Maybe bind a ghost/evil demon (go kill one first), and the target is hounded by the demon that was defeated earlier. And of course the demon-posessed tarred & feathered flint could be dipped in snake venom. This treated flint is used up when the spell is cast.

The "added ingredients" thing is only one dimension though, which is different from the throwing knife. The knife had modifiers in several different categories. Other categories for the spell might be the sequence, quality and/or age of ingredients, the level of spellcaster/target, the time spent casting.

[Edited by - AngleWyrm on February 1, 2009 7:29:01 AM]

sunandshadow
This post is not about a concrete game, its theoretical,as such as its goal is to widen ones understanding and limited viewpoint of game mechanics by looking at the thoughts of other people.
As for the list I would probably do an even more basic approach, look at and list what "parameters" exist that can be manipulated and look at whats "events" exist to trigger this change.

Argus2
I often observed that games have a very small interactive breadth due to a wrong use of the KISS principle.
For example if damage is directly apllied to life points upon use of a skill this is a simplification of things that robs you of "parameters" and "events"
to operate on(and the number of parameters and events is decisive for the interactive breadth).
Now if you first have to hit your target you have an collision event which you can use to trigger thinks or you can manipulate the conditions that have to occur for the collision event, another example would be to make damage dependant on impact speed, speed can be manipulated in various ways such as different ways of movement needing distances for acceleration, moving away from an attack etc.

Such the interactive breadth increases as the manipulation of one parameter like health points becomes more indirect more dependant on other parameters.

Note: some basic parameters, are position, visibility, lifetime(existance and time dependency of states), maybe velocity(and every other change of parameters over time), volume(collision behaviour)
most other things are build ontop.

Ezbez: Magic is about manipulating the elemnts/energies/spirits. By elements I mean earth, wind, water, fire, wood, metal, spirit, void, or one of the classical elements. Not one of modern day elements.

And yes even classical elements are still "everying" but it still doesn't mean all powers or things that happen are magical.

Alchemy is not magic. It is a science that only few actually practice any more and is considered out-dated by most, but just because it is outdated doesn't make it a magic.

Argus 2: You're last paragraph is so wrong...
#1. ninjutsu in Naruto is magic and it gives a good example. (which brings up a good point that they do have "personal magic" like is being asked about...)
#2. Stop using logical fallacies to try to make someone look bad.
#3. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Does not mean anything is magic. What it means is that a person who doesn't think technologically would think the person is using magic to achieve an end. A light bulb would be magic to plenty of people hundreds of years ago, and most if not all of those people would think that you are making fire in a glass and that you could not do it indefinitely.

Imelior: A witches brew follow what I said. I'll admit that i forget in which way the brew is used but if memory recalls it is viewed as a sacrifice for summoning a spirit or something of that nature. Further, a chant is accompanied with it which is also part of what I said. It is a way in which to cast magic.

Wush: I gave you what you need for what you want.
Magic Power, skill level, affinities. Skill level can be broken down into shaping and motion.

A spherical magical object is going to be easier than a cube, because spheres are more natural. A cube is going to be easier than a cross, and a cross is going to be easier than a pentagram...

Once you have that it's fairly easy to see if you're going to create some sort of puzzle all you need to do is reflect these basic things. You could make like plates that each of the magic users can get...each for different elements, shapes, and movements...have each of these have a base level of power/skill/affinity required and then allow the player to create their own spells by placing these plates in any order they want and as long as it falls within their abilities they can cast it...and each character has their own separate plates and spells.

Not every character can do the same magic because they don't have the affinity or power to do it so you can generate characters that are meant to be healers make a char generally play the way you want while allowing them freedom to do other things...

Witches' brews are most typically a type of sympathetic magic, actually. For example a potion for making a person fly might include a feather, a potion for adding a warming spell to a cloak might include cinnamon and peppers, a potion for making armor extra-tough might include a dragon scale, a diamond, a warding rune for making weapons turn away, oil for making weapons slip off, etc.

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Original post by Wush Let each player have a unique set of building blocks for magic, these building blocks are not effects rather they are like puzzle pieces that combine in a specific way, if you combine them the right way you might unlock effects, sources or triggers, wheras the solution/the way you found for unlocking influences the effectiveness of the spell. There could even be some random or time dependant(astrological?) elements each time you cast a spell, either in the form of puzzle pieces as additional available sources, or as a shift in the task needed to unlock a certain effect . ... Yet another way is to give each player his own magic "physics", however its hard enough to come up with one working and somewhat complex system for magic having such system auto generated requires some serious understanding of the underlying principles.

I have thought about a game where the point is to discover the "principles of magic". Here's some basic thoughts I have come up with.

We have X = the set of all possible player inputs related to magic, Y = a "magic translation", and Z = the set of all possible effects of magic (such as a set of designed spells). Magic on any given playthrough happens through the process X -> Y -> Z.

Since we are all about having the player learn the system - in every game, over and over - we are concerned with designing a generator W that builds good magic translations rather than designing a single Y. These translations should be different enough from one another that the player can't immediately figure out the form of the translation, even if they have figured (from multiple playthroughs) what the possible translation forms and configurations are. At the same time they should be logically discoverable over the course of the game. We should be avoiding a situation where the player researches the system by brute force experimentation, as it's not very fun. This is what I see as the key problem here.

Nethack did an interesting job in this department. The player starts out not knowing what a Silver Wand does, because it could be any of a set of wands. Various experiments can narrow down the possibilities, such as engraving with it, zapping it at monsters, or selling it to a store keeper. Once the effect of the wand is clear, it is identified, and all Silver Wands are displayed as Wands of Striking, or Magic Missile, or whatever the RNG picked for this run of the game.

And even if the game engine couldn't assess the wand (perhaps it was deduced as being the last possible option in that price range), the player can assign a text label until such a time as the game engine figures out the player knows.

Stroppy Katamari would those translations be auto generated or randomly chosen from a great archive at the begin of the game?
The idea of translations sounds interesting,might be difficult to find translatins a player can intuitevely access but if you can pull it of it would be a pretty good game.
Hm how about having something like waste, exhaust,contamination created by incomplete(to chaotic) magic so the player would beware of experimenting randomly to not get effected (the contamination would decline very lowly), but now and then you would place a spot of wild magic in the world and when the player comes accross it and examines it he might get a clue to a part of the magic translation and risk an experiment to test it.

It really depends on what you are trying to achieve and how the game play and magic will fit into the game.

You could go with an in depth physics and game mechanics system that allows for free form magic. Players could have an affinity with a type of element or aspect that can be manipulated through the game mechanics and then a number of other skill levels that determine what they can do with their element, say power, control, and manipulation. Then they can use that to build "spells".

So lets say you had a gravity affinity:
A set of basic examples of spells

High power and low control would mean you could lift single large heavy object.
High control and low power would mean you could lift lots of small objects.

So one player might be able fling a boulder with a wave of their hand another cause a dozen daggers to rain down on their enemy.

Like wise a player could use the same affinity to form a barrier to block incoming attacks, or if their manipulation skill was high enough reflect those attacks.

You could another aspect in with object tagging and time space control, that way the player could "summon" their collection of daggers or boulders when needed rather then carrying them around or relying on what is at hand.

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Original post by Durakken Magic is based on a few principles...

"Magic" is not based on a few principles, imho. It is based on a single principle. Anything we can not define or explain is classified as "magic".

'The art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural.' The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

The key word in the above definition is supernatural, which in turn is anything that we, again, can not explain.

This is of course, a real life comparison.

"Magic" in a game or book can be anything. There are no principles and no laws that govern it outside of the bounds that the designer/writer sets down.

So we'll set the stage for an example. We have a world full of D&D style magic (fireballs, summoning, etc...) but with no technology. We also have the real world. We are driving along in the real world in a car and somehow we get transported to this D&D world. In this world full of "magic", our car would be the true "magic" to the natives.

This exemplifies the definition that "magic" is anything supernatural.

So really, create a world, and then add elements to it that are rare/mythic/fabled and you have "magic". It doesn't matter what these elements are, or how they are implemented, so long as they are not something normally seen.

Of course, you can also define magic as something else. It could have no connection to the real world definition. Magic could be anytime someone throws a fireball, even if everyone can do it. Now it is just a definition for certain abilities or natural events that occur in your world. In sci-fi shows, the word magic is rarely used, but there are tons of references to "magical" abilities. Psychics could be considered magicians in a different setting (some settings do already consider them as such).



To the original point of the post!

I have been working on magic systems for a game for quite some time. I have gone through many iterations, and scrapped most of them.

Magic systems seem extremely complicated when you first decide to design one. The way I have found that works best when developing one involves looking at other systems too. When creating a magic system that allows the player to design their own spells, why not look at equipment systems? What makes the items a character wears work? Games like WoW present the best study-able material as you will find many theories on which pieces of gear work best, not all of these theories are the same.

This of course complicates the system for yourself and for the players. What it boils down to though is the more configurable you want the system to be, the more complicated it has to be.

Ex: Spell system with 2 components, each component has 2 options
-Configure damage type (Fire, Water) - Affects damage type, nothing else
-Configure damage range (5, 10) - Affects damage, mana cost for spell

We can all agree this doesn't leave much room for customization. If you were going to add about 10 more options to both, you increase the customization options exponentially.

No matter how many options we add though, we can't create anything that let's a player be totally unique. There will always be abilities that overshadow others because they can be just plain better.

This can be hard for a designer to wrap their ego around, so we try to stuff as much in as possible. While having more options is good, you don't want to drown your system in useless stuff. So, after researching how other systems work internally, it is time to look at what you want the player to be able to do with your "magic" system. Set your limits on the system and then see how players get to those.

One of the other posters mentioned CCG's. This is probably the best comparison we can use. You have a limit set already, in what cards actually exist (proxies and homemade cards aside). Then there is a set of secondary limits on the system (deck size, how many of each card, having different "factions", etc...). Even with all of this though, the number of creative decks/strategies people come up with are astounding. In M:tG (used this example as I am not familiar with many other CCG's), there are no useless cards. With a creative player, every card can be used in some interesting way, making even a seemingly mundane card into a game-winner.

Just some ideas and concepts that might help you out Wush. At work, so it might be a bit disjointed at points! Hope some of this works though!

Good catch AngleWyrm. Nethack's gear system is the kind of uncertainty I'm thinking about. The system is the simplest kind possible, with a direct 1:1 mapping between the "symbols" (in this case, the item itself) and the outcome, randomized at the beginning of each game. Despite the simplicity, Nethack's system manages a decent feel of depth and meaning by
1) assigning a cost to probing the system, which can make it a meaningful choice instead of a matter of course. (Want to test a wand by zapping it at a wall? There goes one charge, and the wand only has three charges.)
2) allowing for a deduction process to occur by how some tests do not positively identify the item, but narrow down the possibilities. In Nethack, this gray area is not just a difference between having a +5 sword of kickass and +6 sword of pwnage. If that lovely-looking ring of regeneration happens to be cursed, for instance, it can quite possibly starve you to death before you find something to remove the curse.

A similar design problem would also be found in a detective game which tries to generate a new but logical and solvable "case" per game session. Anyone know a game / games that attempt it?