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Original post by Leartes The concept sounds great but I would not make it as easy as described here. Instead you could try define something like a script language working on the runestructure so that nearly all possible combinations have an effect. The interesting point would be to research to find combinations that work most best because they focus the energy best on the target or combine different elements for special synergetic effects and stuff like that. Creating and balancing something like that will be hard. But since you should build this into a single player game (otherwise everyone will use the best known configurations after someone posted the online) you don't have to aim for pefect balance so it is doable.

Just as an aside, you mean easy for the developer/designer, or for the player?

My ideas were aimed to making it somewhat easier to determine effects for development purposes. Nothing about how it would interface with the player, other than the presets, which would be for players that aren't interested in delving into a system like this.

I simply covered the basics needed for 99% of typical RPG encounters. Maybe 40 or so runes there, with how ever many combinations as you can muster on top of it.

Ok, I've made some steps further in creating a common structure for all the spells and I think it works ( a little ) =)

However, I've some problems with the "theory".

1) Given a definition in english of a spell, how to you determine it's level of power?
For example, of course the booming banjo-player flaming skeleton is stronger than the simple flaming skeleton, but how much? Based on the damage it can possibly do? On the tactical utility? How can I meccanically decide this? ( if I can't do this I also cannot do the inverse, which is given a symbol structure determine how much damage it should do and that sort of things )

2) Instead of having a lot of shape-symbols, I was thinking about reducing them to geometrical shapes and then using as many symbols as the number of sides.. but I'm not sure if it can work. Any thoughts?

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Original post by Svalorzen Ok, I've made some steps further in creating a common structure for all the spells and I think it works ( a little ) =) However, I've some problems with the "theory". 1) Given a definition in english of a spell, how to you determine it's level of power? For example, of course the booming banjo-player flaming skeleton is stronger than the simple flaming skeleton, but how much? Based on the damage it can possibly do? On the tactical utility?

On how much energy it takes to create a banjo and teach the skeleton how to play it. I'm assuming you're talking about calculating the cost to cast the spell. It doesn't make sense to assume that a banjo-playing skeleton does more damage to an opponent, if that's what you mean by "stronger".

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How can I meccanically decide this? ( if I can't do this I also cannot do the inverse, which is given a symbol structure determine how much damage it should do and that sort of things )

You don't determine damage based on the symbol structure. The only thing that is based on the symbol structure is the actual magical effect/action. Damage is based on the effect, and thus is only indirectly based on the rune structure. "Mechanically" deciding this is just a matter of parsing the rune structure and determining its meaning.

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2) Instead of having a lot of shape-symbols, I was thinking about reducing them to geometrical shapes and then using as many symbols as the number of sides.. but I'm not sure if it can work. Any thoughts?

I'm not sure what you mean. Could you explain more, possibly with more visual aids?

For the visual aid, I'm working on it.. when I'm done I'll post it.

For just explaining my idea, here's the thing:

Suppose you have 2 symbols, a 'Shape' symbol and an 'Area' symbol.
Now, in a spell, there is a zone where you define the shape of the spell, and there you use this 2 types of symbols.

It would be:

1 Shape symbol: line

2 Shape symbols: wall

3 Shape symbols: cone
3 Shape symbols + Area symbol: triangle area

4 Shape symbols: cube
4 Shape symbols + Area symbol: square area

5 Shape symbols: sphere
5 Shape symbols + Area symbol: circle area

I imagine this will be a testing nightmare, but a really cool one at that. I love the idea.

You could simplify the problem down alot. Just thinking of numbers of spells and combinations and all that.

with just 5 types of runes, and 5 different slots (dont hold me to this, this area of maths always confused me in school)

5*4*3*2*1 = 120 combinations or spells. from 5runes and 5slots
10*9*8*7*6 = 30240 combinations or spells. from 10runes and 5slots

(someone please correct me if im wrong)

what your proposing is a somewhat infinite number of spells.

Maybe try limiting the way that they connect, they all can connect to a power source,but not to each other directly or something like that.

Just a thought

EXACTLY.

That is what I was trying to say. A lot of different types of runes are not really necessary, you just need some and then use the combinations to create the meaning.
However, just creating 10 simbols and 5 slots wouldn't work, because the system should be somewhat intuitive ( or players are discouraged from experimenting, since it's only random stuff ), and not just some math.
The point is creating a type of rune for whatever concept you need ( shape, energy, type of spell and so on ) and then use the combinations to specify which type of concept you want.
It would be like in an rgb map, with only 3 colors and some thinking you can reproduce every color ever =)

I'm reading some texts about the division of the elements of various cultures, trying to figure out what suddivision is better.

I was thinking about something like

Invocation -> Force, Light ( + Darkness ), Electricity, Heat ( + Cold )

Evocation -> Air, Earth ( + Wood, + Metal ), Water

But I'm still not sure..

You have to take a look at the physical elements represented by your game objects, and derive a set of modifiers from this.

For example, let's say every object has two attributes: health and element. Health goes from 0 to 100, and possible elements are fire, water, earth, air, and flesh.

When a magic spell is cast, it gets a 'strength' value (gotten from the willpower/intelligence/magic-power of the caster), and an 'element affector' value. The strength directly determines how effective the element is against what it is cast at (e.g. a fire spell with a strength of 20 that is cast at things which fire can affect -- water and flesh), then you can create a lookup table to determine the results of collision. Elements beget elements of the same type, elements negatively affect the health of elements of opposing types, etc.

Rather than trying to apply a whimsical "do anything" system with your magic, instead try to think of the magic system in terms of features of a game that enable magic-wielding players to alter the physical properties of objects (with the added flash for visual effect).

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Original post by DarkHorizon Rather than trying to apply a whimsical "do anything" system with your magic, instead try to think of the magic system in terms of features of a game that enable magic-wielding players to alter the physical properties of objects (with the added flash for visual effect).

Yes, any magic system in a game is ultimately limited by what can be effected in that game world.

If all you can do is apply damage to monster, then you magic system is limited to how much damage you can do to that monster.

It is pointless to make a complex magic system if you can't use it to do many things.

So far, all I have seen in this magic system that can be effected is Shape, Damage type and Damage strength. That is not much really.

What you are looking for is a magic system that can describe any spell, but all your spells are is: Do this type of damage amount to this target(s).

So all you need is runes for Type, Amount and Targets. The number of runes in each category is dependent on the granularity you have in each.

So if you have 5 different types of damage, then you need 5 different runes (or rune patterns).

What you need to so is look at what properties of the world (and entities in it) you want magic to be able to manipulate. For instance, what if you could effect the position of an object, or maybe the forces it experiences. How about the colour of an object, or the shape of it.

Instead of having "fire damage" have objects react to temperature and then allow magic to alter that property. Then you could have an object that "burns" if it gets too hot and this increases the temperature of nearby objects (and destroys itself). If these nearby object also have this behaviour, then you can set alight say a book, and the whole library goes up in smoke (if the behaviour of the object says to create a smoke like particle effect :D ).

Any magic system you develop has to based on what properties of the world and object in it can be modified. This is what must first be defined before you can start talking about how many runes are needed, or what shape they will be.

You need to develop a kind of "physics". Although, I am not talking about rigid body physics, or anything like that (well, ok, a bit). What I am talking about is that objects (and the world) need to have properties, those properties need to be able to be changed by you magic system, and the object (and world) need to react to those changes.

Can the object combust, change their location, colour movement, etc. Can they change state, can water turn to ice, or to steam? What happens when water turns to steam, or something heats up enough to combust? You need to give the objects behaviours for how the properties are changed. It is these behaviours, the reactions of the object to change in their properties, that I mean when I say "physics".

Without these "physics" of magic, any magic system you create will never be all that complex, not enough to warrant the development of a complex encoding system.

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Original post by Edtharan Quote: Original post by DarkHorizon Rather than trying to apply a whimsical "do anything" system with your magic, instead try to think of the magic system in terms of features of a game that enable magic-wielding players to alter the physical properties of objects (with the added flash for visual effect). Yes, any magic system in a game is ultimately limited by what can be effected in that game world.

If you remember from his original post, though, he also wants this to be applicable to table-top games. Besides, this is just too cool of an idea to limit to the specific mechanics of his game.

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Original post by simnon with just 5 types of runes, and 5 different slots (dont hold me to this, this area of maths always confused me in school) 5*4*3*2*1 = 120 combinations or spells. from 5runes and 5slots 10*9*8*7*6 = 30240 combinations or spells. from 10runes and 5slots (someone please correct me if im wrong)

Your figures assume that you cannot re-use runes. If you can re-use runes, the actual numbers are much higher: 5^5 and 10^5 respectively, or 3125 and 100,000. :)

However, this is still not the stated goal of "nearly all the possible spells ever".

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Original post by Svalorzen For just explaining my idea, here's the thing: Suppose you have 2 symbols, a 'Shape' symbol and an 'Area' symbol. Now, in a spell, there is a zone where you define the shape of the spell, and there you use this 2 types of symbols.

So we're just talking about the subset of the language that defines shapes. I would try to come up with a more descriptive mechanism, that can describe various combinations of curved and straight-edged shapes, as well as simple ones. Make it so that, with a large enough complex of symbols, I could describe the shape of a plant, or a person. You could use the same shape-description symbols for describing the shape to transform something into, or to tell a spell which object to operate on.

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Original post by theOcelot Quote: Original post by Edtharan Quote: Original post by DarkHorizon Rather than trying to apply a whimsical "do anything" system with your magic, instead try to think of the magic system in terms of features of a game that enable magic-wielding players to alter the physical properties of objects (with the added flash for visual effect). Yes, any magic system in a game is ultimately limited by what can be effected in that game world. If you remember from his original post, though, he also wants this to be applicable to table-top games. Besides, this is just too cool of an idea to limit to the specific mechanics of his game.

This is applicable to table top games as well. In most table top RPGs, as the entire "properties" of the character "object" are available to the player to change (just an eraser and you can change them), then you pretty much can change anything on the character object. This is because any of the consequences of changing the properties (the physics I talked about) is handled by the players as a group.

But in some games, there are things that you can never change about a character within the rules of a game. For instance, in games like Shadow run, you can't actually make your character younger through their magic system. They made a decision that magic can't make you younger (but might make you older). You might be able to make your appearance younger or older, but the character still ages.

In other words, they have done exactly what I said needs to be done: Specify what properties can be changed.

In D&D for example, they said that your character's X,Y,Z position can be changed, so a spell can now be created by using the effect of "Change X,Y,Z position" and the Teleport spell can now be created.

In computer games, you don't have the committee of players and the Game Master that exist in table top games, so you must program the effects of changing properties into a computer, but beyond that, there is no difference between what I was saying and what goes on in table top games. My method can be used for both.