One possible solution is to skip it completely and replace it with skills generalized for each character/class/whatever. Replace the magic bar with endurance/fatigue, action points, or something along that lines.

As pointed out by the other posts, there are plenty of ways to remove magic from a game.

However, a note on the side [my opinion, of course]:

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something to replace Magic in a "Fantasy" MMO

Fantasy is fiction; your personal beliefs (religious or not) should only take place in how much you believe in it.

On the point of your preacher and his kids; you're going to have combat, so there is going to be death, brought upon by the player (which is Big Sin #5 or #6, depending on which branch you belong to.)

Video games are a form of entertainment. Design and develop it with elements that YOU find entertaining or even that you think someone else will find entertaining. Is it worth screwing up your piece of art because just because your pastor might not approve? Even if he approves of it with or without magic, there will be Christians and others that don't approve of it because it has murder/killing in it.

My point is, if you see nothing wrong with it, then don't try to work around it to please your pastor, because you can't please everyone. Make what you want to make because no matter what, someone is going to disapprove of it.

On the other hand, if you think that it is against God (or for whatever reason), then by all means, find a way around it; just don't do it to please people (especially a small group of people.)

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Original post by EmpireProductions The reason I am asking is because I am a christian. I don't mind Harry potter and things like that but I don't want my game to involve Magic even from a science perspective. I want to be able to sit down at my computer when I have parties and things where my church friends are over and be able to freely check up on things and show off the game to them with out wondering if they approve of it or not. I want to be able to play it when my Pastor's Kids are around with out him telling them to get away from the computer because he doesn't approve of the magic.

As others have posted, fiction is entertainment and, for the most part, doesn't have a profound effect on people's beliefs and behaviour. Since there is so much comedy in movies, is there consequently a great amount of comedy on the streets? :)

If you want your game to be appropriate around people who are ultra-sensitive to such things, then perhaps you should go with a non-violent game altogether. That kind of rules out typical MMORPGs though.

The aversion to magic is a historical fear of witchcraft (which is why Harry Potter received so much flak from overzealous Christian groups), not "magic" in itself. Magic is pretty much defined as an unusual occurrence for which we have no understanding. Highly advanced technology can count as this - see Clarke's third law (though it is based in fiction, it can apply to reality as well). "Good" magic is what is known simply as miracles. There is perhaps a fine line between the two - fearful magic or witchcraft is unexplainable (so it could be concluded that it is related to demons), while the other is explained as working through God. (It occurs to me that the religion encourages a fear of God, so maybe they are the same... but I'm deviating here. :P)

At the end of the day, isn't the issue really all about appearances? So make your magic look good, as if it is provided to the characters by God. A good way to include acceptable magic alternatives is to use the Bible as a foundation. You should be careful about this though - don't use any real names of people, places or beings referenced in it. There are miracles aplenty however. :) Here's an example:

All characters are protected by their own guardian angel, who protects and helps the character in different ways through miracles. (If you've played Phantasy Star Online, think MAGs.) You can depict them, but you don't have to name them after real Biblical angels if you're afraid of offending Christians. You don't even have to name them at all, really.

You could assign guardian angels by class (which allows more speciality across classes), or they could be chosen at character creation. The different guardian angels have differing effects on the environment, enemies, and allies. For example, a guardian angel might increase allies' defense within a radius of itself, or it could be equipped with a sword to smite smaller enemies, or it could even burn enemies in cleansing holy fire. Some could cause healing to your party in difficult battles.

That is one way of providing varied gameplay and impressive visual effects without being offensive to Christians. And yet I don't believe that any game should be tailored to fit a specific audience in this manner. Just because your audience is Christian doesn't mean it has to include Biblical references (and only Biblical references). I think it's narrow-minded to do so, as if religion and the Bible is the only point defining their lives. People are more than that, so keep in mind I'm just providing a simple example.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharlesAtlasSuperpower

These are everywhere in games. Look at the Warrior and Rogue classes in World of Warcraft. They do things that are every bit as magical as the ones magic classes do, but are portrayed as a great skill. The rogue turns invisible and teleports ("he's really fast and good at moving unseen!") and hits a large number of targets with throwing knives at the same time ("he's really nimble and accurate!"). The warrior can freeze all people and animals - even ones that are too dumb for it to make sense, like insects - near him in their tracks ("he channels his battle rage into a terrifying shout!").

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Original post by Bravepower Quote: Original post by EmpireProductions The reason I am asking is because I am a christian. I don't mind Harry potter and things like that but I don't want my game to involve Magic even from a science perspective. I want to be able to sit down at my computer when I have parties and things where my church friends are over and be able to freely check up on things and show off the game to them with out wondering if they approve of it or not. I want to be able to play it when my Pastor's Kids are around with out him telling them to get away from the computer because he doesn't approve of the magic. As others have posted, fiction is entertainment and, for the most part, doesn't have a profound effect on people's beliefs and behaviour.

Much as we'd like it to be, that's not true. People are notoriously bad at separating fact and fiction, since they're processed in almost the exact same way in our minds. You can't expose yourself to anything, especially for extended periods of time, and not have the ideas behind it sink into your mind. This will eventually affect your thoughts, emotions, and behavior.

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Since there is so much comedy in movies, is there consequently a great amount of comedy on the streets? :)

No, but the ideas expressed in the comedy (lewdness, violence) are certainly evident in our lives. Radical ideas, whether for good or ill, tend to seep into our society through fiction.

I am kind of surprised no one (as far as I saw) has mentioned Lord of the Rings: Online. Because of the pre-existing lore with the LotR license, the MMORPG could not have player-wielded magic. I am actually not all that familiar with LotR, but I believe the reasoning was because there are supposed to be only a handful of powerful magicians in the world, so magic is just out of the grasp of the masses; therefore, it wouldn't make sense to have 1 in every 4 people running through the cities able to cast magic spells.

They used a combination of many different fantasy-friendly methods to allow all types of fantasy MMORPG play without resorting to magic. For nuker-style classes, they just used archers. Instead of health, each player had "Morale". Instead of a magic healer, they had Minstrels, who apparently played a happy tune which boosted your morale. That part was kind of silly, though. What took you out of combat when you ran out of morale? Did you start crying and go home?

It worked in LotRO, but at the same time, combat felt kind of flat. Since everything had to be in the scope of a non-magic system (which they have since partially broken with the Rune-warden class), it just seemed to lack that pizazz that you would expect to see in a fantasy MMORPG.

Thanks guys for all your great replies! I have decided to go with the whole technology route. Here is my plot:

The whole plot is that A ice Age over took Earth and for hundreds of years Humans (and other creatures) survived by hiding out in bunkers and caves. Each day was a struggle just to survive so things we take for granted such as School and education no longer had its place amoung Humans. As the Original Survivors died so did the last of the educated people. Finally the Earth warms up and the Ice recedes allowing the people to come out of hiding. As they start exploring their new land and freedom they uncover secretes from the past such as technology manuels. Some of the smarter people take these technology manuels and start using the technology which to every one else seems like Magic. So instead of Spell books you will have technology manuels and instead of spells you will have blueprints.

It will be fantasy because those other creatures will be fantasy style creatures that had gone undetected before the ice age. Also having just been through an ice age the land will have changed so it won't have to be based on the land masses that we currently think of.

Argh! This always drives me up the wall! For those of you who actually gave productive responses, thank you. For others of you.... why must you try and make people who actually live Christian lives feel like they are ignorant when they want to apply their world view to game development? Most of you are not Theologians therefore you are not qualified to teach Christianity. EmpireProductions, has obviously had traditional biblical training thus he/she knows that magic is an abomination according to God. So in the future, unless you know your stuff and have studied Theology in depth, please refrain from shoving your world views on a guy who just wants to develop a game supporting his. He asked a very very simple question and all you need to do is give a simple answer. If you think his world view is incorrect, there are plenty of other forums online where you can go to try to convert him to your world view however this is simply not the thread to do it on....

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Original post by akaitora Argh! This always drives me up the wall! For those of you who actually gave productive responses, thank you. For others of you.... why must you try and make people who actually live Christian lives feel like they are ignorant when they want to apply their world view to game development? Most of you are not Theologians therefore you are not qualified to teach Christianity. EmpireProductions, has obviously had traditional biblical training thus he/she knows that magic is an abomination according to God. So in the future, unless you know your stuff and have studied Theology in depth, please refrain from shoving your world views on a guy who just wants to develop a game supporting his.

Partly its that this seems kinda petty as the traditional description of magic has so little in common with the video game description. Namely spending some generic ability points to shoot bloom from your finger for x damage seems more like accounting than satanism and how trivial it is to call you shader effects electricity or mind bullets instead of magic.

[Edited by - Kaze on October 19, 2009 6:41:55 PM]

Well, that is where I would disagree. The context and act does matter in my opinion. I believe words have meaning and ideas have consequences. Take for example a text based game. Lets say the context is that you crash landed on a planet full of alien zombies.... The zombies are attacking you because they are mean and hate humans. You have the following options (Punch, shoot with laser gun, rape them). Hmmm... which doesn't fit? Even though they are just pixels being lit up to a certain color and pattern, you have an idea and a meaning. If you want to call the text attack "rape", obviously some may not want to play your game because their world view sees rape as a serious offense. If you rename the "rape" option to something like.... I don't know.... "Rant at them because of their world view" haha... probably most wouldn't have a problem with it. Sorry for my bad example but my point still stands. You probably still disagree with me but hopefully you understand where we are coming from.

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Original post by EmpireProductionsThe whole plot is that A ice Age over took Earth and for hundreds of years Humans (and other creatures) survived by hiding out in bunkers and caves. Each day was a struggle just to survive so things we take for granted such as School and education no longer had its place amoung Humans. As the Original Survivors died so did the last of the educated people. Finally the Earth warms up and the Ice recedes allowing the people to come out of hiding. As they start exploring their new land and freedom they uncover secretes from the past such as technology manuels. Some of the smarter people take these technology manuels and start using the technology which to every one else seems like Magic. So instead of Spell books you will have technology manuels and instead of spells you will have blueprints. It will be fantasy because those other creatures will be fantasy style creatures that had gone undetected before the ice age. Also having just been through an ice age the land will have changed so it won't have to be based on the land masses that we currently think of.

Sounds cool. My only question is where people are getting materials to build their technology in this newly re-opened world. Also, to keep the players impressed, the technology will have to differ somewhat from what we have today, to retain an element of mystery. Maybe somewhere in that you can find the resolution to the parts problem. Maybe they can scrap old technology that survived somewhat intact?

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Original post by akaitora Argh! This always drives me up the wall! For those of you who actually gave productive responses, thank you. For others of you.... why must you try and make people who actually live Christian lives feel like they are ignorant when they want to apply their world view to game development? Most of you are not Theologians therefore you are not qualified to teach Christianity. EmpireProductions, has obviously had traditional biblical training thus he/she knows that magic is an abomination according to God. So in the future, unless you know your stuff and have studied Theology in depth, please refrain from shoving your world views on a guy who just wants to develop a game supporting his. He asked a very very simple question and all you need to do is give a simple answer. If you think his world view is incorrect, there are plenty of other forums online where you can go to try to convert him to your world view however this is simply not the thread to do it on....

I'm confused. Are you talking to me?