Spell Systems with Depth

jefferytitan · 2012-04-19T01:42:15

Hi people. I've been trying to design a spell system that has more depth than the basic mana/skill tree system found in many games. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated. My fundamental idea is to have spells which are a set of runes which obey a grammar which essentially give instructions for how the spell should work. A given effect may be achievable in multiple ways. A new player could purchase scrolls with spells, an advanced player could craft their own spells from scratch using runes. I'll give a few examples to give a sense of the flavour. Basics The fundamental operations of a spell may include the following: Summon internal power (withdraw mana) Summon external power (draw energy from heat, nature, etc) Store energy (store your summoned energy temporarily during the spell so it doesn't dissipate into the environment) Transform energy (e.g. turn it into heat, cold, lift, electricity) Summon spirit (e.g. demon, Gaia) Petition spirit (to do something that is in their nature) Threaten spirit (to do something that is against their nature) Bind spirit (to an object, e.g. a golem) Target (a fixed point, nearby lifeforces, nearby magic) Link (to another entity, e.g. for giving/taking energy, mind control, communication) Send energy (e.g. fire a fireball, heal) Ground energy (dissipate any unused energy from the spell) Fire Spells So you want to shoot a fireball? There's different ways of achieving this: 1. [indent=1]a. Summon internal power. [indent=1]b. Transform energy to heat. [indent=1]c. Target enemy by life force. [indent=1]d. Send 1 unit of energy. This is pretty much the simplest approach. Not very strong, low efficiency, but quick. 2. [indent=1]a. Summon internal power. [indent=1]b. Store energy. [indent=1]c. Summon internal power. [indent=1]d. Store energy. [indent=1]e. Transform energy to heat. [indent=1]f. Target enemy by life force. [indent=1]g. Send 2 units of energy. A bigger fireball, slower to cast. Slightly better efficiency as we store energy. If the caster is a beginner and can only store 1 unit of energy, this spell will go catastrophically wrong when they try to store the second unit of energy. 3. [indent=1]a. Summon external power (from nearby lava). [indent=1]b. Target enemy by life force. [indent=1]c. Send all energy. A big, quick, efficient fireball as no mana, transformation or storage is needed. It's already heat. 4. [indent=1]a. Summon external power (from nearby lava). [indent=1]b. Target enemy by life force. [indent=1]c. Send 1 unit of energy. Poorly written spell, if the lava has more than 1 unit of energy your caster is on fire! 4. [indent=1]a. Summon external power (from nearby lava). [indent=1]b. Target enemy by life force. [indent=1]c. Send 1 unit of energy. [indent=1]d. Ground energy. Either poorly written or the caster only wants a weak fireball. At least they're not on fire. Minion Creation Spells For creating a golem to help you, here are some approaches: 1. [indent=1]a. Summon internal power. [indent=1]b. Store energy. [indent=1]c. Repeat above a few times. [indent=1]d. Form body from clay. [indent=1]e. Infuse clay with body movement limits. [indent=1]f. Infuse clay with instruction "Target enemy by life force". [indent=1]g. Send energy to clay. A quick and dirty single-use golem. Will collapse when enemy is destroyed or runs out of energy. 2. [indent=1]a. Summon internal power. [indent=1]b. Store energy. [indent=1]c. Repeat above a few times. [indent=1]d. Form body from clay. [indent=1]e. Infuse clay with body movement limits. [indent=1]f. Summon demon. [indent=1]g. Threaten demon. [indent=1]h. Bind demon to clay. [indent=1]i. Tell golem to "Target enemy by life force". A multiple use golem which keeps going as long as the demon has energy. This can be increased by providing the demon energy or sacrifices, and decreased by activity or an enemy banishing the demon. 3. [indent=1]a. Summon internal power. [indent=1]b. Store energy. [indent=1]c. Repeat above a few times. [indent=1]d. Form body from clay. [indent=1]e. Summon Gaia. [indent=1]f. Threaten Gaia (who would view this creature as an abomination). [indent=1]g. Tell Gaia to give it life. [indent=1]h. Tell golem to "Target enemy by life force". A multiple use golem that has requirements much like any living creature. Maybe not as tough as a demon golem, but more durable. This spell will fail in an area where there's too little nature (Gaia is too weak to create it) or too much nature (Gaia will resist your threats). Obviously by the definition of having depth it only scratches the surface. Thoughts? Comments?

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by jefferytitan April 11, 2012 10:53 PM

19 comments, last by ManuelMarino 12 years, 9 months ago

ManuelMarino

153

April 19, 2012 01:42 AM

In case I expained it wrongly, you'd start off not knowing any magical runes (the building block of spells). You'd learn them from scrolls etc. There would still be special scrolls out there with runes you'd never seen before which would enable you to build new classes of spells. So you'd maybe need to buy/obtain a strategic 5% of all scrolls to get all the runes you needed, but which 5%?

well, yes, this would be interesting

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Spell Systems with Depth

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Spell Systems with Depth

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