Guidelines for Creating Magic Systems

Five Steps

In this article we'll describe five linear steps to designing your own magic system for and RPG. Since designing a system of any kind is an iterative process, read everything through first before putting anything to paper, and after that start working from the step that fits you best. The steps will present you many questions that should be considered to make your system consistent and playable.

The contents of the individual steps may be presented shortly are as follows:

The designing may be separated into five iterative steps:

Decide on design goals
1. what kind of system do you want to achieve?
2. what kind of effects should be available and how easily?
3. do you want magic users to dominate the world?
4. is your goal simple or many layered/complex system?
Design the principles & the basics
1. where power comes from or what is the source of a magicians power?
2. who has (or even can have) the power?
3. are there MORE than one type of power and how are they related?
4. what can the power do or what is it good at?
5. what effects it?
6. what does it require? (materials, sacrifices)
7. how can it be evoked and directed? (there could be many ways!)
Game Mechanics
1. is magic used with spells or magical skills?
2. how big effect does the unpredictable/chance have in magical arts? (how big part is the dice of the final result)
Design Spells (or other typical demonstrations of power) For each spell
1. how difficult it would be using this power?
2. what aspects of the power make it work the way it does?
Check the System
1. is the system what you looked for?
2. what kind of a effects the system would have on the world?
3. are you satisfied?
4. if not satisfied redo steps 2-4 as necessary

Decide on design goals

What this step is really all about is that you should think in general terms what kind of magic system you wish to create. What kind of world do you wish it should fit in? How complicated do you want spell-casting to be? What should magical combat be like? Are sorcerers so powerful as to dominate a situation? Or are they powers that can "tip the balance" with judicious use?

A good help along the way is to write down your design goals and then check now and then if you are still on the right track.

The first question is: How common is power in your game?

If power is very common, be sure that your world reflects this fact. For example, if mage-talent is more common than dirt or even openly accessible to all, then there is far less incentive for technological advances. Similarly, if magic is very rare, then those who use magic will likely be either shunned or worshiped, or both. Whatever the case, use your imagination.

The second question is: What degrees of power exist?

Independent of how common power is are the various intensities at which it might be used. Is power reserved for only the most monumental of purposes? Is it used only for mundane things? Of course, there are many different degrees of power... decide which of them you want to emphasize.

The general proportions of magic in the particular world are very important as to what kind of a world it will be. Examples:

modern world: no magic exists and it is a popular fact (except that of course there is magic, but it is only for those who dear step down the black ladders)
low-fantasy: magic (or miracles) exist, but is rare; only the advanced masters have access to a limited amount of spells
fantasy: magic is recognized, there are schools for magic-users but they are not common. The government utilizes magic, but they are not dependent of it. Most RPGs are like this.
mundane magic: the matron of the house uses magic in cooking while the big children scare the little ones with illusions. The government utilizes magic heavily (weather control, communication (Mail demon ;), etc.). Should the magic be depleted, the civilization, as they know it, would end.
dark modern: magic is the byproduct of psychic power, not the other way around. Psychic power fluctuates in usefulness, as it calls upon energy that only comes from the individual, not a group, hence its rarity. However, almost everybody is capable of some form of it without training (Basic ESP). Occult magic, on the other hand, calls upon the psychic energy that all people everywhere leak from their bodies, thus generating a huge store of it. However, it's success requires that one be in a magic "hot spot", and if one has enough energy but fails anyway, it can backlash and corrupt the individual. Hence, most magicians are cultists, and true occult power is rare.

Generally when designing a new magic system it is useful to think of the rationale and background for the system before trying to figure out rules for it. Once you've developed the basic background you as a GM have a rationale for deciding things outside rules.

You might have a design goal to integrate psionics, magic, spirits etc. into one system, but on the other hand you might not. You could also want to have MULTIPLE magic systems! Different systems may vary according to their source of power, possible effects, etc. If you decide to have more than one magic system, you'll have to go through all of this that many times more, always keeping in mind that the other systems exist also.

If you are using more than one kind of power, be sure to make clear, specific distinctions between them before you go on. For example, if you use "magic" and "psionics", make sure that the players will see a difference in game usefulness for using one type or the other.

Try to keep the various forms balanced in power and usefulness unless you have a specific goal in mind which unbalances them.

Since magic usually is a really formidable force, there must be something to balance its use. Pick up the ones that fit your ideas best:

Limited power
Extremely difficult usage
Unpredictable results
Spell-casting causes weariness
Access to spells
Resources one has to provide: time, materials, effort, mana
Limitations on usage: target must volunteer, or the target must fit within certain specified limits (be in sleep/trance, inanimate,...)

If nothing else, the spell casters themselves will balance each other out (cold war), but that's the hard way to do it.

Traditional users of magic:

Wizard: Ritual magic, create magic items, cast spells
"Hedge" Wizard: cast spells
Gothic Witch: Concoct substances, ritual magic, curses, healing, divination, shape change

(self and others)

Necromancer: Ritual magic, cast spells, divination, spirit contact
Mystic: Trance, "ki" powers, psychic powers
Alchemist: Concoct substances
Shaman: Trance, spirit contact, healing, curses, shape change, travel on spirit

"planes"

Medium: Trance, Spirit contact, psychic powers
Fortune Teller: Divination, psychic powers
Ninja: "ki" powers
Priest: exorcism, healing

[More examples?] [Have I made some underlying assumptions, which are not generally applicable? How could these be corrected?]

Design the principles & the basics

What is It?

What enables the magical effect in the first place? If you are lazy you might decide that the world just works that way. However considering more what is behind the magical effect, what is the "power" enabling it, helps a lot in defining the rest.

Here are some useful questions:

What is the "power"?
Where does the magic-user get the magical "power" from?
How is the "power" evoked?
How specifically does the source define what the effects will be?
Does the "power" have any limitations?

The "power" might be some magical stuff, like "essence", that has come to the world through some dimensional gate and has infiltrated everything. The "power" might also be a creatures irony will, which forces the nature to act against its own laws. It might also be something fundamental to the world: the magical quarks that are the binding force between matter and mind and are freed to the magic-user when the bind is broken. Magic might also work, because people think it works or it works the way people think it should work. The mass unconscious forms the world, so to speak. [More examples...]

Where does the magic-user get the power? There might be many different kinds of sources, and a magic-user might be able to call "power" from several of them. In most of the existing systems there are three kinds of sources of "power":

the "power" is channeled to the user by another being (usually god/elemental)
the user draws the "power" himself from an outside source
the user draws the "power" from inside himself
the magic is actually performed by a patron/client spirit, and the user is only subject to it

The nature and the source of the "power" might imply some limitations on its usage. The nature of the "power" in itself could define what kinds of effects could (couldn't) be achieved. Some materials might work better with the "power" than others and some kinds of effects could be more natural to the "power". In many RPGs metal, especially iron, hinders the use of magic. The source might also have an effect to what kinds of effects can be achieved with the "power". For example magical erg channeled to a magic-user by a god could be different if it instead came from an elemental (or from another god). Once you know where magic comes from, it is easier to figure out what it can and can't do. If the "power" is channeled by a god, the god might have quite an effect as what the final effect will be.

Some examples from the literature

Divine Grace, granted in general ahead-of-time: -Magic Points
Divine Grace, granted in specific ahead-of-time: -RQ Divine Magic
Divine Grace, granted on-the-fly by direct request: -Intervention
Karma/Magic Aura of caster (how is it recharged?): -Magic Points
Life force of another living thing: -Necromancy/Sacrifice
Life force of caster: fatigue/health loss; -GURPS default system
Life force of caster: aging/loss of life span; -a la AD&D "wishes"
Life force of caster: loss of "characteristics"; -Personal Sacrifice
Mana: ambient magical aura (renewable or not?); -Eddings, Niven
Nodes: portable quanta of natural magical energy; -FGU's SwordBearer?
Nowhere: magic is the way the world works; -LeGuin's EarthSea, sometimes
Objects, which fuel spell through destruction: -Material Components
Parallel plane, channeled directly into ours: -AD&D, effectively
Parallel plane, channeled through caster: -Shadowrun
Summoned Creatures, who perform tasks themselves: -Prospero-style
Summoned Creatures, who fuel spells themselves: -Shadowrun Elementals
Reality is shaped by the beliefs of the people: -Shadowrun, World of Darkness

Casters Relation to the Power

The next questions are:

Who, in the first place, can use the power?
How is the ability to use the power acquired: is it innate, learned, granted or acquired though an item?
Can the the ability or the power ever be lost?

Who can have the power? Have all races access to it? How about animals? How about plants or rocks?!? Does it require some kind of genetic ability or is the knowledge of the Way enough? How much power can a magic-user be able to handle?

The ability to use the power may have to be learned or it may be innate (for example elementals should have an innate ability to use their power) or both (an experienced elemental could learn to use its power more efficiently). In some world a human might not be able to use magic at all, except through some device. It could also be acquired only as a divine gift.

Learning:

What parts of the spell casting are learnable? Which are natural: you either have it or not? Ritual might be a skill, but for example prayer might depend entirely on other matters than your delicate twitches of tongue (ever tried to fast-talk a god?).

For some inherently magical beings the learning would be like learning to walk/talk, but learning nonetheless. Learning to walk has an important difference from learning to talk: out of necessity one quickly learns to walk (a horse walks its first steps in a couple of minutes) by himself: one doesn't need a teacher. On the other hand you don't learn to talk if you don't have talking people around you. The ability to use magic might be there, but none uses it, because they don't know how. They need a teacher. How necessary is a teacher to the magical skills in your system?

How much time/effort should one devote to learning these magical skills? After you know the basics, the rest might be quite easy to pick up. How about magical research? How difficult it is to expand your magical knowledge to new areas without a teacher?

Using the Power

Achieving a magical effect might be divided to three parts:

acquiring the power
weaving the spell
casting, or releasing, the spell

[More items to the list?] One or two of the above may be absolute. For example acquiring the power may be so automatic and instantaneous, that it can be discarded from the list.

The three parts above belong to spell casting every time somebody casts a spell. Before spell casting is possible, the caster must have knowledge of how to cast spells.

Some questions:

How is the power used and directed?
What determines how well the power/the skills/spells can be used?
When is the power acquired (before, simultaneously or after the use)?
How long do the different parts take?
Can you divide (temporally/spatially) the different parts?
What does they look like (waving hands, dancing, speaking)?
Are effects automatic, or will they have a chance of failing?

Weaving and casting of the spell are typically skills, or some kind of rituals/formulas (spells). There could be many ways to make use of the power instead of the One-True-Way. The different ways might differ in difficulty and effectiveness.

Weaving of the spell: when someone is creating/casting a spell it generally can be noticed. The caster could have to dance, or sing, or speak some certain words, or draw some symbols or words. In many systems your imagination by itself is enough to shape the effect out of Power. Beginning mages could have to use certain physical items, gestures, incantations and/or meditation to allow them to focus their minds. More advanced mages could dispense with some or all of these "crutches". What is "visual" aspect of the act of spell casting itself? [Or what else? How do you view the spell casting when you play?]

There is also the historical aspect. How long has this power system been used in the campaign world? The world would be significantly different if the Power was known only few decades as opposed to a millennium. Is it possible to develop this power system (10th level spells in AD&D, new sorcery skills in RQ, new pattern tricks in Amber)? And if so were these skills/abilities ever developed in the past?

What should effect the failing rate of spells? In general spending more magical power & time to spell, and lowering the effectiveness should increase its rate of success.

Some examples as how the magical power is directed:

Correspondence: linking & alteration of stand-ins; -Voodoo
Creation/binding of symbols/structures: -Runes, Enchantments
Dreams: lucid dreaming shapes spells; -LeGuin's Lathe of Heaven
Gesture: gathering and directing force; -Wave, wave, BANG!
Imagination: wishing makes it so; -AD&D Wish?, Faerie Tricks
Information: Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est; -EarthSea, sometimes
Placement of objects in correct patterns: -Chinese Geomancy
Playing of musical instrument in proper style: -Bardic Effects
Prayer to deity or other higher force: -Request for Intervention
Speech or song of proper ritual: -Many Systems
Struggle: physical/mental battle with spell/summonee; -Elric?, Prospero
Thought alone or in combination with other methods: -Many Systems
Writing: magic through eldritch diaries?

Alchemy

Magical items are usually an important part of a campaign. What kind of effects could be bound to an item? Could an item have a consciousness of its own? How do you accomplish a binding? How long does it take and how long do the effects stay there?

Remember: if it's easy to make +5 sword, someone is bound to make them and soon everyone has a +5 sword. It's capitalism, you know.

[This needs a lot of new stuff/examples etc...]

Game Mechanics

Basically, this is inventing specific rules for getting from the skills and the circumstances to the final results. Mechanics might include straight modifications (sub/add), multipliers (or divisions), tables and of course dices. Usually it is easier for the players if the magic-mechanics follow the same formula as the game-mechanics of the game you are designing it for. However, remember that this is not obligatory.

First of all, try to keep to what you have designed. All your work turns ultimately to nothing, if you don't implement them in the mechanics. It's all well and good to say that witches can only cast curses and Cabalists must write out any spell they cast, but if that only means that a witch has to say "I curse you with a fireball!" or a Cabalist must merely scribble "F I R E B A L L" in mid-air, then it isn't much of a difference. The storyline/philosophy/etc. should influence the mechanics.

In this step you don't actually decide/write down the individual spells, but you should have quite firm opinions about what effects/spells will be available. This step could be the hardest on the way as it is difficult to create a simple system that offers many alternatives for magic-users, keeping at the same time the actual play-time used to minimum and producing believable and consistent results ;)

You also have to make some grand decisions about mechanics:

If effects are not automatic, how do you decide if the spell was successful or not? How successful?
Does the greatest power always win? How much does luck (or the non controllable) got to do with various parts of the spell casting (i.e. how much influence should the dices have)?

Mechanics should handle things like:

Acquiring (or learning) the spells/skills
- what do you need
- how much time is spent
- spell research
- Acquiring power
- Weaving the spell
- spell attributes & changing them
- is spell casting essentially making a predefined and practiced ritual or is it more using your magical skills?
Casting/releasing the spell
- spell difficulty (or rate of failure)
- can you store spells or do you have to cast them at once
Results & resistance
- opposed & unopposed spells
- resistance difficulty
After-effects (if there are any)
- exhaustion
- mana cost

Learning

The learning can be separate to each facet of magic. How much effort should it take to learn to acquire the power/weave some spell/cast the spell/resist spells to a certain degree? What effects does the quality of teaching have? [A list of possible skills would be great]

Effects

List of generic effects in any magic system:

Mental & sensory:
- enchantment
- control
- mind reading
- illusions
Information gathering:** far sense
- divination
- extra senses (like presence or sixth sense)
Spirits:finding, binding, communicating
- summoning (including transport?)
- abjurement - banishment
- raising the dead (necromancy)
Travel
- enhancing speed / endurance
- teleportation, flying
- moving between planes, portals
Healing:bruises, wounds, fractures
- re-growth of organs
- diseases (cure and inflict!)
- life giving
Mind vs. matter:
- alteration - change existing object
- enchantment - alchemy
- evocation - create energy (for ex. fireballs)
- conjuration - create matter/creatures
- movement
Meta Magic: magic to affect other magic; e.g. make your fire bolts go further, or dispel an effect
- power manipulation (finding, transferring, utilizing an "erg of magic stuff")

[I'm sure there are a lot more]

How could different effects be achieved by different kinds of magic-users? Note that many RPGs have spells that do "4D6+3 damage points" to the target (i.e. a "Damage" effect). This is easy way to do things - but also utterly unimaginative moving the mood of the game towards pure strategy: "Mythical Fist" is just a handgun with a funny name.

You can also add rules restricting achievable effects, for example perhaps no one can Summon something which he didn't divine the location of first. Or all Divination involves a sensory go-between, perhaps an overworked and underpaid djinn. Or maybe healing diseases would be easy (with a little help from my god), but healing fractures and other combat-type wounds would be difficult/take time because... Think about the storyline/philosophy you have created, or the source of the power. What are they capable of, what are they good at?

How could magic be used to attack & defense? If there is magical combat, it should be complex enough for there not to be obvious always successful strategy. Allowing players to apportion power between defense and attack is a start in this direction.

Alchemy

Consider carefully how a magical item is created: time, materials and effort. There might be some standard ways to do a spell-device, but how about all those other nice little items and their very special effects? How about items that increase your magical abilities: like multipliers to multiply your pool of mana.

In many systems you have spells which enchant an item to be +5 (or something like that). This is bad policy: you should state how does this enchantment work. For example a +5 sword. Now, what makes it a +5 sword? Does the enchantment make it do more damage (the sword eats its way through the armor/flesh) or does the sword now fight partially by itself (pulling the wielders hand to strike at the best possible moment). Does the spell make the sword perfectly balanced (what if it was perfectly balanced already?). Or is it just a "lucky-item".

Categories for different elements in spell-casting

Spells usually have attributes which tell how long the spell works, how far can it reach, how big area can it effect, how difficult is it to resist, how specific it is. You might decide to assign specific numbers for each spell, but for generality it might be better to talk about scales, for example a finding spell might work on meter-scale (it works best at distances 1-3 meters, but might spot something from as far as 20 meters, if you are lucky) or planet-scale (in which case finding someone next door would be as easy as finding him from across the planet). The unit of distance might of course be something totally different from simple length.

Using standard categories helps you in evaluating the difficulty and requirements of the spell. They also facilitate in changing the spell parameters as categories easily tell just how much increase is possible.

Categories should be somewhat overlapping: the maximum in one category should be something typical for the next category. You could also create rules for moving from one category to another. If you try to make an effect which is above the category you are normally capable of, is it possible, how difficult is it?

Category examples:

Spells duration: Not applicable, Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, Months, Years, Hundreds of Years, ...., Permanent, 'as long as the spell is being cast'
Range: Self, Touch, Reach (meter), Throw (30 m.), Shoot (150 m.), Run (a mile), Dayway (30 mil), continent-scale, planet-scale, star-system scale, galaxy-scale, Unlimited
Area of Effect: Self, # of targets, # of square meters
Casting time: instant, word, phrase, minutes, hours, days, ...

[The rest of designing rules is just hard work. Could we give more guidelines to help it along?]

"Realism" vs. playability

Designing rules is always a trade off between playability and realism, although "realism" might not be just the right word in this context ;-). Here is an article by John Morrow which he mailed to rec.games.frp.misc newsgroup. It analyzes exhaustively the aspects of game mechanics.

Read Human Factors in Game Design by John Morrow

The trick is not to be as real as possible, that is done with research and mathematical knowledge. The trick is condensing the rules so much that they are easily remembered, easily used, as few as possible without giving up too much or realism in the condensing process.

Design Spells

Now to business. After you have the storyline and the mechanics ready it should be quite easy to build the spells for the system. Right?

With each spell you should consider things like: How difficult should the spell be in this magic-system?

Try to make the spells as system-dependent as possible. With the spell description there should be a storyline that states in what way does the spell work. Instead of saying that 'this spell heals D10 points of damage' you should state that 'the spell does minor healing in damaged areas by repairing bruises and enchanting the normal healing mechanisms etc.; D10 points healed'.

[This could be too much trouble/take too much space... What do you think? Are system-independent descriptions desirable enough? I think so, but...]

Remember to check the obvious spells and the manufacturing spells: if magic is researched, well where then are all the manufacturing spells? This may not be necessary if the spells are given from above, OR only the most powerful can use them, OR the effects are only temporary (also in practice: a stonewall that stays put for 50 years is practically permanent, unless it constantly requires magical energy).

Remember that there are always many ways to do things. For example picking a lock magically:

you could summon a spirit/demon to do it for you
you could try telekinesis & your pick locks-skill
you could use the `Open lock`-spell which would be based on spell designers understanding of locks
teleport to the other side of the door
make the door disappear for a time
make the door let people pass through
turn into a nebulous thing and seep through the cracks
shrink and climb into the lock, picking/destroying it from the inside
use a spell to make the whole doorway to act as a door
weaken the metal inside the lock, so it bends and the door will open
teleport the door away
soften/remove/turn to XXX the wand next to the door
enter another plane and exit on the other side
magically coerce the person with the key to open it
force the key to come to your hand
looking at the lock use a spell to form a matching key
use a spell that automagically becomes a matching key inside the lock

or flying

transform to bird shape
summon an air elemental to hold you in air
temper with gravity
turn into nebulous thing
plain old flying spell
levitation spells on persons
levitation spells on things you stand/sit/hang on
grow wings
summon a large bird to carry you
catapult and featherfall
force a cloud to land next to you, solidify it and use it as a flying vehicle
use a flying Persian rug(word?)
shrink and cling to a feather, using wind change spells to lead you
call up a real hurricane/tornado to lift you
create a big, light skin, filling it with (magical) hot air
create a string thin wire from where you are to where you want to go and a wheel with handles to cling on
ride on a broomstick, don't forget matching clothes and the black cat on your shoulder
create the illusion that you fly, take a taxi and pay with illusory money
summon a helicopter/plane
ride on a cannon ball
dream that you were flying while being teleported
stop the time and walk

[Well, any more good ideas? I think this would be fruitful area, too.]

[Could anyone suggest a guideline for making spells, for example:]

What do want do be able to do?
How difficult -> level of spell, difficulty modifier
How stable -> duration, etc.
Changeable attributes

You may wish to look into the Grimoire for Shadowrun, where a spell creation system (for Shadowrun, of course) is listed, or HERO or Ars Magica.

Check the System

Here we are, you're through! Now you have a brand new spell system fully functional and ready to play with! Well, not quite. Let everything rest a couple of weeks and do something else. Then read everything carefully through. It would be a good idea to let someone else also read it.

Check:

Do your design goals agree with the outcome?
Does the general description emphasize the same things as the mechanics?
Do you have to roll twenty different sized dices to determine the outcome of a single spell and/or do you have to use a pocket calculator in the process?
Can you find any pig-holes? One way to repair them is to use the phrase: "GM discretion", but you shouldn't use it too much.
Does the system agree with the world you were going to place it in? What new possibilities does it open?

You'll probably find inconsistencies, possibly even decide to write the whole damn thing again. Anyway after you have repeated this a couple of times more, you'll likely have a system that pleases you and may even be playable!

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Category: Magic & Religion

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