Author Topic: Magic Systems  (Read 7558 times)

Offline Blk4ce

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 962
    • View Profile
Magic Systems
« on: June 26, 2014, 09:11:08 PM »
I was wondering about the people here, appart from DFRPG, what's your favourite magic system? In what game do you enjoy playing a mage?
(Or could it be that DFRPG is /not/ your favourite system :P?

Offline Belial666

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 2389
    • View Profile
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #1 on: June 26, 2014, 10:53:37 PM »
I always play a mage if it's an option in any game and any system. This means I've played a lot of mages since I started on my good old Acorn Archimedes 410. My favorite system was when the sorcerer class first appeared in DnD. It has been since replaced by a DFRPG warlock.

Offline Locnil

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 1303
    • View Profile
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #2 on: June 27, 2014, 09:09:08 AM »
Likewise. I always loved the fluff of magic-users, even long before I started gaming. My favourite system for doing so is probably Mage: the Awakening - I like the fluff, and the semi-freeform system. Plus, it's pretty much the only setting I've found where magic explicitly has no connection to genetics, which is something that's always annoyed me in other fantasy fiction.

Another favorite (though I haven't played it in a while) would be Shadowrun. Though in that case it's mostly the Cyberpunk + Fantasy theme of the setting, and not really the magic system or flavour.

Offline Taran

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 9863
    • View Profile
    • Chip
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #3 on: June 27, 2014, 12:54:13 PM »
Spell casting in shadow run is cool.  I've played several Mage-types and they were all fun

Offline blackstaff67

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 490
    • View Profile
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #4 on: June 27, 2014, 01:20:21 PM »
I actually like GURPS Magic. 
My Purity score: 37.2.  Sad.

Offline Locnil

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 1303
    • View Profile
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #5 on: June 27, 2014, 03:25:14 PM »
Spell casting in shadow run is cool.  I've played several Mage-types and they were all fun

My favorite is the spirit-focused Voodoo practitioner. Summoning and binding a bunch of spirits to take over your enemies and make them your allies.  ;D

Offline Taran

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 9863
    • View Profile
    • Chip
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #6 on: June 27, 2014, 03:44:24 PM »
Summoning was done really well in shadow run... Although it was time consuming

Offline Haru

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 5520
  • Mentally unstable like a fox.
    • View Profile
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #7 on: June 27, 2014, 05:17:15 PM »
Summoning was done really well in shadow run... Although it was time consuming
They did a great job in SR4, when they split summoning and binding into two separate things. You could summon a spirit at a moments notice, but it had only limited abilities, and if you wanted to get a full powered spirit, you had to do a lengthy ritual to bind them to you. It worked really great. Overall, I agree, the way Shadowrun did its magic was really good.

Though I've played a game without any magic system at all, and I like that better than anything. The world was full of people who used magic like other people breath, and with Fate Core, this got really easy to replicate. Instead of having extra rules, you would just, for example, roll burglary when casting a spell to open a locked door, and instead of picking the lock, you described how you draw runes around the lock etc. in order to magic it open. Doesn't work for every game, but it is so beautifully simple for the kind of fantasy games I like to run.

Dresden's own system does a pretty good job of emulating the magic in the Dresden verse though, so I wouldn't necessarily say other systems are better, it's all a question of what kind of magic you want to emulate.
“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Offline Jabberwocky

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 115
  • Radical Reactionary Habsburg Loyalist
    • View Profile
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2014, 09:04:31 PM »
Shadowrun.
A Hundred Towers? – Our Prague campaign.
Dramatis personae – Cast of characters, both PCs and NPCs.

Offline Mojosilver

  • Participant
  • *
  • Posts: 36
    • View Profile
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #9 on: June 29, 2014, 11:34:33 AM »
I like Shadowrun.

Offline Locnil

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 1303
    • View Profile
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #10 on: June 29, 2014, 02:31:24 PM »
Yeah, Shadowrun's ok I guess.

Offline Sanctaphrax

  • White Council
  • Seriously?
  • ****
  • Posts: 12405
    • View Profile
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #11 on: June 29, 2014, 04:56:13 PM »
Eh, I dunno. In the edition I've played (4th), there were major disparities in power between different spells and focus types.

I'm told that possession-based summoning was crazy broken too, but I've never actually played with it.

Offline potestas

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 300
    • View Profile
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #12 on: June 29, 2014, 05:11:10 PM »
Ars magica hands down best magical system ever made to portray wizards

Offline Locnil

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 1303
    • View Profile
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #13 on: June 29, 2014, 05:17:55 PM »
Eh, I dunno. In the edition I've played (4th), there were major disparities in power between different spells and focus types.

I'm told that possession-based summoning was crazy broken too, but I've never actually played with it.
Granted, I was just making fun of the fact that many here seem to like it, but...

That was a problem, yes - spells all cost the same, and things like Fashion (cleans your clothes) and Healthy Glow (makes you look healthy) were listed alongside Heal (actually makes you healthy) and Alter Memory (exactly what it says). However, foci really weren't a big deal; though.

And much of the hype about possession was just knee-jerk complaints about munchkinery. Possession mages had some nice advantages, which were balanced out by hefty disadvantages, especially at the higher end of the scale, where Materialization spirits (the default) beat out their possession counterparts, due to not having capped Attributes and not needing convenient targets.

Offline Locnil

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 1303
    • View Profile
Re: Magic Systems
« Reply #14 on: June 29, 2014, 05:18:34 PM »
Ars magica hands down best magical system ever made to portray wizards

Agree.  :D For a certain definition of wizards, anyway. If only it had more players...