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[Servant Corps]

What's this supposed to be for anyhow? For a game you're thinking up?

Yeah. Based on medieval life. A tabletop RPG where you play as a squad going to liberate the Holy Lands, basically.

The way I understand it, you wouldn't have "white spells" and "black spells", you would have a spell with a white and a black side.  The result would differ depending on which aspect of that spell you decided to invoke.

Yeah, that is what I was trying to have. From what i can tell, 'good' magic is magic that helps, while 'bad' magic is magic that harms.

But how would one actually go about invoking the spells?  I'm assuming it would be more than the standard "mumble a few words while flinging your arms around for a couple seconds", but I can't say I'm all that well-versed in the "real" way of doing things.

It...depends? RAM is possibly right in that magic isn't really consistent, and that allegations of witchcraft is usually directed at the 'Other'. From the top of my memory, altough I am going to need to do more research:
*You make a good luck charm/token, and carry it around, and you get a constant AoE effect.
*You make a potion/stew, and get the target of the spell to drink/eat it.
*You mutter a few words asking your patron demon/angel/God/whatever to do the spell for you. Flinging your arms around is optional.
*Shamanism is one way of doing magic, but I am not sure on the mechanics of how that works. So I am going to need to ask to see if that works.

I know that in some accounts of witchcraft, they mention that witches do attend meetings where they engage in various ancient dances, gestures and recitations, orgies...but I don't know if that just causes spells or is it more like a business convention where they just sell recipes and trade tips.

[Sowelu]

The PC game "Darklands" had a magic system that was plausible by this definition.  It consisted of alchemy (which CAN turn lead into gold, but is difficult, and needs a philosopher's stone), saint invocation (trapped in quicksand with the enemy closing in?  Just invoke St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes, and poof--but better hope you're virtuous), and demonic stuff (which was powerful, and witches ate babies, but were no match for the light of the Lord).

It's more an exercise in "what if superstitions were all true".

[qwertyuiopas]

OBviously, if it were to be used in a game you would have to give players at least some control of when it happens, at a cost.
Something like:
Soon: now, within the hour, today, this week, this month, this year, whenever
later: a year from now, a month from now, a week from now, a day from now, an hour from now, whenever.


But generally, influencing when the effect takes place would take extra effort in some form.

[Ampersand]

I think that the whole OP was trying to get across is that, in reality, the belief in magical curses and the like was because of the Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy. A man curses you, you later get sick and die, therefore, you got sick and died because the man cursed you. Of course, that is not the actual case, but to a society that doesn't understand the actual reason for the sickness, it's plausible...

But what if it were true? That's the OP's point. The reason you got sick and died is because you had a malignant tumor in your pancreas, but what if that tumor grew because the man cursed you? You'd have no way of determining the cause. You'd have no way of predicting the result. Just the knowledge that the curse was placed, and you are doomed.

[Servant Corps]

Pretty much.