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[GreatWyrmGold]

My points were that A. you shouldn't need to change the game to make it work well, and B. there is NO REASON not to give healing magic some form of balance to bring its average utility in line with mundane healing.

Actually, there is: because "rare magical healing powers" that aren't much better than normal healing aren't very interesting.

Have you been paying attention? There have been tons of suggestions of how to make magic balanced while still being interesting and, from a certain point of view, more useful than mundane healing. And I never said that this balanced magic should be rare--that was mostly suggested as a form of "balance" I argued against.

I guess one of our differences on this matter is that, as mentioned, I want magic to be a part of the world rather than apart from it. I feel that magic shouldn't simply be, "stuff happens for no reason," but rather things that happen for a reason that isn't true in our world. I think that, "magic vs science," as presented in many stories, where you have scientists and engineers refusing to have anything to do with, "magic," because it doesn't fit with the physics they believe in is pointless fappery, mostly by people who don't know what they're talking about, but also sometimes by people who should know better, and that it's more interesting to see what results when science and engineering are applied to phenomena that normal people in our world would consider, "magic," or, "impossible".

In other words, I think that in a "well designed" fantasy world, the concept of an "anti-magic field" that shut down all "magic" would be as ludicrous as an "anti-circle field" that negated the properties of circles, and for approximately the same reasons.

Well, several issues here.
1. Magic isn't like circles, it's more like gravity.
2. If spells can fiddle with gravity *cough*flight magic*/cough* and other natural laws, it should also be able to fiddle with magic.
3. This doesn't seem to pertain to the question, which was what the heck magical skills have to do with almost unrelated mundane skills and why dwarves have magic.

1: Some magic might be. A Roc's ability to fly despite being four times the size of an elephant should not be. Magic {replacing / being part of} electromagnetism (but being similar enough to our electromagnetism in enough ways that the world doesn't look like complete nonsense to the casual observer) is the way I view it. (remember that electromagnetism is basically the force that defines all macro-scale physics that isn't done by gravity, and that an 'anti-electromagnetism field' would thus be a pretty nuts weapon)
2: In the case of, "this magic power fiddles with magic powers A, B, and C," then sure; in the sense of, "this magic power negates everything that isn't mundane earth-normal physics," absolutely not.
3a: The idea is that understanding a magical power gives you and understanding of things related to how the magic power works. If you disagree with the relatedness, then we've probably come up with different explanations for how the power in question works. (I'll admit that having siege engineering come from the ability to aim and summon meteors doesn't make much sense)
3b: Why not? Admittedly, there are good reasons to have them favor certain themes in their magic, such as crafting, earth, and booze, but that's not the same as saying, "these creatures have no magical powers or properties. Mundane earth stuff only. Final Destination."

1. Why should a roc's ability to fly be based on a random, arbitrary ability rather than a well-defined ability?
2. If magic is a force, an antimagic field would be more like an anti-gravity or anti-electromagnetism field, but with less of a chance to screw everything up.
3a. No, it doesn't. Anyways, I see magic as being a skill, but not necessarily related to RL or non-magical skills any more than, say, skill in typing gives you skill in making a typewriter, or that skill in running gives you skill in driving fast.
3b. The way I look at it isn't, "These creatures are restricted to Real Life stuff," I look at it as "These other creatures happen to be able to use magic innately."

I had just typed up a big reply to your last post, but I accidentally deleted it. However, here are my favorite points.

Dividing the posts up lime this lets me make it more clear what we're replying to.
The magic balance I'm proposing is more comparable to making horses still competitive with flying carpets.
You left out the possibility that magic would sometimes be better than mundane and sometimes worse, which is kinda the basis of strategy games.

[Radiant_Phoenix]

Have you been paying attention? There have been tons of suggestions of how to make magic balanced while still being interesting and, from a certain point of view, more useful than mundane healing. And I never said that this balanced magic should be rare--that was mostly suggested as a form of "balance" I argued against.

Ah, yeah, part of what I realized in my last post was that I was thinking mostly about, "the big stuff," so to speak. The 'little stuff' that isn't, like, artifacts or megabeasts or secrets should probably not be so overwhelming.

Dividing the posts up lime this lets me make it more clear what we're replying to.

That was actually not directed at you; it was directed at the other guy, who was adding comments in red inside the quotes.

I kind of lost track of all of my points here, partly because I started going off on tangents, and partly because they've been evolving.

Here's where my thought processes stand on this matter now:

• Amazing artifacts that are mighty enough to found an empire on should exist, because they can lead to interesting stories and scenarios. There should be ways for players who are specifically interested in this sort of scenario to get that, and for those who specifically don't want it to not have it show up.
• 'Common' magic (i.e., stuff that shows up a bunch without players using advanced worldgen parameters or something to specifically seek it out) should generally not be much more of a force multiplier than outfitting steel weapons.
• 'Balance' should mostly be achieved by having the default worldgen settings be ones that achieve the desired balance point, and allowing players who don't like that point to adjust settings to move it in directions.
• Anti-magic fields shouldn't even be relevant to the discussion. They were a tangent I went off on for bad reasons.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Agreed, I see and agreed, understandable, sure, agreed if they have about the same level of work required and downsides, agreed, and it's okay.

[Boea]

All I can say is that I like Earthsea, it'd pretty much be something that you can dress the magic up as.
Earthsea's magic is about a language "That is always True," and generally the rest is that you can honestly screw up pretty bad, and you have to realize that what you do can also be an illusion, if not a bad effect.

I like force multipliers, why not additives? Multipliers can get unhandily. Diminishing returns?

[Radiant_Phoenix]

So, parameters to fiddle with (some of them should be in worldgen, some in init, some in ENTITY, probably):

Code: [Select]

[*] Frequency and distibution of world-class artifacts/secrets:
    [*] how many show up per century ([0 to 1000:0 to 1000:0 to 1000])
    [*] how much the game tries to spread them out ([-100 to 100])
[*] Relative weight of each sphere in world-class artifact generation e.g., "[WCA_SPHERE_WEIGHT:WATER:-100]" (range [-100 to 100])
[*] Cost distribution of world-class artifacts (measured in some unit of difficulty of obtaining materials) ([0 to 100])
[*] Flakiness distribution of W.C.A.s (i.e., how much effort does it take to use the artifact / how likely is it to up and stop working on you at a crucial moment) ([0 to 100: 0 to 100: 0 to 100])
[*] Curse distribution of WCAs (i.e., how much it stabs you in the back) ([0 to 100:0 to 100:0 to 100])
[*] Frequency and distribution of Intermediate Magics
    [*] how many show up in worldgen ([0 to 1000000])
    [*] how likely an IM is to be independently discovered ([-1 to 100], with -1 being the game rejecting duplicates that come up through procedure)
    [*] how easily an IM is to be dependently discovered ([-1 to 100], with -1 being actually impossible, and 0 being that it only happens if an adventurer does it)
[*] Relative weight of spheres in I.M.s (as with WCAs)
[*] Power distribution ([0 to 100:0 to 100:0 to 100])
[*] Cost distribution (as with WCAs [0 to 100])
    [*] correlation of cost to power ([-100 to 100], with -100 meaning that "more powerful" artifacts are always "cheaper", and 100 meaning that "more powerful artifacts" are always "costlier")
[*] Flakiness distribution ([0 to 100:0 to 100:0 to 100])
[*] Danger distribution ([0 to 100])
    [*] correlation of danger to power ([-100 to 100], with -100 meaning that "more powerful" artifacts are always "safer", and 100 meaning that "more powerful artifacts" are always "more dangerous")
[*] Frequency and distribution of Minor Magics
    [*] Number of MMs generated ([0 to 1000000])
    [*] Geographic spread of MMs ([-1 to 100:-1 to 100:-1 to 100], where -1 means unique to a single instance, and larger numbers are the probability of spreading to an adjacent compatible biome)
    [*] Secrecy ([-100 to 100:-100 to 100:-100 to 100], which is the probability of it NOT being discovered by an entity in contact with it; negative numbers indicate entities not in contact with it discovering it without hearing of it from an entity in contact)
    [*] Sphere distribution (as IM and WCA)
Also, MMs could be some of the components of WCAs; just to make the world feel more 'alive'.

Entities could probably have parameters that affect their interest and/or ability {in/w.r.t} particular spheres and types of magic; e.g., Elves might be more likely to get WCAs that take the forms of creatures or plants than ones that take the forms of traditional 'artifacts'.

WCAs, IMs, and MMs would probably also be RAW-definable, for those who want to make sure their game has Excalibur or Fireball in it.

Actually, IMs as I conceive of them are basically secrets (or the tablets secrets are held on, or w/e), so once we get more types of secrets, this might be a good thing to go with that.

[GreatWyrmGold]

WHY ARE YOU USING THOSE ACRONYMS?
They DMS.

[Radiant_Phoenix]

WHY ARE YOU USING THOSE ACRONYMS?
They DMS.

I was feeling lazy and didn't want to type them out.