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Player Designable Spells

8 (8.6%)

Divination With Depths

3 (3.2%)

Mind Magic

6 (6.5%)

Construction Magic

6 (6.5%)

Enchanting With Variety

7 (7.5%)

Weather Magic

8 (8.6%)

Terraforming

7 (7.5%)

Attribute/Essence Transference

6 (6.5%)

Travel/Movement

3 (3.2%)

Creature Creation/Hybridization

9 (9.7%)

Unique Magical Resources/Materials

4 (4.3%)

Summoning

6 (6.5%)

Chronomancy

7 (7.5%)

Metamagic

1 (1.1%)

Countermagic/Magical Interactions

7 (7.5%)

Interactable Deities

5 (5.4%)

Total Members Voted: 19

[axiomsofdominion]

So people are talking about magic in the games you wish existed thread including designable/combinable magic among other kinds. And I got to thinking about how some games like MTG or MoM or Dominions had cool and unique magic I wish I could use in other games. And also what magic you don't ever really see in games.

Dominions has "construction" spells like 3 Red Seconds, a simplistic formof creature breeding, complex interactions of options from Wish like summoning rare creatures, making them sentient leaders, and so forth. It has a very rudimentary set of "divination" options focused on magic sites and even probabilities, and so forth. And the famous deity design of course. MoM has some cool terraforming features. I can't think of many games with awesome weather magic. Illwinter games sorta have ritual spells but the game doesn't simulate weather in a way to make those super awesome. Eador has some decent uncommon magical options as well. Academy Sim games like Academagia have some friendship and mind control spells and events can use "negation" magic. HoMM and King's Bounty have some "dispel" magic.

Anyways I'm curious what the most desired magical capabilities in strategy, strategy rpg, simulation, or even crpg adjacent games are. You can pick 7/16 options on the poll.

[Frumple]

Terraforming, but it actually enables unique terrain types. So, like, you're not turning plains into mountains or whatever, you're ripping a (possibly permanent) hole to the elemental plane of earth or somethin', or lighting an entire forest on fire with everburning flames, or just... etc. Be interesting, do unusual stuff, don't just make the mundane more accessible. You should be able to shatter the world and keep playing. You should be able to get real weird, like turning the countryside into crabs. Crab trees, waving fields of pinchy grass, scuttling deer with pincers.

Something I don't think I've ever actually seen is, like... legitimate isekai summoning, cheats and all, where hero summoning is a strategic resource that can be borderline or outright world breaking. Not just a strong champion or something, but a critter that's actually running off a different ruleset somehow or another. Honestly, there's a lot of stuff in magic heavy fiction (especially litrpg or isekai junk, which regularly gets as ridiculous as the writing gets terrible) I've just never seen leveraged in a magic heavy game setting (often for pretty decent reason, because lol balance, but still).

Magic enabling outside context problems (relative to the rest of the gameplay) in general could get neat (and/or wildly annoying), really. Enemy casts some kind of spell and suddenly you have to win a round of space invaders or lose your army. If your magic system isn't letting your players run a game of calvin ball, are you really trying?

[axiomsofdominion]

Terraforming, but it actually enables unique terrain types. So, like, you're not turning plains into mountains or whatever, you're ripping a (possibly permanent) hole to the elemental plane of earth or somethin', or lighting an entire forest on fire with everburning flames, or just... etc. Be interesting, do unusual stuff, don't just make the mundane more accessible. You should be able to shatter the world and keep playing. You should be able to get real weird, like turning the countryside into crabs. Crab trees, waving fields of pinchy grass, scuttling deer with pincers.

Something I don't think I've ever actually seen is, like... legitimate isekai summoning, cheats and all, where hero summoning is a strategic resource that can be borderline or outright world breaking. Not just a strong champion or something, but a critter that's actually running off a different ruleset somehow or another. Honestly, there's a lot of stuff in magic heavy fiction (especially litrpg or isekai junk, which regularly gets as ridiculous as the writing gets terrible) I've just never seen leveraged in a magic heavy game setting (often for pretty decent reason, because lol balance, but still).

Magic enabling outside context problems (relative to the rest of the gameplay) in general could get neat (and/or wildly annoying), really. Enemy casts some kind of spell and suddenly you have to win a round of space invaders or lose your army. If your magic system isn't letting your players run a game of calvin ball, are you really trying?

I think the key reason you can't do portal fantasy shenanigans is that it would be hard to mimic plot armor in a video game. You summon a LitRPG hero at level 1 with some bullshit system but then he gets eaten by granite wolves made by an ancient terraforming experiment at level 3 by random bad luck before he can break the world.

[EuchreJack]

Mass damage/destruction/killing magic.
Basically want to throw around Magic Nukes.

EDIT: While Chronomancy looks cool, I don't think it can be implemented in linear video games the way that I would like.

[axiomsofdominion]

Mass damage/destruction/killing magic.
Basically want to throw around Magic Nukes.

EDIT: While Chronomancy looks cool, I don't think it can be implemented in linear video games the way that I would like.

I think you could do some interesting chronomancy in a tick/turn based RPG. Not like insanely wild stuff but still a few different things. Haste/slow, stasis, movespeed fields, reverse a second one targeted characters, skip DoTs forward, and so forth. Also in a strategy game you could do a sped up time type thing. Actually you could maybe do a time loop, but half of that effect is just load game anyways. And it would be OP.

[EuchreJack]

Yeah, but no Time Lord shit.

[axiomsofdominion]

Yeah, but no Time Lord shit.

I mean, we don't expect that level of manifestation from other magic to count. Aside from Timelord shit just being save load, the internet, and the pause button we can't do time lord stuff it is true. But you can't do the nature magic version of time lord shit either, and rarely the space magic version.

[EuchreJack]

My point being, if I can't be a time lord, chronomancy is sorta a letdown.
So I'd prefer magic that can be implemented without feeling of regret.
Although Stasis Locks and Haste in a Real Time game ain't that shabby.

[Frumple]

You can do some pretty time-lord-y stuff, if you're willing to run with it. Easy one is to have chronomancy proficient critters unlock special events where future/past selves jump in and help (or hinder), and/or have weird effect stuff pop up semi-randomly (e.g. you're in a fight and a rock or arrow or something will occasionally just enter stage left for no apparent reason). Tales of Maj'Eyal fiddles with stuff like that quite a bit, if you're looking for relatively small scale mechanical examples.

Some games (Caves of Qud, iirc, pretty sure at least ToME as well, maybe more I'm forgetting) have temporal manipulation open up what amounts to (limited) save scumming -- in a game that already has a save/load feature, it could do stuff like allow retries on combats or an undo button or whatever, basically extend the functionality beyond its normal limits.

... though yeah, going serious ham nature magic would also be pretty great. You never really see that in games, even in ones that have dedicated nature factions... 'bout the only one I can recall that actually goes pretty wild on that front is probably Dominions, and for all it's pretty great it's also pretty abstract and slow. Gaming world could use more of that, especially if it ran with some serious bombastic, wild hunt, don't-piss-off-the-druid stuff.

[Kanil]

I like terraforming as a concept, but I think in game it usually boils down to "this terrain is the best, put it everywhere" which seems kinda underwhelming.

[EuchreJack]

What we need is TERRORforming.

[Egan_BW]

Well if it were already on your poll, it wouldn't really be obscure magic, would it?~

[axiomsofdominion]

I like terraforming as a concept, but I think in game it usually boils down to "this terrain is the best, put it everywhere" which seems kinda underwhelming.

This is quitter talk. Proper terraforming should be circumstantial for mundane terrain/biome/climate and sort of narrative/fun focused for magical stuff.

[axiomsofdominion]

Well if it were already on your poll, it wouldn't really be obscure magic, would it?~

I've yet to see a single game with proper divination. Even SoFG chosen ones are slightly above mediocre at best prophecy wise. I mean I specifically picked stuff that is rare or unknown in games. Runelord style attribute/essence transference is basically totally unknown. You aren't even aware of The Rune Lords are you?

I did run out of options, though. I had more examples. Could probably double the options if I used specific rather than general things.

[feelotraveller]

Not voting on the poll.

I'd like to see rare magic which is able to permanently* alter basic game parameters (so meta-magic but not that kind of metamagic... ).  Like - taking some tame examples - to double or halve all movement speeds.  Or double damage or armour ratings.  But go wild, like permanent climate change (+20 degrees celcius everywhere?) or everything is a flying creature now, or what was land is now water and vice versa, or...

(Also since I didn't see it in the game-dropping list there is a cornucopia of magic types in Fallen Enchantress which very much exceed its otherwise mediocrity.)


* Barring another spell changing the same parameter again.