Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[nenjin]

The Hobbit was admittedly more like the works of C.S. Lewis than Tolkien's epics.

Well...more like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Lewis' later works just get mind-bendingly odd, and make Tolkien seem simple and direct by comparison.

Anyways, as far as a starting point, I'm not so interested in a basic theory of magic as I am inputs and exclusions. It's easy to say "Magic is the manipulation of universal forces through sheer will," but it's vague and honestly, I think everyone gets that already.

A more useful starting metric would be something like "All magic/magical calculations stem from the [SOUL]" even though Toady has said the name doesn't and shouldn't imply any other game mechanics. That's a basic, fundamental rule that we can generate ideas and associations on.

Or some firmer guidance on exclusions, or at least a hierarchy.

So a hierarchy of creation would be like

[WORLD]
[MEGA-BEASTS/GODS/PERSONALITIES]
[MAGIC]
[CIVILIZATIONS]

So we could know that, procedurally, the world would trump magic (since Toady wants player to be able to opt out of magic entirely), personalities would trump magic (as in, you can have a world full of gods and heroes completely separate from magic), but magic would trump civ generation, so that is the level we would realistically start generating ideas at.

While fans of magic systems (obviously) crave these big, Aristotelian magic systems that exist from the highest points of reality to the lowest, in order to make everyone happy, it probably needs to have a less central place in the grand scheme of things.

[Toastergargletop]

interestingly, that particular order of generation suggests that the gods and megabeasts may have some fundamental link to magic.  perhaps certain magical traditions could depend on the presence of certain gods of a certain sphere, or certain megabeasts surviving world gen (for dragon magic perhaps?)

[nenjin]

Well it was more to preserve the current "must-haves" of world gen as coming before magic...but that's a neat take. Perhaps the inputs that go into the magic system (whether it's an elemental color wheel type thing or whatever) is dependent on the orientation of gods after world-gen. So you end up with a world largely based on war, pain and suffering The attachment or non-attachment to the god's spheres could be chosen at world gen.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I suggest we never ever call them "dwarven wizards".

Whoever these guys are, they should have names like 'Rune Smashers' 'Hammerbloods' or 'Curse Spitters', 'Doom Beards' maybe.

Something that won't get them beat up in recess.   

[Toastergargletop]

maybe 'wizard' could just be another path of magic that a dwarf MAY take up, (but only the tough ones that can stand up to the taunts).  i want to know more about blood smashers though........

[BlazingDav]

Good point, magic should be possible to just peel off the game and the game still works fine. Admittedly those primary suggestions are vague, but I was aiming to be able to embody most if not all magic in a series of concepts, admittedly just switching the ability to manipulate the 'energy' is enough to turn such a system off. Also as far as magic systems being wheels of elements, I'm not so keen on those, they work, but magic is more of a universal substance thing influenced by its user sort of thing in my view, be it the will to fight, to work, to fathom, to connect, to do good will, to do bad will or the will to accompolish goals and dreams. Magic is still the same in all them ultimately if you ask me, at least that way magic is more heavily influenced by personality I guess =P

Also I'd be tempted to say that magic proffession names ought to be generated as the magic they use is generated (Flower Smashers anyone?). Though that may just be a gimick too far if it just means that players are just learning new names for the same things as before, so types of magic proffessions just being given names like languages are given nouns would make sense. Like a wizard indictating an independent magic user that studies and acquires their own spells from scratch or a mage indicating a magic user part of a collective of individuals developing their magic collectively generation by generation.

[nenjin]

Whoever these guys are, they should have names like 'Rune Smashers' 'Hammerbloods' or 'Curse Spitters', 'Doom Beards' maybe.

See, and I find all those names to be cheesy attempts at saying "dwarf wizard" in a way that sounds dwarfy. And not everyone sees dwarfy the same way. Plus, what we call them is pretty much academic anyways, since you can give them all custom profession names.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Before J K Rowling came along, the word "wizard" used to mean something, notably someone wise. After having it applied for years, on a global scale, to a teenager who simply is physically incapable of committing wrong, no matter how many wrongs he happens to commit, the term has lost it's meaning for me.

Before I get stabbed by rabid fans, they're not bad books, or movies for that matter, and they certainly have done a lot against illiteracy. But it's become difficult to use the term "wizard" without conjuring up-pun intended-the pointy hat and the owl.

[nenjin]

Well...I don't think you can lay it all at her feet. Fantasy in general has over used most of its tropes. Call them Sages, call them Prestidigitators, Runesmiths, Runespeakers, Sorcerers...whatever. Labels, in DF, largely mean nothing. I think Toady has the sense to not hardcore certain things so that they becomes true for every game.

[Dvergar]

Before J K Rowling came along, the word "wizard" used to mean something, notably someone wise. After having it applied for years, on a global scale, to a teenager who simply is physically incapable of committing wrong, no matter how many wrongs he happens to commit, the term has lost it's meaning for me.

Before I get stabbed by rabid fans, they're not bad books, or movies for that matter, and they certainly have done a lot against illiteracy. But it's become difficult to use the term "wizard" without conjuring up-pun intended-the pointy hat and the owl.

You give her too much credit, she didn't come up with point hat or owl, those are pretty old images. 

[Andeerz]

Hay peeps!  If anyone has time and wants to read up on sort of what old school medieval ideas of magic were like, pick up a copy of "Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer's Manual of the Fifteenth Century".  It's pretty sweet.  From a demonology class I took back in college, it seems that a good deal of "magic" in eastern and western Europe revolved around astral magic, demonic magic, and alchemy.  I really wish I was still in that class because it really was a great synopsis on the history of religion, magic, and science...

Well, from what I remember about the history of magic, a good deal of astral magic came from the middle east tracing as far back as Sumeria.  This magic had to do with planetary and stellar alignments influencing the goings-on on earth and dictating the ideal time for performing rituals to achieve whatever ends.  The rituals could involve making sacrifices (burning incense, offering food, maybe killing an animal) or inscribing symbols and the like.

Demonic magic in medieval Europe dealt with summoning demons or other spirits to do your bidding (or being tricked to do theirs).  This stuff ties in with some of the astral magic.  Typical demonic summoning rituals involved inscribing a magic circle around the summoner to protect them or around the area where the demon is summoned to keep them in check.  These circles involve the inscribing of magical runes, names of angels or other spirits, and/or words of inherent power.  Tools were implemented such as books (like the bible or the necromancer's book) swords, shields, or burnt offerings to get things going.  Making a golem relates to this as well.  One golem-making ritual I learned about involved sculpting a humanoid figure out of clay and inserting a piece of parchment with a special symbol into the mouth of the figure that would then cause it to come to life.  There's an interesting interpretation of this ritual in Jan Švankmajer's Faust.  Which reminds me... read Dr. Faustus!  It's pretty much all of this crap in a nut-shell!       

Alchemy and other aspects I don't remember as much about.  But, yeah, it's neat stuff!  If magic gets implemented in DF, I hope Toady takes a look at historical interpretations of magic.  I find it much more interesting than the ostentatious stuff currently found in most fantasy video games... 

[ZeroGravitas]

I think Dragon Age: Origins has better dwarven magic than anything presented in this thread.

[nenjin]

Listening to Toady's reloaded Artifact talk was pretty helpful for getting a feel for his opinion of magic. It seems he's more interested in magic having properties rather than a beneficial/detrimental system.

That makes the randomization more interesting. For example:

+/- System
+Damage
-Stamina
+Hit Points
-Speed

That's a generic, classical magic item we're all familiar with, that has clear but limited applications...and essentially helps you kill things faster. Even if that's an anvil instead of a sword (say that produces weapons with those bonuses whenever they are crafted there), the end usefulness and FUN of it is still limited.

Properties on the other...

-Heat
-On hit: Polymorph
-Heavy
-Sticky

Now imagine an anvil with those properties. It's a heat generating source, which can make for all sorts of interesting problems. When struck (i.e. used) the user shape changes into something. It's heavy so it's not very potable...and when people use it they get stuck to it for a certain period of time. Which also causes them to burn, since it generates heat.

Properties also lend themselves to being mysterious, and unknowable. Bonuses too can be unknowable, but their value as a mechanic isn't very high if players don't know about them.

Thinking about artifacts (and by extension, magic and spells) as collections of interesting, randomly combined properties makes for more unique, and less industry-standard, possibilities.

And as an aside, during the talk someone mentioned a Threetoe story about an Elven sword that was left in a creek for 1,000 years...

And I thought, wouldn't it be neat if features had magical properties sometimes too? Like, a magic stream that makes you fall asleep when you touch it, or turns into fire when a certain creature or civ touches it. Or a stream that is frozen in the summer and thawed in the winter. Or a cave that is filled with permanent impenetrable darkness, or where injuries recover x2 as fast.   

[Iasnek]

I think that the only way magic could be implemented into DF while keeping the spirit of the rest of the game is to stay away from set spells, like seen in most fantasy games.  From what I understand, Toady is aiming for an end result where each world generated is unique from others (dwarf-lung men, anyone?).  If there were set spells, people would get used to them fairly quickly, no matter how many there were.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I agree with you, Iasnek: I like the idea of "building" spells, or magical effects, whatever you want to call it, from basic components.

Some kind of Rune magic seems like it might offer a way (not the only one) for this to happen.

To give you an example: Making the magic in each game unique could be as simple as scrambling the meaning of each Rune, either partially or completely, so that you'd have to do a little translating and discovery through trial and error, to use spells in each game.

In other words, the Runic "alphabet" might connect each rune to a broad meaning, that would remain constent across game worlds, but figuring out how each rune specifically operates in the world you currently occupy--and/or maybe which runes it can be grouped with--could require many dwarfs, and lots of fiery mutant death Fun.

Personally, I'd also like to see materials play a role in this, with the material each Rune is made of/carved on, influencing it's supernatural behavior, adding yet another level of depth and discovery to the magic system.

There could additionally be a knowledge/education factor, where various of these magical Runes were discovered by our dwarfs, through whatever means, and at different stages of the individual gameworld's timeline, again randomly, which would give you different access, and a different experience, with each Fortress.