D&D General What Should Magic Be Able To Do, From a Gameplay Design Standpoint?

[jdrakeh]

Mechanically, I feel that magic should be able to break the other rules of the game (hereafter referred to as "reality"). How much should magic be able to break reality? I prefer systems where risk is balanced with reward - the more you're (i.e. the caster) is willing to risk, the greater the potential reward.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is such a setting dependent conversation. I think you have to separate D&D the game system from the Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Eberron or your own setting.

Howso? I specifically cited the actual mechanics of the classes, regardless of what setting they appear in. There is no edition where the Wizard class has had actual "I am part of an academic community" mechanic. No mechanic for actually doing spell research beyond "DM Says", which isn't relevant here because anybody could try magical stuff in the right contexts (thank you, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser)--one of the exceedingly rare places where magic wasn't given special favoritism (contravened only by DM....interventionism).

A game system packages magical effects into discreet parcels called spells that do specific things for balance reasons and simplicity reasons. But not every spell in D&D needs to already exist in your gameworld. The spell research and development was subsumed into the class development because it’s an onerous burden on the DM to be expected to add the spells into the adventure. Something that may not always be practical. Instead the wizard is now constantly developing spells as they progress. Thank goodness as well, as the old system was very cumbersome. If my adventure takes place in the tunnels of the Underdark, a magic/class system that requires enrolling at university or reading how-to books isn’t very practical.

Sure, the old ways were clunky and cumbersome etc., etc. But the point stands: You are claiming that the Wizard represents things like

• Participating in a community of scholars, who perform studies and, most importantly, share and credit their discoveries
• Focusing on cataloguing and clear, consistent categorization and formal structure (for pre-20th-century science), or on rigorous method, statistical analysis, and reproducibility (20th-century science and beyond)
• Performing actual research practice, such as iterative development, proposing hypotheses and testing them, or generalizing from a set of observational data to develop an abstract theory that explains why the data takes the form it does

None of these things are present in the Wizard, nor have they ever been present in the Wizard. Not one part of the above is even remotely manifest in any version of the Wizard, except the "DM Says" spell research of early-edition D&D.

In every thematic way, the Wizard--in every edition, including my own preferences!--has nothing whatever to do with doing "science" as we understand that word, nor even "natural philosophy" as the Ancient, Medieval, or Renaissance mind would. It has, beat for beat, nearly every single trope associated with Renaissance-era occult-obsessed "magi" trying to understand the hidden, secret truths of true reality lying behind the mundane skein we know.

Even taking this aside though, I think you are taking your experiences and applying them to all settings which probably isn’t very representative. If we take one of the core settings - Forgotten Realms - there are numerous Magic institutions and guilds promoting the development of magic. Take the Watchful Order of a Magists and Protectors for instance which teaches magic and has a spell library. As well as other organisations like the Church of Mystra, The Church of Oghma. Magic spells are readily available commercially as scrolls to be copied into spell books. Spellcasting services are available for hire even in villages.

I’m pretty sure wizards guard their spellbooks because they’re quite valuable and they’re screwed if they lose them. I don’t think I’ve seen jealous be part of it since 2e. I’m pretty sure in 3e there were suggested prices for copying a spell from another wizard. I assumed that identify is needed because a spellbook is written in the way your mind understands it. The spell translates it but it is translatable.

Sure. Those institutions allegedly exist. Nothing whatsoever about being a Wizard interacts with them. At all. Ever.

It's like saying that because universities existed in the medieval era, that the Rosicrucians couldn't possibly be a secret society. Seriously, this is totally irrelevant. The game does not represent, and has not ever represented, the Wizard as actually belonging to academia as we understand that term. Instead, it is almost exclusively represented--in both the descriptions and the mechanics--as being a whole bunch of people who jealously and zealously guard their discoveries, who would prefer that their discoveries be lost forever rather than allowing others to learn them without equal or greater compensation. It's got far more in common with a "library" where people only donate books to the library because they get greater rewards than keeping the books for themselves, and every participant is constantly looking for a way to get a leg up on all the others.

Settings can protest up and down that no no no, there's TOTALLY a real scholarly community, and they totally do actually work collaboratively, and they have a culture of sharing and proving sharable stuff etc., but this alleged community never actually results in spells being widely shared. It never manages to convince any high-level Wizards to start publishing their research and getting peer review etc., etc. There's nothing equivalent to academic journals, which have been the backbone of "science" since long before it was called by that name. If such a community exists, it is inexplicably locked in medieval stasis.

Having "suggested prices for copying spells" is precisely the opposite of a community of sharing and prestive-via-primacy, and instead reflects a community of secrecy and prestige-via-collection. Rather than being a community of collaborative researchers one-upping one another by proving their intelligence via documentary evidence, it's a community of begrudging textbook collectors, who don't want to allow anyone to copy their collection unless they're adequately compensated for doing so, and one of the great motivators for a Wizard is to delve deep into forgotten places in order to find the lost spells of the ancients.

If we had even a single representation of doing research (not just "I know some more skills" but actually the empirical method in some way or other), or of collaborating with a scholarly community that expects to work together.

 

[Retros_x]

I'd like magic to make almost no damage at all. Leave damage to other classes. I also think pure buffs, stat increases etc. are boring, control is the most fun in battlefield and the most "unique" because its hard to do for non-magic classes and thus magic systems should focus on that.

Out of combat uitility spells that easily dismantle gameplay systems especially resource managament should not be in the game. Stuff that makes light sources, finding safe resting places etc. obsolete. Or at least make it cost more. I think the most fun utility spells are the ones that "change the parameters of the scene". Thats a weird phrasing, but I don't know how to phrase it better. Stuff that creates new RP opportunities and new possible solutions to a problem. Magic Effects that are more than just "I win" and change the scene and world in an interesting new state.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Mechanically, I feel that magic should be able to break the other rules of the game (hereafter referred to as "reality"). How much should magic be able to break reality? I prefer systems where risk is balanced with reward - the more you're (i.e. the caster) is willing to risk, the greater the potential reward.

Two problems:

1. This means that your choice to take extra risks hurts not just yourself, but also your team. So now other classes only risk themselves, but typically benefit everyone, while spellcasters necessarily risk everyone but may or may not benefit anyone.
2. This means that some archetypes are "you are only allowed to follow the rules, no matter how limited that might be" while another is "you can decide how much the rules apply to you", usually with a side of "...and you can significantly control how much risk you actually take for breaking the rules."

Those two things are, precisely, why magic is so easily unbalanced. Making magic have hard-and-fast consequences usually hurts others at least as much as it hurts the user, and making it so the risks can be mitigated, even partially, immediately sets up a caster-DM arms race, to reduce the costs/risks as low as they can go while still keeping up the power as high as you can.

And, to be fair, there are plenty of mechanics that have a tension like this, making them very difficult to use or rely upon. Healing via doing damage, for example, is an extremely difficult-to-balance mechanic regardless of game (even video games struggle with it), because if it's too weak to keep you alive it's borderline worthless, but if it is even slightly more than breaking even on average, it becomes nigh invulnerability and lets a character be both tank and damage-dealer.

 

[Minigiant]

I am a fan of Magic types and restrictions.

Arcane magic can't Heal nor Revive and it's buff and debuffs require Concentration/Focus, ritual time, or a item slot. Utility can't supplant skills but can go around it.

Divine magic is behind a tier in Damage and Debuffing unless targeting the enemies of gods. Utility is solely focused on the skills of the gods.

Primal is behind on Utility, Buffs, and Healing unless related to nature, the elements, or animals/plants/fungi/germs. Skills can be boosted but not surprising natural limits.

etc etc

 

[jdrakeh]

Two problems:

1. This means that your choice to take extra risks hurts not just yourself, but also your team.

This is not necessarily true. Plenty of games have risky magic that doesn't necessarily hurt "the party" (e.g. Shadow of the Demon Lord, WFRP, etc).

2. This means that some archetypes are "you are only allowed to follow the rules, no matter how limited that might be" while another is "you can decide how much the rules apply to you", usually with a side of "...and you can significantly control how much risk you actually take for breaking the rules."

I don't see an issue with that.

Those two things are, precisely, why magic is so easily unbalanced.

I also don't see an issue with unbalanced magic (and never has D&D, really).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is not necessarily true. Plenty of games have risky magic that doesn't necessarily hurt "the party" (e.g. Shadow of the Demon Lord, WFRP, etc).

Except it does when those other classes depend upon that magic. Healing requires spells or other magical aid. I would know. I was the party healer in an otherwise non-magic party. We were guzzling healing potions like it was no tomorrow, and I was using half my (Warlock) spells on cure wounds on top of my Celestial healing feature--and we almost never got through a full adventuring day with more than half the tank left.

Making that costly? Yeah, that's never going to have any consequences whatsoever for the people in desperate need of that help. To say nothing of the zillion problems that so frequently specifically do require a spellcaster to solve (something that is essentially unheard of in the other direction, problems that cannot be solved by a spellcaster and absolutely require a non-spellcaster to solve.)

I don't see an issue with that.

You don't see how there couldn't be a problem with someone saying: "I'm going to double or triple or quadruple (etc.) the amount of benefit I get, while halving or quartering (etc.) the risk/cost I'll face"? You don't see how that could, y'know, radically inflate the power and influence of one class or set of classes, while leaving the others in the dust?

You really don't see how giving one side both "you can break the rules, but you'll pay a price" AND "except you can decide to pay less price, if you want" could maybe, possibly, produce some issues?

I also don't see an issue with unbalanced magic (and never has D&D, really).

The designers--repeatedly--say otherwise. Even PF1e's designers have admitted it. Even 3PP stuff, like Drop Dead Studios, admits that it's a problem and provides a solution.

 

[TheSword]

Howso? I specifically cited the actual mechanics of the classes, regardless of what setting they appear in. There is no edition where the Wizard class has had actual "I am part of an academic community" mechanic. No mechanic for actually doing spell research beyond "DM Says", which isn't relevant here because anybody could try magical stuff in the right contexts (thank you, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser)--one of the exceedingly rare places where magic wasn't given special favoritism (contravened only by DM....interventionism).


Sure, the old ways were clunky and cumbersome etc., etc. But the point stands: You are claiming that the Wizard represents things like

• Participating in a community of scholars, who perform studies and, most importantly, share and credit their discoveries
• Focusing on cataloguing and clear, consistent categorization and formal structure (for pre-20th-century science), or on rigorous method, statistical analysis, and reproducibility (20th-century science and beyond)
• Performing actual research practice, such as iterative development, proposing hypotheses and testing them, or generalizing from a set of observational data to develop an abstract theory that explains why the data takes the form it does

None of these things are present in the Wizard, nor have they ever been present in the Wizard. Not one part of the above is even remotely manifest in any version of the Wizard, except the "DM Says" spell research of early-edition D&D.

In every thematic way, the Wizard--in every edition, including my own preferences!--has nothing whatever to do with doing "science" as we understand that word, nor even "natural philosophy" as the Ancient, Medieval, or Renaissance mind would. It has, beat for beat, nearly every single trope associated with Renaissance-era occult-obsessed "magi" trying to understand the hidden, secret truths of true reality lying behind the mundane skein we know.


Sure. Those institutions allegedly exist. Nothing whatsoever about being a Wizard interacts with them. At all. Ever.

It's like saying that because universities existed in the medieval era, that the Rosicrucians couldn't possibly be a secret society. Seriously, this is totally irrelevant. The game does not represent, and has not ever represented, the Wizard as actually belonging to academia as we understand that term. Instead, it is almost exclusively represented--in both the descriptions and the mechanics--as being a whole bunch of people who jealously and zealously guard their discoveries, who would prefer that their discoveries be lost forever rather than allowing others to learn them without equal or greater compensation. It's got far more in common with a "library" where people only donate books to the library because they get greater rewards than keeping the books for themselves, and every participant is constantly looking for a way to get a leg up on all the others.

Settings can protest up and down that no no no, there's TOTALLY a real scholarly community, and they totally do actually work collaboratively, and they have a culture of sharing and proving sharable stuff etc., but this alleged community never actually results in spells being widely shared. It never manages to convince any high-level Wizards to start publishing their research and getting peer review etc., etc. There's nothing equivalent to academic journals, which have been the backbone of "science" since long before it was called by that name. If such a community exists, it is inexplicably locked in medieval stasis.

Having "suggested prices for copying spells" is precisely the opposite of a community of sharing and prestive-via-primacy, and instead reflects a community of secrecy and prestige-via-collection. Rather than being a community of collaborative researchers one-upping one another by proving their intelligence via documentary evidence, it's a community of begrudging textbook collectors, who don't want to allow anyone to copy their collection unless they're adequately compensated for doing so, and one of the great motivators for a Wizard is to delve deep into forgotten places in order to find the lost spells of the ancients.

If we had even a single representation of doing research (not just "I know some more skills" but actually the empirical method in some way or other), or of collaborating with a scholarly community that expects to work together.

I don’t know how else to say this. The technology level of a world is a setting issue. The D&D rules can’t bake in belonging to academia because some worlds aren’t going to have academia. I think you need to take two steps back and realise that people aren’t saying that magic is a science - but rather magic could be a science. In my case I’d go a couple more steps back because I actually said it could be a technology.

• You/and others can develop new spells as you go up levels.
• You/and others can share those spells with other people by reading a spellbook.
• You can also record those spells as scrolls and other people can learn from those.
• There are guidelines for developing spells that have never been thought of yet.

All your above requirements for research, iteration, sharing knowledge etc etc are covered by those 4 mechanisms. We don't need anything else to create a game world where magic behaves like a science. You seem to have an extremely modern expectation. There are lots of examples of books in published adventures that show people writing about magic - some of the older books even have spells themselves in them. It’s been a time old tradition in treasure building.

As for your last point that costs for things prevents Magic possibly being seen as a science… have you stepped inside a university recently? Now go back 300 years. Spell costs are largely a function of materials.

 

[Corinnguard]

In a world where magic does work, and can be used reliably it absolutely can be used as a stand in for technology - that is certainly the approach that the big D&D settings used.

There's also the possibility of magic and technology co-existing in some fashion with each other. The Eberron setting is perhaps the closest thing to this.

If you have a setting where magic can be used as a stand-in for technology, you are more likely to see very little technological development. Why invent X when we already have spell Y that does the job more reliably and effortlessly? There will be some tech in these settings, but they might exist only because no one sees the point of creating a spell to take its' place.

 

[CreamCloud0]

There's also the possibility of magic and technology co-existing in some fashion with each other. The Eberron setting is perhaps the closest thing to this.

If you have a setting where magic can be used as a stand-in for technology, you are more likely to see very little technological development. Why invent X when we already have spell Y that does the job more reliably and effortlessly? There will be some tech in these settings, but they might exist only because no one sees the point of creating a spell to take its' place.

rather than the LotR-esc medieval fantasy aesthetic (albeit with the magic cranked way up) i'd much prefer if DnD went more along the lines of Final Fantasy, i'm specifically thinking of the likes of 6, 7 and 10, where magic and tech exist both side by side and combined with each other, where you're just as likely to face down a giant mech as a dragon or plant monster and none seem out of place in the world.