Alternatives to Magic

[Perry]

I have been thinking about having magic in a few game ideas I have, but then I got to thinking that magic is getting a little worn out. So I started brain stroming for new alternatives and I came up with a couple.

For a futuristic sci fi game I was thinking robots in place of magic. Maybe healing robots, attack robots, and transport robots and depending on your skill level it would vary what you could build and how well it would work.

For a medieval type game I was thinking maybe have animals. Maybe a dragon or something for attacks and maybe a griffon for transport.

So what do you guys think? I would love suggestions to the ones I have and I would love some new ones to work with.

[hallsofvallhalla]

Thats why I like Pysionics. Mind powers. While its close to the same as magic it can be done well to be much different. As far as a complete alternative then yeah pets, fiends, or familiars could work well.

[Jackolantern]

I would like to one day make an MMO that uses Caloric. If you are unfamiliar with the term, you should read the first paragraph of the wikipedia entry. It is pretty interesting.

I also would like to have a system where the players do not just start with a full bar of Caloric, but rather, they build it up during combat and release it with huge effects. Each class or archetype would build up Caloric in different ways.

[Agent]

Well for a sci-fi what about the idea of actually using the thing called 'science' to explain / or propose explanations for various effects -
Some great 'scientific' technologies or principles could include:
- Nano-robots ( Commonly referred to as Nanobots) : Huge potential amount of uses
- Subspace energy OR even refer to zero point energy
- numerous subatomic particles (both proposed and confirmed) with intriguing properties such as the Graviton (said to be the supposed particle to explain the force of gravity - which to this date is still unclear) - controlling such particles with various devices could lead to anti-gravity and perhaps levitation.
- Magnetism
- Plasma
- Superconductors
- Singularities (Black holes along with super dense matter)
- Utilization of Dark Matter / Energy (accounting for approximately 70-80% of the Universes proposed energy/mass) - Some theories used to explain it such as those in string theory examine it as gravitational energy permeating through from an alternate universe (through 'branes')

This list stretches on.... I a lot of sci-fi is more on the 'fi' fiction side rather than any actual science, be nice to see it used...

[Jackolantern]

If an MMO was to utilize "dark matter", they would probably do well to actually provide an explanation of what it is in their universe. The name "dark matter" only serves to show that we have basically no understanding of what this is. As you talked about with the "energy moving through different dimensions" that could make for some cool magic-like effects depending on what dimension you tapped the energy through.

Also, when I was younger I used to play a lot of pen'n'paper RPGs, and I used to collect and read various rulebooks for obscure RPG systems (probably the reason for my love of MMO mechanics and rulemaking, but that is another conversation). I came across this weird RPG that I believe was made sometime in the mid-80s, during the peak of D&D. It was a sci-fi RPG, but it almost completely used bioweaponry. You wanted to protect a hallway? Drop these alien seeds on the ground, and release a handful of beetles that have sharp, venomous stingers on their back. They will guard the seeds from being damaged with their lives, puncturing and poisoning anyone who attempts to step over the them. Need body armor? Put a bit of metalic moss on your stomach, and within minutes it will grow to cover your entire body. It was pretty interesting, and I have never seen anything exactly like that in a video game.

[Cayle]

Isn’t magic a form of ultraphysics? As are things like warp drive, anti-grav and anti-matter as used in most sci-fi? It’s all the same thing, even if the window dressing is different.

[Cayle]

What I’m planning to do with Epoch ia actually set out the physics of magic so that the designers understand how it works frontwards and backwards, its first principals and how/why it works the way it works. In short, make it a valid scientific discipline within the world and not just a series of recipies as is usually the case. Then we use those rules to cook up a few recipies; which serve as the existing magic system on launch day. Oh and an NPC has figured a couple of things out… essentially being the Newton and or Kepler of the world.

Copied from a dead forum…

Lets also get started on discussing how the magic system might work. (Starting from a high level)

One of the things I really like about the Epoch setting is that it tries not to treat to world as the middle ages with the impact of magic swept under the rug, nor does it simple replace tech with magic Ebberron style. It is set with the premise that magic has been historically rare, but is poised to change the world.

When I first began creating the Drachenmeer campaign setting, I had Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" in the back of my mind. I loosely modeled this setting on 14th century Europe. While not a strict allegory, this did cause me to think about magic: In the southlands, magic and trade sort of go together. In the real Middle Ages, being a merchant was shunned by the nobility and could (did) cost a noble the right to pass his title on. In the southlands, this is so. Magic use can do the same thing. Magic use is therefore a middle class / rich commoner undertaking, but it is still outside of the realm of the nobility. Because of this and the very secretive nature of traditional magic, the setting is a low magic one. Magic use is shunned the sword wielding nobility (but they do like their enchanted swords) and enchanted armor is banned for use by the nobility as dishonorable. Magic use on the battlefield is considered as cowardly as the use of a bow or crossbow.

The nobility look down on the commoner merchants who are sometimes wealthier than they and they look down on the peasants who with longbows and pikes, could sometimes (only sometimes) teach them painful lessons in traditional views versus reality. If the world of the past millennia was mostly low and the world is on the cusp of a slow transition to high magic place where every student has to take a magic theory course as part of the standard study curricula; then tradition says that the sword rules, even if that may in fact not be the case. Hence the martial chivalry holds the political reigns, even if reality no longer reflects their special status. I think this may be a way to reconcile a feudal system with the presence of magic. It is there, but society has not yet really woken up to it and even the practitioners are not in agreement about what it is.

The real action is a budding revolution in the way magic is used. Traditionally, magic is performed in the cookbook/component/speaking-in-tongues/hand waving way that we all know and love. Well, then along came a scholar of magic by the name of Rethion Quereyn. Rethion Quereyn lived in the first half of the ninth century (the current year in the southlands is 866). He developed meta-mathematical tools for magic, sparking a (controversial) revolution in thought on magic. Quereynian Methods are the root of the spell modifications required for silent or motionless casting. Quereyn basically said that just because a certain magic practice is ancient, does not mean that it is the best way to do it. After all ancient scholars had some silly ideas on mechanics, why not magic as well? This has inspired others and there is a flurry of activity in research into "meta-magic". There is much talk among certain circles of deriving spells from "first principles". Most of this work is pioneered by human and gnomish mages. There are detractors however. To these people, this new magic is a soulless abomination. The core of the conservative crowd is predictably the long-lived elves with their cherished magic traditions stretching back eons. This revolution will ultimately (within a few centuries) put spellcasting into the hands of almost the entire population and will be the source of my world starting the journey to modernity.

I like the traditional wizard a lot. I can almost smell the incense as they pour over dusty tomes analyzing ancient works, carefully selecting reagents, and scribing out runes in their spellbooks. I think it is critical to the identity of a wizard that they can learn a spell from a scroll. I also like the idea of a new type of wizard; one that can derive what is needed from the basic principles of magic. Magic has had its Newton and possibly Keppler, but not its Lagrange, Einstein, Heisenberg and Feynman.

I defined the two forms of magic as follows:

Esoteric (weave) Arcane Magic - Magic comes from the five elements; air, earth, fire, water and the quintessence. The last is the substance that permeates all space and is what allows the creation of living matter from nonliving matter and is the root of the mysticism known as arcane magic. Philosophers debate the number of properties that the quintessence has, but its known properties include being the medium of light and darkness, life, anti-life and the ?weave?. All life and all nonliving matter is connected through the weave. It is a mysterious meta-property that allows one to control the other properties and philosophers disagree on whether it is in itself a property. The nature of the weave itself is the fabled "Fifth mystery" of arcane magic. The other four "Mysteries" involve the ways used to manipulate the weave (read spell levels). All arcane magic is manipulation of the weave.

Exoteric (quintessential) Arcane Magic - This whole weave talk is simply bunk. There is no "weave". What arcanists wiew as a meta-property or full property of the quintessence is simply the trappings of the age old methods of working the quintessence. It is an artifact. This is not to say that using the weave is wrong per se, but it is not the correct model for quintessence manipulation. Most "weave methods" are simply flowery excercises in manipulating the quintessence and most spells are a lot of fluf wrapping a few sound principles. The esoteric casters don't see the forest for the trees and are so commited to their rituals that they don't even realize that from spell to spell, there are similar underlying principles at work. The quintessence is the defining element and all else comes from its state. To create or destroy energy or matter is simply a process of "telling the quintessence what to do".

[Perry]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

[Agent]

Isn’t magic a form of ultraphysics? As are things like warp drive, anti-grav and anti-matter as used in most sci-fi? It’s all the same thing, even if the window dressing is different.

Those things i would not refer to as 'magic' they are more theoretical physics concepts adopted a lot in sci-fi. Such ideas as those are yes overused, however at the developers own fancy, typically the way they are put forward is often either completely flawed, or just fails to explain how they actually work. They are respectable theoretical propositions that may be feasibly accomplished in the foreseeable future (that is the next couple of centuries). Although it is understandable that games are games, and not physics lectures so it is good to add aesthetics to various concepts to pretty them up (and consequently dumb them down) such as in countless numbers of sci-fi movies, the fact that you can hear explosions and the roar of engines in space, just makes me laugh at times.

My point to put across was I would like to see more games refer to actual physics (reasonable - and concurrent with our current level of understanding as well as its very forefront). Not just completely mystify how things work by explaining it as magic / any other name, or the alternative slap on some ambiguous explanation that makes no reasonable sense (ie. just make things up). Like I said before, I would like the sci-fi genre be less Fiction and a little more scientific - perhaps a new genre should be instigated - "Science", hehe.

[Perry]

Thanks for all your help everyone. I would love to hear more on it if anyone wants to say anything else.