All of the below has been "tested and tossed" and then replaced with a newer version - go to this post for more details.

Yes, the Magic system proposed in the Genesys RPG book is interesting and clever. However, I'm thinking about a system that allows Magic users to do virtually anything they can imagine, as long as they have the (Will)power for it. No spell lists, no spell ingredients, no divine intervention, no such-and-such-a-caster specific abilities. Just plain, raw Magic that is accessible to anyone with the proper genetic background (in this case, Fae ancestry).

Here's my first (un-tested) pass at this. Can we make this idea work?

A Free-Form Magic System;

In our setting, Magic is about imposing your will on the world around you. Anything that you can imagine, you can try to make a part of reality as long as your attempt respects the law of conservation of mass and energy. Put another way, it's about convincing one form of matter that it wants to undergo a change in state; to be something else.

In game, just describe what your Magic wielding character is trying to do and work it out with your GM and your group.

For any Player Character to be able to use Magic (and take ranks in the Skill) they must take the Fae-Blooded Unique Ability at Character Creation. In other words, for a PC to have the ability to use magic it must be in the character's blood from birth.

To use Magic, a character must spend a Prepare Maneuver to focus their thoughts and then they must spend an Action to Unleash the Magic. These do not need to be sequential and the character may perform other Maneuvers and Actions, but the character must not lose consciousness between Preparing their Magic and Unleashing it.

As an Action, using Magic is regarded much like an Attack Action or an Opposed Check.

• Want to heal your allies? You're rolling against the severity of the wounds.

• Want to charm an NPC? You're rolling against their appropriate Social Skill.

• Want to hurl fire at an attacker? You're rolling a ranged attack.*

• Want to break down a door? You're rolling an attack against an inanimate object that likely has a Wound Threshold**

• Want to transform that pesky NPC into a rat? You're rolling against their Silhouette and their Self***

Magic is generally unpredictable and difficult to manipulate, thus any Magic check has it's difficulty Upgraded four times before the roll. (This means the minimum difficulty is actually 2 Challenge Dice for a Simple Check.)

RESULTS;

Each uncanceled Failure results in 1 point of Damage to the Magic user. (Magic can be prickly!)

Uncanceled Threat result in Strain Damage to the Magic user. (Magic can be tricky!)

Each Despair results in a Critical Injury to the Magic User. (Magic can seem vengeful, too!)

Advantage, Success and Triumph can be spent as normal.

MODIFIERS;

As normal, Talents could do any of the following for Specifc or General instances of Magic;

• Downgrade Difficulties

• Upgrade Skill Checks

• Remove Setback Dice

• Add Boost Dice

• Add Advantages

• Add Damage

Assign Boost and Setback based on situational and environmental conditions (eg: drawing lightning from a cloudy sky / clear sky / underground).

Characters can collect Treatise on various sciences written from a Magical perspective. Characters don't need to have Knowledge in different Sciences to be able to wield Magic, but having this Knowledge would Boost their understanding of what they are attempting to do. Also, not having specific knowledge could result in Setbacks.

If a character is attempting to perform some Magic that would absolutely benefit from specific Knowledge (such as creating a permanent dwelling, building a bridge, etc.) or another Skill (such as Medicine), consult the following table;

* Attack Damage of Magic; Raw Magic does Willpower + Magic as base damage? Use 2 Advantages to activate a “weapon” quality on your attack as normal.

** Wound Thresholds and Inanimate Objects; This is still to be tested, but how about giving inanimate objects a number of wounds equal to their Size/Silhouette. This way, breaking a lock or a door is a trivial matter, but tearing down an entire building becomes something more ambitious.

***Silhouette and Self; Here, conservation of mass is an issue – you have to figure out what to do with the particles of that NPC that won't be part of the rat (unless you're planning on a VERY large rat). Also, a character's sense of self will play a roll in resisting this sort of Magic. (Where does THAT go if you shrink down a person?)

I love the concept, and have had to re-read it 3 times. I think if you write up some general talents based on your concept it might be usable.

Let's take a test roll I just did. I made it a rank 2 magic user, with an intelligence of 4.
So we have 2 Proficiency Dice and 2 Ability Dice
Simple check, so its versus 2 challenge dice.
Since the rank is 2, its 1 boost die and 2 setback dice.

So, the easiest check, with the highest rank you can start with, unless you dump all your points into it. And a boosted intelligence from 3 to 4.
10 rolls, I got the following results
Roll 1 - 3 Advantage
Roll 2 - 1 Failure, 2 Advantage
Roll 3 - 2 Success, 2 Advantage
Roll 4 - 2 Failure, 6 Advantage
Roll 5 - 2 Success, 2 Advantage
Roll 6 - 3 Advantage, 1 Despair
Roll 7 - 3 Advantage, 1 Triumph, 1 Despair
Roll 8 - 2 Success, 3 Advantage
Roll 9 - 2 Success, 3 Advantage
Roll 10 - 1 Success, 3 Threat

So in 10 of the easiest magic casting, with no talents, we have an average of 0.9 Success, 0.3 Failure, 2.7 Advantage, 0.2 Despair, 0.1 Triumph
In total we succeeded 50% of the time. We took took a total of 3 wounds, 2 critical wounds and 3 strain.

However, realistically, you would be doing average things with your magic, so lets go with 2 challenge and 2 difficulty dice instead, with the same dice pool otherwise.

10 Rolls this time, are more like what you would commonly get from a decent starting magic in system.
Roll 1 - 4 Failure, 1 Advantage
Roll 2 - 1 Success, 1 Threat, 1 Triumph
Roll 3 - 1 Failure, 4 Advantage, 1 Triumph
Roll 4 - 2 Failure, 1 Triumph
Roll 5 - 2 Success, 2 Advantage
Roll 6 - 1 Failure, 1 Advantage
Roll 7 - 2 Failure, 2 Advantage, 1 Triumph
Roll 8 - 2 Success, 4 Threat
Roll 9 - 2 Success, 2 Threat, 1 Despair
Roll 10 - 2 Success, 3 Threat

So in 10 of the average magic casting, with no talents, we have an average of 0.9 Success, 1 Failure, 1 Advantage, 0.1 Despair, 0.4 Triumph
In total we succeeded 50% of the time. We took took a total of 10 wounds, 1 critical wounds and 10 strain.

"Raw Magic does Willpower + Magic as base damage? Use 2 Advantages to activate a “weapon” quality on your attack as normal."
So, their intelligence is 4, and their magic is 2, so since willpower is int-1 that is 3+2 = 5 damage base. If those were damage rolls, we would have done 6+7+7+7+7 damage on average. That is not bad. If you have concepts for talents let me know, since I am trying to make a proper "minion summoning" talent myself. Was debating trying your method of using the Silhouette concept you had in regards to summoning, but wasn't sure how you would go about say, summoning a demon minion, a rival or even a nemesis, though that would be an insanely difficult check.

So... Here's the real question with Freeform Magic Systems: Can it run WoD Mage?

1 hour ago, SwivelDiscourse said:

So... Here's the real question with Freeform Magic Systems: Can it run WoD Mage?

I don't see why not. World of Darkness operates under a very similar concept to this, with dice pools with a set limit and all that.

Swivel, I was mulling over this very notion in the car today :-)

My initial thought were around giving each of the nine Spheres a 'force power talent tree' like FaD uses.

5 hours ago, Mathadar said:

I don't see why not. World of Darkness operates under a very similar concept to this, with dice pools with a set limit and all that.

Unless you wish to redefine the Genesys magic to be vague concepts (as spheres are) and then limit over all maximum spell effectiveness to one's level in each sphere, the spells as set up quite well to simulate a WoD mage game. The magic system would no longer be sphere based but the level of dots in spell could represent one's mastery, especially if your magic skill is redefined as in the pdf in the Knowledge is Power post.

4 hours ago, just_chris said:

Swivel, I was mulling over this very notion in the car today :-)

My initial thought were around giving each of the nine Spheres a 'force power talent tree' like FaD uses.

To fully simulate WoD magic, you would have to completely redesign the Genesys spells to be combined (stacked?) in a similar manner to vague spheres (as I noted above). Talent trees would completely defeat the purpose of freeform since, by their very nature as talent trees, they're structured. Trees dont capture the Mage flavor.

---------------------------

I wrote the following before I realized I wasn't actually addressing the issues raised in the quoted posts left my inarticulate ramblings for those that weren't familar with World of Darkness Mage:

For those who care, it's been long time, but if memory serves, Mage magic basically worked as follows. WoD was one of the first purposefully designed narrative games (meaning tell a story and not another "kill it for XP" game). The simple mechanics did a great job of de-emphasizing the combat aspects and promoting actual roleplaying. Mage tried a similar de-emphasizing with its' magic system but it wasn't a truly "anything goes" freeform magic.

There were 9 spheres that represented vaguely defined aspects of magic (forces, time, spirit, etc). The level of the sphere represented the mage's control/power (1-5) in that sphere. Starting characters had 5 dots to spread around the spheres (max 3 dots in a sphere, starting). The combining of spheres created the "on the fly" freeform spells. Simple spells used 1 sphere, more complex ones combined more. The game gave you a few examples of spells but mostly it was up to the players to create their combinations. A lot of people didn't like the Mage magic system because it was so open ended and vague. In my experience, since most people were used to Vancian type magic systems, they found the incredible openness of Mage's magic system to be overwhelming. Ultimately, I was one of these people that couldn't make it work very well.

Sphere Power Levels
1) Can be sensed
2) Can be controlled but not created)
3) Can be created (minor)
4-5) More powerful, better control (don't quite remember)

Someone figured out that by combining spheres in different ways, there were about 25 different ways of achieving invisibility.

Invisibility Spell Examples (Desired effect and Required Sphere/level) - I might have the names and required levels wrong but you get the idea.
A) Light bends around me (Forces 3).
B) Light passes through me (Forces 2, Body 3)
C) Light passes through me (Body 3)
D) I am not where you are looking (correspondence 3, body 2)
E) Your mind doesn't register I am there (Mind 3) or No Ones Mind Sees Me (Mind 3, Correspondence 3)
F) Slightly out of phase with time (Time 3)

Healing - Body 3 , spirit 2

8 hours ago, SwivelDiscourse said:

So... Here's the real question with Freeform Magic Systems: Can it run WoD Mage?

Sorry, I have no practical experience with WoD (only played a few times) or Mage, but if my OP is useful, could you start another thread, with a reference back here, so these discussions don't get too confusing? Thanks!

12 hours ago, Mathadar said:

I love the concept, and have had to re-read it 3 times. I think if you write up some general talents based on your concept it might be usable.

Thanks! And yes, I'm planning to build some Talents this weekend - assuming the rest of this stands up to scrutiny.

12 hours ago, Mathadar said:

Let's take a test roll I just did. I made it a rank 2 magic user, with an intelligence of 4.
So we have 2 Proficiency Dice and 2 Ability Dice
Simple check, so its versus 2 challenge dice.
Since the rank is 2, its 1 boost die and 2 setback dice.

So, the easiest check, with the highest rank you can start with, unless you dump all your points into it. And a boosted intelligence from 3 to 4.
10 rolls, I got the following results
Roll 1 - 3 Advantage
Roll 2 - 1 Failure, 2 Advantage
Roll 3 - 2 Success, 2 Advantage
Roll 4 - 2 Failure, 6 Advantage
Roll 5 - 2 Success, 2 Advantage
Roll 6 - 3 Advantage, 1 Despair
Roll 7 - 3 Advantage, 1 Triumph, 1 Despair
Roll 8 - 2 Success, 3 Advantage
Roll 9 - 2 Success, 3 Advantage
Roll 10 - 1 Success, 3 Threat

So in 10 of the easiest magic casting, with no talents, we have an average of 0.9 Success, 0.3 Failure, 2.7 Advantage, 0.2 Despair, 0.1 Triumph
In total we succeeded 50% of the time. We took took a total of 3 wounds, 2 critical wounds and 3 strain.

In my setting, I figure the Magic skill is linked to the Willpower Characteristic, but yes, that's essentially the way that I see the dice pool being built. However, the "1 boost die and 2 setback dice" would only be added to the pool if the caster was attempting to use Magic for something that normally requires specialized knowledge (like building a stone bridge over a river, or a clone of another person [wait, where does that organ go?]). It's also the difference between throwing Raw Magic at someone versus trying to immolate them with Magic.

12 hours ago, Mathadar said:

However, realistically, you would be doing average things with your magic, so lets go with 2 challenge and 2 difficulty dice instead, with the same dice pool otherwise.

Oops - you've built the dice pool incorrectly here. An Average check is 2 Difficulty dice. With 4 Upgrades, that brings it to 3 Challenge Dice. Which would be pretty good for a caster finding themselves in Melee Combat and having to defend them-self with a quickly conjured Sword made of Magic. (After all, when you're carrying around a bunch of science textbooks to study in your free time, who's got the Encumbrance to carry a REAL sword?)

12 hours ago, Mathadar said:

"Raw Magic does Willpower + Magic as base damage? Use 2 Advantages to activate a “weapon” quality on your attack as normal."
So, their intelligence is 4, and their magic is 2, so since willpower is int-1 that is 3+2 = 5 damage base. If those were damage rolls, we would have done 6+7+7+7+7 damage on average. That is not bad. If you have concepts for talents let me know, since I am trying to make a proper "minion summoning" talent myself. Was debating trying your method of using the Silhouette concept you had in regards to summoning, but wasn't sure how you would go about say, summoning a demon minion, a rival or even a nemesis, though that would be an insanely difficult check.

I'm not sure where you're getting the "int-1" from. Otherwise, yes, it's intended for damage to be pretty good and comparable to someone who knows how to use a physical weapon.

Again, Talents will be forthcoming in a few days.

Oooh -- Minion Summoning! Also something I was thinking about. I'll start another post to work through some examples.

Minion Summoning through Free-Form Magic

There are so many ways you can do this. I'll cover the ones that spring to mind as I go.

1. Summoning a swarm of insects from the area around you.

Here, we're assuming that there are enough living things in the immediate area that you can call with your Magic. How big a Swarm do you want? Silhouette-wise? 0? 1? 2? 10?? Let's start with Wil. 0 -- that's going to require 1 Successes to accomplish. How far away do you have to call them from? Let's say you're standing in a forest, so the area within Short Range is teeming with insects. That's going to impose a difficulty of 2 (attacking something at Short Range). Also, what's the appropriate "mental" skill the insects would be resisting with? Vigilance? Sure -- and that's likely rank 0 or 1. Let's go with 0. So that doesn't add any difficulty dice to the pool. One more thing - do you know what attracts the kind of insects you're hoping to Swarm (let's say Wasps and Bees)? Probably - it's not rocket science, so in this case, you don't get any Setback (or Boost) for needing specific knowledge. That brings our total difficulty up to 2 with 1 Success needing to be assigned to making the Magic work. (Any extra successes can be used as damage in this case.) Add in the 4 Magic Difficulty Upgrades and you're going to be rolling against 3 Challenge Dice to summon a Swarm of insects. Also, unless you try to maintain the Swarm after the encounter, it should just dissipate as the insects return to their natural ways.

2. Summon a golem to protect you.

Much like the first example, the questions are going to be about Silhouette and Range of the materials. Since this one's a basic Golem, there shouldn't be any issues around it's "mental" skills, either. If you succeed, you've got a nice stone, or mud, or stick puppet to make do your bidding for as long as you want it around. However, it's a mindless creation and should not be able to act on it's own accord -- the caster will likely need to concentrate on making it do what needs doing (maybe a Leadership roll? Or a lost Maneuver?) Unless, of course, you find a way to give the golem a mind (create one? take one? take part of one?).

NOTE: For both 1 and 2, above, I would suggest that you could spend extra Successes to increase the Silhouette of the summoned Swarm or Golem, respectively. (I wouldn't allow multiples to appear; I think each summoned entity should require it's own roll.) Or use extra Successes to represent Damage done to your intended target. Also, I would allow Successes, Advantages and Triumphs be spent to generate or modify Stats for these minions. Typically for Wound Thresholds (a sort of representation of how well your Magic holds it together). Most other stat's are going to come from the caster -- a mindless golem can't fight better than the caster can, but it's going to be a nice distraction.

NOTE 2: Thinking about this, maybe Advantages and Triumphs can be used to command the summoned entity. One command per. Otherwise, yet another Magic check is going to be needed to control and/or animate your new friend.

3. Summoning something sentient (as we know it).

Let's try for a Demonic Minion, shall we? Okay, where does it come from? Not from around here, that's for sure. You're going to need some very specialized Knowledge for this one! Are you planning to bring the whole thing, body and mind, over here, or are you just hoping to contact it's mind? Or maybe you're planning to create a body for it's mind to inhabit? Either way, where's that material coming from (either to send back to it's place of origin, or to build with). If you're going to build a body for it's mind, that's even more specialized Knowledge, unless you've found a way to shove the demon's mind into an inanimate object -- can the Demon even animate said vessel afterwards? Or have you just figured out a complicated way to kill it? Wait! Does the Demon even WANT to come to you? That's going to effect the Difficulty, too.

This kind of summoning is going to very difficult with many variables. Assistance, Magical Artifacts, Talents -- these are all going to make a difference.

But it's still going to be possible. Just insanely difficult. "Poor apprentice. I told him not to go near the inlaid-silver, demon-summoning cube -- now look at the mess he's made. Anyone got a mop? And a couple of buckets. Maybe three. Eech."

Species Specific Magic

Just been thinking - if you wanted to limit the type of magic by species, that might be interesting, too;

- Human magic is of the physical world. They are able to shape and destroy matter.

- Troll magic is connected to water and dark places (like those under bridges).

- Dwarf magic is connected to metals.

- Succubus magic is that of the emotions and the body.

- Dragon magic is all about guardians and protection.

Just an idea to play with.

This "free-form" system seems very much like what is the general rules. Access to magic: arcane/primal/divine limit your schools/spells based on RP reasons for accessing magic, but also as a limiter warning against allowing characters to do everything. The spells have difficulties based on what you are producing. The OP suggests changing that to what the target is. Seems very "happy to glad" when the dice are all counted.

At least the system suggests a very punishing possibility with such broad options for casting but then counters that balance by giving ways to give boosts and advantages through talents.

The proposed system will require the GM to be objective in their judgments, make a lot of on-the-fly difficulty determinations (which will be argued by players guaranteed), and a lot of consistency on those judgments which will result in writing tables like are already in the book.

27 minutes ago, Doomgrin75 said:

This "free-form" system seems very much like what is the general rules. Access to magic: arcane/primal/divine limit your schools/spells based on RP reasons for accessing magic, but also as a limiter warning against allowing characters to do everything. The spells have difficulties based on what you are producing. The OP suggests changing that to what the target is. Seems very "happy to glad" when the dice are all counted.

At least the system suggests a very punishing possibility with such broad options for casting but then counters that balance by giving ways to give boosts and advantages through talents.

The proposed system will require the GM to be objective in their judgments, make a lot of on-the-fly difficulty determinations (which will be argued by players guaranteed), and a lot of consistency on those judgments which will result in writing tables like are already in the book.

There is a bit of difference - in the post about species limits, I should have said 'flavor' instead. Give each species a theme to their magic, but let them do whatever can be thought of with that narrative aspect. So, no, I'm not intending to limit what casters can do (outside of the limit imposed by the player's imagination).

I know this is not going to be to everyone's liking, but some of us dislike spell lists. As far as building tables for this, I don't see that happening - everything I've described so far has used the pieces already there in Genesys. Yes, it's gong to require on-the-fly calculating of difficulties, but consistency should not be a problem.

1 hour ago, admutt said:

There is a bit of difference - in the post about species limits, I should have said 'flavor' instead. Give each species a theme to their magic, but let them do whatever can be thought of with that narrative aspect. So, no, I'm not intending to limit what casters can do (outside of the limit imposed by the player's imagination).

I know this is not going to be to everyone's liking, but some of us dislike spell lists. As far as building tables for this, I don't see that happening - everything I've described so far has used the pieces already there in Genesys. Yes, it's gong to require on-the-fly calculating of difficulties, but consistency should not be a problem.

The Genesys "spells" however already are the equivalent of magic schools with built in modifiers for the different effects. I am not seeing how you system is any different other than granting all schools to everyone and a couple changes to threats and despair.

10 minutes ago, Doomgrin75 said:

The Genesys "spells" however already are the equivalent of magic schools with built in modifiers for the different effects. I am not seeing how you system is any different other than granting all schools to everyone and a couple changes to threats and despair.

I agree, there's not a LOT of difference in the end, but the point is that my system has no 'schools' or 'spells' or 'spell-specific' modifiers to remember or to look up. Just simple imagination coupled with what the GM already has to do for all the other skill checks; figure out the difficulty and the dice pool based on the existing rules of the NDS. If letting every caster do everything is a problem, limits could still be tacked on to this as required by your setting.

Let me try an example; "I call upon the power I have to increase the flexibility and strength in Heath the Clumsy's hands so he may better climb this cliff face before us!" (and let's set the caster at Characteristic 3, Skill 2.)

1) Using the book's example magic system, it's going to be an Augment, which is Divine or Primal with a default difficulty of DD. In this example, the caster isn't going to add any other effects to the spell since there's no specific urgency to climbing the cliff; Heath just wants to show off. Final dice pool to cast the spell is then PPADD. Then, assuming success, Heath gains +A to his skill check on the climb.

2) Using my system, we look at the target; Mentally, Heath the Clumsy is willing, but his body is going to resist by instinct, so we look at his Resilience, which is 1, so that's +D. Will Silhouette matter? Probably not, as the caster is targeting his hands (and forearms, likely) and that's going to be Silhouette 0. What about Range from the caster? I'd suggest that Range is a non-issue since they're likely Engaged and Heath isn't resisting (I would reconsider if the Range was anything else, or if the target was avoiding the caster, because then you're sending the magic over a distance). Now, does our caster have any training in anatomy? Does he know how the muscles work? Let's say he does have a Medicine skill of 2. This means he'll add B and SS to the pool. Conservation of Mass and Energy makes us ask where that's coming from (increase in muscle size and maybe finger length), but that doesn't change the difficulty here. So, with Magic getting 4 difficulty upgrades we end up with a final dice pool of PPABCCDSS. Each success is then an Ability upgrade, advantages could be more boost dice, etc.

3) John the Violent, standing jealously at the bottom of the cliff, slowly strings his long bow and shoots Heath as he crests the top of the cliff. That's a Ranged attack (Medium) at DD plus John's Skill, let's say PPA. Also, is there a Silhouette difference? No, both John and Heath are Silhouette 0. Does Heath have cover? No, he's exposed on top of the cliff. Any other environmental effects? Yes, there's a strong cross wind, so +S. Defense? Not this time. Is that it? Oh, let's spend a Story Point for an ability upgrade! That gives us a final dice pool of PPPDDS. Sorry Heath. John's an ***.

So, what I'm getting at here, is that both 2 and 3 use the same pattern of thought within the NDS system. 1 is a tacked on system and lacks the flow of the other two. However, my suggestion for magic may not be to your liking. How do you feel about the one in the book? Are you looking for something different?

Your magic concept is interesting but I'm not entirely certain about the scaling B/SB dice if there is an appropriate "knowledge" skill. I'd be more inclined to use the extra boost as per your table but I would increase the difficulty by 1 instead of having a variable amount of SB. Having 3 extra B/SB dice on any magic roll where a "knowledge" would come into play might feel a bit messy, particularly with characters with less experience.

All of that said though, I like the fact that there is only 1 magic skill and that certain types of magic aren't bound to seemingly arbitrary skills. Would you allow talents to substitute Willpower for another attribute such as Presence or Intellect?

32 minutes ago, Popdart said:

Your magic concept is interesting but I'm not entirely certain about the scaling B/SB dice if there is an appropriate "knowledge" skill. I'd be more inclined to use the extra boost as per your table but I would increase the difficulty by 1 instead of having a variable amount of SB. Having 3 extra B/SB dice on any magic roll where a "knowledge" would come into play might feel a bit messy, particularly with characters with less experience.

All of that said though, I like the fact that there is only 1 magic skill and that certain types of magic aren't bound to seemingly arbitrary skills. Would you allow talents to substitute Willpower for another attribute such as Presence or Intellect?

It's untested so far, but yes, I have reservations about the S/SB per "Knowledge" bit - I wanted to find a way to reward XP expenditure (and "punish" lack of XP expenditure) on other Skills. Your suggestion is interesting. I'll have to try it out, too. I was hoping to this set up to balance depth of the knowledge so there's always those three dice that "slide" from Boost to Setback. Really complex Magics could conceivably require multiple skills, though, and then watch out for that dice pool!

If it makes sense in your setting, I'd say sure, create a Talent (or more) that lets your caster substitute other Characteristics. I've thought about de-linking Magic anyway -- making it specific to the situation; trying to Magically Charm a crowd? Use Presence. This might even be a way to model Schools of Magic. But again, everyone's settings are going to be different and I'm only offering up a tool here.

15 hours ago, admutt said:

I agree, there's not a LOT of difference in the end, but the point is that my system has no 'schools' or 'spells' or 'spell-specific' modifiers to remember or to look up. Just simple imagination coupled with what the GM already has to do for all the other skill checks; figure out the difficulty and the dice pool based on the existing rules of the NDS. If letting every caster do everything is a problem, limits could still be tacked on to this as required by your setting.

Let me try an example; "I call upon the power I have to increase the flexibility and strength in Heath the Clumsy's hands so he may better climb this cliff face before us!" (and let's set the caster at Characteristic 3, Skill 2.)

1) Using the book's example magic system, it's going to be an Augment, which is Divine or Primal with a default difficulty of DD. In this example, the caster isn't going to add any other effects to the spell since there's no specific urgency to climbing the cliff; Heath just wants to show off. Final dice pool to cast the spell is then PPADD. Then, assuming success, Heath gains +A to his skill check on the climb.

2) Using my system, we look at the target; Mentally, Heath the Clumsy is willing, but his body is going to resist by instinct, so we look at his Resilience, which is 1, so that's +D. Will Silhouette matter? Probably not, as the caster is targeting his hands (and forearms, likely) and that's going to be Silhouette 0. What about Range from the caster? I'd suggest that Range is a non-issue since they're likely Engaged and Heath isn't resisting (I would reconsider if the Range was anything else, or if the target was avoiding the caster, because then you're sending the magic over a distance). Now, does our caster have any training in anatomy? Does he know how the muscles work? Let's say he does have a Medicine skill of 2. This means he'll add B and SS to the pool. Conservation of Mass and Energy makes us ask where that's coming from (increase in muscle size and maybe finger length), but that doesn't change the difficulty here. So, with Magic getting 4 difficulty upgrades we end up with a final dice pool of PPABCCDSS. Each success is then an Ability upgrade, advantages could be more boost dice, etc.

3) John the Violent, standing jealously at the bottom of the cliff, slowly strings his long bow and shoots Heath as he crests the top of the cliff. That's a Ranged attack (Medium) at DD plus John's Skill, let's say PPA. Also, is there a Silhouette difference? No, both John and Heath are Silhouette 0. Does Heath have cover? No, he's exposed on top of the cliff. Any other environmental effects? Yes, there's a strong cross wind, so +S. Defense? Not this time. Is that it? Oh, let's spend a Story Point for an ability upgrade! That gives us a final dice pool of PPPDDS. Sorry Heath. John's an ***.

So, what I'm getting at here, is that both 2 and 3 use the same pattern of thought within the NDS system. 1 is a tacked on system and lacks the flow of the other two. However, my suggestion for magic may not be to your liking. How do you feel about the one in the book? Are you looking for something different?

7

Seeing how it took me, as the GM a while to even read all the if. and, and why-fores in #2, the time it would take to adjudicate every spell would be very immense. Your description has flavor, depth, and imagination, but what it lacks is flow for a game of 6 or so people sitting around a table. In its descriptiveness, it is very cumbersome and leaves all the actual imagination to the GM rather than the player. Because it is all under the GM's discretion for a long list of modifiers, the player has nothing to do to prepare before their turn and keep the flow of the narrative going.

I have pulled together several different community ideas to make a compilation of my own. First, I am using the system where casters get spell points equal to casting stat + 3 times their magic knowledge skill. Spells cost 1 spell point per final calculated difficulty. If they run out of spell points they can use strain at x2 the spell point cost.

Next is the skills themselves. It starts with each character has to pick a RP focus/tradition that represents their tie to magic. For their focus they have to give a description, conditions that are favorable, and conditions that are detrimental. The conditions will be quick boost/setback on the surrounding. In this way it is similar to yours, but it will be more driven by how important and tense the situation is.

Next are the skills themselves. I am using the schools (I call them that but they are spells in the book). I use the standard ones plus divination, illusion, and enchantment. As the character gets a dot in magic knowledge, they also get a number of points for each school as a subskill. The total points a character has is the knowledge skill rank squared ( 1 at 1, 4 at 2, 9 at rank 3, etc) they put those in the schools they have learned (also by RPing) not to exceed the knowledge skill rank. This subskill represents the attribute/proficiency used in the dice pool.

Everything to this point has been preparation so it will not slow down the flow of play.

Last is casting. Using the spell rules, plus some further modifiers I made and borrowed from Genesys RPG Magic RUles doc off this forum, the player craft their spells. An added thing is they can up the difficulty by weaving in other schools. An example would be using a fighting illusion but weaving in a curse should it be destroyed (Think GW2 mesmer). The players can also write down what we figure is the roll for future use. No current formal benefit, just speed of play though I am considering rotes, spell preparation, and the like.

15 hours ago, admutt said:

5 hours ago, Doomgrin75 said:

Seeing how it took me, as the GM a while to even read all the if. and, and why-fores in #2, the time it would take to adjudicate every spell would be very immense. Your description has flavor, depth, and imagination, but what it lacks is flow for a game of 6 or so people sitting around a table. In its descriptiveness, it is very cumbersome and leaves all the actual imagination to the GM rather than the player. Because it is all under the GM's discretion for a long list of modifiers, the player has nothing to do to prepare before their turn and keep the flow of the narrative going.

Oh, I fully expect there to be back-and-forth between players and GM about casting Magic - and why would a player not figure out the difficulties on their own and present them to the table as part of their turn? When my players are shooting at Stormtroopers from Long Range while hiding behind cargo crates they normally figure out the base dice pool by themselves and just ask if they've missed anything (which can be answered by anyone at the table). I can't see it being any different with Magic once they get the idea what to look for.

And, this back-and-forth for the Magic system is also an opportunity for shared world-building in-game as we (players and GM) figure out how the world is put together and how to take it apart again.

I have some willing players lined up in the next few weeks, so I'll see how it actually plays. Modifications may be inbound afterwards.

6 hours ago, Doomgrin75 said:

I have pulled together several different community ideas to make a compilation of my own. First, I am using the system where casters get spell points equal to casting stat + 3 times their magic knowledge skill. Spells cost 1 spell point per final calculated difficulty. If they run out of spell points they can use strain at x2 the spell point cost.

Next is the skills themselves. It starts with each character has to pick a RP focus/tradition that represents their tie to magic. For their focus they have to give a description, conditions that are favorable, and conditions that are detrimental. The conditions will be quick boost/setback on the surrounding. In this way it is similar to yours, but it will be more driven by how important and tense the situation is.

Next are the skills themselves. I am using the schools (I call them that but they are spells in the book). I use the standard ones plus divination, illusion, and enchantment. As the character gets a dot in magic knowledge, they also get a number of points for each school as a subskill. The total points a character has is the knowledge skill rank squared ( 1 at 1, 4 at 2, 9 at rank 3, etc) they put those in the schools they have learned (also by RPing) not to exceed the knowledge skill rank. This subskill represents the attribute/proficiency used in the dice pool.

Everything to this point has been preparation so it will not slow down the flow of play.

Last is casting. Using the spell rules, plus some further modifiers I made and borrowed from Genesys RPG Magic RUles doc off this forum, the player craft their spells. An added thing is they can up the difficulty by weaving in other schools. An example would be using a fighting illusion but weaving in a curse should it be destroyed (Think GW2 mesmer). The players can also write down what we figure is the roll for future use. No current formal benefit, just speed of play though I am considering rotes, spell preparation, and the like.

So, from what I'm seeing here, aside from using the sample magic system presented in the book, you're asking your players to track Spell Points (and then Strain if they run out) and you've introduced a Sub-Skill system. And a 5 Difficulty spell costs 5 Spell Points to cast (then 10 Strain if you've run out of Spell Points). If we look at a Characteristic=4 and a Skill/Sub-Skill=2, the caster has a Spell Point Pool of 10 to start with. Depending on your caster's Strain Threshold they could likely use that spell 3 times and then not be able to do much more casting until they can recover some points (either Strain or Spell Points)? You'll have to let us know how it works in actual play. I'm sure others on the forums would like to know, too.

Aside from the mechanics of all this, I've found over several decades of being a GM that the following hold true most of the time;

1) spell lists tend to encourage players to look to their character sheets to figure out what they can do in any given situation, and

2) free-form magic systems tend to encourage players to look to the narrative to figure out what they can do in any given situation.

Both are valid ways to play, and I've had fun playing/running both ways, but what I and my players are looking for from Genesys is more ways to engage with the narrative (observation #2).

I just had a conversation with one of my players who was looking over my system. He wanted to make sure he understood what I was trying to get at with the system so he asked if we could walk through a sample scenario. Here's how that conversation started (paraphrased to reduce noise);

Player: "My mage is locked in a cell and sees that there is a puddle reaching from my side of the bars into the hallway beyond. I'm going to try to make the puddle deep enough to swim out underneath the bars."

Me: "Okay, so you're going to transform the rock underneath the puddle into more water..."

Player: "What? No, I'm going to turn the surface of the puddle into a gate to gain access to the elemental plane of water! Then I don't have to worry about how deep to make it or if there's another cell beneath mine -- I'll be swimming in another dimension."

Then we talked about the dice pool, but it's moments like this that I game for.

It is completely free form in what they do with the skills they have. "spells" are shortcuts they make up based on things we have agreed to in the past (i.e a short range fireball is DDDD). I suspect they will try and start with creating a couple standard things, but then move into "I would like to try to use..."

I expect they will start

On 1/11/2018 at 6:17 AM, lyinggod said:

Unless you wish to redefine the Genesys magic to be vague concepts (as spheres are) and then limit over all maximum spell effectiveness to one's level in each sphere, the spells as set up quite well to simulate a WoD mage game. The magic system would no longer be sphere based but the level of dots in spell could represent one's mastery, especially if your magic skill is redefined as in the pdf in the Knowledge is Power post.

To fully simulate WoD magic, you would have to completely redesign the Genesys spells to be combined (stacked?) in a similar manner to vague spheres (as I noted above). Talent trees would completely defeat the purpose of freeform since, by their very nature as talent trees, they're structured. Trees dont capture the Mage flavor.

---------------------------

I wrote the following before I realized I wasn't actually addressing the issues raised in the quoted posts left my inarticulate ramblings for those that weren't familar with World of Darkness Mage:

For those who care, it's been long time, but if memory serves, Mage magic basically worked as follows. WoD was one of the first purposefully designed narrative games (meaning tell a story and not another "kill it for XP" game). The simple mechanics did a great job of de-emphasizing the combat aspects and promoting actual roleplaying. Mage tried a similar de-emphasizing with its' magic system but it wasn't a truly "anything goes" freeform magic.

There were 9 spheres that represented vaguely defined aspects of magic (forces, time, spirit, etc). The level of the sphere represented the mage's control/power (1-5) in that sphere. Starting characters had 5 dots to spread around the spheres (max 3 dots in a sphere, starting). The combining of spheres created the "on the fly" freeform spells. Simple spells used 1 sphere, more complex ones combined more. The game gave you a few examples of spells but mostly it was up to the players to create their combinations. A lot of people didn't like the Mage magic system because it was so open ended and vague. In my experience, since most people were used to Vancian type magic systems, they found the incredible openness of Mage's magic system to be overwhelming. Ultimately, I was one of these people that couldn't make it work very well.

Sphere Power Levels
1) Can be sensed
2) Can be controlled but not created)
3) Can be created (minor)
4-5) More powerful, better control (don't quite remember)

Someone figured out that by combining spheres in different ways, there were about 25 different ways of achieving invisibility.

Invisibility Spell Examples (Desired effect and Required Sphere/level) - I might have the names and required levels wrong but you get the idea.
A) Light bends around me (Forces 3).
B) Light passes through me (Forces 2, Body 3)
C) Light passes through me (Body 3)
D) I am not where you are looking (correspondence 3, body 2)
E) Your mind doesn't register I am there (Mind 3) or No Ones Mind Sees Me (Mind 3, Correspondence 3)
F) Slightly out of phase with time (Time 3)

Healing - Body 3 , spirit 2

Sounds to me like it could be done, but you'd need to fiddle with the system a bit. Something like investing in spheres as if they were skills, and adding an extra step where you choose between which skill to use, and then convert the remaining skill to blue dice bonuses, or tack on a set of Advantages and Successes to represent that sphere adding to it.

Either that or we redesign the rolls for magic so they operate in a similar manner to Skill/Attribute, except you're combining Skill/Skill for it.

Better late than never, right? I finally got around to creating some talents for this system. Again, it's untested at the moment, but I have two groups willing to give it a try at our weekly games. I'll update again after we've had a chance to run it through the wringer.

Free-Form Magic System;

Magic is about imposing your will on the world around you. Anything that you can imagine, you can try to make a part of reality as long as your attempt respects the law of conservation of mass and energy. Put another way, it's about convincing one form of matter that it wants to undergo a change in state; to be something else.

Magic
Magic is a separate Attribute with a value that can only be increased above zero via the Arcane Ability talent. All characters have access to the Arcane Ability talent at any time. This is the talent that allows a character to manipulate magical energies and impose their will on reality. A character with a Magic Attribute of zero may not perform Magic actions.

Magic Actions
To use Magic, a character must spend a Maneuver to focus their thoughts and an Action to perform the Magic. These do not need to be immediately sequential and the character may perform other Maneuvers prior to performing the Magic Action as long as the character does not lose consciousness between the two Magic Actions.

Difficulty of Magic
Magic is generally unpredictable and difficult to manipulate, thus any Magic check has it's difficulty Upgraded four times before the roll. (This means the minimum difficulty is actually 2 Challenge Dice for a Simple Check.)

RESULTS;
Each uncanceled Failure results in 1 point of Wound Damage to the Magic user.
Uncanceled Threat may result in Strain Damage to the Magic user.
Each Despair may result in a Critical Injury to the Magic User (limited to once per Magic Action).
Advantage, Success and Triumph can be spent as normal (increase effects, apply Qualities, etc.)

MODIFIERS;
Boost and Setback dice may be added/removed based on the following;
situational and environmental conditions (eg: drawing lightning from a cloudy sky / clear sky / underground)
specific knowledge needed for success (see Knowledge Table below)

Knowledge Table
If a character is attempting to perform some Magic that would benefit from specific Knowledge (such as creating a permanent dwelling, building a bridge, etc.) or another Skill (such as Medicine), consult the following table;

Skill Rank	Boost Dice	Setback Dice
0	--	+ 2
1	–	+ 1
2	--	--
3	+ 1	--
4	+ 2	--
5	+ 2	- 1

Characters can collect Treatise on various sciences written from a Magical perspective. Characters don't need to have Knowledge in different Sciences to be able to wield Magic, but having this Knowledge would Boost their understanding of what they are attempting to do.

Attacking With Magic
A character may forgo using a Maneuver to focus their Magic in order to send out a raw blast of power in a specific direction. This Raw Magic follows the rules for attacking with a ranged weapon and does Willpower + Magic Ranks as its base damage. Furthermore, a character may use any 2 remaining Advantages to activate a “weapon” quality on the attack as normal.

Wound Thresholds and Inanimate Objects
This is still to be tested, but I recommend giving inanimate objects a number of wounds equal to their Size/Silhouette. This way, breaking a lock or a door is a trivial matter, but tearing down an entire building becomes something more ambitious.

Silhouette and Self
Here, conservation of mass is an issue – you have to figure out what to do with the particles of that NPC that won't be part of the rat (unless you're planning on a VERY large rat). Also, a character's sense of self will play a roll in resisting this sort of Magic.

Notes on Magic Actions
As an Action, using Magic is regarded much like an Attack Action or an Opposed Check.
Want to heal your allies? You're rolling against the severity of the wounds.
Want to charm an NPC? You're rolling against their appropriate Social Skill.
Want to hurl fire at an attacker? You're rolling a ranged attack.*
Want to break down a door? You're rolling an attack against an inanimate object that likely has a Wound Threshold**
Want to transform that pesky NPC into a rat? You're rolling against their Silhouette and their Self***

Magic Talents

Arcane Ability
Tier: 1
Activation: Passive
Ranked: Yes
Gain +1 Magic Attribute. The value of the character's Magic Attribute can be used as a Skill Rank linked to Willpower for performing Magic Actions.

My Will Prevails
Tier: 1
Activation: Passive
Ranked: Yes
The character gains +1 Upgrade on Magic Action skill checks.

Magic Touch
Tier: 3
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
The character adds 1 Boost die to their Magic Action skill checks.

Magic Will
Tier: 3
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
The character removes 1 Setback die from their Magic Action skill checks.

Magic Wise(Selection)
Tier 4:
Activation: Active(Incidental)
The character chooses one other Characteristic that they can use for Magic Actions. Once per Magic Action, the character may use this other Characteristic as their linked Characteristic where the desired effects of the Magic Action fall under that Characteristic's purview.
This Talent may be bought more than once, but only once for each additional Characteristic.

Magic Touch, Improved
Tier: 5
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
The character adds 2 Boost dice to their Magic Action skill checks. The effects of this talent replace those from Magic Touch.

Magic Will, Improved
Tier: 5
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
The character removes 2 Setback dice from their Magic Action skill checks. The effects of this talent replace those from Magic Will.

Magic Manipulator
Tier: 5
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
The character downgrades the Difficulty of their Magic Action skill checks once.

Magic Manipulator, Improved
Tier: 5
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
The character downgrades the Difficulty of their Magic Action skill checks twice. The effects of this talent replace those from Magic Manipulator.

For anyone who might be wondering, the above magic system was tested and met with lukewarm success. The current iteration relies on a variation of the Critical Injury rules for consequences.

Weeks of co-operative design have been followed with only a single session of testing so far, but testing with a character with a Rank 2 magic attribute has had promising results. More testing to come, of course, before I can declare this "finalized!"

House Rule - Free-Form Magic for Genesys v3.0.pdf

House Rule - Free-Form Magic for Genesys v3.0 - Summary.pdf