Here's a few basic laws of magic
1.) Energy is energy, whether it comes a mundane or magical source.
2.) With time and neglect even the most powerful of spells degrades into nothingness.
3.) If your outgoing exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall.
4.) Energy and matter can be transfered, never destroyed.
5.) No two objects can be in the same exact place at the exact time.
6.) One really big spell is the equivalent of a hundred smaller spells.
Speaking as a proto-"Swicordian", I just have to say that while some sort of linear, "Legal" framework is necessary to keep the game world in some sort of casuality (but more to "justify" strategic mechanics), having those laws be overly reminiscent real-world physical laws would suck a lot of the fun escape vaule out of the game. The no-free-lunch situation could be explained in all sorts of ways that are not exaclty the laws of thermodynamics (although they have the same general gist): gods taxing magic for their own use, magic bleeding into other planes, and so on.
I don't have a particular problem with magic following magic rules. What I'm trying desperately to avoid is the "it doesn't matter, it's magic" camp getting any traction into Stardock's thinking. The laws don't need to follow reality exactly; in fact they can't if there is going to be magic involved. Siphoning energy from some sort of elemental plane clearly isn't going to follow the conventional laws of thermodynamics, but it needs to follow something that serves the same basic purpose.
More importantly, the mundane aspects of the game need to be firmly based on science. The channelers are exceptions to the rather mundane majority of the world, so the majority of the game mechanics will by necessity need to be geared toward them. Yes, the channelers are the one bring life and energy to the world, but the economy is mostly mundane. Once rehabilitated, land is farmed with mundane techniques. Mines, forges, most military training, most animal husbandry, most work on city building, etc is based on mundane technology and labor.
The basic premise of the game may be based on magic, but a huge majority of the game will be spent on mundane activities. It seems silly to not use known basic physics to describe and control these activities.
They *could*, but they probably *shouldn't*. The basis of the game is that channelers are helping return magic/mana/ whatever back to a land with a severe lack of it, why would anyone waste such a valuable resource on mundane tasks? Unless the lore starts saying those tasks were always magic based, in which case it would also need to explain how any non-channelers were able to do any of those tasks without magic.
Basically, my reasoning behing this is the Niven "The Magic Goes Away" universe. If magic is prevalent enough for pretty much anyone to access, eventually society will be based on its use. Then it gets used much the way we are using fossil fuels now, until the energy behind it starts running out and society falls apart.
You can hardly accuse me of being one of those, I never played it.
Gah! My name as an adjective! Please, Scoutdog, I appreciate the respect, but never again!
We are 'in the same camp' on this point, as I suspected for a while. I just finished Harry Potter 6 recently, and while I seriously admire that project for both its role in getting more kids to read novels and as an example of meticulously well-crafted, physically beautiful books, the magic 'system' is most definitely not systematic.
I've never said otherwise. However: if several supernatural phenomena classes appear in the same setting, there needs to be a unified theory behind the operation of all of them. If there are actively involved dieties, they need to be integrated with the ghost phenomena, which need to be integrated with the psychic abilities, which need to be integrated with the "magic" system, etc. They cannot be stand-alone features coexisting without a physics-level interrelation and remain believable. If your farming system is based on appeasing the rain gods, the rain gods need to appear as functional components of the overall supernatural physics structure of the game environment.
This is certainly a point of contention. I'm glad you agree that mundane physics need to play a substantial role, but we're never going to change each other's minds about how much the user sees of it. I think it inadvisable to attempt hiding modern ideas and language under a mask of magic babble. It's not going to be effective, bits will inevitably leak through and be more of an annoyance than accepting visible physics to begin with. It's an unavoidable fact that we are all going to bring our modern views and expectations to the game, and trying to pretend otherwise is not just a waste of effort but actively counterproductive.
I somewhat agree with Scout on the issue of 'non-magic' things being based on what ew now know to be real.
Instead things should operate on how the people in the setting believe things to operate. However, there's really no reason to mention whether magic is involved in farming etc..
The key point again is:
It should be internally consistant.
Magic has to have some rules to even make sense, sure... in the grand scheme of things it might not have 'structure' but its best for keeping that kind of magic in the 'high/arcane' realm... for tabletop play..
Magic should have rules that keep it internally consistant... however... if you do manage to gather up enough crystals... you should be able to blow a hole in the planet and end the game....
The idea really dosen't need rules like that in a game like Elemental. In a serious work of fantasy fiction, sure. It's overboard to think too much about how magic should work in a game like this.
I can't agree with you on this, the games that have the most appeal for me just like books and films have to have a logically consistant frame work of some sort. Of course in a book or film you may not know who "Magic" works because of the POV character. But in a game I think it even more important that the world have a logical frame work because if facilitates game play as well as immersion.
For example what I like most about the game Mass Effect is the detailed universe they created, including some black box sci-fi elements that explain the abilities of characters and technology within the world and make it consistant.
Don't forget essence; we don't know how it works but you need essence as well as mana to cast spells.
Scoutdog should be renamed lapdog!
While I can see a need for consistency in magic I do not think magic should be taken apart like a car and then analysed until there is a logically closed system in place. In the end it would be very acceptable to describe magic as 'whatever power can generate essence or mana and whatever spell or ability costs essence or mana to use.' Therefore ghosts or phantom warriors and elementals and whatever gantasy creatures you can come up with need not be placed in any magical context, they can just be left alone.
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