Magical Systems

[Solus Magus]

Hey there. I'm a huge fan of magic and there are a lot of examples from different shows, movies, books, manga, anime and comics. But establishing a magic system can be quite challenging. I've read a bit on Sanderson's Law of Magic plus a discussion on "soft" and "hard" magic systems.

In a nutshell, soft systems are often ambiguous. There's that mystical vibe and the logic behind it is unexplained and magical. On the other side, hard magic systems have established rules and can have a bit of predictability. They're a bit realistic to the point that you'll know if the author broke his own rule just to further the plot of the story.

Here are some examples of soft and hard systems:

Soft - Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Song of Ice and Fire, Chronicles of Narnia, Star Wars

Hard - Mistborne, Wheel of Time, Avatar the Last Airbender, Full Metal Alchemist

Maybe I can have some thoughts on these things from you guys? Or maybe let's categorize systems from pop culture of they're soft or hard. (No pun intended LOL)

[Fae Briona]

Either is fine as long as they're consistent.  A hard ruleset that is suddenly broken is one of the few things that will make me stop reading a story.

You can also have a story that starts off looking like a soft system, but then gradually reveals the rules as the story progresses.

[Myr]

There are a lot of books and resources out there for World Building.  Magic systems get a great deal of focus.

My biggest takeaway from reading all of that stuff is that whatever you do, your magic system must have a consistent set of operational rules.  Even if those rules are explained to your reader.  You can even build in a great big cheat if you want... say the rule is "Any time you use magic, a random event (good or bad), happens near by."  You can use that sort of rule to create a great deal of comedy.  And random event scales with power used.  Bringing someone back from the dead, might bring them back and then start a zombie apocalypse because it also raised a handful more dead then intended.

A website like World Anvil gives you a lot of prompts and it has a lot of resources on World Building.  Their YouTube Channel runs different topics and gives you pros and cons of different methods.  All very handy.

On your list of different magic systems, you left out one of the hard rules systems... Dungeon and Dragons/Pathfinder/Cypher System.

Generally speaking, Dungeons and Dragons magic rules tend to underlie magic in my worlds.

[Solus Magus]

12 hours ago, Fae Briona said:

Either is fine as long as they're consistent.  A hard ruleset that is suddenly broken is one of the few things that will make me stop reading a story.

You can also have a story that starts off looking like a soft system, but then gradually reveals the rules as the story progresses.

This actually makes sense. It's not quite practical to dump the rules all at once all at the beginning. I think it's a more logical route to make the lore expand along with the progress of the plot without breaking inconsistency. And yeah, that's kind of my pet peeve as well. The 'deus ex machina' trope can be quite annoying. There are a lot of shows wherein the protagonist simply get to break the hard set of rules due an emotional power up lol. I couldn't help but cringe every time!

I think it's only allowable if there is decent foreshadowing that emotions do strengthen the character. But to break natural laws is kind of iffy.

9 hours ago, Myr said:

There are a lot of books and resources out there for World Building.  Magic systems get a great deal of focus.

My biggest takeaway from reading all of that stuff is that whatever you do, your magic system must have a consistent set of operational rules.  Even if those rules are explained to your reader.  You can even build in a great big cheat if you want... say the rule is "Any time you use magic, a random event (good or bad), happens near by."  You can use that sort of rule to create a great deal of comedy.  And random event scales with power used.  Bringing someone back from the dead, might bring them back and then start a zombie apocalypse because it also raised a handful more dead then intended.

A website like World Anvil gives you a lot of prompts and it has a lot of resources on World Building.  Their YouTube Channel runs different topics and gives you pros and cons of different methods.  All very handy.

On your list of different magic systems, you left out one of the hard rules systems... Dungeon and Dragons/Pathfinder/Cypher System.

Generally speaking, Dungeons and Dragons magic rules tend to underlie magic in my worlds.

Right right! I really think that the user's weaknesses and unintended consequences of using powers make the plot more interesting than the strengths. It should always be a double-edged sword or something. 

Hmm. I should really take a look at that World Anvil closer. It's still quite confusing for me. I guess I'm just not quite used to it yet. For the meantime, I'm using Scrivener to compile all of my notes on the world I'm building. It took years of research and absorbing information from different genres to create dynamics. It's really hard to proceed with the plot without establishing a set of rules for the world. It might bite me in the arse later on! lol.

I really really wanna learn D&D. It's the mother of all RPG that we enjoy right now. But sadly, it's not really thing here in our culture. Looking for players can be quite challenging.

[Myr]

10 hours ago, Solus Magus said:

I really really wanna learn D&D. It's the mother of all RPG that we enjoy right now. But sadly, it's not really thing here in our culture. Looking for players can be quite challenging.

There are a bunch of online options now, especially since many places can't meet in person.  I haven't used them myself, but there are links on World Anvil to online RPG gaming options.

[Solus Magus]

4 hours ago, Myr said:

There are a bunch of online options now, especially since many places can't meet in person.  I haven't used them myself, but there are links on World Anvil to online RPG gaming options.

I also heard that it takes long hours depending on the campaign. More than 12hrs? Not sure. But dang, that's literally a pain in the butt.

[MrM]

On 8/2/2020 at 5:36 AM, Fae Briona said:

Either is fine as long as they're consistent.  A hard ruleset that is suddenly broken is one of the few things that will make me stop reading a story.

You can also have a story that starts off looking like a soft system, but then gradually reveals the rules as the story progresses.

I like the slow reveal of magical systems from 'soft' to 'hard'. Ummm . . .

Anyways! Yeah, I like to introduce a magical character totally out of context with the 'reality' of the 'regular' main protagonist. As the relationship between the magical being and the 'regular' person grows, the nature of the magic starts to reveal itself. The 'magical' being starts to become less strange to the 'normal' person and the normal person slowly finds themselves transitioning into the magical being's reality. What once seemed 'impossible' suddenly becomes not only possible but commonplace! The 'normal' person then finds that they are no longer 'attuned' to their old reality like they once were. They have become a magical being themselves! It is analogous to when one learns something profoundly new and they can't look at the world the same way they did before! They have stepped into a far larger world than they ever thought possible! Then, as they come to learn what they can from this new reality, they start to find the patterns of laws and properties that hold that new reality together in its own context. What seemed wildly strange and out of place in the person's old reality now has meaning and purpose and informs them of how their old reality may, in fact, be held together and driven by this magical reality. Then the consistency and grounding of the magical system can have some solidity for the reader. They can feel like they are now privy to a deep, deep secret about the universe and how it really works behind the curtain!

Edited September 14, 2020 by MrM

[Zuri]

On 8/2/2020 at 5:40 PM, Myr said:

A website like World Anvil gives you a lot of prompts and it has a lot of resources on World Building.  Their YouTube Channel runs different topics and gives you pros and cons of different methods.  All very handy.

Do I hear a sales pitch here? 😉

 

On 8/2/2020 at 1:33 PM, Solus Magus said:

In a nutshell, soft systems are often ambiguous. There's that mystical vibe and the logic behind it is unexplained and magical.

On 8/2/2020 at 5:40 PM, Myr said:

My biggest takeaway from reading all of that stuff is that whatever you do, your magic system must have a consistent set of operational rules.  Even if those rules are explained to your reader.

That's the interesting thing about soft systems and why they are harder to get right: There are two ways to approach this—one of them is, the soft system is planned just like a hard system, but never explained within the story. And then, there's the soft system you make up as you go. This approach is easy to mess up, but can sure be saved retroactively with a good editor, I suppose (which would make it retroactively "hard" 🤔).

Beside hard and soft, there's the world/era in which it takes place: There's classic medieval-ish fantasy (e.g. Lord of the Rings) where everyone has some special ability (similar to (MMO)RPGs/MOBAs; see High vs Low fantasy), and then, there is contemporary urban fantasy, where the protagonist often is initially completely oblivious to there being magic in our modern world (e.g. Harry Potter). The latter often brings with it the possibility to show to what lengths the magic society goes to hide itself from the public and what would happen if truth ever comes out.

On 8/3/2020 at 3:07 AM, Solus Magus said:

There are a lot of shows wherein the protagonist simply get to break the hard set of rules due an emotional power up lol.

Even the magic itself is more than just how defined, strict, and well-known its rules are:

• How does it work? A spoken spell? Movement of a wand? A potion? Are there counterspells?
• How distinguished is the proficiency? Do "better" wizards/witches/magicians/sorcerers/warlocks/enchantresses just know more spells? Can others use these spells as well, or are they ineffective? Are there accidents when they are used wrong?
• What about the society's ethics of certain spells?
• How (easily/quickly) does the protagonist gain new abilities?
• etc.

Edited March 26 by Zuri

[Myr]

2 hours ago, Zuri said:

Do I hear a sales pitch here? 😉

Eh.  If you like world building, that is their wheel house.  Lots of great prompts for building a coherent world.

2 hours ago, Zuri said:

This approach is easy to mess up

Extremely easy to mess up.  I forgot where I saw/read it, but you can have one big ask from a reader/viewer.  Accepting Magic as a thing is often the biggest of asks in speculative fiction.  People that don't normally read it, that's often an ask too far all on it's own.  People that do love fantasy, it's basically a freebie.  But the ask for them is usually, coherency.  How much room you get depends on the sub-genre.  This applies to Science Fiction as well.  Faster than Light travel is pretty much required due to the insane distances between worlds.  FTL is fantasy so far as we understand it today.  Some people thread the needle with Bullshitium or Unobtainium or other made up something or another, but for the Hard Science Science Fiction sub-genre, FTL travel is their ask too far. They nope out faster than warp speed or a hop into jump space or a jump to ludicrous speed.

But with all advice is writing, people will overlook issues in one area because they love some other aspect.  Or the mood of the day says they'll forgive.

If the system you have for magic or space flight or whatever is coherent and consistent, it settles into the background tapestry of the story you are weaving.  If you are the opposite, the sleuths start picking at the threads of the tapestry questioning things... instead of following the story.  A really excellent writer can use that.  Or like Harry Potter, make it a plot point.  No one has ever survived the killing curse.... except Harry.  He broke the rules of magic for his world.  Somehow. A few billion dollars later...

[Zuri]

30 minutes ago, Myr said:

coherent and consistent

That's the main point: The world building has to support the magic. Of course, in our world, magic doesn't exist, as far as we know. But that's not the point. The world building has to take care, that the readers can accept, magic being real. That's the first stone, the foundation. It's what it stands and falls with. And then, each other stone has to fit. In other words: It has to make sense within these constraints.

Sure, soft science fiction has it easier by just saying "How it works is a bloody mystery to me", but even hard science fiction can achieve selling its fantasy elements to the audience: It needs a "conjunctive device" so to speak, which doesn't have to be a literal device, but a literary. I'm by no means an expert on Star Trek, but this franchise's canon has something called "Heisenberg compensator", because it is the one thing, one has to make up to make the rest believable. It takes a real world principle (the "uncertainty principle"), and say that science solved that problem somewhere between us and when the story takes place. Same with materials we might not have on Earth. If they have capabilities that solve things, they are the base for the rest of the system, that is built on top of that.

 

[drown]

@Zuri Once enough is revealed, I am here waiting for you to judge my magic system for its coherency.

Exciting!

😂

[Zuri]

7 minutes ago, drown said:

@Zuri Once enough is revealed, I am here waiting for you to judge my magic system for its coherency.

Oh, I absolutely, happily will. Brace for impact 😉😜

[Krista]

As someone who is currently wondering what the hell she is going to write now... this topic has been enlightening. And, made it a bit daunting for me to picture ever doing. 

Edited March 29 by Krista