somewhere online they're telling people who want to write fantasy that they absolutely HAVE TO create a rigid and unique magic system with clear-cut rules and perfect, competitive video game-worthy balancing, meanwhile the most popular fantasy books of all time all have "wizards just do whatever"
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On the other hand, I do love it when they leave room for mystery
I feel like the real solution is to read good storytellers
it's also for nerds, tho.
Neither is inherently better though.
I'm a nerd.
so I love magic systems that follow strict rules as long as you can exploit or bend them to do weird and stupid shit.
noita is a great example of this kind of magic system and I love that game.
if you're a good writer, you won't struggle with this.
This sounds like an effective way to spend a lot of time not actually writing a creative work of fiction.
Eragon, Codex Alera, and most of what Brandon Sanderson has written are good examples of how this can be done reasonably well.
To think you NEED that rigor is a mistake.
Me: “Well, my intention was very clear, and I have a lot of practice drawing from the Pool of Power, but as for why he is having explosive diarrhea, not the slightest idea.”
Them:”It worked great, tho!”
Risk and struggle are meaningless if they can be resolved by breaking the rules.
Be whimsical!
If overcoming personal obstacles, then the magic system is just the flavor text of the world, and doesn't need to be locked down.
If overcoming external obstacles, then the limits of magic should be defined so the reader isn't saying "just use a spell!"
Ignore rules, have fun
I want it be MAGICAL. I want to NOT UNDERSTAND.
Don't make it a goddamn science where everything has hardset limits, that's like the opposite of what magic is BY DEFINITION.
Okay, I’ll leave now.
just mages inventing new spells n shit
Magic is just a plot device.
Magic is also a GOLDEN opportunity for fantastical nerding.
All you really need to do is breathe in and out, eat, drink water, sleep and fuckin' write.
Ignore the fact that I just told you what you need to do.
Ignore that, too 👆👆👆
*note:
I ignored the Oxford comma on purpose because there are no rules.
Probably dating myself
it explained A LOT of weird shit in retrospect though
It looks random because they’re playing by a rule book you haven’t read, and they’re intentionally hiding from you…
Brandon Sanderson has the best answer on using magic in story telling.
Even novelizations of games just ignore the restrictions of the games whose systems they allegedly represent.
E.g. WoW magicians just port from anywhere to anywhere in books (and cut scenes) while the players are restricted to highly specific destinations because of course they are.
Am currently working on a project that's a fairly deep dive into a magic system, but trying to keep it character driven.
In short I think magic needs enough logic to not feel like author fiat but stories are very much supposed to be about people first.
there should be SOME internal logic for consistency, but if you're not playing a game where how it specifically works matters in detail, fiction doesn't need exhaustive reasoning on how it works. it's fucking MAGIC. it works however you say it works!
Lots of people won't even set aside 20 minutes for breath control. The pool of becoming magic gods will be very tiny.
Tbh I just want a good story
Which is important in a plot where the true line had a material impact on the world.
Fantasy should just be that. Fantasy.
Basically what can be accomplished is only limited by the caster's creativity and the energy available to power it.
Imo.
i'm reminded of a story about an old fan ttrpg for this slice of life newspaper comic strip and there were huge lists of rules for stuff like firing guns underwater
Specifically tied to the themes of the story, directly involved in the inciting incident of the story, and directly part of the conclusion, rather than a tacked on explanation for why the shonen characters have shonen powers
So why would one ever treat magic as a monolyth?
There is no grand unifying theory in real life, heck the more we look for one the more we are stuck with the standard model. Which is self contradicting.
and it's a really clear shift in tone when you go from one to the other
But yeah, from a robot's perspective, the Three Laws are essentially a geas. (Or three geasa.) (Or four, if you count Zeroth Law.)
But there's nothing wrong with the latter either.
Enjoy it, fuckos! 😂
The magic comes back and all hell breaks loose.
ADHD? Wizard
Paranoid? Clairvoyant
Schizo? Mind reader
No hard rules, just vibes as the characters figure it all out.
Bending in ATLA / LoK is probably a pretty good standard. Rules and patterns, but also fluidity / flexibility.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AcceptableBreaksFromReality
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfIndex
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnthropicPrinciple
this doesn't mean you shouldn't *know* how it works, just that maybe explaining it exhaustively from pages 12 to 20 is a bad idea
Because that's how life works.
Interesting plot would be someone inventing magic from scratch in non-magic world. Probably done thousand times already.
Advice like that isn't unlike saying your fantasy story has to have elves, wizards, mountains, caves, dwarves, men, women, children, goblins, mythical creatures, or detailed descriptions of food.
Some stories *need* some or all of those elements. Some don't.
Lord of the Rings certainly had rules about the One Ring. What it could do, what it couldn't, and what it *would* do. Gandalf had fairly clear limits.
See also: anime dudebros who think anything in a story outside of mecha fights is "boring."
Yes. I do know the game mechanics that rely on deity fueled magic. The bargaining works better in narrative than gaming imo
Lotr is rather rarely outright uses magic while being lore deep in a bunch of other stuff is an interesting duality.
a lot of this is his fault