A Curious Mechanic for a Magic System
Posted: 24 Jul 2017, 12:01
Hi there!
My typical pastime includes devising plans for world dominance and drafting home-brewed rules and systems for role-playing games (and also chewing on cocktail receipts but that's another story).
Some time ago I was wondering how to simulate magic as it is depicted in Warhammer Fantasy setting using BoB rules (and S&S rules for that matter). I started with a simulationist approach since the working principles of magic in this world are described quite well. I'm not gonna burden you with a detailed description. Suffice to say that magic is represented by Winds of different colors (there are eight winds exactly, plus the dark magic which is, well, bad). And to cast a spell a wizard needs to channel magic energy of the appropriate wind to form it into a spell.
The resulting system draft was way too heavy than necessary, but I managed to figure out a subsystem that I find quite neat. I'm not sure that it could be employed in other magic systems, particularly, in the system envisioned by Agamemnon and Higgins but I decided to share it with all you, guys, hoping that it may come in handy.
IF YOU WANT TO CUT THE CRAP, START READING FROM HERE
The system requires the use of a pouch and some different colored dice. For the sake of simplicity let's assume that we have the dice of S&S typical colors: red and white. The GM puts exactly 10 dice inside the pouch (assuming that the player would never need more than 10 dice for his roll; otherwise there should be another fixed number of dice inside the pouch, eg 20). The point is that the GM can adjust the level of danger/unpredictability of any given casting attempt by deciding, how many "good" (white) and "bad" (red) dice to put inside.
When a character tries to cast a spell, he takes a number of dice from the pouch. How many dice a character may draw from the pouch is a question subject to discussion. This number may be equal to his "Magic" Ability or be based upon another roll that he'd made before, or it may be not limited at all.
If the character draws only the "good" white dice than everything is fine: he rolls them to cast a spell (beating the spell's req or whatever).
But if he also draws some "bad" red dice than something's not going well. In either case, the character must roll all the dice that he's drawn. And after he rolls the character must decide: whether he would use the successes from the "bad" dice or not. And if he does, something strange may happen. Furthermore, something strange and dangerous happens if he rolls 1s with those "bad" dice.
I understand that this is not really a system – it's rather an idea or a framework. And that's exactly why I'm putting it here: it may give some of you ideas for your own creations.![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
My typical pastime includes devising plans for world dominance and drafting home-brewed rules and systems for role-playing games (and also chewing on cocktail receipts but that's another story).
Some time ago I was wondering how to simulate magic as it is depicted in Warhammer Fantasy setting using BoB rules (and S&S rules for that matter). I started with a simulationist approach since the working principles of magic in this world are described quite well. I'm not gonna burden you with a detailed description. Suffice to say that magic is represented by Winds of different colors (there are eight winds exactly, plus the dark magic which is, well, bad). And to cast a spell a wizard needs to channel magic energy of the appropriate wind to form it into a spell.
The resulting system draft was way too heavy than necessary, but I managed to figure out a subsystem that I find quite neat. I'm not sure that it could be employed in other magic systems, particularly, in the system envisioned by Agamemnon and Higgins but I decided to share it with all you, guys, hoping that it may come in handy.
IF YOU WANT TO CUT THE CRAP, START READING FROM HERE
The system requires the use of a pouch and some different colored dice. For the sake of simplicity let's assume that we have the dice of S&S typical colors: red and white. The GM puts exactly 10 dice inside the pouch (assuming that the player would never need more than 10 dice for his roll; otherwise there should be another fixed number of dice inside the pouch, eg 20). The point is that the GM can adjust the level of danger/unpredictability of any given casting attempt by deciding, how many "good" (white) and "bad" (red) dice to put inside.
When a character tries to cast a spell, he takes a number of dice from the pouch. How many dice a character may draw from the pouch is a question subject to discussion. This number may be equal to his "Magic" Ability or be based upon another roll that he'd made before, or it may be not limited at all.
If the character draws only the "good" white dice than everything is fine: he rolls them to cast a spell (beating the spell's req or whatever).
But if he also draws some "bad" red dice than something's not going well. In either case, the character must roll all the dice that he's drawn. And after he rolls the character must decide: whether he would use the successes from the "bad" dice or not. And if he does, something strange may happen. Furthermore, something strange and dangerous happens if he rolls 1s with those "bad" dice.
I understand that this is not really a system – it's rather an idea or a framework. And that's exactly why I'm putting it here: it may give some of you ideas for your own creations.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)