Having trained originally as a physicist, I'm with you on the natural explanation of things in the real world, and yet I'm constantly striving to find a non-modern mindset in many of my roleplaying settings. Magic, for example. I think we can all agree that lists of spells for "magic-users" (itself a rather mechanical term) don't model the mystery we'd like in a medieval-like magic system. Yet we do have to have rules if the game isn't simply to turn into the referee (or GM) telling the players a story. Novelists don't have this problem as they are under no obligation to build a consistent theory of magic. Maelstrom used a probabilistic system, which was clever but a bit too mathematically precise for pre-modern settings. I'm currently working out a system of magical phyla, with different effects having different difficulties and various magical laws (contagion, imitation, etc) influencing the difficulty. That's for a medieval-like, European-like setting. But I'm not sure if such a task can ever be completed, only abandoned!
As someone who has spent many, many, many hours thinking about how to gamify medieval western magical traditions (and having abandoned the effort) I entirely concur. I agree that ‘Maelstrom’ was not a bad effort at combining abstraction, fluidity and mechanical cogency but it suffers slightly from a tension between hard statistical likelihood and the subjective judgment of the GM. On balance, I think I’m coming round to the view that all medieval magic (whether learned or semi-rustic ‘cunning’) is incapable of being squeezed into the confines of narrow mechanics and must yield to something very like a ‘narrative’ hedged around and throttled for game balance less with ‘levels’ (broadly imagined) and more with in-game obstacles derived from strict requirements around the availability of texts, the cost and scarcity of ingredients and the exacting demands of precise ritual. I think this probably means that ‘hedge magic’ would be rendered of considerably less efficacy but, while that will cause some players to be disappointed, I think the adherence to the original conceptions of magic would be worth the trade-off in a quasi-medieval setting.
That's the direction I've been heading. Sorcery in my system (in its current form) can be miraculous indeed, but only if you're very experienced, you have all the right gear, and you take plenty of time to cast a spell. It's not the instant zap of D&D.
Magic in D&D remains for me one of the strangest design choices from the very inception of the game. It is particularly odd because it seems clear to me that the breadth of reading of the early authors must have informed them that their choices were sharply at odds with what was known - even in the 1970s before much modern research - about how medieval magic was thought to work. I have to assume that their priority was playability, if only because my own attempts to create an ‘authentic’ medieval magic system ran aground on the treacherous shoals of trying to reconcile that verisimilitude with what most modern players will put up with in terms of limits on their freedom to act. “What do you mean, I have to wait for Jupiter to be in dignity before I can cast that spell? How long? Two months!?!?” How different would this aspect of the hobby be now had Gygax and Arneson privileged fidelity to the source material over gamification?
I like this discussion. I regularly refer to verisimilitude when I am creating content for my games and settings. I don't necessarily think all should be explained, but I would like a feeling of constancy that allows greater immersion, if for no one else, than at the least myself.
Having trained originally as a physicist, I'm with you on the natural explanation of things in the real world, and yet I'm constantly striving to find a non-modern mindset in many of my roleplaying settings. Magic, for example. I think we can all agree that lists of spells for "magic-users" (itself a rather mechanical term) don't model the mystery we'd like in a medieval-like magic system. Yet we do have to have rules if the game isn't simply to turn into the referee (or GM) telling the players a story. Novelists don't have this problem as they are under no obligation to build a consistent theory of magic. Maelstrom used a probabilistic system, which was clever but a bit too mathematically precise for pre-modern settings. I'm currently working out a system of magical phyla, with different effects having different difficulties and various magical laws (contagion, imitation, etc) influencing the difficulty. That's for a medieval-like, European-like setting. But I'm not sure if such a task can ever be completed, only abandoned!
As someone who has spent many, many, many hours thinking about how to gamify medieval western magical traditions (and having abandoned the effort) I entirely concur. I agree that ‘Maelstrom’ was not a bad effort at combining abstraction, fluidity and mechanical cogency but it suffers slightly from a tension between hard statistical likelihood and the subjective judgment of the GM. On balance, I think I’m coming round to the view that all medieval magic (whether learned or semi-rustic ‘cunning’) is incapable of being squeezed into the confines of narrow mechanics and must yield to something very like a ‘narrative’ hedged around and throttled for game balance less with ‘levels’ (broadly imagined) and more with in-game obstacles derived from strict requirements around the availability of texts, the cost and scarcity of ingredients and the exacting demands of precise ritual. I think this probably means that ‘hedge magic’ would be rendered of considerably less efficacy but, while that will cause some players to be disappointed, I think the adherence to the original conceptions of magic would be worth the trade-off in a quasi-medieval setting.
That's the direction I've been heading. Sorcery in my system (in its current form) can be miraculous indeed, but only if you're very experienced, you have all the right gear, and you take plenty of time to cast a spell. It's not the instant zap of D&D.
Magic in D&D remains for me one of the strangest design choices from the very inception of the game. It is particularly odd because it seems clear to me that the breadth of reading of the early authors must have informed them that their choices were sharply at odds with what was known - even in the 1970s before much modern research - about how medieval magic was thought to work. I have to assume that their priority was playability, if only because my own attempts to create an ‘authentic’ medieval magic system ran aground on the treacherous shoals of trying to reconcile that verisimilitude with what most modern players will put up with in terms of limits on their freedom to act. “What do you mean, I have to wait for Jupiter to be in dignity before I can cast that spell? How long? Two months!?!?” How different would this aspect of the hobby be now had Gygax and Arneson privileged fidelity to the source material over gamification?
I like this discussion. I regularly refer to verisimilitude when I am creating content for my games and settings. I don't necessarily think all should be explained, but I would like a feeling of constancy that allows greater immersion, if for no one else, than at the least myself.