In a science fiction world where people have laser guns, jet packs, teleporters, force fields, mind control drugs, and invisible metamaterials, how does one write a magic system that seems magical?

One option is to establish clear, hard limits on what technology can and cannot do in the setting right from the start. Maybe no one's figured out FTL or time travel or how to bring the dead back to life. Magic is the only way to do these things.

That's true. I'm writing this RPG based largely on the one I wrote before, but better. Character's don't advance so much as diversify and mature. I'm trying my best to stay away from any kind of tiered power selection mechanics, letting starting characters have the best stuff.

The equipment list is really long and well defined. What I don't want is magic characters to just basically be the same as weak tech characters who can hide the fact that they have their ray gun and invisibility cloak.

Gutting my old and way to long magic section, I've got a lot of options. I was already planning on keeping the kinds of magic that pertain mostly to the spirit world. I could also keep crazy stuff like the things you mentioned.

If you read about magic in the real world, no one ever talks about bullshit like holding a door closed, carrying equipment on a disk, making the ground slippery, or 90% of the other stuff that make for spells in RPGs.

Mostly it is talking to spirits, seeing the future, turning base metals into gold, killing people, causing bad luck, astrally projecting...

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;418638One option is to establish clear, hard limits on what technology can and cannot do in the setting right from the start. Maybe no one's figured out FTL or time travel or how to bring the dead back to life. Magic is the only way to do these things.

Precisely.  In the game I'm working on, there's exactly one kind of magic: necromancy (and some related sympathetic/voodoo-y stuff).  It doesn't overlap the tech stuff.

Quote from: Cranewings;418632In a science fiction world where people have laser guns, jet packs, teleporters, force fields, mind control drugs, and invisible metamaterials, how does one write a magic system that seems magical?

Excellent question.

If magic is formulaic and predictable (like, say, D&D's magic system), magic is bound to become another form of technology. Note that technology (practical use) is not science (understanding); people were using catapults long before Newton, and the advent of gunpowder predates both Lavoisier and Priestley by quite a few centuries. And if this happens, you might have a hard time telling magic and technology apart.

IMHO, where magic and technology overlap, magic should offer a shortcut, at a price. A magic doorway to a space station orbiting Epsilon Eridani does away with the need for big huge starships with fancy FTL drives and huge crews of highly qualified engineers and astrogators and pilots. But if you fuck up the portal spell, you might open up a portal to the heart of a star, with superheated plasma and radiation pouring out and causing an environmental catastrophe. Or maybe the incantation need the assistance of a paranormal entity we shall conveniently label a "demon" which will require some trifle, like the fresh liver of your firstborn child (clones just won't do).

Just my 2c.

Technology costs money.

Magic costs your soul (or sacrificing other people's souls).

Quote from: The Butcher;418662IMHO, where magic and technology overlap, magic should offer a shortcut, at a price...

Exactly.

It's not only about what magic actually does, but also about how magic actually feels, i.e. how it comes into play. If magic is used to add to a setting on a cosmological level, allows to reach other planes of existence, has a mystique behind it, and feels otherwise mysterious, then it is not technology.

Technology and science embody what can be measured and understood on a rational level (including an understanding of chaos and unpredictable things, of course). Magic is the realm of mystery, analogy, reaching for something subtle, intengible that has to be reached with your soul, as opposed to your mind. There is a dichotomy there that can be exploited at a game table.

Taking a key from the MATRIX.

"I've seen an agent punch through a concrete wall. Men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air. Yet their strength and their speed are still based in a world that is built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be."

So maybe Magic is the freedom from rules.

Want to find someone? The system need to know where they are, or have some way of locating them (RFID, Geotracking). Magic can delivery this by just thinking of a cherished memory. Magic is personal. Magic is as much about seeing as doing.

The Laws of Magic are human laws. Demon laws. We know some of these from antiquity. An eye for an eye. Blood thicker than water. Birds of a Feather Flock Together. Fight fire with fire. With these and others you can do much that technology cannot.

In my legion campaign, magic is a difficult art limited to those few who have talent by virtue of birth.  It can't really do anything better than science on the grand scale, which is why the United Planets is science-based rather than magic-based, but an individual magician can do things that defy all logic.

There has been a running gag throughout that campaign where Braniac 5 is always extremely annoyed any time 'magic' finds its way into a situation, because he has no understanding of it.  He refuses to call it "magic", trying to insist that it should be called "High-level Psychic Abilities", but this is mostly just a screen to hide his confusion and distress over a power that seems to make no rational sense whatsoever and can't be quantified or understood intellectually.

RPGPundit

Technology has generally predictable effects. Magic does not.

Magic in this case may require different rituals for different planets, different components, and have varied effects. It has some reliability, but that's only to the extent needed to make it work in game.

Example: You want to give someone a strength boost in play with magic. You have to know the base ritual, modify it for his day of birth, and planetary alignment at that time. You have to do research for general contingencies then make up additional information on the fly. The more gaps you leave the farther afield the spell goes. Plus each casting will be different. This time he grows two feet, next time he glows blue with a force field, another time it turned him into a gorilla. Depending on context, that only occurs at that one point. No spell is ever exactly repeatable. It always needs that bit of luck, intuition, and knowledge melded together to get the effect, but the effect and its cost varies.

Want to FTL travel (teleport) with magic? Plan  and cast the spell today, spend two hours researching alignment of this planet to that planet in as straight a line as possible. Then you have to know say what sacred days coincide on both planets, give up some sacrifice combination appropriate to both (if its the Day of Flags on one planet and the Day of Fallen Heroes on another you need a flag stolen from a fallen heroes corpse or place of honor.)

Etc. Etc.

Symbolism is big, exact ritual is not.

I think ypu've answered your own question. Step away from kitchen sink roleplaying game magic and just focus on one specifc school and take inspiration from one particular "real world" or classic literrary source of magic.

There's a brief article here that discusses making magic less scientific. You might find this at least interesting, though I think the thread has already reprised some of it.

http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/magic/antiscience.html

Quote from: Pelorus;418811The Laws of Magic are human laws. Demon laws. We know some of these from antiquity. An eye for an eye. Blood thicker than water. Birds of a Feather Flock Together. Fight fire with fire. With these and others you can do much that technology cannot.

This is very quotable, and deserves being in a RPG.

Let me add one more voice to the idea that you should make magic the opposite of technology. Whatever attributes technology has in your setting, magic should work the other way. If technology is manifest in objects, magic should be insubstantial: words, gestures, fleeting signs in the sky. If technology is reliable, magic should be uncertain and unpredictable. If technology produces physical effects, magic should channel will, emotion, and intuitions. At a game-mechanical level, if you use technology by rolling dice, then you should use magic by drawing cards--or just saying what you want to happen. Once you figure out how technology works in the game, then as long as magic works in a contrasting way, players will be satisfied.