If you soak in the history of what life was like before, say, Isaac Newton, you might have noticed:

People

Knew

That

Spirits

Were

Real.


Quite a few people did magic by means of spirits.  And people seemed to have understood that a spirit could be as weird and as terrifying as a bad acid trip, come to insubstantial life and floating through your walls.

To make magic weird again, make your whole world animistic.  Make the spirit world surround them, penetrate them, bind the world together.  If you're into Eastern Philosophy, make it a game fact that on some metaphysical level, all spirits, including human souls, are just aspects of the Universal Mind.

How does this shake out in game mechanics:

Player A: I want to cast a spell to give me telekinesis.

Ref: Well, you could summon a spirit who likes lifting and throwing things.  It's incorporeal, so it can get inside things, but you'll have to contact it telepathically, in Sumerian.

Player A: I'm not telepathic and I don't speak Sumerian.

Ref: No prob, just call up a big archangel to relay your orders.

Player A: How am I supposed to command an archangel?

Ref: Compel it with the power of your human soul.

Player B: I want to use clairvoyance on the enemy hideout.

Ref: Why not just send your spirit out of your body and look?

Player B: Isn't that death?

Ref: No, astral projection leaves your body intact until you come back.

Player B: Too weird for me, can't I just use a gizmo?

Ref: How about a bowl of water with a drop of your own blood in it as a scrying device?

Player B: Because my own blood would hurt.

Ref: It builds character.

Player A and B together: But it saps hit points from *player* characters!

Etc.

The trouble is that a spirits based approach like this limits you to one form of magic. That might work for a game but does tie you down. One of the nice things about a system that has a game mechanic that is masked by different flavours (the Hermetetic, Yogic or even Spiritualist example I gave above) is that you can apply the same core system to any environment by changing the flavour. Users of magic will explain the world in very different ways and for them that explanation will be true. This is really flexible and handled in the right way can provide great dollops of mystism and mystery without introducing rigid world rules that might proscribe some actions or types of magic.

Quote from: cmagounI don't think Runebearer's magic paradigm is particularly mysterious, but I think it goes a long way in making magic users feel different than their mundane counterparts. I think it is due to the fact that mages gain their spells not by study, but through interaction with powerful forces that mark and change them.

We have one character who, to gain his powers, had to make a deal with an ice elemental, sacrifice an enemy to power a demonic, robotic, scarring, tattooing cage, and look too closely at an alien statue.

Another character became a mage by trading a dark secret with a strange creature that lives under one of the campaign cities. To increase his power, he stole the silk of a gargantuan queen spider and used it to sew an hourglass into his abdomen... and then recently got into trouble with a demon and thus gave up all of his magic power to be blessed by St. Michael and become a mage/demon hunter.

Now, the basic rules of spell casting are just a set of tightly themed spell lists with mages being allowed to extend various attributes of their spells and/or improvise at a penalty. In this case, it is the trappings around that system that give the flavor.

Chris, just to say, those examples rock on toast.

Actually, if you could find it Nephlim or its alternate magic suppliment Liber Ka, you could have a different feel all together. While the magic system is codified, part of the lack of mystery I think you are feeling (after all, what mystery is something if you know all the stats for it like a broadswords...), it has a very different emphasis than most magic systems found in fantasy games. Now, Nelphlim loses some of that "mystery" as EVERY PC is a Magic using mystical avatar. However, around mortals, it makes for a sense of mystery.  If you added Nelphlim as your magi to a game, it would change thigns a great deal.

I think as we have said, the problem with "magic" in most games, is that it is not mystical. It is completely understood in terms of mechanics and effects. It is like swinging that broadsword, you know the mechanics for it if you are going to play it. And if you are not a spell slinger, you probably have read through the rules anwyays and "have a clue as to what is going on".

So, what to do about that.

You could require the same hurdle I often use to play non humans in most of my games.  People actually have to "qualify" to run a mage (or non humans) in most of my games. This usually requires them to go through the 8-64 pages of information I have on magic, magical history, magical themes and the world itself . (See World Packs  http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=1274 ) They have to be able to answer my questions on the world, and magic, and the magical view before they get to play a magic user.

Once they find out they are faced with an oral exam that I am very serious about, most people won't even try. After all, they don't want to mix "School" and studying with their games.  Those that do, about 50% fail because they did not take it seriously. Those that succeed,  are my best players and they really understand the game world and what I am trying to accomplish with magic.

Note: only those that succeed get to see the actual magic rules (which is normally just the page or so of notes that modifies the book system).

They do preserve some of the mystery of the magic, as they understand that a mage's most potent weapon is mystery... that once people understand everything they can do, they are predictable and can be planned for completely. Their edge is people not knowing their magics, so they can not be prepped for. (Okay, so we know they can throw fireballs at this level, so every one spread to minimize the explosion advantage. And what about the fireproofing spell, we can apply that.)

Once magic is predictable and known, it just becomes another technology... as mundane as any other.

Another way to add some mystery is to eliminate most of the "blatent effect spells" from the list. Then you can use a dual roll system (ala mega traveller):

Both you and the PC roll for the spell check
Plyr/ GM
Y / Y You succeed and are confident you are.
Y / N You believe you succeeded, but did not: so the effects or information received seems trustworthy/ existant, and is a lie.
N / Y You are unsure of success, but did manage it: so the effects or information received seems like it did not work (or does not work when you test it) but is trustworthy/ existant.
N / N You fail and know you did

This does make a tiny roleplaying challange for NPC magi.

Heck, it makes a challange for regular magic users. "Are you sure this tracking spell is working?"  Magic user, attempting to save face and appear compentent, "Of course it is, but the trail of fate is leading us this way first... there must be something we must face before we find it." (Or insert bullshit face saving reason... like "There is evil magic blocking my magics.. we must be careful and stay close to me.. as my anti evil magic shield will help protect us." or "the ley lines are jumbled here", or so on..)

Now your Players have to trust you, that you are not out there to screw with them using this partially blind system. In fact, if they complain about it, tell them that they don't have to be magic users.

Quote from: jibbajibbaIf you want a mystical system the sytem needs to be open. The more open the system the more mystical mages can be but of course the more open the system the harder to rule and manage.
I think a system where a mage takes a template sytle, say Hermetic (scentific magic with wards and circles and whatever), Yogic (where a mage uses their inner will to give access to effects and the will is tempered by physical and mental deprevation and discipline) etc etc ...
then you need a list of effects  ...
Then add in some sort of point system...
The Mage PCs could then work out the type of effects they could achieve,
...
 I think , though I have not played the WoD Mage game that it uses elements of this ?
...This should create a system that looks very mysterious to the external observer and get rid of the spell list dilema of cookie cuter mages all running through the same dozen spells.

I don't disagree with anything you've said, but I would like to point out that you've given a very high-level sketch and filling in the details will require a lot of work.

If Mage teaches us anything, it's that it is far too easy to publish rules that look as though they are meaningful on paper but turn into vicious rules-lawsuits once play is actually underway.

Quote from: MoonHunterOnce they find out they are faced with an oral exam that I am very serious about, most people won't even try. After all, they don't want to mix "School" and studying with their games.  Those that do, about 50% fail because they did not take it seriously. Those that succeed,  are my best players...

This kind of approach does work wonderfully, when you have a lot of highly motivated prospective players and a lot of time.

In my case, I can table-top game if I make compromises and work to meet fellow participants more than halfway.  The overall time commitment is very limited, and the majority of participants are all good friends who will stick with each other, so if anyone from the core group bails, gaming is sunk.

Under these circumstances, I can't use your oral exam method.  Believe me, I would love to.

Quote from: jibbajibbaThe trouble is that a spirits based approach like this limits you to one form of magic. That might work for a game but does tie you down. One of the nice things about a system that has a game mechanic that is masked by different flavours (the Hermetetic, Yogic or even Spiritualist example I gave above) is that you can apply the same core system to any environment by changing the flavour.

Well, the "spirit-based approach" was a low-level bunch of examples to suggest a rough idea, and the system you gave above was a high-level principle.  Your sketch is sounds good in theory, but I would need to see some examples of how you would actually define rules and work the calculations for specific situations in order to certify it as "T3h 4W3s0m3."

Mind you, being certified by me doesn't convey any actual *benefits* and in some quarters may be a liability.

Quote from: BalbinusChris, just to say, those examples rock on toast.

Thanks...

I think if there is any specific point buried in there it's that you don't have to create obtuse magic systems to make magic feel different. You can take a relatively standard magic system and place some "mysterious" details around it and get a pretty good effect.