Topic: How Many Different Types Of Magic?

[providence13]

Sorry bro, I just noticed the "general RM" forum..

 I play RMSS\RMFRP. Spell Types and Sub-types are good for me, but I understand they didn't have as much importance in the earlier systems. Whatever RM works for you is the best one.

I do respect the work you've put into it. 

[arakish]

Sorry bro, I just noticed the "general RM" forum..

 I play RMSS\RMFRP. Spell Types and Sub-types are good for me, but I understand they didn't have as much importance in the earlier systems. Whatever RM works for you is the best one.

I do respect the work you've put into it. 

No need to apologize.  Although I do accept it (it would be insulting if I did not), you needed not to.

I put it under "general RM" since it could hypothetically be applied to all flavors of RM.  Figured if I can get some help (which you HAVE provided by being "snarky"), then it might help others who have a similar idea.  I like such things since it forces me to think on things I may not have thought of myself.  Thanks for being snarky.

Currently, I am trying to apply it to RMSS/FRP and the Laymen/No Profession profession.  Basically, I am using the Laymen/No Profession professions for ALL professions.  I am also trying some things Tim Dugger put forth in his "Irregular Realms" article so players may "specialize" towards the more standard professions in RMSS/FRP.  My biggest problem is not having time to sit down and just spend at least one whole day each week mulling it over.  Most often, on weekends, I am lucky to get a couple of hours.  Sometimes, I am a bad boy at work (by browsing this site for posts), and get an idea from someone's post.  You can see this attempt in THIS SECTION of my website.  Of course, this section needs some attention and possibly updating.

rmfr

[arakish]

Update Post

Here is the latest I have compiled.

• Alchemical - spells/powers that deal with the creation of magical potions, gases, chews
• Bewilderment - spells/powers that aid against detection, scrying, etc
• Communication - spells/powers that aid in communication
• Conjuration - spells/powers that transport items or beings from another realm of existence
• Defensive - spells/powers that defend against attacks
• Detection - spells/powers that detect things
• Divination - spells/powers that allow viewing of the future utilizing at least one sense (vision), but may include others
• Elemental - spells/powers that utilize the elemental forces with further specialization into only one:
     
  • Æther - an arcane element, the pure element of creation.
  • Air - the elemental fluid of the air - earth - light triad.
  • Earth - the elemental matter of the air - earth - light triad.
  • Fire - the elemental energy of the fire - ice - water triad.
  • Ice - the elemental matter of the fire - ice - water triad.
  • Light - the elemental energy of the air - earth - light triad.
  • Nether - an arcane element, the pure element of destruction.
  • Water - the elemental fluid of the fire - ice - water triad.
• Enchantment - spells/powers that deal with the creation of magical items such as rings, weapons, staffs, wands, etc
• Enhancement - spells/powers that improve or increase what already exists
• Evocation - spells/powers that allow viewing of the past utilizing at least one sense (vision), but may include others
• Force - spells/powers that involve the direct manipulation of matter, energy, or living beings through the use of a spell's/power's force
• Fundamental Interaction - spells/powers that directly manipulate the aspects of the fundamental interactive forces with further specialization into only one (of course, these types are almost impossible to learn and may not be included):
     
  • Electromagnetism - the familiar interaction that acts on electrically charged particles.  The photon is the exchange particle for this force.
  • Gravity - a long-range attractive interaction that acts on all particles.  The postulated exchange particle has been named the graviton.
  • Strong Interaction - the interaction responsible for holding quarks together to form neutrons and protons, and holding neutrons and protons together to form nuclei.  The exchange particle that mediates this force is the gluon.
  • Weak Interaction - a repulsive short-range interaction responsible for some forms of radioactivity, that acts on electrons, neutrinos, and quarks.  It is governed by the W and Z bosons.
• Healing - spells/powers that heals physical damage
• Illusion/Phantasm - spells/powers that utilize the manipulation of the senses
• Influencing - spells/powers that control or influence the actions of others
• Informational - spells/powers that divine information about items, persons, etc
• Invocation - spells/powers that call for the aid of more powerful beings
• Mind/Mental - spells/powers that affect the mind
• Nature - spells/powers that affect/use nature
• Necromancy - spells/powers that affect/use the dead and spirits
• Passive - spells/powers that are hung and triggered (almost always Wards)
• Personal/Physical - spells/powers that only affect the caster
• Scrying - spells/powers that allow viewing of the present utilizing at least one sense (vision), but may include others
• Sorcery/Destruction - spells/powers that cause damage/disruption/destruction of natural things
• Subconscious - spells/powers that are hung and triggered by the subconscious when unconsciousness occurs
• Summoning - spells/powers that transport items or beings from a location to the caster's locale
• Transformation - spells/powers that change the structure or appearance of items or beings
• Transmutation - spells/powers that change the fundamental structures of substances
• Transportation - spells/powers that aid in travel
• Utilitarian - spells/powers that perform menial tasks

Differences Between the Types

As pointed on this thread, some have pointed out some similarities between the powers, suggesting they may be the same type.  Some of these I can see where they could be included into one type.  This section will provide some further clarification (I hope).  Remember, these are for my upcoming campaign world of Onaviu.  They definitely will not fit into others' worlds, unless they choose to make them fit.

Transformation & Transmutation
Transformation only alters shape.  Transmutation alters composition of a substance.  Where transformation could make you look like a chair, you would still be flesh and bone.  Transmutation could turn you into wood, but you would still have a human shape.  In other words, to truly turn you into a wooden chair, a power user would first transmutate you into wood, then transform you into a chair.  Or vice versa.  Transformation is basically used to change into animal forms.  Transmutation could literally be used to change lead into gold.  However, no person is capable of such sub-atomic control.  It is much simpler to turn a pile of carbon into a diamond since all the power user would need to control is pressure and heat.  Of course, s/he would need a LOT of pressure and a LOT of heat, but s/he is not really trying control it on a sub-atomic level.  Basically, transformation and transmutation are complementary powers, but separate.

Informational, Divination, Scrying, & Evocation
Although I can see these being lumped into one type, I feel all should be separate types.  I feel "seeing" into the future is a different form of power as compared to "seeing" into the past.  Reason: seeing into the past is fairly easy compared to seeing into the future since the past has already happened and cannot be changed (read some of my post in this thread: Time Travel).  When deciding what each does (Divination, Scrying, and Evocation), I used the Mentalism Companion, pp 60-84, which lists them as Divining the Future, Scrying the Present, and Evoking the Past.  However, divination is usually seen as the ability to see into the past and future, the true definition is not.  From Meriam-Websters 13th Collegiate Dictionary, divination is defined as "the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers."  If I am not mistaken, I see no mention of "past" in that definition.  And I prefer this definition for evocation, "imaginative recreation (an evocation of the past)."  Thus, I kept "seeing into the past" as Evocation.  And "scrying" is not even listed in the dictionary.  Informational I define as being able to get information about something, but ONLY if you can see the object AND it is within the range of the spell/power.  Holding or touching the object would even be best.

Conjuration & Summoning
Read the definitions.  Summoning is the transpositioning of something within the same realm of existence.  Conjuration is similar to summoning, but does it through portals opened to other realms of existence.  Another way to view it, summoning teleports, conjuration opens portals.

Keep the ideas and criticism coming.  I love it.

rmfr

[JimiSue]

I find it quite amusing that you're not prepared to admit even time travel (as per your thread on the Space Master forum) unless it is prohibitively difficult, but you are prepared to admit magic that completely changes everything about the physical universe (the bit about fundamental forces). Time travel can at least be dealt with through reasonable extrapolation, but once you start messing with those fundamental forces, everything changes. And I really do mean everything.

Let's say you tweak the strong nuclear force. The protons and neutrons no longer have a balanced charge; their electron clouds disperse in a massive burst of electromagnetic energy; the atoms themselves split apart because they are no longer stable. The energy this releases (nuclear explosion anyone?) creates a magically sustained chain reaction that creates an expanding void empty of everything but quarks and free-floating electrons that spreads at superluminal speeds, releasing all the energy that there has ever been...

A key point of the big bang is that it happened everywhere all at the same time. This could create the Son of Big Bang.

Yes, this is an extreme view, but my point is that we simply have no idea how things would play out if those fundamental forces were to change, even on the smallest scale. They are fundamental for a reason. Matter simply does not exist if it does not conform to those constraints, so you are taking an even bigger jump of "what the hell??" than you ever would do with time travel.

I think, leave the particle physics behind, you already have what is in my opinion, an overly exhaustive list as it is - you don't need those in there.

[arakish]

Actually, the addition of the Fundamental Interactions was me being stupid after a FtF player asked me about the Unified Field Theorem being the ultimate power of the gods.

Thus, I added it as an afterthought of "He may be correct."

And ultimately on the Time Travel question, even the gods are incapable of "true" time travel.  Again, they simply cross barriers into alternate realities/timelines.  It is just that they have it easier finding their way back to their native reality/timeline.  Like Q in Star Trek, they have a basic understanding that far surpasses any understanding we currently possess.

It is my belief that "true" time travel is impossible.  In any reality/timeline, time is immutable.  Until I am proven wrong, it is a belief I shall always hold as being true.  If someone wants to hold that "true" time travel is possible, I will agree that s/he has the right to believe such.  Besides, as mentioned in another post (maybe not in this thread), physics as we understand them do not state that time travel is impossible.  Nor do they state that it is possible.  Thus, in my opinion, it is like a coin toss: heads = possible, tails = impossible.  Or, however you wish to believe.

Thanks for the criticism, and the end suggestion.  In the end, I will be eliminating the Fundamental Interactions.

rmfr

[JimiSue]

I read in a book (I think it was Ascending, by James Alan Gardner) about a super-intelligent extra-terrestrial explaining greater intelligences to a human, and it's actually quite a good one.

Let's say there is a cliff top, at the top of which is balanced a big rock (think the coyote and roadrunner style if you're old enough). Now, a human would look at that rock and think that it could fall at any time, and wouldn't want to go to sleep under where it would fall. A dog, on the other hand, would not be able to extrapolate what the rock might do, and would happily go to sleep in the splat zone.

The human race is wandering along a gully with hundreds of these rocks. Some we can see, but most, we can't. A superior intelligence can see them and predict what will happen to a degree which a mere human would find bordering on the magical.

Which actually also leads into the reason why we have not been contacted yet by outsiders... From the start of the universe, it has taken us almost 14 billion years to get to where we are now. And on this planet, unicellular life was where it was at for about 4 billion years. Leaving aside the universe for now, let's say that on a comparable planet, unicellular life started fizzing, hypothetically, 50 million years earlier, a drop in the ocean in geological time, but otherwise, evolution was parallel. Humans have evolved from essentially an animal intelligence  to where we are now in about 3 million years, and 50 million years ago we were basically rats. I suspect our hypothetical aliens have as much interest in talking to us, as we would have in talking to a rat. Possibly even less so.

[providence13]

Even if intelligence in the universe is common, the vast amount of distance and time involved might hamper contact. The odds are pretty low that more than one intelligent race will evolve close enough and at just the right time to even notice another.
Check out Pushing Ice, Alistair Reynolds.

So having more than one race of humanoids on the same planet (elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, orcs, trolls, medusa..) is unlikely. But if they did interact, some of their tech\lifestyle might seem like magic to the other races. Elves might have 200 words to describe a leaf and talk to plants while halflings could have 6 meals/day but no lethal cholesterol. Dwarves could work titanium with steampunk tech. How do medusa  petrify people? So go ahead and have as many types of magic as you need!

[Temujin]

You can divide into as many or as few "types" as you want, but what is your purpose for doing so? Without knowing that, there really is no answer.

Sorry.  It has to do with the Mastery skill in my upcoming campaign world.  Instead of using Mastery for a spell list, it is used to focus into a particular type of magic/power use such as Healing, Informational, Summoning, et al.

Sorry for missing the clarification.

rmfr

Essence Companion seems to suggest such a system, by having Ritual Categories apply to a number of lists.  Spell Mastery and Magical Languages also apply to those lists.  Thus, you have categories that are similar for the three skills, which tend to interact with one another (Magical Language influencing Spell Mastery, which can help with rituals)  What I did in my game was apply that principle, classify all spell lists including non-Essence lists.  Then I created a few extra categories for the spell lists that were truly distinct, usually because that type of spells doesn't exist in essence.  Thus, on top of the existing categories (Charm, Control, Creation, Dark, Detection, Earth, Enhance, Enchant Permanent, Enchant Variable, Inorganic Modifiers, Light, Movement, Obfuscate, Organic Modifiers, Personal, Protection, Scrying, Summons, Water, Wind); I added Mind, Healing, Fate, Creative Arcane Element, Intermediate Arcane Element and Destructive Arcane Element.  This, incidentally, is wonderful for me because the Essence ritual system explicitly has difficulty targets for non-Essence effects.  In fact, I use the classification for all realms, although obviously the actual method and foci used are different, the skill system remains the same for me.

If you're interested in seeing how I classified the non-Essence lists and what kind of effects falls into which category, I could post my Excel spreadsheet in the Vault.

[Temujin]

Update Post
Informational, Divination, Scrying, & Evocation
Although I can see these being lumped into one type, I feel all should be separate types.  I feel "seeing" into the future is a different form of power as compared to "seeing" into the past.  Reason: seeing into the past is fairly easy compared to seeing into the future since the past has already happened and cannot be changed (read some of my post in this thread: Time Travel).  When deciding what each does (Divination, Scrying, and Evocation), I used the Mentalism Companion, pp 60-84, which lists them as Divining the Future, Scrying the Present, and Evoking the Past.  However, divination is usually seen as the ability to see into the past and future, the true definition is not.  From Meriam-Websters 13th Collegiate Dictionary, divination is defined as "the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers."  If I am not mistaken, I see no mention of "past" in that definition.  And I prefer this definition for evocation, "imaginative recreation (an evocation of the past)."  Thus, I kept "seeing into the past" as Evocation.  And "scrying" is not even listed in the dictionary.  Informational I define as being able to get information about something, but ONLY if you can see the object AND it is within the range of the spell/power.  Holding or touching the object would even be best.

Yeah, I think that definition is pretty much on the spot.  Its needed too, when you get into some complex spells like "Outside the Weave"...

[Lord Garth]

Let's say there is a cliff top, at the top of which is balanced a big rock (think the coyote and roadrunner style if you're old enough). Now, a human would look at that rock and think that it could fall at any time, and wouldn't want to go to sleep under where it would fall. A dog, on the other hand, would not be able to extrapolate what the rock might do, and would happily go to sleep in the splat zone.

The human race is wandering along a gully with hundreds of these rocks. Some we can see, but most, we can't. A superior intelligence can see them and predict what will happen to a degree which a mere human would find bordering on the magical.

Plato was onto this reasoning over 2.000 years ago. Of course he was pointing out the difference between philosophy and magic, but what have you, same stuff.

[arakish]

If you're interested in seeing how I classified the non-Essence lists and what kind of effects falls into which category, I could post my Excel spreadsheet in the Vault.

That could be helpful and much appreciated.  Currently I am stuck on creating a javascript app for a friend that is quite complex.  Thus, my work on the magic of my world of Onaviu is on hold a bit.  Hopefully I'll finish that app soon and get back to work on Onaviu.

rmfr

[Temujin]

I posted it in the Vault.  Should be up when reviewed by a moderator.  Let me know what you think and if you need any explanation.

[Thom @ ICE]

It is approved and available....
http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=adminitem809

[arakish]

I posted it in the Vault.  Should be up when reviewed by a moderator.  Let me know what you think and if you need any explanation.

Many thanks.  Dloaded and will scope when I get home.

Thanks.

rmfr

[Temujin]

Was this useful to you?

[arakish]

Of course.  However, I, more or less, already had all the different types you had listed covered.  I just had different names.

It was interesting how you had the groups organized.  Again, very similar to my thoughts.

Again, thanks.

rmfr