[MUD-Dev] Focus on Hocus Pocus

[Matt Chatterley]

Welp, time for a new thread, methinks. I'm going to briefly outline
some of the ideas which I'm working through at the moment, for a
'different' magic system.

I've never found one quite like this in any game I've played (but if
anyone out there *has*, I'd be intruiged to know where, so I can
take a look at their implementation).

When playing Muds, I love to be a magic user. Actually, that goes
for all RPGs too (especially D&D). But, with most games, I find that
my imagination is constricted to picking out which spells to use in
which sequence in order to inflict maximum damage on Bubba. Oh, and
which pretty coloured starbursts I want to see today. Or who I want
to heal, and by how much.

Ultima (at least Ascension, the only one I've really played) uses
reagents for learning spells. This requires a little more work. Some
games (ie D&D) restrict how many you can learn (and with D&D more
over, how many you can hold ready to cast at a time).

Still not enough for me. So:

I'm planning out a system whereby the Mud implementation holds the
*components* of magical spells - effects, types of spell, elements,
and so forth.

A player wizard would take a bunch of reagents, some time, a bit of
thought and imagination, and create a sequence of events and
effects, which cumulate to the spell that he wants.

He can then write this spell down (either as a one-shot scroll, or
in a spellbook). In short, all spells in the game would be created
by players, using provided tools - some wizards would be the
'programmers' of magic. In fact, programming is probably quite a
good analogy. The tool I intend to provide will most likely use a
simple form of pseudocode.

This opens up interesting possibilities. Your combat/battle mage
character will likely be good at casting many types of spell, but
poor at writing them. (Although a reasonably high degree of player
skill will most likely be involved, Character skills and stats will
adjust chances of failure). My very puny wizard might be hopeless in
a tight situation or a fight, but could be the sword-forger, baker
or sculptor of the magical community, writing spells for the battle
mage to buy and use.

On the more technical side, the portions of spells which can be
played with are along the lines of: Range (touch, short, medium,
long), Area (Caster, one target, targets within area, area itself),
Base effect (damage, augment, afflict - where these encompass
confusion, healing, harming, blinding, boosting stats/skills,
shielding, and so forth), Element (fire, water, earth, air, energy)
.. yadda.

A very rough description of some very rough plans. Rough feedback
appreciated. No fireballs please - I haven't finished designing my
Resist fire spells yet!

-Matt
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