[MUD-Dev] Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book)

[Matt Chatterley]

On 17/08/05, Akiba Liebskind <akiba.liebskind at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/15/05, Eli Stevens (WG.c) <listsub at wickedgrey.com> wrote:
>> erik wrote:

This is something I am currently giving quite a lot of thought to,
as I am pondering embarking on a fresh Mud project (after a few
years away from the 'scene') - one of my main aims is to design a
slightly different style of game; one which offers playing
opportunities which *i* would be more interested in - "live action"
but where strategy is as important as "playing by numbers".

The three key elements which I am looking into are combat, magic and
crafting/trade - the three basic sources of 'game play' which I
intend to include in my initial design. If time allows (and if it
seems relevant), I might try to start a discussion on some of my
ideas for the other two at a later date, but for now, magic.. or
more specifically, spell crafting.

>> As I see it, DnD magic is one rule one spell.  All of the spells
>> fit into a general pattern, but each spell/rule is pretty much
>> one-off.  In general, each spell exists in a vacuum.  I want to
>> use the combinatorial explosion.

> I agree. As someone pointed out earlier, if it's possible to churn
> out the best possible spells and post them on a website, what
> incentive is there left to keep players using the spell crafting
> system.

Cliched, but: Me too!! While many players will be able to derive
enjoyment from getting out into the virtual world and applying the
spells at their disposal, there will be those (quite possibly
including me), who could be completely entertained by a sufficiently
deep spell crafting system.

My currently scribblings are based around the idea that spells are
composed of a string of "components", which describe the spell and
the effects it will have - these fall into three general categories
- verbal (e.g. magical syllables), gestures (hand or arm motions)
and ingredients (e.g. eye of newt). Individual components are to be
acquired and analysed in different ways based on their type -
syllables and gestures must be learnt from a text, or another mage,
while components must be obtained and then studied in a magical
laboratory (although if someone else has already examined the same
component, it's properties may be recorded in a text, or
communicated by other means).

Each crafted spell will have a number of properties defining how it
interacts with the environment in which it is cast - these include
method of delivery / area of effect (contact, specific area, line of
sight, etc), duration (n minutes, permanent, etc) and type of effect
(more generally 'what does it do').

By harnassing the magical energies around him, the mage creates an
empty "spell construct", which is then filled out by the specific
spell he is casting - each component adds or detracts something to
the construct until the spell is complete, at which point it is
"cast" and it's effects applied. Some of the properties are defined
by the mage himself at this stage, while others are derived from
components. I'm finding this hard to explain (still in basic design
stage), therefore will resort to an example (let us assume the mage
below is experimenting with an idea for a new spell within the
confines of his laboratory):

  Bubba begins to cast a spell - creating a blank construct of magic
  using his powers.

  He adds the verbal component "cha-cha" which shapes the construct
  into a missile spell.

  He adds a single red dragon scale, empowering the construct with
  magical fire.

  He adds the verbal component "ni", making the construct explode
  upon impact.

  He adds the gesture "point at target", giving the construct it's
  target.

  Bubba then completes the spell by channeling the required energy
  from the world around him into the construct and releases it.

Voila - a fireball spell of sorts.

Before attempting to create this spell, Bubba knew the effect of
each of the elements above, and determined that this combination
would give him what he wanted - but only by actually trying it can
he be sure. He could play around with substituting various
components for others (or adding more to make a more complex
spell). Omitting the dragon scale for instance would still leave
Bubba with a missile which exploded on impact, but without the fire
it might not do much harm!

There are many other complexities which I want to work into this,
but hopefully without making it too hard to use - after Bubba has
designed his spell, he can write it down and then (assuming he has
all the required components), cast it from memory.

One idea I am toying with at the moment is making the properties of
components more complex - for instance, the ingredient "green dragon
scale" might make a construct poisonous to the target, but could
cancel out the effects of "red dragon scale" (or they might mutually
cancel each other).

Within the fantasy world I am designing for the game, magic is also
somewhat unstable, and using too much in one place can produce very
undesirable results (hope to work in the more 'tactical' part of
spell casting here) - you might have two meteor swarms ready to
cast, but in a region with a low magical tolerance, the surge of
power from using them might attract unwanted attention from "the
darkness" (and no, I don't mean the rock band)!

[Snip]

> In such a system there is a place for a wide diversity of spells.
> People will want to experiment "concepts" that require spells
> different from other concepts. There is room for several highly
> effective concepts, several highly specialized concepts (e.g.:
> pure defence) and tons of fun concepts. All these should help keep
> the demand up for spells crafting above and beyond just trying to
> find a very slightly more effective fireball. Make sure to include
> both positive and negative effects for spells so that people will
> play with degrees of tradeoff for minimaxing and so that many
> spells that really aren't that usefull can be made (this can
> appeal to the explorer and social people with contests for the
> most useless/unusable/self-harmfull/funny/interesting spells
> including spells that people end up using as emotes).

Absolutely. At the moment my train of thought has been more aimed at
practical spells, but now my memory casts back to some of the fun I
had playing D&D - for instance managing to convince the DM that I
could use the 'entangle' spell (for those that are familiar) to
manipulate a guard's belt, rather than a piece of rope - it's hard
for someone to chase you with his trousers around his ankles! Alas,
this level of detail may be hard to achieve programatically, but we
can at least try.

I do want players to be able to take Bubba's fireball spell and
tweak it to their own liking - you could make it do more damage by
adding more magical energy, use two red dragon scales to increase
the heat of the flames, do a double "cha-cha" to throw it further,
or add the wings of a hummingbird to stun everybody caught within
the blast radius on top of blowing them up and burning them. On the
other hand, I want a system where players are always discovering new
spells as well as revising old ones, to prevent things from becoming
stale.

One take I have had on this (given that the world will be at least
semi-persistent) is to make the supplies of some ingredients either
finite, or restricted (dragon scales, used above, are only going to
be obtainable through one source - and dragons will not appreciate
their collection, for instance)!

This cannot apply to verbal/physical components, however. I have
very few ideas (e.g physical exhaustion might make some gestures
difficult to pull off) on how to tackle this.

>> What I've concluded (correctly or not) is that what I want for
>> such a system is a programming language, once you strip off all
>> the flavor. Look back at the three rules - they fit to a T.

>>  - Define an "API" that provides/limits the spell's ability to
>>  impact and react to the world.

>>  - Give primitives that allow hooking the world/character input
>>  APIs to the output APIs.

[Snip]

> I like the idea of clearly identified ways that a spell can
> exchange information with the environnment but how does one
> control this?  If the crafting is programming-like then it can be
> hard to balance/tweak.  Either you give very little expressive
> power to the system (how then to make it fun and varied?). Or you
> give much power but then you can't easilly take it back from them
> if they create something that breaks balance or harms the game
> somehow.

[Snip]

I'm baffled here. One of my worries is that in order to achieve
something flexible enough, it's going to require a shed-load of
data, which I will never be able to create in sufficient
quantities. In terms of balance, for me, any very powerful spell is
going to consume a lot of energy - the caster will need to be
powerful enough to handle the flow of this through his body and ALSO
prepared to accept possible consequences if he opens a rip in the
fabric of reality...

Cheers,

--

Matt
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