Magic-User Rebuild: The Three Concerns

The Work Begins

When designing a game or system it is helpful to compartmentalize and order the different competing priorities and goals of the project. In the context of elf-games I propose a three point system: The Simulation, The Game, and The Aesthetic. When all three portions of the triangle are satisfied the product is ordered and cohesive. Much like the humors of the body, many games and systems have an imbalance. Any of the three aspects can overpower the others, or if under served can lead to the dissatisfaction of the players.

While simple in principle, currents of nuance lurk below the surface of this arrangement. Each point is dynamic in its demands and scope. Changes made to satisfy one often disturb another and can cascade into an impasse that can in turn precipitate an entire reconstruction of the project.

The Simulation

Truthfully, my time spent in Autarch’s ACKS has opened my mind greatly to the importance of simulationism. It has been my experience that a game system with an internally consistent world simulation provides two primary benefits. Firstly, it creates an environment where players can grasp an immediately evident “common sense” and make assumptions about how the world will operate using only information found within the rulebook and not a ceaseless deluge of questions directed at the judge. When all the relevant mechanisms of a fictive world and its inhabitants are laid bare, the options available to characters operating within it become complete and apparent. Secondly, simulationism can enforce a certain equity within the proceedings of a game. The judge should seek to hand down the shared imaginative reality of the game world. While there will always be portions of the experience that are entirely in the hands of the judge or referee, a game system should work to make the vast majority of interactions dictated by internally consistent logic and not fiat.

The concern of simulation is satisfied by ensuring no rule, mechanism, or aesthetic choice invalidates some logical precept of how the setting implied by the systems rules works. An example of a simulationist concern could be setting the price of a healing potion at double the weekly wages of a peasant without proliferating such potions across treasure tables widely. Surely something so inexpensive must be very commonplace. Simulationist concerns can often be satisfied in reaction to changes made elsewhere. It is easiest to think in terms of consequence. If something is so, how does that impact life in the game world?

The Game

Sitting down to play in a session should be enjoyable. No amount of esoteric design philosophy or inspired aesthetic choices can save a system that is fundamentally unbalanced and unintuitive to play. That said, many modern systems sacrifice too much at the altar of balance and too much concern for gameplay can cause a system to become sanitized and filed down. Such a system becomes an efficient machine that simply provides certain desired outputs with the soulless precision of clockwork.

The system should endeavor to provide sensible risk and reward structures that allow players to make hard decisions which will determine whether they win or lose. Obviously that is a reductive perspective of something that in practice is expansive and interconnected. Generally, the concern of the Game can be satisfied by evaluating rules from the player’s perspective. If a given option whether it be equipment, tactics, strategy, magic, or whatever else is dominant or pointless it should be amended. A less apparent facet of the game is simply to ensure there are mechanisms in the game that provide opportunities for particularly clever players to manipulate them. The dynamic nature of table-top games is always their greatest asset. Thankfully, time has proven that the premise of the fantasy adventure game is so alluring that one needn’t reinvent the wheel to create compelling gameplay and the dice will often do so entirely on their own.

The Aesthetic

How your system looks and feels is a complicated thing. Every player and referee who uses it will leave their own mark upon it and every game run using it will be slightly different. In a way, this concern is the playground of the creator. It’s his place to truly create, and while it is inextricably linked to the other concerns it is also the most powerful. It is first among its peers.

The vision that guides all other aspects of the game is truly what defines it. The “Appendix N” of the author is supreme in its ability to inform the rest of the game. That vision is what the simulationist concern is simulating, and what the gameplay is allowing the players to interface with.

What is to be done?

While I have certainly spent enough time pondering the topic and philosophizing about the elements of a successful magic system, I have not actually considered what form the solution will take. Building an entire game is a massive undertaking, and I lack to focus or inspiration to devote the same sort of consideration I grant to magic users to the rest of the core fantasy archetypes.

Using a successful system such as ACKS as a basis and simply creating a new take on magic to attach the game as a sort of module has promise, but ultimately I would prefer to make something entirely my own. Instead, I will construct a magic system using an original hypothetical TTRPG as context. The rules will broadly assume players wish to play as magicians of various type and will delve the forgotten places of the world in order accumulate power and wealth without extrapolating on any mechanisms outside of magecraft in detail. This will allow me invent a new paradigm for the core precepts of a magic-using class without the scope of creating a functioning rule system. In time, this project could serve as reference for a more complete work.

I cannot promise that updates on this project will be frequent, but I hope to be able to create something interesting to share with you all. Progress reports and summaries of my work will continue to be posted here on this substack. Until next time.