Image by geralt on Pixabay

The February 2019 Blog Carnival is being hosted by Sea Of Stars, with the subject of Making Magic Wondrous.

This wasn’t an easy subject, because I’ve already done so much in this area regarding magic items of various types. I suspect others may have found it so, too, because entries are thin on the ground at the moment, with about a week to go (it doesn’t help that this is the shortest month of the year).

After thinking about the question for a while, I found myself wondering if the biggest part of the problem wasn’t the language that we use in describing spell effects in games, i.e. the way we interface with the game mechanics.

Hierarchy

In Blat! Zot! Pow! The Rules Of Genre In RPGs (Jan 2011) I defined a seven-step pyramid of game content, and analyzed in the sections that followed. In April 2014, I reexamined the issue in The Blind Enforcer: The Reflex Application Of Rules, including analysis of an alternative hierarchy that others had proposed. Ultimately, I stood by my original, but it really was a decision only possible by splitting hairs. The difference: reality might say that a properly-maintained and prepared weapon will fire reliably – but if it is better (read “more fun”) for adventure or the campaign for the gun to misfire, then hang it all, it should misfire, and my original formulation allows that while the variant does not.

So this is my guideline whenever relative importance of one campaign element becomes important (from base to the top):

• Official Rules
• House Rules Trump Official Rules
• Simulation (i.e Realism) Trumps Rules
• Genre Trumps Simulation
• Plot Trumps Genre
• Campaign Trumps Plot
• Gameplay (i.e. Practicality) Trumps All

Notice where that puts Mechanics and Physics – at the very bottom. This supports the theory that what we have here is a case of Official Rules trumping genre – when they clearly shouldn’t. Specifically, trumping that aspect of Genre that contains the Wonder of Magic. The mechanics make magic predictable and controllable and relatively precise.

If these theories hold water at all, then the problem stems from the clinical accuracy of the casting process and the repeatability of spellcasting outcomes – from treating magic as though it were a chem-lab or physics experiment in the first place.

That took my memory back to my first-year classes at University; the first subject of the year was error in measurement.

In essence, the more complex the phenomena being explored, the greater the sources of error in any measurement. The more gross and generalized the measurement method, the more subject to rounding error you are; the more sensitive and specialized the measuring equipment, the more other sources of error influenced the result.

Either way, you could never escape experimental error within a given set of results; it was only through repeated experiments under a variety of conditions that true trends and relationships could be discerned and the errors discarded.

These graphs demonstrate what I’m talking about. On the left is a graph of a single set of results that a student might obtain in the lab. Very few of the crosses fall on the theoretical relationship line shown in blue, but most are close to it – there is one outlier where some error was clearly made in recording the reading. With multiple sets of readings, say from four different students, as shown on the right, confidence in the theoretical result skyrockets. It’s very easy to see the trend – even though all four of the results contain an outlier just about as extreme as that of the first set of results.

In terms of the actual measurement of any one reading, though – and this is the important point – it could be anywhere within a margin of error of the true reading, high or low. And it suddenly occurred to me that this could be the solution, or at least part of it – creating some fuzziness about that game-mechanics “perfection”.

The “-ish” Principle

Every spell has a stat block consisting of various numbers. Casting Time this, range that, effect the other, and so on. What I’m suggesting is that these describe the theoretical outcome, reasonably accurate as the average of a number of measurements but not all that reliable “in the real world”. In effect, each of the numbers should have an “-ish” attached to them. The stat block says “Range 40 feet “? Then it should be read “Range 40-ish feet”. The stat block says “Duration 5 rounds”? Then it should be read “Duration 5-ish rounds”.

The “experimental errors” that the “-ish” represents should scale with the numbers – I think roughly 1/3 of the number would be a reasonable margin of error, especially since (with the larger numbers), there will be a bias toward a central result – which is more or less the predicted result. To be fair to players, there should be at least a 50/50 chance of bettering the standard result.

Of course, there is a simpler way: (-3d10+5d6)%. But that needs a calculator. Or does it?

Roll separately, every time?

The table above is the sort of idea that sounds good on paper but doesn’t work very well in practice, because unless all the stat values associated with the spell are astonishingly equal, different scales will apply to different numbers. In an ideal world, that sounds fantastic – this time, you get extra range but shorter duration, next time you get half range and double effect, and so on and on – but it’s not practical to do a fresh set of rolls every time a character casts a spell, for each and every variable.

Roll Once!

Far simpler to roll once using the “simpler” roll above, then either pull out the calculator – or a simple spreadsheet where you enter all the critical values from the stat block and the multiplier and it calculates them all for you at the same time – or simply roughly guesstimate the results.

But this requires a rule regarding rounding. To keep things simple, always round up.

For example, let’s say you get +14%.

• Base Value 1Î114% = 1 and a bit = 2.
• Base Value 5Î114% – well, 10% of 5 is 0.5 and half that is 0.25 so it will be a little under 5.75, which rounds to 6.
• Base Value 25Î114% – same trick: 10% is 2.5, half is 1.25, so 28.75, round to 29.
• Base Value 80Î108% – let’s change it up with a different result. eight eights are 64, so 8% of 80 is 6.4, giving a total of 86.4 which rounds to 87.
• Base Value 95Î108% – ten percent of 95 is 9.5, and 1% is 0.95. So we have 95+9.5-0.95-0.95 – or 95+10-1-1+a bit, or 104.
• Base Value 6d6Î108% – you can either increase the number of dice or increase the total rolled. The second is more accurate but the first is more viscerally exciting for the player, so that’s the way I would go. ten percent of 6 is 0.6 and 8 percent is less than 10, so it’s going to be 6-point-something dice – which rounds to 7.
• Base Value 10Î83% – let’s work a couple in the other direction. This gives a result of 8.3, which rounds to 9.
• Base Value 30Î83% – this seems a bit trickier. But 3 eights are 24, so the 80% cuts the 30 to 24. Three percent is roughly 1/7th of 20, and we’ve cut the result by 6 representing 20% of the base, so the three percent is going to be a little under 1, giving a total of 24-point-something which will round to 25.

Most of these I was able to toss off without a moment’s hesitation; the arithmetic is really very simple, and the “round up” makes a lot of things simpler..

Okay, so we can now make spell specifics fuzzy. There are a couple of bonuses to think about – you can simulate areas conducive to the casting of a particular type (or school) of spell simply by varying the roll. Ditto magic in general. Or areas where magic is harder.

Ditto for the casting environment – there’s nothing to prevent you bestowing an item that once a day gives a bonus to the result die roll (use d8s instead of d6s, for example). Or if the mage performs some sort of “warm-up” like drawing a magical circle to “focus his power” or “concentrate his mind”. These all add flavor, and flavor is what the mechanics have been lacking. Equally, some magical effects may make other magic types harder to cast.

For simplicity’s sake, I suggest altering the d10s for general “casting difficulties” and altering the d6s for “environmental effects” that affect the one mage specifically.

Is the “Ish” principle enough?

I don’t think so. Making the game mechanics a little fuzzier and less reliable is a partial solution but that alone won’t bring out the magic in spellcasting. We need to make some room for the narrative that will actually evoke the sense of wonder that we are trying to create.

Time For Narrative

Where can we find this room? Descriptions of spell effects are one place. Descriptions of what happens when the spell is cast is another. Descriptions of the act of casting are another.

Spell Effects

Too often, we (as GMs) fall into the trap of simply describing the results of a spell-casting. There are times when the increase in pacing and consequent intensity of experience make this a preferable choice; what we need to do is embed in the player’s minds the wonder of magic at those times when this isn’t the case, so that they will appreciate that the same things are taking place at the more intense, action-filled, moments, but that you are exercising your right as GM to take narrative shortcuts. In other words, we need to establish the wonder of magic, whenever we can.

Nevertheless, our options for invoking the wonder of magic through spell effects is somewhat limited by the descriptions of the spells. Certainly, this can do part of the job, but only part of it. Relying on this alone makes it obvious that the “wonder of magic” is a tacked-on afterthought, and not a fundamental of the game.

Casting

The interval between casting a spell and the effects of that casting manifesting are usually only an instant unless the spell description states otherwise – and this is a nuance that most authors give no thought to when writing those descriptions. Nevertheless, there is probably room for a limited palette of effects.

Rays can lance out in intense or bright colors – even black can be more vivid, more palpably there than the surrounding darkness, for example. Except where the spell itself suggests otherwise (Rays) or even states otherwise (as is the case with Fireballs), I suggest one effect for each “school” of magic, thus providing a unifying factor. Evocations may require some sort of power “reaching out” to the target like tentacles; Divinations may wreath the hands in writhing mist; Transformations may involve a visible “shock-wave” emanating from the caster, and so on. Get creative, but be consistent, and keep it simple – you are only describing an instant in time, an almost subconscious impression, nothing more.

Once again, because of these limitations, the utility of these contributions is limited. At best, they can perpetuate an already-existent sense of wonder; they are not enough to create one.

The Act Of Casting

That leaves, by the process of elimination, the Act Of Casting as the place that must carry the greatest burden of invoking a sense of wonder. How long does it take to start casting a spell?

Under the premise that you started casting the spell when you declared the action, and it went off just before your next action, I used to give myself a full turn for this. But a lot of that time was wasted, and I faced vociferous protests from my players.

House Rules to capture a Sense Of Wonder

Thus, we arrive at a conclusion riding the horns of a dilemma: The current rules structure of D&D, Pathfinder, and (in fact) most other fantasy RPGs don’t provide the space needed to create a sense of wonder. Even without implementing the “-ish” solution, we are going to need to invoke the grim specter of House Rules to carve out that room.

Casting Time Increase

To start with, let’s forget applying the “-ish” solution to casting time. This will be complicated enough without that.

Instead, let’s add the spell level to the casting time, in whatever unit of measurement is specified by the spell, or initiative number if not specified.

Sidebar: Higher Initiative?

In most game systems, a higher initiative total is better, and you count down from high to low. This high initiative numbers get to act first. This is clearly advantageous in surprise rounds, but you can argue that in regular rounds, the chance to act after you’ve seen what other characters are doing is a more accurate reflection of supposed advantage, and hence you should count up from 1 to whatever.

In an ideal world, the optimum would be to count up for action declarations and then count down for action implementations, but this creates so many problems that it isn’t practical. In fact, separating declaration from implementation is sufficiently problematic that I advise against it in the strongest possible terms.

And, if you don’t do that, then the best compromise is the high-to-low countdown of initiative numbers.

It matters here, because the casting time change is in the direction of the future – if you are counting up then you can simply add a positive modifier to the total to get the casting time. If you are counting down then you have to subtract the modifier to get the same effect, i.e. the spell “goes off” a certain number of combat actions later.

This provides time for the GM to impart flavor text designed to create the required Sense Of Wonder. In fact, the more powerful the spell, the greater the sense of wonder and drama that the GM has time to impart.

But it also makes spells a lot easier to disrupt or counter. If an enemy spellcaster has his initiative number between the casting mage’s action and the spell activating (at which point it’s too late), he can use his action to counter the spell. High Initiative Numbers – if they are just a little higher than everyone else and not a LOT higher – can actually become detrimental to a mage. Low numbers – after everyone else has acted – are far more useful, preventing interference.

And that has the additional benefit of reducing the impact of any power imbalance that exists between mages and more physical characters. Mages become more the “knockout punch” at the end of a round and less of the “preemptive strike” that clears the battlefield before anyone else gets to act. It’s a side-benefit, but a worthwhile one.

Casting Time Reduction

Next, let’s throw Mages a bone: Every 3 caster levels above the minimum required to cast spells of that level reduce the casting time by 1 until the originally-specified “official” time is reached.

This operates on the theory that the Sense Of Wonder, once imbued into the process, will become part of the “culture” of the game and need less reinforcement as it becomes an established trait of the campaign (and, in a wider sense, of the GM running it). It also suggests that the ability to cast a spell is something different to mastering that spell. Furthermore, it gives GMs yet another variable that they can tinker with in response to environmental conditions, permitting still greater integration of characters into environment.

“-ish” Manipulations

I would recommend implementing the “-ish” principle House Rules separately, and only once these casting time manipulations have become part of the campaign. But, when you do, you can further reflect the increasing “Mastery” of a spell by applying the reduction in casting time penalty, x10, as a reduction in the degree of variation – or, if complaints are already high from your players, only to those in which the spell effect is worse than base.

But I have a better use for the “-ish” principle under these circumstances: Restoring to players the option of base-time casting, and giving them greater flexibility and control over their spells.

What if the impact of the “-ish” principle were what happens if the spell is cast in the base time, and reduce proportionate to the extra time specified by the House Rules above?

If, for example, the net change in casting time is -5 initiative numbers, then taking the full 5 initiative numbers gives you a fully reliable spell as per the book. Taking only 3 initiative numbers extra means that 2/5 of the “unpredictability” remain.

This means that spells would be at their most “chaotic” when first acquired, and that reliability would be an expression of improving Mastery. Because the “chaos” is just as likely to result in an improvement, it also means that Reliability is achieved by compromise – you sacrifice the opportunity for a fortuitous benefit in order to avoid a disastrous penalty.

I’ve already recommended using the simplified “one calculation fits all” method, and not the more precise but time-consuming line-item-by-line-item variation. These changes only amplify the cost of the line-item approach, while being equally simple to apply to the “one calculation” option. Something else to bear in mind.

A compensatory additional advantage

An additional House Rule can further compensate Mages for any inconvenience. If any spell that requires a “touch attack” can be successfully ‘locked on’ by a touch in any of the rounds between casting and the spell activating, it permits additional house rules that overcome the rise in ACs that make this type of attack impractical for mages, restoring this type of spell to usefulness.

As an example of this kind of house rule: Within the spell’s casting, “touch attempts” may be made at the rate of one per initiative number, with the number rolled on the d20 (without modifiers) subtracting from the target’s AC. He can wriggle and dodge, and may be successful for a while, but can he keep it up for long enough when all the Mage needs to do is touch him?

Let’s say the mage has four extra beats in which to cast his spell. His foe has AC 43, in magic, class abilities, armor, and agility bonuses.

• On attempt #1, Initiative count “Casting+0”, the mage rolls a 12. Not enough, he misses. AC 43-12 = 31.
• On attempt #2, Initiative count “Casting+1”, the mage rolls a 9. Still not enough to hit AC 31, he misses. AC 31-9 = 22.
• On attempt #3, Initiative count “Casting+2”, the mage rolls an 11. Almost enough to hit AC 22, but not quite. AC 22-11=11.
• On attempt #4, Initiative count “Casting+3”, his last chance, the mage rolls a 10 and just barely hits, laying a touch one his enemy’s arm.

On Initiative Count “Casting+4”, the spell activates and takes effect.

If this seems to much

If this seems to go too far, you can reduce the impact by specifying that damage inflicted upon the mage during these rounds acts as a distraction and effectively adds to the target’s “Touch AC”. It thus becomes a race between the mage’s attempts to touch the enemy and the enemy and his allies trying to prevent it from happening. Or maybe it’s +1 per dice of damage inflicted – it doesn’t have to be much since the effect persists throughout the attack attempt.

Going Further

What if extra casting time could be spent to increase the modifier but in a guaranteed positive way? Use the full amount and you reduce variability to zero; continue, and you can get up to a +100% beneficial variation.

Under these rules, if 5 initiative numbers of casting, plus the declaration round, are needed to cast the spell – so that if you start casting it on initiative number 17, it will take effect on initiative number 12, the mage would have the option of taking up to another 5 initiative numbers (with all the risks entailed) to restore the full variability but guarantee that it would be applied to his benefit.

This gives Mages a genuine reason to accept these House Rules and rewards them for giving the GM the time he needs to capture that elusive sense of Wonderment.

A more extreme variation

What if, instead of initiative numbers, the addition was “number of acting characters taking their turns”? This erases the whole imbalance between high and low initiative numbers created earlier; now it doesn’t matter when the mage acts, his spell won’t activate until there have been a certain number of opportunities for it to be disrupted or for its intended target to go away.

This is metagaming, pure and simple – it’s elevating the playing experience over the rules, and over any semblance of realism. It’s expressing Genre and Campaign (and potentially, Plot) as superior to those things – which is entirely permissible according to the hierarchy shown earlier, provided that practicality is not excessively compromised.

One Line To Rule Them All: A Solution in Three Parts

These rules – or something else that does the same job – make it clear that sufficient time can be carved out for the GM to get expressive. The question remains, what to put in that time? It’s clearly going to be narrative in nature, but it will also need to be consistent and responsive to the casting conditions. I have three pieces of general advice to offer, and then a more specific solution – but one that is inherently customized to the vernacular and vocabulary of each individual.

Advice: Repetition Is Death

Whatever you do, don’t make it boring. And repetition to the point of predictability is boring.

This is actually a bigger problem than it seems, because you also want to be consistent, and the two are frequently at odds with each other. The solution is to aim for a consistent overall “look and feel” but with the freedom to be experimental and creative within that framework.

Advice: Don’t decouple cause from effect

My second piece of advice is to ensure that what you’re describing has some relationship to the form of the spell that will eventually manifest. This “couples” the sense of wonder with the consequences so that when the players think of the effect, the sense of wonder is also invoked. Cumulatively, this can do so much of the work for you that only a little reinforcement is needed at higher levels.

I remember playing some of the early computer games – when the opportunity arose for a character to gain a new spell, I would enthusiastically grasp at it, eager to see how it was going to be depicted or represented visually within the game environment. That’s what you have to create on the part of your players – and then you have to deliver on the implied promise of a sense of wonder.

Advice: Make it feel Magical (and increasingly Epic)

Which brings me to my third piece of general advice. Spend some time – as much as necessary – focusing on the poetry of your narrative – the content more than the delivery. If the content of what you are saying is enough to convey the desired sense of wonder, it won’t matter what the real-world conditions are when you need to deliver it, the sense of wonder will be communicated – whether it be whispered in total silence or shouted over the heads of rambunctious convention-goers or card-players.

Content Solution Part 1: Environmental Element

When I approach the question of how to “manifest” the magic, I always start by contemplating the environment and how it might be modified. Casting a heat or fire-based spell? In a hot environment, you might feel the heat draining from you in the direction of the mage. In a cold environment, you might feel a warm glow coming from the mage’s hands. In a dark environment, the glow might be a visible fiery red or yellow, in a brightly-lit environment the mage might be suddenly covered in moving shadows reminiscent of rising smoke – even though no smoke is actually visible.

Content Solution Part 2: School Element

This is always a verb, and describes the process by which Part I becomes Part 3. But not just any verb – make yourself a list of verbs that are both broadly applicable and interpretable, and yet convey some inherent mystique.

Swirl. Spiral. Project. Thunder. Rush. Suck. Radiate. Arc. Surround. Clouds.

Those are all good – some better than others. I like to restrict each one or two of these verbs to a single school of magic – and, furthermore, if I have enough of them on tap, to distinguish the Class “X” version of each school from that of Class “Y”. This helps convey a difference between the two despite the fact that their game mechanics are virtually (or completely) identical.

Avoid verbs that are synonyms for anything already on the list.

It also helps if the ones that are more stimulating to your imagination are chosen for the schools with the greater number of spells to be described. But that’s a nuance that will take time and expertise – and which will be different from one GM to another. Your vocabulary is not my vocabulary; the only certainty is that both our vocabularies can be improved.

Content Solution Part 3: Spell Effect Element

The final part of the three part solution is to connect what you’ve got to some intermediate stage that leads to the already-determined “casting” language or to the spell effect. Divination spells may open a “window” or “image” that conveys a sense of traveling through a long tunnel. To the unimaginative, this may be clouds, or abstract swirls (which therefore require no description); the more ambitious may describe impressions of sky and terrain and earth and trees and the occasional slightly-startled beast, gone too quickly, or stars streaking past. You get the idea.

In combination

Environments are usually unique, especially in combination with the other elements. The School element provides the consistency that was demanded earlier. And the spell effect element provides variety as well as unity of descriptive narrative with the rest of the spellcasting process. In effect, this generates a “mini-story” within a story of the casting of the spell. This happens and then this happens and then the spell’s effects happen, and all of it is inexplicable by any known physics – and it’s that which creates the Sense Of Wonder.

March 2019 Blog Carnival Anchor

This is not just Campaign Mastery’s submission to the February blog carnival, it’s also the anchor post for the March carnival, which I have stepped up to host, having thought of a subject.

The title this month is “Echoes Of Yesteryear”. GMs, Divide the number of years that you’ve been GMing by two, then find at least one NPC or plotline or article (or a PC from one of your campaigns) or whatever that is that old or more – and revisit it. That could be a rewrite, an update, a variant, a reminiscing – but do SOMETHING NEW with it, and preferably something relevant to today.

In my case, I started GMing in 1981, 38 years ago – so I’m looking for something from the year 2000, long before Campaign Mastery started….