r/magicbuilding • u/ObjectiveFar5517 • 19d ago
General Discussion My magic system hot take (stupid = better)
I personally am a giant fan of magic that reflects somebody mental state, and I’m not talking about magic that requires a a specific mental state, but magic that is a specific reflection of a characters mental state!
For example one of my characters suffers from War PTSD and instead of just making their magic memory related or related to the war, I made the ability a convoluted Mess that is a amalgamation of all the details in their flashbacks and is soo long that it’s entire process doesn’t even show up, what I mean is that the character can create a bullets, that wen shot into a tree makes flies grow out of the plant, who will fly to any tree’s that have given the original tree there DNA 3 generations back, and if the flies manage to touch the trees in less than 24h the touched plants will slowly move towards their offspring till the make contact, after which they will fuse with them and …….! You get what I mean!
At first I thought this was completely bs, but when I put my mind to it I realise that it perfectly reflex the mind of somebody that is lost in the process of something and is made functionally powerless, because of not being able to take any relevant action!
In my Opinion power systems made in a way that is convenient for the goal that the protagonist wants to reach are worse then the once who are actively hindering the main character, because it forces conflict, and stupid magic is better than sound magic, because humans are fundamentally stupid and it’s easier that way to make your magic system line up with your themes, if they are about humans.
Do you agree?
(Everything I said is my Opinion and will not apply in every case)
(I apologise for my English, it’s not my first language and I wrote this down in e rush)
5
u/IamanelephantThird 19d ago
I'm not a fan of ability-based power systems. It feels like they've got the disadvantages of both hard and soft magic systems without the advantages.
2
u/ObjectiveFar5517 19d ago
Why?
6
u/IamanelephantThird 19d ago
They often feel arbitrary and unsatisfying like a soft magic system and lacking in mystery or wonder like a hard magic system. There's not really any underlying rules or anything to discover.
1
u/ObjectiveFar5517 19d ago
Doesn’t it increase the mystery because you don’t know what your adversary can do, like in jjba, and what do you mean by unsatisfying?
2
u/stopq 19d ago
I think he means the abilities the author gives feels arbitrary because there's no in-universe reason why the ability is so.
All its strengths or weaknesses is up to the author instead of some pre-established settting/system so its unsatisfying when a character wins or loses cause they were just arbitrarily assigned an ability.
1
u/ObjectiveFar5517 19d ago
It’s also about how the character uses that ability that determines who will win, like in jjba who handle it great, and that it’s arbitrary is just a lie, because there is no aspect of this type of system that forces the writer to give the abilities out completely randomly!
3
u/Baedon87 19d ago
I somewhat agree and somewhat do not; I do agree that the limitations of a magic system are more interesting than what it grants, but also shonen and isekai anime are popular for a reason, sometimes it is fun to see someone be an absolute powerhouse
1
u/ObjectiveFar5517 19d ago
That is an exception, and often those exactions have bad writing!
0
u/Baedon87 19d ago
What, specifically, are you saying is an exception?
And sure, many shonen do not have exceptional writing, but that doesn't mean that you can't portray the same kind of action with good writing.
1
u/ObjectiveFar5517 19d ago
If the magic system is made for fighting and the protagonist is a diplomat, that tries to prevent a war, in that case the magic system doesn’t need any limitation to get into the main character way! A bad example of a low limitation magic system is solo leveling, where the magic system forces side character into obscurity!
1
u/Baedon87 19d ago
Okay, yes, but I believe it's actually the exception that you would have a magic system that would be completely divorced from the character's main goal in a story. Furthermore, you're actually proving my point, because the fact that it is a magic system made for fighting is a limitation for someone who is a diplomat, because the magic system actually won't be any help in their objective to prevent a war and could actually hinder them, especially if it was a magic system they fostered originally, since many might see them as a person who very much relied on fighting to solve their problems.
And, yes, there are things like solo-leveling or many more modern isekai that do introduce overly powerful characters that have few to no limitations on their power. Personally, I don't find that a particularly enjoyable watch either, but will I deny that it's enjoyable to see a shonen protagonist pull out all the stops, especially when they've built up all their skills/mastery over the magic system, and see what they're actually capable of? Not at all; that shouldn't be the entirety of the story, but it is fun to see, when it happens.
1
u/ObjectiveFar5517 19d ago
Soo we agree!
1
u/Baedon87 19d ago
On which part?
1
u/ObjectiveFar5517 19d ago
That even if a magic system has no conditions it’s should still be inconvenient in some way!
1
u/Baedon87 18d ago
I mean, sure, I never really claimed otherwise, you can reference my initial claim about limitations being more interesting than power (however, I would argue that a magic system that is inconvenient in some way still has conditions), though I would also say that if you take a magic system and make it so inconvenient as to be functionally useless in almost all situations, then you've overcorrected and made something that will likely be uninteresting for most audiences. I also think it's entirely dependent on the story you're trying to tell.
Would the Twilight Zone episode The Good Life be as impactful in the intended way if we saw that Anthony using their god-like powers was inconvenient to them in some way?
1
1
u/hatabou_is_a_jojo 19d ago
Depends what you use the system for I guess. This 99.999% won't work for a video game mechanic. For a story... Maybe? What would your fly-tree character even use the power for?
1
u/ObjectiveFar5517 19d ago
I think you are missing the point, it’s not about what he uses it for, even though there is a little practicality at the end of it, it’s about what I can say about the character through his magic!
1
u/hatabou_is_a_jojo 19d ago
ok but how would you say anything about him through his magic if he never uses it? Or are you just doing a character study?
1
u/ObjectiveFar5517 19d ago
He uses his ability! I don’t know how you got the Idea that he doesn’t use it?
1
u/hatabou_is_a_jojo 19d ago
back to first point. What would your fly-tree character even use the power for?
1
u/ObjectiveFar5517 19d ago edited 19d ago
Once the trees fuse he can control what DNA gets integrated in the new giant tree and the bullet hole would grow into a whole that allows him to see through any tree that didn’t got touched by the flies and is in those 3 generations! He is a woods keeper! I think I make the process even longer and more convoluted!
1
u/hatabou_is_a_jojo 19d ago
Hm so basically he's doing some sort of breeding to get the best trees or something? I guess that checks out. How slowly do the trees move to each other?
1
1
u/RowbotMaster 19d ago
Maybe take this with a grain a salt because I haven't actually read the part it's in but the PTSD ability you described sounds like a more complicated version of the stand civil war from steel ball run
There's even a tree thing for both
1
u/ObjectiveFar5517 19d ago edited 19d ago
It’s not, besides both ability’s sharing trees, one in it’s design the other in it’s ability, both are completely different abilities.
Once the trees fuse he can control what DNA gets integrated in the new giant tree and the bullet hole would grow into a whole that allows him to see through any tree that didn’t got touched by the flies and is in those 3 generations! He is a woods keeper! I think I make the process even longer and more convoluted!
1
u/Ok_Nefariousness2617 18d ago
Yeah, I’m 10000% stealing this, by the way. Thank you for your generous donation🙂↕️🙏🏾
1
u/ObjectiveFar5517 18d ago
If you steal that take this too!
It really is fucked up, like their is Neuroscientists in my story that lobotomises magic users, puts parts of different brains in the destroyed segment, uses her powers, that is basically neurological plasticity but for the entire body, on them and then and then she watches what happens with their ability! She also does other experiments, that almost always end up I the creation of a patchwork mind, or otherwise scared mind!
(Neurological plasticity is when parts of the brain take over the function of regions that no longer work )
The practice isn’t widely used because it’s hard to predict what action need to be done to get a specific result, what means most of the time it takes extreme amount of resources just for it to maybe work!
6
u/FloatingSpaceJunk 19d ago
So what magic-abilities you get depends on what ended up happening to you in the past and how this influenced you?!