Discussion: Two Kinds of Magic
Something that’s come up a few times now on the DFRPG-Chat list is the question of how we’ll tackle the styles of magic that we see in the Dresden Files universe. One member writes:
One of the things in the books that I fear won’t translate into the RPG is the limitations of magic. The books clearly talk about ritual magic and normal magic and clearly state that a few normal wimpy wizards can pull down some “seriously bad mojo” with ritual magic. In the early books Harry does a lot of what I call simple ritual magic — the divining / tracking people stuff. How can a RPG distinguish the two types or will it just ignore ritual magic?
Our response follows:
We’ve got you covered. Harry describes two main styles of magic, which we’ve split into two separate magical skills in the game.
The “blow stuff up NOW” magic, the hard stuff, and the only magic which is really fast enough to work for you in a combat setting, is Evocation. Evocation basically involves gathering up a big fistful of power and shoving it in a direction. It’s rarely subtle, and it does tend to require that the spellcaster using it have both a solid grounding in power as well as the skill to control that power.
Sure, if you’ve got a ton of power (like Harry does) but only a little skill, you can still pull off some pretty devastating spells… but you run the risk of those spells going out of control.
In Evocation, power comes before control — once you shove the power at the spell, it happens, at least in part — and once you’ve got the power out there, you’ve got one chance to master it. Which is why Harry cheats and uses a bunch of magic items to help him achieve that control. And even then … he’s pretty hard on buildings.
Evocators who don’t manage to figure out some way to handle the control side of things can still do a huge amount of damage, if they’ve got the power to back it up, and so long as they don’t mind blowing themselves and their friends up as well as their actual targets.
The subtler side of magic, ritual magic, happens by way of Thaumaturgy. Thaumaturgy in a lot of ways is a mirror of Evocation. Where evocation is blunt, draining, and fast, Thaumaturgy is subtle, slow, and a lot easier to pull off. This is because Thaumaturgy manages to invert the way Evocation goes about magic: it puts control before power. This is a huge thing, because it means so long as you’re willing to find the resources to build the components of the spell, and take a nice long amount of time getting things exactly right, you can pull off much more potent spellcraft than you normally could.
With Thaumaturgy, you’ve got to create two things — a conduit to your target, and a vessel to hold power. These things are brought to the table by the pieces parts you’ve got going into the spell: Magic circles, powders, unguents, bottles of stolen whispers, bat dung, eye of newt, and all of that. These give you a structure that holds the power you’re eventually going to bring to the spell.
Once you’ve constructed your vessel, you can start to fill it — and here’s where the “wimpy power” thing comes into play. Because you’ve put your vessel together, you’re already pretty much set. It’s like a glass. It’ll hold the same amount of water (power) whether you fill it fast or fill it slow. So long as you don’t mind trickling the power in, even the most baseline of spellcasters can make this happen — it’ll just take them longer.
Unless you’ve got a line to some rarified (and usually expensive — to your soul) power sources, Thaumaturgy can pull off a lot of magic that Evocation simply can’t, or at least, that Evocation has a lot of trouble with. Thaumaturgy makes it easy — so long as you’ve got the time.
Demons and vampires and whatnot don’t tend to give a wizard any time, if they can help it.
Well, at first I admit to my own doubts about the Dresden game……but this has put a lot of that to rest. I like the sound of the magic set up, and am looking forward to more info as the game develops.
Keep it real (ish)!
D.
This sounds really cool. Sorry, let go of my composure. But this seems like it might work. Only question is characters and whatnot. Maybe it is somewhere else on here.
I figured you’d get the evocation-thaumaturgy division nice and right, after all Harry talks about it a lot. My concerns are a little different, as a well as more numerous.
One of the other things that Harry mentions is that Evocation is quick, nasty, and really limited, but that if you’re willing to sit down and think it over for a bit Thaumaturgy can do basically anything. I’m wondering if you’re going to have a dynamic magic system to illustrate this versitility.
We also got to see the standardized rituals in Blood Rites. The “but a quarter in and the effect pops out” that any schmuck on the street with an old enough book can pull off. That would be a nice thing to include.
Also the Faith “magic” that we see in people like Michael. Jim Butcher doesn’t ever really go into it much, but he’s pretty explicit in saying that faith is a different sort of power, and can probably be put to uses other than those Michael is capable of, “Faith-healing” comes to mind. Especially since healing with normal magic seems to be well-beyond the capabilities of any mage that doesn’t happen to own your soul.
I guess my main concern is if you’re going to go the “spell list” route with magic ala D&D or GURPS or if you’re going dynamic system ala Mage: the Acsension or KULT (I’ve heard). To be honest I almost think it should be both. Evocation almost begs for a powers list. Arranged like disciplines in V:tM/V:tR, broken up into fire, earth, water, air, mind, necromancy, force and ect., while thaumaturgy has just been represented as being to flexible to be tied down to a powers list.
Good comments, Chad. And as it turns out, you’ve practically outlined exactly what we have in mind. We’re going to be putting together a flexible spell-building set of rules, and then we’re going to load it up with a bunch of example spells built using those rules — your spell list. We’ve got you covered.
From what I’ve seen of FATE, and the writing above, I’m quite pleased with how the magic system is developing. My own “take” on the Faith-magic is that by seeking the intercession of a “higher power”, you are effectively getting a “loan” of the soul of the person you’re attempting to heal. IMO that would be a special case of Evocation, that allows control based on the “disciplines of Faith”.
I guess my biggest questions are regarding what appear to be innate powers: divination abilities, monsterous special effects, mind-altering “charm” type magics, etc. I’m curious as to how they’re handled in terms of the magic system, whether there are additional schools/forms that encompass more “natural” abilities, or whether those categories are nested under Evocation and Thaumaturgy.
I’m guessing that there are sub-categories of Thaumaturgy that would include potion-making and demon-summoning, or whatever?
Personally, I think the most important magic or magic-like effect was the Faith effect of “conjure babysitter” (see “Grave Peril”). I’m not sure whether that falls under Evocation or under Thaumaturgy or whatever…
I was wondering, is Necromancy going to be in the game or will it be in lets say an expansion? Will it be considered Thaumaturgy?
Also, are the spells going to involve components like in D&D? I assume Thaumaturgy will but what about Evocation?
“My friends who let me ride their dinosaur, call me Carlos.”
We’re going to do our best to put everything you need into one book.
Necromancy will most certainly make an appearance, likely as a derivative of Thaumaturgy (but potentially requiring specialized knowledge in order to pull off).
Components are going to make some kind of appearance in Thaumaturgic casting, and focus items are certainly a mainstay of Evocation.
Speak neither of the dungeon nor the dragon!
Aside from “wizard magic” that Harry does (thaumaturgy-evocation), then you have the “real magic” that Bob refers to when going up against the necromancers (sounds like it goes way beyond calling up the dead). Then you’ve got the nasty magic that the Archive pulls from outside the universe. Then you’ve got the Denarians hellfire and all that kinds schtick. Vampiric magic, faerie magic, dragon magic, 4 types of werewolves and the magic involved therein, faith, thresholds, ghosts, contrasting “real world” with Nevernever. I’d say limiting the system to 2 types of magic is a symplton’s dream. I’d hate to think of the nightmare awaiting the poor guy who has to make a system for all that (and anything else Herr Butcher is cooking up. God be with you!).
Wizard Magic and Necromancy (“Real Magic”) are equal opposites, the first uses Life forces and the second uses Death forces, but each can be used to do the same things, sorta. This makes it easy to just use the same rules for both, but you must choose as a character which you will use. Other powers however would need to be done on a Monster special abilities basis like White Court Vampires abilities to raise and feed on lust or the Red courts addictive saliva, not to say that they could not ALSO learn Necromancy or Wizardry (only for White court since they are still alive, Reds and Blacks would only get Death Magic). In general though the two forms of magic Evocation and Thaumaturgy as written seem to be just the ticket for the truly powerful beings out there (Wizards, Necromancers, Demons, Black Court Vampires{with some monster powers/weaknesses}, Faeries{also with specific powers/weaknesses available only to members of the specific court})
Just my opinions based on multiple thorough rereads of Jim Butchers wonderful books
wondering where ferromancy and other more specific “-mancys” fit into the big two? Are they refinements?
@Lon, folks are always free to roll their own, tho honestly, “ferromancy” is just a term that some of the faerie have used to describe technology (they don’t understand a world that’s not driven by magic). True ferromancy just sounds like an earth specialization to me, I suppose.
that brings me to a question: what will the magic system be like? will there be the static spell lists that you get in most games or will there be some kind of build-your-own-spells-toolkit that allows one to build his or her own variety of spells with different features, depending on the element you use – like harry who uses pure force and fire and wind or like rodriguez who uses aquamancy. will there be a system for the potions which are used quite often in the early books, or will they be ‘spells in a bottle’ (which is fine by me, if i am allowed to build any spell i can imagine – i am the toolbox-type).
Magic system is brew-your-own-spells, closely following the feel of spellcraft in the novels. We’ll provide a list of example spells, but we’re expecting people to use them as inspiration, not as a pick-from-these thing.
thanks a lot. just what i was hoping for
Any thoughts on abjuration Fred? Wards and Ward Hounds in the dresdenverse?
@Lon, Harry’s apartment has wards, and The Merlin is one of the best wardmasters in the setting, so …
thanks Fred.