Forums » RP Discussion » Magic -vs- The Metaphysical

I love anime. I do, I really do. I grew up on things like Yu Yu Hakusho, Dragonball Z, and Inu-Yasha. But as much as I love it, I often feel like it's totally warping the Fantasy RP genre into something completely different altogether. Now, there are a number of examples I have, but today we're going to focus on one in particular- the use of Energy Attacks.

*Please Note that not a single word in this forum thread is meant in any way to be an attack or criticism. Think of this more as an editorial column in a newspaper.

I've seen a number of characters throughout my roleplaying experience whom will claim to be masters of fire, or able to control wind, or the like, and then claim it to be magic. And while I know it's not my character to be criticizing, when they say that, I find myself mentally disagreeing. With what I've learned of magic through a lifetime of literature and history is that magic is a trade-off of energies. You must give something to get something, hence the need for invocations, somatic gestures, spell components, and the like. It always irks me on a minor level when I see somebody step up in all red robes, do a red kamehameha wave, and claim to be a fire mage. Because, in my mind, what they're doing isn't magic, it's a metaphysical ability more akin to a superpower than magic. So I personally see them less of a mage and more of a metahuman. This is less of an energy trade and more of using an overabundance of specialized energy already supplied by your body- while your fire might be able to easily match the sheer ferocity of the most powerful fire spell, a wizard could then counter it with an ice spell or a magic missile while you're still stuck with your fire powers. It's a good way to achieve balance in character.

Now, the other alternative is psionic control of energies, which is sort of a horrific and terrifying hybrid between metahumanity and wizardry, yet is neither at the same time. The difference is that Psionic power requires no energy whatsoever, leaving the capability for power totally limitless. I used to play with an old buddy of mine from highschool who wrote up a mage character for Age of Legends, however when I took a closer look at the character, he had actually created a powerful telekinetic character that (I'm not kidding) had the power to crush people into little balls of flesh and bone with barely a thought. Now, of course, you can imagine the disagreements that the other players and I had with that- nobody wants to play with a character that can kill their characters whenever and however they want without any hope of defense. This isn't Akira.

I'm not writing this expecting every character here on RPR to meet my expectations and guidelines for magical characters, this is simply a matter of opinion I like to share and would love to get opinions on. I thought it a nice discussion we could have to help get to know one another's roleplaying styles and beliefs as a large group, so I'd love to hear from all of you!

I'm not quite sure how to explain it in your terms, but all of the mages I RP expend physical energy to do what they do. They draw in the raw magical energy (credit goes to Hawthorn for this, I work off her magic theory with a few additions and changes if the character is from my alternative world), and it takes willpower and their own energy to manipulate and weild it to their own ends. So, someone who has only been doing training for 10 years will certainly not be able to do as much as a mage who has been around for getting on five hundred. Illnesses, and any elemental ties will play a part as well - the sicker someone is, the less energy they have, the less powerful spells they would be able to weild. Laermeluion, my half-siren elf.. he, for example, can weild water-related spells far stronger than anything else because sirens are water elementals. He was born with a sensitivity to it, so it's rather appropriate that he is now one of the eight Naval Commanders of ancient greece on the Athenian side.

You make quite an interesting point there. You've also stumbled upon one of my pet peeves! masters of whatever magic. My personal belief is that magic is way too expansive and complicated to be 'mastered' by anyone in a mortal lifetime. Sure, your character can have some decent skills and after decade after decade of training, I wouldn't doubt their abilities, but 'mastery' is way more than being able to kamehameha your opponents and make fancy things happen. I like to compare magic to real-life science on that field, where the different scientific fields are like the different schools of magic. Humanity as a whole has studied sciences for millenia and sure, we have fancy models and theories and with these we craft tools, weapons and predictions, but can we call ourselves masters of the universe, or for that matter any one specific area of it? I think not. And yet I see 20-30 year old characters claim themselves to be 'masters' of the arcane, while magic is most likely even more complicated than science. You can't teach a dog physics, so what makes you think your character can ever comprehend everything about magic when they're anything short of a god?
The magic system I used for Ulrin is loosely based on a DnD system for chaos magic. He's been ICly using magic for around 10 years now and he's still happy if he can move a mug without making his eyeballs explode. He may act like a fancy mage, but deep inside is always the fear that whatever he's trying to master, is actually mastering him.

Now, my point with all this is that I agree, Andryn, that what a lot of people define as magic is more than likely more accurately described as an innate ability. If they hop around 'wielding magic' like its a toy, they're probably god-blooded, infused with spirits or whatever people come up with these days and have a supernatural knack to wield certain aspects of the world without requiring the normal energy/materials/etc.

Now Senny makes a good point as well. A lot of people work by the prep system, and I'd call a lot of them (I do see exceptions now and then) real wizards. Though I do belief (and correct me if I've mistaken), that Andryn wasn't referring to those people. More like people who can see a fire and just pick it up with their bare hands and juggle it around before turning it into a flamethrower attack as if this is the most normal thing in the world to do or who can throw out spell after spell (with preps, in this case) without tiring in the least or requiring materials/cantings/symbols and whatnot. Of course, then we generally come on the topic of the fact that most of these people are characters that are millennia-old demonspawns that know everything forever or are some magic-based Goku.

On the topic of psions, we have a rather powerful psion in our continuity Skuldhellir. This fine lady over here. Her psionic abilities are treated much like magic, with a prep system that uses up energy and has power limits and what not. I've known her for quite some time and this seems to work out fine both in and out of combat.

Ah, but you see, Senny ol' pal, that's fully acceptable with my personal standards of magic, as that's a balanced trade-off of energies. The caster has to be able to survive losing the amount of energy put out in magical form. Seeing a character who's only 5 years old yet can nuke a planet by sneezing doesn't make sense, because a being that physically fragile with such a short time to accommodate their bodies would basically be completely consumed by their own power and burn out, or explode.
That seems like a hybrid between metahumanity and magic. While they might be a mage, and capable of other forms of magic, their own genetics adapt them far more suitably towards one type of energy or another. If one is born of a union between Elf and Dryad, the child would probably be expected to naturally be gifted with Earth and Nature-based magics. Likewise, if a half-dragon is born (their dragon sire being, say, a red dragon), you could probably guess that they'll have a pretty strong fire affinity. That falls into Racial traits, which are usually far more clear and universally understood than just straight wizardry.
I see a lot I like and agree with in that, Earendill (so... many... words...), so I'll try to touch base on what I can. Firstly, I'll go with Mastery.

I think use of the term "Master of Etc" really depends on the player claiming it. I think it could easily still apply if they're relating it less to "I've conquered every single spell of this school possible to cast, there is nothing more I can learn about it" and more "I'm in the top of my field with this school of magic, and I'm an expert in it in relation to what we actually know of it." I can understand that. Talin, my Elementalist character (whom is actually older than depicted in his RPR form, but for all intents and purposes I have him registered at an earlier age purely for personal preference purposes) is a so-called "Master of the Elements" in that he has an understanding of them and how they work that surpasses most in his world, save for a few millenia-old characters that still exist and are privy to specific secrets. But even as a supposed "master", he can only ever wield three elements at once, because logically, trying to wield four separate forces in which each one is opposed by another is basically asking to have your entire body torn into quarters. Now, he can still wield two opposing elements at once as long as he basically keeps a third right on hand to act as a buffer, a filter for the two energies to pass through and lessen their conflict with each other. But even then, over prolonged terms of use, this is very physically taxing, and he tires out pretty quickly. Now, while I've spent a great deal of time thinking about the extent and use of his powers, trying to balance them and make them checked as strongly as possible, many might still believe it unfair that he can do this when nobody else in his RP setting can. Well, he's also COMPLETELY INCAPABLE of using magic. Despite being born from a line of wizards, he can't in any way use magic. His ability isn't magical, it's metaphysical (less of a magic ability and more of, say, a mutant power- yes, like in X-Men).

As for Psions? I'm not arguing that some people can play them without breaking the world asunder, but from my personal experience, I simply cannot trust to play in a game with a Psion unless that specific character is played by somebody I know and trust completely. My old highschool buddy made the argument of "Yes, but if played right--" but the very fact was I knew him well enough to know he was very competitive and, if his character became challenged and that drive in his brain kicked in, I wouldn't put it past him to do something extremely unfair.

I'm not really a fantasy RPer so I can't comment too much on the way magic works but my view is that it's always good to have some kind of drawback to using any kind of power. Look at Superman, he is probably the most well known comic book superhero but to me, he's not interesting because he's invincible, has various abilities that he can use at will with no real penalty. The only way to kill him is with Kryptonite, so you either have villains that have no chance of winning or somehow manage to get their hands on a rare mineral from another planet. It's either dull or it gets ridiculous.

At Dragon*Con last year, there was a panel with some of the Star Wars authors and someone asked how writing Jedi/Sith characters was different from those without force powers. It lead to a fairly in depth discussion but in the end they all pretty much agreed that if you create a character who is all powerful, you have a hard time coming up a story because they can solve the galaxy's problems in the first chapter.

The same thing really applies to roleplaying, if one character is so extremely powerful, what is the point of anyone else even bothering?

Ah! But what if the child -is- actually meant to be a nuke in disguise! Then it would make perfect sense to a super villain to create such a creature!
But yes, I see your point about mastery. It really depends heavily on the continuity you're in, though.

@darth_angelus Well, in RP everyone always wants to the THAT DUDE WHO CAN SHOOT LASERS OUT OF HIS TOES. As long as people write their own stories and make their own characters, they'll want to portray them in a way that, to them, touches their sense of perfect and awesomeness (even if it defies logic). In fantasy you generally end up with the fact that EVERYONE'S OP, which basically balances stuff out
But yes, this depends heavily on the continuity as well. There's usually a limit on what a single person can do power-wise. I personally belief (I think I mention this in my introduction thread) is that magic is in no way a solution to everything because there are terms of usage. I don't know about others, but I've never really been confronted with a continuity getting boring because there's always someone with a direct fix. (although, to be honest, I do keep in mind the continuity and the characters playing in my plots and make sure this is also impossible to fix just like that )

I think that's pretty much what everything comes down to, whether or not magic is involved, because I've seen the same things happen with highly skilled characters in other fields.

In our main setting, a certain kind of ore common in the mountains that surround us, tends to weaken magical effects, and direct contact with the ore gives a mage or a psion blindingly painful migraines.

That isn't to say we don't allow reasonable amounts of magic but anything too extravagant can be downsized because of the area affected by the ore, and that sort of penalty seems to balance our magic users with the rest of our combat-oriented characters.

Exactly, DA (Seriously, I just had a massive urge to call you Dan for a sec- Darth_Angelus, get it?), checks and balances are as important in coming up with a good character as it is in establishing a form of government. I mean, even if you're just a Sparbot (Roleplayer purely interested in roleplay fights rather than story), what happens if you get two characters who are all-powerful trying to beat the loving $#!% out of each other? You destroy most of the fight location, and then keep going, and going, and going, because nobody is gaining any ground, and eventually it becomes stale. So toning down a character has purpose for more than just being fair for everybody playing. It's a necessity even on a personal level.
See, now that is a PERFECT example of enforcing balance in-game. But, not all roleplay occurs in a closed setting, like Kvasir, Mo-Mo. What about if somebody is roleplaying in the Forest out on TK?

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having powerful characters (my longest running character is a Sith Lord afterall) but if you're going to shoot lasers out of your toes, you'll probably be buying new shoes on a regular basis

Heh, I think that's the first time anyone has turned Darth Angelus into Dan

Yes. Yes I am quite witty.

To me, magic and its use can probably be best summarized thus:

a) Its source is not fully within the magic-user's control, and is usually external. Perhaps it is drawn from another plane, perhaps it is an inherent energy possessed by everything on the current plane, perhaps it is life-force, or maybe it is being drawn from a concentration that has already been synthetically bound to some object, or person, or other physical container.
b) A manipulator of magic has to have a way to pull power from this source into his or her own plane, or into otherwise 'showing' itself, without losing control.
c) A manipulator of magic must then also have the mental strength, willpower and, occasionally, physical fortitude necessary to bend these energies into the shape they desire, again, without losing control.
d) The magic-user must conscientiously utilize this power, and requires concentration, at the very least, to effectively succeed with a spellcasting.
e) Catalysts, other magic users, and anything else that can help lessen this great mental strain on the spellcaster will improve spellcasting, making it less strenuous and therefore reduce the possibility for error.

The difference between this and the metaphysical is that such powers are usually sourced from the caster in such a way that the caster is actually capable of having complete control over it, because the energy they draw on is not external and unpredictable. There is little tolerance for confusion, misfiring or fumbling, even at very high levels of use--and if these occur, it is usually a sign of ineptitude, illness, or something otherwise inhibiting the power's natural capacity, and often a cause for alarm, mockery or uncertainty. On the other hand, these things are common and expected of very powerful magical forces, and often accounted for. Anime characters using really powerful abilities they learned how to use and have 'mastered' are often quite confident. Wizards meddling with powerful spells, however, are typically nervous and careful; the greater the power, the higher the possibility of something going wrong.

A final difference is that, while you can tie up a wizard's hands, mute him, or disable his mental connection to the external powers he draws his abilities from, you would have to physically beat up someone with metaphysical powers, probably to the point of unconsciousness, to make them incapable of using them, and even then that might not be enough.

To summarize: Metaphysical powers are more like learning and knowing how to use karate moves. Magic is like learning how to use a piece of very complicated and unpredictable machinery, to the point that it is mentally taxing to keep up with it. One is fully within the user's control, and one is not.

I can honestly say I have never had a character who could use any ability - magic, metaphysical, psionic, or otherwise - without a trade-off. Ever. The fact that you're implying such characters exist makes me go "nya? .-. " because seriously- what?

I have a villain character with crystallokinesis- he can form mineral deposits and such into crystals. I would have termed it metaphysical, but by your terms, it might instead be magic, because it takes energy. He can take a pound of coal and turn it into a diamond in a few seconds, but then he would be exhausted and starving, and have to eat a huge meal and take a long nap. Even my deities are subject to these restraints, because doing anything takes energy. Even thinking. That's why studying is so exhausting, and anyone who doesn't have at least a direct energy trade-off for what they do is just... poorly put together in my mind.

It could be because I grew up Mercedes Lackey, who is a big fan of things taking energy. In her books, everything is limited, everything has rules, and everything takes energy, so much so that if a character pushes herself too hard using a psychic ability, she'll go into shock, die if not treated immediately, and wake up with a blinding migraine that can persist for days if she survives. I grew up thinking of that as magic. It seems to have colored my thinking on the subject more than originally assumed.

Yay, another Lackey fan!

Good morning, citizens! Wizard made me very aware of this topic, so I decided to drop by and give my two cents on Psionics[sic] because that's what I do! That and I love psychics.

WARNING, FAT POST WITH SLIGHTLY JARRED THOUGHTS AHEAD!

I unfortunately have seen-- and have done in my time--psychic abilities without draw backs. As is normal for both players of metaphysical powers and magical, this usually comes from people not knowing what they're doing as players or newbies. Or they just don't care-- the ones that WANT that OP'd character. Yikes.

But at any rate, everything has a drawback. At least, that is what I believe. For psychics, this seems to commonly come in the form of headaches of varying intensities, but there can also be literal physics drawbacks.

For example... well, wait. Let's back up a second here.

What do I consider to be psychic powers?

The way I see Psionics is that they're formed by an innate energy force that every being possesses-- it may be a piece of their life force, it may not, but I'm not here to debate the exact origins of psychic energies. Just note for my post that for my psychics, this energy exists. And this energy can be manipulated and used upon the physical world. This is where the various abilities stems from-- the energies being manipulated in and around a pebble to lift it is telekinesis; the energies of a person or item being "gathered up" and moved from one location to another is teleporation; the energies being tapped into and manipulated into a metaphorical "landlines" from one person to the next is telepathy; etc. Psychics are those who have manipulated that ability to some extent and can wield it.

And since it is innate, this means that it is slightly easier to tap into than magic. Unlike a mage or wizard who has to gather magical power almost entirely from an outside source, psychic energies come from the essence that is everyone/thing. A psychic can get their power literally from themselves with varying degree of skill in accordance to whether or not they know what they're doing. Does this mean it gets lei way to be abused by a player in a continuity? No. This is where drawbacks and errors come in.

Despite my belief in fantasy-fiction that psychics can more easily trigger their powers than magic users, I be no means believe that they do not need training or can't have drawbacks. I spent the last few months of my high school junior year working on a physics paper for Psionics; and while I no longer have a copy of it on my computer, I remember some of the more interesting points. Remember "for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction"? There's one for you. Let's say a psychic HAKOUDEN BEAMS someone with psychic energy. That's energy moving away from them-- isn't there then going to be an equal reaction going into the psychic as well?

Owch. Yeah. That will leave a mark. That alone, presuming someone's mindful of their physics, can be enough of a drawback already to keep someone from crushing people into lil' balls of fleshy goo with their mind powers. On top of that, unless you're a deity, I don't believe that any one psychic suddenly knows exactly how to use their abilities. They need training just like everyone else. My psychic, Lauren, ended up losing her original tail because she couldn't use teleporation correctly, got a wall between herself and her tail, and it was severed from her body, requiring a replacement.

Had she the right training at the age of 12, this probably would've been avoided.


Tl;dr: The way I see it, psychics can wield their powers a bit more easily than mages, but they still need know-how and training. And there are always draw backs to using your brain for laziness-- I see you psychics over there picking up the remote from across the room!

So there you have it, my long two cents.

I always wind up playing magic users, for some reason.

My current favourite wizard character is Rhaetia, and she comes from the universe of Ragnarok Online. This does a neat job of delineating what abilities she can actually have, but the actual 'physics' of magical abilities in that world are woefully unexplained. In the game over on Livejournal I played her in, we had fun coming up for different explanations of how magic worked, especially in the context of the two major spellcasting schools. We knew, for example, that spellcasting definitely takes something out of the caster - spell points are depleted in-game when casting, y'see. We ended up explaining it as the caster expending personal energy to control the forces of nature about them. Some spells consume a lot of energy, in exchange for a lot of power output - summoning a deep freezing blizzard, or a powerful thunderstorm, for example. Some take a lot of energy and trade that off for quick casting and a lower hurt-quotient, instead.
And then we've got the Wizardry School on one side - powerful spells, often very flashy, but the spellcaster can't move while casting and often takes a long time to shape the energies into spells. Sages, on the other hand, have less powerful spells, but focus instead on refining their control such to the point where they can cast faster and even move about. Rhaetia likes to emphasize that wizardly 'control' is more important - think of the consequences if a lightning storm were to slip the bounds of the caster's control! Mostly, though, she's always looking for a way to one-up the silly, boring, and drab sages.

Other characters have more innate powers, such as my icebird or kitsune characters. They likely lie more in the realm of supernatural creatures rather than mortal beings, but there are still limits to how much they can do before they weaken (or in the case of the kitsune, flicker out entirely from the physical world). They don't attempt to control outside elements so much as they direct their own inner energies - the icebird, for example, can extend her natural coldness to freeze standing water at a touch, or turn vapour in the air into snow. Perhaps that would fall under the more metaphysical bit? Either way, it's always fun to come up with different explanations that 'work'.

This thread was such an awesome idea. I just want to throw that out there. I'm absolutely loving the exchange of ideas. This is what an RP community is all about, really.

So awesome that eventually this thread will end with us creating a series of continuities, each with its own awesome magic system.

And somehow, every one of them will become diamonds.

After the first few posts, I... kinda stopped reading because it's late and my head gets whoozy and I'm sure everyone's covering what I agree with.

Given that humans function on electricity (the brain, the nerves, the signals that contract muscles etc.) it makes sense to me that magic is either an amplification and manipulation of this energy, or it's a source of power that is simply not understood by the character on such deep levels (thus, it's simply labeled as 'magic' without a scientific explanation. That's how most 'magic' came into existence, not understanding the hows behind it). I think the recent movie, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, is a very, very good movie that imbues this idea. You cause fire by using your body's energy and channeling it through a device, like a ring with a special stone in it, to cause the molecules of an object to move faster and faster until it catches fire. Similarly you can cause friction between cold and hot air to create electricity (where cold air is slowed down molecules and hot air is fast moving molecules, to put it very simply).

However, I do think we should be allowed to take some liberty with it as well. It IS Fiction after all because we can't really do that in real life (yet?) and thus we can't say with 100% certainty that it works this or that way. There are things that can happen that we have no explanation for, just like how they would have had no explanation for a lightbulb in the 1500's. In some cases, it's okay to run with the "it happens because I say so" excuse.

And farts are magical too.

I think apple juice just came out of my nose.

And I wasn't even drinking apple juice. I was... not expecting that conclusion. Yeah, so I'm 12, sue me.