Jama

@Jama

He/him

Tabletop, video games, sports and maybe someday some other things if I get the ambition to learn.

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Jama @Jama3/14/2024, 4:36 AM

Jama @Jama

Jama @Jama3/14/2024, 3:29 AM

Magic is bullshit and I resent it in a lot of games. I was going to write more on it but fuck it. Magic warps a game around it so hard and in many games, mages have ways to mitigate their main weakness (being frail) without explicit targeting the group. Hell, in a game where you can transform into a fucking bear or whatever, that weakness is now a strength.

Magic can warp so many encounters; social, combat, and environmental, around themselves. Magic being the only thing that can beat magic is just so tiring.

I am aware "magic is bullshit" is the draw of magic. It's just annoying that anyone without extensive magic has to backseat a lot of times to someone who can turn invisible, fly, turn into a dinosaur, charm people, and can still blow shit up all in the same day.

#TTRPG

Jama @Jama3/14/2024, 4:36 AM

This was the hot take that evolved to me creating a spreadsheet and then falling back into a short hot take.

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Jama @Jama3/14/2024, 3:33 AM

Dropping this here in case this forks in the shares.

I wish mundanes could just Interface with cast spells in any capacity. You can't break a force cage, you can only run from a fireball, you can't deflect a ray with a mirrored shield...

I'm playing a Hero! Let me do cool shit too, and not be limited to the imagination of "what the guys at my college could do"

Twinkee @Twinkee3/14/2024, 3:43 AM

Goddamit. This is another thing Shadowrun does right (Mostly, I think there's a few spells this doesn't apply to). Magic can be overcome by just having the right equipment.

Jama @Jama3/14/2024, 4:03 AM

Having the option to go like 'Hm, this gang we're feuding with loves Ice magic, let's get some cold resistance on our armor" is something at least!

Twinkee @Twinkee3/14/2024, 4:05 AM

Other than mana spells, there's not a lot that you can't just brute force your way through.

Krake @Krake3/14/2024, 6:57 AM

Dungeon Crawl Classics does something like this with Mighty Deeds of Arms. Basically you try to do some bad ass heroic warrior shit like forcing a portal closed with your bare hands or snapping the horn off a minotaur and then you roll for it.

noah @noahtheduke3/14/2024, 3:42 AM

This is why d&d 4e was great. :eggbug-wink:

Jama @Jama3/14/2024, 4:01 AM

4e RULES

Is it Shaker!?@EarthShaker3/14/2024, 4:27 AM

I'd play the hell out of a game where the ultimate goal of every campaign is "kill the fucking wizard at any cost" and the only things people have to fight magic with are wits, traps, ambushes and superstitions.

Like the film Warlock. Make them supervillains.

Binary @binary3/14/2024, 4:36 AM

This doesn't all fall on the feet of D&D but I'm going to blame it for a lot of this anyway.

Jama @Jama3/14/2024, 4:37 AM

It's a prime offender and it has painted so many people's opinion of what magic Should Be. If you're not slinging spells all the time, you don't feel magical enough.

Mara @amaranth-witch3/14/2024, 4:57 AM

And then they have the fucking GALL to complain that THE SPELLS THEY'RE SLINGING WHICH BREAK THE STORY ALREADY don't feel magical enough either and

gahhhhh

Binary @binary3/14/2024, 5:00 AM

Beyond just slinging spells, the scope is what gets me about it. Like if you're good at magic (wizard, clerical, any kind) you can basically do just about any kind of thing, in combat or out.

Jama @Jama3/14/2024, 5:01 AM

Yup!

@PunchGirlFists3/14/2024, 11:48 AM

One thing that's been massively influential for how I think about magic in TTRPGs has been shonen battlemanga.
I played in a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure tabletop and it made me realize that a "stand user" is really just a wizard who knows one spell and that they are really engaging to play! You have to get so much more creative in order to effectively apply your one spell in differen situations and the system I played offered some mechanics for weaponizing your environment too!

Obviously JoJo lore has its own special middle finger that it extends to non-wizards but it struck me that a lot of anime/manga series focus on making unique powersets based around a single ability and I think this is honestly the way to go for magic in TTRPGs. Let players create their own custom spell in character creation and maybe give them some abilities to help make creative use of it.
You can also just extend this mindset to martial characters but instead of a spell it's mastery over a single weapon or fighting style.

dez @smuonsneutrino3/14/2024, 12:58 PM

This has as much to do with magic being bullshit as it does with game designers having a severe lack of imagination about what martial abilities can/should be for characters who train hard in a universe whose physics accommodates magic

dez @smuonsneutrino3/14/2024, 1:00 PM

Like. the barbarian should be able to throw a man 50 feet in the air. The rogue should say "nothin personell, kid" and just be behind you

Jama @Jama3/14/2024, 3:44 PM

Yes! Exactly!

AnneCrow @AnneCrow3/14/2024, 2:09 PM

Tbh that's partly why I enjoyed magic in 7th Sea being as specialized as it was with extremely narrow focus compared to your average DND mages whereas your nomagicians would actually get Swordsmen Schools.

And being bloodline based, multiclassing two magical bloodlines essentially prevented you from ever achieving true mastery in any one bloodline meanwhile sword masters could truly invest in current sword schools iirc even if it was an hefty investment.

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