Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Making science magic feel like science, not magic

Greg 1 · 02-26-2021, 11:43 AM

How do you make magic-like abilities feel more like applied science and less like magic?

I'm toying with a setting idea in which a society rejects magic as the instrument of the Devil, but develops magic-like abilities through scientific study. Their technology level, leaving magic-like abilities aside, is at about the 17th century. Not many people can use these magic-like abilities as it takes much scholarly study.

Such scholars ("natural philosophers") are intended to be good PC types, able to contribute to an adventuring party. They will, save in very rare cases, be the only source of magic-like support for a PC party.

There are at least two questions here.

What sort of magic-like effects would come most easily to such scholars and which would be more difficult?

How would the scholar go about achieving these magic-like effects, so that they feel more like science and less like magic?

02-26-2021, 11:43 AM	#1
Greg 1 Join Date: Feb 2007	Making science magic feel like science, not magic How do you make magic-like abilities feel more like applied science and less like magic? I'm toying with a setting idea in which a society rejects magic as the instrument of the Devil, but develops magic-like abilities through scientific study. Their technology level, leaving magic-like abilities aside, is at about the 17th century. Not many people can use these magic-like abilities as it takes much scholarly study. Such scholars ("natural philosophers") are intended to be good PC types, able to contribute to an adventuring party. They will, save in very rare cases, be the only source of magic-like support for a PC party. There are at least two questions here. What sort of magic-like effects would come most easily to such scholars and which would be more difficult? How would the scholar go about achieving these magic-like effects, so that they feel more like science and less like magic? __________________ GURPS Settings Beneath Castle Everglory: A Dungeon, Lineage (Modern Fantasy) Paradise City (Cyberpunk), The World of Kung Fu (Modern Martial Arts Setting) Last edited by Greg 1; 02-26-2021 at 11:49 AM.