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dfinlay · 09-17-2015, 02:27 PM

I have found that it is near-impossible to have magic feel mysterious and eldritch while allowing PCs to get their hands on it.

There are a few issues: if you give magic to players, you sort of have to explain it to them and that decreases some of it's mystique. Another issue is that players tend to (reasonably and realistically) start to view it as another tool in their toolbox. Even putting harsh consequences on its use doesn't seem to fix that. I ran a game with a homebrew system that was vaguely like Threshold, but with Threshold 0 (magic is volatile and dangerous and every spell can go out of control, but the more magic you've recently used, the more likely it is to go out of control). That led to two types of mage PCs that I noticed. There were those who embraced the risk and still overused magic, revelling in every backlash and there were those who internally preformed a cost-benefit analysis for each spell. While this was cool, neither was what I'm talking about. It's hard to think of magic as a primal cosmic force when performing a CBA of it vs a shovel for making a hole.

I've largely given up on simultaneously letting PCs have access to magic and making magic feel like a cosmic, vast and mysterious force. However, I was talking about this with one of my players and he said I should ask you guys for your thoughts. So, apologies for not being able to clearly articulate what I want/mean, but I'm curious if you have had similar or different thoughts on this, or if you have a solution that you think works.

09-17-2015, 02:27 PM	#1
dfinlay Join Date: Dec 2008	Making Magic Mysterious and Eldritch I have found that it is near-impossible to have magic feel mysterious and eldritch while allowing PCs to get their hands on it. There are a few issues: if you give magic to players, you sort of have to explain it to them and that decreases some of it's mystique. Another issue is that players tend to (reasonably and realistically) start to view it as another tool in their toolbox. Even putting harsh consequences on its use doesn't seem to fix that. I ran a game with a homebrew system that was vaguely like Threshold, but with Threshold 0 (magic is volatile and dangerous and every spell can go out of control, but the more magic you've recently used, the more likely it is to go out of control). That led to two types of mage PCs that I noticed. There were those who embraced the risk and still overused magic, revelling in every backlash and there were those who internally preformed a cost-benefit analysis for each spell. While this was cool, neither was what I'm talking about. It's hard to think of magic as a primal cosmic force when performing a CBA of it vs a shovel for making a hole. I've largely given up on simultaneously letting PCs have access to magic and making magic feel like a cosmic, vast and mysterious force. However, I was talking about this with one of my players and he said I should ask you guys for your thoughts. So, apologies for not being able to clearly articulate what I want/mean, but I'm curious if you have had similar or different thoughts on this, or if you have a solution that you think works.