What Makes a Great Magic System?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anders

I don't agree with this. First of all, it tends to make the mage master-of-all-situations, and so there's no need to have a party. Secondly, I think that it's the restrictions more than the flexibility of the system that channel intelligence and innovations. And your example points to this - a restricted ability (being able to split water) is used for two very different applications. In a very flexible system you can just improvise "Create Explosion" and "Breathe Underwater" spells.

But that's just me.

Oh, restrictions are certainly important. But the sort of restrictions there are makes a system flexible or rigid. Usually it's a difference between a tool-spell and an outcome-spell*. The former is being like 'split water' and the latter being like 'remove penalty for not being able to breathe'. GURPS traits are generally closer to the latter type - they grant specific narrow effects, no matter how they're achieved; Doesn't Breathe can represent an anaerobic metabolism, or an air-creating spell, or an internal superdimensional supply of air so large that it is unlikely to ever end throughout the campaign.

* == Note that this is a simplistic explanation of a spectrum on which spells only have relative, not absolute, positions.