Player-Made Magic Systems

[Jachra]

I've been prodding at Thaumatology and Magic for a while now and I was thinking, especially since I've been prodding at this idea myself:

Surely, some people have come up with varieties of alternative magic systems.

Have you worked up a special magic system for your game?

I figure a lot of GMs end up working up their own systems, and they never see the light of day beyond their specific player group, so if you're confident enough to post it here I (and I'm sure others) would be curious to see them.

[simply Nathan]

I allow anyone with Magery 0 to buy up higher levels of Magery with experience. You can get up to Magery 3 without limitations, and any combination of limitations raises the cap to Magery 6. Magery 2 with Magery 4 (One College, Healing); Magery 6 (One Spell, Explosive Fireball); Magery 3 with Magery 3 (Sky Spells), and so on. Roughly 24-25% of my world's population has Magery 0 or better.

I have the usual college structure (Weather doesn't count, though), and three broader groups for my setting, which can be taken as -20% limitations on the cost of Magery. These are Land (Earth, Making/Breaking, Protection/Warning colleges; Animal spells cast on ground-dwelling creatures), Sea (Water, Food, and Plant colleges; Animal spells cast on aquatic creatures), and Sky (Air, Light/Darkness, and Movement colleges; Animal spells cast on flying creatures).

In general, I forget the time to cast spells and the reduced fatigue for high skill. I mostly like the spellcasting system GURPS uses by default, and one-turn spellcasting fits with my experiences of how magic works in other games really well. I don't really do this on purpose, I'd just rather not look this stuff up.

(If it's not clearly a combat spell like Armor, Sleep, [level] Healing, or something I'll be more inclined to give it a longer casting time - but in that case its actual casting time is less likely to matter.)

I'm writing an adventure series where the setting's magic works like this - right down to the prerequisite tree (which I otherwise dislike, but have taken up as a self-imposed challenge for the sake of writing).

[Kage2020]

I'm working on it at the moment. Third-time lucky for the setting that I'm working on. :D

[Jerander]

For my "magical"/arcane magic system, I'll be using a combination of Standard Spell Magic (with access to some optional rules), Threshold-Limited Magic, Magic as Powers, and Boundary Magic, supplimented by Spirit-Assisted Magic.

See here for more details.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Jachra

I've been prodding at Thaumatology and Magic for a while now and I was thinking, especially since I've been prodding at this idea myself:

Surely, some people have come up with varieties of alternative magic systems.

Have you worked up a special magic system for your game?

I figure a lot of GMs end up working up their own systems, and they never see the light of day beyond their specific player group, so if you're confident enough to post it here I (and I'm sure others) would be curious to see them.

I was confused by your choice of thread title, because I (obviously) discern between GM-made and player-made.

I haven't made any magic systems for GURPS, but I did post a very rough sketch for one last year, in a thread about some kind of historical "iron age" campaign. I think my ideas were good (the setting was Arthurian, so something I find it easy to contemplate), although neither brilliant not unique, but there was a problem with the inflexibility of the Healing advantage in GURPS (in that there's no RAW way to make the healed HP arrive slowly, while also reducing the CP cost).