Help needed: Magic system for an occult horror game

[Varsovian]

Hello there!

I've long been interested in the various occult horror games, especially the ones where you get to play witches, spellcasting occultists etc. I know both Mage: the Ascension and Mage: the Awakening, I also know C.J. Carrella's Witchcraft... Somehow, though, none of these games fits my idea of an occult game I'd like to play. Ascension has a good magic system, but is too comic-booky, Awakening is a bit too light for me when it comes to the tone - and Witchcraft uses Unisystem, which I really don't want to learn. So, I'm toying around with the idea of using GURPS for this kind of game... The question is, what kind of magic system to use?

Yes, I do have Thaumatology... :D Still, I just can't come up with anything workable. Maybe you guys could help me out?

The design parameters, so to say, are this:

1. I'd like the game to be scary and dark - using World of Darkness analogues, I'm thinking more of Hunter: the Vigil than Mage: the Awakening.

2. I don't want the occultists in this game to be too powerful - so, I don't want the to summon fireballs with a snap of fingers.

3. I'd like the system to allow for various and semi-realistic styles of magic: Hermetic magic, shamanism, alchemy etc.

4. I'd like the system to allow for creative spellcasting and the occultists coming up with new uses for their magic. The thing I loved in Ascension was that a mage that was, say, adept in the sphere of mind, wasn't just learning a multitude of mind-related spells, but gained a deeper understanding of mind magic and could figure out new uses for it...

Any ideas as to handle it?

BTW. Here's a great clip from Season 3 of Penny Dreadful that kind of shows the way I'd like to portray magic in my game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HBRGfu5HVQ

Okay, so I'm not saying that I want there to be black magic only! But the scene has the elements I'm interested in: an extended ritual, some improvisation... Other possible inspirations could be The Invisibles and Hellblazer comic books.

[sir_pudding]

Path or Book magic, or Ritual Path Magic if you want improvisation. You might want to also use Corruption from Horror.

[Christopher R. Rice]

So, I'm a pretty big fan of Penny Dreadful. If I were you I'd use Effect-Shaping Ritual Path Magic and disallow Ritual Adept completely. Maybe use some of the laws from GURPS Thaumatology (e.g., Law of Contagion).

[johndallman]

The best choice depends on the amount of flexibility and improvisation you want, and the trade-off between advance preparation and in-play calculation you prefer.

Realm Magic requires a fair bit of work before the campaign can start, since you have to define its realms and their levels - you can produce systems very much like M:tA using it - but allows very flexible improvisation, provided the GM is willing to make rulings on the fly. It doesn't require much arithmetic during play. You will have to limit it to prevent overt damage effects.

Ritual Path Magic doesn't require much work before the campaign, and has flexible improvisation, but does require a fair amount of arithmetic during play. Once you get used to that, it's quite quick, but there's a definite learning curve. Again, you have to limit it to prevent fireballs.

Path/Book Magic has a limited list of effects, but they're pretty flexible. It isn't strongly improvisational, but that does make it easy to avoid magicians blowing stuff up.

If you want to plug Corruption into these magic systems, it's reasonably easy. For Realm Magic, give the caster a point of Corruption for each Realm level in a working. Ritual Path Magic, in its default Energy Accumulating mode would be a point of Corruption for each 10 energy, or thereabouts (RPM energy costs are on their own scale); in Effect Shaping mode, allow a caster to pay off penalties by taking Corruption points 1:1. For Path/Book Magic, use the same Effect Shaping rules as RPM, and for Energy Accumulating, made it a point of Corruption per 5 energy points.

[Kelly Pedersen]

One thing you could consider doing is merging a couple of magic systems. You could combine Path/Book and Realm magic, for instance, to get both the occult feel of Path/Book, and the flexibility of Realm.

Here's how I'd do that - I'd use Paths, not Books. Each Path would line up with a Realm - if there's a Path of Chance, there's a Realm of Chance, and so on. The same skill would be used for each as well. Using the skill for improvised magic would have a penalty - I like -5, but you could set it however you liked for the feel you wanted. I'd probably say you'd have to buy at least the first level of each Realm to put points in the associated skill, but you could change that too, to allow only certain select casters to be truly improvisational.

I would definitely tie traits like Ritual Adept to the levels in the Realms, though. If you had four levels to each Realm, for example, then characters would need to buy the second level in the Realm before they could buy Path Adept level 1, the third level in the Realm for Path Adept level 2, and so on.

To preserve the "ritual" feel for the Realm magic, you can increase the casting time for improvised Realm magic, and allow the Time Spent rules from Basic to give bonuses for longer castings, or reduce the time with penalties. I like 10 minutes as a base time - that means that it still takes a minute to cast a spell even at -9 penalty for time reduction, and conversely, if a caster is going for the full bonus for extra time, that it takes 300 minutes (5 hours) to get a +5 (also neatly cancelling out that -5 I suggested for improvised casting!). I'd let casters with Path Adept with Time as the element also reduce the time for improvisational casting, as long as a spell was of one level lower than their max level in the Realm. So someone with Realm of Chance level 3 and Path Adept (Time) could do an improvised casting of Chance in only 1d seconds, as long as they were doing a Chance level 2 or lower effect.

[Varsovian]

Okay, so a few quick thoughts:

I really like the Path/Book magic, although it doesn't allow for improvisation. But, maybe, with a sufficienty broad list of rituals, I wouldn't need improvisation at all? Maybe a broad list of rituals would cover all of the sensible uses of magic anyway?

(BTW. I admit I don't really get why the rituals in P/B magic are supposed to be flexible. They seem pretty specific to me...)

I also like Realm magic, but it can be pretty powerful. But, maybe, it could be limited, by designing the Realms the way that even the highest possible Realm level allows only for limited control of the phenomena? Also, when it comes to Realm magic, I'd *definitely* want to increase the casting time - and introduce practices, too.

Ritual Path magic seems nice, but it really seems powerful - it seems to allow for stuff like creating a whole living human out of thin air, for example. I have no idea how to limit that... Also, I admit that I don't like the idea of a core magic skill (i.e. Thaumatology) - I don't like the fact that a spellcaster would be able to use all of the Paths just by virtue of knowing the basics of magic. I prefer stuff like shamans who have no idea how to work matter magic, alchemists who are completely at lost when it comes to the matters of spirits and ghosts etc. Would it break the RPM system if I erased the core skill and made the Path skills necessary to learn separately?

As for merging P/B magic and Realm magic systems - Kelly, could you expand on the idea? I'm not sure I can picture the system yet...

BTW. How about going the other way around: using the Realm magic, but also introducing set rituals as specific effects ("rotes", using the Mage terminology) that could be used more easily?

EDIT: Or, maybe, how about something like this:

The system would be P/BM with an option for improvised rituals. Here's my thinking: each pre-defined ritual is a technique of the Path skill at some default. Each Path is backed by some general idea of what it could accomplish - also, there seems to be a hierarchy to the rituals, with the lesser effects being easier and the more powerful or more complicated effects being harder. So...

... how about introducing a couple of "improvisational" techniques for each Path? There could be relatively easy technique covering using the Path for improvised sensory effects, a more difficult technique for improvised control effects, ever more difficult technique for transformations etc. And, if a spellcaster doesn't have a ready ritual for some specific situation, he could use these techniques to use his knowledge of the Path's magical concepts and kitbash a working. Of couse, such improvised rituals would be more difficult to execute than the normal rituals that have been tried out by other magicians etc.

I don't know, does it sound like a good idea?