Manadynamics

[ralphmelton]

This morning, I was thinking about an explanation for magic that I might try to use in a more intellectual RPG campaign than my current D&D campaign. This might fit into a style of magic (or a meta-style of magic) for Unknown Armies, for example.

The basic idea is that magical power comes from meaning. It's the sentient process of seeing stars and turning them into meaningful constellations that makes magic possible. (And thus doing magic is only possible for sentients. Being magical might be possible for non-sentients--not quite sure.) But the magical power of a meaning gets shared among the people who are using that meaning.

Some consequences:
* In settled areas, magic might be common but weak, since there are lots of people around to attribute minor meanings to things. But there are also likely to be other mages around to bleed off these minor charges. And in fact, doing magic on people (illusions and so forth) is probably easier than doing magic on things, because people tend to carry a lot of meaning on their own.
* On the other hand, this also provides an explanation for remote places of power. Much of the wilderness is more or less meaningless "white noise", but if you find something like Ayer's Rock in the middle of the desert, or a cliff that look's like the Devil's Face, there's a lot of meaning there that other people haven't used--so this can be big magic.
* Ceremonies and great events create meaning. So burial grounds can be magical from the meaning they contain. Any place that gets referred to as "the place where <X> happened" is probably carrying some power of meaning.
* The sorts of magic you can do are influenced by the meanings that power that magic. So if you're using Gettysburg as your source of meaning, for example, the magic you create will tend to be magic of death and war.
* This notion of meaning fosters a certain secretive tradition; if you have words whose meaning carries magic, you get more power from them if you share those words.

All in all, this theory of magic seems to explain a lot of the ways magic tends to behave in stories. I like it.


So I was toying with this idea as I drove into work, and thinking about writing a journal entry on it. And then I came up with a twist on this notion that turned it into a conceptual Pyramid article with an emotional twist that brought a lump to my throat.

Now I feel that I've got to write this up as a Pyramid article. And so I don't want to pre-publish it in my journal, at least not publicly, since I don't want to damage the chance that Pyramid will buy it.

Any of y'all want to read a first draft (if/when I manage to get one done) and comment on it?

Comments

[lothie.livejournal.com]

I'd like to read it, and will comment.

I've always hated the way D&D handled magic, with the paraphernalia and memorizing spells and all. That's not how magic works.

Magic, IMO as a user of it, is will. Thassit.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

D&D's magic system is just dippy.

Even with the modifications of Third Edition, it's just dippy. Monica and I have had some debates about what magic is like for sorcerors, and it's hard to make sense out of it.

The fundamental problem is that it feels like a set of arbitary rules with an interpretation grafted on, not like a set of rules intended to represent a certain view of how a magical world should work.

(I don't wholly object to paraphernalia--it's appropriate for certain stories. But the memorization aspect is not really appropriate except for Vance's Dying Earth--and the types of spells aren't appropriate for that.)

Mage: the Ascension seems to have a very nifty portrayal of magic, though I want to note that a) I haven't read Mage itself, just GURPS Mage, and b) I'm not evaluating for realism, just for style.

(This manadynamics article I'm contemplating would not necessarily correspond to how magic works for real users, either.)

While I'm ranting about rules for magic systems, let me mention that Authentic Thaumaturgy is a lame-ass book--it may or may not be realistic, but the rules are lame and the tone is pretensious and snide.

feedback?

[beegle.livejournal.com]

What about "this is the place where I am casting a bad-assed spell" and "I am the mage who is casting a bad-assed spell" as meanings? Could you get enhanced power from the feedback of meaning that comes from casting a powerful spell? More generally, at what point does the meaning exist? This would be particularly relevant for the megalomaniacal villains who know (and whose legion of minions know) that this spell is going to enslave the world while elevating them to a position of godlike power.

Yes, I'm being a weenie rules-lawyer.

Re: feedback?

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

My offhand answer: That sort of feedback does happen, but the feedback isn't perfect. So it magnifies your magical power, but it doesn't create infinite power.

I'd also say that some amount of that reflection and feedback is what differentiates mages from non-mages.

Hmmmm

[jeliza]

I think that is an exceedingly interesting idea; I can see it not only as a gaming mechanism but as a fairly interesting infrastructure for a novel or six -- particularly *not* set in classic psuedo-medieval fantasy.

Though this is a little gruesome, imagine the power of magical meaning the World Trade Center would acquire in the present-day, and the after-effects that could result from that. (One could argue that this has in fact happened; the twin towers will now stand as an incredible potent symbol of terrorism and death, which can be invoked at will for rhetorical/oratorical magick making.)

I'd love to read the Pyramid article.

Re: Hmmmm

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

I had in fact thought of that disaster as an example of acquiring meaning in response to human events. That's why I fished around for the Gettysburg example.

[seanmcguire.livejournal.com]

Post it privately here and we can all critique it en masse. :)

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

I'll be happy to read and comment. But you could have guessed that. 8^)