If you are going to run a roleplaying game, the system you use generally comes with a pre-made magic system. There are a few (such as the Hero System, where you can use the rules to make your own magic system. If you are creating your own magic system, whether it’s for your own game world or a setting for your novel, you’re going to need to know the rules. Not the rules for how magic works, but how magic systems work.

There are a lot of different ways to look at this, but the one I like best are Sanderson’s Laws of Magic. A more complete look can be found here or you can find his lecture series on YouTube (the first one is here). In this post, I’m going to state Sanderson’s laws and then delve into how I’ve applied them in my settings.

Sanderson’s 1st Law of Magic: An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands that magic. This could also be applied to roleplaying games as: Consider how spells can screw up your plot. If wizards can read people’s minds, how do the criminals deal with that? If they don’t, how is there any crime? But plot holes like that are just the starting point. If the plot is centered around an invading army coming to destroy you, it’s really hard to be worried about that if the characters regularly whip out new spells that can destroy that army whenever they want. Your readers or players will also feel really cheated if the plot is resolved if the spellcaster simply wins the big conflict at the end with the literal wave of the hand.

Sanderson’s 2nd Law of Magic: Limitations are more interesting than Powers. These limitations can come in several forms, but the most common ones are weaknesses, costs, requirements, and specifics. Weaknesses are things that turn off or stop the magic, like kryptonite for Superman. Other examples include energy pools, spell components that may run out, magically dead areas, or counterspells. Costs are things that are required for the magic to work that actually hurt the character in some way. Requirements may include a focus, using weird gestures and incantations, amount of time to cast, weird times to cast, and the like. Specifics are things that magic specifically can’t do or weird limitations that don’t fit anywhere else. Examples include magic that can’t be cast on yourself or detect evil only working when the target is thinking evil things.

Sanderson’s 3rd Law of Magic: Expand on what you have already, before you add something new. This is really something you need to worry about the more you create.

Sanderson’s 0th Law of Magic (arguably the most important rule): Always err on the side of awesome. If you’re creating a magic system for a game, it should be something you think would be fun to play, but more importantly, fun for someone to play against or fun to have someone else play while you’re doing something else. That’s awesome. If you’re creating a magic system for a book, then whatever you create should be something you would love to read about.

So, how have I applied these laws to my own writing and game? Magic is a learned skill on my world. Anyone can learn it, but just like people in the real world can have musical talent, people can have a knack for learning magic. You can learn from a single person, go to one of the various schools, or even learn magic from certain churches. The process is basically the same, no matter what.

Spells can be miscast, and that leads to consequences depending on the type and power of the spell. Spells with small effects generally have minor consequences for failure. Larger effect spells, however, have big consequences when they get miscast. What that issue is depends on the type of magic one is using. Divination, for example, affects the senses. Therefore, miscasts also affect those senses, leading to temporary blindness or deafness, hypersensitivity, or hallucinations. Magic is shaped from forces around the spellcaster, and if there isn’t the right kind of magic around they simply can’t cast. It is powered by energy within the caster, which recovers over time. If the caster runs out of this energy, they either stop casting spells to give them a chance to recover or they will have to start fueling their spells with their own body. In extreme cases, this can kill a spellcaster.

I use the HERO system when I run my fantasy game, and this type of magic system is pretty simple to implement. All spells have to use a magic skill roll (which is based on Intelligence to simulate how some people are just naturally better at doing this). They fuel their magic using an endurance reserve. All spells also have to have the Side Effects limitation, which occurs whenever someone fails their magic skill roll. Spells are bought as powers per the normal rules. Eventually, I plan on putting up the HERO system write ups for these spells, but that’s something that will take a while for me to write up and post.

Next week, I’ll continue this series by talking about how to conceptualize different magic systems. See you next Thursday!