Categorizing & Designing Magic Systems

I adore "incoming" episodes

"The hardest magic system is physics" - some big brian dude from another comment section

Interesting (though not surprising) to see how well this definition fits the magic in Dresden Files. In that world, magic is a learned ability for humans, and can be greatly enhanced with even simple tools, like drawing a circle with chalk to serve as a foundation for a spell. The most interesting thing about it is that how established the whole thing feels. For example when Dresden summons a demon into a circle for questioning, the demon roars and attempts to break out of its confinement for a little while, and then Dresden just asks "Are you satisfied, demon?" and the demon answers "Quite." in perfect Oxford accent. Turns out the etiquette demands the summoned demon to attempt to break out of its confinement and do his best to kill its summoner, but since it decided it failed, it was ready to answer the questions Dresden might have. It's crazy.

I think it's important to realize that technology should also follow these rules. As they say, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. If your sci-fi universe has FTL, then either you need to explain how it works or you can't make it a focus of your story's plot. If all you want to say is that the special engine allows for FTL, then the only major problem you can have is that the bad guys turns off the engine.

One thing to always mention on hard magic systems is the inverse of Clarke's Law; "Any magic sufficiently studied becomes indistinguishable from science."

As someone who wants to one day make an RPG with a highly intricate magic system and world around it, this has been a massively useful video.

It's not magic. It's waterbending, and it's... Yeah, yeah, an ancient art unique to our culture, blah blah blah.

I was so glad to hear Brandon Sanderson mentioned in the first 60 seconds. He is without question one of the greatest magic system designers in all of history, and should be included in every discussion like this.

Jojo's Magic System: IT JUST WORKS!

Mmm I like me some magic. Lemme explain my favourite one. Made in Abyss' "Curse of the Abyss" is probably my favourite magic system. The "Curse of the Abyss" is a strange and invisible force that exists only within the "Abyss", a huge hole in the ground, and it acts like a trapdoor, allowing humans to enter the Abyss, but not ascend out of it. Well, at least not without some sort of suffering. The curse reacts to human souls, inflicting physical and mental trauma as they go up. As you go deeper into the Abyss, the curse's effects get increasingly severe, ascend from the first layer of the abyss and you will only get mild nausea, but ascend from the fifth layer and you will loose your human form and become a blob of flesh with a human soul trapped inside. Lovely. Any deeper and you will face a certain and painful death. Even more lovely. The people living around the Abyss regard the curse like a science, and while scientists understand the basics of the curse, the origin of it is unknown. While no animals seem to be affected by the curse, some of the creatures in the Abyss have evolved to detect fluctuations in the curse, which are caused by both physical movement and human (and probably also animal) thought. The Orbed Piecer, for example, can actually detect the fine disturbances caused by thought and thus can basically read the mind of it's prey and predict its actions. Human scientists have also found ways of manipulating the curse, for example a certain scientist had the morally acceptable idea of using a human nervous system as a shield against the curse, allowing the user to ascend peacefully while the human nervous system absorbs the affects of the curse. Who knows what happens to the soul of the human sacrifice. I'm sure it's very very pleasant. And that's why I love the Curse of the Abyss so much. It shapes the environment of the Abyss, creating all the amazing creatures and mad scientists, and combined with the show's mostly excellent writing and beautiful art, it creates some one of the most believable and intriguing worlds in fiction. Oops I wrote an essay. But there you go.

I was really hoping you'd start with Clarke's 3rd Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", which would have been a perfect fit for hard magic, but I like the episode either way. I really appreciate you mentioned Ursula Le Guin - she's quickly falling into obscurity and that saddens me greatly.

A wizard did it

Incoming videos are literally my favorite. 😊

After reading the title, first thought "Oooo, I wonder if they'll talk about Brandon Sanderson and the Cosmere" Now I want a Cosmere video series.

For me, magic has to be an active part of the story; either as something the characters are striving for and gradually gaining over course of their adventures or it should be something that is familiar to the characters and used as a tool in conjunction with other tools throughout the story.

I like "mysterious" magic systems. But as you mentioned, that doesn't have to be a soft magic system. The wargs in GoT have clearly defined rules and still had this mysterious vibe to them (maybe that's just because they barely ever used them for anything lol). I really want to make something like that as well.

I love how D&D incorporates all the general categories of magic and can be either learned or innate

One of the greatest "hard magic" systems I ever came across, was the magic in Eragon, where the spells a person could use were limited only by their imagination and the words they knew in the ancient language. If they knew the ancient word for fire, they could conjure and manipulate fire. However, there was another limitation in that whatever the spell did, it would use the same amount of energy as it would do to do the same thing, by non-magical means. For example, if you threw a fist sized rock by magic, you'd barely notice the energy drain. If you attempted to pick up a massive boulder and throw it, even if you succeeded, it would leave you exhausted. If you attempted a spell beyond your means, you could expend all your energy and die.

Personally I think the Dresden Files has one of the best magic systems, period. It's physically exhausting to the extreme when used excessively, and there are rules that are grounded in reality. Want to make a flame? You have to channel heat from somewhere, be it yourself or the area around you. Dresden made an ice bridge because he fired a massive pillar of flame into the sky. All the heat in the area in front of him (and a great deal of his own) was drained away. He nearly passed out (even simply chenneling magic/enegy takes a LOT of mental fortitude) and was nearly killed soon after. It's an amazing series by Jim Butcher and I hope you all take a second to read it.

Holy crap! The sudden and unexpected disappearance of magic is a fantastic concept for the setting of a story, especially one in a world where magic users are the ruling class.