That Old School Magic

In line with my recent posts and along with some of my past posts, I really feel like I want to build some alternative magic systems for use with Old School Fantasy systems (read D&D and clones). I do not want to do away with Vancian magic. I think it does what it does pretty well. However, I don’t think Vancian magic is the end-all-be-all to capture fantasy tropes. This is especially interesting in light of the famous Appendix N and the sources of inspiration sighted there. I don’t feel like the Magic from Moorcock’s writing is well captured. Or Lieber, or Howard, or Lovecraft, or, well anyone outside Vance and a few others. Matt Finch’s Eldritch Weirdness is perhaps one of the most compelling RPG magic books I’ve ever read. No, I take that back. It is THE most compelling magic book I’ve ever read. In it, he exhorts folks in the RPG community to think beyond the spell lists and explore other types of magic systems. Note, he doesn’t advocate doing away with the traditional D&D magic system, but to explore other sources of magic that can be used in addition to the extant system. I like that idea. I like it quite a bit.

Now, having said all of that, the tough part seems to be, just exactly what other magic systems are work exploring or are underrepresented in D&D? I’ve mentioned Elric quite a lot lately (I’ve been rereading the saga for the first time in quite a while – it’s still good reading and holds up well). I think summoning magic is underrepresented. I also think necromantic arts don’t fit well as they tend to be not so much one off spells that work in a fire for effect fashion, but more lengthy and formulaic or ritualistic in nature. Also, what about magic that draw on places of power such as ley lines? How about the divine magic that are granted as a boon on a favored soul (like when a warrior cries out to the god of war in the heat of battle to guide his blade and receives a small boon)? What about the myriad of little rituals and fetishes to repel, compel, or commune with spirits, fairy, supernatural agents? What about, well, you get the point. I’m thinking about trying to develop complementary magic systems that would be able to reflect these other types of magics. Anyone have any ideas for any other magics that don’t fit into the Vancian system?

In the end, I hope to put these in my campaign system. I call it a campaign system in that it is a setting and the new magic types and the discipline system of my past posts will be a part of the campaign world. However, it will be systemic in that I want to keep these elements separate enough from the setting so that if anyone doesn’t care for John Bingham’s home brew world but still likes my summoning magic, they can extract that with no fuss. Right now, I’m really only at the brainstorming stage, trying to capture the ideas. I’m looking through other game systems to see how they deal with other types of magic (Elric! And Palladium Fantasy have some promising ideas that I might borrow a bit from). We’ll see where this goes. Of course, I still have to find time to squeeze this all in and find some folks willing to play test the ideas once I get them into a somewhat workable state.