/games/ - Games

What would be an example of this scroll system?

>>25751
RuneScapes runes, dark souls 2s literal scrolls, TESs scrolls ignoring how fucked they got by magicka etc

>>25752
oh fuck ya the magic system in OSRS system was very satisfying compared to say, Oblivion. Im in total agreement
In PDX games theres a long running aversion to mana systems but when yu think about it its mana all the way down

Reading and writing OP?

>>25754
Nah just making spells require an item you have to search around to find is good enough. Encourages exploration

While I do like myself some rune/scroll magic systems I frankly think that shadowrun's drain system and dark heresy's warp shenanigans to be more interesting. It makes magic rare because it is chaotic rather than arbitrarily rare.
IF anything I would want a world where magic is very, very common but something most people don't have access to for unjust reasons like diamonds.

>Mana system
Your mana goes down a set amount with each spell cast. You have to spend a resource to regain it, and if you're out of that resource your mana's depleted.
>Scrolls
The amount of scrolls you have goes down each time you use one. And you have to acquire them again once they're depleted.

Both of them are similar enough that the distinction only matters by individual games explore them. I ultimately prefer how traditional roguelikes usually approach magic using a hybrid system where spells you learn and spells you read from scrolls both cost mana. Scrolls you find are unknown and have to be identified putting the player in a situation where they take a risk and read scrolls to find out what they are or wait until they get an item/scroll that allows them to identify them without risk (of course that's also in limited quantity to so you have to induce what's worth trying to identify in the moment). The spells from the scrolls themselves are either a detriment that can screw you over if you decided to read it while in combat or enemies are nearby or far more powerful than most of the spells you can learn.

Classic roguelikes use a one-time scroll/potion, multi-use wands/staves and (mostly permanent) spell system.
In nethack some classes start with spellbooks, whose spells they remember permanently. Other spells are memorized by reading depending on intelligence and slowly decay.
This means scrolls, potions and wands are the only practical method for most classes.

It makes me wonder if spells casted in bulk by wizard classes like magic missile should even exist in a pure scroll-based system. At some quantity of scrolls it would be interchangeable with different types of mana.
Scroll casting in roguelikes seems to be about resource management, yet it sounds hard designing classes around not having a staple attack that comes for free with equippable weapons.

>>25759
>Magic in most rpgs is often badly implemented
How surprising

I think magic feeling uninteresting has less to do with magic systems itself and more with how it is integrated into the game and its world. Lot of games have spells being just another ability unlocked upon leveling up, with the same ceremony as +3% health bonus.

Like in Gothic 2 magic is mechanically very simple, functionally kind of garbage, but feels meaningful because of how many hoops you have to jump through to acquire it. To gain access to spells you have to first finish long quest chain to graduate magic school, learn new appropriate circle of magic from a trainer, find desired spell scroll, find a rare blank rune, learn how to transcribe the scroll into a rune, find ingedients required, and only then can you actualpy acquire a new spell. And also NPCs will occasionally mention the fact you are a mage, and treat you appropriatelly.

>>25759
>yet it sounds hard designing classes around not having a staple attack that comes for free with equippable weapons
No reason why mage should not be able to fight normally. Like Gandalf was smacking orcs with sword and staff lot more than with spells.

They're both basically the same thing, no? They're both ways to quantify a kind of ability. You can make a mana system just as "scarce" as scrolls, and there can be an abundance of scrolls.

Vancian casting is functionally just scroll casting where you write new scrolls every day.

>>25780
Weapon combat with better use of magic devices just doesn't make for an interesting mage class IMO. Otherwise you would need to add a major enchanting/alchemy system or restrict magic use of other classes.
In dungeon crawl stone soup the first attack of fire elementalists summons two foxfires that seek out opponents. This forces you to lure enemies into open rooms and to wait for the foxfire to reach their target. It makes for interesting combat scenarios while still following a classic mage pattern.

i unironically really liked the blood system in vampire the masquerade because it made it extremely clear that you had to gather it yourself. most mana systems dont actually clarify where you're getting your power from. in real life people who believe in chi or vril believe it has to be collected, chi of course has to be collected by flowing through your body and shaping it through stances and poses, which i think could be a cool game mechanic. nobody has ever really tried to refine mana systems but i do agree that scarcity is important.

>>25828
In TES at least magicka is said to be leaking in from Aetherius through the stars, which are actually holes in the fabric of Mundus. As the holes shrink over time, so does the amount of ambient magicka available on Nirn for mages to tap into, which is basically why there is no widespread civilian application of magic in Tamriel aside from the Altmer, Dwemer and Ayleids, the latter two unfortunately having taken most of their secrets such as production of soulgem-powered engines and magical batteries like the Welkynd stones into the grave. This in combination with constant cataclysms and wars destroying the more developed cities and population of Tamriel has been the cause of continent's technological regression that can be seen over the series' course.

>>25834
not to mention that julianos is fading away as a god too

i think a lot of games have a tendency to be very uninspired with their usage of magic systems. magic is never shown in a way that we know how immense its power is. usually this is because it's better not to lock yourself as a writer into showing limitations of magic, but it's also because it's much easier to just imagine magic as hand-waving that creates fireballs that fly at enemies and leave it at that for gameplay purposes. but look at this video. here's a guy casting a spell, and he looks evil and menacing as fuck while doing it. it'd not obvious what the symbol is meant to be at first, and he's speaking in a language you dont understand. he's putting a lot of thought into this spell. you know he isn't up to anything good whatsoever. with context from the gameplay, you know he's here to destroy a whole city because that's what he got summoned there for. but how's he gonna do it? well suddenly the sand becomes a visible representation of what the city looks like. and he makes it look easy when he tears it all apart, like destroying a little sandcastle on the beach. he's not shouting, he's not waving his hands around like a quaker at church, but he's clearly super fucking powerful, and you have no clue how he did that shit aside from the obvious things you can see.

>>27272
My guess is that part of this inability to properly introduce magic as a system in games is that what it actually is is never clearly defined but just something present.
In dark souls magic is considered as FP, although this essence has little lore behind it it works to establish what it is and its constraints. In lotre magic is thought of as a kind of energy only certain objects or organisms have which can allow for where its constraints and its geographic presence relative to the world it takes place in is defined.

mana < items < spell charges
Unironically one of the few things Pokémon gets right.

>>27346
Spell charges make magic feel way too "normal" though. Like you are just using a fancy gun.

>>25837
I would say Julianos is more of a conduit and Magnus and the stars are the real source. Magicka itself is fading out of Aetherius because the holes in its fabric are closing, and if nothing cannot be done about it Magnus will likely remain the only source of magicka aside from the plane of Oblivion, which would leave Daedric magic as alternative.

>>25750
Counter point: the magic system in final fantasy 15 is similar to scroll (making then based off of a item resource), and it was a massive failure.
Turns out restricting your ability to use the spells will just lead you to never use the system and thus use anything else like physical attacks.

A better idea is that magic has a downside.

I think using calories as ammo for magic could be interesting. Use it too much and you'll overheat.

In Arknights, using Arts can cause your oripathy (basically cancer but instead of cells it's crystals that can be used as a power source) to worsen. No mana system in it, just cool downs. But like canonically they gotta take meds to lessen the spread since no cure has been found yet. Doesn't effect gameplay tho.

>>27365
>I think using calories as ammo for magic could be interesting. Use it too much and you'll overheat.
If you ever play Cataclysm: Bright Nights, there are actually magic mods that feed into that, you can get mutations that let you rapidly burn off calories for mana to use for spells. Especially since there is a survival angle to that game, it can make it an interesting tactical choice where you can burn resources for mind bullet daka but really have to scavenge to make up for the lost calories, or limit your magic to your body's natural regeneration and only use it in very limited bursts.