Defining a word like magic is like defining words like power or energy. Why would you want to do that? ...
those words have *very* specific definitions in science. This has imprtant ramifications for science fiction writers, or anyone wanting to set their story in a world that operates on the same physical principals as ours. If you don't understand how they work, and they play a role in your story, your story is more likely to be inconsistant. Same goes for magic.
Power and energy is defined in science but in the language, those words has a much broader sense and meaning! I do not want the core to define something like magic in my game, they can go ahead and do that in the premade campaign settings, that would be more than fine, but I would be very upset if they did that in the core rules of the game! If they did, it should only be suggestions and maybe more than one, so you had a few to choose from, or some tips on how to build your own logic if you would want to! The core should be generic and easy to build into any campaign and setting you would like to create! I have a bachelor degree in animation and I have studied narrative and storytelling in both film and games and fiction in general. What works in one media does not always work in another, and what may work in fantasy novels in a defined setting where a specific story is being told, does not necessarily work in dnd, a game where people want to be creative and build their own worlds with it`s own logic, where you play and make your own stories come alive.
I was talking more about recent fantasy novels in general than D&D itself, but I get your point.
Tolkien was actually quite consistent in that aspect, however. Magic is just not explained in details in his mythology.
His magic is above everything else a power of the will, instead of chants and recipes for spells. That's why Luthien loving Beren so hard made her slip towards a "more human existence." That is also why everything elves create is magical, which doesn't mean that an elven spoon will shoot fireballs, but why their baked bread can fill one's belly for days, or why their cloaks make you blend with the world, and why their swords feel so light to wield. They're beings attuned to the natural magic that created the world, and they put so much will into creating anything that this magic flows into what they make.
Gandalf, who is a demi-god of some sorts (he's one of the Maiar) has a more flamboyant magic with lightning and fireworks because his will can to some extend shape the world he interacts with. His will is capable of that.
Morgoth, who is the equivalent of a god (a Valar), had so powerful a will that when he got angry the world itself could react to it. And in the former days his will actually helped shape the world.
It's all very mythological and abstract, which was Tolkien's intention I believe, and why I said his magic is not explained in detail. You get a better graps of it if you read the Silmarillion, I think, and not just LOTR and The Hobbit.
But it has consistency, yes. It's just not detailed, like: "when someone does this and that, this magical effect should occur."
Once you get this grasp of his view of magic in the mythology, none of the magic which appears in his stories actually feel out-of-place or random.
I don't know about Conan, though. Never read much of Robert E. Howard (it's on my list, but the list is sooooo big and I have to find all this time to read it all).
But when the result is a chain of Dei ex machina, your world building is wrong if your goal is to tell a story, which is the goal of any DM.
The only interesting examples I see of dei ex machina in fantasy situation is when it is used against the hero, like in greek myths. Tolkien in his mythology has done exactly the opposite, multiplying dei ex machina in favor of the "heroes", who then stop becoming heroes, as they are keeping loosing without learning from their failures, as they do not have to assume fully the result of these failures. Losers in stories are heroes when they pay fully for their pityful choices.
So I have to be more precise, Tolkien's world is consistent if you accept that when magic comes into play, anything happening is ok. There's no doubt about this, his work is impressive. But from a storytelling point of view, the Tolkien's world is a pure calamity.
It's not even a matter of modern fantasy or modern writing style, I was wrong by saying this, as far older works respect consistent rules of storytelling, the Illyad included. I respect Tolkien as a geek, but not as a storyteller.
If there's a model of supernatural system that D&D has to ignore, it's the Tolkien's one. Even the old Bewitched series had a more consistent supernatural system, lol
"They are making it clear that when modern design and common sense come into conflict with tradition, tradition wins." - thecasualoblivion "Vancian isn't broken, you just have to set your game to the wizard's clock!" - Oxybe "In many ways, making a new edition of D&D is alot like trying to sell a car to the Amish." - Dwarfslayer "Encounters are the heart of the AD&D game" - PHB AD&D 2nd edition. "you shouldn't even bother trying to become like me." - Gary Gygax (Elfcrusher confirmed)
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'" - Gary Gygax
As a Dungeon Master, it's your job to explain things like that. You're the storyteller, you flesh out the worlds.
Something I am doing for a Campaign Setting that I have been hard at work on, I'm writing several books to go along with it, from the perspective of characters that exist within the Setting itself. One example is a Treatise on Magic, by an Elven Sage from the land of Alfheim.
My description for Magic is this: Arcane Magic is something that (by nature of it's name) not much is known about. We know that Divine Magic and Arcane Magic appear to be fueled by the same power source, the cosmic energy underlying all of creation. What we don't understand is, why is it that the Gods can tap into this source of magic at will, and grant a similar (limited) ability to their followers, yet Wizards and those who study magic must use strange phrases, motions, and materials to accomplish the same effect? The theory is that, Arcane Magic and Divine Magic are one in the same - Arcane Spells were created by powerful beings with knowledge of cosmic energy, using materials, gestures, and words that symbolically and literally express the intent of the spell in a way that shapes Cosmic energy into a working spell and allows the Mind to channel it, as where Divine Magic is expressed when the proper prayer and ritual is performed as instructed by a God, who then shapes cosmic energy and channels it through his follower. Two different methods to execute the same results.
On that note, it is unknown why Arcane Magic seems incapable of healing - Perhaps restoring flesh and life with Cosmic energy is something that only a God can do, perhaps true healing requires more power than any Mortal has to offer.
I do not question the imagination of anyone. And the inconsistencies are not limited to magic.
The problem is that how D&D is currently designed, the imaginative solutions doesn't explain the used terminology, yours included. The fact that D&D unites different things under the magic tag, makes us believe there's a common power source, but nothing explains why people are using a common term to design these different things. If there's a cosmic energy called magic, why are the only way it expresses itself is divine and arcane ? If you are basing your cosmology on entities, the cosmic energy is coming from the creator, so it would be divine in nature. In this case magic is divine, so it doesn't need the divine tag, but then arcane magic is automatically also divine in nature.
D&D keeps us into inconsistencies.
"They are making it clear that when modern design and common sense come into conflict with tradition, tradition wins." - thecasualoblivion "Vancian isn't broken, you just have to set your game to the wizard's clock!" - Oxybe "In many ways, making a new edition of D&D is alot like trying to sell a car to the Amish." - Dwarfslayer "Encounters are the heart of the AD&D game" - PHB AD&D 2nd edition. "you shouldn't even bother trying to become like me." - Gary Gygax (Elfcrusher confirmed)
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'" - Gary Gygax
I do not question the imagination of anyone. And the inconsistencies are not limited to magic.
The problem is that how D&D is currently designed, the imaginative solutions doesn't explain the used terminology, yours included. The fact that D&D unites different things under the magic tag, makes us believe there's a common power source, but nothing explains why people are using a common term to design these different things. If there's a cosmic energy called magic, why are the only way it expresses itself is divine and arcane ? If you are basing your cosmology on entities, the cosmic energy is coming from the creator, so it would be divine in nature. In this case magic is divine, so it doesn't need the divine tag, but then arcane magic is automatically also divine in nature.
D&D keeps us into inconsistencies.
To me, magic is a very broad term and does not have to be only one and one thing alone! To call all the supernatural power sources magic, made sense to me, I never understood why what wizards did was magic and what priests did wasn`t! It`s all magic, different kinds of magic, they do not need to have anything in common! Martial powers are also called POWERS, should everything with the word power in them have something in common? I will be very disappointed if the game in the future feels the need to explain all this for us! The core should be kind of vague and not overexplained, so it can be used as building blocks in any kind of campaign!
The only interesting examples I see of dei ex machina in fantasy situation is when it is used against the hero, like in greek myths. Tolkien in his mythology has done exactly the opposite, multiplying dei ex machina in favor of the "heroes", who then stop becoming heroes, as they are keeping loosing without learning from their failures, as they do not have to assume fully the result of these failures. Losers in stories are heroes when they pay fully for their pityful choices.
So I have to be more precise, Tolkien's world is consistent if you accept that when magic comes into play, anything happening is ok. There's no doubt about this, his work is impressive. But from a storytelling point of view, the Tolkien's world is a pure calamity.
This thread is not about Tolkien's works, so I won't go into a long post about why you're wrong. To keep it short, I'll just say you've missed a bulk of Tolkien's work if this is what you think.
If you want a Tolkien book that ends badly, and the heroes end up getting the short end of the stick, read Children of Hurin. You'll love it. LOL
I do not question the imagination of anyone. And the inconsistencies are not limited to magic.
The problem is that how D&D is currently designed, the imaginative solutions doesn't explain the used terminology, yours included. The fact that D&D unites different things under the magic tag, makes us believe there's a common power source, but nothing explains why people are using a common term to design these different things. If there's a cosmic energy called magic, why are the only way it expresses itself is divine and arcane ? If you are basing your cosmology on entities, the cosmic energy is coming from the creator, so it would be divine in nature. In this case magic is divine, so it doesn't need the divine tag, but then arcane magic is automatically also divine in nature.
D&D keeps us into inconsistencies.
To me, magic is a very broad term and does not have to be only one and one thing alone! To call all the supernatural power sources magic, made sense to me, I never understood why what wizards did was magic and what priests did wasn`t! It`s all magic, different kinds of magic, they do not need to have anything in common! Martial powers are also called POWERS, should everything with the word power in them have something in common? I will be very disappointed if the game in the future feels the need to explain all this for us! The core should be kind of vague and not overexplained, so it can be used as building blocks in any kind of campaign!
But D&D introduced psionics that weren't magic and were supernatural.
And consistency is not explaining everything, it's creating a system where each addition is coherent with what is already there.
Magic is not a defined thing in D&D, the spellcasters are created without care about any sort of consistency on something global that would be called magic. Psionics are based on real world physics, D&D world is based on four elements. Druids used divine magic even when they didn't worshipped gods. I see no tools for imagination here, I just see inconsistency. No explanations are needed, just a minimum of structure in D&D supernatural.
The only interesting examples I see of dei ex machina in fantasy situation is when it is used against the hero, like in greek myths. Tolkien in his mythology has done exactly the opposite, multiplying dei ex machina in favor of the "heroes", who then stop becoming heroes, as they are keeping loosing without learning from their failures, as they do not have to assume fully the result of these failures. Losers in stories are heroes when they pay fully for their pityful choices.
So I have to be more precise, Tolkien's world is consistent if you accept that when magic comes into play, anything happening is ok. There's no doubt about this, his work is impressive. But from a storytelling point of view, the Tolkien's world is a pure calamity.
This thread is not about Tolkien's works, so I won't go into a long post about why you're wrong. To keep it short, I'll just say you've missed a bulk of Tolkien's work if this is what you think.
If you want a Tolkien book that ends badly, and the heroes end up getting the short end of the stick, read Children of Hurin. You'll love it. LOL
I hated it, I was aware of the legend of Sigurd before to read it, so it left me a very bad taste and didn't improve my love for Tolkien at all.
But you're right, my opinion about Tolkien novels is this, an opinion among millions of others, and D&D supernatural is not based on Tolkien's work.
"They are making it clear that when modern design and common sense come into conflict with tradition, tradition wins." - thecasualoblivion "Vancian isn't broken, you just have to set your game to the wizard's clock!" - Oxybe "In many ways, making a new edition of D&D is alot like trying to sell a car to the Amish." - Dwarfslayer "Encounters are the heart of the AD&D game" - PHB AD&D 2nd edition. "you shouldn't even bother trying to become like me." - Gary Gygax (Elfcrusher confirmed)
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'" - Gary Gygax
