Casters Don’t Need Separate Game Mechanic

Have you noticed how most RPG games (both pen and paper, as well as video games) always seem to introduce some sort of additional game play mechanic to handle spell casters? In most cases wizards and mages always have an additional attribute or a pool of magic poits or mana which always feels sort of artificial. Casting spells is usually governed by a completely different set of rules than any other special skills and abilities used by non-caster classes.

I was playing WoW the other day and noticed that the game decided to give almost every single character class a mana bar and make their special abilities cast like spells. So when my hunter uses a poisoned arrow, or lays down a trap he is actually expending mana. It’s an interesting approach to extend the spell casting mechanic to other classes and creating a more unified system (but not completely – after all the Warrior has a rage bar instead of mana bar). I started wondering if doing it the other way around wouldn’t be possible.

In other words, why do we need that mana bar anyway? I know this is just a game mechanic that prevents the caster from expelling fireballs out of his ass like a little machine gun, decimating all enemies in his path. It represents mental fatigue of some sort and seeks to limit blatant abuse and inject some balance into the game. The idea is to level the playing field so that a PC wizard is roughly as powerful as PC warrior or PC ranger with the same amount of experience. It’s not logical in the terms of game world, but it tends to be necessary in terms of game play. However having a mighty wizard simply run out of fuel in the middle of a fight is not very realistic. Yes, the whole idea of magic is not realistic to begin with, but when I say unrealistic I mean that it forces you out of character and forces you into metagame discussion:

“Hold up guys, I just run out of mana and I need to sit down here and meditate for a while”

You could try to disguise this as something in-character by having the caster saying he is tired, but fatigue is usually handled by a different set of rules. The caster could still do a few cartwheels, and run a marathon – so it’s not like he is physically exhausted. Is mana depletion mental fatigue? Not really. A depleted mage can still function normally – he won’t be sleepy, or burned out. He is just out of magic juice. How do you role-play that? You could say that mystical powers have left you but that may imply a permanent loss of power rather than just a temporary one.

There are different variations, but chances are that in the end you will have to break out of character anyway to calculate exactly how long you need to meditate/sleep to recharge your batteries. And I mean this primarily for pen and paper RPG’s where you actually play with other people. So if you don’t play those, simply consider it as metagame thinking. Every time the game forces you to think about spell casting restrictions and mana bars as game mechanic, the game looses immersion.

The problem here is that wizard characters have a whole separate system tacked onto their “normal” stats, necessitating additional book keeping and tracking. Their character sheet will always be busier, and more worn down from writing in and erasing mana points, or tracking their once a day stuff. In video games they will have additional menus for spells, extra bars for casting mana, and extra rules for resting/recharging. All this stuff usually won’t apply to non-caster professions unless you try to extend the system and make special abilities of certain classes into pseudo-spells like WoW (and I hear D&D 4e) did.

What if we make spells work like ordinary skills? They would require ordinary skill checks, and would have to be learned and trained just like everything else. There would be no special mechanic for remembering, memorizing spells and no extra logic or math to go with it.

Naturally we would sill need to have some sort of balancing mechanic. For example casting could be tied to regular fatigue rules (an most games have those so that the wizard would get physically tired when casting. Rather running out of mystical batteries he would simply get out of breath and need to sit down and rest just like the warrior who has been swinging his double handed axe of furious fury for the last hour.

If your game has no fatigue rules, a simple way to limit the carnage that can be caused by a cast-happy mage is to dip into his HP. Instead of fueling his spells via some sort of mystical power, the caster would simply use his own life force. The spells would be either powered by it, or alternatively the magical energy absorbed from the environment would be coursing through the wizard’s body scorching his flesh. The more powerful the spell, the more painful and risky it would be to cast. Using to much power, too quickly could be fatal. In systems where one gains HP at each experience level, this very mechanic could replace “spell levels” as well. Some spells would simply be beyond the reach of low level casters because they would not have enough HP to cast it.

I realize that neither of these solutions is perfect, and neither one may be applicable to existing systems. Still, an unified system without all the extra rules about spell casting, regenerating magic points, meditation and once a day abilities could be interesting, and potentially more immersive than what we have now.

This entry was posted in rpg and tabletop. Bookmark the permalink.



13 Responses to Casters Don’t Need Separate Game Mechanic

  1. Ian Clifton UNITED STATES Safari Mac OS says:

    Using life to power spells doesn’t work as well when it’s a cure/heal spell ;) (For electronic games:) Why not just have them based on time? It takes X amount of time to cast a particular spell. You can cast the spells continuously, but it takes a certain amount of time to actually send out the fireball or whatever. Spells could be based on character levels, so it takes (20 / player_level) seconds to cast X spell. When you’re a level one, you probably don’t want to risk that spell unless the monster is oblivious. When you’re level 20, you’re pumping out that spell every second. At level 20, there’d be some other huge spell you could cast and you might have your warrior friends holding back the monsters to prevent them from disrupting you.

    Of course, I think the generalized “experience points” concept is lame. Everything should be based on use. You use X spell a million times; you’re a friggin’ master of that spell. You get repeatedly thrashed by enemies; you have higher pain resistance. You might have to pay X amount to practice and learn certain new skills (or spells), but the training to become good should happen on the battlefield. This introduces the possibility of specializing without making it artificial. For instance, the fireball spell is really slow and not really accurate at first, so you decide to only ever cast that spell and you become great at it. Then you have to go fight the lava monsters and you’re useless.

    Reply  |  Quote
  2. Steve CANADA Mozilla Firefox Windows Terminalist says:

    Actually, rogues have something different to: energy. Not mana, and not rage. In fact, I have had 100 energy since I started, I think, and I am now level 23.

    @Ian: I agree…your wand talent increases as you use it, as does your skill with any weapon…except spells…these only increase as your overall level increases…quite lame. Each spell should have a skill level associated to it (a rank, as it does now)….but that rank can be increased through training AND/OR through use. Makes sense to me.

    Reply  |  Quote
  3. Daosus UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox SuSE Linux says:

    Um, the “spells as skills” mechanic is how many MUDs handle the whole thing. But in general, yes, the problem with magic is that it’s different from regular things. If you make it exactly the same, you lose some flavor. If you make it different, you lose some immersion as you try to figure out how things work.

    Reply  |  Quote
  4. Leonov UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows says:

    But in a sense it is a bit of fatigue – both mentally and physically. I mean, when you ask “How do you role-play that” it really is quite simple. Just think to any powerful spell that you’ve seen in any movie of sorts – such as Yoda using the force – he gets tired when trying to move big ships out of swamps. And much like WoW, using powerful spells, or spells that take more mana than you have, use much more energy (of sorts) than you have. So, no, you don’t just say “Hey… let me wait and get mana.” It’s more like “I don’t have enough energy, stall them while I catch my breath.”

    I mean, if we think about it. A caster, like a wizard, is someone who uses their brain. Who does something a bit different and is quite powerful – so the player, the person playing the caster, must use their brain as well. “Will this be mana efficient? Did I pick the right spells for the day ahead?” All these things need to be thought out. So, much like the wizard – it’s a more complex character to play and in all reality, I’m sure plenty of people like the complex mechanics of such characters – unlike the “I’m going to hit it till it dies” mentality of any warrior or barbarian.

    @Steve: Rogues, in WoW, always have 100 base energy. It won’t go up with levels. (However, there are a few items – very very few – that give you one or two more energy, if memory serves me correctly.)

    Reply  |  Quote
  5. Alphast NETHERLANDS Mozilla Firefox Linux Terminalist says:

    For paper and pen games, I like AEG solution for L5R Rokugan. There is no mana limit and spells are essentially skills. But (to avoid making mages, called shugenja in the game) more broken than they already are, they have added the element aspect to it. Spells and magic are linked to spirits (kamis) of the 5 elements and casting spells uses a service from a kami of a given element. So if you have more affinity with one element, you can draw on kamis of that element more often than others. In other words, you are not more tired or anything. Simply, you have asked enough services to the kamis today and they don’t want to speak to you any more. By the way, kamis usually request little (or big) services in exchange.

    Reply  |  Quote
  6. Luke Maciak UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Ubuntu Linux Terminalist says:

    @Ian – good point – casting time might be another way to keep things balanced.

    Also I like the idea of the spells increasing in power as you train it. I like the aspect of specialization of such system. You can either be a jack of all trades, but master of none, or the ultimate grand master of fireball tossing and nothing else.

    I read an article once about treating magic like superpowers of sort. A sorcerer gets one spell either picked from a list, or randomly generated. Then the players can train these abilities, and have some influence on how they develop.

    An example of straightforward escalation of power would be someone who rolled a “Crack” spell which at it’s lowest level could be used to break glass objects, crack windows or mirrors. As the time passes the character would learn to use this spell to break swords, crack open plate armor, and finally would be able to bust open castle walls just by looking at them. It’s still the same exact spell – just more powerful.

    There could be some non-linear progression in this system too. For example, the character starts with a spell “Conjure Flame” which allows him to generate a small flame that is enough to light a small cooking fire without any flint and tinder. He could then choose to improve on this spell learning how to generate bigger bursts of flame that. Alternatively he could concentrate on controlling the flame and it’s shape and learn how to form it into a fireball like projectile. Or he could concentrate on temperature control and develop some sort of scorching heat ray spell. Or he could do all of that gaining a small repertoire of fire based spells.

    @Steve – ah, yes – I forgot about the Rogue thing. They also have the Combo points that no one else has. I actually rolled an Undead Rogue, but I’ve been to busy leveling my Troll Hunter to play him.

    @Leonov – ok, good point. The complexity adds some geek factor to the wizard characters – that’s true. If you want to play one you have to read that chapter about magic rules, figure out which stats are important for casters, then look through available spells, and pick the ones you like. A Warrior will evenly distribute his high stats between strength, construction and agility, while Ranger or a Rogue type characters will dump into dexterity/agility type stuff and will be on their way.

    But then again, complexity doesn’t always translate into depth – and making wizard classes more streamlined could be beneficial. Or not.

    @Alphast – I never played L5R, but I heard about it. Do people actually play wizard type characters in that though? It would seem to me that most folks would rather play a Samurai or a Ninja (you know, because of the cool factor) rather than some kind of monk/mystic with supernatural abilities.

    Reply  |  Quote
  7. Alphast NETHERLANDS Mozilla Firefox Windows Terminalist says:

    Well, the Ninjas are not that cool in the game (they are linked to evil stuff for various reasons). But I’d say that the proportion shugenja vs samurai is about 30% to 70%. The Shugenjas are really cool to play too, actually and quite powerfull.

    Reply  |  Quote
  8. Ian Clifton UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Linux says:

    Hmm, I like those ideas. With fire, the mage/wizard could start out just being able to create a small flame, which would light a candle, lamp, etc. Then he becomes better and better at it, but after a point, he can start to specialize. The choices could be something like more control, larger size, more intensity, etc. More control could ultimately lead to creating a fire elemental. Larger size could create a huge fireball that slams into a whole group of enemies. More intensity makes it burn hotter and longer, doing more damage to a single enemy (and maybe melting metal doors). You would have degrees in between those sort of end result spells and the beginning tiny flame and you would not necessarily have to specialize in just one area. There could be multiple elements and then multiple specialties within those elements (and, provided the caster has adequate ability, elements could be combined). Even the cracking example could start out weak as you described, building up so that it can weaken and break armor and eventually cause earthquakes and bring down walls. Even a small earthquake could shake the ground enough to prevent an enemy from dodging a large, slow fireball.

    I think all of that could bring in a level of complexity that Leonov might appreciate (“Okay, exactly how much do I need to train with wind and ice to learn to create a hailstorm?”), while still being quite usable by people who don’t want to study what spells they should specifically train for.

    Reply  |  Quote
  9. Wes UNITED STATES Opera Windows says:

    D&D 3.5 introduced an ability on a smaller scale of what you’re talking about. As long as you have, say, a 10th-level fire spell of some kind memorized, you can cast a 5th-level fire spell as many times as you want. It’s nowhere near the power of using the actual 10th-level spell, but you never run out, either.

    The new D&D 4.0 rules do this on a bigger scale, as you touched upon. All characters have “at will” powers, powers used only once an encounter, and then powers once per day. The at-will powers/spells can be used over and over again. 4th edition is definitely dumbed down, er, simplified, from 3.5. Whether that’s good or not is personal opinion.

    Reply  |  Quote
  10. Steve CANADA Mozilla Firefox Windows Terminalist says:

    When I played a lot of D&D (version 1 or 2 of the rules :( I am so old), and this wasn’t AD&D…we got sick of the stupid rules for mages….sooo….

    We designed a “fumble table”…I can’t remember the mathematics, but essentially you would roll percentage dice against the table…which was like a grid…

    So the table was probably 100 rows with 10 columns or something…nuts, eh? Anyways, the columns represented the difference between your level and the level of the spell. If you were level 1, you couldn’t cast a level 12 spell or higher…but you could cast a level 11 or lower. The greater the difference, the greater the chance that the spell would fail. Based on the number you rolled, there was also a penalty for “fumbling” or “failing”.

    We had things like “You start to glow very brightly”…sounds good unless you are sneaking around…then it alerts everything that you are there. Or “you hit player x instead of your target”….we had some funny and some serious. If the difference was at the max, you could also die. That kind of thing.

    So all you had to do was have a way to “learn” the spell…which could be any level, but your skill/power might not be sufficient.

    We had a lot of fun with those rules…

    Reply  |  Quote
  11. Luke Maciak UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows Terminalist says:

    @Ian – I didn’t even think about the fire elemental thing, but it’s an awesome idea! Put in enough “points” into control and you can shape the fire into an elemental. Put points into “power” and it becomes stronger.

    @Wes – I never played D&D of any kind, but from what I read 4e combat pretty much requires pushing around miniatures on a grid, and that it refactored classes into MMO like groups like healers, tanks, dps and etc. Meh…

    My point of view on miniatures is “if I wanted to play a tactical combat game with miniatures I would just pull out my Warhammer or 40K minis out of the closet”. Never used them in RPG.

    @Steve Heh! House rules FTW!

    Although now that I’m thinking about it, the “you can’t learn this spell unless you are level such and such” may make some sense. I’m thinking prerequisites. For example, you can’t learn to solve differential equations without solid calculus background. But again – the system Ian proposed alleviates this because progress is gradual, and casters don’t really get to grab random spells left and right.

    Reply  |  Quote
  12. Wes UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows says:

    Even back with 2nd edition D&D, once we started using miniatures, it was much easier to know who could do what and where. I like that 3.0/3.5 took miniatures much further, particularly for convention and “world module” play such as Living Greyhawk, because everyone then knows exactly what they can and can’t do instead of asking the DM to see if he happens to allow it.

    I’ve only played a couple 4th edition modules, and I think it’s them trying to merge D&D with Magic: The Gathering cards. There have been special cards out for years now that you can use for one-time abilities and things, but I lol’d when during a 4th edition game someone said the rules say you are supposed to turn the card sideways after you use it to show it’s used. That’s like “tapping” a card in Magic:TG.

    4th is so far way more cookie-cutter than 3.5. 3.0/3.5 is great in how you could finally play pretty much anything you wanted. Want a wizard who wears plate mail and uses a sword? You can. He may not be great at it, but he can do it. I looked at my old 2nd edition books a bit ago, and it’s like a foreign language that lacks common sense. “Why can’t I do this or that?” No real reason, you just can’t.

    This is getting off the main subject of your article, but I’m probably done slightly-bashing 4th edition anyway. :)

    Reply  |  Quote
  13. Luke Maciak UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows Terminalist says:

    I believe that WFRP rulebook simply said that a wizard can wear a plate armor if he wants (provided that he has the plate armor proficiency skill) but he want be able to cast spells in it because the steel case around his body would disrupt the flow of magical energy. Leather and cloth was ok because it was made from organic materials. Specially made magical armors were also ok, and the Chaos armor was an exception because it fused to the users body and became a piece of him.

    WFRP had another no-armor profession – the Dwarf Troll Slayer. Slayers were dishonored dwarfs who were seeking glorious death in combat. They were fearsome melee fighters but customarily wore no armor because they wanted to die. In my munchkin days I played a slayer who would wear a full plate armor. When someone asked why, I would reply “Well, some could simply shoot me with a bow – that’s not a honorable death. Once I find I troll to fight with, I will take it off”. Of course I never did, because there was never any time to do it. Fortunately the GM killed off that character after a few sessions and I rolled up something less stupid next time. :P

    Reply  |  Quote

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *