Magic in Illarion

[Katharina Brightrim]

Disclaimer: I do not mean to point my finger or attack anybody. I am just curious cause I am not too familiar with Illarion's magic system.

Good morning Illarion,

I recently found myself wonder about some things in Illarion's magic system. Over the years, I have seen different interpretations of Illarion's magic, from chars who refused to touch items and who would rather let them hover over to others with their magic abilities, over blind chars who could see with their mana-senses to chars who emote logging off like "#me disappears in a rain of sparks" or "#me disappears suddenly". We have ritual magic, blood magic, arcane magic, item magic, wand magic and so on, a very broad spectrum of different magical paths. And I absolutely like the idea of having various ways of how to cast magic.

But here is where my questions start: Where do we draw the line? Is everything possible for the sake of magic? Can you literally do _everything_, cause it could be a path of any magic you came up with?

I certainly do not want to spoil magic for people, but sometimes I feel like very big and influential things are done with magic. While letting things hover to another char rather than just handing them over might be a very small thing to do and not very gamechanging, other things like just disappearing feel absolutely gamebreaking, especially when you get the feeling that it happens to avoid rp or an awkward situation. I always thought there were rules about "special" magic needing the permission of a GM, and these things kind of leave me pretty confused. I mean, I am all for "giving power to the 'common' players", but I fail to see where the new line of what's possible and legal is right now. Can my char perform any ritual I want now? And if so, what's the line there? Can my char only cast a ritual to, like, play music for example? Can they influence the weather and make it rain whenever they want? Can they teleport? I am really lost here. I struggle to understand what's possible and allowed and what is not. Last time I checked, I thought that impactful rituals do need permission, but I saw some examples of times when it seemingly did not. Successful rituals, not ritual-attempts, which waited for a GM to reply to it to make it successful or fail. Rituals, about which success the players themselves decided.

And to another topic: Is there a common magic lore or is magic completely up to the fantasy of each mage-player?

Sorry if these questions are trivial, but I honestly did not look too much into the magic-system of Illarion so far and thus became a little curious about what's possible and what's not.

Thanks in advance, hoping for some discussion here, maybe!

[Achae Eanstray]

This link might be helpful: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=38905&p=682557&hili ... ic#p682557 It discusses small events then large events and leaves some things up to the player for a little more freedom then previously used but requires a GM permission for larger magical events.

[Katharina Brightrim]

I actually found that topic when doing some researches about the topic. And I do not really feel like it answers any question but rather creates new ones. What are "small events"? How is it meassured? Does it take x people to be an average or big event or does it come to the extend of magic?

What I am asking is, where exactly is the line between "okay, thats some nice and fancy addition to the game" and "oh wow, that has way too much impact/is way too gamebreaking"?

[Achae Eanstray]

My belief is the "line" is slightly fuzzy in order to add that freedom that players would like in the game. Hence that is why the first one which had that exact line was not voted for in the poll (this was the one that was used immediately starting VBU). You can of course send a private message to the GM... or possibly Estralis of course if a further question on something in particular. There are alternatives.

[Korwin]

From a practical standpoint, the ruling that Achae linked seems pretty clear. It makes sense that GMs are responsible for determining what is possible, and what is not to maintain a coherent world.

I think that players should know definitively what they can do with magic (the aforementioned rule), but not what they may do with magic. If the bounds of magic (rather than character actions using magic) are dictated, it becomes something closer to electromagnetism. This alternative seems much less compelling and interesting to me.

I would hope that big or influential things performed with magic receive approval because the GMs have decided they are beneficial to the story of the world, rather than obeying some set of rules.

I appreciate that there is a certain degree of mystery around magic, because I think it encourages players to craft interesting lore, rather than being fed the truth.

[Brightrim]

"#me disappears suddenly"

Not gonna mention names, but I did witness that happen once many years ago, with someone who logged off like that to avoid interaction with another character.
One of the GMs at the time ended up having a stern talk with them about it, on how it was not allowed. So at least that was not allowed back then, I guess?

Allowing something like that seems pretty anti-RP in most cases to me, though, so I'm against it and agree with that GMs decision back then.

[Estralis Seborian]

Such behaviour is explicitly forbidden by the game rules.

https://illarion.org/illarion/us_rules.php#realism

On magic rituals, please see:

https://illarion.org/illarion/us_rules.php#world

[Achae Eanstray]

Such behaviour is explicitly forbidden by the game rules.

https://illarion.org/illarion/us_rules.php#realism

On magic rituals, please see:

https://illarion.org/illarion/us_rules.php#world

____________________________________________________________________________
Estralis regarding the magic issue I had assumed we were following the latest rules/poll of Vilarion and the information you pointed to was out of date. Let me know if not. As far as any other instance I have sent a PM.. Thanks!

Achae

[Katharina Brightrim]

"To evade unwanted situations that could have bad consequences for a character by logging out of the game is forbidden."


I think Estralis refered to Brightrim's post.

And as I said, I am absolutely for a variety in magic disciplines and effects, but I am completely against gamebreaking magic use, such as in Brightrim's example. In my opinion, performing rituals and everything is cool, but leave it to the judgment of a GM whether or not it's successful.

[Felbion Lijawyn]

I usually go off partially of what is possible right now, partially of what seems to be intended for future to be possible (Ars Magica) and partially off how experienced my character is for flat out magical actions. So with Felbion for example, him having taught magic in the past, having had all runes, etc. I wouldn't think twice about very small acts of magic such as burning off a few lose strands of thread on his robes with a touch of his finger or shutting a door with a breeze he summons. However, I have been rping that it takes him a much bigger amount of effort / energy and concentration than it used to to do those things. So for example in order to leave a trail of frost after drawing his fingers across the skin of another character, he had previously drawn blood from that same person and he always wears multiple magical gemstones (I emote that he has some imbedded in his skin). I would not rp throwing fireballs without a wand right now or anything of the like and I completely leave teleportation and healing out despite blood & healing magic being Felbion's main field of study, as that (healing) was a point of contention during the discussion about what should still be possible for mages in a new system.

So to summarize, before I do magic in emotes etc. my thought process is:
1. Was this possible via engine pre-VBU?
2. Is it possible now? (If yes, use the engine or have w/e "tool" required available and in hand while you perform it, e. g. Fireballs, Wind blasts, Artifact / Glyph magic, etc.)
3. How difficult is/was it? Obviously since runes no longer work something has to be wonky with magic so I RP that mana is considerably sparser (also makes sense with how god awfully long it takes to recover mana nowadays) and magic is much much harder to shape and control. Could your char sunmmon thunder storms at a second's notice pre-VBU? Maybe now he can sort of aim down an enemy with a lightning strike if he concentrates really hard and isn't disturbed.
4. Is your character experienced enough? (Seamus knows hardly anything, has no experience with wielding magic and when he uses his fire wand his aiming capabilities are therefor on par with a drunk dwarf pissing into the wind / he blows up his own hats while trying to blast a skeleton, causes an explosion instead of just lighting a candle, etc.) Be coherent and fair.

For rituals, I use the lore that all but one or two chars I'm aware of have been teaching / using since the times of Samantha / Vilarion / Damien / Duchan since a lot of that is also available in books ingame and it's (imho) an amazingly well thought out lore and hard-ish magic system that gives good outlines / limits for rituals. I have always written up a detailed sketch / plan and asked a GM for permission when doing any rituals that would possibly impact other characters or the world in a meaningful way. Included in those plans is usually a reason (based off magic lore) as to why the ritual should work, why my character can do it AND a list of ways it could go wrong. So for example if my character's plan was to channel some rain because there was a drought, that would have a huge impact. I would try to get a few other characters to help, maybe pull in some alchemists for mana potions or a concoction that accumulates moisture, make use of plenty of magic gems, pure water, etc. And maybe instead of rain I will summon a thunder storm and end up flooding the place. Or instead of having a few rain clouds the gm will decide that we get snow for a week. Or we go through a huge amount of trouble and in the end we get a little sprinkle for two minutes, a tree next to our ritual spot gets hit by lightning and nothing else. Or a water elemental gets summoned and freezes all of our asses for disturbing nature.

For something small, say I want to create a token of love for my char's SO, a ruby amulet that glows and is warm to the touch. I would use glyphs and a ruby amulet, maybe a magical ruby or some such, do a little ritual and if my char isn't very experienced maybe the amulet will end up getting uncomfortably hot or it'll glow in a poop brown light instead of red or it blinks annoyingly. Or my char melts the whole amulet into a puddle of gold by accident.

Edit: Spelling / Grammar

[Jupiter]

The rules are the rules. When in doubt ask your GM.

[Katharina Brightrim]

[...]

This sounds pretty well thought through and immersive. And is exactly what I am talking about, how it should be imo.