Magic should generally be vibes-based, mysterious, personal, and unpredictable. If it's just a matter of putting the right components together and getting the same results every time, that's not magic, that's just a world with different physical laws.
Recent Warhammer 40K lore is pretty good in this regard. Astropathic interstellar communication used to be like sending an email via your brain, but in more recent lore it's only extremely talented and powerful astropaths can send coherent and detailed messages, depending on their emotional state and the state of the Warp. Low level astropaths can only project basic feelings and simple thoughts so instead of "Armageddon is being invaded by an Ork fleet made up of 150 battleship-sized vessels", a low level Astropath would project "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK ORKS"
I remember one of the Dawn of War games having Psykers that would just scream incoherently whenever. Sometimes I thought they were under attack and they weren't.
I'd argue it depends entirely on what kind of story you're looking for. Ultimately, magic, technology, knowledge etc. are all just plot devices. Mysterious magic can be good, but predictable magic can take the place of technology in a more fantasy-flavored setting.
Kinda have to disagree. Hundreds of pages into the comic they'll still sometimes drop into expositional paragraphs about how the khert works. I've got other problems with the comic but here isn't really the place.
I'm not saying it can't be done well, but I guess all else being equal I just prefer Sci-Fi settings over Fantasy settings so if magic is just taking the place of technology I'd rather it not. A fantasy setting without mysterious magic just feels video-gamey to me; I wouldn't mind it as much if it wasn't so ubiquitous.
I feel like China Mireille's Bas-Lag setting might suit your tastes better. They have the magic as science thing, but more in the 19th century science way.
i like it when it's very mysterious and weird ("The thief turns and disappears into thin air. how did they do that? fuck knows it's magic")
but also when it's very predictable ("The teleport spell takes precisely 34 seconds to cast, two elderberries tied to your ankles, and a hand gesture that is considered rude by no less than twelve separate cultures")
don't much like the middle ground oddly enough
Have you ever read Brandon Sanderson novels? His hard magic systems are incredible and tied to layers of metaphysics. He really leans into them actually being physical laws
I've read enough excerpts of Brando Sando's work to know his style definitely isn't my thing. And I'm with Zuzak, I much prefer so called "soft" magic systems
I've gotten into some ugly arguments with people about magic in fiction about just that. Some people really do want/need to have everything in the fiction become predictable, measurable, and therefore conquerable with metagaming. I think much of the appeal of magic is that it's supposed to defy consistent measurement. Yes, there's a blurry boundary where "magic does the unexpected" becomes deus ex machina laziness on one end, but I still prefer to be near that side of the boundary.
I mean, that's kind of like saying that casinos shouldn't exist in a setting. Having someone winning big at a casino can be a deus ex machina, but there's a lot of stuff you can do with that in a narrative.
it worked for national lampoon I guess but in a dramatic story you can't really use that to solve any problems credibly. the implication of magic being that people would use it to try to get out of trouble and if that's just in-universe gambling i'm :sleepi:
I disagree that it can't be used to solve problems credibly, I think that's just a matter of how it's written. If magic can potentially solve any problem, but accessing it means treking through the enchanted forest to find a reclusive hermit and convincing them to help you, and possibly having to deal with other consequences, that's not a deus ex machina. I think that's a lot more narratively satisfying than like, "Oh Steve died again, time to go to the temple and have them cast Ressurection."
I guess having it be routine is more of my pet peeve than having it be predictable. I like the way it works in classic fairytales, like if you eat the food in the fairy kingdom you'll be stuck there forever. I just don't think magic should be something you can take to a lab and study.
That sort of mentality that everything can be studied scientifically is exactly what I don't like about "magic as physical laws." Because science isn't always the right approach to everything. To give an example: poker. It's possible to calculate odds and play a mathematically optimal game of poker, but if someone else realizes that's what you're doing, and also knows how to calculate odds, they'll have a very good read on you. Many top poker players rely more on intuition and gut feelings.
A scientific approach requires a certain set of assumptions, and one of them is that the thing you're studying isn't looking over your shoulder at your notes and actively trying to lead you to the wrong conclusions. That's why it doesn't really work with poker. If you do a study and provide evidence that a certain strategy is more effective, then it will change the meta and more people will use that strategy and be watching for that strategy, so it won't necessarily hold up. Protons don't do that.
So for one example of how magic might not be something people can study in a lab, we can imagine that magic comes from supernatural, intelligent beings, let's say demons. If you try to capture a demon, it can break free of any restraint and teleport away. It doesn't want you to understand how its powers work, so if you try to study it, it will either try to manipulate you and lead you to incorrect conclusions, or it'll just leave. The closest thing you can do to science would be to collect stories from people who have had encounters with demons, but at that point it's basically just "lore."
Or, perhaps a person has magical abilities that are only accessible when they truly believe their lives are in danger, perhaps activated by a mental state. This isn't necessarily impossible to study in a lab, but it's pretty unethical, and getting someone's magic to activate at the same time that you've convinced them you're a threat to their lives might be pretty dangerous.
I'm not going to go into every example of where science can't be applied, but generally I feel like magic should exist in that domain of thing, and to put it in the category where science does apply seems to suggest that science can be applied to everything, which I disagree with.
is psychology not science? you can study patterns of other poker players or even watch tape of them to look for tells etc, there's an analytical method to the thing you're reducing to vibes.
science can be applied to everything, which I disagree
you can study patterns of other poker players or even watch tape of them to look for tells
I wouldn't call that "science," any more than a lion sizing up a herd of antelopes to identify which one it's most likely to catch is practicing science. Say you identify an individual person's tell, are you then going to publish a paper about it, send it out for peer review? If the player in question reads that paper, don't you think they'll try to fix it? And even if not, then when they die, all your work becomes useless, you leave nothing for future scientists to build on, because you were only studying the tells of that individual.
I don't think it's really a controversial claim to say that some questions fall outside the domain of science, I believe the majority of scientists would agree with that.
Magic should generally be vibes-based, mysterious, personal, and unpredictable. If it's just a matter of putting the right components together and getting the same results every time, that's not magic, that's just a world with different physical laws.
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Recent Warhammer 40K lore is pretty good in this regard. Astropathic interstellar communication used to be like sending an email via your brain, but in more recent lore it's only extremely talented and powerful astropaths can send coherent and detailed messages, depending on their emotional state and the state of the Warp. Low level astropaths can only project basic feelings and simple thoughts so instead of "Armageddon is being invaded by an Ork fleet made up of 150 battleship-sized vessels", a low level Astropath would project "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK ORKS"
I remember one of the Dawn of War games having Psykers that would just scream incoherently whenever. Sometimes I thought they were under attack and they weren't.
... Or were they? :sus-torment:
I'd argue it depends entirely on what kind of story you're looking for. Ultimately, magic, technology, knowledge etc. are all just plot devices. Mysterious magic can be good, but predictable magic can take the place of technology in a more fantasy-flavored setting.
I reluctantly agree with you; the "Unsounded" webcomic series pulled that off.
Kinda have to disagree. Hundreds of pages into the comic they'll still sometimes drop into expositional paragraphs about how the khert works. I've got other problems with the comic but here isn't really the place.
I'm not saying it can't be done well, but I guess all else being equal I just prefer Sci-Fi settings over Fantasy settings so if magic is just taking the place of technology I'd rather it not. A fantasy setting without mysterious magic just feels video-gamey to me; I wouldn't mind it as much if it wasn't so ubiquitous.
Don't get me wrong, it has to be done well
And just because people know how the magic works doesn't mean this character knows
I feel like China Mireille's Bas-Lag setting might suit your tastes better. They have the magic as science thing, but more in the 19th century science way.
i like it when it's very mysterious and weird ("The thief turns and disappears into thin air. how did they do that? fuck knows it's magic")
but also when it's very predictable ("The teleport spell takes precisely 34 seconds to cast, two elderberries tied to your ankles, and a hand gesture that is considered rude by no less than twelve separate cultures")
don't much like the middle ground oddly enough
Have you ever read Brandon Sanderson novels? His hard magic systems are incredible and tied to layers of metaphysics. He really leans into them actually being physical laws
I've read enough excerpts of Brando Sando's work to know his style definitely isn't my thing. And I'm with Zuzak, I much prefer so called "soft" magic systems
For the most part, I see magic without some mystique and mystery as, as Beavis put it once, "Van Halen without Van Halen."
I've gotten into some ugly arguments with people about magic in fiction about just that. Some people really do want/need to have everything in the fiction become predictable, measurable, and therefore conquerable with metagaming. I think much of the appeal of magic is that it's supposed to defy consistent measurement. Yes, there's a blurry boundary where "magic does the unexpected" becomes deus ex machina laziness on one end, but I still prefer to be near that side of the boundary.
so 100% contrivance? I thought deus ex machina fell out of favor for a reason.
I mean, that's kind of like saying that casinos shouldn't exist in a setting. Having someone winning big at a casino can be a deus ex machina, but there's a lot of stuff you can do with that in a narrative.
it worked for national lampoon I guess but in a dramatic story you can't really use that to solve any problems credibly. the implication of magic being that people would use it to try to get out of trouble and if that's just in-universe gambling i'm :sleepi:
I disagree that it can't be used to solve problems credibly, I think that's just a matter of how it's written. If magic can potentially solve any problem, but accessing it means treking through the enchanted forest to find a reclusive hermit and convincing them to help you, and possibly having to deal with other consequences, that's not a deus ex machina. I think that's a lot more narratively satisfying than like, "Oh Steve died again, time to go to the temple and have them cast Ressurection."
I guess having it be routine is more of my pet peeve than having it be predictable. I like the way it works in classic fairytales, like if you eat the food in the fairy kingdom you'll be stuck there forever. I just don't think magic should be something you can take to a lab and study.
fair enough
so you want non-human characters i guess. because we will try to put anything and everything into a lab.
That sort of mentality that everything can be studied scientifically is exactly what I don't like about "magic as physical laws." Because science isn't always the right approach to everything. To give an example: poker. It's possible to calculate odds and play a mathematically optimal game of poker, but if someone else realizes that's what you're doing, and also knows how to calculate odds, they'll have a very good read on you. Many top poker players rely more on intuition and gut feelings.
A scientific approach requires a certain set of assumptions, and one of them is that the thing you're studying isn't looking over your shoulder at your notes and actively trying to lead you to the wrong conclusions. That's why it doesn't really work with poker. If you do a study and provide evidence that a certain strategy is more effective, then it will change the meta and more people will use that strategy and be watching for that strategy, so it won't necessarily hold up. Protons don't do that.
So for one example of how magic might not be something people can study in a lab, we can imagine that magic comes from supernatural, intelligent beings, let's say demons. If you try to capture a demon, it can break free of any restraint and teleport away. It doesn't want you to understand how its powers work, so if you try to study it, it will either try to manipulate you and lead you to incorrect conclusions, or it'll just leave. The closest thing you can do to science would be to collect stories from people who have had encounters with demons, but at that point it's basically just "lore."
Or, perhaps a person has magical abilities that are only accessible when they truly believe their lives are in danger, perhaps activated by a mental state. This isn't necessarily impossible to study in a lab, but it's pretty unethical, and getting someone's magic to activate at the same time that you've convinced them you're a threat to their lives might be pretty dangerous.
I'm not going to go into every example of where science can't be applied, but generally I feel like magic should exist in that domain of thing, and to put it in the category where science does apply seems to suggest that science can be applied to everything, which I disagree with.
is psychology not science? you can study patterns of other poker players or even watch tape of them to look for tells etc, there's an analytical method to the thing you're reducing to vibes.
:mao-wtf:
I wouldn't call that "science," any more than a lion sizing up a herd of antelopes to identify which one it's most likely to catch is practicing science. Say you identify an individual person's tell, are you then going to publish a paper about it, send it out for peer review? If the player in question reads that paper, don't you think they'll try to fix it? And even if not, then when they die, all your work becomes useless, you leave nothing for future scientists to build on, because you were only studying the tells of that individual.
I don't think it's really a controversial claim to say that some questions fall outside the domain of science, I believe the majority of scientists would agree with that.