There are a whole bunch of things in this thread that may or may not be magic, scientific, authentic or inauthentic, but one thing about fantasy role-playing is that you pretty much have to have "magic" or else it isn't fantasy any more. And if you want magic in your game to be anything other than "the GM says so!" (which isn't necessarily a *bad* thing), you need to have mechanics or a system for that magic. And as soon as you apply a system to magic, you have given it a "science" in-game. D&D's "Vancian" magic system and the associated mechanics *are* a science of magic. Fantasy Wargaming's pages and pages of astrological, elemental, and divine influence tables are a different science of magic, and much more arcane. Heck, you can go through every single fantasy role playing game out there -- I can't think of a single one that doesn't have *some* kind of system for magic that gives the players a chance to apply scientific reasoning to it.

But then there's spirit magic, where the spirits being called upon are full-fledged NPC's who need to be negotiated with in order for any effect to occur. This one form of "the GM says so!" that actually can work well to give the players both a sense of wonder, the characters a needed boost, and yet keep the results from being "push button "a" to get result "A". I've played in Glorantha with this system, I've played in and run Werewolf: the Apocalypse this way, and I've used this for Shamantic magic in Shadowrun. Sure, it's more work than the more common "I know this spell, and it always has this effect," but I found it rewarding to know that the spirit of the river that bound itself to the shaman shared a love of shiny things with her "master", and the shinier the thing, the more water she was willing to produce, and a constant negotiation was going to happen between the player and I over just how shiny the offered gift was.

Quote from: ScytheSong on August 26, 2021, 02:03:45 PM
But then there's spirit magic, where the spirits being called upon are full-fledged NPC's who need to be negotiated with in order for any effect to occur. This one form of "the GM says so!" that actually can work well to give the players both a sense of wonder, the characters a needed boost, and yet keep the results from being "push button "a" to get result "A". I've played in Glorantha with this system, I've played in and run Werewolf: the Apocalypse this way, and I've used this for Shamantic magic in Shadowrun. Sure, it's more work than the more common "I know this spell, and it always has this effect," but I found it rewarding to know that the spirit of the river that bound itself to the shaman shared a love of shiny things with her "master", and the shinier the thing, the more water she was willing to produce, and a constant negotiation was going to happen between the player and I over just how shiny the offered gift was.

But even there, there is a system and "science" to the magic... any good magician in that system is going to learn the names and preferences of various useful spirits in the same way I learn the names and numbers of the sales reps for my business suppiers and the names and idiosyncrasies of my most prolific repeat customers (like the one who insists you send him a fresh proof even on duplicate/repeat orders where nothing is being changed).

Sure, it's a softer science like sociology and marketing, but to say there's no rhyme or reason to it isn't accurate.

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 26, 2021, 02:14:06 PM

Quote from: ScytheSong on August 26, 2021, 02:03:45 PM
But then there's spirit magic, where the spirits being called upon are full-fledged NPC's who need to be negotiated with in order for any effect to occur. This one form of "the GM says so!" that actually can work well to give the players both a sense of wonder, the characters a needed boost, and yet keep the results from being "push button "a" to get result "A". I've played in Glorantha with this system, I've played in and run Werewolf: the Apocalypse this way, and I've used this for Shamantic magic in Shadowrun. Sure, it's more work than the more common "I know this spell, and it always has this effect," but I found it rewarding to know that the spirit of the river that bound itself to the shaman shared a love of shiny things with her "master", and the shinier the thing, the more water she was willing to produce, and a constant negotiation was going to happen between the player and I over just how shiny the offered gift was.

But even there, there is a system and "science" to the magic... any good magician in that system is going to learn the names and preferences of various useful spirits in the same way I learn the names and numbers of the sales reps for my business suppiers and the names and idiosyncrasies of my most prolific repeat customers (like the one who insists you send him a fresh proof even on duplicate/repeat orders where nothing is being changed).

Sure, it's a softer science like sociology and marketing, but to say there's no rhyme or reason to it isn't accurate.

That's very true. One of my long-time Storytellers is a union organizer-turned-social worker, and her ability to make W:tA spirits "realistic" in their needs gets freaky at times *because* she has that background.

It seems that my earlier point of "as soon as you have a system, the players can turn it into a science" expands even to spirit magic.  It's just a softer science.

Quote from: ScytheSong on August 26, 2021, 03:13:28 PM

That's very true. One of my long-time Storytellers is a union organizer-turned-social worker, and her ability to make W:tA spirits "realistic" in their needs gets freaky at times *because* she has that background.

It seems that my earlier point of "as soon as you have a system, the players can turn it into a science" expands even to spirit magic.  It's just a softer science.

Accept that those things aren't any more science than, say, woodworking is science.  Maybe even less.  Yes, there are some scientific principles in play, and some aspects that can be measured and discussed from a scientific view, but as any good woodworker can tell you, there is more to it than mechanical and materials engineering, mathematics, and so on.  There's also an element of art to it, such as appreciation for how the grain of this piece of wood will look in that particular cabinet when done, the proportions of the whole things, etc.  And yes, you can account for rule of thirds and other typical tricks to get proportions that most people will appreciate and use particular stains with particular woods for the same reason, but then the individual buyer is an individual, not an average. 

So to me, one key is that magic is semi-reproducable but also somewhat personal.  Can be as simple as, "Do X, Y, Z then you get effect A 75% of the time, perhaps with slight variations."  Why the inconsistency, because no magician ever does the exact same thing every time, and we don't really understand what it is about the personal side that skews it in every case.

Or if you like a more real-world example, "Money ball" works in baseball, to some extent, but it isn't fool proof.  It's statistically accurate enough to be useful in aggregate, but not in any one do or die case.  Same with Vegas setting betting odds on sporting events.  They always make money, and they always get some games wrong.

Giving something a percentage chance of success doesn't make something not scientific.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 26, 2021, 03:48:13 PM

Quote from: ScytheSong on August 26, 2021, 03:13:28 PM

That's very true. One of my long-time Storytellers is a union organizer-turned-social worker, and her ability to make W:tA spirits "realistic" in their needs gets freaky at times *because* she has that background.

It seems that my earlier point of "as soon as you have a system, the players can turn it into a science" expands even to spirit magic.  It's just a softer science.

Accept that those things aren't any more science than, say, woodworking is science.

IKEA:  Hold my beer

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 08, 2021, 12:45:22 PM

Quote from: zagreus on August 07, 2021, 05:19:51 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 05, 2021, 10:32:44 AM

Quote from: Wrath of God on August 04, 2021, 09:23:59 PM

Quoteand is also basically woke garbage because "believing hard enough changes reality" is basically the same logic

Not really - because Believing Hard in Ascencion is quantifiable skill that allows you to change reality

QuoteBecause the medium of RPGs is all about using defined rules and tools to solve problems

That's quite narrow definition - unless you define problem extremely widely.

Mage the Ascension is literally, "if you believe it hard enough you can make it real in defiance of all natural laws." That is precise mindset pushed by the lunatics who say Men can be Women if they believe they are. Mage is Woke wish fulfilment where they can change reality to meet whatever their whims of the day happen to be and the villains are caricatures of the Right Wing; oppressors who wish to impose an objective reality that will keep them from being able to be woman or a sea turtle or whatever. The latest Mage book literally paints it as conservatives are trying to oppress and ruin the world for their own gain and good Mages must be good transgendered woke Leftards and oppose them by believing really hard; because Utopia WILL come if you just kill enough of the unbelievers in it.

I ran Mage the Ascension.  Not because I wanted to tell some story about the left vs the right.   I could have given two shits about politics then (and now I'm pretty centrist in my politics): I ran a Mage game so I could tell a story about modern wizards throwing lightning bolts at vampires, werewolves, "Terminator" and "Mr. Smith" ripoffs in Philadelphia - with a side dish of dimension hopping.   Not "everything" is politics. 

And actually, you could play a pretty decent Technocracy game if you'd wanted (I had considered doing that- kind of like Paranoia in Mage, but you'd be blasting foes with technomagic) but my enthusiasm for White Wolf waned by the time I had gotten that far. 

Now, because I've, done that (probably 15 years ago now), I'm running Ars Magica which is a bit more of a grounded Magic system than Mage- requires less GM interpretation, though is still very flexible.  Magic is simply of the natural order, and a magus of the 13th century  understand how that natural order works better than most.   

Oh, I have run Mage as well; until relatively recently, I had an ongoing campaign that spanned two and a half decades (2e was the new hotness just as I took the reigns when the prior ST burned out after 6 sessions). When WW killed the line in 2002 to try and launch their NWoD (now with even more gnostic heresies) I kept right on going and ultimately wrote my "White Book Mage" because the old books weren't all that available and purchasable pdfs for them weren't yet a thing.

But over time I came to a realization that the game's metaphysics were garbage and you can see in my WBM (I've shared links to it here several times so search my post history if you care to look) I'd already started houseruling much more defined mechanics into the system and the fluff I included had a generally much more concrete cosmology than the traditional "belief makes it real" of the official books and my actual campaign even more so with the struggle over the Anchorheads of Reality (and eventually their source) becoming THE metaphysics of the campaign.

Hard mechanics because the soft stuff wasn't a game; it Storygame style improv theatre and really indulged the idea of the "GM as frustrated author" which is not what I've ever enjoyed my games being. My Mage setting had always been a sandbox and so I had always had house rules (even before I codified them in WBM) to make magick less of a constant improv theatre asspull.

And then I ran headlong into the politics shoved into Mage20. At first I ignored it, but the authors have grown ever more shrill and with the some of the specifics wherein they linked "not letting men be women because they believe it" to the various evil forces trying to keep magick from letting people change sexes like they're clothing and basically "objective reality is evil because it won't obey me" it finally clicked that the whole construct of Mage is just one big Leftard wankfest where their Utopia is being kept from them by the evil bourgeoisie (i.e. the collective belief of working class Americans and their Christian morality that wouldn't indulge the depraved whims of adult children who were so pampered they had to invent struggles just to feel like they'd accomplished something).

That's when I stopped running Mage and started adapting my White Book Mage rules towards my own urban fantasy setting where monsters are again monsters and morality and reality are objective and the supernatural works according to those laws of reality.

Yeah, as I've gotten older I've gotten more "right" in my politics, but I haven't purchased M20, because... "what's the point?".  They were going to update something that I already had a perfectly good system to?  I would've been super annoyed if read a bunch of stuff about gender politics in it.  Ugh.  Money well saved! 

If I wanted to do "wizards in the modern world" again, I'd probably either adapt Mutants and Masterminds, or perhaps just adapt Ars Magica, throw out the Latin terms, maybe create an Aura of Reason in high urban centers that diminishes Magic (the same way that Faith diminishes magic in the 13th century) and say Vis/Quintessence is very scarce, throw in some rules ad hoc for guns, and boom, done.    It's a better system than "Mage" anyway.

Ars Magica, 20th century.

Quote from: zagreus on August 29, 2021, 06:17:55 PM

If I wanted to do "wizards in the modern world" again, I'd probably either adapt Mutants and Masterminds, or perhaps just adapt Ars Magica, throw out the Latin terms, maybe create an Aura of Reason in high urban centers that diminishes Magic (the same way that Faith diminishes magic in the 13th century) and say Vis/Quintessence is very scarce, throw in some rules ad hoc for guns, and boom, done.    It's a better system than "Mage" anyway.

Ars Magica, 20th century.

That idea just kind of blew my mind.  Ars Magica in the present day with solid setting details would utterly rock.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 26, 2021, 03:48:13 PM

Quote from: ScytheSong on August 26, 2021, 03:13:28 PM

That's very true. One of my long-time Storytellers is a union organizer-turned-social worker, and her ability to make W:tA spirits "realistic" in their needs gets freaky at times *because* she has that background.

It seems that my earlier point of "as soon as you have a system, the players can turn it into a science" expands even to spirit magic.  It's just a softer science.

Accept that those things aren't any more science than, say, woodworking is science.  Maybe even less.  Yes, there are some scientific principles in play, and some aspects that can be measured and discussed from a scientific view, but as any good woodworker can tell you, there is more to it than mechanical and materials engineering, mathematics, and so on.  There's also an element of art to it, such as appreciation for how the grain of this piece of wood will look in that particular cabinet when done, the proportions of the whole things, etc.  And yes, you can account for rule of thirds and other typical tricks to get proportions that most people will appreciate and use particular stains with particular woods for the same reason, but then the individual buyer is an individual, not an average. 

That reminds me of a conversation I had on the phone with my baby sister, who has a masters in high school counseling.  She said she had to do some science courses to keep up some certificate, and I didn't see the connection, then:

Me:  Wait, did you mean social science or real science?

Her:  *CLICK*  BZZzzzzzzz (hangup, in case that wasn't clear)

Me:  Oops!  LOLLOLLLOL

Quote from: Arnwolf666 on August 29, 2021, 04:55:17 PM
Giving something a percentage chance of success doesn't make something not scientific.

I didn't say that it did.  Since you didn't elaborate ... to answer the obvious thought, giving something a percentage change of success doesn't make it science, either.  It depends on what causes the variation.

Quote from: Mishihari on August 30, 2021, 12:31:28 AM

Quote from: zagreus on August 29, 2021, 06:17:55 PM

If I wanted to do "wizards in the modern world" again, I'd probably either adapt Mutants and Masterminds, or perhaps just adapt Ars Magica, throw out the Latin terms, maybe create an Aura of Reason in high urban centers that diminishes Magic (the same way that Faith diminishes magic in the 13th century) and say Vis/Quintessence is very scarce, throw in some rules ad hoc for guns, and boom, done.    It's a better system than "Mage" anyway.

Ars Magica, 20th century.

That idea just kind of blew my mind.  Ars Magica in the present day with solid setting details would utterly rock.

You can steal the idea it if you want.  I've no time to develop it!  It could honestly be a 50 page source book for Ars Magica if someone were to do it.  Give it a different history than "Mage", maybe more "the fading of Magic" rather than "the reality Wars" and some tidbits about modern magic and spells that interact with technology (Auram for electricity and Terram for metal most likely), a few new virtues and flaws for modern magi and it could easily be done. 

The 5th edition Ars Magica system in particular is solid.  More solid than White Wolf's clunky "fist full of d10's" system. 

Quote from: zagreus on August 29, 2021, 06:17:55 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 08, 2021, 12:45:22 PM

Quote from: zagreus on August 07, 2021, 05:19:51 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 05, 2021, 10:32:44 AM

Quote from: Wrath of God on August 04, 2021, 09:23:59 PM

Quoteand is also basically woke garbage because "believing hard enough changes reality" is basically the same logic

Not really - because Believing Hard in Ascencion is quantifiable skill that allows you to change reality

QuoteBecause the medium of RPGs is all about using defined rules and tools to solve problems

That's quite narrow definition - unless you define problem extremely widely.

Mage the Ascension is literally, "if you believe it hard enough you can make it real in defiance of all natural laws." That is precise mindset pushed by the lunatics who say Men can be Women if they believe they are. Mage is Woke wish fulfilment where they can change reality to meet whatever their whims of the day happen to be and the villains are caricatures of the Right Wing; oppressors who wish to impose an objective reality that will keep them from being able to be woman or a sea turtle or whatever. The latest Mage book literally paints it as conservatives are trying to oppress and ruin the world for their own gain and good Mages must be good transgendered woke Leftards and oppose them by believing really hard; because Utopia WILL come if you just kill enough of the unbelievers in it.

I ran Mage the Ascension.  Not because I wanted to tell some story about the left vs the right.   I could have given two shits about politics then (and now I'm pretty centrist in my politics): I ran a Mage game so I could tell a story about modern wizards throwing lightning bolts at vampires, werewolves, "Terminator" and "Mr. Smith" ripoffs in Philadelphia - with a side dish of dimension hopping.   Not "everything" is politics. 

And actually, you could play a pretty decent Technocracy game if you'd wanted (I had considered doing that- kind of like Paranoia in Mage, but you'd be blasting foes with technomagic) but my enthusiasm for White Wolf waned by the time I had gotten that far. 

Now, because I've, done that (probably 15 years ago now), I'm running Ars Magica which is a bit more of a grounded Magic system than Mage- requires less GM interpretation, though is still very flexible.  Magic is simply of the natural order, and a magus of the 13th century  understand how that natural order works better than most.   

Oh, I have run Mage as well; until relatively recently, I had an ongoing campaign that spanned two and a half decades (2e was the new hotness just as I took the reigns when the prior ST burned out after 6 sessions). When WW killed the line in 2002 to try and launch their NWoD (now with even more gnostic heresies) I kept right on going and ultimately wrote my "White Book Mage" because the old books weren't all that available and purchasable pdfs for them weren't yet a thing.

But over time I came to a realization that the game's metaphysics were garbage and you can see in my WBM (I've shared links to it here several times so search my post history if you care to look) I'd already started houseruling much more defined mechanics into the system and the fluff I included had a generally much more concrete cosmology than the traditional "belief makes it real" of the official books and my actual campaign even more so with the struggle over the Anchorheads of Reality (and eventually their source) becoming THE metaphysics of the campaign.

Hard mechanics because the soft stuff wasn't a game; it Storygame style improv theatre and really indulged the idea of the "GM as frustrated author" which is not what I've ever enjoyed my games being. My Mage setting had always been a sandbox and so I had always had house rules (even before I codified them in WBM) to make magick less of a constant improv theatre asspull.

And then I ran headlong into the politics shoved into Mage20. At first I ignored it, but the authors have grown ever more shrill and with the some of the specifics wherein they linked "not letting men be women because they believe it" to the various evil forces trying to keep magick from letting people change sexes like they're clothing and basically "objective reality is evil because it won't obey me" it finally clicked that the whole construct of Mage is just one big Leftard wankfest where their Utopia is being kept from them by the evil bourgeoisie (i.e. the collective belief of working class Americans and their Christian morality that wouldn't indulge the depraved whims of adult children who were so pampered they had to invent struggles just to feel like they'd accomplished something).

That's when I stopped running Mage and started adapting my White Book Mage rules towards my own urban fantasy setting where monsters are again monsters and morality and reality are objective and the supernatural works according to those laws of reality.

Yeah, as I've gotten older I've gotten more "right" in my politics, but I haven't purchased M20, because... "what's the point?".  They were going to update something that I already had a perfectly good system to?  I would've been super annoyed if read a bunch of stuff about gender politics in it.  Ugh.  Money well saved! 

If I wanted to do "wizards in the modern world" again, I'd probably either adapt Mutants and Masterminds, or perhaps just adapt Ars Magica, throw out the Latin terms, maybe create an Aura of Reason in high urban centers that diminishes Magic (the same way that Faith diminishes magic in the 13th century) and say Vis/Quintessence is very scarce, throw in some rules ad hoc for guns, and boom, done.    It's a better system than "Mage" anyway.

Ars Magica, 20th century.

Or you could check out The Invisible College!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/359585/The-Invisible-College

I eventually caved and will be picking this up on dtrpg next paycheck. I want a hardcover but i'll see if i can make enough room for it.

Quote from: Ocule on August 30, 2021, 11:50:38 AM
I eventually caved and will be picking this up on dtrpg next paycheck. I want a hardcover but i'll see if i can make enough room for it.

Good, I trust you'll like it!

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 30, 2021, 09:23:38 PM

Quote from: Ocule on August 30, 2021, 11:50:38 AM
I eventually caved and will be picking this up on dtrpg next paycheck. I want a hardcover but i'll see if i can make enough room for it.

Good, I trust you'll like it!

Any books you'd recommend on the "occult war"?