I have long since pointed out that one of the least "realistic" books on magick for RPGs was the late Isaac Bonewitz's "Authentic Thaumaturgy", that was full of propandist nonsense and new-age claptrap, and in no way reflected what people actually did with magick in the real world.

On the other hand, I would always tell people that the most "authentic" RPG magick system I ever saw was Unknown Armies: where to become a real magician you had to either become utterly obsessed and disconnected from regular people and normal life to pursue a source of power only you could really see, or you had to come to embody an archetypal force and thus gradually lose what most people normally think of as your humanity.  In other words, magick fucks you up big time and usually for very little tangible or visible reward or respect (except maybe among your "own kind").

I would now add to the list of "authentic" RPG magick systems another, very surprising choice: Chav: the Knifing, by our own Ian Warner, which I just reviewed yesterday.  In it, magick is described as "an arcane art halfway between mad science and bullshit". The most basic and possibly most significant power of voodoo is "the ability to bullshit people and make them believe" in what you're doing. A successful check for spinning bullshit can give penalties or bonuses to another character as a purely psychosomatic effect.  
So it approaches the subject from a different angle than UA.  In Unknown Armies, you start by looking at the hardcore obsessives, and take it for granted that (like in our real world) 98% of people who "do magic" are (usually self-decieving) frauds.  
In Chav, you start from the basis that you too are one of those frauds, and that most of magick is just about making psychosomatic effects for yourself and others, which is absolutely true.    Many of the "spells" in that game are also done in such a way that its very much ambiguous as to whether what happened was actually a "spell" or a "skill"; ie. did some real supernatural effect occur, or is the effect really just the magician being good at being a magician?

That, gentlemen, is authentic thaumaturgy.  At least, the way 98% of the would-be magical population practices it.

RPGpundit

So you're saying people should stop using fake made-up mysticism and instead use real made-up mysticism?

That IS the question, of course.  Can we have a book about Authentic Thaumaturgy that doesn't include new age claptrap or work from the assumption that we're not actually going to get magic in "Authentic"... because real 'authentic' mages were all con artists and self deluded fools?

Seriously: Where's my 'Its a fucking made up world where magic is real' authentic thaumaturgy book?

Glad you like the Shadow World Magic(k) system. It started with Grim's mocking of the Tremere back in D20 BtA and kind of evolved from there.

The plan at the moment is every line uses that except Wizkid which uses a more "actual magic" semi freeform thing based on Buffing, Nerfing, Creating and Destroying and Scout where spell casting PCs are just inappropriate.

The best depiction of magic I've seen in a movie is in City of God, where Lil Ze gets that magic necklace from the voodoun and given a geas that he can never fuck. And of course, he rapes Knockout Ned's sister and dies at the end of the film. It's a great fridge logic moment.

Quote from: Theodore Sign;445328So you're saying people should stop using fake made-up mysticism and instead use real made-up mysticism?

IF the point of your game is to be "authentic" in a modern setting, yes.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;445345The best depiction of magic I've seen in a movie is in City of God, where Lil Ze gets that magic necklace from the voodoun and given a geas that he can never fuck. And of course, he rapes Knockout Ned's sister and dies at the end of the film. It's a great fridge logic moment.

What the guy was doing there was a depiction, and a pretty accurate one, of Kimbanda, the "darker" Afro-Caribbean religion of brazil (as opposed to Umbanda and a few others which is seen as more "white magic").  And indeed, it is hugely popular with gangsters.

RPGPundit

Get one of these.

You could use any one of a range of 'current' tradditions from Wiccan to African Azande tribal magic to some sort of Golden Dawn stuff.

Personally I would just pinch the magic out of HellBlazer or The Invisibles (and I have a very nice Anthropology degree that actually specialises in Magic and ritual in non-literate societies, but I am just lazy).

Like Pundit says, and like Constantine does so well 95% of magic should be flim flam and slight of hand with a bit of neo-paganism, voodoo and astological mumbo jumbo thrown in.

When it comes to magic in RPGs, I read "authentic" as, "works like credulous observers who who believe in this kind of magic believe it works," and not "(fails to) work like it (fails to) work in reality.

Quote from: two_fishes;445407When it comes to magic in RPGs, I read "authentic" as, "works like credulous observers who who believe in this kind of magic believe it works," and not "(fails to) work like it (fails to) work in reality.

Those two positions are not incompatible. Plenty of people will tell you all about how this psychic they visited "foretold" the future successfully despite the psychic merely applying cold reading and some self-help gabble. And heck, sometimes the psychic's flim-flam, because of the belief of the person involved that it's what will happen, does actually come true.

Quote from: jibbajibba;445404You could use any one of a range of 'current' tradditions from Wiccan to African Azande tribal magic to some sort of Golden Dawn stuff.

Personally I would just pinch the magic out of HellBlazer or The Invisibles (and I have a very nice Anthropology degree that actually specialises in Magic and ritual in non-literate societies, but I am just lazy).

Like Pundit says, and like Constantine does so well 95% of magic should be flim flam and slight of hand with a bit of neo-paganism, voodoo and astological mumbo jumbo thrown in.

I'll tell you something else, 15 out of every 20 wiccans or "magicians" (or should that be magickians?) I have met have never actually even attempted to "cast a spell" in their lives.  Their efforts amount to sometimes just calling themselves wiccans or magicians, in some cases owning one or more books, in fewer cases actually having read at least one (but not practicing anything at all from it), and maybe owning a tarot deck.

Of the other 5, 4 out of 5 have only ever done the most absolute basic practice (ie. the "lesser banishing ritual" or "casting a circle") and infrequently.

That leaves about 5% of the total "occult" population who have actually done something. And in general, there is a pretty steep curve with those guys where it begins with doing some spells here and there or dabbling in the goetia, and then very quickly go into seriously fucked up "unknown armies" territories.

An incredible amount of it is all about "rep" in the community, and the number of "wars" I've seen in local communities is just ridiculous.  Put 5 occultists together in a room and within an hour they'll have formed a group, within two hours they'll have split into two groups, and after a bit they'll be 3 groups, and then none.
A lot of it is massive complexes and egos; Israel Regardie once said "wicca is the only religion I know of where you can find two grown men beating each other up over who gets to be called 'Lord Merlin'".  He forgot to mention that his own branch of ceremonial magick, the "golden dawn" has had so many schisms and massive conflicts over "legitimacy", "magickal authority", who has got the approval of the "secret chiefs", etc. that essentially there is no way (besides random preference) to judge who is the "real" Golden Dawn.  Sadly a great deal of this infighting often happens among the 15 out of 20 people who do no magickal practice whatsoever (besides reading).

Those are the kinds of things you have to portray if you are going to show real "authentic" thaumaturgy in a modern game.

RPGPundit


RPGPundit

Quote from: two_fishes;445407When it comes to magic in RPGs, I read "authentic" as, "works like credulous observers who who believe in this kind of magic believe it works," and not "(fails to) work like it (fails to) work in reality.

The thing is, magick doesn't "fail to work".  It does very specific things in reality.  One of them is the psychosomatic effect.  But there are other more powerful things beyond that.

The point is that the way to be "authentic" about it is not to say "here's the propaganda party line about how this ought to work, and we're going to pretend that's how it does even though everyone knows that's not true".  The way to be authentic is to show things as they really are, and how magick is a parasite-infested cesspool that sucks you in where only the very careful or the very crazy can get more out of it than what it costs them (to their wallets, their sanity, and their connection to society).

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;445497I'll tell you something else, 15 out of every 20 wiccans or "magicians" (or should that be magickians?) I have met have never actually even attempted to "cast a spell" in their lives.  Their efforts amount to sometimes just calling themselves wiccans or magicians, in some cases owning one or more books, in fewer cases actually having read at least one (but not practicing anything at all from it), and maybe owning a tarot deck.

Of the other 5, 4 out of 5 have only ever done the most absolute basic practice (ie. the "lesser banishing ritual" or "casting a circle") and infrequently.

That leaves about 5% of the total "occult" population who have actually done something. And in general, there is a pretty steep curve with those guys where it begins with doing some spells here and there or dabbling in the goetia, and then very quickly go into seriously fucked up "unknown armies" territories.

An incredible amount of it is all about "rep" in the community, and the number of "wars" I've seen in local communities is just ridiculous.  Put 5 occultists together in a room and within an hour they'll have formed a group, within two hours they'll have split into two groups, and after a bit they'll be 3 groups, and then none.
A lot of it is massive complexes and egos; Israel Regardie once said "wicca is the only religion I know of where you can find two grown men beating each other up over who gets to be called 'Lord Merlin'".  He forgot to mention that his own branch of ceremonial magick, the "golden dawn" has had so many schisms and massive conflicts over "legitimacy", "magickal authority", who has got the approval of the "secret chiefs", etc. that essentially there is no way (besides random preference) to judge who is the "real" Golden Dawn.  Sadly a great deal of this infighting often happens among the 15 out of 20 people who do no magickal practice whatsoever (besides reading).

Those are the kinds of things you have to portray if you are going to show real "authentic" thaumaturgy in a modern game.

RPGPundit


RPGPundit

I've seen similar things amongst individuals who self-identify as satanists.

It's not much different than the sort of arguments and/or infighting amongst hardcore individuals in all kinds of different fandom.

Some people really dig drama, it makes them feel important. The medium is almost secondary.