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Many people make this mistake when creating roleplays and I feel the need to point it out. Magic is not an excuse to make completely impossible things happen. Even in a classical setting magic does not break the law of physics that energy cannot be created or destroyed, and thus it preserves the basic laws of nature while appearing to break them. In this thread I will provide different ways to incorporate magic into your settings realistically.

If you believe that magic just by definition needs no shread of realism, read no further; this thread is not for you. If you believe it does but can't say why, or you're just curious, I will tell you now why magic must abide by the laws of nature: all successful stories--be they fantasy, science-fiction, comedy, romance, etc.--are successful because they provide a unique, interesting, and developed plot while still preserving verismilitude, or realism.

Now you may think that not even successful movies nowadays are realistic, let alone fantasies and science-fictions, but I will prove to you that they do by citing one of the most ridiculous and successful films to come out: The Hangover. In The Hangover a group of bachelors wake up in Vegas to a trashed suite missing a friend who is supposed to be married and a tiger in their bathroom which tries to eat them. They can't remember anything from the last night. One turns out to be married to a stripper and missing a tooth. They try to retrace their steps, and in the process get in trouble with the police, a Chinese mafia member, Mike Tyson, and each other, and yet they still find their friend and miraculously get him to his own wedding on time.

Now you may ask: "How can this possibly be realistic?".

The first reason is in the setting: the movie is set in Las Vegas, a place that everyone expects to be completely ridiculous. A line from the beginning of the movie says it all: "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, except herpes; that s**t comes back with you." People know that Vegas is absolutely ridiculous and expect nothing less. In fact, I'd venture to say that if the movie was any less ridiculous, people would think it was unrealistic, even though it is really a total exaggeration of actual things which happen in Vegas.

The second reason is that all the problems in the movie arise from character: the bride's brother is a whacko, which is introduced extremely effectively, and it is his insanity and ignorance which cause the problems in the movie. Character determines action; action determines destiny. And because all the actions in the movie arise from the well-developed characters, the movie seems realistic.

The final reason is in presentation: none of the problems miraculously just go away; instead they are solved with perserverance and pain by the main characters. Tyson doesn't take his own tiger back; he makes the main characters bring it back. The police don't give in to the main characters without a settlement. And the characters don't find their friend without using everything at their disposal. There is no Deus ex Machina here; everything happens for a reason.

Now I have proved that not only can the most ridiculous movies be realistic, but that they must be, and that is why they are successful. Thus, magic must be realistic even in a fantasy setting (though not a comic book setting: these settings have different things that make them realistic) or the setting will fall apart. So here are some methods to make magic realistic:

First is the classical method: require some form of energy to cast spells. This is achieved in most video games by "mana," which is a function of the character's own energy. Exhaust your mana and you are too tired to cast spells because you have exhausted your own spirit or physical energy. In some settings, if a magician casts too many spells at one time they actually lose their soul. Dungeons & Dragons faces the problem in a different way: the spells in these settings require verbal, somatic, or other components. All of these components have energy in them; which is why the most powerful spells have somatic components, because matter can be converted to huge amounts of energy. Of course, there are some spells which conjure huge amounts of matter for seemingly no energy, but these spells are rare and cannot be casted more than once per day, due to their taxing effect on the caster.

The other classical method is using Divine magic instead of Arcane magic. While Arcane magic is traditional magic, Divine magic is praying to a god to grant magical abilities and work wonders. Many real-world religions even incorporate Divine magic into their beliefs: for example, in Judiasm/Christianity, God allows Moses to bring water from a rock, part the sea, and make food fall from the sky.

Another method is to make magic effect the environment without creating or destroying anything. For example, a spell could create a tornado by disrupting wind patterns and causing them to make a tornado themselves; thus, no energy is created or destroyed, just moved around. Need to conjure fire? No problem! Just cause air molecules to vibrate rapidly by a fuel source. This method removes the need for a "mana" source because the source is in the environment. The downside of this method is that there are no real conjurations; you can't spontaneously call things into existence or bring people back from the dead.

The final method that I have used is incorporating magic into science by creating "magic particles" or either a single or varying types. Perhaps "magitons" can be readily manipulated and release huge amounts of energy, just like atoms. Either technology allows humans to manipulate these particles or humans possess an innate ability to do so, but the particles were simply undiscovered. This method means that magic particles must interract with real particles in predetermined ways, making it the most limited of all; however, it might be extremely interesting to have a character researching how magic particles interract with real ones and to develop spells based on that research.

All of the above methods can explain magic, allowing you to easily incorporate it into your campaign and preserve verismilitude which keeps players from thinking your roleplay is "too ridiculous."

I fully agree! (with the first post)

Magic should be treated as a science of it's own, sure it allows you do to different things differently but it still has rules. If anybody can do anything with the only defining limit their skill at magic then anybody Will do anything at the least opportune moment for your RP. Everything needs to have balance, or a specifically tuned imbalance or you're asking for everything to go awry.

Take for example Warhammer Fantasy, or the equivalent LotR game by the same company. If there wasn't a very specific set of logical rules and mathematics involved in who can do what how and when then my hobbit would shoot a pebble at twice the speed of light straight through your lich king's face!

This is realistic, but not in story but game mechanics. If there was not a life bottle or resurrection bottle or phoenix down (as it is called in Final Fantasy and Legend of Legaia) or another similar spell, players would get frustrated and the game would be unpopular. Also, such magic items can be explained as using stored magical energies to reanmiate flesh. Thus they are, in a sense, realistic.

But even in 27 there is a ruling logic to how unreality is able to function!

there's that but there was also tons of stuff I asked you about that you said couldn't happen or wouldn't work that way; such as wormholes

Ok, so here's how my insomnic coffee-stewed mind would break down things.

First off, you need to explain where the energy comes from and what it's actually doing. Venom has 'unreality', aka Mana; Mana effects things by negating actual physics, in lieu of whatever rulings the caster places on it, the power of the thing casted being a combination of the amount of Mana used and the user's skill at casting. The Mana comes from essentially nowhere, simply being willed into existence by the caster's soul when needed. Therefore the soul essentially functions as a muscle to pull Mana into existence. Then, there are certain rules on how this muscle can function, such as, if it is doing something already, it can't do something else until it's done, by this it's derived that any creature with an innate magical status, such as werebeasts (werewolves, werefrogs, etc), or an artificial magical status, such as the clockwork knights (magical cyborgs), cannot use Mana outside of that status. It also defines that anything that does not have a soul should not under normal circumstances be able to do anything at all with mana; and so on.

By the two simple explanations of where the magic comes from and what it does we've laid out the system by which the entire magical universe of 27 functions and inferred several effects. Following that by sociological things such as schools of magic (what you're doing), styles of magic (how you're doing it), and groups (why, for who, and against what you are doing it), and you've got a full on magical society!

As far as I can tell, this makes sense.

Oh good, anyways; My main point was that you don't have to be all huge blocks of text and scientific about things, I did so much on one moderately sized paragragh

The way I see it, Magic is basically a part of a person. Will can be defined as many things, and it takes will to move muscles in your body. The same rules apply with moving an object using the mind. Moving that object using your Will can be done in two ways: either willing your muscles into moving it, or moving the "Life Force" around it. Its like learning a new language. You must learn each letter before you can read a word, and without any knowledge, it becomes useless. Same rule applies to the "Life Force".

A little page I put together: (forgive the lack of formatting)
http://old-mage.com/Meanings/L/lifeforc.htm

("Life Force" refers to unharnessed magic in the atmosphere, as is the main understanding)

Both of these tasks could require the same amount of will, but your body is used to performing the physical option, therefore it is said that this takes less effort. Its much like a computer and RAM. Pretend you are the computer and your Will is the RAM. The first time you execute a program, It will use more resources than the next time. As you use the program more often, the RAM (your Will) starts to recognize this as a constant part of its life, and will change accordingly to suit the application. This is due to adaptation.

Adaptation is this case would be considered as "skill".
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So it you were to create a world without any magical guidelines, It would work for a little while. Eventually you would come to a what could be known as an "Inverse dead end" full of options, because with no governing rules you would have all sorts of crazy ideas and profanities suggested by RPers. As it was once said:


In short: An RP without rules = headaches for the Owner and confusion for the RPers.
Rp with rules = Much easier for everyone.

Rules are flexible, and will differ from thread to thread. When it comes to magic, the rules you use depend entirely of your appreciation and definition of what magic is, and what environment/s it works under. The link will hopefully clarify what you define as magic.

~Cpt. Dflare