The Rigid Magic of Dungeons & Dragons
I want to talk about magic. More specifically, the rigid magic of Dungeons & Dragons and how that rigidity can often fly in the face of what people think of as ‘magic’.
For many people, they have an understanding that magic is… well magic. Sure it has its limits, it (often) can’t end the world. But, it is still powerful. It can make the impossible possible and be used for untold devastation or incredible prosperity. There is very little that magic can’t do, and if you give a wizard enough gold and time, they can probably come up with some magic that will do what it previously couldn’t.
But, that’s not really true. In (almost) every book, movie, tv show, and various pieces of media, there is a limit to magic. While it may not be something as concrete as spell slots, like what we have in Dungeons & Dragons, it still follows its own rules. Like in the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson, the ‘wizards’ (allomancers) cast their ‘magic’ by burning metals that they imbibe. Once they burn out of metals, they must consume additional metals to further use their magical abilities, and each metal only does a specific thing.
Rigidity
When I talk about the rigidity of magic, I am talking about how creative you can be with that magic and how much room for interpretation you can have. In Dungeons & Dragons, a spell does what it says. It doesn’t do more, it doesn’t do less. If it says it deals 8d6 fire damage in a 20-foot radius sphere, it deals 8d6 fire damage in a 20-foot radius sphere. You can’t decrease that radius, you can’t increase the damage, and you can’t change that damage from fire to cold. The only way you can manipulate those effects is if you have an ability that allows you to manipulate them, which further confines you to the rigid rules of magic in the system.
This rigidity can almost be called science. We can say, with 99% certainty that an alter self spell will last for 1 hour no matter how much you alter or how little. It doesn’t care that you gave yourself red hair or claws or gills, you will get that change for exactly 1 hour and not a second longer.
Every spell is just a formula that a magic-user memorizes and casts. Even the gods are controlled by this fixed usage. It doesn’t matter if it would be really in the god’s benefit if a cleric could cast bless and have it go an extra 5 feet on that casting, the spell can’t and so the spell won’t.
Pros
But just because a spell only does what it says it does, doesn’t make it a bad system. It simply means that you know exactly the effect you are going to have and you can adjust accordingly. Do you want to hit a giant with a fireball spell, but you have allies around them? Well, you know that if you just aim the fireball spell to explode above the giant’s head, due to the shape of a sphere, it won’t hurt your much shorter companions. Do you want to cast invisibility and then drink a potion? Good news, you know that you drinking a potion of growth won’t cause the invisibility spell to end early since you aren’t casting a spell, but rather imbibing a magical effect that mimics the effects of a spell.
In a rigid system, the rules are clear. A spell does exactly what it says it does, not more and not less. This is a great way of keeping things moving quickly as you don’t have to individually rule every time someone uses magic, ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to the effects of a spell, and that magical power is gated behind certain conditions so that a magic-user can’t just access greater power than they are meant to.
For a game or other piece of media, having set rules and limits to your magic is helpful. It keeps magic from being too powerful (which can make it so that a magic-user can do anything with no limits), keeps creativity (have to come up with clever uses of rules), and just, in general, makes for a more interesting story. When magic can do anything and everything, you lack suspense that keeps people engaged.
Cons
There is a problem with highly rigid systems, though. The more rigid your magic is, the less you can do with a single spell, and so you are required to have a ton of spells that specifically list out what you can do. You can look at something like Dungeons & Dragons where a huge chunk of the Player’s Handbook is just devoted to lists and lists of spells.
Some of these spells could’ve just been combined. Like knock and arcane lock could’ve just been a single spell that allows you to unlock or lock a door. Because of the strict rigidity of magic, it forces them to be separate so that the spell isn’t just paragraphs of rules. Instead, they are individual spells with shorter lengths to make it appear less complicated to lock and unlock doors.
Or you can take any damage spell that deals a specific element. That spell could deal any type of damage, but they pick a specific damage type for each spell, and are now forced to come up with other elemental spell types at the same level that deal roughly the same amount of damage because their system requires them to do so.
In addition, with more and more rules, the less you can do with an individual spell. You may have a great idea of using a grease spell to trip up your enemies and then light the grease on fire like some sort of crazed serial killer, but it doesn’t work like that. Your creativity is ended because unless the spell specifically states that the grease can be set on fire, like the web spell, it can not be set on fire.
Limits of Magic
In a magic system, there is always a give-and-pull. Some magic systems, like in the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks, are a lot more nebulous. You can create whatever you want out of light, but you are bound by your willpower, how much light you can see, and the color of that light. Drafters (magic-users) in that series can not use their magic in a dark room because they require light to transform into magic, but once they have that light, they can create pretty much anything they want within the bounds of physics.
In other systems, you are more closely bound to what spells you know. You are limited to only creating effects for things that you already know how to do. If you want to fly, you can’t just will yourself to fly, instead you must study and learn the rules for casting a fly spell, be of an appropriate level, and then cast it open yourself only a certain number of times a day.
Rule of Cool
Of course, not everyone is a big fan of how limited magic can be. Sometimes they want magic to be more magical and less scientific. In these situations, the Rule of Cool is often invoked to allow spells to be handled slightly differently. Maybe a Game Master will allow you to set the grease from a grease spell on fire or perhaps change the damage type of a fireball spell to lightning for your character’s theme.
But in any case where you are breaking the normal rules of magic, you are doing so by breaking the game’s ‘reality’. You are specifically getting the reality of your game to work differently for you, because you’ve talked with the ultimate being who oversees the world, the Game Master and they’ve decided to change reality for you.
Keep Magic Magical
Regardless of how limited or unlimited magic in your system of choice is, there is a reason magic is so magical. The rules that govern it allow us to change reality to fit what we want. On earth, we don’t have necromancers summoning forth zombies. We don’t have forest-hermits communicating and bartering with squirrels. We don’t have sorcerers suddenly turning into a potted plant.
Until we do, magic will always hold a special place at the game table. People will always want magic to be more magical, but one must be careful. Failure to follow the rules of magic will make magic less magical. Suspense and danger will soon depart if magic becomes the answer to every situation, and a mage that can use magic to solve every problem soon finds themselves in a boring story where there is no danger of who will save the world. Magic will do it and there will be no risk involved.
Magic must be confined by its rules, that’s what makes it so magical. Without rules, it becomes boring and unmagical.
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