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Although ultimately I'm asking this question with regard to my specific online system, I'm hoping to get a sense of the pros and cons from other perspectives: free-form magic or rigid system?

There are probably multiple levels at which we could apply this discintion, so here are a few:

Spell levels: yes or no?
Caster level: yes or no?
Spell lists: yes or no?
Spells: yes or no?

D&D is an excellent example of a rigid magic system: 2nd edition (my favorite version) clearly uses spell level, caster level, spell lists, and spells with set effects.

Mage is an example of a more free-form magic system that lacks (at least) true spells and spell lists.

Numerous card-based games apply no true caster levels. If you have the card, you can cast the spell.

So overall, I'm trying to find a nice blend that works quickly, with little bookkeeping, but yet is fun. Rigidity tends to make things simpler for bookkeeping. Freeform tends to make things simpler in terms of not having to look up effects and such.

So what are your thoughts? What seems to work? What seems not to work? What are your presonal preferences?

I've never really played in a game that had magic but freeform seems best to me. Having massive lists of spells really constrict you rather than open possibilities. I'd rather have magic crafted from core principles, so that players craft spells that have a specific effect. For example, in Icar's close combat, players construct fighting combos to land blows against an enemy or avoid being hit at all. I'd like that sort of crafted idea for magic.

No idea how that would play, though.

Rob,

First, it's blasphemous that you've not played in a system with magic. Blasphemous.

Second, if I recall, at least in an earlier version of ICAR, the combos themselves were created from basic moves; right? So you had like punch, grab, footsweep perhaps. If that's an accurate presentation, that's a sort of intermediate between the very freeform games (like Creo + Ignem in Mage or Ars Magica, whichever that is).

You have building blocks but no concrete moves in the most freeform system.
In yours, as I've presented it, you have basic moves that can be combined in many ways.
In rigid systems, you have your spells and lists with very specific effects.

I certainly like the idea of more freeform, but I'm struggling to come up with nice bookkeeping maneuvers that can keep it all simple.

Traveller, your game is interesting in that it seems to take Magic as a central feature of the whole system; is that right? That's the sense I get...and so what would be simply TOO MUCH in a PBT game probably works well for you. I like the general idea of the system, but mine will have to be simpler.

In other news, where did the instantaneous, rite, and ritual labels come from? I have them in my RPG rules since 1998, but I don't suppose that you and I both stumbled upon the same labels independently...or maybe we did. As in the working out of The Calculus. Perhaps great minds do think alike.

The blog is mostly highlights of certain sections of the game released to keep people interested while I trudge my way towards a pdf release, magic would be as much of module as say abstracted (non map) spaceship battles, which will be something I might liberate from my mountain of scribbles before too long. The core game system is meant to be a comfortable balance between realistic and easy to use, although it remains to be seen how well it succeeds in that goal, but magic wouldn't be the main focus unless a group wanted it to be.

It may be adjusted before final release to introduce more mystery in it as well, I feel if a system is predictable like clockwork magic just becomes another version of physics, which costs flavour. Tricky to do that though; maybe backstory will take up the bulk of the heavy lifting there rather than mechanics.

I think the perceptions of magic come from fantasy literature, games, and movies, you have psionics where someone thinks and it happens, likewise fancy martial arts moves, you have the D&D style waving of a rabbits foot while dancing widdershins mumbling the lyrics to Easy Like Sunday Morning backwards, and then you've got "traditional" or historical magic, which tended to involve elaborate preparations, fasting, mental preparation, circles and candles and the right phases of the moon. The three categories are reflected in a fair few different games, I plucked the names out of a hat as it were. They might be changed as well though, since rite and ritual have very similar meanings.

I'm not sure a truly free form system is possible, the problem is that magic is so broad, you could conceivably wrangle any power to do almost anything - telekinesis lifts things and throws them around, but can it also vibrate molecules fast enough to cause fire, funnel air to someone deep beneath the sea, make bullets fly a thousand times faster and ultra accurate twenty kilometers away, make sword swings supersonic, grant the power of flight, raise stone walls from the earth, fiddle the right neurons to make someone suggestible and so on. The line between abuse and creativity can be a bit ephemeral at times.

Freeform or combined moves work for combat where you have a few possible outcomes, limited by common sense, not so sure about unrestrained magic.

I made a simple magic system for one of my unfinished games, it mixes a little bit of Mage and Marvel Universe RPG.

You have magic styles, for example Life, Matter, Energy, pretty much like Mage. Each style is ranked, the highest the number, the better. If you're casting a spell, roll the most adecuate score. If you're sucessful, then consult a table to know how strong the effect is, compared to your style score, pretty much like Marvel Universe RPG. In this table are aspects like duration, range, area and weight.

So, for example, a higher score in Energy makes more damage on an energy blast than a lower score. A high score on Life affects more targets or last more time. Is really free and allows you to do anything, without consulting big spell charts, just a simple table.

I see. Some interesting ideas here. I agree that a truly free form magic system, even if possible, would be undesirable...in particular from the POV of play by text. Simply too much work. Too much consultation.

I don't MIND the idea of looking at a little table; in fact, I loved Rolemaster for its charts (among other things). I do think it would be preferable to have the option of less: a system simple enough to master after a few sessions so you wouldn't even need the table.

Toward that end, I've settled on a distilled version of my older magic. I'm going to do some playtesting.

Spells have five attributes:
Casting Time (CT), Duration (DU), Area Affected (AA), Force Class (FC), and Special (SP).

You just mix and match levels of each to create the effects you want. Each spell will end up with a rating from 0 to 10; that number divided by 2 (roughly) is the difficulty of the spell. It's pretty simple, I think.

Example: lower level spells will tend to be slower to prepare, will last for shorter times, will affect fewer things or smaller areas, and will be less sever in their effects.

Concrete Example: Fireball spell; CT 2; DU 1; AA 2; FC 2; Special 2.
This is a spell you can hurl (up to your line of sight) in the same round you begin preparing, the fireball will burn for six seconds (one round), will affect up to 30x30x30 cube, will have a combat Force rating equal to a two-handed sword blow, and a successful Resistance Roll will still deliver 1/2 damage. It's a level 9 spell, so the caster would have a -3 on his/her check to succeed at hurling the spell. Thus, unless the spell caster is pretty powerful, it's best to avoid the spell.

Ninth level is from summing the total "points" spent on the spell creation; 2+1+2+2+2 = 9. I feel like I'm in "Clue" for some reason.

The half damage is a Special aspect of a spell. And it's fairly minor. So it's 1 point. The other "special" points comes from being able to hurl it up to your range of sight, as opposed to being at arm's length. So that's 2 points of Special. Good question; I wasn't clear at all when I wrote that.