1KM1KT Free RPG Community

so I'm considering removing the cast magic from the game I'm working on. I'm not sure if it will be a bad thing, I can always bring it in latter.....

thoughts?

I don't understand what is the cast magic?

My first inclination is to ask for more information about the game world, how magic works, and what cast magic is like - mechanics and limitations etc.

However, the second impulse is to say no to removing it. Adding magic in later is generally doesn't work. The metaphysics of a game go a long way towards establishing its setting. Trying to graft it on later is going to make a mess.

For example Jack Vance's Dying Earth has spells so mysterious and powerful that most mortal magicians can't hold more than a few in their head at once 0 and many of the magics are lost due to the decay of the universe. D&D doesn't have the apocalyptic nature of those novels, but the fact that spells are a limited resource encourages strategic thinking before encounters, and also played into the mythic of young mages being pushovers, while elder mages were of city destroying power. Conversely, the World of Darkness Mage line had magic that couldn't do feats quite like that due to the gestalt belief of people witnessing, meaning magic by necessity is something kept hidden.

Another important consideration, is that adding systems piecemeal and without relation to one another will often break the system. D&D once again shows up as an example- it was a good game, then rules after rule and book after book made it a convoluted mess - so they made a new edition. Then that suffered from the profusion of mismatched feats and the need to plan your progression to level 20 from level 1 to make sure all the prerequisites were in place - and they rebooted the game yet again...

Another example - Palladium Fantasy is a decent game for what it is. Then they tried to port the same system over to modern times, and there were a few oddities in the rules (ie the larger the clip, the more inaccurate and wasteful the burst fire from automatic weapons) Then they made Robotech which had super armor 100 times that of normal hit points - but it was limited to alien technology and in its place. Rifts Then had this super armor, in abundance, facing off against psionics and magic to produce something that is quite the mess and why so many people are love it or hate if for Palladium books.

Keep magic from the start, and its both a major part of explaining how the world works, and you can try to keep the elements of the game in check and reasonable - rather than ending up with a world destroying power spiral.

thank you CA, I do admite to this being fuled more by lazieness then true design.

Game design and programing have some things in common. Both are a set of instructions to perform a task. Both can be pretty arcane and inscrutable to someone unfamiliar with their inner workings. Most importantly for this discussion, both work best with clean coding. A clear design goal is important, as is sticking to that goal. Adding features later often just adds to glut. As with programming, more lines often means more things can conflict. This is especially true when those lines are added after the core has already been fully debugged, but the new additions have not.