It has always disappointed me that more players don’t pursue creating their own spells. Encouraging them to do so was the impetus for Magic Words, a system I created back in 2015 and have been using ever since. It remains my most notable mechanical contribution to the OSR. In the past 3 years the system has undergone numerous mutations and tweaks, but the premise remains fundamentally the same: players collect words, combine those words to form the names of spells, and between sessions the referee creates that spell’s description.
I’ve had no reason to doubt the efficacy of that fundamental premise until recently. For the past few months I’ve been playing a magic user in a campaign run by noted OSR Man of Mystery, Chris H. Much of the peculiar way he runs Magic Users is kept intentionally obscured from the players, so I cannot describe it in full, only what my experience has been.
I began play with two spells: one that can trap other spells in a bubble, and another which conjures a suit of bubble armor for a friendly target. I didn’t have any input on creating these spells, or in selecting the “bubble” theme they both conform to. They were presented to me with exhaustively written mechanics, like any spell you might find in a book, with the caveat that they only represented the most reliable way to conjure magic my character had thusfar discovered. Chris encouraged me to tinker, and twist, and see what I could get away with. To apply the general principals of how the spells were constructed to achieve different results.
For example, that bubble armor spell? I’ve used it to seal and apply pressure to a gaping wound. I’ve used it to create a semi-reflective helm to give me 360 degree vision, and a bonus to my perception checks. I’ve used it to form a bubble around our camp which would loudly ‘pop’ if anyone were to approach. All of these were done in the moment without any additional prep. I presume there is some means by which my spell alterations might fail, but again those details are obscured from me as a player.
Fundamentally, Chris and I are trying to achieve the same thing. We’re trying to force magic users to be more creatively involved in their spells. Yet while my Magic Words prompt creativity between adventures, Chris’s method prompts creativity during adventures. As fond as I am of Magic Words, I must confess that the creative focus of Chris’s method is more interesting, and a healthier way to construct a game.
I’d like to experiment with pushing the creative focus of Magic Words towards that same point. Given that this is by necessity a fundamental departure from the original premise it seems only fitting to dub it Magic Words 2.
Magic Users begin play knowing 3 magic words, determined randomly from whatever list is handy. Additional words are learned by encountering them through play, though Magic Users are limited in the number of words they may know at one time: never more than their level + 2.
Magic Users may cast spells a number of times per day equal to their level. They do so by arranging some number of their words (one or more) into a spell name, and describing their desired effects for that spell. The referee will reject any spell out of hand if its effects do not relate to the words used to construct it.
After the player describes their spell, the referee will assign it a failure chance between 1-in-6 and 6-in-6, determined by how powerful they judge the spell to be. At this point the player may either attempt their casting by rolling a d6, or they may negotiate for a more favorable failure chance by reducing the proposed efficacy of their spell.
Note that while it is possible for spells to have a 100% failure chance, it is not possible for a spell to have a 100% chance of success. Such fungible magic is necessarily volatile.
If a spell fails, the referee will adjudicate some appropriate backfire. A failed fireball may appear in the wrong location, or it may be at the right location but produce only a few sparks, or it may encase the caster in a pyramid of ice. A failed spell may be devastating, however, it does not consume any of the Magic User’s daily spellcasting. If the MU is able to cast 3 more spells today, and produces a spell failure, they may still cast 3 more spells.
ANALYSIS:
If I want to push myself towards more in-the-moment spell creativity, this is the obvious way to do it. Obviousness isn’t a virtue, but if this doesn’t work then at least I’ve gotten the obvious option out of my head to make room for less obvious ideas.
Players have always chaffed at the fact that Magic Words doesn’t give them a say in what their spell’s description will be. I’ve never wanted to give them a say, because it leads to an inevitable back-and-forth negotiation that I have preferred to avoid for the sake of the referee’s time. The codified negotiation presented above should give players what they’ve always wanted without placing undue burden on the referee. In fact, this system removes a great deal of the work the original method required from the ref.
My worry is that this method will be too free form. It will be difficult for me to walk the line between allowing my players to cast spells which are too powerful, and being too harsh with my failure chances.
The only way I can think of to mitigate this is to introduce some guidelines. As I understand it, the game “Ars Magica” does something like this. I’ve not read the system myself, but it sounds more complicated than I’d want to use for an OSR style game. My goal is always to create mechanics the referee can easily memorize.
I do want to give this idea a fair shake at the table, but my gut says this isn’t the kind of idea I’ll want to play with for very long. We will have to see.
I added Magic Words to one of my games but due to a handful of missteps on my part they were barely used at all, however one thing I did include was some impromptu casting. It was a while ago, but i think it was just a 2in6. On a success the spell did something I made up on the spot (that may or may not share the same effect if they fully researched the same spell). After that game, I was going to move change it so the player would roll similar to a Turn Undead roll, where the Hit Die of the creature was replaced with the Spell Level, but I never used that idea. I have finally found a level-less spell system (Knave) I can use practically so I will have to find out something else.
All of that being said, I’m curious if there’s a reason this on the fly casting isn’t slotted into your existing Spell Failure rules as another condition like bleeding or stealthy casting. Perhaps the GM could roll on one of the existing Spell Failure Table for spell that makes use of one of the component words.
This other system reminds me of Quirks in My Hero Academia, or Stands in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. In those settings, a person is granted all the potential power they can wield at Day 1, and it is up to them to use their power intelligently in order to win.
But while that is a good set up for an adventure, it is not really suited to the Magic-User class, in my opinion, which is best when the Wizard is running around, frantically sorting through the limited options they have in the hopes of finding something useful.
Have you updated Magic Words 2 at all in the past few years? I am very interested to hear what you’ve learned!
I have not. If memory serves, I concluded I wasn’t interested in developing further along these lines shortly after making this post. I moved on to Magic in the Moment, which I used for several years. Since then I’ve moved on to an as-yet-undocumented system that I call “Spellbreaker.” Though I’m not certain if that method will bear any fruit long term.
So far the system I’ve gotten the most enjoyment out of over the longest period is actually the original 2015 iteration of Magic Words. Though as of this writing I’m still working on Spellbreaker in one of my games, and the other uses Errant Rules as Written.