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| Magic is a powerful force in most Fantasy Games as it is
a pretty open-ended access to unusual powers. In order for non-Magic Using
characters to remain viable, some form of Control Factors should be in
effect to help maintain game balance. |
| There are a number of types of Control Factors that
might be employed to bound a Magic System's potential for imbalance. |
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| The following list of Control Factors
that a GM should consider when designing a Magic System is not exhaustive,
but is intended to help a GM balance their Magic System(s) for play. A Magic
System does not have to have Control Factors, but almost all have
at least one and many have
several types of Control Factors at varying levels of severity. |
| All Control Factors are equally legitimate and can also
all be used together. The goal when designing a Magic System is to use the
Control Factors that make sense for that particular Magic System's design
and intended flavor. It is important however to not over do it; if you make
a Magic System with too many Control Factors, you are effectively crippling
it and few if any people will want to play Characters that are practitioners
of that Magic System. |
| OPPORTUNITY COST CONTROL |
| Alternately called an "overhead
cost", this Control Factor is one of the most direct means of keeping Magic Systems on a
short leash. The Real Cost of all
Magic abilities and related enablers such as required Skills, Talents,
associated Powers, etc total to a sum which the Character pays and most GM's
give it no further thought that that. |
| However it is important to understand that the
Character Points a particular Character has paid for the privilege of using
a particular type of Magic have a hidden cost as well in the form of all the
other abilities that the Character could have bought with those same
points. This is the Opportunity Cost of the Magic System. |
| In some Magic Systems a Character just pays for the
abilities they have while other Systems even grant a discount. That sort of
Magic System does not have this type of Control Factor. Other Magic Systems
have some overhead in the form of mandatory or optional but practically
necessary ancillary abilities, lack of access to Power Frameworks to defray
costs, required minimum buy ins, and similar mechanisms designed to
consume more Character Points than strictly necessary. |
| Requiring one or more Power Skill
rolls associated with the learning or use of Magic abilities, or requiring
access Talents to gain access to Magic abilities are both straightforward
ways of working in "hidden costs" into a Magic System. As a side note, VPP's
already have an Opportunity Cost worked into them via the aptly named
"Control Cost" mechanism, so be sure to consider that factor when deciding
whether or not a VPP based Magic System has a sufficiently high Opportunity
Cost. |
| Magic Systems that have severe Opportunity Costs often
need little else to keep them in check as practitioners of such have few
points remaining to over-excel. |
| VOLUME AND FREQUENCY CONTROL |
| Some Magic Systems have specific limits on the number of
distinct Magic
Abilities they may have, and/or the volume of distinct uses of Magic Abilities they may use
in a given span of time. Obviously a Magic System that has abilities that
are only usable a certain number of times per day, or that can only have one
or a few effects active at once, or both is much more hampered than a Magic
System that has effortless and unlimited usage of Magic. |
| This is probably the most common means of controlling
Magic Users used in Fantasy RPG's as a whole, and this is a concept most
players are already familiar with in some form or another. |
| An example of this of course is the classic X/Day/Spell
Level mechanic of xD&D, but other games feature similar constraints such
as finite Mana points, Fatigue
levels, Quintessence, Vim, and other widgets that limit what practitioners
of a particular type of Magic can do, and / or how often they can do it. |
| In the end, any system where a de facto practical limit on the
total number of
uses of Magical Abilities during some span of time is enforced are all examples of this
type of Control Factor. |
| The HERO System offers several
mechanics that can be used to good effect for this type of Control Factor at
varying levels of severity. At the most severe a mandatory very small number
of Charges on Powers can be used to ensure a low Volume and Frequency.
Slightly less severe is requiring Endurance costs from personal Endurance,
which will ensure that a Magic User can use their abilities many times
during the day, but only a limited number of times in a short period of time
(such as combat) due to getting fatigued. |
| A Magic System that allows an Endurance Reserve, but
places limits on how large it can be has a milder form of Volume & Frequency
Control. Long Term Endurance, and the unusual Delayed Effect Advantage
provide yet more options in this area. |
| Magic Systems that allow a large number of Charges or a
large Endurance Reserve or 0 END abilities are likely not constrained much
by Volume or Frequency. |
| RELIABILITY CONTROL |
| Some Magic Systems are hampered by requirements that
make them intrinsically unreliable. This Control Factor works to check a
Magic System on two levels. On the one level the practitioners of such a
Magic System are demonstrably less effective due to statistical vagaries of
success and failure. On another level the lack of certainty, opportunity for
wasted actions, and the fear of catastrophic failure at critical moments
often has an intangible effect on how practitioners of such Magic Systems
are played; a much more conservative and cautious playing style often
develops in direct relation to just how unreliable the Magic System is. |
| The HERO System contains two essential
mechanics that can be used to good effect for this type of control,
Activation and Requires a Skill Roll in all their various permutations. |
| Whether Magic sometimes simply
fizzles for no particular reason (Activation Roll), is based on some primal force of Chaos
(Requires a Luck Roll), requires the constant
appeasement of some higher entity (RSR: Faith), or is just a very intricate process that
has to be executed in exactly the correct fashion or conceptualized
perfectly (RSR: Power Skill), or some other nuance that introduces the
chance of failure when using Magic are all samples of a form of Reliability Control. |
| Many GM's automatically assume this sort of Control
Factor is a given when playing Fantasy HERO, perhaps since previous editions
featured a Magic System that relied upon such a mechanism. However this is
not the case, and GM's should evaluate the assumption to ensure that if they
are enforcing a form of Reliability Control it is for a reason and not just
"because". |
| Some players like the "feel" of Skill Rolls when working
Magic. For some it gives them a feeling of accomplishment or success. Others
like the dramatic tension involved in never knowing if their Character can
successfully pull something off; the anxiety of failure and ensuing feeling
of elation upon success can be a powerful combination. Others like the
ability to invest character points into a specific Spell (or equivalent) and
to have their Character's mastery of a particular Spell be notable. |
| On the other hand some other players decidedly do not
like the "feel" of Reliability Controls. Such players want their abilities
to work consistently and to be able to make and execute specific plans of
action without having to worry about wasting actions or suffering failures
at critical junctures. Such players often would rather have some other form
of Control Factor, even if it were actually more severe overall and if the
only Magic Systems available to the setting rely on Reliability Controls
such players will usually just not play practitioners of those Magic
Systems. |
| APPLICABILITY CONTROL |
| Some Magic Systems specifically define what they can and
cannot be applied to or used to do in metaphysical terms, while in other
cases such restrictions are defined as part of the setting and are equally
applicable to all means to power as Campaign Groundrules. |
| For instance if a Magic System cannot do certain things like
bring back the dead, travel to or open portals to other dimensions, allow
people to fly unassisted, or other such blanket restrictions this is a form of
Applicability
Control. Similarly if a specific Magic System grants abilities or access to
Magic only while a practitioner qualifies for a certain yes/no status or acts
in accordance to some particular code of behavior, this is also a form of
Applicability Control as there will be things a practitioner cannot apply
their Magic to due to such hindrances. |
| In the HERO System there are many
ways to go about putting some form of Applicability Control into effect on a
Magic System. One
such method that many GM's are familiar with is the HERO System 4th Edition "allowable Powers" method, where a GM
indicates which Hero System base Powers are allowable to build Magical
effects upon. |
| Another method of applicability is Reason-from-Effect
based, wherein the GM indicates what end effects or SFX are and are not
possible regardless of the actual base Powers used to accomplish such
effects. For instance a GM might state that a Magic System cannot pierce
dimensional boundaries, and thus no ability with an SFX that involves doing
so would be possible for that Magic System. |
| In some more extreme cases, an Applicability Control
might require the application of "Limited Power" Limitations to their
individual abilities indicating that such abilities can only be used in
certain circumstances. |
| Applicability Control effectively work as a Control
Factor by narrowing the breadth of a Magic System. |
| IMPACT CONTROL |
| Some Magic Systems are inherently risky or outright
dangerous to their practitioners, while others have in-game effects
which are undesirable, expensive, or otherwise deleterious to a practitioner
in some way. In short, if there is some kind of measurable repercussion to
using the abilities of a Magic System whether they be inherent or social in
nature, that Magic System can be said to have an Impact Control. |
| Any Magic System where the practitioner
suffers some long term effect or there is a risk or certainty of collateral
damage, or the practitioner must enter into some kind of bargain or contract
to work Magic, or use of Magic abilities has some severe cost such as
requiring expensive and/or difficult to obtain components which are consumed in the
process of using the Magic, or ostracism and persecution are all examples of
Impact Controls. |
| This type of restriction can take
many forms in the HERO System, ranging from Side Effects, mandatory expendable Foci,
even Susceptibilities to ones one Magic Powers via the Susceptibility
Disadvantage, and so on; however in many cases
this type of Control Factor is also a feature of the setting and is applied
liberally by the GM at their discretion independent of anything on a
Character's sheet. This might take the form of an organization that
persecutes Magic Users, public sentiment, or even a custom house-ruled
mechanic for something like the Paradox concept from Mage the Ascension or
Quiet from Ars Magica. |
| ACQUISITION & ACCESS CONTROL |
| Some Magic Systems limit the number
of Magic abilities a Magic User may have, or control the manner in which a
Magic User may gain new abilities, or have a fixed/set list of pre-built
Power Constructs which is not expandable. |
| Systems with specific number limits
upon Magic abilities, or that require elaborate study periods with Characteristic or
Skill Rolls to learn a new Magic ability, or allow a
specific set list of allowed pre-built Power Constructs and no others are all
affected by a form of
Acquisition Control. |
| This type of control is mostly
a meta-game affair, determined by guidelines put into place by the GM. For
instance a GM might
write up a list of Magic abilities for a given Magic System and simply
mandate that list comprises the sum total of what is possible with that
Magic System. |
| Similarly a GM might say that a Character may only know
or have
access to a number of Spells (or equivalent) equal to their INT score, or that a
practitioners of a particular Magic System must learn Magic
abilities to a "Known List" via a period of study time and with a
required Skill or Characteristic Roll, or other
forms of limiting the freedom with which a practitioner acquires new
abilities. |
| Similarly some Magic Systems are not easily
accessible, require some special quality to use, or individual Magic
abilities are not freely available and must be garnered from finite and
difficult to find/use sources, or might require instruction which is only
attainable by bartering with others for instance. |
| Any Magic System where a person must
be born with the propensity for Magic, must be taught at a veritable handful
of difficult-to-get-into establishments or individual mentors who only take
a limited number of apprentices aver the course of their lifetime, or where
Magic abilities must each be learned from rare tablets or tomes which are difficult
to find and jealously guarded, a system where each Magic User has one
native ability and can only get more abilities by slaying other Magic Users,
or any other system that deliberately restricts the ability to gain new Magic
abilities is
under a form of Acquisition & Access Control. |
| There are several ways to impose Acquisition & Access
Control in the HERO System such as requiring Custom Talents that allow access to Magic
abilities, using a form of Independent on
Magic abilities to make them "take-able", simply by controlling
the number of outlets for Magical Knowledge, and so forth. In the end this method of control
is largely a factor of the setting and how prevalent the GM makes
opportunities for Characters to come into contact with new Magic abilities. |
| CASTABILITY CONTROL |
| Some Magic Systems have guidelines
regarding how a practitioner cast or otherwise turn on Magical abilities. A Magic System
might require
a practitioner to pre-select a list of Magic abilities available to them for a
given day ahead of time, for instance. A Magic Systems might also place restrictions on the
how and / or where of
Magic ability usage; some Magic Systems might require a group of people to
use some or all of its abilities, or allow usage only in certain places, or at
certain times, or combinations thereof. |
| Perhaps the most common sort of this type of Control
Factor, some Magic Systems have mandatory Limitations such as Incantations,
Gestures, Concentration, or similar which contrive to make it more difficult
for a practitioner to activate their abilities. Magic Systems that don't
allow the wearing of Armor or similar proscriptions that prevent or hamper
the activation of Magic abilities also have a form of Castability Control. |
| There are many ways of applying
this sort of Control to a Magic System in the HERO System; any such
requirements are usually simply indicated as arbitrary terms of use in
descriptions of Magic Systems that have such a Control. |
| POINT CAP CONTROL |
| A very potent meta-game approach to imposing a Control
Factor to a Magic System is to simply impose a Point Cap Control. In some
cases this might take the form of an Active Point cap, in others a Real Cost
cap, and in others effect or damage or "Rule of X" caps can be set as well. |
| Such caps can consist of a flat value applied to
all Magic abilities, a cap determined formulaically (such as Total Character
Points/3 or 5 or some other formula), or something more nuanced and complicated such as a
system whereby several different types of Magic have varying AP Caps based
upon SFX or type of Power. |
| There is a subtle difference between Real Cost, Active
Point, and Effect caps. A Magic System with a Real Cost cap allows Magical
abilities with potentially very high Active Points and will have a much more
diverse range of power levels among effects; the higher the Active Points
the more limited the effect has to be to get the Real Cost below the cap.
Magic Systems with Active Point caps tend to ceiling up to the Active Point
cap and have a lot of abilities with roughly the same Active Points, but
very divergent Real Costs. Rule of X, Damage and Effect caps tend to
stratify artificially, with a handful of efficient builds designed to
interact with the cap(s) in different ways; this can lead to some Character
designs that only makes sense within the context of the cap(s) in effect. |
| Point Caps work by putting boundaries on the
effectiveness of Magical abilities. They can be used very successfully to
control a Magic Systems overall effect, but they also have several
significant cons and will have a tendency to mutate prevailing mores of
character design for the setting as players will naturally craft their
Characters to work around the restrictions. Due to human nature there will
also likely be a tendency for
a Point Cap to eventually become the de facto minimum as players will tend
to design abilities that all seem to have exactly as many points as the
Point Cap allows. |