Session 2, Monologue 7: Making Magic

I've got a theory. It seems that the most important facet of magic is also the least diverse, and receives the least amount of design effort in System 6: utility.

No matter how many versions of Fireball you can cast, you're still basically just doing what any fighter or ranger can do: attacking someone with a ranged weapon. Whereas, no fighter can fly, teleport, become invisible, read someone's mind, or turn his opponent into stone.

The existence of these utilities, and the tendency for certain classes to have a monopoly on one or two of them (not to mention for each to have their own flavor in achieving them) is key to a good magic system. You don't want to ladle it on too thick, or give the classes too much overlap, but really, no amount of overkill is as bad as not having enough utility.

Nobody plays d20 modern, and it's because there's no utility magic.

And it's funny, too; there's scarcely a thing mages can do that modern technology can't. However, there's still plenty of room in terms of convenience, efficiency, and raw coolness factor for mages to excel over average joes. For instance, anyone can get up, walk over to the light switch, and flick it, but wouldn't you rather use the force? In many ways, it's for stupid shit like that that we dream of using magic.

This is to say nothing of the limitations of modern technology. In a combat-heavy scenario (like any game of D&D, d20 Modern, etc), people are going to get hurt. Modern medicine is neat, but woefully underequipped to handle six or seven gunshot wounds per encounter. Magic would clear that right up. In that scenario, it's doing what it has primarily been reduced to in the modern world: rather than making things possible, it's just making them faster.

This seeming reduction in the usefulness of magic hardly makes it less desirable. Who wouldn't want magic in today's hectic world? Teleporting to work? Eating an illusion of a Big Mac instead of the real, fattening thing? Charming the cute girl at work instead of overcoming shyness, wooing her with a dozen dates, and having to put up with her when you find out there's more to love than physical attraction and the chase?

Well, here's the thing: in the future, we're going to have magic.

It's inevitable. We're perfecting wireless technology. We're working on home automation. We're making input devices for computers that can read your thoughts. We're mastering nanotechnology, genetics, and medicine.

We'll get there. Give us 1,000 years, and we'll exceed our wildest expectations.

So where does magic fit in?

If we assume technology is such that a fighter can fly, he can turn invisible, and he can be healed instantly of his battle wounds, then why would there be classes? Wouldn't said fighter just purchase the technologies he needs and use them, thus becoming the fighter, the mage, and the healer all in one?

Well, the answer may lie in the very thing we aspire to achieve in Homeworlds: verisimilitude.

As technology has improved, we've seen a clear tendency for it to become harder to use. No matter how hard engineers try to improve user experience, inevitably features outpace usability. Even simple appliances like microwaves, washing machines, and toasters, who have not benefitted from any substantial upgrades to their underlying technology in the last 30 years, have become complex enough that most home consumers barely use 10% of their features.

This is to say nothing of computers. No matter how many Apple engineers push usable interfaces, the difference between what a tech geek can get out of a computer vs. what an average Joe can do continues to widen. An iPhone, usable by any old 7-year-old, can do 10 times more in the hands of a professional computer programmer.

Specialization is the name of the game, and has been since the Industrial Revolution (and arguably earlier). Nobody can possibly learn every skill, no matter how badly they need to. Today's soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan carry a lot of technology onto the battlefield; though they're all trained at length in its use, I'm betting there are plenty of problems in the field, some caused by their own lack of expertise, most (the vast majority, I would guess) caused by a mismatch between the device's intended use in comfy labs back home and the use for which it is necessitated by battlefield realities.

When we imagine futuristic technologies, we assume they'll be super-easy to use. Phasers have a simple "stun" setting that works on any target, with a 0% chance to kill them and a 100% chance to stun, regardless of alien physiology, armor, etc. Do you suppose it would really work that way? Look at the service history of tasers, and now add alien races, robots, power armor, cybernetic implants, etc, and it becomes easier to imagine a fighter struggling to make the most of his complicated space weapon.

Whereas, a tech geek would kick ass with gadgets. He would know how best to calibrate his phaser. He would know how to tune his jetpack so it isn't an uncontrollable suicide machine. He would know how to use his hacking device to unlock the super-secure doors of the enemy installation. He's not as good with a rifle as the fighter, but he's got his uses.

There's definitely room for specialization; at a bare minimum, I can see a clear separation between soldiers, medics, tech geeks, scouts, and perhaps those who specialize in more exotic combat forms (heavy weapons guy, demolitionist, melee fighter, etc).

But would that be enough classes?

A better question might be: why aren't there more classes? The answer: power sources.

Traditional D&D fantasy worlds rely strongly on the concept of power sources. It all began with the begrudging addition of magic to the otherwise realistic world of Chainmail. Suddenly, instead of real life as the model the rules were trying to approximate, you're now just making shit up. How do fireballs work in real life? Invisibility? Who cares? It became about creating a balanced system, not about simulating reality. (And as we saw, decades later, they're only just barely beginning to zero in on it)

One magic-user soon became two, with the addition of the Cleric, then three, with the Druid. By the time of System 6, you've got arcane magic, pact magic, witchcraft, primal magic, divine magic, psionics, etc, etc. In the current age of D&D-style fantasy worlds, every class wants to have a completely unique power source, with its own quirks, idiosyncrasies, and all-around flavor. No one expects one to better better than another--quite the opposite, in fact--but they do want clear flavor barriers between classes.

I just don't see that happening in a modern or sci-fi system.

Sure, a tech guy with a PhD will have an easier time modding his X7-P2B Laser Assault Rifle than his soldier buddy, who's better at hitting with it. But it's not like the soldier ''can't use the rifle, or the scout can't use the RDX-45 auto grenade launcher, or the medic can't'' pick up a bazooka.

A modern or sci-fi system would be better suited to have a robust skill/perk system, like Oblivion/Fallout, GURPS, or every non-d20 RPG ever, than to rely on a traditional class-based system. Rules aside, the word "class" has more than one meaning in D&D; it's an essential part of the D&D experience for, say, mages to look down on fighters, for fighters to poo-poo the survivability of rogues, etc. Medieval Europe was a more discriminatory place than the modern world. In the future, I expect people won't want to be considered merely an instance of their class or profession, but a nuanced, complex individual with many skills and talents.

And why? It all comes back to the point about power sources. There aren't really multiple different power sources in a modern or sci-fi world. Technology is everything. You can specialize, but you can theoretically master it all, if you survive long enough to learn all there is to know, and learn fast enough to outpace technological growth. There are no natural barriers between different classes when there is only one power source.

But what if there were more?

Truly, no setting would be complete without appropriate magic. No big sci-fi franchise has ever truly divorced itself from magic. Star Wars had The Force, Babylon 5 had psychics, Stargate had mysterious aliens, and even Star Trek had random people with random powers (Insurrection, anyone?). There's a pile of precedent so high that I would fully expect players to be disappointed with a sci-fi setting, however realistic, that contained no supernatural powers.

The first and most obvious one is psionics, of course. Homeworlds has already breached that barrier; Abelites have their little Institute pumping out Mentats, and some of them, especially lately, seem to have transcended all physical reality. Is it truly supernatural, or just extraordinary? That depends on taste; System 6's Psychic Warriors, bereft of any overt psionic powers, and left only with their Focus and Hypercognition abilities, are believable as genetically-enhanced super-soldiers, and quite fun to play, too. The overt powers are just a plus.

But before getting into a long debate about whether to use physical or metaphysical psionics, we must ask: can the system get by with two, and only two power sources? Of course it can't. So then, what other ones might exist?

Another source that's been explored is a sort of shamanistic spirit magic endemic to the Arcor and Etar, and some of the more mystical clans of the Talar, all Sporelings. Basically, it's a kind of Avatar thing; since the Spore lives not only in them, but in practically every plant and animal on their home worlds, it's feasible that they might have some kind of control over natural life if they learn to harness that connection. And of course, the Spore gives them access to ancestral memories. Need to become an expert at sword-fighting? Why train for 10,000 hours when you can channel your distant ancestor, who was a grand-master at it?

An interesting magic, and one that could also occupy either side of the supernatural threshold. I'm liking the pattern.

What else ya got? Well, there's cybernetics; it's not exactly magic, but it's a fine power source, as it's truly unavailable to those who don't dive in feet-first, and obviously most available to full robots. You can do a fuck of a lot with cybernetics; it can get a little confused with technology, but then, you could say the same for Artificers vs. Engineers or even Fighters vs. Blacksmiths. There's definitely a line.

Cybernetics is, of course, totally plausible without leaving the confines of physics. That's 2 "real" magics and one perfectly good 3rd power source. Still not enough for even a single party. What else ya got?

There's the possibility of Divine Magic. I've always wanted to do something with a religion that was based on a giant computer. Maybe the Zionists stole the What-If Machine and worship it as a god or something. Maybe it's alien technology. In any case, it deliberately takes a mystical form to enhance the religious aspects, and the fact that it's secretly controlled by a cabal of "priests" who are well aware that it's actually a computer means that a small council of Cardinals really can excommunicate wayward priests from the faith.

I'm picturing golden light, angelic voices, and a whole lot of flavor in this one. Why? Because it's all a sham, of course, but there's just enough room for doubt: after all, the computer came from an alien source and fulfills the wishes of the faithful...could it not be God? Like the Protoss, I see the Zionists as being more into the Prophet than the old, obsolete concept of "God". BSG proved how annoying God is in space, but Aiur is pretty badass, actually.

Okay, we're closing in, and we still haven't broken the laws of physics, necessarily. Let's keep it coming.

We haven't really done aliens yet. Well, the Divine might be from aliens, and the Spore is definitely an alien, but you know what I mean. What about darkness? Somebody's gotta be bad, offering easy power for the unscrupulous...otherwise, you wouldn't have an analog for warlocks. And I've got just the alien: Earthlings.

The Earthlings have unknown technology. They project into mortal hosts--robots are cool, too, but they can't just come here, they need a host. Just like demons. And the combined symbiotic lifeform has access to forbidden knowledge. Just like a warlock. As one of the world's Big Bads, they're allowed to have technology that breaks the rules and doesn't offer explanations. It doesn't have to be overtly magical, just beyond the reach of those who aren't willing to consort with the enemy. Warp fields, personal teleporting, hostile biometabolism, etc.

It should definitely have a dark theme. The theme of the Earthgate drones seemed to be Chaos; that is, they were a mass of drones with no set form, no discernible order, whose goal seemed to be nothing nobler than the consumption and destruction of all life and civilization. Pretty much like demons. Instead of fire (a pretty uncommon site in the sterile buildings and outer-space environments of sci-fi), their favored weapon is dissolution. Disintegration, for some reason, comes in green in D&D, and that's just perfect; it's an eerie color, easily associated with scary aliens, and has done well for itself when wielded by demons in certain Worlds of Warcraft.

Of course, the special move of the Earthgate Drones was possession; they could hack any ship, any automaton, even people with too many cybernetic implants (and now, it seems, even those without any at all). Thus, they can totally pull off a pet class; just dominate some robot, tank, or what-have-you, teleport it in from mystical voidspace, and you've got your warlock. And we still haven't crossed the line into blatant, weird magic. Neat, huh?

And that's not all. I can think of one more. An obvious one we seem to have overlooked: mutation.

Obviously, even the most wild mutations caused by genetic tinkering won't amount to much. Sure, you can make a super-sized human with chitinous scales that shoots spider silk out of his butt, but...why? Technology does exist, after all. Nobody sane would bother. But then, it's not someone sane I'm thinking of.

There are weird abductors out there. Nobody knows who they are. Most people pretend they don't exist. Core Worlders assume they don't. But they're real. They take you, they do experiments on you...sometimes you don't come back, and sometimes you do. Some of the survivors don't remember, some do. Some are normal, and some...some are too horrible to behold.

These weird aliens (who are probably just crazy Reaver humans, like the ones from Colony Ship 5) are in space, performing deliberate mutations on humans. Perhaps they're doing it to find a way to reverse their own terrible mutations. Who knows. I'm picturing some bastard child of the creation of the Zerg, a role reversal of the experiments on prawns in District 9, and of course butt-probing grays. I'm seeing a wide range of mutations, anything from being blatantly monstrous to having a weird alien laser embedded in your arm. The power source is clear: alien mutations. Very biological, very H.R. Gieger, and thus quite distinct from the others.

Perhaps these weird aliens recently made themselves known. They are, in fact, ex-humans, survivors of the Ship 5 disaster. Most of their kind were warped, horribly, but a few were sane, and they have managed to earn their right to integrate (very slightly) into society by joining the Foundation in the fight to save the Homeworlds. Perhaps their alien technology helped turn the tide.

Almost certainly, most people revile them. They remind me of the ghouls in Fallout. Maybe they aren't all that gross. Whatever the case, they're gross enough that most people don't want to be anything like them. But they've got powers. At least the lucky ones do. They can use weird alien technology. They might be resistant to radiation, or disease. They might have a healing factor. Who knows? The possibilities are limitless.

It's gross, but it's a thing. And we *still* haven't crossed the overt metaphysics line.

Of course, all of these weird powers are very, very, rare. Some 1% of Abelites have the aptitude even to apply to the Institute, and a true, rule-bending psion is one in a million. The shamanistic arts of the Arcor are a nearly dead art, practiced only by the noble families at the head of the ancient clans, a mere handful of the mass of Sporelings. Not many among the Zionists commands a significant talent for the Divine, as little is needed to truly awe the unfaithful masses (modern Gods use a light touch). There are, thankfully, very few individuals possessed by Earthling invaders.

They also have something magic doesn't in traditional fantasy: an explanation as to why they're so rare. In D&D, one wonders why Kings and nobles don't have mages and priests on hand to protect them from everything except the dreaded "your time is up" death, to grant them the same extraordinary powers that PCs enjoy, rendering them immune to all but the most determined magical attacks by armies of 20th-level invaders. No King could possibly be overtaken by a band of 6th-level evil adventurers, because he'd hire a band of 12th or 18th-level adventurers to kick their ass. And thus, the drama is ruined.

In Homeworlds, all of these weird powers (with one exception, which I'll get to) are considered irrelevant to the powers that be. Who has need of a shaman when you can just hire a gardener to plant genetically-perfect flowers and vegetables for your garden? What's the point of a Divine healer, when you have doctors who can fill you with healing nanobots by pressing a button in their comfy office 6,000 miles away? And for Heaven's sake, who would want a mutant or warlock anywhere near them?

Of course, psychics are damn useful. Technology be damned; reading someone's mind, and being able to influence it, is just awfully, awfully useful in business and politics. And of course, the responsible thing for the Institute would do would be to police its own, or at least provide registered telepaths to those of means, to protect them against hostile telepathy. Naturally, the Empires would ban telepaths from holding public office, being CEOs, etc.

You know what? Magic really can make a sci-fi setting more fun.