Magic move

Hi!
Next month my friends and I are probably going to run a game of "Dragon World", a hack of Apocalypse World we're thinking of lately. Well, it's more a re-colouring, not a deep hack. We like Apocalypse D&D and Dungeon World, but they don't have extactly the feeling we're searching for.

Anyway, to handle wizards' magic we were looking at John Harper's Eye of Chaos, but tonight I thought of a different system. We like the way magic is treated in that hack (well, at least in the document available on John's blog), but we were aiming at something more flexible. So I came up with this move:

When you're casting a spell, roll+will. On a success, you can make a basic move rolling+will instead of rolling+other stat. On a 10+, you have +1 forward. If you try to obtain something with violence {similar to seize by force in AW, but not the same} this way, the spell counts as a weapon (1-harm intimate/hand/close, and choose 2 options:
- the spell bypasses physical protections (+ap);
- the spell is particularly powerful (+1harm);
- the spell affects more than one person (+area);
- the spell has a long range (+far).)
If you try to influence someone {similar to manipulate someone} this way, the spell itself counts as leverage.

I'm not sure if this move is appropriate, tough; we haven't playtested it yet. What do you think?

Hi Matteo,

That's cool! I think though, that you could achieve the same effect without the time-consuming roll. For example:

Magic Spells
When you try to do something using magic, you do it. If it requires a move, roll +will instead of anything else. If it doesn't require a move, you're acting under fire instead.

Deadly Magic
Your magic spells count as a weapon, 1-harm hand/close, and choose one: +area, 2-harm, +far, +ap (Choose at the time you use it).

Hypnotic Magic
Your magic spells can count as leverage, when you influence someone.

As I see it, this solution retains everything from the previous version except the possibility of taking +1 forward, but it removes the requirement for a roll.

I think there's a danger that this move will make it easy to achieve things without a detailed description of what's happening in the fiction. "I'll just magic him so he gets out of the way" "I'll magic myself out of danger!" and so on. Beware!

Yes, the extra-roll was my main concern too, but it was the best I came up with; I can see it's not perfect and rolling too much dice may become boring.
I like your suggestion of removing it, but just letting use roll+will instead of every other move seems a little overpowered to me. That way, a wizard could just use magic for every roll.

Anyway, I don't think that a magic move structured this way could really let achieve things without description. As for every other move, to do it, do it; you have to describe how you use magic.
"I swing my hand in the air, casting an invisible spell of hypnosis" is fine with me, same as "I blink my eyes and immediately teleport myself away" or "I chant arcane words pointing a finger and a fireball explodes at the bottom of the hill".

PS: I think that there might be something wrong with the board. It said that this discussion was posted more than 120 days ago, while I posted it last night, and it noted as if Jeff Russell replied, but I can't see his post.

For comparison, here's the other magic move I came up with (thanks to Simon):

At the beginning of the session, hold 3 and roll+will. On a 10+, hold 5 instead. On a miss, you have -1ongoing until you spend all your hold.
Spend 1 hold to cast a spell: if it requires a basic move, roll+will instead of anything else; if it doesn't require a move, you're acting under pressure. If you try to obtain something with violence this way, the spell counts as a weapon (1-harm hand/close, and choose 2: +ap, +1harm, +area, +far, +intimate). If you try to influence someone this way, the spell counts as leverage.

I'm not sure about the "on a miss" part, and if 5 and 3 are good numbers, but I like it. It's based on hardholder's wealth and savvyhead's bonefeel.

We've been working on a fantasy world hack of AW for some time now, and one of the main issues we've been facing was doing magic and spells.

We've tried the way of rolling in the beginning and spending magic holds during the adventure, but it was eh. No fictional content while rolling or casting a spell, and disenchanted players when the roll was bad: they felt that they were robbed of their power for the entire session. Also we found that rolling on the spot instead of rolling in the beginning is a lot more fun, especially when it comes to misses.

Also a generic "cast a spell" move felt like, I don't know, mechanical, like a tool; instead of being magicky and inspiring. Especially as we've kept the broad scope of other moves, introducing casting as a separate move felt odd, like the turn-based combat was creeping back in or something.

The solution that seems to be ok for us unfortunately was more work. We came up with special (class) moves for each of our magic-user types, sometime more than one per class. For example we had something like an evil witch master: elemental magics and necromancy. Two of his moves:

Necromancy (Spell): Whenever I do the proper rituals in the graveyard, I can call a dead from its grave until sunrise. I roll+magic. On a 7-9, I can choose 1, on a 10+ I can choose 3:
  * the dead can talk
  * the dead can walk around on its own
  * the dead always obeys my commands
  * the dead moves around smoothly, as if it was alive
  * all dead bodies respond to my call, not just one

The Price of Power: Whenever I do magics, I can sacrifice somebody's health to strenghten it. I can choose to cause x-harm (even on myself) to get +x to my roll.

You can also combine magics with more mundate tasks. For example, in our hack some priests have some specific priestly gigs that they can run, but instead of 1-barter they get +1 to spell rolls when they did their duty to their patron god.

I would go for a different "feel" for magic for different classes, and also to at least give clues on the moves to tell what the character should DO. It would be easy for the DM to ask "so what are those rituals, exactly?".

Yes, I can see that the hold and spend method could be frustrating for a player.
Making every spell a move isn't too much focalized, though? Is it working for you?
I mean... Taking for example Necromancy (spell), it only lets you rise a dead. Which is extremely cool, but you can only have the move do it. It appears to me like, instead of Seize by force, in Apocalypse World you had Seize by punching. Basically, a move that you could use, but too much strict to be a general move.

Well, maybe it just depends on how much you want to focus on the details in the wording of the moves. I think I'd just like a more flexible magic system.
Or am I misunderstandig you?

Anyway, I think that making an entirely "school" of magic into a move could work for me. For example (these are plainly based on D&D):

Evoker: when you try to obatin something with violence casting a spell, roll+will instead of roll+fortitude. Your spell counts as a weapon (1-harm hand/close, and choose two: +ap, +1harm, +area, +far, +intimate).

or

Hypnotist: when you try to influence someone with a spell, roll+will instead of roll+charisma. The spell counts as leverage.

As a side note: this is just wizard's magic, not the same for every class. Clerics (or other classes) will have definetly something different.
I know these moves are very little color-specific, but I still don't get why this would lead to poor fiction. They seem very similar to the basic ones to me.

I think that you undestand me fine. The base setting we were adapting was not very rich in spells, certainly not in the range AD&D 2ed offers (the only D&D variant I am familiar with). We designed our spell moves to be somewhat generic, covering multiple spells by providing options for the player to choose from, but still not in the level you metioned in your latest post. Our spellcasters do not have the arsenal of spells a typical AD&D mage has.

We were explicitly avoiding the solution you used as an example in your last post though, and we did not like that in original AW either: to have a move that simply lets you to roll with a different stat for a basic move. I think that it makes the characters quite interchangeable. We were aiming to get spell moves that enable casters to do things nobody else can, and not to let them fight, persuade or do stuff the way other classes do (mechanically speaking).

I do not know if having generic spells necessarily leads to poor fiction, but it certainly did in our case. Our group had a very different thought process in the two cases. Most of the time, when a basic move came into play, it was like: 1. I do this and that. 2. Oh it sounds like going aggro. 3. Roll. Whereas while casting the spell, it was the other way around: you already knew the move you are making, and you either filled it with the details or did not bother to flesh it out. I understand that in theory this could happen with basic moves as well, or the GM can push for details, but it was not how it happened. It just felt different.

Also looking at the move you explain in your first post, it occurs to me that the options you have are all choices that affect the mechanics only, in a very tactical sense. None of them adds any clues to the fiction and none of them has deeper consequences. Most result options in the basic moves settle something quite strongly in the fiction. In other words I think that basic moves are quite generic in their input side, but they are quite concrete in the output side. I don't know, does this make sense?

Then again, the setting, the goals and the color we were aiming at might not be the ones you are looking for, and that's ok. I just wanted to explain the process we went through and I join my explanations to the bits and pieces you wrote.

Regards,
way
 

Thank you way, you are extremely helpful. I understand what you're saying.

I thought of the magic move(s) the way magic was intended in Ad&d: wizards who can cast a lot of different spells with broad applications. I simply didn't like the way it was handled in Ad&d, and I thought AW moves could serve better.
The fact that they are described mostly by mechanical parts is incidental, because (in the first wording of the move) magic simply redirected it to a basic one, thus making that important, not the magic per se. I think that that way it kept the basic conflict dynamics in AW, adding on the magic color layer to the fiction.

Anyway, I also like the idea of a set of more focalized spell moves, like in your campaign. It's just not what we were trying to achieve this time.
I think that at this point we'll simply have to test something on the field and, if I can't come up with a better idea, we'll probably try the "school" moves in my last post.

Thank you, way!

Here's a thought: whatever the "magic" moves you come up with, they don't replace any basic moves. Ever. They just change the fictional situation, and might snowball into or out any of the other moves in the game.

Example:
Instead of some sort of evocation that lets you roll magic when you go aggro or sieze by force, have a move like:

Evocation: when you summon the raw elements of nature, pick a tag like fire, lightning, cold, (etc.) and roll +Will. On 7-9 choose one, 10+ choose two.

• You can use it more than once
• It gains another tag: far, ap, area, or a second element
• It inflicts 2 harm instead of 1

On a miss, the MC makes a hard move.

(The move, then, makes a "weapon" that you can use to go aggro, sieze, or even as leverage over someone.)

Instead of using magic to roll +Will to read a person, have a move like:

Peer into soul: when you peer into someone's eyes, roll +Will. On a 7-9 hold 1, 10+ hold 3. Spend you hold 1 for 1 to ask the MC one of these questions. Take +1 forward when you act on the answer.

• What are they most ashamed of?
• What are they most afraid of?
• What are they hiding?

On a miss, the MC asks you a question.  Answer it truthfully.

The potential moves go on and on, but you can write them such that the "when you..." part requires some magicky description or flavor, and so that the result interacts with/responds to/leads into other moves rather than simply replacing them. They also don't need to be terribly narrow. I can image moves like when you transform someone's body with magic... or when you cast a spell of protection... that would be tremendously broad if properly worded.

End result = more flavor, more creative thinking, and the basic moves remaining more or less in tact.

Maybe this is not different than what anyone else said, but I felt the need to say it myself.