In designing the magic system for Prismatic Wasteland, my science fantasy system, I wanted spellcasting to be flexible, fast and fascinating. Actually, I strive for everything in the game to hit those marks, but it is easier to achieve for, say, representing the swing of a sword, than it is calling forth supernatural powers to accomplish any number of otherwise impossible tasks. I can’t simply say “I removed the ‘to-hit’ roll” and call it a day, like one easily can for combat. Prismatic Wasteland’s magic system has stayed relatively stable since I started working on it back in 2020, but it’s evolved slowly as I try to address various issues with it. Let me take you on a bit of a journey.

Magical Beginnings

Freebooters on the Frontier 2e was an early system that sparked my imagination. In fact, my second blog post of all time (one of THE blog posts of all time, honestly), described how I was then adapting (or perhaps yoinking) the spellcasting system from that game for a UVG campaign. Let’s allow myself from 3 Christmases ago describe it:

“Prismatic Wasteland’s magic system is heavily ripped off from Jason Lutes’ 2nd Edition Freebooters on the Frontier (still in process but already one of my favorite systems). In his words [author’s note: in a now-deleted forum post], he developed that magic system ‘after a weekend lost to [his] first read-through of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth stories, and depends upon randomly-generated spell names.’ The gist is that spells are randomly generated and their name helps to suggest what the spell does, but the magic user spend points from their Intelligence score to define what exactly it does.”

- Myself, “Parenthood among the Porcelain Palaces”, Prismatic Wasteland (December 2020)

However, one of my favorite parts of the prototypical RPG design process (i.e., steal and adapt), is how the adaptations and mutations of a stolen rule causes it to slot more into its ecological niche. My own system is still a recognizable descendant of Freebooters, but now perhaps its plumage is a different hue, its beak is longer and narrower, et cetera. I personally love tracking the evolution of TTRPG rules and systems (maybe why I found this post on OSR Rules Families from my colleague, Marcia of the Traverse Fantasy blog, so compelling), but you may be slightly less obsessed, so I will cut to the chase and present first my updated spellcasting rules then I’ll pontificate on why these rules rule and the many pitfalls I have cleared during their development.

Dare You Enter My Magical Realm?

Anyone can cast a Spell if they can fit it in their head. To cast a Spell, that Spell must be an Idea in the spellcaster’s Memory, and the spellcaster must not be wearing Medium or Heavy Armor, unless they have the Battlemage Feat.

To cast a Spell, the spellcaster first defines how they want to Spell to manifest within the scope of the Spell’s name. 

To define how the Spell manifests, the Hero picks an Effect, Range, and Area for the Spell and rolls the Spell Die for each aspect. The highest result of the Spell Dice is the amount of Intelligence that the spellcaster must spend to cast the Spell.

When at least two Spell Dice are rolled, compare the results with the following table to determine whether the Spell behaves as intended. Any questions raised by the table are answered through conversation with the Arbiter. 

Spellcasting typically requires both Actions, but a combatant can cast a Spell in a single Action by rolling an additional d6 Spell Die for the Spell.

Most Spells are instantaneous, but if the Arbiter agrees that a Spell’s effects can persist, then the spellcaster can choose to maintain the Spell by spending 1 Intelligence per Turn (and at least 1 Action if the Turns are Situation Turns). Additionally, whenever a Risk Die results in Depletion, the spellcaster must spend 1 Intelligence to maintain the Spell or else allow its effect to end.

The Quadratic Wizard Problem

“If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly, or the referee is forced to change the game into a new framework which will accommodate what he has created by way of player-characters. It is the opinion of this writer that the most desirable game is one in which the various character types are able to compete with each other as relative equals, for that will maintain freshness in the campaign.”

- Gary Gygax, “The D&D Magic System”, The Strategic Review, Vol. II, No. 2 (April 1976)

Although Gygax didn’t coin the phrase “Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards”, this particular issue of inter-class balance is as old as the hobby itself. As Gygax said elsewhere, a 20th-level fighter is Achilles, but a 20th-level magic-user is Zeus. I won’t pretend that I totally have solved this issue–there is nothing one can do with a sword that can match the most powerful of magics. But I do at least adequately address it with opportunities and constraints. In Prismatic Wasteland, there are no classes. All characters can cast spells if they have them. However, the same process that allows a Strength-based fighter type character access to limited magical abilities is the process that constrains the magical potential of an Intelligence-based wizard type character. 

Any spellcaster may perform a miracle if they are prepared to die. Just a single d20 Spell Die presents a chance of death for even a max-level wizard with maxed-out (20) Intelligence, and a greater chance for lesser minds. But it remains always an option, Chekhov's Spell, ready to upend a campaign. Some games represent progression for a spellcaster by increasing the power of all their spells across the board, but I think that OD&D got it right (likely inspired by Dying Earth and all its lesser and greater spells) with a range of spell powers where wizards can cast a dwindling handful of each. 

My system accomplishes something similar, where greater spells cost more from the limited resource of Intelligence than lesser ones but is more flexible. It also allows unlimited close-range cantrips (although these only do about as much damage as a mundane short sword). Moderate Magic affecting an Adjacent Zone (basically a ranged attack) and the Entire Zone is essentially a fireball equivalent and, on average, costs slightly less than 5 points of Intelligence. A supreme archmage could hope to cast such a spell 4 times, on average, without rest, but your average mage could typically manage 2. Magic is powerful, but limited. Whereas mundane combat is less powerful, but nearly limitless.

The Soft-Boiled Problem

In an earlier treatise on magic systems, I identify Prismatic Wasteland as implementing a “soft-coded” magic system. (A colleague, Ava Islam of the Permanent Cranial Damage blog, advised that I should have used hard-boiled and soft-boiled in that post to go with its overall food analogy, and I agree, so I think of it now as being soft-boiled rather than soft-coded.) A soft-boiled magic system “allow[s] a spell to have different effects each time it is cast, all within the umbrella of the spell name.” 

Soft-boiled magic has its detractors. Although this offers tremendous flexibility, the concerns with this system is that (1) it pushes more responsibility to the referee than a system that lists predefined spells would, and (2) it may take longer. With respect to the first issue, I try to offer guidance and guidelines for the Prismatic Wasteland referee (“Arbiter”) to use, the current draft of which is reproduced below, but more importantly, I believe in the Arbiter’s ability to make the right call because whatever call they make will be the right one. Prismatic Wasteland has plenty of rules (it is, after all, a system of rules for use in a game), but I try to suffuse it with the classic OSR ethos of Rulings, Not Rules.

The same Spell may have different effects every time it is cast. The primary consideration is that the Spell’s effect must always fall within the umbrella of the Spell’s name and a reasonable interpretation thereof. Spellcasters should strive for creative experimentation with their Spells.

Determining whether a casting is, for instance, Minor Magic or simply a Cantrip is a process of negotiation. The spellcaster says how they want the Spell to behave based on an interpretation of its name. The Arbiter decides whether that is a fair interpretation or is too much of a stretch. If the interpretation is reasonable, the Spell may be cast. The Arbiter may lower the level of Effect if the casting is narrowly tailored to match the Spell’s name or may raise the level of Effect if the casting is more loosely connected to the name. The Arbiter determines the level of Effect for the casting  in consultation with the following table.

“This is too time consuming, too complicated,” the simultaneously annoying and wrong voice in my head grumbles. The voice is, of course, wrong, but I keep it locked up in my head because of how often it provides a useful framing device for my arguments. The process described above does consume some time but so does having to look up your spell in a book, reading what it does and interpreting it each time anew–this process isn’t typically considered part of the system itself but it absolutely is. The way you have to use the system is part of the system. Eventually someone playing a game with preset spells comes to memorize what they all do, but similarly in Prismatic Wasteland, the Arbiter will eventually get much better at quickly integrating this framework (and for simpler spells that just have a mechanical effect, like dealing damage, not much work is needed beyond picking an effect level). The difference in how time consuming this is versus other D&Dalike magic systems is negligible. 

But the time spent is more engaging under this system than the preset-spell-lookup method. Here, the player and Arbiter have to negotiate and debate a bit, with other players often chiming in to give their thoughts. For me, the conversation, the debates, the theorizing and making jokes, this stuff is the juice of the game. So it isn’t just a noxious byproduct of the spell system, the spell system makes the session more fun and engaging for everyone at the table. The wizard’s player is trying to decide what a good use for their “Smoke of Time” spell is and another player suggests what if you could make smoke clouds that form images for what happened in the last hour and another player says what if in order to cast the spell you have to light a fire or a cigarette and use the smoke from that for the spell. TTRPGs are games about shared imagination and systems that promote, rather than stifle, imaginings and the sharing thereof are what leave my brain alight at the table.

The Two Step Problem

Last year, I fixed Boot Hill’s combat by boiling down a series of rolls into one. This revealed one of my “design philosophies”, which is that I don’t like to roll twice for one thing if I can help it. Sometimes you lose some granularity but often times you gain more than you lose. A lot of the “fun” of designing for me is to see just how much junk I can fit into a single roll without causing the referee to crash like a 1990s computer. Initially, Prismatic Wasteland’s magic system had too many steps! So I had to fix it. When I see a staircase, I don’t bother with it, I hop all the way down, falling damage be damned. 

Previously, after deciding on a spell effect, you calculated and spent the Intelligence points then rolled to see if you cast it correctly or if there was a magic mishap. The magic mishap results themselves have largely stayed the same over the years I’ve been developing Prismatic Wasteland, with perhaps the biggest change being the incorporation of my spelling errors idea (one of my hidden gems of a post, which I believe walked so that my colleague Ty over at the Mindstorm blog could run with his “Spell FRIEND and Enter” mechanic). 

But why do something in two steps that you can do in one? So I changed the process of calculating cost from adding multiple static numbers (already a bad move; ideally no mechanic [in my opinion] should involve adding three or more numbers together–I want my games to be accessible to my fellow dumbasses & drunkards, the real D&D) to rolling. Immediately I liked this because it made the spellcasting process less predictable–maybe that fireball will only end up costing 1 point of Intelligence, or maybe the strain from casting it will fucking kill you, let’s find out! But in doing so, I also gave myself an opportunity to embed the miscast system. Checking for matching dice is an underused mechanic (with a ton of promise, as seen in the chase rules from my colleague, John of the Retired Adventurer blog). But the mechanic really “clicked” when I decided that triple 6s on the dice would result in accidentally summoning a demon–this was already a feature in the original magic mishap table, but tying it to 6-6-6 just makes it more memorable as it is the supposed mark of the beast summoning a demon. This is the kind of dice mechanic that would get you killed during the satanic panic, but now we are free to play yahtzee and pretend to cast spells!

Abrakadabra: Did My Magic Trick Work?

Is it Flexible? Like a vile employer might say about your job where you can work up to two days at home, perhaps it is too flexible! There are literally thousands of possible spells (based on the combination of words, a pretty common way to generate spells in the P/OSR and in FotF 2e), and each spell itself has an endless amount of possible uses. The spellcaster gets to decide how much of their limited resources (Intelligence, but also casting time), balanced against their desired effect. Spending Intelligence (and risking death from the mental strain of it all) can be punishing, but it is worth it for the chance to affect the cosmos and perform feats only the gods could dream of.

Is it Fast? As argued above, it is at least no slower than other systems for spellcasting, and efforts have been made to at least roll the magic mishaps process into casting so that it isn’t bogged down with extra steps. But more importantly…

Is it Fascinating? The time spellcasting takes in Prismatic Wasteland can be some of the most engaging minutes of a session and it makes almost everyone to have at least one spell at their disposal–and to risk delving dungeons to find more of them. The endless possibilities, the variable costs, the process of negotiation makes this a system you can sink your teeth into. It isn’t so underwhelming great that Prismatic Wasteland sessions quickly degenerate into weird wizard shows, but it gives the wizardy characters a time to shine in the spotlight nonetheless.

IN OTHER NEWS

Barkeep Stays Winning!

My adventure, Barkeep on the Borderlands, continues to garner praise. Recently, Polygon named it one of the ten “best new tabletop RPG books of 2023”, which was astonishing. Just look at the others on that list–it’s WotC, Paizo, Monte Cook Games, Free League, Magpie Games, MCDM, ENworld’s publishing arm… Those are some heavy hitters with a ton of resources and little ole me with a laptop (and a talented group of friends at my side!) is going toe to toe! And equally as prestigious, my colleague Nova of the Playful Void blog held her inaugural “Novies” awards, at which Barkeep won “Most Playable Module That Played Best”, which is also high praise because playability is of the utmost importance to my design. 

The Bloggies Begin!

This year my colleague Zedeck, who won last year’s Platinum Bloggie, is hosting the Bloggies, an annual monthlong celebration of blog culture and the best blog posts from the previous year, a time to praise those posts and debate which are best. I have submitted a number of posts (uhh, 40 posts actually) to Zedeck that I think would all make great candidates, and encourage you to round up your favorite posts of the year and do the same. Submissions are open until the end of the year, so act fast! Then begins the voting. Just comment on his blog or reply on his tweet or similar to let him know so he can begin the work of compiling them all (an arduous and thankless task, but I shall give my thanks to Zedeck in advance all the same).

In the spirit of the bloggies, and in case you would like some end of the year reading material, here are 4 of my favorite posts from the year that I didn’t write myself. I expect they’ll all be top contenders this year! If you have a blog, feel free to share some of your favorite posts-by-other people during the bloggies; let’s convince each other which are the best and read all the gems we missed!

Critical GLOG: Base Resolution Mechanics

Goblin Punch is a legendary blog (and 2022 bloggie-nominee), but this is a top caliber post even by his usual standards, putting you through the ropes of thinking like a designer. Even if I don’t fully agree with his conclusions (the blackjack roll rules, as I wrote in my last post), his process and thoughts on the matter are all golden.

https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2023/03/critical-glog-base-resolution-mechanics.html 

Gulch

Mindstorm brought a gun to a knife fight with this one. Gulch is the most gameable blog post of the year, in that you could literally print it and you would have a fully realized, fully mapped, and fully illustrated (by the inimitable Norn) adventure-setting product. There is literally so much good shit in this post, go read it.

https://mindstormpress.com/gulch

Re-inventing the Wilderness: Part 1 - Introduction

I’m just a sucker for wilderness exploration maybe but this was an incredible start to a good series and I can’t wait to see what paths (HA!) it takes us on as it continues in 2024. Part 2 is also out and very much worth reading so I am sort of cheating by picking this one, but perhaps my own “Part One” post about Hexcrawls was riding on the 2-part coattails when it won a silver Bloggie last year.

https://sachagoat.blot.im/re-inventing-the-wilderness-part-1-introduction 

An Empty Africa - PF2E's The Mwangi Expanse and the strange career of Black Atlanticism

I won’t pretend that I keep up with Pathfinder at all, but this was such a rich examination of it’s rendition of a not-Africa fantasy setting, dubbed “the best African-inspired setting book put out by a mainstream tabletop corp to date”, with all that it got right and all it got wrong. It is incredibly nuanced and well-researched. Like this could be published in an academic journal if academic journals cared about TTRPG adventures for some reason. 

https://majesticflywhisk.blogspot.com/2023/06/africa-as-receptacle-pf2es-mwangi.html