What's the best kind of magic for urban fantasy?Serious question; I am trying to mend together a game with a modern fantasy style setting and I need interesting magic systems
Graffiti Magic. It's like glyphs and shit. Writing the true names of things you graffiti on can make cool constructs and shit.
Subways built on leylines. Magical fights are settled on the F-Train as it travels through time and space.
Verbal magic in the form of Rap.
Urbanmancers who can sprout buildings out of the ground and hit people with them. Wrap lamp posts around someone. Make people get lost in a maze of alleys.
Barista Alchemists who can make themselves and others go into superpowered caffeine rages and can someone foam monsters
>>44372324
Ever heard of too on the nose?
Subtle and very much tied to the environment. You do rituals that are odd, but not what you usually call magic. No eye of the newt, feather of the raven, boil and burn and bury at a crossroads kind of bullshit. Don't step on the cracks in the pavement, toss exactly three coins to the second beggar you meet, wear something yellow, and don't ride a lift higher than the fifth floor.
The results are similarly subtle. You never get splashed by cars, people looking for you will find their way quickly and easily if they mean you harm, while pursuers will constantly be delayed by random shit.
Subcultures tap into this constantly and for the most part unknowingly. The bartender at the bar you drink at is so good because of the path he takes to work. The hipsters' lingo draws luck from others.
You don't notice it unless you know what to look for. This type of shit.
>>44372294
I always liked the idea of rune magic pretty much functioning like programming.
IF person ENTERS cricle: APPLY fire FROM focus
>>44372398
Lovely.
>>44372398
This is moderately interesting but not very useful for a game.
>>44372568
Garbage.
>>44372601
What kind of game are you looking for? More combat-oriented?
>>44372618
Bit more urban fantasy based game. It's got guns and some high tech stuff, but I want to add in a dash of weirdo magic too if I can.
Urbanites who can dodge through alleywars or 'feel' the city and even influence things are more then fine, I'm just not a fan of it to the extent the above Anon posted for it.
I should mention the setting is where people from different dimensions end up getting lost in and joining this huge city that they've built. A bit of the magic would probably be things like supernatural abilities.
Though I suppose not every setting I make needs to have magic in it, I just find it hard without.
Unknown Armies foes it pretty well. You should check it out.
RuneQuest 6 animism.
Entering trances and speaking to spirits, bonding them and using their powers to control elements or even just spy, calling out to them by name, etc. Most of the utility effects are subtle and can be passed off as hocus pocus, but then one day that old man's eyes rolled back into his head and he flies around shooting fireballs or making small creatures built of pavement.
>>44372685
This was my first choice number one but you can't import it directly into this setting for 2 reasons.
>This setting doesn't have the same cosmology
The 'big secrets' about Unknown Armies, the big concept about humans being extremely important, the invisible clergy, the importance of numbers; that stuff doesn't apply here. People are trapped in an alternate world with several alien races.
>The society is different. The world isn't in a post-modern age, its in a world full of lost people that scavenge and reuse everything to try and survive and live as comfortably as possible.
>>44372662
So more of the direct stuff, I guess? I'd suggest something like you pick a fictional character and gain their abilities so long as you act like them. Might not really work with a setting without an established pop culture, or allow you to make your own icons. Add some safeguards against The Improbable Do-Anything-Man, of course, like maybe you can't fuck physics over too much.
Loads of charms on mundane or technological items. Red shoes that really do make you go faster, a pistol mag that never runs out, literal bullets with someone's name on them, you get the idea.
And nothing's stopping you from making >>44372398 more immediate. The city literally shifts and changes without anyone noticing, leading your pursuers astray. Guns aimed at you misfire. The place you're breaking into has the exact same lock as your home.
And the rituals don't have to be so drawn out and relatively harmless. More powerful stuff may have you vandalising property, getting to places you're not supposed to be or harming people.
>>44372294
>>44372662
One of the biggest dynamics in an urban fantasy setting, both narratively and thematically, is how magic and modernity (technology, science, rationalism and their products) interact.
So you need to ask two questions.
Firstly are magic and modernity compatible? to what extent? In a setting where magic and modernity are highly compatible you might have somthing like computers that can be programmed to cast spells, in a setting where they are highly incompatible magics presence might stop sophisticated machines from working. Obviously there's a lot of space in between these two points.
Secondly how scientifically or mysteriously does magic behave? Is it full of quantifiable, repeatable processes that people can make use of? Or is it strange and unpredictable and outside of peoples control and understanding? Generally more scientific systems work better in games since players often dislike uncertainty.
Since you want a dash of strangeness and dimension hopping I would suggest somthing where people have access to low level, fairly explainable powers and there are other races (like fey or demons or similar) that have access to vaguely defined powers of immense strength.
>>44372394
I was born with fists composed entirely of ham.
>>44373100
I just woke up and that image made me laugh so hard it hurts
>>44373043
To answer your first question I really don't know, but certainly no 'machines casting spells on repeat' or any bullshit like that. magic is more personal, but I think it is kind of bland when a magic user can't use technology because hur dur magic and science don't like each other.
Secondly I would like vaguely mysterious but defined in its usage and costs. You may not be sure exactly why this works or how it does, but you know how to do it by applying your skills in whatever is relevant. This is so that players have a good grasp of the mechanics while still having that mysterious edge.
The last one is a good point though. I suppose a major idea here besides the magic could be a form of shamanism based around the forest just outside the great city; and there could be some kind of urbanomancy or some kind of weird dredge based powers too. Like almost a medium where you can pick up on past sins and emotions and manifest them in some way, but once again I hate being too on the nose.
Nigga if you don't know your own setting how the Fuck are we supposed to help you?
You asked for magic systems, we provide, you say the cosmology ain't right. It's your setting, nigga! The cosmology works however the Fuck you want it to.
>>44373276
I said why I didn't like many of the ideas posted mate. I like the cosmology, I don't want to change it for the magic.
>Two forms of magic
>Old timey nature magic that takes the power of nature and life and allows you to perform powerful but chaotic magical effects.
>New Technomagic that manipulates the EM fields generated by technology to produce subtle but highly ordered effects.
>>44373181
How about this:
There are two major branches of magic, the first branch involves using ones will to amplify or negate the properties of an object, the second involves communig with spirits/demons/otherworldly beings.
So the the first could be used to weaken somthing by reaching into it and enhancing its natural weaknesses (e.g. a slightly rotten door is now weak enough to smash through).
The second school of magic might be used to summon a sprit and make them/convince them to do somthing. The smallest weakest spirits would only be good for things like surveillance but their power (and the difficulty in summoning/controlling them) could increase as much as you want.
Maybe summoning is potentially more powerful but requires pre-planning in the form of rituals and materials whereas the first branch is weaker less/less versatile but can be used anytime provided the user can muster the energy to focus.
One idea I've always liked is someone making a potion, and then injecting it into paint balls. Load 'em up into a paintball gun, and you have a real easy way of delivering bursts of, say, liquid Sun.
Assuming none of the balls break in the chamber, of course. Then you're pretty much fucked.
>>44373181
I had a character concept once that used magic in a modern setting through a tablet and smartphone. Part of her focus was on hacking shit, and I just imagined that her magical devices made hacking function the way Hollywood thinks it should, making it more dramatic and also probably a little easier to do.
Anyway, what about doing something like that? Have magic arise from the interaction of objects between worlds, which would then make magic users essentially tinkerers. I know that gets close to "machine casting spell on repeat", but maybe it takes a magical skilled user to force the machine to perform its unexpected functions. It DOES solve the problem of magic and technology not interacting since in this case, the two are innately intertwined.
>>44372568
An Anon made a system of rune magic that is pretty much that.
See >>44374246
It's very quaint, but not terribly useful for actual pen and paper games.
>>44373306
That's what he said, that you can just change the cosmology to still fit your setting just fine.
>>44373166
Wew lad
