Text:TCK RANTS 4

This file was autogenerated from a book on Warlords.

Book Metadata

Title: TCK RANTS #4

Author: thecoolkid26

Book Content

TCK RANTS #4

Topic: Magic in Games

Disclaimer: These are MY opinions only.

Disclaimer #2: (Refer back to this later) The first magic game as I define it was an unnamed "Kingdoms" style game by UK and Ultra. 
Before we begin:

1. I strongly oppose magic.

2. I define magic as: The ability for players to initiate spells, or items that wield magical properties. On the other hand, I do not include magic under the realms of things
such as dimensional portals or anything that doesn't advantage any player or AI being.

SO, WITH THAT SAID.

Magic stuff sucks. Why? Because you cannot balance it.
A QUICK HISTORY:

Depending on how you define it, Magic could be seen in RPs as early as Kingdoms Season 1, with alchemy. If you do not consider alchemy to be a part of magic (I don't), then slightly ahead of Kingdoms S1, we have the Early Boom.
Early Boom era games saw the rise of nonnatural beings, which again, I don't consider to be under 'magic,' but it also saw the early games made by UK_Countryball and UltraCraftGames, which up until now have not been recognized to be the beginning of magic as I define it.
Spells and wizards and all of that stuff was first made in UK and Ultra's little experiments. The earliest game that we have a name of that clearly had magic would be Phyria, which also was the start of the -hyria series both UK and Ultra have made over many months.
Magic would play a minor role in Afterlife 1, the same game that saw the rise of the entire Afterlife genre of games. Magic was also present in various Loria Boom games, but suddenly and abruptly reduced to nothingness during the Civilizations Boom, the last major boom in DF.
Meanwhile, in Warlords, magic was first seen as early as Mhyria (Also part of the -hyria series, and is one of the 3 claimants to the first game in Warlords) and first seen in a major Warlords game in CD. Mhyria was made by Ultra, and CD by UK. Notice a pattern?
The two could thus be considered the "Fathers of Magic," which I will now bestow them with such a title for the rest of this book.

The Fathers of Magic were not the only ones to use magic in Warlords, though.
Perhaps the next most notable example would be Bloxhead7's Knoria, which is (in my opinion) among the best medieval games in history, and also sees extreme usage of magic. Of course, others besides these 3 used it as well, but I'll end that here.
Pause the history.

What's the deal here with magic?

Resistance to magic in DF was minimal. I don't think I ever heard a single person on there bring up how magic in RPs was problematic.
However, in Warlords, I'd change my viewpoint on magic from 'neutral' to 'ew' starting with CD. As of this book's publishing, CD has had four seasons, all of which have had magic present. I'd complain as early as Season 1, when Ultra accidentally nuked the entire world, and
truly begin to oppose it in Season 2 of CD, as nuke scrolls somehow became a thing, where you could just blow up entire portions of nations with a single scroll.

Two more seasons of CD later, and two more attempts by UK to balance the magic system, and it just
hasn't worked. Season 3 saw the literal creation of gods, which is not magic, sure, but still saw the advent of spells and summoning that created a lot of problems. Apart from Season 1, that saw a very limited magic system (not balanced, but rather lacking in features)
I think that Season 3 had a somewhat balanced system of magic, but not really due to a good reason. Magic had a counterbalance - guns.

We're in a fucking medieval period, and we have GUNS? UK obviously removed it in Season 4 after
guns literally overtook mages. (Mind you, I did use guns myself) Guns were obviously unbalanced, and they're going to make a great analogy as to what my problem is.

So, there is a very simple phrase that sums everything up:
"Don't bring a knife to a gun fight."

In other words, what the fuck will your knife do against the sheer power of a pistol that can shoot you while you run at your opponents?
So, to adapt the phrase into CD:

"Don't bring a bow (or literally anything else) to a wand fight."

In S4, we saw the unfair counterbalance of guns to magic gone, and thus, S4 is probably where we can see the problem most pronounced.
So, if you've ever read my Sierrian Wars book or ever heard me rant about the Six Nations War, you'll probably have heard me talk about the First Battle of Teokya. This was the first bloody battle that any player (in this case, myself) fought in CD S4.
My army was mostly comprised of non-spellcasters, against an army with a decent force of spellcasters. I came out that battle with two men and myself alive, the rest of my army gone. Spellcasters inflicted a sizeable amount of those casualties.
Then, came the Second Battle of Teokya, where the city I just took over suddenly got attacked by another enemy. I had more spellcasters on my side this time around, though, and I had the (probably) most powerful spellcaster on my side, Ultra himself.
Stars rained down on the city. Spellcasters shot missiles. I won a decisive victory. Few casualties compared to the first battle this time around. I'd go on to partition and obliterate the once superior nation that attacked me that day.
In that moment, I created the perfect example of what magic was capable of. Again, don't bring a bow to a wand fight. You're going to lose. 

I'm using CD as an example for this whole argument because it is, probably, the most actively played game
with magic, and also saw the most serious attempts at balancing magic.

UK would go on to create an entire list of spells for CD S5, as another attempt to balance the system.
However, once it was made clear that magic was still vastly superior to the other forms of weaponry, a poll was conducted, and magic was simply abolished from CD S5 instead. Ultra responded with making CnD, a game that is not really related to DnD and was simply another effort
to balance magic, and prove that it is possible to have magic exist in a game with non-magical weapons. The game also saw a list of spells, and again, the same argument was made. No top tier sword could combat a massive meteor crashing on them, which was one of the top tier spells
in CnD. Ultra, unlike UK, is more dedicated to the cause of balancing magic, and CnD did not see the removal of magic. Instead, the game was renamed into Terra and temporarily suspended, stalling the game's progress for the time being as of this book's time of writing.
Resuming the history -

CD S5 not using magic is a massive step in what can be indirectly seen as an effort to remove magic from most games where it would simply not work. Other games made by UK have seen my complaints for magic being in it. With this said, magic remains
widespread, with Knoria still ongoing and Ultra making more games. Thus far, it can definitely be said that magic will be here for awhile. 

Great. We're done with the history part.
So, why am I against magic in general? CD was a specific example, but unfairness is typically my argument opposing it. It takes away the strategy from a game, and ruins it. Others, namely Ultra, do not really care much for strategy. For some, it may be that creativity in games is better,
and magic is a very open ended system that allows for a lot of creativity. That is fine. Purely magical games can exist, but I probably wouldn't be a fan of them.

That gets me to my other argument, which is more personal and not really one that I'd typically say if
we were arguing about magic getting removed from a game - that magic is complicated.

A problem that I have with some games is that their magic system is just... weird. This is my argument against Knoria's system. Bloxhead7 can make the most complicated systems
on this server, and apparently, there is a whole history and system to magic alone. Three different forms of magic, machines, various forms of archmages, many beings with magical properties, and holy fuck man - that is a lot.
Again, magic is good for creativity, and Knoria's system is the pinnacle of that. But, for a game that has a lot of political and military strategy involved with it, I do not see it mix. However, I can't really speak on it much, because my encounters against magic have been 
limited. It does seem like Blox is making a serious effort to balance the system, but I simply just cannot understand it enough as of now to make an opinion on it.

Also, some of the ideas to balance magic that have been proposed are simply
too complicated as well - the list of spells that Terra and CD was, again, unnecessary to begin with. Aside from the fact that it didn't solve the problem, I am not going to look through every spell there.
So, today, that is where it stands. More alternatives out there exist that I'm not going to cover, such as TheZipCreator's Generic Magic System (GMS, /warp gms) that I have not heard of since he made it. I don't think magic can be balanced in games such as CD. That is
my full opinion on it. This may be my most controversial book thus far, but I stand by my point. Go make your own book if you disagree with it. Bye!