Magic discussion
I think, we've all generally agreed that magic is either non-existant or not available to the average person. Shall we get more specific? Is *anyone* interested in a high-magic world?
Magic discussion
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Summary:
It is asked "is there magic, or not?"
I'm leaning towards no magic, myself.
Although I remember a discussion we had about maybe having it unclear whether magic actually worked or not. Like, many people might believe in it and some might practice it, but it doesn't have any flashy visual effects — no lightning bolts, weird eldritch glows, etc. — and the results are always something that could conceivably be explained as coincidence.
I think that could be fun.
Leaving it undecided but, for all practical purposes, absent sounds good to me. I think 'high' magic is just too much of a temptation to refrain from — it's so easy using it for filling plot holes or explaining improbabilities….
I like the idea of people believing that there is such a thing as magic. Maybe even people performing magic. Maybe even people seing some effects, like healing or so. But we all agreeing that it's not true, that our characters are just imagining it, they are just seing it because the 'want' to see it etc.
I'd even say we don't even have to all agree that it's not true. As long as we all agreed that there couldn't be any definitive proof that magic existed, then one person might write as though the stuff did work and someone else could write as if it didn't. The disparity between those two author's approaches would keep magic mysterious and uncertain — which is, in my opinion, the way it should be.
Ron's method is more or less how I typically operate in a scenario like this. Personally, I'm down with a no-magic setting. But the inhabitants don't necessarily know there's no such thing as magic, and practice what they believe to be such anyway.
I also think we should decide in advance whether the magic actually exists or not. Leaving it ambiguous even to us seems like it could be inviting trouble.
Again, I think this discussion has become fairly moot and should be left up to the individual creators to decide *how* much their character believes in magic. I could be misinterpreting the posts, but I think the consensus was/is 'no real magic'. Yes, someone might be an herbalist, or invent a zippo…but that's not *real* magic.
Can we agree on that?
/forum/t-10232/magic-discussion#post-
