Homebrew: New magic system for D&D 

Link to the system (Beta Doc) - drive.google.com/file/d/1hJhAf8-2bCP4SGkejx1lvT-L3Fx1AneV/view?usp=sharing

I love the Vancian ideas. My favorite magic system is from Terry Pratchett's Disc World (which is very similar to Vancian magic). Each spell is sort of a living thing that can be bound to pages and can live in the minds of wizards. When cast, the spell is released into the world to have its effect. The first two books of Disc World have a major plot point of a powerful spell trying to get itself cast...

Earthsea is an absolute masterpiece of language, philosophy and poetry. My favourite is the farthest shore. "I do not care what comes after, I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning."

As life has backstabbed my game group, though not quite killed it, I took a D&D break. This was the first video I have seen on this topic in a month. Dang it was a good choice.

I am also making my own module-setting-ruleset inspired by Finnish folklore and mythology (Kalevala), and in Kalevala all sages, witches and singers gain power over nature and reality precisely by knowing appropriate true names or origin words of things. A true name of viper might allow to command adders to bite your enemies, the origin words of iron might allow you to un-do the wounds of swords and axes, the origin words of fire might allow you to remain unharmed even when picking hot rocks from a stove bare handed. Learning and gathering these words is sometimes the essential element of adventure in Kalevala poems, for example traveling to meet a sleeping giant or even into domain of death himself to ask for them. Kudos to you for this!

This is very similar to Ars Magica where a sorcerer had power over a domain (Fire, Earth, Water, Beasts, Plants, etc.) I like that you used a 2d6 system as d20 is too swingy. Well done!

I really like the system. I've been thinking of a game with multiple spell systems that are class specific. This could be tailored to be the system used for, say, sorcerers. Another system would be component based for a hedge mage, wizards use the base Vancian system. Interesting possibilities here. All that is needed are mature, engaged, and committed players.

Take a look at how magic works in Ars Magica, I believe it could improve your idea better. How it works (Summary) Like your system it works with the idea of words, but he uses Techniques (Verb) & Form (Noun) to compose a spell (in Latin). Also look at how the spell's duration and area of effect is determined. It would be nice to have a version of Ars Magica for D&D.

You had me at Earthsea. I've been trying to recreate the feel of that style of magic in my games for years now

This certainly evokes Earthsea. Inline the example with an NPC learning the word for "sheep", it reminds me of Ged's Aunt knowing the true names of things that were directly related to her life in the village. One wouldn't need to go to a mage school for that, because naming is based on knowing, so having a deep personal understanding of the hills a might give a magically inclined character a bond with the word that allows them to do magic with it, in spite of a relatively low caster level. This is like Folk magic with a touch of Animism from Mythras, and the generic words plus high caster level is more like sorcery... Though they all have the same root. Very well made.

It reminds me of Maze Rats version 2 (not the version 4.3 that Questing Beast is currently selling). In this system, magic is contained in sigils, which are arcane tattoos that the PCs can pick up in their adventures. The GM generates a name for each sigil like Tree Golem or Shielding Snow, and the name determines the effect. When the PC bearing the sigil wants to cast a spell, they tell the GM what effect they're trying to get out of the name (like using the Tree Golem sigil to give life to the trees surrounding a clearing to prevent an enemy's escape) and then the GM determines the cost in HP based on both the strength of the effect and how in line it is with the sigil's name. I'm currently running this system, and soon the PCs will find their first sigils. Hopefully it works out for them

I have a couple of things to say here. One is that this is a significant departure from the rules as written. Another is that i get confused about how your system really works. You in creating it have processed it so many times, that it must be second nature to you, but i am looking at it from the place of a novice. But third, i really like what you are capturing. When Radagast the Brown Wizard in Tolkien's writings rescued the Dwarves by and Bilbo by summoning the great eagles, why didn't he just use that magical favor right away to spirit them to their destination? No, he knew that magic that powerful had to be used with care. Gandalf the Grey, and later the White also consistently only used magic as needed, when other options had been exhausted.

What I like most about the things you create is that they allow for so much player creativity. This system will certainly cause some memorable moments in games. I like how open it is, and while I agree that it could get very powerful very fast, having good players and a savvy GM will help keep things a bit more balanced. Oh, and of course, who doesn't love a catastrophe now and then? That's part of what makes gaming fun!

I like the ability to have this be very versatile. I am wanting to create a magic system based off of books/novels I really enjoy. With this WORD magic system, first thing that came to mind is SPACE. I'd be able to fold space to basically teleport, create rips/tears in it to deal damage, and distort space around myself to block projectiles.

Just ran a Dungeon Crawl Classics one shot with this magic system and had a blast. To my horror the wizard chose “Skin” as their word. It went about as well as you would expect. Anything from pulling a shrieks head skin forcefully to the ground to knock it out to stealing skin from a horse to make leather armor. His first casting resulted in a catastrophe (snake eyes) so instead of skinning a single flying seagull he skinned the entire flock simultaneously raining down gore, skin, and feathers on the entire party forcing saves or damage. In addition he understood that the entire subconscious of the seagull race forever would hate him. Overall had a great time with it. I love the creativity that this brings. I allowed DCC spell burning with this system and that did add some chaos. Sebastian the Skin Wizard was able to suffocate an ancient titan guardian with a huge spell burn and a good roll. Unfortunately for him the Titan didn’t die immediately and it crushed him before he could get away. RIP Sebastian the Skizzard

Supper cool to see other people cooking up their own word based magic systems, I made something very similar to this based around adjectives and nouns, you've just got me pumped to revisit it :) also the inspiration from earth sea is so relateble, I'm trying to think about how the wizards learn the names of things to add as a mechanic

Hi! Been enjoying your content!

Thank you for this. I'll definitely do a play test to see if this fits our group. I love the "fluidity" concept regarding magic, although it will require a lot more adjudication on my part. I've always wanted to incorporate the magic element of the Earthsea universe into my games as I find it to be the most amazing concept for magic in all of fantasy fiction. The "true name" element exudes the secrecy and mystery behind magic.

Vancian Magic is built into the D&D system and so it's really a big change to the mechanics and game balance to tinker with it. But it's also what makes game mechanics and game creation fun. :)

I love this! I had a similar concept in a super rules light system I created years ago and I considered something very similar for my OSR system. But this is perfect. Ready to go! I will give this a little but of thought and maybe tweak it slightly but I think I'll give this a go. Thank you Daniel!

I have a group of very casual RPG players. We did something similar, but using the d20 and target numbers. The spell casting players preferred it since they didn't have to look up "boring" spell descriptions and could just be creative in the game.

Very interesting. I could definitely use it in a heavier magic campaign. Thank you for sharing!

Really interesting concept on magic! Your videos are great! Thanks! 😊

I really like this, the chance for catastrophe and to loose a spell for a day balance the power for me.

I always loved the model from Master of the Five Magics, by I think lyndon hardy(?) It feels very gameable and gives the GM several tools to throttle the amount of magic in their campaign while at the same time letting the player character feel powerful and have access to some awesome magic but at a cost. Done right I think it could be an epic way of running magic.

This is great, I love it.

This is awesome! I'm looking forwards to try it out with my players, open ended systems are usually up their alley.

Terrific video! You definitely put a lot of thought into this and look forward to results from your play testing. Since this video is two years old I’ll look for a follow-up video.

great deepthink as always. My previous campaign had a similar system and it worked wonders. Iron Rations for the algorithm.

Hey! I love the concept. I actually came up with a magic system similar to this a few months ago, and made an entire game system around it. There definitely seems to be a convergence of thought about magic systems among people who have been playing TTRPGS for while.

Not sure about the new version, but the older version of whitehack uses similar system. In there you create spells/miracles by giving them names, either general or very specific. To cast a spell you sacrifice some of your HP, the cost is determined how does the effect you want to achieve match the name you have prepared. So creating an effect using a general "summon creature" will cost you more than if you use "animate rocks to create creatures". You will be able to use the first one more often though.

Commenting for the yt algorithm. You always produce such great content!

This is really a great concept, worth working on!

I love Earthsea and really like this idea. thank you

Very cool system, can't wait to see what you come up with next.

This is such a cool way of doing it. Will try it out in a one shot if I can get my players in on it.

7:50 Forces to be more resourceful and aware of environment 12:36 catastrophe charts for failure of spells

Your system sounds like a really cool system, and as you noted if your players are really into role playing this should lead to some absolutely awesome moments in games. I would love to hear how it actually worked for you in play, maybe recount a couple of the more successful moments with it in another video? Or stream a live play with it from a session where it worked really well? I'm sure that would be a lot of work, but I think you're under something here. 👍 Love the idea of having a falcon go get your dinner for you in the wilderness. By the way the first word that came to my mind was FIRE! And I'm picturing me a 15th level wizard striking a spark then burning the enemy into Ash 🙂 I also think this would be an excellent model for handling technology in a Sci-Fi role-playing game.

Oooooh, I really like this! Though I really like using d20 rolls for checks like this, but most of it could be easily ported to my own game. Thanks!

I’ll have to use this at some point

Love it - very similar to Whitehack!

An interesting concept, some of the mechanics frostgrave has utilising d20. I like the 2d6 plus level mechanic concept for all spells. The doubles idea is pretty cool. Have you looked at the frostgrave spell failure mechanic?

There's a neat magic system in a mostly forgotten Delaware RPG which has many echos in your example! I am a long-time fan of it but have never DMed an adventure, sadly.

Oh that is interesting. There is spellcasting in a really rules lite system. It is intreaging how rules lite works in TTRPGs. It is like improv theater with the occasional dice roll. It is very different from other games. Crunchy TTRPGs have improv too, but they are more focused on statistics and calculations. Either way, this is unique. Even video game RPGs don't fully capture the improv nature. With something more unique, I see why TTRPG rulebooks tend to start by explaining what RPGs are like at all. The biggest analogy is playing make believe as children. Maybe there is a tradeoff with the two different approaches to TTRPGs. Crunchy has the challenge of working with more complex systems. Rules lite has the challenfe of working with more improv. Maybe rules lite doesn't automatically mean easier.

I really wanna try this out...

This is interesting, and I may use the concept of ‘words’ as magical domains for one of my home brew games, because the current system there are only 8 schools of magic, and wizards learn 1 school at a time, and can use their imagination to use that magic, but I’ve always thought the domains (eg elemental) were too broad. The magic system I’m currently running in my homebrew 5e campaign replaces spell slots with the use of a substance called Octivium. Each spell and magic effect uses Octivium and the players have to find it out in the world in order to use magic. This was done purely for the world building aspect of the game, coz this way magic has a cost, and Octivium is also used as a currency in some areas. I’m currently balancing the system as we go through the campaign, but so far it’s working well

An udea i have is for the more soecific, powerful, or deadly a word the more devestating a catastrophe could potentially be. Want "Death" as your word to one shot villains? You can, but those double ones could cause a void in time and space to the underworld...😇

I've been looking around for a ritual system to support setting-dervied capabilities for Wizards. I want to involve my characters in the world so that they need to quest for knowledge and uncover secrets which they can use alongside the powerful but limited-frequency Vancian memorized spells. Yes, they'd have the potential to possess sagely lore, but I want them to be able to do things like harvest monster body parts, access leylines, interface with the woven folds of mythals, channel power from planar weak spots, establish domains of power.. things like that. I want them to thirst for power that rivals the gods without turning them into just a fancy weapon.

Sounds like true Name based magic from the tome of.magic in 3.5. But this seems some what simpler.

Wow, another Earthsea fan, I'm kinda shocked. idk why, but it seems that the vast majority of players haven't read it. I and Marc Miller agree that 8+ on 2d6 is the right weight, although Traveller usually caps DMs to +/-5 (interesting that the minimum roll of 2 +5, is short of 8 by 1). I'll add that I found Bruce Galloway's "Fantasy Wargaming" helpful to me when considering an alternate system of magic for a world similar to Le Guin's creation. The astrological basis works well in that it allows you to group things by something independent of a direct word/name/meaning. As an aside, I think that a system of astrology that directly relates to magic in the world allows some really deep world building, and it extends to non-magician characters through the system of correspondences. There is a LL add-on by an Indy that I can't recall which is "Enchanter class for LL" which models Prospero and Ariel really well, where the magician has another entity work magic for them. All that said, thanks for the video on a really fun topic!

You should do a video about the Free Kriegsspiel Renaissance.

This gets really interesting if you allow players to combine their words in a single spell. What could you do with Mind Forest or Death Trickery? Summon a succubus with Enervation - Love - Demon.

A nice revised system to cast spells. My two main questions are - what problem is this solving and is learning the new casting system worth the effort for players? In other words, this sounds good conceptually - but will it be worthwhile in practice? Another point I heard the other day which I liked - the Class is Magic-user, not Spell-caster; the suggestion being that Spells were just part of a Magic-users arsenal and they should be busy collecting and using any magic items they can get their hands on and use those as their primary weapon.

This is unsolicited, and I am sorry if I sound creepy. You're a handsome dude. I've been teetering on switching over to 13th Age, Pathfinder 1e or 2e. I can't really decide, but I feel ready to "graduate" from 5e.

Can you expand your thoughts on why you reverted back to Vancian magic and actually prefer it? Or share a link where you discussed it before?

Do diffrent classes have any major differences in casting? If i missed it in the video i apologize im gana rewatch a few more times the system is something i wana impliment into my game. Love the work man keep it up!

QUESTION: what if a player wants to combine two words. Like "time" and "Water" to create a more powerful effect where a river starts to flow uphill or something along those lines? Or "fire" and "beast" to summon a flame monster?

Ohhh thats really inspiring! I choose this to offer some more options for one of my player but also choose to let have is other spell. We are playing Low Fantasy Gaming (LFG). Do you know that system?

There are some words of power in GLOG

I love the concept. Were it more balanced with the standard system, I would very much like to implement it to differenciate elf or cleric magic from magic-user magic. Perhaps cleric could have dominion over their deity's domains witch are, in essence, words... Nevertheless, I would very much like to hear about your other magic systems. Maybe I'll find a system to differenciate elf magic (that would be inspired by fey magic) from any other type of magic?

18:33 u2

Out of curiosity have you read the Dying Earth stories? I've been reading them recently because of the DCC kickstarter and really enjoying them. There's some pretty unpleasant old-fashioned aspects about them, but overall enjoyable.

I really like your Words spell system. Didnt ARS MAGICA do something similar? Id maybe give a specific WORD at every Level, but a broader more generic Word counts as 2 choices. Specific Word like Bird is one choice. Animals or Nature would be 2 Words. Id have to work on it and playtest. Id prefer d20 over 2d6, but thats just me. 1 is critical fail, 20 critical success. Thanks for this.

Repel Law Enforcement - "Idu natkon cent" - level 0 Abjuration Cantrip

You probably won’t read this but could you tell me the name of the painting in the thumbnail? Thanks, love the ideas!

My word "Sheep-poo"

great stuff dude, but please (and I mean this constructively and with respect), talk a little slower ok? But serious kudos, very creative and different, I like it.

I really like it but wouldn’t use it. Too easy to spam. Example steel Character can now collapse enemies helmets on their heads got instant kill or bend all enemy swords. Example ants Ants are everywhere in all climates they can now be used to blind all opponents