How to Create a Soft Magic System 

Yes. Absolutely! "I could explain it, but we don't have four years to establish the basics"

What do you know about the difference between the construction of a classic, a medieval, a Ramist, and a Brunoian seal based memory palace? What? Just shut up and stab it spear boy.

Literally my magic system 😂

@@TheGreatPower365 Have you read the art of memory by Yates? Also do you have any recommendations for any books that go into classic memory palaces in significant detail?

I think part of the reason a lot of creators gloss over soft magic is because it's actually quite difficult to do it well. It can be incredibly potent when it works, but it's easy to get the balance of logic, information, and wonder wrong

@@themagicengineer5314 did you mean to say "gloss over *soft* magic"?

@@arcanefeline I sure did. Lol. Edited the original message

Excellent example of tweaking things with the perspective!

lol. That would be pretty awesome and fun to play with

Any time I'm working with a fiction writer, I've found it important to ask a couple of questions: Do you want magical creatures or not? Do we need to consider them separately or as part of your magic system?

Did this video help, or are you still at a loss as to how you should proceed?

It really helped me, I made a document where I wrote down all my ideas and I’m very happy with what I came up with, I feel like it captured exactly the vibe I was going for!

Excellent! Feel free to ask me questions in the comments, via the question box I created, or contacting me through my website (crrowenson.com). Happy to help how I can if you get stuck@@saturn_0n_paw5

It is pretty common for magic systems to move from soft to hard over the course of a book or series. Just look at Hemalurgy from the Mistborn series. It starts extremly soft (though we know it's rational) and becomes harder as we learn more. As for the line between the two, that can be pretty arbitrary. When it's a close call, I find it most useful to ask "do I want it to feel more hard or more soft" and go from there. If you have comprehensive documentation, the line is when you transition from knowing 49% of the magic system to know 51%, but obviously it's never that easy

Excellent! I hope it proves useful and you can always ask questions here or email me if you don't understand something

That is an EXCELLENT way to put it! Mind if I steal that phrase?

It would be an honor

Lol

Absolutely! I'm definitely planning on going more into this in the future. For now, the best example I can give is the tech and strangeness in Stargate SG-1

I believe most of them are, yes. D&D? Absolutely. Interestingly enough, I think the D&D magic is irrational as well because we can't take what we know from one spell and just apply it to another and there are weird quirks with how some of them work (mainly for balance reasons, but still). There are some TTRPGs that have softer magic systems like Mage the Awakening, City of Mist, and, to a small extent, Monster of the Week

@@themagicengineer5314 Thank you for this complete reply to my question. It's very much appreciated.

Go on...

@@themagicengineer5314 like the players get free range with all of their magic so like if they make their magic too strong they lose lots of physical stats but if they make their magic weak they are stronger physically

@@themagicengineer5314 so you can build your own spells

@@themagicengineer5314 so it’s all custom for the players but it will affect their characters whole physical capabilities so you can be a big brute with no magic or a withering away old man in a wheelchair who can summon Eldritch gods and reanimate armies of dragons

Lol. that's a good summary. THe other parts are about how you can and can't use it in your story, which I wasn't able to get into here

Don't what? Don't make soft magic systems? Not sure I agree with that sentiment

@@themagicengineer5314 Yes *as a rule* just don't do it. *As a rule* if storytellers use soft magic they do so because they are lazy and don't want to consider the implications of magic in the world. I'm going to clarify here by offering a bit of push back on your definition of soft magic. In the video you frame soft magic by how much the reader understands about the magic. That's not really a useful definition as you can get wide variance in comprehension. As an example I will point to your comprehension of marvels magic systems and your claim that it is soft. Marvels magic system isn't soft, it's actually pretty hard magic. But there are a lot of magic systems. Iron mans magic is different than Captain Americas Magic which is different than Thor's magic. It's not how much the reader understands the magic, or I would even argue how much the author understands about the magic. It's does the magic have predictable rules, or is every use of magic a Deus Ex that has world breaking implications. Right now I am working on writing the same story 3 times. Once for a middle grade audience(first person), once for a YA audience(third), and once for an adult audience(third). It's the exact same story with the exact same characters, and the exact same dialogue. As of the first draft the middle grade version of the story appears to be a soft because what the story is doing with magic is different than what the story is doing with magic in the YA and adult story. The buy in for magic with middle grade fiction is lower than that of an older audience. It's why Harry Potter got away with it's trash "magic system". When the author can do anything with the magic system and violate or retcon the magic at any time, why should a reader invest in the story? They shouldn't. Unless that is a deliberate part of the stories makeup. The only exception I make to soft magic systems being used in fantasy is the same exception I make for soft scifi. If magic exists but is not a driving force in the story because we are going to explore personal and social issues. Okay. I am fine with that. Otherwise, don't use soft magic systems. Don't be lazy and actually think about what having the ability to transmute objects into gold would mean there is no such thing as poor wizards. Or how having a species who are magically compelled into wanting to be slaves is a tiny bit of a problem, and maybe the hero might... I don't know be a hero and change that.

@@alananimus9145 Well, agree to disagree, I guess. It is definitely easy for people to be lazy with soft magic systems and in some ways it's more difficult to write a soft magic system well than it is a hard magic system. They do have their own strengths and can still add to the right kind of story