How to Write Magic Systems (Writing Advice)

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Learn how to write magic systems--both hard and soft--with examples from Star Wars, Spider-Man, Game of Thrones, and more!
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15 июн 2024

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Комментарии : 254

@ArifRWinandar 6 месяцев назад

"The author is going to know all of [the rules], hopefully."

@9ightdreamer 6 месяцев назад

I thought that bit was kinda funny haha!

@joseph_ashaman9354 6 месяцев назад

I wonder if he meant someone specific hahaha

@Joshua_N-A 6 месяцев назад

Masashi Kishimoto: excessive chakra use can lead to death. Also MK: Sasuke summons Manda even with critically low on chakra.

@tienthanhvu5838 3 месяца назад

this applies to jujutsu kaisen, lmfao to this point i wonder if the author really understand their own story or not

@stephaniel63 6 месяцев назад

A magic system I love is the bending in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Characters need to work to develop their skills, and can surprise the audience with new bending techniques. It also has a massive impact on the setting and the characters..

@denusklausen3685 6 месяцев назад

Zahir learning to fly and using air bending to suffocate people is just something that makes so much sense in that system. I really admire their creativity.

@jamesmars9767 4 месяца назад

@@denusklausen3685 The Korra Era was hit or miss on *who* should be able to do *what* but it definitely got creative with what the powers *can* do

@jennytulls6369 2 месяца назад

Avatar was also awesome in how it showed people using bending to build societies. Earthbenders have walls and tall structures they can repair with earthbending and mail systems make of stone chutes and carts. Firebenders make more use of metal that they can more easily forge with, and have dozens of machines powered by fire and steam. Airbenders live high in the mountains or on the undersides of gorges that only they can access via airbending. It's peak worldbuilding I say

@jesusromanpadro3853 Месяц назад

Aang and Kora have problems learning their opposite bending and the spirit world.Toph has problems with sand, but invented and teaches metal bending. Blood bending end up being forviden.

@BunstoppableForce 6 месяцев назад

Nen from Hunter X Hunter is undoubtedly my favorite magic system. Its rules are very well-defined and I love the idea of characters coming up with their own abilities, and the fact that self-imposed limitations make them more effective. It makes every single ability very interesting and takes things a step further than "this character has super strength", "this character can use fire magic", etc because there's always something extra to it.

@denusklausen3685 6 месяцев назад

Even better it can actually explain why personality and magic always seem connected (which most other stories leave unexplained). It can make us anticipate what a person's abilities will look like judging from how they act and talk. It gives the possibility of exposition (like in JJK) for characters because explaining their ability to people will actually affect its power (instead of seemingly intelligent villains giving away their secret abilities for no reason).

@AliciaRobinson. 6 месяцев назад

I was thinking about hunter x hunter too. Definitely soft system

@denusklausen3685 6 месяцев назад

@@AliciaRobinson. it definitely has aspects from both. The whole system is hard but it leaves room for a lot of 'softness'/individual quirks.

@ta0paipai 6 месяцев назад

I read this as I was typing "nen..." Right on! Due to nen and the world building, not to mention the sense of adventure, it's the king of Shonen series.

@ZearthGJL 6 месяцев назад

My own magic system is a mix of both hard and soft elements. In my story, "Descent," there are Elementalists wielding the power of fire, water, earth and air (and no, the fire nation didn't attack.) These four conform to things like the laws of thermodynamics and have to work with it to be used effectively. But there's also the Light and Dark Element that's very much not understood by both the Elementalists and those without, allowing for fun stuff to happen, like raising the dead, or bending light, both that you can't do without breaking something.

@juliegolick 6 месяцев назад

For a hard-magic system, I'm a huge fan of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. (The original one - I haven't read the sequels yet.) Also, if you want A LOT more videos about how to build a magic system for your world, the channel "Hello Future Me" has a TON of videos about it.

@LastBastian 6 месяцев назад

Beat me to it, Sanderson is awesome at building hard magic systems, and Mistborn is my favorite! (The sequels are great as well)

@jasonhobbs2405 6 месяцев назад

Beat me to it, as well. Mistborn is the best magic system ever written, in my opinion.

@LastBastian 6 месяцев назад

@@jasonhobbs2405 Strongly agree!

@marshallmykietyshyn4973 6 месяцев назад

I think every Sanderson magic system is great, but ya Mistborn is definitely one of his best.

@reidchikezie1161 6 месяцев назад

Surgebinding >>> Allomancy >>> Hemalurgy

@terjidjurhuus1917 6 месяцев назад

Nice video! Now for the mandatory 5 good and 5 bad examples follow up. :-)

@WriterBrandonMcNulty 6 месяцев назад

Haha I didn't have any plans for follow-ups. Hoping to do a video on Character Betrayals for next week

@brianabalos4878 6 месяцев назад

@@WriterBrandonMcNulty Sadge

@GVerny 6 месяцев назад

Was looking for this post. Upvoting fiercely!

@GVerny 6 месяцев назад

@@WriterBrandonMcNulty Interesting thing: the magic system can be illogical and broken, but the story can still be very successful. The classical example is Harry Potter. Any suggestions why?

@amromsr5463 6 месяцев назад

@@WriterBrandonMcNultyBetrayals, eh? A certain popular anime has one of the best betrayals of all time...

@Snowstash24 6 месяцев назад

As someone who isn’t a writer and doesn’t read all that much, your content is very entertaining and I look forward to each video. Keep it up

@thearthurmarston9897 6 месяцев назад

Man Im currently writing my first fantasy novel and I was so lost on how the “magic” should work. I’ve learnt a LOT from your channel and it has helped me improve my story drastically. Thank you so much for making this!!

@karoid6409 6 месяцев назад

So hows the story going

@ze_darku_magician5504 4 месяца назад

Have you come up with your magic system by now? I'd love to hear it! I'm trying to make up my own magic system as well (although mine doesn't necessarily have to be all too in-depth).

@thearthurmarston9897 3 месяца назад

@@ze_darku_magician5504haven’t thought too in depth about how they work just yet! Still doing research on how I can make something familiar yet unique at the same time! :)

@thearthurmarston9897 3 месяца назад

@@karoid6409overall pretty good! Been stuck at a certain part for a while tho so Im just thinking of ways on how I can move further without making the story repetitive or cause it to lose its excitement

@rickp4356 6 месяцев назад

Sympathy from The Kingkiller Chronicles is a good one. The interplay between that and "Naming" (so you have both hard and soft systems) is quite fun to read.

@VNightmoon 6 месяцев назад

I don't really have a favorite magic system, but I tend to like universes with harder magic systems. As an example, Batman (by itself). I like a world where things like freeze rays, giant man-eating plants, fear serum, laughing gas, and other fun stuff can exist, but there's enough realism that it feels like it could theoretically be possible. No one needs to know exactly how fear serum is made; we can accept exotic chemicals and comic book science. The important part is the audience knows how it works (shows someone some sort of fear, and it can be tweaked to show specific ones, and triggers the amygdala), and how to beat it (innoculation, mind over matter, updating the current counteracting agent). There are very clear rules for what it can and can't do, and why some characters (like the Joker, who's too insane/his own weird chemical makeup, Batman because he keeps creating cures for the new strain, and even the Scarecrow himself after tasting his own medicine numerous times and deliberately using himself as a test subject) are immune to it. Even some "softer" magic elements, like Poison Ivy's ability to control plants and create plant monstrosities, have just enough plausible grounding to deduce certain rules, like she needs extreme focus/energy to search through The Green to find something, that her scientific background in chemistry and botany plays a key role in her creations, and that her own hybrid makeup from unorthodox experiments from Dr. Woodrue is part of the key of why she can create these things and others can't. She's an accident that isn't so easily replicated. Stuff like that, where not everything is clearly defined, but there's enough clearcut rules that you can call bullshit when an author tries to do something with the magic that it was distinctly stated earlier that it can't do.

@laranjamecanica9588 6 месяцев назад

My favorite magic system is from the Japanese manga YuGiOh. I love how it merges magic with games and the connection with ancient egypt is awesome.

@ellie7252 6 месяцев назад

my favourite way to develop a magic system is limitation. the higher the limitations and conditions that need to be fulfilled to perform a 'spell' as it were, the stronger the magic. so, for example, if you sacrifice one of your fingers, perhaps the magic system allows you to perform a miracle worth the value of losing a finger for the rest of your life.

@denusklausen3685 6 месяцев назад

But remember you have to stay consistent. In such a world it is very likely that you would have a character, say, that lost their parents to some magician and he sacrifices his life and power to only be able to attack that one person who he holds a grudge against and binds himself by a contract that will kill him once he fulfills his purpose. Such a character would be almost unstoppable (if you have seen HxH this is basically Kurapika). There are a ton of characters that you would think would have to exist in such a world. Are their some small sacrifices like say hair or nails that every body will start using for convenience? You really have to think hard when you use such a system.

@ellie7252 6 месяцев назад

@@denusklausen3685 totes! there's alot to consider.

@T1544767 6 месяцев назад

I like how you used Spider-Man as an example for how to do magic correctly. I look at it as like invisible super powers. I think Magic is best when there are rules, and systems in place, but I think it's ultimately best when "The Force" or whatever system is like its own character, with a will and mind of its own. I guess I'm saying magic that includes deities than can override magic when they want. The thing I like about Harry Potter is that there's a few hundred spells with names and affects like some kind of RPG with hierarchies and such. If your magic system has too many rules, you get into things like Yu-Gi-Oh! where I TRIED to watch one episode where the characters battling consisted of them RECITING THE RULES OF THE GAME TO EACH OTHER via magic spells and then they kept one-upping each other on lesser-known rules that overrode rules that they cited.

@ludovico6890 6 месяцев назад

Not sure if it's a hard magic system, but I love how it's minutely codified in Dracula. We know vampire's strengths, weaknesses and limits in details, albeit how it works or why is never explained. And yet they remain terrifying through the novel.

@alsmith5031 6 месяцев назад

Favorite systems have to be either The Force in Star Wars, or the Warp in Warhammer 40k. Although very different to each other, both come with struggles and immense risk and temptation from misuse.

@KALtheHighstorm117 6 месяцев назад

When it comes to hard magic systems, no one is better than Brandon Sanderson. In fact, he published four laws to guide people who are writing hard magic. 1st law: Your ability to solve problems with magic is directly proportional to reader's understanding of how tge magic works. 2nd law: Limitations and costs are more interesting than powers. 3rd law: Before adding something new to your magic, see if you can instead expand upon what you already have. 0th law: Always err on the side of what is awesome. His magic systems in Mistborn and the Stormlight Archive are excellent examples of these laws put into use.

@GeneralPenguinIsCool 6 месяцев назад

I would say, in tandem with this video, a good vs bad video of magic systems would be good

@oliverford5367 6 месяцев назад

The MCU suffers from incoherent magic. The question of why Thanos doesn't just increase resources instead of killing half the universe is an obvious example, but you never see all these superpowers changing the world. Soft magic is good if it goes out of control. One of my favorite movies is The Craft, where teen girls get witchcraft to work but then it all starts going horribly wrong. Magic where the user doesn't understand it and can't control it is more interesting to me.

@ArifRWinandar 6 месяцев назад

If Thanos increased resources, it would be the same as him admitting that he is wrong, and he would have to take responsibility for all the genocide he did. At least that's how I look at it.

@WriterBrandonMcNulty 6 месяцев назад

That Thanos issue bothered me when I saw Infinity War in theaters. In recent years I've come to understand the idea that if he doubled the resources, people would only waste them anyway. Maybe he should've wished for people to manage resources more responsibly? And thanks for recommending The Craft. Adding it to my list

@jurajszasz8109 6 месяцев назад

The Dr.Strange 2 have the most incoherent magic in MCU.

@ellie7252 6 месяцев назад

@@WriterBrandonMcNulty tbh what annoys me is the solution Thanos could come to that solves it; to split half of all living beings into an identical alternate dimension. that way, both halves of the population survive, and both get double the resources they had before. his "sacrifices must be made" mantra makes no sense if that's an option.

@oliverford5367 6 месяцев назад

@@ellie7252 It doesn't make sense at all in the context of tons of superpowers and Tony Stark inventing all these brilliant things, the Wakanda utopia, etc. It's not really consistent worldbuilding.

@marshallmykietyshyn4973 6 месяцев назад

A lot of newer fantasy series have good magic systems, but I'd say one of the best is "light drafting" in Brent Weeks" Lightbringer series. It's super well-defined and well though out, as well as being versatile enough to allow characters to find new ways of using the magic without breaking the established rules. It's really well done.

@lavetissene339 3 месяца назад

I absolutely adore the magic system of Eragon. It immediately establishes the stakes of a situation and you can generally intuit when someone is in over their head.

@Xobik1 6 месяцев назад

Peter V. Brett created his own nuclear energy and all the marks that permits doing things to defeat demons. Brandon Sanderson and his systems have some interesting aspects, rules and a lot of limits. Robin Hobb have two/three interconnected types of magics systems that fits the world she created and helps to build emotion towards all Fitz' story.

@OlgaKuznetsova 6 месяцев назад

I love the magic system in Howl's Moving Castle (and in general in Hayao Miyazaki's works). it's soft and you don't understand a lot of it, but that adds to the feeling of magic and mystery, and it works. And then there's also the soft magic in Junji Ito's works which adds so much to the unsettling feeling. I still regularly think about the The Enigma of Amigara Fault... like why? How? Can you resist it? Etc etc etc.

@WriterBrandonMcNulty 6 месяцев назад

Favorite magic system? Let us know!

@moonislovely4923 6 месяцев назад

Magic system from my favourite anime and manga, Jojo's bizzare adventures' Stands!

@darkenedpp 6 месяцев назад

That's a good question. Probably Curse Energy from Jujutsu Kaisen or Bending from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

@reubenmanzo2054 6 месяцев назад

My favourite magic system is from Heroes. There's a wide variety of different powers available and each characters abilities are moderately well established almost as soon as they're revealed to have them. The only exceptions to this are Sylar and Peter Petrelli.

@gibbsduhem1066 6 месяцев назад

Alchemy from full metal alchemist

@funfactswithanamateur1142 6 месяцев назад

The ancient language from Eragon. It is a hard system that does not allow mistakes without really bad consequences (like how the protagonist curses a baby in the first book on accident), and the nature of the language limits magic users. In the sequels we learn that the ancient language is not required for magic, but is still a good guideline because if someone uses wordless magic they can easily mess up and do something disastrous. I also love how the author uses logic to have magicians interact with spells. The magicians can work around spells with clever wording. For example in the latest book the protagonist has to defile someone’s grave (I promise it makes sense in context) and someone put an enchantment on the grave that does not allow the dirt or body to move. The protagonist gets around it by moving water and using that to push up the body part he needs. This kind of thing is why I love that series.

@StoryTeller8692 6 месяцев назад

One of my favorite magic systems has to be be from Eragon. It's limitations are so simple yet powerful for the story: Every energy needs to come from somewhere. You need to learn the words to describe what you want to do. One physical limitation, one that makes sure the character needs to put in effort to learn magic. And sure enough, in the progress of the story, the characters can learn ways to shift the physical limitation, but some ways are highly unethical, to say the least, so all of a sudden, there's a price to pay. Simple, understandable base rules, yet such a broad and interesting impact on the story.

@jasonwest3815 6 месяцев назад

My favourite magic system is definitely game of thrones. This goes more for the books but I love how rare and mysterious it is, which has a much bigger impact on when it does happen. And I love how I keeps ramping it up, always introducing new things.

@2Nice2Bonline 6 месяцев назад

One of my favorite magic systems is from the Earthsea Cycle, by Ursula K. Le Guin.

@asquirrelplays 6 месяцев назад

"The authors knows how it works, hopefully" - I had a laugh at that one. I feel like it's pretty common (unfortunately) these days for the authors/writers to not have a clue how their magic systems work.

@NickPoninski 6 месяцев назад

I thought about Lost when I heard that bit. I know they don't have a magic system per se, but they had no idea what the hell they were doing as the story developed over time.

@asquirrelplays 6 месяцев назад

@@NickPoninski From what I hear, the guy behind Lost (JJ) is pretty notorious for that. Get you hooked with a crazy idea then take it absolutely nowhere because he doesn't actually know what he's doing.

@zennyfieldster4220 6 месяцев назад

My favourite magic system is “Avatar: the last air bender” I just love how it appears that people do motions to move their appropriate elements. I want to create a similar magic system but the person or creature requires an “energy stone” that has that elemental energy within. The catch is that when used, it drains the user’s stamina in order to replenish its energy.

@Joshua_N-A 6 месяцев назад

Sounds like neat system. So, one character is limited to one stone? Is stamina level fixed or the characters can increase it through training?

@zennyfieldster4220 6 месяцев назад

@@Joshua_N-A good questions. Question 1 A: I’ve always thought of one character working with one stone but having multiple would create some cool combinations. Question 2 A: just like an athlete training for stamina based sports. One can train to increase his/her stamina for longer wield time.

@Hundeputzmunter 6 месяцев назад

My favourite movie 'magic' system is the original Matrix and my favourite system in a novel is in Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay (which balances the power and the cost excellently)

@galfisk 6 месяцев назад

My favorite, believe it or not, are the magic systems that occasionally crop up in the Donald Duck comics by Don Rosa. He's a former engineer, and it shows. The magic, usually a spell by Magica De Hex, changes one fundamental force or rule for the affected object or person, and the ducks have to figure out what it is and how to work around it. In one comic she switches their personal gravity horisontally, in another she makes them forget the function of the first thing they hear after their name is spoken. "Donald! She ran down the stairs!" "Why is the floor jagged and sloped? Aaugh!"

@grizzly_manbanimation8436 6 месяцев назад

One of my favorite magic systems Is in Pokémon. You have all these mysterious creatures that have these supernatural capabilities that they use in battle as well as their own types and abilities that can either strengthen or weaken them, depending on what it is. Say you have a Pokémon with the ability levitate that grandson full immunity to ground type moves. The ability, lightning rod, attracts all electrical based attacks to it, and the attacks don’t do damage it actually restores health. There’s so many things like that in this game it’s impossible to name them. As for the impact it has on the world and how they fit in to the world are as follows. Some people use them as a weapon to try and get what they want and they’re usually not only respected, but also loved as pets. It remains a personal favorite of mine to this day

@TheZOMG71 3 месяца назад

I was sure I was gonna find someone that mentioned Bending from Avatar: The Last Airbender but I gave up the scroll. It immediately came to mind and I was thinking about the earthbending train in Ba Sing Se and the subcategories of each element and how we got to see the development of a few of them like blood bending and metal bending. Nice to see lots of people talk about Nen from HunterxHunter and Alchemy from Fullmetal Alchemist. I'll never forget the law of equivalent exchange and Kurapika's insane abilities.

@j-rey- 6 месяцев назад

One of the best magic systems in all of fiction is Nen from Hunter x Hunter. I can't even begin to describe how awesome it is. It has a whole subreddit devoted to people coming up with their own Nen abilities based off its rules.

@th3phant0mmast3r3 6 месяцев назад

Dude I was literally just thinking about that. I love how there are set rules that are defined, but then within those set rules you can just go crazy with unique abilities. Really cool stuff.

@wilsonram39 6 месяцев назад

Strongly agree. Part of what makes it work so well is that, while there are categories to account for every magic type, there's literally infinite possibilities of how an Emitter could use their power vs a Specialisy vs a Trasmuter. And not only that, but it also informs about the personalities of the people with thise powers! Only thing more unique and varied is the JJBA Stand powers, but I like the structure of Nen way better

@andymcgriffy 6 месяцев назад

This channel is extremely underrated. Can't wait to see it get to 100k. Extremely informative and helpful to fiction writers of all mediums

@mrldphntm1627 6 месяцев назад

Currently working on a story where admittedly the magic system was a bit all over the place. This vid helped give a guideline.

@onurreyiz35yt 6 месяцев назад

I can't help but love D&D's magic system. Being able to do all kinds of things creates much more opportunities and prevents wizards from just being fire shooting people. It can certainly be improved in a lot of ways but it's still very good.

@melissajill6174 6 месяцев назад

In my games--and I stuck with old AD&D 2nd ed, I have three different categories of magic: arcane (mages), divine (clerics), and bardic (bards--these require singing to cast the spells). There's considerable overlap in the effects between arcane and bardic, but it is so awesome when you get someone who really buys into bardic.

@mathieuleader8601 6 месяцев назад

I love how varied magic can be

@armandrachal8964 6 месяцев назад

Love Once Upon a Time and the way they write magic...!!

@ireneseewer896 4 месяца назад

Thank you for your enlightening videos! My favourite Magic system is definitely the one from Kevin Hearnes 'Iron Druid'. I admire the thought he put in it - it never wavers through the entire series of books and makes for adorable scenes.

@jasonjensen011 6 месяцев назад

Love all of these, and this one was especially great. Thanks so much.

@Jachinthebox 6 месяцев назад

The Stands in Diamond is Unbreakable connects to their users really well.

@inkedvader813 6 месяцев назад

Always found Terry Goodkind's magic system extremely interesting, Sword of Truth series really plays with its concepts.

@ellennewth6305 6 месяцев назад

Thanks for this advice, Brandon. Fascinating subject!

@mysteryromanticgamer3336 2 месяца назад

One of my favorite magic systems is from the game CONTROL: there are humans who are born with psychic affinity but usually go unnoticed, although if they are exposed to paranormal events, they can develop paranormal powers. Everyday objects can show paranormal properties too by attracting energies from another plane of existence, the so-called Astral Plane, in which the collective subconscious of Humanity participates. Incorporeal intelligent beings based on resonance from other dimensions can participate in this process. A human can be bonded to such objects with paranormal properties to acquire new powers, and could even be bonded to a incorporeal intelligent being as a guardian angel.

@aaronratzan 6 месяцев назад

This was fascinating. Thank you!

@beautifulmath5361 6 месяцев назад

The distinction between hard and soft magic systems was very insightful and useful

@wolfknightstudios5021 25 дней назад

This is was really good! Im currently working a new magic system for a story of mine and this has been really helpful, thank you!

@WriterBrandonMcNulty 25 дней назад

Glad it helped!

@LaserLady 6 месяцев назад

My favorite is from Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters Books. They are mainly early 1900's in our world but select people inherit either earth, fire, water, air or spirit abilities. The world has invisible elemental creatures that can aide these people. There are various levels of magicians, some possess little abilities and others are considered masters. There is a possibility to taint the magics with evil purposes, like earth mages can resurrect dead bodies. There is no end to the possibilities, but there are set limits that make sense to our very real world of physics.

@mantistoboggan265 21 день назад

One of my favorite magic systems, or something similar in concept to a magic system anyway, is the system of time travel/multiverse travel established in the movie Source Code. It is definitely a hard system rather than a soft one, and a revelation about how it actually works is a crucial factor that drives the entire plot. It's very well written and follows its established rules perfectly, which makes for a very satisfying, logically consistent story.

@robbycan 6 месяцев назад

Spock's mental powers and quirks of his alien body in Star Trek were a valuable use of magic, both hard and soft.

@julietardos5044 6 месяцев назад

Or Betazoids' ability to mind-read or emotion-read. Or the tech stuff like Geordi's VISOR or transporters, warp speed, etc.

@John_C494 6 месяцев назад

I had a great time watching this - fantastic video! I'm interested in a video discussing the role of canon in worldbuilding, particularly its impact on enhancing or detracting from a reader's immersion. Thanks so much for all your work!

@iamtreadmill 6 месяцев назад

I greatly appreciate how Rothfuss (shakes fist) incorporated both the hard "energy moneychanger" system that is clearly explained to the reader and used with its limitations in the world, but also the much softer and more mysterious "naming" system that could potentially accomplish anything, but always remains elusive to the protagonist.

@BenedictHarrcliff 3 месяца назад

Great video!

@Skids0800 6 месяцев назад

I like to ask would you ever make a video on how to write different types of relationships? Whether romantic or non romantic?

@PritchardPub 6 месяцев назад

Another banger, cheers!

@ethanboyd2981 6 месяцев назад

Favorite magic system is easily from The Wheel of Time series (book, not show). Using the one power is clearly defined with limits and consequences, but there is also the unknown as there are abilities that get discovered as the story progresses.

@mrsturtevant1 6 месяцев назад

I love the magic system in Onward, and the spells are limited by magical decrees.

@commercialchase8442 6 месяцев назад

I have a magic system where magic is not learned but expressed. Basically, everybody has a spiritual connection to a divine entity that is sometimes expressed to create magic. So magic is not individualistic but collectivistic. I thought it was a unique idea.

@matiasnores9409 6 месяцев назад

Nice vid!! Could you do one of how to (or not to) write over powered characters?

@Coffy-chan 6 месяцев назад

Alchemy from FMA is what made me fall in love with designing hard magic system. Blew my mind as a child, still holds up as an adult. Still my favorite system.

@EC_Orion 6 месяцев назад

5:34 Tales of Berseria spotted! Thanks for this video. I've been struggling a bit with writing my own magic systems, so this does indeed help a bit. I just need to work the brain juices a little more, I think.

@hbookreviews 6 месяцев назад

Hi Brandon! Thank you for your valuable writing advice and practical examples. I've been your subscriber since your early RU-vid videos. And over the past few months, I've noticed your channel has increased views and followers by 1000s. Other than posting quality content, consistently, what are some other things you've done to boost your followers?

@WriterBrandonMcNulty 6 месяцев назад

Hey, thanks for being a longtime viewer! I gotta be honest--I got lucky. One of my Star Wars videos took off around May 4th ("May the 4th be with you" day), and I got a huge boost in viewership. Things snowballed from there, and the only thing I've been doing differently is delivering more "movie clip" videos (people seem to prefer them to the videos where I talk on camera).

@KodyCrimson 6 месяцев назад

"Know your magic's limits. There's buildup and payoff." Disney's Star Wars: "Limits? What is this concept of buildup? We just go right to the payoff, buildup just wastes time."

6 месяцев назад

He explicitly talked about the original trilogy.

@mysteryromanticgamer3336 2 месяца назад

In manga Aposimz there is a super technology available to very few that transmutes a human into a super warrior, capable of resisting extreme temperatures, without aging or getting sick, without needing to eat and being able to generate a biomechanical armor that covers the body and a special ability that is variable depending on the person, from turning your arm into a sniper cannon to being able to launch lightning bolts. A super warrior is made up of placenta, which is biomass that can be molded at will to generate the armor, and uses the so-called Higgs particles as source of energy, a regenerative but finite resource. They emit Higgs particles when generating the armor, which make them more easily detectable by other super warriors, since one of their abilities is to detect Higgs particles, also if they fight very intensely, they can exhaust their deposit of Higgs particles.

@sdavis2488 6 месяцев назад

Thanks man. Good advice. See you at the book signing. ;)

@roeavet6563 6 месяцев назад

If anyone wants a great magic system, then you should read Lord of the Mysteries The potions and pathways system is just too great, its almost perfect! You wouldnt regret giving the web novel a chance~

@mm123gchannel9 6 месяцев назад

In middle school I came up with a character who’s a creature with a magic system that is based on adrenaline. Their body is able to push beyond human levels and become super durable, super fast, and super strong at high adrenaline levels. Obviously because of the nature of adrenaline, the downside to this power is that it can only reach its highest potential if the character can reach high stress levels. Meaning that they can only start a fight at basic human level until their body has reached enough intensity to go all out. Which can sometimes be a struggle if enemies of the same species are able to tap into their intensity levels a lot faster than the main character. Another thing is that their species are by nature specialists, not generalists. Meaning that rather than just train their body to use the most out of every aspect of their power they rather just focus on one style of combat and nothing else. For example, the main character only focuses on arm strength to punch with maximum force, while another character more so specializes in agility to reach unpredictable speeds.

@sureshmalladi5358 6 месяцев назад

Plz , More videos on Magic System

@WolfofBende 6 месяцев назад

Anime oftentimes have the best magic system, I don't know why. From Nen, Reatsu, Chakra, Cursed Energy, Alchemy etc.

@sarahmarkusen521 6 месяцев назад

one of my favorite book series is The wheel of time, I''m actually not a fan of the show, it does a disservice to the source material, but I think the magic system is amazing. To me, it is a more modern day writing of Tolkien's version of a magic system.

@Annokh 6 месяцев назад

I think first half of Sword of Truth series (which you can know by its loose TV series adaptation called "The legend of the Seeker") does a decent job building a decent magic systems. Sure, it's basically "A tool A is a tool A" system for the most part, but when you read some magical setup someone does and think, "Ah, knowing this and that from before, I can tell this is quite clever!", you know something is well done.

@peregrine.somerville 6 месяцев назад

The First Law trilogy has my favorite magic system. It’s the only one I’ve seen that really shows the dire cost of using supernatural power to manipulate reality. Certain spells almost kill the character who cast them.

@markpeterson8463 6 месяцев назад

I'm a huge fan of the first Earthsea books by Ursula le Guin (I have only read the first three books, to be honest) and a good example I think of combining hard and soft magic systems.

@Ilovethelord508 6 месяцев назад

Was hopeful you would touch on the last airbender.

@mattt9278 6 месяцев назад

It's not a TV show but Mage: Awakening had a fantastic magic system.

@SequentiallyCompact 6 месяцев назад

One pretty good mix of hard and soft is in Mage: The Ascension. It allows someone to hypothetically perform almost any feat imaginable, but the requirements of mastery in a sphere or spheres, the difficulty in achieving it, and the potential for paradox backlash are strong limitations.

@kausemustream4455 6 месяцев назад

Luke definitely didn't push the torpedos into the shaft

@dungeonessentials4961 6 месяцев назад

Garth Nix Sabriel (The Old Kingdom) with his two magic types: Charter Magic (bound by rules and codified ideas) and Free Magic (wild untrained Magic that includes necromancy and more primal magics) The system has clear rules, interesting interactions with how spells are cast (the necromancer’s 7 bells as a focus are central to the plot of all the books and have meaningful consequences and choices for the characters) They are literally part of the world building and function as plot devices and limitations for both villains and heroes alike.

@PhoenixCrown 6 месяцев назад

I like both soft and hard systems, my favorite from each probably Lord of the Rigns and Full Metal Alchemist. But I REALLY love when they blend... Game of Thrones is a good example of having multiple systems, some harder and some softer, but my favorite is when the same magic has a spectrum. The Lightbringer series does this really well where the hard magic is simply light turned into physical "luxin" which has various properties depending on which color was used, but then within the same light magic there is much we don't understand, layers to its power etc. I'm doing the blend with my series: In book I, the magi have a hard system where they can use a magical resource to create crystal, river, wind, and lightning. They use this power to oppress the non magic users. In book II, our MC discovers how limiting their understanding of magic is, and we start delving into surprise and wonder.

@VXMasterson 6 месяцев назад

Seeing as you mostly reference famous shows and movies, I was shocked to see a scene from Tales of Berseria here

@bobstanley8376 6 месяцев назад

I like shadowrun, where use of technology inhibits the use of magic

6 месяцев назад

I like the magic system in Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy. There, magic is scarce, expensive and never without repercussions.

@AkorSoul 6 месяцев назад

As someone who as a world full of Magic i am happy that to see i slowly get some points right and your Videos are a Great Back up for me to see if do it theoreticly right xD Thx for your Videos

@HasekuraIsuna 6 месяцев назад

One of my favourite "magic" systems is for sure Darker Than Black's. People have suddenly woken up to these super powers, but they have to pay a price everytime they use it. The first encounter with one of these "contractors" in the first episode is a French agent who can control gravity... but he has to dislocate one of his own fingers whenever he uses the power. Ouch! What happens if a contractor doesn't pay the price? Nobody knows, but no one is willing to find out either!

@HolyHadou 6 месяцев назад

I never considered Spider-Man's powers as a magic system but it makes too much sense not to think about it like that after listening to this. Meaty.

@johnnyutah1001 3 месяца назад

Wizard of Earthsea has the best magic system IMO. The main character is precocious but not, "the chosen one" and because he overestimates his ability he makes a mistake that scars him for life and that he must work to correct.

@ludovico6890 6 месяцев назад

I like the magic systems from old myths and legends: things happen as the plot requires, people accept it, but there's little or no explanation on how it works and why. Fafnir becomes a dragon? Sure, why not? King Arthur has a magic sword? Well, yes, of course.

@Iso20227 6 месяцев назад

I have a lot to think about now. The role of magic in my world: To enhance the plot. To enhance the capabilities of both sides of the conflict and increase the scenarios that my protagonist needs to account for. To connect my main characters magic to his personality: I made it so that it’s hard to control. It’s often intensely “disobedient” and aggressive. This connects with my protagonist because he himself is a free spirit, and doesn’t like being tied down, although he has grown very accustomed to living that way in his time as a slave, so he never noticed that he doesn’t like it as much as he does. This is a point of conflict as he’s learning to control his magic, as it often interferes with his control. Magic limits: I have separated into 3 overall subjects. Elemental manipulation (Mana) Atom Stitching, aka Mending (Ether) And Animation, aka Necromancy (Magick) These three types of magic are completely separate from each other, so wielder of one type would be entirely unable to use another type of magic. However, wielders of two or more types (rare as that is) are able to combine them and accomplish new sub-genres of magic that I’m still working out into a sort of “magic tree chart” Influence on worldbuilding: basically, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”. Meaning, some people use their magical abilities for selfish reasons, while others may use them for the good of their people. After all, the use of magic requires 3 things. Substance, will, and a catalyst. And as for testing my magic system, there’s an entire training section for that as I slowly increase my protagonist’s capabilities until it feels right.

@Jameswebbtelescope7484 6 месяцев назад

Hey Brandon I’m writing a book where the character suffers from hallucinations, how would I correctly write a character having hallucinations?

@ShinGallon 6 месяцев назад

Given that my graphic novel started out set in the D&D world (as the main characters are ones I rolled to play in the game) I've kept that system in place, despite having since retconned it to not be tied with anything owned by WotC. It's mostly a hard magic system but I've left it vague enough to allow for story-driven wiggle room. I've gone so far as to keep track of how many spell slots my caster has used and him running out is a plot point in the third act when his healing spells suddenly aren't there as a safety net any more.

@mattjacobson5774 3 месяца назад

Favorite magic system? I still think fondly back to Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. He spends two whole trilogies trying to figure out his magical powers.

@n00bplayer72 6 месяцев назад

I can't hammer home enough how important it is to balance your magic system. Always keep in mind what is worst thing a character could do with your magic system and could they actually pull it off. ie: If you have an elemental magic system, what's preventing, say, water mages from summoning a tsunami, earth mages from generating a 9.8 magnitude earthquake, or wind mages from collapsing someone's lungs? If the only thing stopping them is "Well, that just wouldn't be nice" then that's a problem.

@mysteryromanticgamer3336 2 месяца назад

Another of my favorite magic systems are Anne Rice's vampires: here the vampires have their origin in a fusion between an ancient spirit blinded by bloodlust and a woman in Ancient Egypt. But that spirit was not normal, he was a living human being at one time, but an alien species abducted him and altered him physically, mentally and spiritually. This man invented luracastria, a chemical substance with revolutionary properties, then the vampires are the result of slowly replacing the organic material of those humans with luracastria over the centuries, giving them perpetual youth, great regenerative capacities, not being able to get sick, without need to eat, enhanced physical attributes and enhanced psychic powers such as telepathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis and flight, but a incontrollable desire for blood and vulnerability to sunlight.

@darienrouse7917 6 месяцев назад

A strict but but flexible/creative power system is Nen from HunterXHunter. It's basic concepts are strict, but you can be flexible on what your nen ability can do and train for it

@kasieream1248 6 месяцев назад

Maybe do one on time settings in science fiction and how to know what technology would and wouldn’t work at different future dates or is this part of magic systems?

@BloodyInitiate 6 месяцев назад

Wizard World by Roger Zelazny has my favorite depiction of magic. The character can simply see and interact with magic that spreads like threads all around us, and it would be cinematic too if adapted to screen.

@factualopinion4275 6 месяцев назад

Domain expansion 🤞🏽

@Xenozfan2 6 месяцев назад

I think the term "magic system" is to limiting, since it leads people to believe sci-fi is excluded. I much prefer "power system". I think alchemy from Full Metal Alchemist is one of the best power systems ever created, or at least hard power systems. It can do anything, as long as you 1) have the required circle, 2) the required materials, and 3) the required will, but has hard limitations such as the previous requirements and human transmutation (which does push it a bit softer; "what is a soul" and all that).

@mattsager914 6 месяцев назад

My horror story has a bit of mind-control. Somehow, every video you release is hugely relevant to exactly what I'm doing

@marchmelloow 6 месяцев назад

My favorite magic system is Umineko's. I don't know if it would be considered a soft magic system, since magic can do/be anything, or a hard magic system, since the magic can only be used in understood situations and has very specific uses, but the freeness of the magic system makes it one of the most unique stories ever.