Science versus Magic brainstorm

As I've posted in a couple threads, there was a request for a certain type of RP that I decided to consider and put up as an option for what I would try to GM next; this idea has now garnered more interest so I am starting this brainstorm thread to get the finer details set up.

Specifically, the finer details of the setting, as my life has been busy and rather than think on any of the ideas I put up, I decided to just not think about any of them and focus on other things.

All that's certain, obviously, is that this will be an RP about two separate factions of some sort having a conflict, be it all out war, a shadow war, or perhaps a cold war style of indirect wars by proxy. One faction is a faction of logic and scientific progress, while the other is a faction of traditionalism and magic.

So here's the ideas that come to my mind; feel free to mention what sounds most interesting to you or suggest something different:

• Split world: The two factions each control one half of the same world, and are going at it in either all out war or cold war style.

• Secret world: The two factions are both spread out across a world like our real life world; both feel the need to keep their existence secret from the general population, possibly for differing reasons. Thus they are going at it in a shadow war, trying to keep their base locations secret while discovering the locations of the other factions' bases to then strike against them.

• Separate worlds: Both factions have their own home world, and have encountered each other while spreading to new worlds. Could act as a mix between all out war and shadow war, as both factions fight openly when they meet but are also trying to keep the location of their worlds, especially their home worlds, secret from each other.

• Alternate realities: Both factions exist in their own version of the same world, and random links and gateways between these realities are starting to form. Would likely be a more disjointed all out war, as both factions scramble to figure out where the next link will form and be more prepared for it than the other faction.

Most likely I would not base the RP on the real Earth no matter which option is taken, just for ease of on-the-fly narrative.

The other big question to determine is the level of technology the science faction is going to be at: Steampunk? Modern era? Near future? Sci-fi? (In terms of mechanics with the system I'll be using, this will not have as much of an effect on the game as you'd probably think.)

And yes, by the way I will be using a rule set for this RP, assuming it gets off the ground. I have a heavy bias for the Muggles Do It Better trope, so if I just ran this normally it's entirely likely I would make the science faction win via subconscious preference. So I'll be relying on dice rolls to actually determine how things go out, which should keep that bias in check. I'll make a post detailing what players will need to know about the system in order to play it, (It's a simple homebrew system, so it shouldn't be hard to learn.) plus information they don't need to know but might want to as optional reading.

edited 6th Jun '15 4:10:58 AM by FirockFinion

"But what about the magic faction? You barely mentioned it! How does the magic work? Are you that biased?" Well actually I just forgot initially, which yeah may be sort of a sign of bias. Take that as you will.

But anyway, as for the question of how the magic will work. Spoken words focused through a specific item like the wizards of Harry Potter? Visualizing the physical effect and how it works in your head then manifesting it like the witches of the Disc World series? Channeling energy into certain spells through the use of specific components like the mages of Dungeons and Dragons? Drawing out elaborate circles on the floor or ground like classical occult series? Does it work like the Witcher series? Or like Magic the Gathering?

Also, what about magical creatures and familiars?

Well given the system I was going to use, the answer is: All of the above. Well, most of it, anyway. I was figuring that different "types" of magic would all be different schools/practices, and the characters on the magic side of the RP could use whatever they want, within reason. Obviously anything just blatantly OP will not be allowed, also the system I'll be using relies on different skills doing one thing, so having a skill that's just something like "manipulate energy into any physical effect" will not be allowed. The same goes for any magical creatures/familiars the magic players want to tag along with their characters; I don't want to see anything that reads, "if it looks at you/you look at it, you die/get paralyzed/some other horrible detrimental or mind-altering effect."

What you need to know about the rule system:

There's only two stats: Hit points, (HP) and magic points. (MP) Yes, the characters on the science side will still be using the same MP system for fairness sake; if it really bothers anyone, they can rename it to "stamina points" or SP or something. Starting characters will have 10 points to split between these two stats as they see fit, as long as each stat is at least 1. There is also experience points, but player characters won't start with any.

Hit points work like you'd probably expect; as you take damage they'll go down. When you hit 0, your character will fall unconscious unless you have a skill to prevent that. Your character dies when they reach the same negative hit points as their max hit points. IE, if you have a max HP of 7, when you hit -7, you die. Skills cannot prevent this.

Magic points are spent to use skills, for which you can spend as many as you want so long as you have any to spend. You cannot use skills at all if your MP is at 0, including instances where using a skill would normally be free.

Characters do not level up, but experience points are just used to buy new skills and upgrade what they have. An additional hit point can be bought for 10 experience, and an additional magic point can be bought for 15 experience; neither can ever exceed a maximum of 10 however. (So yes, it can be worth it in the long run to start with a high MP, low HP character, but it would also be risky at the start.) Additionally, a level 1 skill can be bought for 10 experience, and any level 1 or 2 skill may be upgraded to the next level for 10 experience. From level 3 onwards, upgrading a skill costs 10 additional experience per level. (Ie, 20 experience for level 4, 30 experience for level 5, and so on.) The maximum level for a skill is 10.

For the interest of fairness, no character may start with any skill higher than level 3. Also, while additional experience will be gained for winning in combat and doing notable things, all characters will get regular experience regardless, to keep things fresh and to keep one side from just getting an early advantage and land-sliding every fight from there.

Skills can be virtually anything. As per the setting though, each faction will be limited to skills that fit thematically with them. Science characters can take weapon proficiency skills, trick shot skills, etc; magic characters can take spells and such. As mentioned before, a skill must be used for one thing, and any time your character is attempting to do that one thing, you can activate the skill by spending MP. Some things require using a skill, (like spells) while other things can simply be done better with a skill. (like firing a gun) Once a skill is at level 2 or higher, it can be used for free, so long as you still have any MP at all; however using them in this method is less effective than actually spending MP.

Then of course your character can have items, which in some cases can replicate a skill or allow your character to use a skill they don't actually have. (Such as magical amulets of protection or wands that fire a specific spell.) When it comes to anything that uses ammo, we'll be going with a Hollywood ammunition rules; your character still has to reload, but is assumed to be carrying "enough" reloads on hand to not run out. The exception to this is any high powered, hard hitting weaponry such as rocket launchers.

As you might guess then, the functional difference in terms of mechanics between the two factions is the emphasis of their characters. The science faction characters emphasize their items, while the magic faction characters emphasize their skills. (Though both factions utilize both items and skills.)

^{Click here for the stuff about the rules you don't actually need to know, but might want to.} The system uses a 2D6 roll for actions in combat, with opposing players each getting a roll; unless it is a surprise or unseen attack of some sort, in which case only the attacking player will get a roll. These rolls are not exact, but in general, 2-4 will be not good, 5-8 will be average, and 9-12 will be good; however a roll of 2 (double 1s) is an instant failure, and a roll of 12 (double 6s) is an instant success, though these only count before modifiers are applied. Also these rolls are about how well your character does what they are attempting to do, however not all things to attempt are equal so rolling higher does not guarantee winning; you can roll an 11 to stop a car with your bare hands while the driver rolls a 3 to run you over, and the driver will probably win. The primary modifier to these rolls is skills; a skill adds +1 to your roll for each MP you spend, multiplied by the level of the skill. Ie, spending 2 MP on a level 3 skill will add +6 to your roll. A skill can be used for free as long as you have any MP remaining, however it will be treated as if you spent .5 MP on it, then rounded down; therefore level 1 skills may not be used in this fashion, but a level 2 or 3 skill can add +1 to a roll for free. The reason you do not need to know this is because it's about stuff that I will be handling behind the scenes.

edited 8th Jun '15 1:49:29 AM by FirockFinion

Announcing interest.
Choosing a side will be darningly difficult.

Sounds cool so far. I'd favor split or separate worlds. As to the tech level, I think that'd depend one what magic can do so the balance can be kept. Is it conjuring up elemental bullets? Stopping time? Animal morphing? Zombies?

Interest. Uh, if you're open to ideas, I have one involving a Space Opera and opposing factions...

@Parable: The method of skills in the system I'm using is that they can do anything, though everything would be scaled appropriately to be fair.

For thematic purposes, I would probably not allow conjuring elemental bullets; conjuring elemental bolts or arrows that more or less serve the same function though? Fair game.

Stopping time? Sure, but only for brief moments.

Animal morphing? Totally, but it would take more time to morph the worse your roll is, during which you'd be basically helpless.

Zombies? Absolutely.

The system is a homebrew system my friend made and I helped refine slightly; we use it in a setting that includes anything and everything you can think of, and in terms of mechanics a dude with a sword charging a dude with a gun would actually be a pretty fair fight. Hence why I mentioned that the level of technology of the science side would not have as big of an impact on game mechanics as everyone would probably expect it to. The biggest game changer is if we did sci-fi for them and allowed stuff like bionic enhancements and power armor.

@Daydre: My personal preference would be for the secret world option, but the main point of this thread is that I don't have a setting figured out yet, so go ahead and bring up your idea.

edited 6th Jun '15 11:08:47 PM by FirockFinion

This seems pretty interesting. But on the topic of science.

What about a character who possesses an ability that might seem magical in nature, but is sided with science?

For example, a person who can control technology?

Also, I vote for the split world setting! Certain to make things more interesting.

edited 7th Jun '15 1:57:00 AM by UndyingPhoenix

@Undying Phoenix: Unless there's a lot of requests to allow it, I was not planning on allowing characters that incorporate elements of both factions. It seems to me like the whole point is the nature of duality between the opposing factions; thus allowing anyone to use stuff from both sides would ruin that.

Even if you could explain it in a scientific fashion, (Clouds of controlled nanobots too thin to see with the naked eye or something?) I don't think I would allow that either. Allowing the science faction to have things that are functionally magic, even if they aren't technically magic also seems like it would ruin the point of that duality; also at that point, what unique advantage would the magic faction actually have?

Hmm, alright. Another question.

Would guns for both sides be acceptable?

For the exact same reason I'm not planning to allow the science faction to have magic or sci-fi stuff that's functionally magic, I'm not planning to let the magic faction have guns, no.

Or any weird gun!wand things either. (I recall a guy who did that in a Harry Potter RP I was in once.)

edited 7th Jun '15 5:21:08 AM by FirockFinion

Looks interesting. For the world, what about a mix between secret and alternate reality? or something like that.

It's akin to secret world but an alternate reality exists which can only be accessed in specific places or by doing something extremely difficult.

I am in.

And I wonder if the Magaes work wih something like an Unmada-Field.

edited 7th Jun '15 6:40:25 PM by Blackie

@Dem Kimochis: You mean both factions being a secret organization in their own, separate realities? Or both factions being secret organizations in the same reality with links to another reality? I suppose either could work; the latter scenario would probably see both factions trying to exploit something about the other reality.

@Blackie: I tried to look up what that is, and I'm not sure I fully get it. Some kind of reality warping field caused by that person just believing really hard that that's how reality should work?

Are you asking if that's a skill the magic faction could have? Or are you asking if that's going to be the explanation for why the magic faction has magic?

edited 7th Jun '15 7:32:04 PM by FirockFinion

Second one in fact. It also fucks with science.

Since that would probably cripple the science faction characters every time the two factions got into a fight, I'd have to say no. The science faction is going to need guns of some kind no matter which tech level we choose for them; if those guns just stopped working every time they got into a fight with the magic faction, they would never win.

I could allow something like that as a skill, but it would have to have a pretty limited range and a limited duration for each activation.

I'm in too, this gon' be gud.

Since it's come up in a skype chat I'm in, I'm just gonna mention this more clearly, so that everyone can know.

A character in either faction could be anything, as long as it does not involve stuff from the other faction, and is not overpowered. (And an additional restriction to the science faction of not having technology more advanced than whatever setting level we choose for them.)

That means a guy in a loincloth swinging a club around would be acceptable for either faction; but more importantly, it means that the magic faction does not all have to be squishy, robed mages, and the science faction does not all have to be tacticool, gun-wielding commandos.

A dude swinging around a big hammer is acceptable for either. If he wants that hammer to have a magical enchantment, he's in the magic faction; if he wants that hammer to have a automated piston device inside the head, he's in the science faction.

edited 7th Jun '15 10:24:34 PM by FirockFinion

I like steampunk, as well as clockpunk. I don't like masquerades, though.

I also think Cattle Punk is badass for a setting, since it would be like Cowboys and Magicians.

edited 7th Jun '15 10:23:45 PM by nman

So in for Cattle Punk.

Also, can mages still use simple mechanical constructs?

@Blackie: For that answer I'd have to ask you to define "simple" and "mechanical", but rule of thumb is that wherever the magic faction could use magic instead instead of tech, they should.

I'd say no to a little mechanical robot familiar with sentience granted by magic; however a little golem that is pretty much functionally identical would be fine though.

Something like a pulley. This is probably a dumb question.

Need the answer for a little weapon design.

A pulley? That's fine I guess, though whether the weapon would still be acceptable would depend on what it is.

It is a pair of gauntlets with a little cart inserted in each of them. The carts can hold 1 gemstone (ruby (fire), sapphire(water), diamond(force), topas(lightning) or emerald(windcutter)) each at the beginning and can be upgraded later (probably need a huge amount of exp for balance).

• The cart has 2 different positions on the gauntlet:
  • Elbow (gives long range magical ability and the gauntet becomes extremely brittle)
  • back of the hand (Elemental punches and in the case of the diamond a Megaton Punch, the gauntlet becomes something akin to steel).
• The carts can be moved either by a pulley opperated with the fingers (Hidden blade style) or by Telekinesis.

edited 8th Jun '15 12:42:00 AM by Blackie

First off, this is an item; an item doesn't take experience points. If you want to say that a certain skill is necessary to use the item, (A certain type of magical focus to get the gems to actually do anything in this case.) then yes, that will cost experience, but it will cost the same experience as any other skill.

That's been a bottom line standard of the rule system since its incarnation; to reduce complexity, all skills cost the same to get and to upgrade, no exceptions, period. Instead the balancing factors are in the actual effect of said skills, based on what level they are, how much MP was spent, and how successful the roll was.

Anyway, that aside, the idea is fine.

edited 8th Jun '15 1:53:21 AM by FirockFinion