So this will be a bit more loose than other blog posts as it will be mostly some thoughts I am having about the current state of C22’s magic system and the upcoming Steampunk world I am making.
So when a friend and I first started making our steampunk world, we made these things called projectors. Cartridge based guns that will fire out magic in a concentrated attack. Magic was suppose to be difficult to harness and control so this was the leyman’s access to it. This was all fine when this was a Savage worlds homebrew.
Now the world I have made and the mechanics for C22 do not mesh. That is the problem. First we need to understand how magic works so we can understand why it makes the world not work.
In the current version of C22, magic and powers are just like any other skill check. You spend some time, you see if you got the right element and you can create even the smallest amount of magic. The only cost is your time and a card draw. Sometimes, in tense situations, you dont get the element you want so you cant cast the spell you want, but you can still cast a spell. Lets say you draw a hearts and a clubs but you needed a diamond card to cast your lightning magic. in tense situations, tough luck, no lightning. Out of combat it is a little bit different, you can always wait long enough to get the element you wanted.
So out of combat, magic doesnt really have a cost. The time is negligible and you can mitigate the unexpectedness by waiting. Now lets look at what I wanted for the technology of the world. I have steamtech and then the more recently developed cartridge based magic tech that is supposed to be the reliable form of magic casting. aka firing the blast of magic out of a gun. Why would magic be developed to be reliable if casting magic is already reliable out of combat and most people can do it without a cost? These questions made me need to rethink how magic will work, mechanically, in the Steampunk setting I am hoping to build.
I have a few options I can look at to make this work: I can gatekeep magic, I can make you spend a resource, or I can add stakes if you fail.
A similar solution is to gatekeep magic. Only certain people can even learn magic (Which is currently partially true, you need to know a style first), but this has a few problems in my mind. For player characters, why would you ever use a projector if you can just cast the magic yourself if it is easy to put skills in to.
I can make you spend a resource to cast magic, like vancian magic and spell slots or savage worlds and power points. Looking at C22 as it is right now, I can make magic cost health, which represents stressing the character with magic, but this has the problem of being able to be healed off with recovery actions, making the cost almost trivial at times. Now if I decide to do cards as a cost then that could have interesting ramifications. It doesnt directly contribute to the magic user’s health and immediate death, it just makes them slightly more susecptible to damage as it lowers their ability to soak damage. Also these cards only come back from resting, tying rest to recovery for magic users. Finally, it has the added benefit of gatekeeping magic slightly as what makes player characters unique is their ability to soak damage and keep fighting. This isn’t perfect as it makes magic have a finite number of casts between rests, which might not be the direction I want to take magic yet.
The adding stakes if you fail would also explain this as magic is both risky and dangerous, causing either a loss of cards, health, or inflicting a status on a failure would create an interesting balance and press your luck style of gameplay. This would also stop many people from getting or using it as it could result in serious injury if used incorrectly, thus making the use of projects an easy and reliable creation.
Right now I am most interested in having failed checks for magic and powers to require a card to be soaked. i think this would the most interesting of the combinations in my opinion. It might make magic take too long to recover from between heavy uses, as you can only recover 10 cards each long rest, so ill need to watch that.
Do you think there is a different approach I am missing? Something you do or have seen done to make magic have a cost?
What are ways you've added stakes to your homebrew items in your sessions that worked well? What have you done that hasn't worked well? Let me know in the comments below. As always if you like this type of content and want to see more of it, let me know either here or on Twitter (@c22system) or on my discord found on the home page of this site.