2.8 KiB
Game Magic: A Designer's Guide to Magic Systems in Theory and Practice By Jeff Howard (PH.D., Asst Prof in Game Design)
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Author: u/notmy2ndopinion Concent of Saunt Edhar*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4xjz10/game_magic_a_designers_guide_to_magic_systems_in/
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Score: 14
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Created: 2016-08-13T17:12:43
Post:
Has anyone read this book, per chance?
I stumbled across it while trying to find online information about the potential political and power structures of the spheres of magic.
Based on the Table of Contents, it looks like it may be a solid reference for this community for brainstorming and world-building!
Comments:
u/vallar57 [+7] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (11 hours later)
$47.36 for amazon kindle edition. No matter how interesting, this is a bullshit price for a book that isn't some kind of collector's edition.
It does look like pretty interesting and in-depth analysis though)
u/luminarium [+3] (4 hours later)
Looks promising but unfortunately there's a pretty low page limit. I wasn't able to get much from it thus far, but what I read definitely makes sense.
If you're looking for a game with interesting, flavorful magic systems, I'd suggest Dominions 4. It's very in depth.
u/Escapement [+2] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (22 hours later)
Dominions 4 is great; it's one of my favourite games of all time, and I'm pretty active on the subreddit /r/Dominions4 It's got great flavor. It's probably most similar to Ars Magica stuff, from Tabletop roleplaying. For those interested, I'd warn that the game has a learning 'curve' like a brick wall, and 90's era sprite-based graphics, and finally the AI doesn't play particularly well so you really end up learning by playing against real people over games lasting literal months of realtime. However, if you can look past those issues, you'll find a basically unparalleled depth and breadth of strategy that make other games feel boring.
On the book that's the nominal topic of this thread: From the TOC, I think it looks like this is trying to be an overview of a lot of things that have gone before. Which I mostly don't need, from having played or read roughly ~75% of the things they list personally already. I mean, I don't need 8 pages on Eternal Darkness - I played Eternal Darkness for 30 hours to beat the entire story 3 times for the secret ending, I could write a dozen pages on it myself quite easily. Similar feelings for roughly three-quarters of the other things it lists.
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+3] fear of last pages (16 hours later)
PM me an email address if you’d like to have a copy for demonstration purposes.