OUH Magic Words: Primer

Per the sound advice of CyberChronometer on Phlox’s server, I’m going to try and do write-ups on some of the moving pieces of OUH- arbitrarily jumping in with the Magic system instead of a well-rounded look at things. (I'm sorry if that makes it harder to follow along, I'll try to ease into it / shorthand as makes sense. I just physically couldn't get to sleep without doing this.)

Please: tear into this. Discuss this at me. Personally attack me for the fool and blasphemer I am.

Word-based Magic, Basically

(Almost) every form of casting spells in OUH utilizes the same basic flow chart for the actual execution of spells. Abstractly: you declare you're going to cast a spell, choose which Words you're going to use and how you want to invest MP, and then you go to resolve the spell.

This kind of is as it sounds- it's a lot less weird and ornate then GLoG spellcasting. In exchange however:

• There is of course the obvious benefits of the loose, improvisational feel of things. Players kind of treating spells like modern Zelda tools and poking and prodding, pushing the boundaries with weird interactions. Personally: I equate it with that thing in anime where a power sounds silly on paper but then leads to great moments besides. Also less to memorize.
  
  
• When designing, I tried to shift a lot of the complexity onto the actual Features (classless classes) so as to still add that element of having variety. In general, each different flavor of magic usually has:
• a different means by which they acquire Words, and so different spells
• a gimmick modifying their spells in some way, a unique edge
• a different way of getting MP to actually cast the spell
  
  
• Any cool wizarding cultures you wrote? Give them whatever chassis feels right or modify an existing one, give them a list of unique Words which only they have access to, etc etc. Churn out wizards by the sackfull.
• Tangent: I also typically have players start sans magic. Questing to learn magic makes people less buildy / make interesting choices
  
  
• All those weird ideas for GLoG spells? Cool, still use them. Make them items or drugs or weird tools or dungeon gimmicks or for the real razzle-dazzle: rehash them for really flavorful monster stuff.
  

More Specific Teardown

Skip this if you don't care about me badly recapping nitty-gritty (113.1 onward in the book).

Basically: the first couple steps work as loosely described above. A player's Words are usually from a small set pool of permanently learned Words. Often they are a [Verb] + [Noun] combo, but some might be an [Adjective] or a single [Noun] or [Verb]. It's kind of what Step 4 is for.

However many MP they have for the spell depends on which Feature (which chassis) they are using. Typically though: weaker more inexperienced characters are capped at lower MPs. (Tangent: spellcasting is also, fairly often, infinite or very low-cost. In exchange spellcasting is also usually a lot less numerically useful and has other tradeoffs? It's something I'm still tweaking, and would appreciate hot takes since I'm bad at dice math).

Basic algebra? Every time you cast a spell? Really it's actually more straightforward than that in practice. Value is just always set based on MP; more MP, harder to avoid spell.

Then the player just has to ask in the situation: should the effect be stronger, longer, or targeting more people? Usually something that comes quick.

(Tangent: Part of me debates cutting this down somehow; it's really just there to have something concrete for edge rulings / limitations in combat).

I should change the phrasing on this- really if its boring? Let it happen. If it's a challenge or interesting? Roll for it.

ALSO: on 114.1 & 115.1 in the book, I go over some more basic spellcasting rules. Namely:

• Spells cannot heal "HP / Sanity" in system.
• I decided to make most spellcasting basically infinite so yeah, don't bust it.
• Duration only matters when resisting nature (e.g. blasting a fireball doesn't care, sustaining a floating fireball does).
• No you can't instantly kill people through jank; any points of damage follow the above.
• Be cool.

With that out of the way...

Every single Feature, the aforementioned "chassis," all play with the general flow of things in different ways; and lend themselves to different strengths and playstyles.

I plan on running through each of them first, and then if people like I'll run through some of the other design stuff with OUH?

A lot of it is experimental and not quite yet fitting a classical mold, so like I said: tell me why I'm wrong, please, I do not know any better.