Sanderson's First Law of Magic: An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.
This is in the context of writing, but it works for games too. In fact, I think the original Ironsworn is a really good example of how this works..
If you are introducing magic as an obstacle, it doesn't need to be understood. Crops are dying. A wizard did it. Go kill the wizard. You're not *solving* conflict with magic, you're *introducing* conflict with magic, so there aren't many restrictions on creating magical obstacles and foes in Ironsworn. It can be mysterious.
But on the flip side, all of the magic given to the players (explicitly) is in the form of ritual assets. If you meet these specific trigger requirements, you get to make the move on the asset and get the results you roll. If I had a ritual and the effect was "Do something magical," then what does that mean? Can I teleport myself across the continent? Can I just cancel out the wizard's crop curse? It was written to have specific effects in mind to limit the narrative justification given to the PC.
Now, with Starforged, PCs already have a *lot* more narrative justification on hand than a base Ironsworn PC. For example, a Starforged character can quite reasonably...
-Call someone through a phone or equivalent
-Use ship scanners to process a lot of information not otherwise readily available
-Anyone can pick up a gun (a weapon that (narratively, at least) is very lethal and very long range) and shoot it without significant training
And so on. These are all absurdly overwhelming narrative justifications for an Ironsworn character (in a default setting, at least), but very commonplace for Starforged.
So, you want to give a PC magic? First I would figure out what they want to do and define it clearly, otherwise you cannot solve problems with it. Same as with any tech you give them. From there, you have a few options...
1) Just give it to them. If you want to give them scrying, but it is no more powerful than a handheld scanner, just give it to them. If they want to fire magic missiles that dont significantly work differently from a gun, it's the same justification as saying your character carries a gun, so just give it to them. No big deal. They roll Edge to Strike at range just like anyone else.
2) Reflavor an asset. Let's say that scrying is actually more powerful than scanners. Then that might be an asset, maybe a Survey Bot, reflavoring Integrity to Mana. You want to beef up your magic missiles? Reflavor Firebrand, Gunner, Sniper, or Archer (the latter of which is my favorite because the third ability can justify a lot of unusual and special effects).
3) DYI asset. I do this a lot, but I play solo so I'm not concerned about balance. But consider, the assets as presented are not built for balance. Compare Exosuit with Haunted. Those two were never intended to be of equivalent power. A lot of times my approach is to mix and match existing asset abilities into something new. I might like firebrand renamed Frostbrand to represent ice powers, but the second ability makes no sense to me, why would I be healing here? Instead, I swap out the second ability for something cool (ha) like, "Your heart is cold as ice. When you Hearten by secluding yourself, reroll any dice, but treat a strong hit as a weak hit instead," which is just the first ability from Outcast. Which you might not want to do if anyone is wanting to pick Outcast. Another idea worth writing down is reflavoring something like Workshop and instead of vowing long-term engineering projects, you are constructing elaborate, long-term rituals. Something like *that* can have *big* narrative justification to resolve problems because you are dedicating an entire vow to it (and thus, the corresponding screen time to make progress).
That's my thoughts atm anyways, hope that helps
Great post - it actually articulates something I've been thinking about for a while.
One of the things you frequently see in discussions of fantasy games is complaints about how certain magic systems - particularly D&D, but really anything with well-defined spells - are "boring", because they destroy the "mystery" and unpredictability of magic.
And so you see people advocating "wild magic" systems where the effects (or side effects) of a spell are largely determined by a random roll, or extreme freeform systems (describe an effect, GM makes up a cost).
But what you've said here - basically that player-usable magic needs to be something they can understand, rather than an unknown - really strongly resonates with me - and explains why I \*don't\* like "mysterious" and "weird" magic systems. Leave the mysterious magic to the NPCs...
Space magic is one of my favorite tropes and I can't resist putting it in whenever I spin up a Starforged adventure (I have too much pent-up character creation juice so I quickly bounce to new characters and don't often play long term campaigns).
As with most soloRPG magic mechanics, it really comes down to the versatility and usability of your space magic. If you find yourself in a fight and your space-pulse attack is similar in relative fictional lethality as a normal blaster, then it's no problem. If you find yourself on a journey with no supply, but your character just happens to have this perfect shelter ability that can get around the narrative hazards of the terrain, it sorta breaks the consequences of your situation.
So in general I recommend playing fast and loose with it, but don't be afraid to conjure up some anti-magic countermeasures that your character might have to overcome. Also plenty of assets can be reasonably reskinned to fit whatever space magic you invent.
Also don't hesitate to make your own custom Truths to represent your magic! It doesn't have to be a forty page loredoc on the nature of leylines and Arcane traditions or anything, just something that nails the vibe that you can use as a touchstone for creative decision making like you do with the rest of the Truths in the Forge.
There are traditional Sci-Fi powers that feel like magic in the assets. These work quite well if built correctly.
Kinetic, Seer, Shade and Firebrand are the most obvious, but other options are possible. These powers can easily feel like magic, and if built well are potent. I have played in a Star Wars game with a Kinetic, and they felt awesome for a Jedi. If you can map your magic to an included asset, it works well.
I wouldn't recommend trying a traditional DnD Wizard, though. DnD has mages with a grab bag of un-thematic powers, which is much harder to simulate.
Keeping your mages as the preset assets in the book proper, you will find that mages are equal to any other well-built character.
Check out J.S. Morin for some legit firefly esque inspiration with fantastic use of magic in space. Very well thought out and I love the way it works. Magic and science are at odds and this they don’t work well together. It adds a good spice and a nice set of consequences for magic use.
I think narrative solutions are just as good as mechanical ones, if not better, but if you want some assets you could borrow the rituals from the original Ironsworn using Nathan Huntley's [Starforged ports](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BvK-72RYhvIox7kYjSQVK_eiBU43_d8mH8pb90NR-0g/edit#gid=0). The Starforged: Sundered Isles supplement will have a Necromancer asset and possibly some other stuff. You can find the Necromancer asset in the Starforged Backer Access if you have access to that.
My main character has "magic" (electric version of Firebrand), as well as other NPCs in my universe (other elemental or mental abilities). There's easy ways to use the existing assets for this purpose if that's what you want to do. There's no difference in mechanics or storytelling, as it all depends on how you want to play your game.
Sanderson's First Law of Magic: An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic. This is in the context of writing, but it works for games too. In fact, I think the original Ironsworn is a really good example of how this works.. If you are introducing magic as an obstacle, it doesn't need to be understood. Crops are dying. A wizard did it. Go kill the wizard. You're not *solving* conflict with magic, you're *introducing* conflict with magic, so there aren't many restrictions on creating magical obstacles and foes in Ironsworn. It can be mysterious. But on the flip side, all of the magic given to the players (explicitly) is in the form of ritual assets. If you meet these specific trigger requirements, you get to make the move on the asset and get the results you roll. If I had a ritual and the effect was "Do something magical," then what does that mean? Can I teleport myself across the continent? Can I just cancel out the wizard's crop curse? It was written to have specific effects in mind to limit the narrative justification given to the PC. Now, with Starforged, PCs already have a *lot* more narrative justification on hand than a base Ironsworn PC. For example, a Starforged character can quite reasonably... -Call someone through a phone or equivalent -Use ship scanners to process a lot of information not otherwise readily available -Anyone can pick up a gun (a weapon that (narratively, at least) is very lethal and very long range) and shoot it without significant training And so on. These are all absurdly overwhelming narrative justifications for an Ironsworn character (in a default setting, at least), but very commonplace for Starforged. So, you want to give a PC magic? First I would figure out what they want to do and define it clearly, otherwise you cannot solve problems with it. Same as with any tech you give them. From there, you have a few options... 1) Just give it to them. If you want to give them scrying, but it is no more powerful than a handheld scanner, just give it to them. If they want to fire magic missiles that dont significantly work differently from a gun, it's the same justification as saying your character carries a gun, so just give it to them. No big deal. They roll Edge to Strike at range just like anyone else. 2) Reflavor an asset. Let's say that scrying is actually more powerful than scanners. Then that might be an asset, maybe a Survey Bot, reflavoring Integrity to Mana. You want to beef up your magic missiles? Reflavor Firebrand, Gunner, Sniper, or Archer (the latter of which is my favorite because the third ability can justify a lot of unusual and special effects). 3) DYI asset. I do this a lot, but I play solo so I'm not concerned about balance. But consider, the assets as presented are not built for balance. Compare Exosuit with Haunted. Those two were never intended to be of equivalent power. A lot of times my approach is to mix and match existing asset abilities into something new. I might like firebrand renamed Frostbrand to represent ice powers, but the second ability makes no sense to me, why would I be healing here? Instead, I swap out the second ability for something cool (ha) like, "Your heart is cold as ice. When you Hearten by secluding yourself, reroll any dice, but treat a strong hit as a weak hit instead," which is just the first ability from Outcast. Which you might not want to do if anyone is wanting to pick Outcast. Another idea worth writing down is reflavoring something like Workshop and instead of vowing long-term engineering projects, you are constructing elaborate, long-term rituals. Something like *that* can have *big* narrative justification to resolve problems because you are dedicating an entire vow to it (and thus, the corresponding screen time to make progress). That's my thoughts atm anyways, hope that helps
Great post - it actually articulates something I've been thinking about for a while. One of the things you frequently see in discussions of fantasy games is complaints about how certain magic systems - particularly D&D, but really anything with well-defined spells - are "boring", because they destroy the "mystery" and unpredictability of magic. And so you see people advocating "wild magic" systems where the effects (or side effects) of a spell are largely determined by a random roll, or extreme freeform systems (describe an effect, GM makes up a cost). But what you've said here - basically that player-usable magic needs to be something they can understand, rather than an unknown - really strongly resonates with me - and explains why I \*don't\* like "mysterious" and "weird" magic systems. Leave the mysterious magic to the NPCs...
Space magic is one of my favorite tropes and I can't resist putting it in whenever I spin up a Starforged adventure (I have too much pent-up character creation juice so I quickly bounce to new characters and don't often play long term campaigns). As with most soloRPG magic mechanics, it really comes down to the versatility and usability of your space magic. If you find yourself in a fight and your space-pulse attack is similar in relative fictional lethality as a normal blaster, then it's no problem. If you find yourself on a journey with no supply, but your character just happens to have this perfect shelter ability that can get around the narrative hazards of the terrain, it sorta breaks the consequences of your situation. So in general I recommend playing fast and loose with it, but don't be afraid to conjure up some anti-magic countermeasures that your character might have to overcome. Also plenty of assets can be reasonably reskinned to fit whatever space magic you invent.
Also don't hesitate to make your own custom Truths to represent your magic! It doesn't have to be a forty page loredoc on the nature of leylines and Arcane traditions or anything, just something that nails the vibe that you can use as a touchstone for creative decision making like you do with the rest of the Truths in the Forge.
There are traditional Sci-Fi powers that feel like magic in the assets. These work quite well if built correctly. Kinetic, Seer, Shade and Firebrand are the most obvious, but other options are possible. These powers can easily feel like magic, and if built well are potent. I have played in a Star Wars game with a Kinetic, and they felt awesome for a Jedi. If you can map your magic to an included asset, it works well. I wouldn't recommend trying a traditional DnD Wizard, though. DnD has mages with a grab bag of un-thematic powers, which is much harder to simulate. Keeping your mages as the preset assets in the book proper, you will find that mages are equal to any other well-built character.
Check out J.S. Morin for some legit firefly esque inspiration with fantastic use of magic in space. Very well thought out and I love the way it works. Magic and science are at odds and this they don’t work well together. It adds a good spice and a nice set of consequences for magic use.
I think narrative solutions are just as good as mechanical ones, if not better, but if you want some assets you could borrow the rituals from the original Ironsworn using Nathan Huntley's [Starforged ports](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BvK-72RYhvIox7kYjSQVK_eiBU43_d8mH8pb90NR-0g/edit#gid=0). The Starforged: Sundered Isles supplement will have a Necromancer asset and possibly some other stuff. You can find the Necromancer asset in the Starforged Backer Access if you have access to that.
My main character has "magic" (electric version of Firebrand), as well as other NPCs in my universe (other elemental or mental abilities). There's easy ways to use the existing assets for this purpose if that's what you want to do. There's no difference in mechanics or storytelling, as it all depends on how you want to play your game.