writing magic systems (Sanderson's First Law)

love you guys!!!

[KaAlKyGood]

It's not that Gandalf is incapable of fixing everday problems with magic, it's that he's forbidden from doing so.

[jimstoesz]

I always thought that Gandalf was totally capable of using day-to-day magic to help Frodo but just didn't for *~The Drama ~*

[Victoria-_]

As a young writer, this was so helpful for me!

[gabrielintano]

As someone who loves writing magical storys for fun this is helpful cus I wanna grow my knowledge on stuff likes this

[sterlingthemage]

In some aspects, you can have both. Hard magic is required for protagonists, but let's be honest, you don't need to know how magic works for antagonists.

A firefox is made of fire, how does it work? No idea,
A boss mastered teleportation, what's the cooldown, what's the distance, what's the blah blah blah?

These two examples are soft, but you can make them hard by adding rules. It's good to develop soft magic ideas to get the brainstorm rolling, and then introduce rules to make them into harder magics.

[sophial]

Gandalf has always been and will always be my least favorite wizard for various reasons. The first of many being that when he teleports to Bilbos house after the birthday party, doesn’t that make one wonder why he doesn’t use teleportation magic at more crucial spots in the trilogy?

[i_am_the_monkey_king]

I had a concept in mind that I was gonna use to make my own manga. I already have my own rules for the magic system, but I'll check your updates if there's anything I can use.

[deathxanamon]

I thought a hard magic system meant that it had more rules thus making it harder to use magic day to day, while a solf magic system meant less rules thus making it easier to use magic day to day? Because hard means strict rules and soft means lenient rules.

[davidblalock]

Anyone else who noticed the music box tune?

[HGuard]

Tolkien's magic is primarily an influence rather than a physical effect. Off screen, Gandalf has a battle with Nazgul on Weathertop. There's lightning involved, but we know Gandalf can't lob lightning around all the time. We don't know why.

But notice, Tolkien pushed that event off the screen. The reader only glimpses that power from afar. Gandalf achieved a strategic goal in that battle.

Why doesn't Gandalf use his lightning against the balrog? Danger of collateral damage, perhaps? How about the assault on Minas Tirith? A blast to take out a Nazgul flying beast would've been useful. Go back to The Hobbit, where Gandalf uses magic to make incendiary pinecones. Weak sauce, man!

But most of the situations weren't solvable with a fireball. They're trying to move without attracting attention. Gandalf can't make them fly, or press giant eagle into service against their will.

Tolkien doesn't have a story line that requires brute force, which is often where magic is most visible.

[바보Queen]

wow a gorgeous nerd, like finding a unicorn

[SHx]

Magic systems without strict rules create plotholes every single time, that's why GOT and LOTR are just silly as hell, don't actually mean anything and collide all the time despite being aesthetic masterpieces.
Then there's silly anime and movies like Harry potter, Fullmetal alchemist and Pokemon etc that have extremely reliable and strict rules that make perfect sense and work flawlessly.
Loose magic systems are nonsense I gives the writer too much freedom to bullshit the audience