6 Magic System Mistakes New Fantasy Writers Make

⏲️ TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 - Introduction
00:19 - Everything's a nail
01:39 - No consideration of limits
06:05 - Thinking you need a hard magic system
10:55 - Not integrating magic into the traingle of story
16:28 - The sloppy buffet
18:42 - Instant mastery

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[CadeCraze]

You see, I don't actually have to make a magic system until book 3, because the protagonist is new to magic as well. No one explains it to him until way later, but don't worry I totally already planned it out and there will surely be no contradicting information once I reveal how it works.

[michaelhgravesjr]

I love hard-ish magic systems where there are definite rules and limitations, but where those aren't necessarily understood fully in-world, nevermind by the reader. This allows both for well-timed reveals and for SEEMING subversions of the established rules. It's really hard to get it right, because it's so easy to shred the suspension of disbelief, but when a writer gets it right... *chef kiss*

[yipyipyipi]

The "Everything is a nail!" problem can also be the counterpoint to another, equally bad problem: "I've never seen a nail before in my life."

In this variation, instead of using the same solution over and over, the character(s) constantly neglect to use previously proven solutions to problems. It is boring when a character uses the same solution over and over, but it's also extremely frustrating when the character DOESN'T do the thing we KNOW they can do that solved the same issue last time!

[OrangeHand]

Your last point about showing Level 10 magic while the main character is Level 1 is really on-point, since one of my stories starts with an intense competition between the magic users showing how it can be used on an expert level before revealing a poor young girl in patched clothes watching from behind a fence, wishing she could be one of those people.

[Daemonworks]

The superman thing reminds me... I've had some truly wild conversations with folks who just somehow entirely failed to notice the main conflict, or entire a-plot of a story because they couldn't imagine something like an internal conflict could possibly be the main point.

I remember one guy who swore the main character in a movie had no character arc, and it was literally the entire focus of everything.

[Stratelier]

"Everything's a nail" -- or in D&D terms, "I cast Fireball".

"I didn't ask if we were fighting Fire Elementals. I said, _I cast Fireball."_

More on-topic, last year I did a Nanowrimo story where curses are literally the residual spirits of the one who died placing them (which is a hard rule), very soft-magicky (limited only by terms intuitive to each curse), and it starts with my main character getting cursed into being a monster (well, more a "magic animal" kind of "monster" but still). But what made it really challenging is that the first-person POV is _from the curse itself, _ who acts as a second voice in the main character's head that nobody else can perceive or knows about. Technically this means my POV gets more visibility into the setting's various soft-magic than the character should normally have, but this also doesn't suddenly turn it into a "hard magic" system either, because the curse more or less "used up" its soft-magic abilities on the main character, leaving it constrained in their new body.

[mecha-sheep]

There is another kind of limitation you can add to magic : danger from being detected. Think Gandalf saying that if he use fire magic, everybody (aka, Sauron and Saruman at least) will know that he is there. Or the way the paradox strikes Mages in the TTRP Mage : the awakening. It's not exactly a physical cost, because it's unpredictable. It's a threat : if the hero use magic, very bad things may happen, and he can't know what because those things have a will.
Thus, such a limitation has another advantage, because it gaves more choices to the writer. It's a "deus ex machina" that is a consistent with the world.

[Saint_Wolf_]

The cultural and legal one made me think "Harry Potter", I've always said "this probably doesn't happen in the US's magic school" they're probably like "as your first class or protection against the dark arts you'll learn the killer spell as such spell is protected by your first and second amendment rights as the basis to enforce your fourth amendment rights"

[nbplayer]

For me, it's definitely when the system is trivialized by poor writing choices.
ie: You have a magic caste system, but the protagonist is either good at them all, or has a unique skill that beats out all other types.
Or, like in Harry Potter, you have all these spells and hexes and jinxes and curses had could be used in creative ways, but the enemy faction has the OHKO spell Avada Kedavra. You might as well have given them guns.

[thomasfrye]

For your first example of anti gravity, MHA did a great job balancing their character. She needs to touch the target with the pads on her fingertips, gets severe nausea when she uses it on herself or exceeds the capacity of ~3 tons, and when she cancels the ability by tapping the pads of her fingers together, everything stops being affected

[james.d.buffalo]

I am very autistic, and that may be a reason on why I love HARD magic systems, there is something special about a rule or condition going full circle, or stretching a law to its absolute limit, the how far can I take this…
I love the idea of challenges not only the protagonist gets to solve, but also the reader as they go along, how some times the reader, based on the set up of the situation, and the rules, can come up with different solutions to problems, how something this are the same the main character chose, or been surprised by a way a ability was used since they weren’t expecting it, but it also makes sense.
Idk why, it’s just so satisfying.

[PizzaMineKing]

About the "everything looks like a nail" - thing: it could be cool to have the protagonist use his one signature spell for everything, but his opponents getting wind of it so in the gravity example the 3rd time they find a way to tether themsekves to the ground - and then the protagonist has a problem cause he's used to gravity working...

[tom]

"Knowing the true name of something gives you power over it" Eragon did that years prior to Name of the Wind.

[themadwarden]

One magic system I enjoy is in the skulduggery pleasant books. It's sort of a mix of hard and soft magic: There are some clear limits established in th beginning of the series, but on the occasions that those rules are broken, the readers don't feel cheated because of the way the breaking of these rules is explained. Additionally, neither the reader nor the characters ever seem to fully understand magic, due to just how vast of a group of forces, entities and abilities it covers.

[qdLuke]

As someone who’s begun writing their first book in the past year, these videos are super helpful and informative. Keep up the videos dude

[ivorv.]

Great video as always. I would dissagre partially on the sloppy buffet part. I really like when magic is this huge thing that affects the world. So when there is many different sort of mini magic systems it gives feeling of diversity. Of course if done badly then it is just a jumbled mess.

[Berziefireheart]

I litteraly found a magic system that ties into character, plot and setting and i'm so hyped. It just clicked, it makes sense thematically, it just works and it's beautiful

[WakenAngels]

In my book i have a cursed physically impaired protagonist who wants to learn magic that changes her reality. This magic is wielded by (what are functionally) guardian angels and wings are a symbol of experience, power, and freedom. In the end of book one, she overcomes a great adversary and earns her magic wings at a very young age, but afterwards she struggles to make them appear, much less control her flight.

Many people told me to save the wings for the end of the trilogy, because when you get the power to fly you’re already godmode. And that’s a valid concern. I avoided giving anyone wings for a long time because it felt like it cheapened the difficulty of certain conflicts. But there's no reason to assume that flight becomes the solution to every conflict, when it's just another tool the protagonist needs to learn how to use and when to use it.

A lot of games will give you a glide early on and then more advanced flight later. This opens up the world without cheapening the conflict. I don’t like stories featuring magic where the protagonist can’t do any magic until the finale and then they struggle to do magic for 2 more releases. It’s far more interesting to me to give them power and watch them struggle to control it or watch it corrupt them - rather than have them squeeze droplets out of a dry sponge.

A good example of this is Lord of the Rings. Frodo has the ring in the beginning but it is only used in certain situations, and if it's overused it will alert the enemy to their presence and begin to corrupt him. A bad example from the same story is how Gandalf doesn't do magic until the fellowship needs him to, and then he conveniently disappears so he doesn't become overpowered to the story. But in these kinds of stories, these guardian type figures are very much forces of nature who guide heroes on their quest within the parameters they are permitted to rather than directly intervene.

Another bad example of this is Rey in the Star Wars sequels: she magically uses the force to win every scenario and never struggles to wield it or control it, much less is she tempted or corrupted by it. The concept of a protagonist who is very powerful early on yet unable to control it would have been very compelling for Star Wars as a stark contrast to Luke who had to learn from the bottom and train. But they just repeated Luke's arc and took out all of his hard work and internal conflict.

[thecrispymaster]

Another trap that particularly (though not exclusively) authors of hard magic systems suffer from is when they make all magic follow the same rules, they interpret that as basically just giving everyone the same power set.

This is kind of a variant of 2, as it sort of implies that the level of skill in all fields of magic scale together (rather than - say - one wizard being better at enchantments while another is more skilled at alchemy), and results in issue 1 where it means the solution to every problem is the same because every threat is essentially the same but of more or less intensity.

To use a superhero example, one of the great things about Spiderman's rogue's gallery is that that they challenge his abilities in different ways. He can't fight Green Goblin the same way he'd fight Doc Oc. Mysterio is of "ordinary" power but master of illusion making Spidey's strength the less important factor in the battle but relying on his senses vital. Venom on the other hand doesn't trigger Peter's Spider Sense at all so can't be approached in at all the same way.

These are all different villains that offer different challenges, ensuring that Peter can't just approach every fight in the same fashion.

[LezbianLizard]

In a world building project I’m working on, the magic system revolves around some weird invisible matter which somehow interacts with the transmission of information in any living organism. Basically, when there is strong emotion or a strong wish or a defensive reflex in any living being magic can be triggered accidentally. So plants, fungi and animals have evolved to either have a more complex way of information transfer like a brain to have better control over their magic or specific behaviours to trigger useful magic reflexively. For humans that means, that they can cast magic with a specific goal in mind but never exactly know how that goal will be achieved but also that getting to know yourself better and having better control over your subconscious will directly correlate to better control over magic, not it’s strength tho, because that depends on the quantity of that magical matter stuff in your vicinity and your willpower. A simpler goal therefore usually creates stronger but less controllable magic than a more specific one.