Darth Angelus
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2012
- Messages
- 477
First off, the title of this thread is admittedly inspired by a certain, now dead, RPG series for PC, but I assure you that I am not starting this thread to discuss that series, or it would be going into the gaming section. Rather, it is about physical power (in individuals and factions) in speculative fiction and mystical ditto, as well as the balance between the two.
Now that that is out of the way, how do you deal with this in your world building?
Often, in Fantasy, you might want the supernatural to have some sort of prominent role, or it may be just some kind of alternate history in an imaginary setting. However, that is not necessarily the case, and there are obviously series with relatively modest mystical forces (especially among the protagonists) that have successfully engaged readers.
One way that is often discussed is to give magic severe limitations. This could be some hefty price, a great cost, so that that the magic user has to pay (dearly) for every casting of a spell. I know this has been discussed endlessly, and it is not my point. Another limitation (which I think is common, too) could be speed. It could be slow, tiresome and/or otherwise awkward to harness the mystical forces, at least unless the user is very proficient. The third, probably most common limitation, is that people need some inborn aptitude to learn magic.
This is the one very obvious problem that magic creates (aside from sometimes being used as deus ex machina, as has been discussed elsewhere on this forum) is this this upsetting of the balance in combat. If some characters have the firepower of handguns, assault rifles or beyond out of their bare hands, it can clearly be too much, espicially if these characters can access this firepower too effortlessly, they are too numerous and/or the setting is medieval (and the opposition consists of melee weapons, (cross)bows or at most powder loaded guns). In that case, short of taking the magician by surprise, unless the purely physical (magically entire incapable) opponent is clearly superhuman...
That said, do you think having a certain number of the "warrior"-type characters having some superhuman physique (outright explained as such in-story, rather than just your usual badass normals, and possibly with a certain amount of resilience against mystical attacks) could work as a solution to this balance problem? If mystical powers are very potent in a Fantasy world, could usage of a fair amount of superhuman warriors help uphold this balance in a sensible way?
If this could work, the ideal way (in my opinion) would be that warriors and magicians would be fairly well matched if they are on the same relative level of proficiency in their field of expertise. That is both would have moderately but not overly effective counters to the skills and powers of the other type, and in a well-matched confrontation, the situation could largely affect the outcome, with long distance between the two and availability of things in the environment that the magician might need to make full use of his or her powers (such as an abundance of objects to toss, in case the mystical powers of the magician are telekinetic) relatively benefitting the magician and melee range and a shortage of the aforementipned things (required for the magician to fully utilize their powers) would benefit the "warrior", who could slap the magician with superior physical strength.
This may sound too mechanical, much like player vs. player combat between players with characters of different classes in MMOs, and I guess the idea is basically the same, technically. However, I do not think this would need to, or even should, be explained too bluntly. It can just be played out in the background in the writer's head. Any good writer will always have more ideas of story stuff than are outright mentioned in the script, anyway, I think. Obviously, I don't think it should be stated in literal, plain writing that the warrior won the duel because the magician couldn't take full advantage of their power, or the magician won because they managed to blast the warrior apart before the warrior could bridge the gap that was the physical distance between the two. Rather, the duel should be written in such a way, with such a sequence of events, that it becomes a clearly possible conclusion for the reader to draw *. Avoiding a too mechanical description of the system that looks directly ripped out of a game is obviously of crucial imprortance here.
What do you think? Could this work? Give the supernatural forces significant potency in your, but still compensate a certain number of non-magicians for that in other ways (like superhuman physique) than your common anti-magic object?
I could go on about all the other, non-combat related advantages I think magic, supernatural forces or superpowers could have over their mundane counterparts in fiction, but I think this post is already long enough. Maybe I will add that later.
Cheers!
* Note that I am writing "a clearly possible" rather than "the only possible" about the reader's conclusion here, because it is hard to deny that most fictional works leave a lot of things open for interpretation, so it is hard to deny the death of the author principle entirely (unless the subject of discussion is speculation about what the author intended, specifically, in which case said principle would obviously lead to a logical contradiction). The author gets to envision and design their fictional world, but they obviously cannot retain full control of how it is interpreted.
Now that that is out of the way, how do you deal with this in your world building?
Often, in Fantasy, you might want the supernatural to have some sort of prominent role, or it may be just some kind of alternate history in an imaginary setting. However, that is not necessarily the case, and there are obviously series with relatively modest mystical forces (especially among the protagonists) that have successfully engaged readers.
One way that is often discussed is to give magic severe limitations. This could be some hefty price, a great cost, so that that the magic user has to pay (dearly) for every casting of a spell. I know this has been discussed endlessly, and it is not my point. Another limitation (which I think is common, too) could be speed. It could be slow, tiresome and/or otherwise awkward to harness the mystical forces, at least unless the user is very proficient. The third, probably most common limitation, is that people need some inborn aptitude to learn magic.
This is the one very obvious problem that magic creates (aside from sometimes being used as deus ex machina, as has been discussed elsewhere on this forum) is this this upsetting of the balance in combat. If some characters have the firepower of handguns, assault rifles or beyond out of their bare hands, it can clearly be too much, espicially if these characters can access this firepower too effortlessly, they are too numerous and/or the setting is medieval (and the opposition consists of melee weapons, (cross)bows or at most powder loaded guns). In that case, short of taking the magician by surprise, unless the purely physical (magically entire incapable) opponent is clearly superhuman...
That said, do you think having a certain number of the "warrior"-type characters having some superhuman physique (outright explained as such in-story, rather than just your usual badass normals, and possibly with a certain amount of resilience against mystical attacks) could work as a solution to this balance problem? If mystical powers are very potent in a Fantasy world, could usage of a fair amount of superhuman warriors help uphold this balance in a sensible way?
If this could work, the ideal way (in my opinion) would be that warriors and magicians would be fairly well matched if they are on the same relative level of proficiency in their field of expertise. That is both would have moderately but not overly effective counters to the skills and powers of the other type, and in a well-matched confrontation, the situation could largely affect the outcome, with long distance between the two and availability of things in the environment that the magician might need to make full use of his or her powers (such as an abundance of objects to toss, in case the mystical powers of the magician are telekinetic) relatively benefitting the magician and melee range and a shortage of the aforementipned things (required for the magician to fully utilize their powers) would benefit the "warrior", who could slap the magician with superior physical strength.
This may sound too mechanical, much like player vs. player combat between players with characters of different classes in MMOs, and I guess the idea is basically the same, technically. However, I do not think this would need to, or even should, be explained too bluntly. It can just be played out in the background in the writer's head. Any good writer will always have more ideas of story stuff than are outright mentioned in the script, anyway, I think. Obviously, I don't think it should be stated in literal, plain writing that the warrior won the duel because the magician couldn't take full advantage of their power, or the magician won because they managed to blast the warrior apart before the warrior could bridge the gap that was the physical distance between the two. Rather, the duel should be written in such a way, with such a sequence of events, that it becomes a clearly possible conclusion for the reader to draw *. Avoiding a too mechanical description of the system that looks directly ripped out of a game is obviously of crucial imprortance here.
What do you think? Could this work? Give the supernatural forces significant potency in your, but still compensate a certain number of non-magicians for that in other ways (like superhuman physique) than your common anti-magic object?
I could go on about all the other, non-combat related advantages I think magic, supernatural forces or superpowers could have over their mundane counterparts in fiction, but I think this post is already long enough. Maybe I will add that later.
Cheers!
* Note that I am writing "a clearly possible" rather than "the only possible" about the reader's conclusion here, because it is hard to deny that most fictional works leave a lot of things open for interpretation, so it is hard to deny the death of the author principle entirely (unless the subject of discussion is speculation about what the author intended, specifically, in which case said principle would obviously lead to a logical contradiction). The author gets to envision and design their fictional world, but they obviously cannot retain full control of how it is interpreted.
