Why isn't magic practical in fantasy?

[Astner]

I haven't played any of these games for a long time, so correct me if I am wrong (which I may well be): The spells are all chosen for their potential usefulness in situations that will actually come up in the game (if it continues long enough)? If a mage advances to one of the higher levels the spells can become very powerful? In most (or all?) of the games the spells are not hard to work -- that is, they may fail, but if they do work it's just a matter of casting them, not of intensive preparation or of spells that may require hours or days to take effect?

Yes, spells—if the selection is limited—will be selected based on their usefulness more often than not. The exception being people that role-play with certain restrictions.

If I am right, or mostly right, wouldn't that be (potentially) one of the places where readers might get the idea that (however you get the spells in the first place -- buy them or earn them) working them ought to be the equivalent of snapping your fingers to mow down numerous enemies? And, maybe, the idea that if it can't be done as easily as that, then the reasons have to be explained?

In the more modern games there tends to be a balance of power between the mage classes and the warrior classes so to make the warrior classes more appealing to even the power-gamer, in which case there's not much you can accomplish with magic that you can't with brute force.

And usually there's not much to magic in games other than "these are your spells, and this is what they can do," so it doesn't have to be explained.

I know that books and movies are responsible for these ideas, too, but a very large number of fantasy books over the last couple of decades (and probably most movies) are based on fantasy role-playing games of one sort or another. Sure, the games are inspired by literary sources, but adapted for the games, and I think some readers take some of the rules so seriously that they take it for granted that books should model their magic after them.

Not really. Magic varies greatly from game to game. The magic system in Dungeons & Dragons, for instance, is very different from the magic system in Mage: The Ascension. So the average gamer as a reader would be very observant for the rules that govern magic and try to make sense of it. But if there are no distinct guidelines and hints of limitations then they may well assume that there are none.

 

[BetaWolf]

I think that Jim Butcher deals with this issue pretty well in his Harry Dresden books. There is a council that oversees each of the major factions at work, with humans overseen by a 'White Council' that has set up the Laws of Magic--you can't bind a sentient being against its will, you can't kill with magic, etc. On top of that, magic can just be very dangerous and involved--your summoned other-planar-being breaks loose for example.

The first book, in fact, does deal with a murder involving someone using magic to make the victims' hearts explode. Not a pretty scene. It's some serious bad gris-gris at work there.

Traditional magic is generally seen as a zero-sum game in the sense that something must be sacrificed for something to be gained. Sort of like the laws of conservation of mass and energy.