One thing I really like about Avatar's world building and character design that I think is missing from most "system of magic"-type setups is how different bending masters are capable of very different things.
For instance, the two most powerful earthbenders alive in Aang's time (Bumi and Toph) both have achieved things that are considered impossible (Bumi can bend without contact with the earth and without moving his body, Toph can bend metal), but not the same things.
Even within the rigid elemental paradigm, we see at least twice that people who live in very different environments can develop completely different techniques.
E.g., swampbenders not only manipulate water differently, they can also bend pliant plants...
E.g., swampbenders not only manipulate water differently, they can also bend pliant plants...
...and sandbenders are able to fluidly manipulate volumes of sand which Toph (who again, would be top rank in power AND skill) found clumsy. We see her having to fuse the sand to anchor herself in the same sequence where they just wrap sand tendrils around their legs.
Our early exposure to bending lore shows that Katara improves considerably once she starts learning "proper forms" instead of just manipulating water by feel, but it's apparent that those forms came about from people perfecting such raw manipulations.
So in a sense there is a "system" of formally defined moves that act similar to spells in a magic system, but what undergirds it is much more like a sandbox system of secondary world physics where you can just... reach out and take hold of something and move it around.
And I used Toph and Bumi as examples because I was just reading a wiki article that noted they have both been called the most powerful earthbender in the same era, but it holds across the series.
For instance, Iroh and Azula.
For instance, Iroh and Azula.
I don't believe we ever see Azula breathe fire (Iroh's signature move) but we also don't see Iroh produce her supercharged blue fire.
Also interesting to consider: Bumi's use of facial contortions to direct energy, the only other bending we really see that doesn't rely on body gestures is airbenders being able to use their breath. Iroh's coaching of Zuko emphasizes breathing more than most firebenders we see...
...and he also emphasizes the importance of a strong rooted stance that fits in more with the earthbending style. Given that he canonically developed an entirely new discipline of energy redirection explicitly by studying waterbenders, I think we can suppose...
...that Iroh's mastery of fire (as well as his almost supernaturally rounded and grounded personality) comes from the appreciation for all four elements that he tried to impart to Zuko.
Azula, on the other hand, is driven by her belief in the superiority of her element and so she channels a fire that is brighter, hotter, more more elementally fire than others. For her perfection means Moar Hot, not Moar Balanced.
What's interesting as I think about this is how Zuko is, in comparison to Jeong Jeong, Iroh, or Azula, much more of a world-class fighter who firebends than he is a world-class firebender.
Which I think is attributable to his impatience.
Which I think is attributable to his impatience.
The impression given in the early episodes is that the thing that focuses him enough to learn advanced techniques from his uncle is his desire to *win fights*, to beat Zhao or his sister or the Avatar.
Multiple people are bringing up the fact that the bending styles are rooted in martial arts, and yeah, I think that's key here, but that doesn't mean you can't apply it to magic that is more post-Tolkien wizardry than martial arts.
Take away the elemental manipulation and martial arts develop out of people finding different ways to apply the laws of physics (and the biology that results from them, and anatomy that results from that) that govern the world and our interactions with them.
If you want your "magic system" to feel like it belongs to a real world, I think it's better to imagine how a world came about where you can cast Melf's Minute Meteors or Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound or Bigby's Clenched Fist than to just write out a spell list.
Yeah, no, that's exactly it. And from 4E on they really emphasized the idea that you can flavor your magic so that the in-world mechanisms vary to fit your character, which is a step in a better direction, I think, but the skeleton is still rigid.
D&D's magic imagines there is a secondary physics set that is being manipulated by the spells but you only have "high level" (in programming language terms) access to it. You can only use tools that others have made to interact with it.
And it's hard to put direct access to "magic physics" into an RPG if the game isn't super free form in its approach to resolution through narrative, which games like D&D isn't.
GURPS has offered some decent improvised/custom magic systems that work alongside its "okay here are all the spells a person can learn" system, which is already a little more fluid than D&D...
...but overall the problem with having a highly systemized game that allows for invention in magic is the same as the problem with allowing for invention in such games generally (which I've threaded about before, re: the Artificer).
When I started this thread I wasn't really thinking of gaming so much as writing, but anyway.
Basic conclusion I would give is: I would think of a D&D-ish "magic system" less in terms of "this is how it works" and more in terms of "This is how people typically use magic."
Basic conclusion I would give is: I would think of a D&D-ish "magic system" less in terms of "this is how it works" and more in terms of "This is how people typically use magic."
