A leap about Magic that is “Magical”

So a persistent bugaboo on RPG discussion is that people want magic that feels “magical.” When pressed on what this means they tend to clarify that they mean magic that isn’t predictable or “rational.” As someone who studies religion and the closely related category of “magic” academically this has strikes me as profoundly strange. When we look at people who actually practice “magic” of various kinds, we find that they have lots of logic and rationale. (as an aside when I talk about real magic I mean the practices and beliefs of people who believe that their magical actions have a tangible effect on the world. Acknowledging the reality of the practices is not an acceptance of the claimed results.)

Now where RPG and fictional magic does tend to fall down a little bit being like real magic is that RPG magic tends to be very impersonal affair, whereas real world magic is very often all about personalities. Spirits, gods, ghosts, and demons abound.

I suppose that highly mysterious, unpredictable magic does, sort of, fit fairy tales and certain other branches of fiction. Of course, what the people who want unpredictable magic seem to fail to comprehend is that the predictability and logic is what makes magic something worthwhile for players to use. It is okay to have games where the PCs aren’t magic users at all (Pendragon being the classic example). But I feel it’s important to point out that there’s a lot of magic in systems with lots of internal logic.

I could, and probably will in future leaps, go into much more detail about what magic is like in real-world pre-modern magical belief. But this quick note is enough for today.