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I read the books of Terry Pratchett. Magic is always different from what you expect it to be. Like in his first book about a wizard that cant do the usual wizard stuff. His real magic is that he handles to stay alive. Just like Jack Reacher.

As an addendum, a lot of this advice can be summed up as "what are the limitations". Often times it's a lot more interesting what the cost of an action is rather than its end result. As an author you are the "god" of the world. You can literally do anything, which means its not very interesting if your MC can fly. But if she can only fly on Tuesdays after eating her least favorite food (pickled eggs), then the wheels in the reader's minds start turning. It presents a problem and the mind loves to solve problems.

Subscribed! I'm writing my Assyriology PhD and am running a "Mesopotamia-themed" Call of Cthulhu campaign set in Iraq. I'm going to throw Sumerian, late Babylonian, and Sufi magic at them - each tied to a PCs background. So I have to do a lot of reskinning... your magic vids are really inspiring for that, and made me realise how I can better utilise the magic systems!

This is also very solid advice for GMs who wish to reskin an existing magic system.

Hunter X Hunter has the best magic system, it's called Nen, and it's EXTREMELY versatile. There's six categories of Nen that one is either born with, or can develop; Enhancement, Manipulation, Conjuration, Emission, Transmutation and Specialization. When someone creates a Nen ability, they first have to create a restriction. The tighter the restriction, the stronger the ability. For example: Kurapika, a character in the series, has an ability relating to chains. The Dousing Chain is one of his abilities, it can restrain anyone and is unbreakable, but it comes with a price. If he uses the ability on anyone other than a select group of people he created it for, a blade will be plunged into his heart and will kill him. I highly recommend you look into it.

Im excited to watch this as soon as you said phycology cause the magic system im struggling with is one that is based in the mind and has a high risk/ reward involved, especially when it is mixed in unexpected ways

Literally the core idea of "Inside out".

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my fell for magic that it is a gateway to spaces in ourselves that we don`t quit casp.

From the very first example you gave with Ilana I already have a good idea what you mean. Honestly as someone who loves analyzing and trying to delve deep into media I consume I've already picked up on how works that really hit hard seamlessly weave in the themes and messages of their story with the greater plot but I've always been completely stumped on how to do it myself. It really helped to have such a simple example such as "Ilana's mentor's death affected her greatly and her journey of coping with loss (theme) reflects in how steps made in that internal journey has physical payoffs (success with magic) within the story. Great video!

Priceless video.

Excellent content. Thank you so much

Great channel. I appreciate your insights.

Please keep making videos, such unbelievably high effort. I love writing content and you make great stuff, keep going!

Question: Are you the Time Tinkerer or the Tale Tinkerer? Because I've seen both on the channel. Great video. Thank you for the advice and thought provoking prompts. 😊

I think this is all pretty solid advice, but one thing that I think is missing here is consideration of how magic is believed to actually operate within folklore, shamanic practices, ritual magic, theurgy, etc... We naturally tend to find magic more compelling when it operates in a manner that feels "right" to our unconscious expectations which have been shaped by tens of thousands of years of real human beings actually believing in real magic, engaging in magical practices, and - as such - inhabiting a legitimately magical Umwelt. Magic does indeed have "rules", but those rules are absolutely nothing like the rules of physics, technological artifice or (the vast majority of) game-systems. They are fluid in a manner that requires fluid, artistic thinking.

Wonderful breakdown, as usual. I do have to ask, how can you approach a balance of magical discourse, but still make its use valid? I understand the necessity for survival or saving a life trope. But, I mean just in general. If all magic use comes with a price, how do you measure that price with actual benefit? Why use magic if the result is self-inflicted pain or harm to the world and people around you. If that were the case it would create quite the witch hunt and those who were found to have power would be immediately killed or cast out. I feel I'm not explaining this well, but it just seemed that each of the options offered a way to expand on the impact magic can have on the caster, the people around them, and the world. But, it just seemed that the consequences outweighed the benefits. To the point, it may make the reader question why anyone used magic at all if it just caused more problems than fixed.

One for TH-cam

I've now watched so many videos on first chapter and first page things that ruin your fantasy novel that I now can't start my novel. I feel like i'm in a cage of "nope" with no way out, because everything is wrong to do x.x

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