I just got your book today, Tim. Can't wait for the live-stream.

Hello future Me, could you please make a video on what affect a McGuffin that makes an infinite supply of something has on a society, especially their economy? Imagine there's a rock that constantly pours out oil like a fountain.

Could soft and hard magic systems work in the same story? Lile if the magic gandalf uses is a hard system and the ring a soft one

I'm an American. I was raised never to say this, but other accents of English pushed me to this: Sixth with a k instead of x/ks. Also, how do you feel about grammar systems in literary conlangs?

YUS I can't wait, we'll make it huge like Hbombs stream!!

For some reason, your comment made me think of Keyblades and how they are both tools and metaphors.

i want hello future me to comment confirm this ahhahahh

In LiS case, It's not only metaphorical. After all, she's discovering her powers, it's logical that random new powers come at random moments, and that she can randomly be unable to use them. I think it mostly depends how much you want magic to affect your story.

@@xord1946 I think it is less even about how much magic affects the story and more about how close magic is to being the point (or primary theme) of the story.

@@davidharshman7645 Both are very related. If your story isnt so much about magic, magic won't affect it that much. So, yes.

Early Final Fantasy. I'm thinking especially of VI - the story is about trying to resurrect magic (which once destroyed the world) within the framework of technology while magic itself has other ideas.

@@jordanrodrigues1279 If it destroys the world, dont try to resurrect it. Damn Death Cultists....

@@jordanrodrigues1279 Skullduggerly pleasant. It has clear defined limits but they are dependent on the strength of the character and some can overcome them , it's a hard magic system that at times seems soft because the viewpoint character dosent fully understand it.

This sounds nice, but can easily be the worst of both worlds. See: Harry Potter.

@@ikemeitz5287 agreed the magic system ruined the series

“I would like to make one thing perfectly clear!” “I don’t explain anything.”

Hard magic, because only she can 😌 😇

@@NafenX what abought people floating when they laugh she was not there.

Soft magic requires the author to create a set of rules that he follows when implementing it into the story. It requires consistency to not seem, as you say, like an asspull. Those rules need to be implicit in the action and should never be outwardly told to the audience. At its core, soft magic is exactly the same as hard magic just where the information resides is different.

@@ShiningDarknes Exactly my point, the magic needs to feel earned either way for it to be implemented well.

@@luigiluigi543212345 in a part of the way when Luke learns he is a Jedi (or probably how all the young ones are) the moment is a mix of wonder amazment and than quickly as they settle into life as a jedi maybe a bit overwhelmed with the responsibility that a jedi has. This is a solf magic moment in a hard system for the force acts and reacts to the emotional forces of the galaxy and is a sea. Nowhere are you told the force is like a sea in book or movie. But we can infer that it is a sea that responds to the ships and islands and what goes on in thoes. So the starwars universe will never find a total peace for as long as intelligence sentiant life exists the force and them pull on one another. Thus you can't have jedis with out a scheming sith lord.

How are hard magic systems predictable? Real life is essentially a hard magic system, everything is defined and consistent, but not predictable. People can still be creative and people can still be surprised. Hard magic systems can still have a sense of wonder as well, but the wonder is coming from learning about the rules of this new world, not by keeping them unnecessarily vague and inconsistent.

@@alxjones he never said they were. He just said if not done well, can be predictable, like how he said if done bad, soft can feel like an asspulling. He’s giving pro and con

Soft magic usually just turns into plot magic to save the character. I find it hard to feel any tension when in a soft magic world because of this, there will always be some soft magic previously unknown to save the protagonist at any time.

Andrew Main soft magic doesn’t mean “There are no rules”

@@RonquixoteDIII No. It does not mean it. But, you are a fool if you do not expect that as an outcome.

@Manannan anam "Guns dont kill people, people do." And also, "if all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail." Heard this conversation before...

@Arctrog I wonder why the best, simplest answer gets so little likes, while haphazard attempts to understand the point gain thousands?

Pixar's rules of storytelling: Coincidences to get your character into bad situations are great, coincidences to get them out of it are terrible.

Requiem da

I don't really agree, contrived conflict can also put me off. The resolution still feels unearned.

@@P3dotme Oh absolutely, the issue is very complex and not as simple as I put it. It just a simplification of something that *generally* holds pretty true.

@@P3dotme That's my feelings about Code Geass put into words right there.

You should watch his other videos on hard and soft magic systems

KZfaq algorithm strikes again

These are user-created dichotomies. And categorizations. I mean you can create a million different divisions if you want. Divine magic vs Arcane magic vs natural magic etc etc.

It's a writing thing.

If you ever thought about writing a story with any sort of magic system you sure would have come up with the separation

Like raising space ships out of the ground 😂

You will never learn this power from Brandon Sanderson.

I mean, during the Battle of Nagashino, George Lucas would have rooted for the Takeda AKA the losers (confirmed from his funding of the Kagemusha movie).

I laughed so hard at this lol 😅

No. You don’t seem to understand Tolkien obviously. READ his views on allegory as a whole. He specifically used allegorical elements, pretty sure this channel even talked about it. He wasn’t a fan of the allegorical style of CS Lewis.

@@factbeaglesarebest Could you please elaborate? Saying "You don’t seem to understand Tolkien obviously" sounds rather callous, and a missed opportunity to inform and help a fellow human grow.

@@factbeaglesarebest That's not what he meant either. What he was saying was that he did not like direct 1 for 1 allagories, yes Frodo was a "allegorically" a traumatized war veteran, and Samwise was a kind of manifestation of the comradery and lowalty of soldiers fighting at one anothers side. But Lord of the Rings is not about the World Wars. Neither is Lewis's work either a direct 1 for 1 allegory as Lewis was not writing his works as allagory, but as a hypathetical what if story. Aslan was a not a metaphore for Jesus, he was in fact Jesus as he revealed himself in the world of Narnia. Lewis's works are fille with all kinds of metaphysical speculation, almost more akin to Theological "Science Fiction" than typical fantesy in a sense. See the Screwtape Letters, and the Great Divorce for more of the same. It is due to his works that many began to coin the term Speculative Fiction. It is true that Tolkien was not a fan of Narnia, but that weas mostly beceause he found the work to be a bit juvenile.

I don't think it specifically meant just that. Otherwise it would just be a story about a war veteran. It can mean more than one thing to more people, and it does not reference a certain real life period of time.

@@artorhen I don't think so either. But the character of Frodo is very easy to read as an allegory, intentional or otherwise.

Tolkien was adamant that LOTR was NOT metaphorical. He said it repeatedly.

People clearly miss the point here...

@@brendan5232 He was refering to things like "the ring is the atom bomb, orcs are the soviet union" and what else people tried to politically get out of it. But ofc his themes speak to all kinds of emotions and human tropes. And so the ring symolizes all kinds of evil things like addiction, recklesness etc

@@Tarnbar Again, Tolkien specifically stated that the ring WAS NOT a metaphor, not for the atom bomb, not for anything. Neither were the orcs a metaphor for the soviet union. To interpret his work that way is folly. If you want to understand Tolkien, read the norse sagas.

@@brendan5232 dude thats literally what i said

D&D magic in turn was inspired by the magic system in the Dying Earth novels by Jack Vance, so much so that it, and other systems like it, are often referred to as "Vancian magic". Hard vs. soft magic has been around a long time. There's also a parallel in science fiction: hard sci-fi more-or-less follows the laws of physics as we know them, maybe with one or two conceits, e.g. everything is the same as the real world except faster-than-light travel is possible, whereas soft sci-fi tends to look more like fantasy, with "sufficiently advanced" technologies, e.g. teleportation, telepathy, pre-cognition, artificial or anti-gravity, etc.

Ironically, the D&D novels are written with a soft magic system. Or at least, softer than most LitRPG novels that have been popular lately.

@@reklin Some of the earlier novels, like the original Dragonlance trilogy, were a bit on the harder side, or at least more firmly rooted in the mechanics of the game, probably because they were based on actual D&D campaigns. I would agree that most D&D books tend toward soft magic systems though, even the later Dragonlance books.

I think it's more that the scientific mindset became more commonplace among the general population mid way through the 20th century. Spawning a lot of hard sci fi novels that have inspired real scientific innovation. Makes sense people would adapt principles of hard sci fi to fantasy particularly when making up your own defacto laws of physics is much easier than making up fake, but potentially possible, technologies based on our current understanding of the laws of physics that sci fi dudes often do.

@@rubbishopinions6468 I wonder if now that scientific thinking seems to be becoming less common, if that will go in other direction.

kinda bummed they ditched it in life is strange 2, tho i understand why it wouldn’t have made sense for sean or daniel to have time rewinding powers.

Curious! Have you considered "soft" magic/sci-fi etc. could be synonymous with "heart-oriented"/NT/feeling-based, while "hard" could be synonymous with "mind-oriented"/AT/thinking-based? e.g. - This model is how I've come to understand the changes in the TES series, and in RPG's in general: Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind are more hard fantasy stories, wherein you, the player, are meant to create your own story with the supplied game. OTOH, Oblivion, Skyrim, and onward, are soft fantasy stories, wherein you, the player, are meant to take part in a story told by the game. The cult classic success of the former speaks to a smaller body of people who were keen on mechanics, accurate abstractions of reality, and whose player skills involved thinking through problems. The broader appeal of the latter speaks to a larger body of people who're keen on storytelling, symbolism, and whose player skills involve intuition & feeling empowered. Your thoughts, perspective?

@@senmingwu I don't know, of the games you've listed the only one I've played (and completed) is Oblivion, which I really liked. Part of why I liked it is that I could solve the math of its systems pretty much in my head, leading me to optimize my character in such a way that the game turned out to be quite easy. I know a few NT friends, however, who couldn't see the internal logic and ended-up with misshapen characters, and they had to struggle to finish the game. Those guys usually do better at other games I know nothing about, like Final Fantasy (are those games' systems considered hard or soft ?) In a sense, yeah, I think "hard" systems will always be preferred by people like me. They give me a sense of being in control of the game. I guess that means I agree with your statement that hard systems are for "thinking" people and soft systems are for "feeling" people.

@@TheNefastor Huh, thank you for your experience & your perspective! :) Based on the difference from my expectation vs your experience, I think the concept stands & my understanding of how it applies fell through. e.g. - Final Fantasy is typically softer, with little explanation for elements beyond "it's part of the story." Although, as I missed & you pointed to with Oblivion's systems, there are maths and mechanics that can be used to optimize characters/gameplay. Perhaps it's on an individual basis moreso than a game basis? Haha

I-Ah've got the Aspergerrr's! Don't know nowt about it all. Ah'm FOOKED.

i‘m on the autism spectrum as well but really lack at maths and sciences, also prefer soft magic usually

It's often been compared to drug addiction for a reason. It's bad for you, toxic and hurtful. It changes you in ways that make you self destructive, but when it's gone... ther'es this 'it' shaped hole in your life.

The ring in many ways, like most fantasy themes, is a metaphore. As he said in the video, the Ring caused PTSD on Frodo. Well, no, not the ring, but the absolutely necessary journey to destroy it, and everything Frodo had to sacrifice and face because of it. However, the ring also has other effects in whoever wears it, much like a drug, you want it, you grow to need it, and if it's taken from you, you can *feel* it no longer being there... a void being left in its place. The ring creates a dependency, so yes, "so the ring basically created a whole new need in frodo?" is a great way top put it, in my opinion

He's a New Zealander. They will never forget LotR.

@@vVaIker To tie it to PTSD, too, some soldiers were so scarred by the war, but some of them wanted to go back to the front lines because in a weird way, they wanted to face the trauma they faced on some level, and thus wanted to go back because the life they left behind didn't feel real anymore. And they wanted to feel real again. Even if Tolkien denied it being tied to the war, if you tie the whole thing to PTSD, it works. Because there was no forgetting, and sometimes actuating it again, confirmed that it was real, even if it caused more trauma. (I learned about a contemporary case of this from a Who Do You Think You Are? episode-- a soldier went, had PTSD, but still wanted to go back to war and sign up again.)

Stockholm syndrome at its absolute worse

Well, the definition of hard vs soft magic is based upon the reader's ability to understand the rules. Given that I would say physics is soft to a majority of the population.

@@bobbycrosby9765 no not really as physics is understood to a certain degree by many it is defintely more akin to hard magic than soft as thise people can teach others.

@@bobbycrosby9765 I would disagree simply because physics is predictable. It doesn't take a Ph.D. in physics to know what will happen physically in almost any circumstance. Physics isn't about studying weird niche cases of our physical reality. It's about studying the fundamental rules and forces at play to explain why our reality acts the way it does.

​@@physe8052 Actually i think it's the exact opposite, I think the set of situations where we can instictively know what happens without relying on actually studying physics is extremely small. Anything beyond classical mechanics is in no way intuitive to us, and classical mechanics itself presents us with many unintuitive things.

@@andreagiovannidemarchi9386 Hmm, perhaps. I do see your point, and could agree that physics might appear soft from the perspective of an uninformed observer. However, I'm not sure that changes its fundamental hardness.

The thing is with HP, is that the books were primarily written for a younger audience, at least at first. Therefore whimsy and wonder were the key things that needed to be present in the magic system, since that is what the target demographic would resonate most with. It definitely delivered in this regard, and in all honesty I think the books peaked at 3 & 4, where the magic was still pretty soft and whimsical, but the stories around it improved and became more ambitious in scope. From book 5 onwards, the series definitely felt like Rowling was trying to please more adult demographics and the magic became more plot-focused. Before, a lot of the magic and magical elements were mostly in service of worldbuilding, things mentioned in passing that added colour to the descriptions. I think by the very nature of the magic shifting more to be a plot device, it lost some of the 'magic'. For me, a key error made in Rowling's writing was an inability to define what made a wizard powerful. It seemed like anyone was capable of casting any spell with a bit of practice, so the only tangible difference between a good wizard and a bad one is knowledge, or the wits to use the spells creatively. What makes Voldemort more powerful than any other wizard that can cast Avada Kedavra or use Horcruxes, besides his willingness to do so?

Yeah when it came to potions and spell creation in particular, nothing made sense. Kind of like ninjutsu from Naruto, I get that this almost arbitrary sequence of hand movements results in this jutsu but once it was revealed that the sequences if seals could be shortened it all went out the window.

Definitely large plot holes in the magic system present in HP, thankfully the world is so well built that I’m more than happy to overlook them.

I think part of the problem was that as the story grew in scope, Rowling felt it was necessary to make it more of an epic fantasy, but that clearly just wasn't where here talents were. The early books feel a lot like a combination of Roald Dahl (think of the over-the-top Dursleys or mean teachers), The Famous Five, and The Worst Witch. It's a boarding school romp about a group of kids learning magic and solving mysteries. The shift to a more epic fantasy series felt really awkward in a lot of ways. One problem was that the addition of more concrete magical rules was iffy and often contradicted stuff which had happened in earlier books. Wand lore made no sense, and the sudden introduction of Transfiguration laws which prevented Transfiguration of food in book 7 was weird because we can easily think of a bunch of other spells which would have allowed the trio to feed themselves while camping (accio fish, incendio fish!). I also think that the shift to a more serious tone made previously metaphorical stuff suddenly more serious. When the only Muggles we saw were the Dursleys, who are Roald Dahl-esque abusive family members, 'Muggle' felt more like a metaphor for cruel, unimaginative people, rather than a serious term. But later on, it becomes very uncomfortable to see wizards denigrate Muggles (real world people are all Muggles!) and using brain-damage causing memory charms on them willy nilly to keep their secret society secret. TLDR: don't change your story's tone and style half-way through, it likely won't end well.

i'm honestly not convinced the hard magic/soft magic distinction is particularly useful, because it flattens a lot of different aspects to a single axis. does this magic system actually have rules at all? if so, are they revealed to the reader, or merely implied to exist? what is the difference, if any, between a deliberately soft magic system and a botched hard magic system? does plausibility count for anything? does similarity to our universe count for anything? compare, for instance: skyrim and avatar: the last airbender. which is "harder"? on one hand, magic in the elder scrolls universe is very explicitly treated like a kind of science. there are countless in-game tomes detailing exactly how it works and how the various different kinds of magic interact with eachother. i sure as hell haven't read them all, but i assume they're more or less logically consistent. hard, right? i'm not so sure. these justifications don't actually serve to establish what magic is capable of, because they're made in the context of a kitchen-sink fantasy setting where if magic needs to do some new thing that it hasn't yet been able to do, the writers can just invent a new kind of magic and add it to the pile. the setting wouldn't actually be particularly different if you just said "the mage was able to throw a fireball because he knows the fireball-throwing spell" with no further elaboration. avatar, on the other hand, makes almost no effort to explain how bending works in any pseudo-material sense. the best we get is depictions of what bending feels like from the characters' perspective, and some fleshing out of a few corner cases, but they stop short of even attempting to justify *why* e.g. electricity counts as "fire". it just does, ok? if this were the elder scrolls you better believe there'd be a book cluttering your inventory which talks about how electricity and fire are animated by elementals from the same astral realm and therefore can be controlled using a similar process of.... blah blah blah. but does this make the elder scrolls "harder" than avatar, when the rules of what is actually possible with bending are so much more clearly defined than the rules of what's possible with TES's magic? does it even make sense to compare the two magic systems in this way?

I completely agree. I also don't believe that some authors such as Brandon Sanderson would see some of the examples in this video as "bad writing", as Mr. Sanderson himself explained in his "Three Laws of Magic Systems" that a writer could follow none of his rules and still create a great magic system.

Bemused Owl, yeah, most people don’t care how your magic works, unless you actually go and say, “this is how it works” then people want more

Hard Magic: A Craftsman's chisel Soft Magic: A surgeon's scalpel Imagination is clay, until you change it into something else

It's less a defense of soft magic and more a defense of Life Is Strange, Because the game explores mental issues therefore contradictions may be excused.

I will disagree

Hard magic can also be like magic when you have soft magic. You have magic system be hard magic but the characters in the world don't know this so they treat it like soft magic. You could have rituals for wielding magic that are just how people stumbled onto a spell and it just became tradition. For example you could have hundreds or thousands of rituals for a spell to conjure and manipulate fire with varied degrees of success. Is a actual proper way to wield magic in order to cast a spell to conjure and manipulate fire but nobody has figured it out as is almost a infinite amount of combinations to do it with varied success. A mortal life doesn't have enough time to realize the truth about magic.

Yep, go to hard and you end up with superpowers instead of magic.

I disagree that all older tales use soft magic. Instead, they use an undefined hard magic system. Rituals must be performed, components are needed, praying to a deity, etc. This implies that there are rules to these magic systems, but they are loose and vague enough to give creative freedom. This doesn't apply to purely magical creatures that can do whatever they want by waving a hand, but most stories I hear fall into the first category, not the second.

@@drascalicus5187 That's why I used word "mostly" and let's be real ALL soft magic system has SOME loose rules. Without them it wouldn't be "system" but completly random thing happening completly random. Thing that make it "soft" is the fact that this rules are pretty loose and vague.

@@vladprus4019 But there are also no rule stories like LotR, Princess Bride, and anything dealing with the Fae, who can do magic at will with no discernable rules or rituals. That is true soft magic.

Yeah I definitely would've thought soft magic systems are better until I read all his amazing books! And now I know there is definitely room for both to be used in different ways.

I agree! His magic systems are amazing.

@ZOE STEVENS oh 100% agree on that

​@ZOE STEVENS Well then again it depends on the author. From what i've seen here is that a soft magic system is one where the author has clearly made the rules for him/herself but not explicitly showing them to the reader. Doing that does limit the rules that the author can set because they can easily seem like some asspulls even if it was in the made rules from the start. Which also makes soft magic system authors think creative. It's just depends on how well the author uses it. Oh and don't think that im doing this to argue that hard magic system is worse, i actually prefer hard magic system more. It just seemed that you see soft magic system as only some lazy way to write. Hell, both systems can be used lazily if you really want them to. Also sorry that i made this way longer than it needed to be.

@ZOE STEVENS Just because a writer implements a good hard magic system does not mean it's some kind of safety-net against bad storytelling. You can pull deux ex machinas even with a hard magic system in place. Bad writing is bad writing, no matter if the author implements a hard magic system or a soft one. The examples you gave are just tropes of bad storytelling, they are not inherent to stories with soft magic systems.

It doesn't have to be an analogy. It could simply be a parallel. Tolkien famously hated allegory, but this form of magic could function in similar ways.

also, you probably couldn't explain that with real drugs, since a ring looks good for the user and hasn't a bad face in society

@@silberblock3099 Well, no, that one fits the parallel as well. The ring/drugs keeps him functioning longer than he would otherwise, but when he loses his cool he's bloody terrifying. Remember Bilbo's freakout? Gollum looks like he's strung out on meth. I still insist it's not an analogy, but rather a parallel, but the ring doesn't really leave people "socially acceptable" more than drugs do.

Not everyone feels "drained" when using the One Ring. Moreoever the One Ring gives different people different powers.

The powers it gave the wielder were different, but the effects were largely the same, the book says there are always 1 of 2 outcomes when a barer wields the ring, either they are overtaken by it's power, and turned into a withered version of it's self that unwittingly brings the ring nearer and nearer to it's master. Or, the being wielding it is of enough power, that the ring corrupts and twists their soul, and essentially turns them into a new Soron.

Hmmm, I never thought of the Force as a soft magic system (don't worry. We ALWAYS ignore the midiclorians). But I can see how it fits. Even if you include a lot of the expanded information on it from the Star Wars Expanded Universe (both pre-Disney Legends and current extra material), that, while it adds some more rules and regulations for lack of a better term, to The Force, it still is a Soft Magic System. Sorry for both grammar and if none of that made sense. I barely got any sleep lately lol.

I think there's something really enchanting about stories where magic is somewhat removed from us - I sometimes find focusing too much on the fantastical side of things (like showing off your magic system) can leave the psychological tensions under-developed. The result can be a bad magic system that undermines tension/plot like you say, but it can deliver a very different tone/feel/type of tension when you play your cards right. On Star Wars - Lucas said "[Star Wars is] really about mothers and daughters and fathers and sons", and I think the soft magic of the Force mostly works to support a story that's really about family. Interesting thought! ~ Tim

"Sometimes magic can be magic." I need to tattoo that on my face. Wait, no, then I'd never see it. I need to write that on my wall. I have a fantasy series I've been trying to write forever and am hitting an issue even beyond the standard hard vs soft. I have a bachelours degree in biology and the biologist in my soul insists that any magic I can't show as scientifically plausible is garbage. But then the systems always evolve to the point where they're just scifi and involve things like nano robotics and I find myself studying theoretical physics and shelve the project because I remember that i hate physics (in part because I took physics 101 as a 4 day a week 8am-11am summer course, with 12 lab hours a week 0/10 do not reccommend). I need to learn to let magic be magic or I'll never manage to branch out beyond scifi. I'm taking baby steps with the nanorobotics type system and a science fantasy type setting 😂

Soft Magic can be scary because it risks becoming a Deus ex machina. Magic can't be just a cheat code for the characters. Soft magic systems should always have rules to keep themselves from being easily exploited.

This is Hank, right?

Yeah, a dichotomy of rival approaches should _never_ be reduced to "one side is better" as if the conclusion is unambiguously objective, with examples proving _why_ it's better. The maximum reduction should be "one side is _better at [something]",_ with examples proving _where_ it's better. (...and by implication, where _not)._

Stellvia Hoenheim not really, especially if you factor in the „society-as-antagonist“ factor. Anyone can go around saying „the plot is bad“ but writing is more than a plot. The plot works, especially in Before the Storm. And hey, HP Lovecraft doesn‘t exactly have the most ingenious plots either. It‘s all in the telling, stakes and emotional weight. LiS gets to a lot of us mostly because the people who are in it are painfully familiar.

@@raylast3873 I don't like the story and think its shit and a specail needs student can write something better but i agree what people find in the game

Try a game called Night in the Woods, if you haven't already. It's also a coming of age story, but is presented in a better way, at least imo. It's only 20 bucks on steam, and the soundtrack alone is worth it.

Can't agree with your last paragraph enough. I feel it would be better if ppl viewed these things ('hard vs soft', 'plan vs pants') as tools that suit different situations as opposed to ideologies that need to be defended or hills that we need to die on. The discussion of which is better or worse is irrelevant. Discuss the strengths and limitations of each amd keep both in mind when you're making a decision about which better suits the story you want to tell and how you want to tell it.

oh my gosh you are so right! I feel like that is just what I needed to hear!!

Very much this. Hard magic is hardly the de facto even now, people have just recently encountered it in the mainstream and enjoy it. It's not best for everything, but for people who enjoy the world of a story as much or more than the rest of it, it's a welcome breath of fresh air.

This is especially the case in stories with multiple types of magic. I have a harder magic system for humans since it's more important to know how it works, while faye have a very soft one in order to maintain mystery and felixibility. This isn't so different from plotting all the major plot points and pantsing through all but most crucial chapters. It leaves room for spontaneity and makes a more organic read.

This. Plus, the line is even blurrier than someone might think. I tought using as much physics as possible to define a magic system would make it ultra hard. Well, I learned that using particle physic is using too much physic and will make your system very, very soft. At least I'm now able to adjust this system (playing with culturall regulations and believes about which ways to cast magic are effectfull is fun) to the stories I want to tell in this world rather than needing to build and fit in other systems. Thats somehow relieving, because knowing that the contradictions are purely cultural frees me from exploring how different systems react to each other when combined or opposed.

As long as you have easily identifiable limitations, you'll be good.

My wife was roleplaying pathfinder, and her DM uses elaborate ingredients to cast magic. Water from a Blue Moon, nightcrest flowers harvested during the equinox, that sort of thing.

Been GM'ing since I was about 10 (33 years ago now)... AND we developed a few odd "tricks of the trade" for softening up the magic system a bit in Games like D&D... From the "Dice Pool" games, there's an optional rule (for this I'm hitting a D6 Pooling system)... "The rules of 1 and 6"... Basically, the way it works is you roll from a "pool" of Dice, so a Player has a "Pool Score" of so many D6's, and can roll from any number up to his/her maximum... Once rolled, the first thing you do is go through and separate all the natural 1's, along with a "highest rolling die" to match... Whatever's left can be scored... That's the rule of 1's. The rule of 6's states that you reroll any natural 6's left in the pool (once the 1's and highest rolls have been separated) and continue to add cumulatively... so a single die may roll several 6's in a row, before hitting a 5 or less, and you just keep adding... It can get some really wild scores. In D&D, we used rules based on this to shift damage from damage-specific spells, like "Fireball"... which adds cumulative dice to the "pool" with every casting level of the Character in question. Another magic softening system, was the way I often define magic in my own "homebrew" games. Working out of Gurps, there's a lot to pick and choose from... and a lot to leave in the books when you've stripped down to what you need for the Game... Magic starts (in my worlds) from "mana"... a separate kind of energy/force. I've built systems where this is defined down to quantum physics and has a carrier particle and all... Sounds "Hard"? Relax, it's not so much... ALL magic runs on mana, so the only remaining difference is the wrapper in-game that defines how a magic user actually taps the mana to get a desired effect. Psyonics directly manipulate mana by pure thought. Their brains are somehow able to bridge between the tangible flesh and the intangible energy... The limitation is that it's mostly like a "super power"... that is, a specific conversation from mana energy to some other form of energy or energetic manipulation or sensitivity. Like Telekinesis (conversion to kinetic energy... "inertia") or Clairevoyance (sensitivity to energies from distance)... Arcane magic uses various forms of focus and material components and studies of arcane language, tone, and somatic elements to cast specific spells to create desired effects not dissimilar to the usual D&D stuff... Clerical or Shamanic magic users commune with spirits who are inherently capable of creating desired effects by manipulations of the mana... Each philosophy has advantages and drawbacks and their own unique challenges and limitations with regards to magic use. A psyonic can get nearly instant effects, but the "powers" are most draining to him for the direct exposure to mana (for instance)... While the Arcane Mage takes time, but gets a more precisely desired effect gauged upon what he's invested into his works, focii, and spellcraft. Meanwhile, the Shaman has to commune with spirits and await their response, whether they are obliging, if there's a debt owed, and so forth... BUT his is the CHEAPEST of all investments for the returns... presuming it works of course. There are plenty of other ways to predictably or unpredictably punch up or down on the scale of softness to coolness in a magic system. For Role Play, the purposes served are fairness (since you don't want to overtly favor one Player over all others at the Table... AND narrative space for craft. You still want a little wiggle room to generate cool story points and raise or release tension in pace with the Players' expectations of the Game. AND for those "rules lawyers" who are tempted to build a big ol' huff about me monkeying with in-game mechanics... First, I run the ideas by the Players before they even draft Characters, so everyone has some idea (at least) of whatever they're diving into... AND second (but more importantly) I have one Cardinal Rule to GM'ing. "Never EVER let the rules get in the way of the game." ;o)

It reminds me of my characters for my RP thing, and as I became the head admin (it's a Discord one), I have it so that powers can be almost anything, however they can be *one* thing - while it may have different components, all aspects of a power will fit together, although my earliest characters don't quite fit that, it was the start of that philosophy. My first character goes as follows, with the idea coming to me in the form of the mythological figure (and my old username) Lethe: a boy with a perfect memory, with retrograde amnesia (I know, cringe at the cliche, it was my second attempt at making a character leave me alooooone :c), who could mimic the effect of any drug on touch, however he himself could not be affected, and not for lack of trying - in his attempt to 'fit in', he ended up being a dickhead. He could produce a mist, inspired by the description of the river Lethe in 13 Days of Midnight (soft-ish magic done well, might I add). As the RP is sort of ongoing, with new people joining (we get maybe 2 new decent RPers each month, as most cannot bother themselves with reading my guides, which I've had to add to over the last year to idiot-proof them), it presents always new opportunities, which I think is a reason I love RP but, though I've attempted it and consistantly got almost top marks in creative writing when I still did English, I do not enjoy writing as much, because other people's input and their own aspects of storytelling will always be my favourite aspect.

You can try use the metod used inheritance a safer hard sistem inside of a more dangeroussoft sistem

TBF, Gadget's gadgets are kind of irrelevant for tension - that comes in for Gadget being so dopey and everything being left up to a little girl and a dog. ;)

That is correct. If the magic is hard or soft depends on how many of the rules the author has communicated to the reader. Also, since those rules are communicated to the reader through the characters, if the magic is hard or soft depends on what the point of view character is. Lord of the Ring's magic is soft, because Frodo is a normal guy; a normal guy who is very short and always runs around barefoot, but normal nontheless.

That's a good way to put it. Soft science is when the point of view character doesn't understand the rules.

It obviously has limitations, but that's not the point. The point is that it works different for every character, and it's not something you can fully know or control at your will.

@@alejoqc9540 Irrelevant. COVID-19 works different for each infected patient, but there are still concrete biological rules behind how it works. The video suggests soft magic is magic without rules. That's a recipe for disaster. Soft magic still has rules. We the readers just don't know what they are. But the author had damn well better understand the rules, or his/her story is going to be a random mess.

You are a bad man, go to Hello Future Mes previous videos, also hard magic system is better, soft ain't inherently bad but I completely favor more understand rather than less understanding

@Dixie Pride South Wide ! Hunter x Hunter > Harry Potter

Well... You *should* learn something new every day

@@Lewisking50 theyre both 🗑

According to his explanation, soft magic isn't necessarly about less understanding. It depends on the story. it wouldn't make any sense to only be able to make characters that 100% understand and master the magic around them. If you just want magic and nothing else, it's about you, not about one being better than the other.

I once saw a video of someone recommending "Night in the woods" over life is strange, and after playing both ... i agree. But that's just me. Go try it out. It's only 20 bucks on steam and the soundtrack is orignial and amazing, the entire game overall is amazing.

That isn't new. Other games have done the same sort of thing, and they all fall flat in the end because no game development company can actually deliver on an ending where all the "choices" you made matter. It would require more work than could ever be achieved in any reasonable amount of time. Bottom line is games like Life is Strange, Walking Dead, The Last of Us, etc... and tv shows like game of thrones, breaking bad, etc... are all designed to manipulate people's emotions. They are terribly written, the characters are vacuous, they are full of plot holes, and are pure emo kid angst from beginning to end. Everything on HBO and Showtime are really just trashy soap operas with a lot of softcore scenes tossed in. All the modern day set ones are just an excuse for people to get off on misery and the worst aspects of humanity. People watch them for the high of being disgusted, shocked, going boo hoo and aroused. Because humans tend to think emotions matter, people think something that can manipulate their emotions must be good. For those of us who know that emotions are just chemical reactions in the brain and they mean nothing, it's just garbage.

Easy, by not giving it to the player XD I know that isn't a very satisfactory answer, bu the truth is there is soft magic in table top games and video games, but it is usually in the hands of the DM or as a handwave by developers for a plot point. For instance, in D&D the gods don't have a stat block or a feasible limit to exactly what they can do because they are so beyond the field of play that their power cannot be so easily defined.

I think there is one more factor: natural science and mathematics are much more widespread. When more and more people know that the way world is working can be described by numbers and formulas, there are statistics about everything and so on you expect that "magic" would also work that way. Just look how Sanderson's magic system have often more stuff common with physics than real-world folklore magic.

For tRPGs I would make it so the GM makes the rule of the magic system while the developer gives you a platform to build upon. For example: player wants to attack with his or her magical sword. You have to role this die to hit and this die for damage. The GM then comes up with an effect. The GM can come up with loose rules of how a magic works and the players have to figure out what those rules are. The GM couls also give magic a will of its own. Maybe today you did something to appeal to magic and it gives you more control over power. As for magic in games. I would make it node based. So for example: a NPC betrayed you. You then get a menu of different choices for feelings and you choose anger then you choose rage. A random magical effect that has those creteria triggers.

outside of the Biggest TTRPG's (D&D warhammer etc) there are a few popular ones, usually ones that emphasize roleplay, that are far less focused and revolving around stat blocks and die roles

@@prettycoolguy3206 The gods definitely have a statblock. Hell, in previous editions there was whole books on that topic like Deities and Demigods or Faiths and Pantheons. Forgotten Realms especially was kind of infamous for killing off their gods and replacing them with elevated mortals for a while.

Yeah, kind of a click-baity title.

@Davide galeazzi There's a difference between showing appreciation and starting a discussion. Which is the divide between the thumbnail and the title.

@Davide galeazzi It can. One describe quality and another popular opinion. Beta-Max is both superior and underrated and the same time. But back to the point. Neither of those systems are superior and to be honest you can mix them quite easily. Those are just different tools for different purposes, what can be equally mishandled. Main problem with soft-magic systems is that they tend to be used as deus ex machina, what is unrelated form of bad writing. But can doesn't mean need to be.

@Davide galeazzi Must I once again highlight what "underrated" means? They aren't mutually exclusive at all. Underrated is a quantification of subjective perception, meaning: "better or more important than most people believe" Whereas superior is more objective, meaning: "better than average or better than other people or things of the same type" So all you need is someone who is better than average but at the same time is mostly recognised by people as less than average and then they are underrated and superior at the same time. Less common than all the far more likely "overrated and inferior" things like fortnite, maple bacon and reddit. 😅

Nen powers basically become Stands from the Chimera Ant arc onwards. Just look at how specific Knuckle's, Cheetuh's, the darts guy, and even Netero's Buddha powers are. Not to mention the overt inclusion of Nen Beasts from the Expedition arc onwards

The best power system I've seen in anything

Nanomachines son

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" -Arthur C. Clarke edit: hm the exact same comment is immediately below this one (in my view), and I've seen it only after I typed it

Jacob Howie but like, technology is an inherently hard concept. All technology in the world has an explanation for every part of its existence. So why shouldn’t fictional technology be the same?

@@lordofdarkness4204 Because when making fictional technology, while it has to be roughly coherent, the science behind it doesn't have to be fully explained especially if it isn't relevant to the story.

Sure does! Any real science fiction fan knows the difference between soft science fiction and hard science fiction. Soft science fiction is more about the fiction and hard science is more about the science. I hadn't thought of applying the same terminology to fantasy.

Still hurts...

First thing I thought when I read the title of the video was Realismo Mágico.

I prefer magical realism, honestly. It's why I love so much of Neil Gaiman's work.

No you're confusing a classification of magic systems in the fantasy genre with an entirely distinct genre. Magical realism is any story where there are fantastical elements in an otherwise realistic setting. None of the stories you mentioned have magic systems to speak of at all, soft or hard. They're literary fiction, not fantasy. LotR has soft magic, but it's high fantasy, not magical realism.

There is still much discussion over what magical realism actually is and who really does write magical realism. Márquez is by many considered the only real author of magical realism. Simply for the reason, that it's a genre bound to a specific part of the planet.

@@TomorrowWeLive it's both epic and high fantasy, as it has the scale and conflict of epic and the heroes journey and races of high fantasy

I sometimes call this middle ground (between purely soft and purely hard magics) the "black box" approach. The fact that you don't know the internal mechanisms is irrelevant to the practical fact that certain actions *predictably* generate certain results.

It has nothing to do with understanding and everything to do with who knows the rules and the consistency to which these rules are adhered to.

That was impressive my friend. I would never guess to see that here. This is not a common place for that knowledge.

i think the hard/soft terms are overloaded to the point of meaninglessness. it can variously mean: - how many of the universe's rules are actually revealed to the reader: e.g. the elder scrolls (a ludicrous amount) vs. avatar: the last airbender (almost none) - to what extent the universe is actually implied to have consistent underlying principles in the first place: avatar: the last airbender (strongly) vs. adventure time (not at all) - how strictly various rules, once presented, are adhered to: adventure time (more) vs. harry potter (don't you dare use that time machine to save your dead friend. you're only allowed to do that once.) - how closely the fantasy setting resembles our own world: harry potter (closely) vs. dune (very little) - how thoroughly the consequences of its break from reality are considered: dune (extensively) vs. the elder scrolls (gold coins have value in a world with literal transmutation spells)

Late comment but i can see this whole hard/soft problem affect sci fi as well. Idc if it should be called sci fantasy, soft sci fi is still sci fi if it doesnt look like spelljammer. I just want more genuinely optimist modern science fiction, idc if it riffs off star wars or the expanse just no more grimderp shenanigans.

You a real one for that

So I guess that makes the previous reliance on that magic system to solve problems the bad writing, rather than the place where it was dropped? I gotta admit that having never played the game, the bit in the video where he explained that did make me go "well I get what you're getting at but at the same time my goodness that seems like an example of bad writing nonetheless".

Yeah, my favorite example on handling Magic is Avatar the Last Airbender. It allows for flexability but is tied to the skill level of the bender. When they want OP fights the Soft magic in the Lore allows for it such as Sozin's comet, Full Moons, and the Avatar State. However for the most part the bending of each character is respected because of the Hard magic system thats dominant overall and how they tie it to the characters and there discipline of bending form.

Full Metal Alchemist has best hard magic system.

me too,and soft magic can be more easily be used to do wharever you want and magic to become a plot device

I already found a solution to the box problem for hard magic systems

@Hans Hanzo Yes, in a lot of hard magic systems they already do! for example in the series full metal alchemist, there are clear limitations on the abilities and costs of alchemy, but those who have seen beyond the door, can fully bypass the runic circle aspect, and philosopher stones (though made at a great cost) can bypass the costs, and break the limitations of what alchemy is generally capable of.

@@heartofdawnlight that's a great example!

@@heartofdawnlight they dont really bypass the cost, they are Just a whole lot of currency in a Very small object, thinking again they do bypass from a plot perspective (?)

TheLingeringDouche I love her character. God she’s awesome:)

@@zain4019 I never thought they could make a character more painfully realistic than an actual girl.

jac of harts When she was crying over Rachel’s body, you could feel how deep her pain was. And losing her dad, then believing Max abandoned her- poor Chloe. Many children live a story just like that after losing their parents or sometime they love. It’s such a wonderfully told story they created:)

Then again, she says shit like "Wowzers" So I am inclined to despise her

@@B0K0691 It is a pretty bad game so it fits I think.

Conan Doyle giving you ALL the clues? What SH have you been reading? There's always something up Holmes' sleeve that he only reveals at the end, often after the culprit has been caught.

@@JaneXemylixa You're confusing Holmes with Poirot, the Agatha Christie detective. Go reread Doyle. Yes, in every Holmes story, you have all the clues exactly at the same time he finds them; Nothing is hidden. No new clue is revealed at the end; only what the clues actually mean... which will surprise you if you lack the knowledge necessary to interpret them correctly and fail to use logical thinking. That's what makes Sherlock Holmes so compelling. Everything is before your eyes. You need to open them, have the knowledge and make correct deductions.

Completely agree with you.

Sherlock Holmes very often has information the audience doesn't have, makes illogical deductions and produces a culprit who was never even mentioned. He's nowhere near as bad as the BBC Sherlock stuff but let's not pretend Doyle wasn't using lots of sleight of hand to make him seem smarter than he wrote him.

@@leow.2162 You obvioulsy did not read the original stories if you think so. Notice that the Holmes of radio, tv and movies has little if any ressemblance to the original one. Maybe that is where your confusion comes from. Here's a way for you to check; if you think Holmes ever said ''elementary my dear Watson, '' then you haven't read the real stories. In the original ones, he NEVER EVER says that. It's a myth born from the first radio shows and movies. Or the information you talk about is in fact the lack of knowledge about the clues. Knowledge of chemistry for example is needed to understand many clues as Holmes do. If you the reader lacks that knowledge, then of course it seems he's pulling out something out of nowhere. but he's not. he told you this is this color and has that smell on this surface; it's your lack of knowledge that makes you fail to understand the clue, not Holmes hiding anything.

That's a theory I can agree with in general. But what's with Saruman being driven away by the Hobbits from the Shire? As a Maia, Saruman should be more powerful than a bunch of Hobbits. Or does this count as something like the "power of friendship" of the Hobbits working together?

@@elli_senfsaat By that time his staff's been broken and he's been cast out of the Order of Wizards by Gandalf the White. The Istari (the wizards) are special among all Maiar because they've been sent to Middle Earth by the Valar with the specific mission of guiding the free people against Sauron with the use of wisdom and not by force. For this reason their true power is very limited on Middle Earth. When Gandalf is sent back by the Valar as the White, and therefore the Head of the Order, he's also probably given the power to strip Saruman of his

@@elli_senfsaat hobbits are also in some ways way more powerful than it is let on. Already in the hobbit, we constantly learn of new ways the hobbits are more powerful than expected. Their ability to resist the ring is probably the greatest tell that they actually are quite powerful despite almost never exercising that power. Hobbit have taken part in great feats, like singlehandedly defeating shelob, killing a nazgul, defeating trolls and great spiders, and tricking a dragon. That they are able to deal with a weakened saruman shouldn't be that surprising.

@@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz4839 Magic wasn't really involved, she just stabbed him in the face with a sword

@@MultiCaliffa Well, magic was involved when Merry stabbed the Witch-king with his enchanted barrow blade. The enchantment broke his magical defenses and allowed Eowyn to kill him with a regular sword.

Excuse me but sanderson has a literal universe based hard magic system and it is and feels bigger than any of the soft magics out there

@@rezokiladze2334 Hence "tend to."

I would love to introduce you to the world of Mistborn, which has a magic system so hard I could use it to hold up a skyscraper, but has a good deal of mystery to its world. He gives us a good idea of what happened in the past, but it’s never really clarified, and we have to figure stuff out on our own.

@@TheOverArchiver Sounds interesting! I'll look it up.

I get it, I get your point. The mystery, the emptiness to be filled by hope and possibilities, the vagueness and lack of absolutes of life. A soft magic systems is able to give much to the atmosphere... but it needs also to be a secondary presence to other forces. You cannot solve your plot around soft magic exploitation, or it would just feel shallow, no matter how immersive the atmosphere is. I like your reference to science, as science very much feel as magic to the eyes of many. A soft magic system may just explore the tip of what is the whole reality, and in such tip you just lack enough rules to understand it all. After all, we all live into and understand gravity... yet we do not know what particle vehicles gravity, or why it is generated by rotating mass and how. The ideal hard magic system could never be complete, as a soft unexplored side should exists to ever be explored; just like the hard coded science always probe at the unknown of the universe, very well knowing this kind of curiosity would find no end.

Indeed. Soft or hard magic, Sanderson's rules still apply. "The writer's ability to solve a problem with magic is directly proportional to the reader's understanding of said magic" you already went over how this one applies. "What the magic can't do is more interesting than what it can do" even in soft magic systems, limitations and costs can make the magic far more interesting. I'd argue that the Ring's inability to control someone; that it has to worm its way into the mind of the ring-bearer and corrupt them, makes it far more interesting than if it could just possess the ring-bearer all the way back to Sauron. "Expand what you have before you add something new" Truth in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood would probably be the best example of this, given how much the story's able to expand on Truth and the Gate without revealing too much.

Yeah, "The ring corrupts everyone, always, no exceptions, so we have to destroy it." is as hard as it's possible to be. Every other use of magic in the entire story hurts the story, leaving plot holes and writing problems we're still arguing over. And every single part of Life is Strange's writing is bad, so using it as any kind of positive example is a bad idea.

@@acrab6527 How so? I don't see how the soft magic in The Lord of Rings hurts the story or creates plot holes, nor is the One Ring "as hard as it's possible to be" just because it has one rule. Give me a single case where you think the magic in LOTR created a plot hole.

​@@matthewmuir8884 Gandalf came back from the dead. Meaning anyone could potentially also come back from the dead because we don't know how. Bye any kind of tension. Hell they could kill Sauron and HE could just come back from the dead and everything would be pointless. Gandalf can call eagle taxis to get anywhere, but doesn't just fly to Mt. Doom. "But the Nazgul!" Okay call like 100 eagles, there's only 12 Nazgul. And there's no, "you only get 1 eagle ride" rule or anything. Gandalf can make THE SUN RISE EARLY to blind all the orcs and demoralize them at Helm's Deep, meaning he can either move the Star or the planet, but he has to stab people with a sword? Or get a ride from Eagles? Or die from falling in a hole? And the magic Shelob defeating device being a literal Deus Ex Machina. "The ring always corrupts everyone, no exceptions ever" is literally the hardest rule there can be. There's no times when it isn't true. Even the angelic, pure good type characters are tempted just looking at it. Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion, another entire book to explain everything because even he realized soft magic just causes plot holes. The only time Soft magic works is when it's in the background, being used by people not related to the plot at all, who thus don't impact the plot directly.

@@acrab6527 Gandalf isn't human; he's a Maiar (basically a lesser angel): his physical body is artificial and he's very tough to actually kill and easy to repair if on the brink of death and able to be healed by people who know he's a Maiar. You don't have to know what Gandalf is specifically, but it's all but spelled out that the Wizards in LOTR are not human. Sauron was already killed in a way that can kill a Maiar thousands of years ago; the Ring is the only thing keeping him alive. The book is more explicit, but the films still make it clear that the ring being destroyed means he's dead beyond any kind of recovery for Maiar. Ah; the old, "They could've flown the Eagles to Mordor". One: the journey to Mordor is established as excruciatingly long, so they would have to stop and rest at multiple points. Having the eagles means even more mouths to feed. Two: It's well-established that the enemies have forces in the sky. It isn't just Nazgul, it's also bats and crows. Three: Imagine if Frodo dropped the RIng while they were flying. Imagine the area that they'd have to search. Four: Gandalf doesn't control the eagles. They're willing to help him out of a jam because he's their friend, but they won't just do anything he asks them to do. Gandalf never makes the sun rise early; he's just well-aware of when it'll rise. Are you talking about the light bauble that the elf lady gave Frodo? That is not a Deus-ex Machina; that is literally a classic case of Chekov's Gun, or in this case, more like Q's gadget. It's given to Frodo, what it does is quickly explained, and both Frodo and Sam remember it and put it to good use against the cave-dwelling giant spider. Actually, there is an exception (though only in the books): Tom Bombadil. They actually consider leaving the Ring with Tom, but they realize that he can lose it or it can be stolen from him. Besides, as I said, one rule does not automatically make it hard magic. It is soft magic. Tolkien wrote the Silmarion because he loved worldbuilding.

that's because Nen is framed as hard magic, and it was at first, but its actually very much soft magic. Just not nearly as soft as most anime. (based entirely off of how its used)

I wouldn't say Nen is hard system. Actually I would say is more into the soft system because the only established rules are that you can use 1 of the fundamentals at a time and that hexagon system. Aside from that there are no limitations to how to use it, in what to transform it, what abilities it gives, or how does the cost is applied

I never understood how deliberately building disadvantages into your abilities makes them stronger. The best explanation I could come up with is it works kind of like a battlecruiser. battlecruisers where essentially battleships with less armor, sacrificing durability for speed. Some abilities work like that, but others are completely different. It is more like having a battleship with a super powerful gun that will destroy every enemy in one hit, but only if the captain of the ship has shoe size 42. If he does not, the gun will explode when firing it, sinking your own ship.

whoa! :O

Schwarzer Ritter Conceptually, I’ve always thought of it as a form of equivalent exchange, you’re giving up something like your safety, or some stat like speed or strength, or even life itself after the fact, and the willpower you exhibit by giving something up manifests as nen, it’s like your body responding to your conviction but by design, not just “oh his conviction is so strong that he somehow surpassed his limits, without any mechanism to allow for that”

Given how vague "Stand Stats" are and how frequently Araki simply opts to drop certain restrictions and powers from the story when convenient, I'm not sure if I would quite call Jojo a hard system. I think it's better to call it a system with rules, but not very hard rules.

@@CantusTropus I was more talking about how the different abilities are often used strategically. That said.... yeah, calling it a hard magic system may have been a stretch.

James West JoJo is interesting because, while stands are on the whole a soft system, they tend to establish rules at the beginning of each fight, which give it that strategic element.

Honestly, the title card was kinda clickbait compared to what he actually said.

Honestly, this is why I've come to view the Dichotomy of "Hard" vs "Soft" magic to be nonsense. Someone researches how actual humans actually practiced and understood "magic" for thousands of years, and that is called "Soft". Whereas someone comes up with a bunch of completely arbitrary rules, usually completely detached from actual practiced human magic, and that is called "Hard" If anything, it should be the inverse.

Valence one key thing i have never see anyone point out is that there is practicaly imposible to create a soft magic system, all magic system are hard, even if it seems to defy logic initially theres really nothing that can work without rules, so in a sence it wouldnt be "hard vs soft magic" but "well understood vs poor understood magic"

A criticism I have is that is a misrepresentation of science. Science isn't about establishing rules it is about using observations and evidence it applies just as easily to "soft" magic systems as "hard" carso1500 really hits the crux of the issue that to work there needs to be rules to some degree the nature of soft magic is just those rules are obscure. This is because our brains work on physical principals so good writing and consistent world building themselves provide a rule set which breaks suspension of disbelief if violated as opposed to mistaken rules. If a soft magic system had no rules there would be no meaning narratively and the story wouldn't be engaging or mystical.

@@Dragrath1 I see where you're coming from but that's not what I intended to convey originally. Science is indeed not about establishing rules. Maybe the word is badly used here. But it is about establishing rules when you're in the shoes of "God", which is exactly what the author is. You can choose to establish loose rules, or hard rules. And then indeed, your characters and the people living in your new universe will maybe do some actual science and try to discover those rules. I also tend to think that yes, a soft magic system can very well be a hard magic one that nobody in the universe truly understands yet. It also tend to think that some deep folklore based magic systems truly don't have many rules. They do whatever the fuck they want as long as it provides to the plot and doesn't break suspension of disbelief.

@@carso1500 that... Is what soft and hard mean in this context. That's always been what it means.

I find this really interesting because I have a magic system that's intended to appear a soft system in the text, but only because I'm intentionally obscuring large revelations until later in the book, at which point the harder nature of it becomes more apparent. (And then post-close on the end of the story, due to actions taken by the main characters, it may revert to a true soft system for the world post-books, or even just cease existing entirely. I haven't fully decided the ramifications.)

That’s what I’m aiming for in my own writing, I feel like I need to know what’s going on before I start writing.

@@alestrius very interesting!

@@DGolden247 try writing without knowing.

Also need to clarify that I will be eating and drinking! I was joking on the sustenance thing. ~ Tim

@@HelloFutureMe Huge Spyro fan. Look forward to it.

I wouldn't neccesarily even say more interesting. Each system can be used well or poorly. The point about soft magic is that, if you're going to use a soft system, you shouldn't rely on it to carry your narrative. If the conflict could be easily solved by a power with no limitations, was it ever really a conflict? Conversely, if your characters run into a sudden, arbitrary reason why magic *can't* be used to solve the problem, is that actually a conflict or a plot contrivance? Soft magic enhances a story, but shouldn't resolve a story.

@@Dramatic_Gaming Yea I was exaggerating when I said it's more interesting. To me it IS most of the time more interesting when I encounter it because it allows me to be in awe more than a hard magic system. With a hard system I am bound to figure out how it works pretty soon because the author needs to make us understand before using it to solve conflicts. With the soft magic system it's more mysterious, and when an author pulls it off without making it deus ex machina it's beautiful and aweinspiring. It also allows me to dream for a short period of time that somewhere on a hidden place this magic really exists, while in a hard system it's explained to be based off of other natural laws than our world in a way, and it's unbelievable that this stuff exists. Hard magic systems are almost like fantasy science, while soft magic systems are more similar the ones that were used in older stories that left pur ancestors in awe when dreaming about them. (simply because they didn't think in as much of a scientific way as we are used to) I *love* both, but over time I realized I'm personally feeling more inspired by things that are above and beyond my understanding in a bigger than me style, because it feels like a mystical revelation of almost religious nature. Hard magic systems are better fun to play with though :)

Elsa Frost I agree - the magic in the discworld series for example never fails to draw me in to the world.

How is it harder to pull off? Soft magic is literally built on the freedom to do whatever... whenever.... for whatever reason you feel like it. While hard magic is built on writing a story devoid of plot holes and inconsistencies. For instance... If avengers end game says you cannot effectively change the past/present/future, and that any time travel simply takes you to a different multi-verse... and then shows captain america traveling back in time and then showing up older in the same universe he left... yea... inconsistencies... This type of thing is very common in hard magic systems. It's because a writer has to put EXTRA effort into things like this to make sure that they aren't contradicting ideas they have previously expressed. In a soft magic system, no such effort is needed. Just don't ever explain how time travel works, and then toss in that part with captain america at the end and no one would question it. I mean... that sounds a lot easier to do from a writers perspective. If you never have to explain yourself, that makes for easy writing... This guys hair is purple and he shoots laser beams from his eyes... why??? who cares... its a soft system... it's just how it is, accept it. Granted, this can be done really well... And I'm not hating on all soft magic stories or all hard magic stories. I am simply talking about the magical elements and their usage within each of these systems. And if all we are talking about is the soft/hard smagic systems themselves... Soft systems are definitely way easier to construct, and allow for much more freedom and lack of commitment. While hard systems are tougher to construct well, but definitely can restrict growth and trap itself into mediocrity.

@@anthonyfaiell3263 It's harder to pull off writing it in a way where you actually would say it's contributing anything to the story. It's harder to pull off making it interesting, believable, useful (for whatever purpose of your story), not annyoing (or deus ex machina), because you can't lean on the functions and exact laws of the magic system. It's harder to make the whole fantasy stuff make sense. I don't think a well written soft magic system allows for a load of non-commitment either. Stuff still shouldn't be contradicting unless it's for a good reason. Points like these are what I meant with "harder to pull off". Both systems have their own pitfalls ofc. It's harder to create a hard magic system, but it's harder to fit in a soft magic system.

froZn991 Same here! How long has Life is Strange been your favourite game?

I want to date you IRL

Bro have you played The Last of Us?

@@lishanglong6762 yeah the last of us intro definitely hit me like a train. But the rest is not as emotional as LiS. Or the mass effect ending after hundreds of hours of playing

I wish I would have experienced that, but I fell asleep playing chapter 1

This is how I feel about it too. Hard magic systems appeal to me, in that I like to have some rules so that the magic is to a degree known, but at the same time nearly everything that has knowns also still has unknowns. Even gravity( maybe especially gravity). It's a major aspect of sexual selection, every time a kid is created the dice get rolled on how those genes get combined, and each person starts out with an average of approx 150 unique mutations. This means that despite having an okay understanding of basic Big Umbrella aspects of biology, there are very frequently going to be people with unpredicted experiences simply because of how much random chance plays a role in our existences. Hard Magic is often said to be treating magic like a science, and well, that should include learning and having a bunch of unknowns that are being worked on becoming understood! :D

Exactly

That's exactly the problem with hard magic systems. They're just another field of science that we understand more than the current ones. If you want to write hard magic why not write sci-fi?

Because sci-fi is a genre about science, not magic. Another point tab out hard magic is that hard magic can be used not just as a element of world building but a part of the plot. It can solve problems in a more satisfying way. A good way to think of hard magic is that it’s a branch of science we understand and use regularly. Also you are not taking into account the laws of physics in regards to you argument that science is soft. These rules are followed by everything and are consistent guidelines on how the world works.

@@poshboy4749 That's not a "problem" it is a feature. That's not what scifi is. Scifi is not just "has rules" fiction. There are genre-blends, science-fantasies which have basically space-wizards and improbable mcguffins, but those are blends because scifi is most scifi when it's about science. There is also speculative fiction, which is similar to both scifi and fantasy, and a book can be either and also be speculative fiction, because what defines something as speculative fiction is that it's based around a question. "what would happen if X?" Sometimes even ridiculous ones, like, What would happen if we were actually living in a hypercube? or the back of a giant cat. Or if giant tortoises roamed the earth. IDK, speculative fiction can get awesome and weird. Anyway, point being, hard magic systems are still fantasy, because there's nothing about fantasy that says it can't have a world with rules.

That’s exactly what I’m attempting. I remember finding out exactly how magecraft in Fate/Stay Night worked and it felt SO COOL, I just want to replicate that.

If it has rules then it's science ... Opposite of magic

​@@cbwiese Magic always have some sort of rules, but they are implicit and vague. Everyone interprets it differently.

Skullduggerly pleasant

For soft magic, do not ever confuse ambiguity with inconsistency. Ambiguity is a mysterious teasing device(Good), Inconsistency is breaking rules to fit narrative(Bad).

It got the thing he discussed right though. I mean don't get me wrong, the dialogue of this game was 100%, hella trash from start to finish and so were most of the characters but the overall writing certainly had some moments.

@@chiefpurrfect8389 To be honest the game was great in a sweetly endearing way

I love how he defended the game by saying magic stops working because, themes! Which is realllllly contrived and lazy

@@daxlucero2437 People who care more about themes (which usually translates to "political messages") than consistency/continuity have missed the point of writing entirely. It's the kind of thing that only a English major grad would think. You have to go to college to think as backwards as that.

@@bmardiney People don't still read Shakespeare because of his continuity.