I disagree, you can achieve a good sense of mysticism with hard magic systems without too much difficulty, if they’re made logically. We don’t know everything that there is to know about science, and we’re constantly finding new and creative ways to use what we do know about science to invent new things. It should be the same with magic, you have the building blocks but the possibilities are still limitless, and there should still be certain aspects that aren’t known.

@@bimlauyomashitobi421 It takes a very talented writer to achieve that, and I have not found anyone that did, but Michael Moorcock came pretty close with combinating quantum mechanics and magic.

That's why in something like LOTR none of the main characters even have significant magical abilities. It's people like Gandalf and the elves who help the heroes but don't do the work for them.

@@writingwofl5836 It’s really not that hard. Maybe you find it difficult but for the average world builder it really isn’t.

@@yagrumbargan9427 JG Keely: In science things are often mysterious and surprising, but not randomly so. The same inexplicable results come up again and again, so that it's clear that there is some kind of structure behind it all, only the scientist can't figure out what the pattern is, or how to predict it. It's taken some of the most creative minds in history mankind to suss out these patterns and make sense of them--the kind of mind that comes along perhaps once in a generation. Now, scientists have the benefit of there actually being a pattern out there for them to discover. A writer trying to develop a magic system does not have this benefit, they have to create it from whole cloth. Creating a magic system that possesses both the strange unpredictability and the sense of an underlying pattern that science has would require a level of creativity and mastery that only a handful of thinkers in the history of mankind have ever possessed. So, while it's an interesting idea, I don't think it's a realistic goal for a writer to take on. I've certainly never read a fantasy novel that even came near to succeeding. So I dont think its that "easy".

Dude yes! I always say this. It’s glad to see people gravitate more towards this mindset

Didn't notice that, but you're right! I'm used to have a certain segregation between Anime/Manga and "classic", written literature in the form of books.

I thought that a common mindset? Am I live in different universe or something haha. No hate, I just feels confused if this thing really need appreciation, because for me it's just so normal as how normal is: sky = blue, fire = hot.

@@valhatan3907 well actually there’s a debate about whether people always saw the sky as blue

Manga/anime is fine, but I hope to see some Western comics as well such as Sandman and Birthright.

I've love to know what books those were! I generally prefer softer magic and I love the exploration of thought provoking themes

@@readingwithrebeccanicole Here is the link of his recommendations: starsbeetlesandfools.blogspot.com/2012/06/suggested-readings-in-fantasy.html And btw, he has a very specific taste so dont look at his dissapointed list, cuz a lot of your favourite books will be there.

but this dude dislikes Discworld, it speaks badly about his taste tho - as well as understanding Wheel of Time only as poor rewrite of Tolkien's work. Totally missed the point. To not be stubborn or hotheaded - I know and enjoy some of his recommendations as examples of excellent fantasy, which makes me even more irratated that he lacks understanding of Pratchett's work. What a dude lol.

@@dominikotmianowski6943 Yeah, while I dont agree with some of his reviews, I think he offers an interesting perspective and some great recommendations.

Hahaha, I knew it had to be J G Keely. The guy is very smart and eloquent and I like reading his reviews but he is stuborn in a way that just ends up making him close-minded and arrogant instead. Also, his critique of magic is weird because he likes Perdido Street Station, which I also love because it is cool and weird and all those things, and the main character there is basically a mad scientist whose field of science is magic.

Exactly. Often, soft magic is a metaphor for a concept, often embodying the themes of a story. Hard magic on the other hand, is more tangible because rather than being a metaphor, it is a tool, used by the characters to solve problems. It doesn't represent anything, just as gravity doesn't represent anything.

The problem with that is that if the reader doesn't know the rules, or at least have some intuition for them (I haven't read a lot of stuff where the rules are completely laid out anyway), it can still feel like a deus ex machina if someone uses magic to solve some problem when the reader doesn't know that they could do that, and couldn't have come to that conclusion themselves. Like, I can see where you're coming from, but I don't see that as getting many of the benefits of a hard magic system.

That is why the kind of magic system depends on the point of view character. Take Star Trek vs. Star Wars, for example. Magic and technology are the same from a storytelling perspective. The characters in Star Wars are criminals and soldiers, so Star Wars has a soft technology system. Star Trek characters are scientists and engineers, so Star Trek has a hard technology system.

@@sashaboydcom Of course it can, but that's why most books with soft magic systems don't use magic in this way. As a fan of many stories that use "soft magic", it winds me up that a lot of the complaints directed at it come down to moaning that it's not very good at fulfilling a narrative purpose it was never designed for. They're often stories where magic is the means that allow characters to understand who they are, where they fit into the world or help them along some other kind of character arc. They can be used to present problems and it's up to the characters to use what they have to figure out a solution. How the magic used to make Sophie into an old woman in Howl's Moving Castle functions is never explained because in the context of the story it simply doesn't matter. In a Sword and Sorcery book I read recently, it doesn't matter that the heroes have no idea what fuels an Ice Demon's magic, they just understand enough that fire will harm it. And in those last two examples, implementing hard magic systems into those stories would have made those stories much worse, because it's adding extra details that kill the pacing for information that is both unnecessary and demystifies the world in an uninteresting way. But I'm not going to use that to say hard magic systems are bad, because these are stories this kind of system was never designed for. So please, please, PLEASE have the courtesy to make the same consideration of our much maligned soft systems. As with any part of a story, the mechanics should bend to the story you're trying to tell. Hell, some stories mix the two. I used to be a big fan of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, and a couple of their stories did this. As your magic was used to solve problems, you knew what your limited arrangements of spells did, how many you could use and what their boundaries and weaknesses were. The enemies were more mysterious, were not bound by these rules, and you just had to figure out how to use your tools to overcome them. People arrange it as one Vs the other but this is an example of how they can coexist. Sci-fi often has similar elements, where we understand the limits of our protagonists' technology, but encounter the unknowable and they have to figure out how to use what they have to overcome/survive this new entity.

Hisoka`s bungee gum also explains important things like that the ability has the properties of both rubber and gum

@@c.w.sgermzy oh how could i forget 🫢

Nen is great, Hisokas power especially but a system like JoJo’s Stands is far more versatile and creative. Feels like Nen is almost sometimes like stands.

Nen is literally Togashi trying to get the benefits of Power level systems (soft magic), and Stand powers (hard magic) and somehow managing to do it well (with a bit of bullshit here and there)

@Owais Zubair id say hard. Because its the most complex power system in manga to date. There’s different rules and limits. Any character can stand toe to toe with any character if they are creative with their powers. I especially like the your nen will get stronger if you sacrifice something

Yeah, kinda like Dresden files. Still enough rules to make sense, but not too much that you lose the sense of mysticism.

@owaiszubair6563 Nen is a hard magic system

Yeah I am surprised that people would think if magic was real it would lean soft. I think if magic was real it would just be another field of science

@@Vermbraunt true

@@Vermbraunt Science do follow hard immutable rules but on its periphery, science do get interpreted in ways that are much closer to soft magic than hard magic does. Consider quantum physics for instance, the basic quantum mechanics are hard magic. Entanglement is the way they are is immutable, bell inequalities proved that beyond doubt. But then, there are element in quantum physics that took different interpretation in periphery. There are some who believed in Supersymmetry interpretation, string theory interpretation or Modified Newtonian mechanics to resolve the apparent dichotomy between gravity and the rest of physics. This differing interpretation for rules felt like soft magic, imo. Maybe if magic was real it would be a hybrid of several immutable rules followed by soft magic in its periphery.

"If magic was real" you say, as if we don't live in a world where ethereal energy flows through crystalline wires, allowing us to make lights without flame, sense the invisible or the distant, predict the future, communicate over any distance, and thinking machines. We have trapped lightning in a bottle, and think it is not magic.

I doubt it. There's a reason why we call magic "magic". If it was something that science could decipher then it would just be a subject under science just like everything else. Magic is supposed to be mythical and something you cannot easily put your finger on from how I see it. You can comprehend it a bit to see where it outlines but the realizing its rules would be another story. Of course, if magic existed in our era, there's no way it would just be soft alone but we would make it more complicated like all the other things. So I think it would be a bit of both, hard magic and soft.

Krabat does not lack rules, the point of view characters just don't know the rules. Obviously the miller knows his apprentices can not run away, so there are rules.

I would say the coolest thing about the nasuverse magic are the abilities Like mystic eyes of death perception or UBW

I never though the Nasuverse would ever gain mention here, since it's literally my 2nd favorite magic systems after Nen. One thing I really liked about the magecraft in general is that it is soft yet it is very hard when it comes to limitations of who can learn magic the magic in general its like every family has their very own magic system of specializations, like in the case of the Tohasakas Jewel magecraft, Makiri's insect magecraft, Animusphere's Astromancy magecraft, and even something that is very niche and mundane Projection magic of Shirou. Most of the magic system can only be inherited to one person through a family magic crest, since that is how you can actually capitalize most of it's power and dividing the crest while theoretically possible would only hinder the family magic system itself on advancing. Also something that I would like to add on is that the idea of the more Mysterious the nature of the magic is, the more powerful it is, breaking through the system of magecraft it becoming 'True Magic' like in the case of the Kaleidoscope, and Heaven's feel, one way to attain it is to reach the Root of the universe

I can't remember the name of the series sadly the person who recommended it to me has since died it may have actually been a book he wrote. But the magic and science system was based purely on belief. In the story a battalion of soldiers from our world get transported to this world and their vehicles and weapons run on pure belief but as they get demoralized their weapons and machines start breaking down and they can't figure out why. I really need to figure out the name of the series. The author friend of mine that told me about it was Doug Dandridge it may be one of his published books but I'm not sure.

Oh, I like that idea

Yea, but you’ve got to watch out and make sure it doesn’t feel like you’re pulling stuff out of nowhere.

I’m working within those same rules with my own fiction. I have found that a good way of striking a balance is to have consistent rules for the magic that you never break but also never explain. “Show, don’t tell” basically.

Arcane is so interesting because the technology is also a soft science fiction- nothing about the magic or tech is explained to the audience, which allows the creators to do basically anything!

Its really not as hard aspeople think, itsboth really. Alluka isnt really hard. Or someother things, through it has a good basis. Its more a mix really. Its more its a hard system that leaves plenty soft magic within it, for a cost most of the time. He he is good at integrating it but soft magic in the hard.

@@marocat4749 it wouldn't be hard if you also have her nen reserve. You can't have her powers no matter how many restrictions you have if you don't have nen reserves like Ai does.

“Deep purple”

@@heartofvanillaice7443 ?

I'd call nen a hard magic system with a warm gooey center.

Oohhh if she ready jojos my dreams would be fullfilled

She will know the stands first in HXH, if you know what I mean xD

How are stands a hard system? They are all random abilities that can be and do anything Araki wants and don't obey any general rules or limitations but the rules or limitations Araki has specifically put in a specific ability for it to be exploited if it even has them. Like the only system thing in the whole series is the relationship between physical strength/distance, and I don't think it's even fully followed and even if it is it barely ever matters in the context of the abilities that he comes up with. Stands are one of the biggest soft systems out there, they can be and do whatever the author comes up with.

@@byrcust1858 There are some pretty defined rules to stands. Your stand reflect your personality in some way, hence different powers but There are a lot that are similar to each other. You are either born with a stand that awakens or get it from the stand arrow. If you are not suitable then you die from the arrow. Long range stand or short range stand, long range being weaker in close combat and vice versa for short range. Defeating the stand and you defeat the user or vice versa. Ordinary people can’t see stands but can see the effects of a stand. Even the arrow has an explaination to it, a weird one sure, but the origin of stands is explained. Unlike say Harry Potter were wizards can do magic because they are wizards (unexplained genetics basically). Stand users are drawn to other stand users, which explains why they often find themselves in conflicts. Using the stand takes up stamina so it’s not limitless (like One Piece were you can spam your powers or Harry Potter were there is no limit to the magic as long as you say the right word). And every stand has it’s limitations and rules. You can then use the limitations in creative ways. It’s almost like small hard magic systems for each individual power, so I don’t think it’s fair to not call it hard due to the powers being different. Take Josukes stand; he can fix things - the pieces of an object/person return to make the object whole. But can’t fix himself. And that Josuke can never heal himself, that is a hard rule on his powers. He can use this to his advantage though as the force is so strong in the pull when objects are fixed, that it can be used to drag himself away (like a piece of the street stuck in his shoulder that wants to return to it’s original place). Many of the fights wouldn’t work without the hard rules being set. If you know a persons stand then you can see what is possible for them to do and the solution to a fight has to be within the possibilites for that stand. If Josuke for example could just heal himself out of nowhere then that would be breaking the rules. The range stuff is mentioned quite often as another example, like with Star Platinum and how enemies try to stay out of it’s range. It’s not as hard as say FMA, (which also has random powers with it’s own limitations) but I would still define stands as a hard magic system. Might have missed some stuff but you get the gist.

@@byrcust1858 on the one side yes, in terms of character creation the possibilities are almost endless. But after the character is established it's a super hard system. Take Sticky Fingers for example. It can make zippers anywhere and make "pocket dimensions" and it can punch medium hard. Thats it. Unless you're a main character (caugh same stand as me caugh) the stands abilities wont evolve or change. With nen, ki, chakra, wand-magic you have the options of learning mlre, not with stands. You have your stand and thats it. (Excluding the arrow)

Actually, the time turner thing does make sense because I believe it’s canon you can only go back in time by 5 hours and even if that wasn’t the case you have to live through that time period and that’s just massively inconvenient.

@@joeyjerry1586 it's less of a problem of mechanics and more to do with writing youself into a corner. Why didn't dumbles save the potters right after the attack? Why didn't voldemort use it to snipe harry at the graveyard? It's a completely artificial problem "solved" by arbitrary rules and the elimination of said plot device

You make a really good point in this comment, especially with how we as a less symbolically driven society don't really recognize rules of magic in older stories.

I would imagine a lot of that comes from a decline in religiosity we've become much more materialistic and grounded and therefore a lot of the magic systems in our stories have mirrored that.

Yeah, she has a looong way to go, a lot to discover, a brand new world.

Didn't she already read it?

Hard vs soft magic as a concept is already borrowing from hard vs soft science fiction, and Asimov is usually considered to be more hard science fiction.

Same

but harry potter leans more towards soft magic system.

@@vitoriaassuncao7716 does it? I'm not sure if I understand the difference than

Harry Potter is a super soft magic system. I'm not sure how you are thinking it's a hard system. It basically has zero rules, there is no explanation to how anything works, there is no rule to how anything works, it just does. Say this word and this thing happens, there are hints that people develop new spells, but I think that was more just world building than actually hinting at any sort of hard magic. Like I can't think of something softer than the whole ancient magic where someone sacrifices themselves to protect another which somehow creates a protection around that person. I think you are definitely misunderstanding hard vs soft magic. Hard magic means you have set rules generally a set of simple rules think Mistborn where you have just a couple magical abilities and they are based on metals the interesting bit comes from how you manipulate those abilities and how they work together. Whereas in something like Harry Potter the magic is just there you can't guess what the next spell used will be based on previous spells you've seen in the series, you can't logic your way through a problem because an entirely new spell that falls outside of the ruleset we've seen can just pop up and fix the day. They both have their place but they are very different systems.

@@ChaosTherum thanks for the explanation. I fear I still don't understand. Maybe because I've never read anything that applies to your definition of hard magic. But that's ok. I don't think about that so much. Either I like the book or I don't...

@@leonardocucchiara4782 Well for a great example that's also just a fantastic series would be Mistborn from Brandon Sanderson. That will give you a good idea of a hard magic system and as I said it's also just a fantastically built world.

If you actually read Brandon Sanderson's essay introducing the terms "hard magic" and "soft magic", you can see that this is literally what it is. A hard magic system is simply one where you need to understand the rules of the magic system in order to "solve the plot". In order to allow that plot to make sense to the reader, the rules must be explained.

I would argue that many authors kind of come up with stuff as they go and don't really set any rules. Harry Potter is a great example where the magic has very few limits you have the limits on transfiguration but otherwise there isn't much in the way of limitations. You have blood curses, literally defying death, people turning into animals, Harry wins a duel through sheer will.

Wild magic surges?

It's really hard to design a game in which you give the players access to magic, and not have it be at least moderately hard, because games are made of rules, so the magic the players use... Also needs to be guided by those same rules. While the presence of a GM does allow for magic that has a bit more mystery to it, in a crunchy, tactical game like D&D, soft magic would be a pretty poor fit. And while crunchy RPGs with more freeform magic systems exist, like Mage or Ars Magica, they tend to lean even harder due to the rules-heavy nature of the games and the need to limit magic users in some way, as well as the need to provide a framework for the magic to interact with the system's rules That's why soft magic systems, I believe, are much more at home in lighter, more narrative games, where there's not a heavy focus on combat, and thus what your character does, both with and without magic, is determined by a few stats, your creativity as a player, and maybe a short list of unique, broad abilities.

The way each character is introduced to the magic system separately is so cool bc we get a different understanding of it depending on the character we follow

It’s hard due to it’s defined rules basically.

Yeah exactly how i felt. Its like what ever happens I just have to take the authors word for it. How much of what metals are even in a vial? And why does everyone only carry around 2 of them? The good thing with hard magic systems though is that I always feel like the tension is high in battles.

You don't know how much resource is left, but you know the limits to what the power can do. Characters overcoming atium is so satisfying because we knew exactly how atium works. The horseshoe trick for traversal is satisfying because it's just a clever use of physics.

@@personb9034 yeah definitely there where so many super cool uses of the magic system. Like that chapter of Vin and Kelsier running for 14 hours is stuck with me forever because it was the first time I had that “wait they can do that” moment same with the horse shoe trick. But at the same time there were so many other moments that just felt like they were happening without me really understanding why or how. Some of those moments where supposed to be reveals for parts of the magic system we weren’t supposed to understand but some of them were just like ok I guess that makes sense.

@@personb9034 True, the use of the powers is very clever. Tying them to a fuel source means the author can decide at any point that a character ran out of gas and therefore the plot goes just as planned. This is the only example I can think of right now, though there are probably better: in the first Deadpool movie, the bullet counting fight is one of my favorite scenes. We’re shown our guy has this many bullets and that many bad guys, and they turn the bullet count into an entertaining element of the fight while simultaneously the viewer is always looking forward to "how’s he going to win with just the bullets he has left." It’s the start of a movie, so there’s no real tension, but I think the principle would be fantastic to include in a fueled hard magic system. Something as simple as 1 vial of X metal gives you Y minutes of power use would give me much more insight on why Vin used one power here but a different one there or what tactical error/genius led to losing/winning in an encounter. Delivering that information smoothly to the reader might be a pain, but I believe Sando could have done it well if he chose to.

This is compounded by the fact that Sanderson tries very hard to be clever and subtle with the way he gives information. For example the main plot twist at the climax of mistborn is that Vin's earpin actually grants her additional allomancy powers but enable Ruin to control her. It is subtly forshadowed but you just don't see it when you read it for the first time, and at the end it feels like "yeah and suddenly she get a power up from the mist just because" when in fact there is a rational, hard magic explanation. (Sorry for the rant)