Story_Marc
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The Hard to Soft Magic Spectrum
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CupcakeNinja
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I enjoy hard systems in OTHER stories, for serious reads. But in my own, i enjoy them flaccid. Mainly because any magical aspect is really only done to serve the comedic tone of a story. or whatever else i need it to. So i rarely go into any hardset, intricate details Gives me some wiggly room. That said, hard systems are limited only by the creativity of the user, i say,
But im lazy so I dont think about how to exploit systems unless im a reader. Or player.
But im lazy so I dont think about how to exploit systems unless im a reader. Or player.
SailusGebel
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Thank you!
Plantorsomething
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You might be interested in the Magic System Blueprint’s rational/nebulous and hard/soft axis, which is a spectrum in two directions
Story_Marc
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Already have that!
I did find it super interesting.
Plantorsomething
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YayAlready have that!
I would hard disagree on the placement of Harry Potter magic anywhere close to Hard Magic.
Sure, there are magic schools that teach clearly defined spells, but the spells that the characters learn each year and the curriculum in general is clearly made up along the way to fit the story, and definitely not thought through. And with a generous dose of whackiness.
A somewhat hard magic system, at least as far as I understand it in the context of magic education, would have to have a progression from the simplest speels imaginable to more and more complex stuff, probably even a whole bunch of theory before anybody gets to actually use any spells at all.
So why do they have something like transformation magic, which should require iommense understanding not only of magic but of the things you actually want to transform, at least in a hard magic system, year one?
How do Ron and Malfoy know a spells that apparently create living creatures from nothing in the second book?
Sure, there are magic schools that teach clearly defined spells, but the spells that the characters learn each year and the curriculum in general is clearly made up along the way to fit the story, and definitely not thought through. And with a generous dose of whackiness.
A somewhat hard magic system, at least as far as I understand it in the context of magic education, would have to have a progression from the simplest speels imaginable to more and more complex stuff, probably even a whole bunch of theory before anybody gets to actually use any spells at all.
So why do they have something like transformation magic, which should require iommense understanding not only of magic but of the things you actually want to transform, at least in a hard magic system, year one?
How do Ron and Malfoy know a spells that apparently create living creatures from nothing in the second book?
Story_Marc
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I didn't say it was done perfectly; I just said I'd place it there with what it was going for, and you can see it when judging everything explored in the system.
Issues with the execution of the magic system and what it is conceptually are two different things. Plus, what you speak of with progression from the simplest imaginable to complex deals with how magic is organized, not its position in hard-to-soft things, which I've previously discussed. You're talking about the engineering approach to magic, which Harry Potter is not. It's like a Cookbook, where you must meet specific criteria to activate things. You can even see this in little things like wand lore, like how certain wands are better for certain types of spells due to them aligning better with its conditions.
It's stuff I wish was explored better in the series, but how well-written something is and the conditions of how it is meant to function are two different things.
Premier
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Hard Magic means you have a clear idea of the limitations of the magic system.
Harry Potter can have spells do anything, and we only really learn about them when people use them; it's not hard magic at all.
I actually disagree a little with the video; Hard magic doesn't need to be rooted in science or even logic. Avatar the last Airbander is hard magic, and it's never really explained how people can manipulate the elements. Most Superhero stories are also hard magic, even if it's never explained how the powers work.
Hard Magic is simply the ability for the audience to understand what magic/powers can and cannot do in your story. It's predictable, scientifically sound is just an extra.
Harry Potter can have spells do anything, and we only really learn about them when people use them; it's not hard magic at all.
I actually disagree a little with the video; Hard magic doesn't need to be rooted in science or even logic. Avatar the last Airbander is hard magic, and it's never really explained how people can manipulate the elements. Most Superhero stories are also hard magic, even if it's never explained how the powers work.
Hard Magic is simply the ability for the audience to understand what magic/powers can and cannot do in your story. It's predictable, scientifically sound is just an extra.
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TL;DR Hard Magic is generally 'strictly better' if you are willing to put in the effort and are capable of pulling it off, but poses unique challenges Soft Magic will simply never experience in exchange for being 'strictly worse'. The strictness ought to be emphasized, since so long as your work is written competently, only the people actually looking for the difference in quality will find it.
Hard Magic just means that the magic system is as close to 100% logically consistent as possible, with clear and defined rules that cannot be broken.
Soft Magic just means that the magic system is not required to obey any amount of logical consistency, or have clear and defined rules.
Harry Potter is definitionally soft magic. There are clearly no rules for what magic can and cannot do, with almost 0% logical consistency. It isn't even truly a single magical system as much as it is a list of incredibly specific and random stuff, as if she who will not be named was making it up based on whatever she thought of at the time with no thought to how it would exist alongside everything else.
By contrast, despite appearances, D&D magic is Hard Magic. Almost archetypally so, in fact. There is a hard and fast list of what magic can and cannot do. It's an *extensive* list, containing every spell for every slot, every class ability, every monster ability, every magic item, and so on, but it is clearly and wholly defined. It all interacts with each other in defined ways, and was intended to interact with itself. RAW is an abbreviation of Rules as written. Rules that you cannot break without fundamentally changing the feel of the setting (hence why AL and other official D&D ventures disallow homebrew and are typically less fair about RAI). Definitional hard magic, despite how chaotic and strange it looks.
Because there are two fantastic examples of Soft and Hard magic so well known by so many, I think it would be prudent to highlight that they two examples also show why the differences matter.
1. Soft magic systems are easier to write. Fullstop. No rules to follow, no reason to pay any more attention than the bare minimum necessary to complete your work.
2. Hard magic systems are generally more interesting because of their defined rules and restrictions. There's real creative value in exploring the rules of your magic system to their conclusions, logical or otherwise. Once you have a rulebook, you can compare to it, explore its implications, integrate the system as part of the setting the same way physics is.
3. Soft magic systems tend to come off as lazy, unimaginative, or boring unless you're willing to concede at least some hard defined rules. There's a reason people don't tout Fairy Tail or literally any superhero comic (I'll wait for your to think of one) as having good magic systems. They functionally don't have systems at all, just whatever the author made up at the time.
4. Hard magic systems often have the problem of writing themselves into corners. By having a rulebook, you can't bend the rulebook without fundamentally bending the audience's perception of the world your story takes place in. If, in chapter 5, the audience learns that you can't under any circumstances create matter Ex Nihilo, and then a character does exactly that in chapter 186, explanations and justifications are only going to go so far with your audience.
5. This is a weird one, but the powerscalers/gamers have a point. It doesn't really matter what the rules are or if they exist at all, the thing your audience is going to pay attention to is what your characters can and cannot do, or have and have not done. Soft magic systems are piss poor at properly showing what a character can and cannot do and what is and is not possible, making it harder for the audience to understand the implicit stakes of your magic system. If your character could pull out a anti-nuke laser if given the correct ratio of love-interest kisses + dead mentor ghost-pep-talks, it is no longer worth even considering the possibility of stakes coming from your magic system. So why have one at all?
6. The people who hate the meta character builds have a point. Having well defined rules also meanings the trappings of meta, or Most Effective Tactic Available. If you have a hard magic system, it has a meta. If no one in the setting knows what it is, it is excusable so long as it isn't obvious or readily apparent. Otherwise, You, the author need to make steps to ensure that the logical way for your setting to exist isn't everyone running around with your magic system's equivalent to Sorcadin, Palalock, Silvery Barbs spam, or DivWiz.
Hard Magic just means that the magic system is as close to 100% logically consistent as possible, with clear and defined rules that cannot be broken.
Soft Magic just means that the magic system is not required to obey any amount of logical consistency, or have clear and defined rules.
Harry Potter is definitionally soft magic. There are clearly no rules for what magic can and cannot do, with almost 0% logical consistency. It isn't even truly a single magical system as much as it is a list of incredibly specific and random stuff, as if she who will not be named was making it up based on whatever she thought of at the time with no thought to how it would exist alongside everything else.
By contrast, despite appearances, D&D magic is Hard Magic. Almost archetypally so, in fact. There is a hard and fast list of what magic can and cannot do. It's an *extensive* list, containing every spell for every slot, every class ability, every monster ability, every magic item, and so on, but it is clearly and wholly defined. It all interacts with each other in defined ways, and was intended to interact with itself. RAW is an abbreviation of Rules as written. Rules that you cannot break without fundamentally changing the feel of the setting (hence why AL and other official D&D ventures disallow homebrew and are typically less fair about RAI). Definitional hard magic, despite how chaotic and strange it looks.
Because there are two fantastic examples of Soft and Hard magic so well known by so many, I think it would be prudent to highlight that they two examples also show why the differences matter.
1. Soft magic systems are easier to write. Fullstop. No rules to follow, no reason to pay any more attention than the bare minimum necessary to complete your work.
2. Hard magic systems are generally more interesting because of their defined rules and restrictions. There's real creative value in exploring the rules of your magic system to their conclusions, logical or otherwise. Once you have a rulebook, you can compare to it, explore its implications, integrate the system as part of the setting the same way physics is.
3. Soft magic systems tend to come off as lazy, unimaginative, or boring unless you're willing to concede at least some hard defined rules. There's a reason people don't tout Fairy Tail or literally any superhero comic (I'll wait for your to think of one) as having good magic systems. They functionally don't have systems at all, just whatever the author made up at the time.
4. Hard magic systems often have the problem of writing themselves into corners. By having a rulebook, you can't bend the rulebook without fundamentally bending the audience's perception of the world your story takes place in. If, in chapter 5, the audience learns that you can't under any circumstances create matter Ex Nihilo, and then a character does exactly that in chapter 186, explanations and justifications are only going to go so far with your audience.
5. This is a weird one, but the powerscalers/gamers have a point. It doesn't really matter what the rules are or if they exist at all, the thing your audience is going to pay attention to is what your characters can and cannot do, or have and have not done. Soft magic systems are piss poor at properly showing what a character can and cannot do and what is and is not possible, making it harder for the audience to understand the implicit stakes of your magic system. If your character could pull out a anti-nuke laser if given the correct ratio of love-interest kisses + dead mentor ghost-pep-talks, it is no longer worth even considering the possibility of stakes coming from your magic system. So why have one at all?
6. The people who hate the meta character builds have a point. Having well defined rules also meanings the trappings of meta, or Most Effective Tactic Available. If you have a hard magic system, it has a meta. If no one in the setting knows what it is, it is excusable so long as it isn't obvious or readily apparent. Otherwise, You, the author need to make steps to ensure that the logical way for your setting to exist isn't everyone running around with your magic system's equivalent to Sorcadin, Palalock, Silvery Barbs spam, or DivWiz.