3 Ways Magic Breaks your World (and How to Fix Them)

The Implications of Magic Power

Note:  This topic looks specifically at battle and healing magic for examples of the implications of magic.  There will be ramifications for any kind of magic, though teleportation, portals, and scrying will likely have the biggest consequences.

  • Reshaping Battle – Armies will adapt how they fight depending on how powerful magic is.
    • Bow-and-Arrow Magic: If magic is no more powerful than a bow and arrow, it will have no influence on how wars are fought.
    • Machine Gun Magic: If magic is as powerful as a machine gun, then traditional dense formations like you see in the ancient, medieval, and early modern periods will cease to exist.  Warriors will disburse, rely on cover, use ambushes, and/or adopt looser tactics.
    • Cannon Magic: If magic is as powerful as a cannon, then battle probably won’t change much—after all, dense formations persisted during the Napoleonic and American Civil Wars despite large numbers of cannon.  Sieges will change, however.  Tall castle walls are highly vulnerable to cannon fire.  Fortifications will likely become much shorter and rely upon earthen bastions like early modern star forts.
    • Nuclear Magic: If magic is as powerful as a nuke, armies won’t necessarily disappear.  They will, however, reorganize and decentralize in order to continue fighting in the face of massive devastation.
  • Reshaping Society – society is fundamentally shaped by its military. This will also be true if spellcasters become a military force.  Here are three real world examples of the influence of armies and society from ancient Greece.
    • Thessaly fielded elite cavalry. Cavalry is extremely expensive to maintain, therefore Thessalian society became centralized around a very small number of wealthy families—you see something similar with the knights of the Middle Ages.
    • Sparta fielded highly drilled hoplites. A warrior on foot is somewhat expensive to maintain, but much less than cavalry.  Therefore Spartan society was more egalitarian—at least for the relatively small citizen population.
    • Athens’s strength lay in its navy. A fleet requires an enormous number of rowers who are very cheap to equip.  Therefore Athenian society was very democratic—every man pulled his weight in battle and so had a claim to political power.
  • Reshaping Population Growth – Healing magic is probably less influential on political power, but it has massive consequences for survivability and lifespan.
    • Human population growth was incredibly slow, and sometimes saw periods of decline, until only several hundred years ago when the Industrial Revolution improved agriculture, sanitation, and medicine. The result was a ten-fold population explosion in less than three hundred years.
    • If a spellcaster can mend minor wounds, he will have only a small influence on society at large. It will be larger if major healing can be done, such as the reattachment of limbs.  If spellcasters can end plagues and revive the dead, there will be a population explosion.

Note:  All of these magical power elements can be limited through other means.  See below.

 

The Implications of Magic Wielders

  • How many Spellcasters are there?
    • If numbers are rare, dense army formations, castles, and other historical practices will be largely unaffected. An exception may be extremely powerful spellcasters—even if nuke-level mages are rare, their capabilities will have broad-sweeping impacts.  At the very least they will likely charge a great deal for their services.
    • If spellcasters are commonplace, then your world will function very differently from our world.
  • How hard is it to cast a spell?
    • If spells can be cast quickly and with little effort, then their use will be widespread and their impact significant.
    • If spells take a long time to cast and/or are costly for the spellcaster, then the impact of magic will be more restrained.
    • On a related note, can spells be countered? Can they be dispelled as they are cast, only after they are cast, or is every one permanent?
  • Who has access to Magic?
    • If spellcasting is learned through schooling, then the bottleneck is education which usually means the wealthy will be dominant.
    • If spellcasting is hereditary, the most probably outcome is magical dynasties, at least if the spellcasters are powerful enough to assert themselves.
    • If spellcasting is random then it can become a significant wildcard with powerful sorcerers often appearing in the least likely of people.
  • How does Society respond to Spellcasters?
    • Societies naturally regulate destabilizing forces either via an external or internal control.
      • The impetus for external controls should be self-evident. This may end up as some form of policing or even the subjugation of spellcasters as slaves if the external control is strong enough.
      • Internal controls may be a means of achieving self-government and/or reassuring the outside world that spellcasters aren’t a threat.
    • If spell power is centralized around powerful families (due to education, heredity, etc.) then society will likely become some sort of oligarchy or constitutional monarchy.
    • Ultimately, the more powerful spellcasters are, the greater influence they’ll be able to exert on society.
      • Depending on how common they are, this may mirror the narrow power base of Thessaly, the fairly broad representation of Sparta, or the democracy of Athens.

 

The Implications of Magic Implements

Many of the issues discussed already also relate to magical implements—wands, staffs, potions, rings, swords, etc.

  • Proliferation
    • If magic items are easy to make and last a long time, they will very likely see wide disbursement in the world.
    • This becomes far more significant if non-spellcasters can use magical implements.
    • Solutions in books often include limiting the volume of magical items.
    • Games typically face far bigger challenges due to the leveling curve of characters and an expectation of increased access to magical items.
      • This problem becomes more serious if significant magical items can be easily purchased in shops.
      • Solutions include raising the price, moderating access (e.g. via a guild), or item degradation.
    • Magical Economics
      • If magic items are fairly easy to produce then market forces for them will be huge.
      • If there is a large market, then government and/or guilds will likely want a cut via tariffs, regulations, and so on. Is access open or limited?
      • Depending on profitability, consider what path spellcasters might take to wealth. Is it easier to get rich selling magic items or through some other pursuit including magical research, politics, or the battlefield?

 

Final Considerations

  • Balancing the implications of magic and be daunting.
  • Don’t despair—consider what checks and balances can be introduced to control how powerful magic is, who can use it, and the proliferation of magical implements. This will ensure each of these achieves the level you desire.
  • Embrace the fun! One of the joys of worldbuilding is following the logic of the choices you make, expanding on them, and seeing their implications play out for the peoples, societies, and history of your world.  It may just take on a life of its own.