Jed Herne's Magic System Limitations List

[dollyt8]

Jed Herne is a fantasy author and YouTuber who I highly recommend in general. He's got some fantastic advice for things like how to write better villains, how to make your characters more likable, how to worldbuild effectively in your novels, etc. This particular resource is a free list of potential limitations your magic system could have. I understand not everyone will be interested in that sort of thing, but for me personally, it makes magic systems way more interesting if there are some limitations and consequences involved, and there were a bunch of options that I never would have considered! I hope it's useful: Magic System Limitations, Weakness, and Consequences Guide – Jed Herne

 

[CupofJoe]

Magic should always have limits or at least costs to it.
I like my magic small and almost domesticated.
No great Battle Mages for me. But a nice find-your-way-home charm [range 5 miles] is a thing to have.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Magic should always have limits or at least costs to it.

Should it though?

What are the limits of Harry Potter Magic? Or of Jedi Magic? Or of Sauron's Magic?

It very much depend on the goal, purpose, and use of magic in the story in question. This is why I very much like Sanderson's Laws of Magic, especially the first one, which applies to this situation:
An author's ability to solve problems with magic in a satisfying way is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.

We don't understand Jedi Magic, but we don't really use it to solve the story, other than some very specific actions. But Return of the Jedi isn't solved with Jedi Magic, but by Luke being a great person and believing anyone can be redeemed.

 

[CupofJoe]

Just because a magic doesn't seem to have an obvious limitation doesn't mean there aren't any.
In each of those cases I can see limits and cost.
I'm not enough of a Tolkien scholar to know how Sauron's magic works but if it is anything like a dark-side version of Gandalf's powers, then it is finite. Incredible and awful but still limited.
The same with the others.
As I see it, if there are no limits on magic, then all the Wizard/Demon/farm boy has to do is think of a thing and it happens.
There is not much of a story in that.
But that is just my view,

 

[Queshire]

Sure, Harry Potter's magic has a cost. It costs time spent at school, it costs needing to always have a wand on you (hope you don't get ambushed in the shower,) it costs the fact that if you want it to work correctly you need the ability to be able to perform percise movements with the wand and pronounce the spell just right. It also costs the fact that if you want to try to, say, mix magic and the internet then all the other wizards will probably think you're a nutter.

Those are very different costs from something like, to use an example recently brought up on this site, spells causing your emotions to burn away until you either go mad or are left a shell of a person.

 

[Prince of Spires]

There is a big difference here in the limits of the magic in terms of what the magic can do and what the magic wielder can do and what the reader knows about either of those two.

As far as we get from the HP books, there is no limit to what the magic can do. The one exception perhaps is that it can't bring back people from the dead (which Dumbledoor mentions to Harry once I think), though even that could be a limit to what the magic wielders know and what the magic can actually do. But from the reader's perspective, the magic can do almost everything. There might be a "end Voldemort wherever he is" spell out there, the characters simply don't know it.

For the characters there is a limitation. And that is simply that they need to know the spell and be able to perform the motions of said spell.

So the magic is (for all intents and purposes) limitless, but for the character's it's not. However, knowing how to do it, is pretty much the only limit imposed. I think Dumbledoor does magic without a wand at some point. And they can keep casting spells as much as they want, with the only limitation that they can't cast faster than they can speak.

It doesn't matter though in this story that the magic itself has no limits.

As for Sauron, here there might very well be limits, but as a reader we don't know them and we don't need to know them. All we need to know is that his attention span and knowledge are finite. So he might very well be able to do pretty much anything, but he can't do it all and doesn't know everything. And we know that his full might if he regains the ring is terrible and something that must be avoided at all cost. But beyond that, we can't name anything about the costs or the limits of his magic and it doesn't matter to the story.

That's very different from something like Mistborn, where the whole point is the magic system and how the characters wield it to solve their problems.

It's pretty much the difference between hard and soft magic systems.

 

[dollyt8]

Thanks for all your responses and input! Like I said, it's just a personal preference for me. Soft magic systems without clearly and openly defined limitations like in Harry Potter are less interesting for me personally than for example the magic system in Mistborn, and I'm well aware that's not the same for everyone.

 

[Mad Swede]

Jed Herne is a fantasy author and YouTuber who I highly recommend in general. He's got some fantastic advice for things like how to write better villains, how to make your characters more likable, how to worldbuild effectively in your novels, etc. This particular resource is a free list of potential limitations your magic system could have. I understand not everyone will be interested in that sort of thing, but for me personally, it makes magic systems way more interesting if there are some limitations and consequences involved, and there were a bunch of options that I never would have considered! I hope it's useful: Magic System Limitations, Weakness, and Consequences Guide – Jed Herne

This is a classic subject for debate, both in fantasy and in SF. It can be summarised as "hard" versus "soft". In very simple terms, the "hard" school is very focused on the mechanics, how something works, what limitations it has and how you develop and/or learn to use it. The "soft" school tends to focus on the characters, their stories and how they are affected by events - there is a lot less of the technical detail. You can of course combine both these aspects in a story, they are not exclusive. Getting the balance right is tricky and most authors I've read tend to lean towards one or the other.

 

[pmmg]

I'd like to see his list before I comment, but I've not had an easy time getting it.

I've seen him on youtube, but he is not one of my goto's. A lot of good youtubers writers out there with quality channels. I cant do them all.

 

[pmmg]

Okay, I have seen the list from Mr. Herne, and....well....its not something I dont think I could have come up with on my own, but Mr. Herne wants it as his reader magnet, so I wont spoil it by posting it here.

Yeah, I think the issue is really, how do you want your magic and what, if anything, works better than others. For this, I will go with, it has to be informed by the story. Some stories require rules and others dont. Those that do have hard rules tend to have those rules play a much more important part of the barriers in the story.

I dont know which I prefer. I think most important with these is that if you make a set of rules, you need to live by them, or have a strong reason not to. Cause once you've set expectations, it can all come crashing down in winning reader trust if you are not consistent with them. I suppose I prefer magic that is not easy to come by, as I dont really want to be just the 'get out of jail free card' and a deus ex machina for the story.

In my own story, magic is not defined. I have not said so anywhere in the story, and most character have no access to magic. Those that do, are a dying breed. But....my system is loosely based on ley lines, mana, and racial elements. Such that in some places, the mana (source of magical energy, cause its not mana in my stories) is pooled and in other places its not. Since there are different types of pools, some magic using people are strong in some areas and not in others. So location matters. It also matters what race you are, as some races have more innate ability than others. To use magic is to risk discovery, and in some cases to use up part or all of ones own magical essence, which can lead to weakness and death.

I dont know that I am in love with that system, but its the one I have.

A system I never liked, was the D&D system, of having spell components, like an owls feather or the eye of a newt. Works well with Shakespeare, but seems very cumbersome in a story to me.

I am not sure which story I know of that had a magic system in it that I liked the most. I use the Gandalf model at times (which I equate to just enough and never more), I did like the magicians battle in the belgaraid, where belgarath won a battle because he summoned a demon that bled, and shook the confidence of the opposing wizard (read the Belgaraid is you dont know). I suppose I tend to think of magic as a pool of mana, and a wizards ability to use it. That seems to work best for me.

 

[dollyt8]

Okay, I have seen the list from Mr. Herne, and....well....its not something I dont think I could have come up with on my own, but Mr. Herne wants it as his reader magnet, so I wont spoil it by posting it here.

Yeah, I think the issue is really, how do you want your magic and what, if anything, works better than others. For this, I will go with, it has to be informed by the story. Some stories require rules and others dont. Those that do have hard rules tend to have those rules play a much more important part of the barriers in the story.

I dont know which I prefer. I think most important with these is that if you make a set of rules, you need to live by them, or have a strong reason not to. Cause once you've set expectations, it can all come crashing down in winning reader trust if you are not consistent with them. I suppose I prefer magic that is not easy to come by, as I dont really want to be just the 'get out of jail free card' and a deus ex machina for the story.

In my own story, magic is not defined. I have not said so anywhere in the story, and most character have no access to magic. Those that do, are a dying breed. But....my system is loosely based on ley lines, mana, and racial elements. Such that in some places, the mana (source of magical energy, cause its not mana in my stories) is pooled and in other places its not. Since there are different types of pools, some magic using people are strong in some areas and not in others. So location matters. It also matters what race you are, as some races have more innate ability than others. To use magic is to risk discovery, and in some cases to use up part or all of ones own magical essence, which can lead to weakness and death.

I dont know that I am in love with that system, but its the one I have.

A system I never liked, was the D&D system, of having spell components, like an owls feather or the eye of a newt. Works well with Shakespeare, but seems very cumbersome in a story to me.

I am not sure which story I know of that had a magic system in it that I liked the most. I use the Gandalf model at times (which I equate to just enough and never more), I did like the magicians battle in the belgaraid, where belgarath won a battle because he summoned a demon that bled, and shook the confidence of the opposing wizard (read the Belgaraid is you dont know). I suppose I tend to think of magic as a pool of mana, and a wizards ability to use it. That seems to work best for me.

I agree with everything you said! I also don't think every story needs a hard magic system. Some stories are better served with more "mysterious" or flexible systems. Your system sounds interesting, especially the pool concept.

 

[Finchbearer]

Soft magic all the way for me.. I like the mysticism of magic, and I really don’t like formulaic storytelling. I understand that sometimes a particular power needs its limits, or I don’t mind it when it’s shown to have its limits, but then I like to still question, is that really the full limit of that power.

Someone mentioned what the limits of Sauron’s power are. Surely we as the reader don’t know the true extent of his powers, but by the time Lord of the Rings rolls around, the limitation is in having all his power in the one ring.

 

[Queshire]

I'm somewhere inbetween with my magic system. I don't start out with a hard system, but instead try to have basic principles that I can build out on in a way that hopefully feels natural.

 

[dollyt8]

Soft magic all the way for me.. I like the mysticism of magic, and I really don’t like formulaic storytelling. I understand that sometimes a particular power needs its limits, or I don’t mind it when it’s shown to have its limits, but then I like to still question, is that really the full limit of that power.

Someone mentioned what the limits of Sauron’s power are. Surely we as the reader don’t know the true extent of his powers, but by the time Lord of the Rings rolls around, the limitation is in having all his power in the one ring.

That makes sense. I will say even with hard magic systems, there are a lot of ways around the limits. For example, if you've ever read Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, it does have some well-defined limits, but one of the characters turns out to be able to exceed those limits on a regular basis. So there are still quite a few aspects that are left mysterious, and I don't really see it as formulaic.

In my novel, I've really been enjoying trying to think of clever things to do with the magic that go beyond what I initially defined. For example, white opals can store memories. My original intention was to use it as a system for sending messages across time, but as I've been writing, I've changed and added to that. It turns out later they can also be used to forcibly retrieve and store another person's memories, which plays a major part in the plot. Also, blinding opals can be used to project an image onto someone's mind/sight. Using both together allows someone to project a memory from someone's past onto a person's sight, which, again, plays a major part in the plot.

 

[Finchbearer]

I can’t say I get on with Sanderson’s style. I do find it too formulaic and therefore seems to me to have a distinct lack of what draws me to fantasy - the mysticism and the unknown. If I’m reading that someone arrives out of a mist, I know there’ll be a solid reason as to how and why - which kind of kills it for me. I respect his dedication to fantasy / SF writing though.

 

[LittleOwlbear]

Jed Herne is a likeable guy in general and he had some nice advice.
I have mixed feelings about the channel in general tho. He's highly reader- and commercial-orientated and it deeply displeases me to write a book with a market audience in mind and having this highly commercial mindset.



Finchbearer
Yeah Sanderson seems a lot about really hard magic systems. I didn't read his books yet, but he praises hard magic a lot from what I've heard in his videos.


I'm inbetween too.
There are some tinctures that are necessary for certain types of magic (like needing someone's blood for shapeshafting), but there are no magic spells, no magic word you need to yell out.
A magic users need to channel the energy through their body and the more often you are training a certain form of magic, the better you get at channeling the energy around you. You are not born with a certain type of magic, you choose which type(s) of magic you want to train.
The kids don't study actual magic in magic schools for most parts, they study meditation and knowledge about various subjects. The more knowledgable a healer is about medicine, the better they can channel their energy.

I don't know, if this is a hard magic system since it does have certain limitations, but there are no spells that can be learned or anything, and the people in my world don't know how magic works in the minutest detail. Not even the Fey, including Elves, do as "natural magic users". Human children often need awaking rituals to connect to the net of magic, in others the connection to the magic net grows naturally with age.

There is no fix rule how much energy a wizard or mage or any magic user can channel through their body. They know they are in contact with a net of energy spanning over their world and if they take too much at a time, they will die. Nobody knows how much energy is too much, since it's depending on the individual. They just get braver in using magic by little steps and world-changing and all-powerful magic could be done theoretically, no humanoid is strong enough to achieve higher magic.

So I hope I can keep some mysticism.