Grounding Magic in Your Game World

I’ve been looking at ways to better ground magic in the game world. This is against it being an abstract power that turns the world into a wizard’s plaything. I’ve considered developing a somewhat grandiose “magic as science” system, with internally consistent laws. But I’ve wondered if there might be a simpler way.

Here I’m going to get down and dirty, introducing some practical interactions with the physical world to spells. This will look at individual spells in isolation, trying to make the world an interesting factor in gameplay. My thesis on the overarching laws of spell science can wait for another day.

Warning, things get dangerously close to playable content, with a link to my “materialist” take on an illusionist at the end of the post.