In Defense of Soft Magic Systems

[@HelloFutureMe]

If you'd like to help, then sharing THIS >>> tinyurl.com/y32b8kho

[@JamesSamson487]

I just got your book today, Tim. Can't wait for the live-stream.

[@JMObyx]

Hello future Me, could you please make a video on what affect a McGuffin that makes an infinite supply of something has on a society, especially their economy? Imagine there's a rock that constantly pours out oil like a fountain.

[@freeksmulders6075]

Could soft and hard magic systems work in the same story? Lile if the magic gandalf uses is a hard system and the ring a soft one

[@theshamanite]

I'm an American. I was raised never to say this, but other accents of English pushed me to this: Sixth with a k instead of x/ks. Also, how do you feel about grammar systems in literary conlangs?

[@larhyperhair]

YUS I can't wait, we'll make it huge like Hbombs stream!!

[@GamesForEverybody01]

I prefer "medium magic." Stuff that has rules but also isn't afraid to still be whimsical and mysterious at times.

[@ribbitgoesthedoglastnamehe4681]

@Jordan Rodrigues If it destroys the world, dont try to resurrect it. Damn Death Cultists....

[@karlfranzemperorofmandefil5547]

@Jordan Rodrigues Skullduggerly pleasant. It has clear defined limits but they are dependent on the strength of the character and some can overcome them , it's a hard magic system that at times seems soft because the viewpoint character dosent fully understand it.

[@ikemeitz5287]

This sounds nice, but can easily be the worst of both worlds. See: Harry Potter.

[@karlfranzemperorofmandefil5547]

@@ikemeitz5287 agreed the magic system ruined the series

[@ribbitgoesthedoglastnamehe4681]

@@ikemeitz5287 I see what you mean with worst of both worlds, but Im not sure about your example. I think Potter magic worked reasonably well, and the suspension of disbelief works well if you just consider the kids learn new things all the time. The hardest of all hardcore systems are mathematics and physics, and in math you learn to understand new things that were considered wrong in lower grades, and quantum physics go just crazy, breaking pretty much all laws, laugh in your face and poop on your lawn. So for a student, thats pretty mundane. In magic school, why would it need to be better?

[@samuelsafin6564]

So, in a nutshell: Hard magic systems are good when you want a tool. Soft magic systems are good when you want a metaphor.

[@TheLPRnetwork]

For some reason, your comment made me think of Keyblades and how they are both tools and metaphors.

[@thethirdjegs]

i want hello future me to comment confirm this ahhahahh

[@xord1946]

In LiS case, It's not only metaphorical. After all, she's discovering her powers, it's logical that random new powers come at random moments, and that she can randomly be unable to use them. I think it mostly depends how much you want magic to affect your story.

[@davidharshman7645]

@@xord1946 I think it is less even about how much magic affects the story and more about how close magic is to being the point (or primary theme) of the story.

[@xord1946]

@@davidharshman7645 Both are very related. If your story isnt so much about magic, magic won't affect it that much. So, yes.

[@MedicFromTF2_REAL]

12 minutes and 17 seconds ago, I didn't even know there was a distinction between two kinds of magic, let alone discourse about it but there you go

[@EyeMCreative]

You should watch his other videos on hard and soft magic systems

[@katelynoreilly6144]

KZbin algorithm strikes again

[@somersetmaine]

These are user-created dichotomies. And categorizations. I mean you can create a million different divisions if you want. Divine magic vs Arcane magic vs natural magic etc etc.

[@LawrenceCaldwellAuthor]

It's a writing thing.

[@OggerFN]

If you ever thought about writing a story with any sort of magic system you sure would have come up with the separation

[@luigiluigi543212345]

Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Hard magic systems are predictable but force the characters to cleverly use the tools available to them. Soft magic systems have a sense of wonder but can feel like an asspull if not handled properly.

[@ShiningDarknes]

Soft magic requires the author to create a set of rules that he follows when implementing it into the story. It requires consistency to not seem, as you say, like an asspull. Those rules need to be implicit in the action and should never be outwardly told to the audience. At its core, soft magic is exactly the same as hard magic just where the information resides is different.

[@luigiluigi543212345]

@@ShiningDarknes Exactly my point, the magic needs to feel earned either way for it to be implemented well.

[@lechking941]

@@luigiluigi543212345 in a part of the way when Luke learns he is a Jedi (or probably how all the young ones are) the moment is a mix of wonder amazment and than quickly as they settle into life as a jedi maybe a bit overwhelmed with the responsibility that a jedi has. This is a solf magic moment in a hard system for the force acts and reacts to the emotional forces of the galaxy and is a sea. Nowhere are you told the force is like a sea in book or movie. But we can infer that it is a sea that responds to the ships and islands and what goes on in thoes. So the starwars universe will never find a total peace for as long as intelligence sentiant life exists the force and them pull on one another. Thus you can't have jedis with out a scheming sith lord.

[@alxjones]

How are hard magic systems predictable? Real life is essentially a hard magic system, everything is defined and consistent, but not predictable. People can still be creative and people can still be surprised. Hard magic systems can still have a sense of wonder as well, but the wonder is coming from learning about the rules of this new world, not by keeping them unnecessarily vague and inconsistent.

[@prabeshgurung1067]

@@alxjones he never said they were. He just said if not done well, can be predictable, like how he said if done bad, soft can feel like an asspulling. He’s giving pro and con

[@arctrog]

Hard magic is a tool for the character, Soft magic is a tool for the Author

[@andrewmain7242]

Soft magic usually just turns into plot magic to save the character. I find it hard to feel any tension when in a soft magic world because of this, there will always be some soft magic previously unknown to save the protagonist at any time.

[@RonquixoteDIII]

Andrew Main soft magic doesn’t mean “There are no rules”

[@ribbitgoesthedoglastnamehe4681]

@@RonquixoteDIII No. It does not mean it. But, you are a fool if you do not expect that as an outcome.

[@ribbitgoesthedoglastnamehe4681]

@Manannan anam "Guns dont kill people, people do." And also, "if all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail." Heard this conversation before...

[@ribbitgoesthedoglastnamehe4681]

@Arctrog I wonder why the best, simplest answer gets so little likes, while haphazard attempts to understand the point gain thousands?

[@siliasporter4424]

I just realized mary poppins is soft magic. I mean the rules are: "Of course she can! She's Marry Poppins!"

[@annawinter4465]

“I would like to make one thing perfectly clear!” “I don’t explain anything.”

[@NafenX]

Hard magic, because only she can 😌 😇

[@HamsterSplat]

@@NafenX what abought people floating when they laugh she was not there.

[@TheNefastor]

I've got Asperger's. Sometimes I need things spelled out for me, when it involves emotions and the human psyche. You've provided me with insight into LOTR that I've never figured out for myself, and I've known about Tolkien for 30 years. Thank you.

[@senmingwu]

Curious! Have you considered "soft" magic/sci-fi etc. could be synonymous with "heart-oriented"/NT/feeling-based, while "hard" could be synonymous with "mind-oriented"/AT/thinking-based? e.g. - This model is how I've come to understand the changes in the TES series, and in RPG's in general: Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind are more hard fantasy stories, wherein you, the player, are meant to create your own story with the supplied game. OTOH, Oblivion, Skyrim, and onward, are soft fantasy stories, wherein you, the player, are meant to take part in a story told by the game. The cult classic success of the former speaks to a smaller body of people who were keen on mechanics, accurate abstractions of reality, and whose player skills involved thinking through problems. The broader appeal of the latter speaks to a larger body of people who're keen on storytelling, symbolism, and whose player skills involve intuition & feeling empowered. Your thoughts, perspective?

[@TheNefastor]

@@senmingwu I don't know, of the games you've listed the only one I've played (and completed) is Oblivion, which I really liked. Part of why I liked it is that I could solve the math of its systems pretty much in my head, leading me to optimize my character in such a way that the game turned out to be quite easy. I know a few NT friends, however, who couldn't see the internal logic and ended-up with misshapen characters, and they had to struggle to finish the game. Those guys usually do better at other games I know nothing about, like Final Fantasy (are those games' systems considered hard or soft ?) In a sense, yeah, I think "hard" systems will always be preferred by people like me. They give me a sense of being in control of the game. I guess that means I agree with your statement that hard systems are for "thinking" people and soft systems are for "feeling" people.

[@senmingwu]

@@TheNefastor Huh, thank you for your experience & your perspective! :) Based on the difference from my expectation vs your experience, I think the concept stands & my understanding of how it applies fell through. e.g. - Final Fantasy is typically softer, with little explanation for elements beyond "it's part of the story." Although, as I missed & you pointed to with Oblivion's systems, there are maths and mechanics that can be used to optimize characters/gameplay. Perhaps it's on an individual basis moreso than a game basis? Haha

[@davidbeddoe6670]

I-Ah've got the Aspergerrr's! Don't know nowt about it all. Ah'm FOOKED.

[@Al-nj8ow]

i‘m on the autism spectrum as well but really lack at maths and sciences, also prefer soft magic usually

[@yoda06435]

Basically it is: "If you are going to use a soft magic system to solve problems for the protagonist, don't do it" If you are going to use a soft magic system to create conflict/issues for the protagonist, go ahead"

[@davidliu4134]

Pixar's rules of storytelling: Coincidences to get your character into bad situations are great, coincidences to get them out of it are terrible.

[@digivagrant]

Requiem da

[@GivenFailure]

I don't really agree, contrived conflict can also put me off. The resolution still feels unearned.

[@yoda06435]

@@GivenFailure Oh absolutely, the issue is very complex and not as simple as I put it. It just a simplification of something that *generally* holds pretty true.

[@dracosfire7247]

@@GivenFailure That's my feelings about Code Geass put into words right there.

[@aplix747]

The Soft Side of the magic systems is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.

[@LU4E-d3r]

Like raising space ships out of the ground 😂

[@revoltaiignoto3881]

You will never learn this power from Brandon Sanderson.

[@DarkAdonisVyers]

I mean, during the Battle of Nagashino, George Lucas would have rooted for the Takeda AKA the losers (confirmed from his funding of the Kagemusha movie).

[@XnonTheGod]

I laughed so hard at this lol 😅

[@Nullurx]

"it is gone forever and now all is dark and empty" damn, so the ring basically created a whole new need in frodo? creatively that sounds like a really cool consequence of magic (i watched lotr like 9 years ago I forgot basically everything :P)

[@singletona082]

It's often been compared to drug addiction for a reason. It's bad for you, toxic and hurtful. It changes you in ways that make you self destructive, but when it's gone... ther'es this 'it' shaped hole in your life.

[@vVaIker]

The ring in many ways, like most fantasy themes, is a metaphore. As he said in the video, the Ring caused PTSD on Frodo. Well, no, not the ring, but the absolutely necessary journey to destroy it, and everything Frodo had to sacrifice and face because of it. However, the ring also has other effects in whoever wears it, much like a drug, you want it, you grow to need it, and if it's taken from you, you can *feel* it no longer being there... a void being left in its place. The ring creates a dependency, so yes, "so the ring basically created a whole new need in frodo?" is a great way top put it, in my opinion

[@theshamanite]

He's a New Zealander. They will never forget LotR.

[@yoonmikim5663]

@@vVaIker To tie it to PTSD, too, some soldiers were so scarred by the war, but some of them wanted to go back to the front lines because in a weird way, they wanted to face the trauma they faced on some level, and thus wanted to go back because the life they left behind didn't feel real anymore. And they wanted to feel real again. Even if Tolkien denied it being tied to the war, if you tie the whole thing to PTSD, it works. Because there was no forgetting, and sometimes actuating it again, confirmed that it was real, even if it caused more trauma. (I learned about a contemporary case of this from a Who Do You Think You Are? episode-- a soldier went, had PTSD, but still wanted to go back to war and sign up again.)

[@air-headedaviator1805]

Stockholm syndrome at its absolute worse

[@vladprus4019]

I would consider one thing: To me, "soft magic" feels more like magic than "hard magic". "Hard magic" is basicly fictional science. Most of magic in folklore (you know, stuff what we called magic before modern fantasy) would be called "soft magic" (stuff like divination, curses, spirit summoning, rituals). Also this dichtomy could fit into romanicism/enlightment dichtomy.

[@domehammer]

Hard magic can also be like magic when you have soft magic. You have magic system be hard magic but the characters in the world don't know this so they treat it like soft magic. You could have rituals for wielding magic that are just how people stumbled onto a spell and it just became tradition. For example you could have hundreds or thousands of rituals for a spell to conjure and manipulate fire with varied degrees of success. Is a actual proper way to wield magic in order to cast a spell to conjure and manipulate fire but nobody has figured it out as is almost a infinite amount of combinations to do it with varied success. A mortal life doesn't have enough time to realize the truth about magic.

[@LostInNumbers]

Yep, go to hard and you end up with superpowers instead of magic.

[@drascalicus5187]

I disagree that all older tales use soft magic. Instead, they use an undefined hard magic system. Rituals must be performed, components are needed, praying to a deity, etc. This implies that there are rules to these magic systems, but they are loose and vague enough to give creative freedom. This doesn't apply to purely magical creatures that can do whatever they want by waving a hand, but most stories I hear fall into the first category, not the second.

[@vladprus4019]

@@drascalicus5187 That's why I used word "mostly" and let's be real ALL soft magic system has SOME loose rules. Without them it wouldn't be "system" but completly random thing happening completly random. Thing that make it "soft" is the fact that this rules are pretty loose and vague.

[@drascalicus5187]

@@vladprus4019 But there are also no rule stories like LotR, Princess Bride, and anything dealing with the Fae, who can do magic at will with no discernable rules or rituals. That is true soft magic.

[@michaelandrews117]

Tolkien: "I don't like allegory." Also Tolkien: Makes Frodo a war veteran who is irrevocably changed in mind and body after a long war that he was thrust into without any real foreknowledge of the political mechanisms that led to it in the first place.

[@factbeaglesarebest]

No. You don’t seem to understand Tolkien obviously. READ his views on allegory as a whole. He specifically used allegorical elements, pretty sure this channel even talked about it. He wasn’t a fan of the allegorical style of CS Lewis.

[@danfroal8057]

@@factbeaglesarebest Could you please elaborate? Saying "You don’t seem to understand Tolkien obviously" sounds rather callous, and a missed opportunity to inform and help a fellow human grow.

[@patrickbuckley7259]

@@factbeaglesarebest That's not what he meant either. What he was saying was that he did not like direct 1 for 1 allagories, yes Frodo was a "allegorically" a traumatized war veteran, and Samwise was a kind of manifestation of the comradery and lowalty of soldiers fighting at one anothers side. But Lord of the Rings is not about the World Wars. Neither is Lewis's work either a direct 1 for 1 allegory as Lewis was not writing his works as allagory, but as a hypathetical what if story. Aslan was a not a metaphore for Jesus, he was in fact Jesus as he revealed himself in the world of Narnia. Lewis's works are fille with all kinds of metaphysical speculation, almost more akin to Theological "Science Fiction" than typical fantesy in a sense. See the Screwtape Letters, and the Great Divorce for more of the same. It is due to his works that many began to coin the term Speculative Fiction. It is true that Tolkien was not a fan of Narnia, but that weas mostly beceause he found the work to be a bit juvenile.

[@artorhen]

I don't think it specifically meant just that. Otherwise it would just be a story about a war veteran. It can mean more than one thing to more people, and it does not reference a certain real life period of time.

[@michaelandrews117]

@@artorhen I don't think so either. But the character of Frodo is very easy to read as an allegory, intentional or otherwise.

[@vlogbrothers]

Real good one! Thanks for this! I think it's really easy to confuse soft magic systems with boring magic systems. Most very bad magic systems are soft (very bad in that they often jump into the plot just so they can solve or create new problems without any explanation as to why.) But before this video I had kinda forgotten that that doesn't have to be the case. Sometimes magic can be magic. But I'm also interested in The Force as a soft magic system (let's ignore midichlorians...pleaaase) because until now I hadn't ever really thought of Star Wars as a story primarily of psychological tension (with all of the stabbing and blasting and exploding) but this made me think, maybe (with all the emotional trauma and friendship and patricide) it is.

[@dcguy3]

Hmmm, I never thought of the Force as a soft magic system (don't worry. We ALWAYS ignore the midiclorians). But I can see how it fits. Even if you include a lot of the expanded information on it from the Star Wars Expanded Universe (both pre-Disney Legends and current extra material), that, while it adds some more rules and regulations for lack of a better term, to The Force, it still is a Soft Magic System. Sorry for both grammar and if none of that made sense. I barely got any sleep lately lol.

[@HelloFutureMe]

I think there's something really enchanting about stories where magic is somewhat removed from us - I sometimes find focusing too much on the fantastical side of things (like showing off your magic system) can leave the psychological tensions under-developed. The result can be a bad magic system that undermines tension/plot like you say, but it can deliver a very different tone/feel/type of tension when you play your cards right. On Star Wars - Lucas said "[Star Wars is] really about mothers and daughters and fathers and sons", and I think the soft magic of the Force mostly works to support a story that's really about family. Interesting thought! ~ Tim

[@CloudKitten]

"Sometimes magic can be magic." I need to tattoo that on my face. Wait, no, then I'd never see it. I need to write that on my wall. I have a fantasy series I've been trying to write forever and am hitting an issue even beyond the standard hard vs soft. I have a bachelours degree in biology and the biologist in my soul insists that any magic I can't show as scientifically plausible is garbage. But then the systems always evolve to the point where they're just scifi and involve things like nano robotics and I find myself studying theoretical physics and shelve the project because I remember that i hate physics (in part because I took physics 101 as a 4 day a week 8am-11am summer course, with 12 lab hours a week 0/10 do not reccommend). I need to learn to let magic be magic or I'll never manage to branch out beyond scifi. I'm taking baby steps with the nanorobotics type system and a science fantasy type setting 😂

[@RainintheBrain]

Soft Magic can be scary because it risks becoming a Deus ex machina. Magic can't be just a cheat code for the characters. Soft magic systems should always have rules to keep themselves from being easily exploited.

[@scarletleader5420]

This is Hank, right?

[@BoggiFroggy]

The One Ring is "soft magic" because it is a literary tool to explore themes of evil, corruption, power, hidden demons, and so on. The magic is a means to serve literary ends.

[@brendan5232]

Tolkien was adamant that LOTR was NOT metaphorical. He said it repeatedly.

[@TheRezro]

People clearly miss the point here...

[@Tarnbar]

@@brendan5232 He was refering to things like "the ring is the atom bomb, orcs are the soviet union" and what else people tried to politically get out of it. But ofc his themes speak to all kinds of emotions and human tropes. And so the ring symolizes all kinds of evil things like addiction, recklesness etc

[@brendan5232]

@@Tarnbar Again, Tolkien specifically stated that the ring WAS NOT a metaphor, not for the atom bomb, not for anything. Neither were the orcs a metaphor for the soviet union. To interpret his work that way is folly. If you want to understand Tolkien, read the norse sagas.

[@Tarnbar]

@@brendan5232 dude thats literally what i said

[@AzafTazarden]

Saving Kate in that rooftop is one of the best moments I ever experienced in gaming. It was a great payoff to how I play games, which is by exploring every single corner for everything I can interact with, while also rewarding the attention I paid to not only the story, but to someone I cared about, saving their life from depression which is something I relate to a lot. Life is Strange's magic system is a really cool concept and it is mastefully explored to tell a story that isn't really about magic.

[@lanadelreyisgay]

kinda bummed they ditched it in life is strange 2, tho i understand why it wouldn’t have made sense for sean or daniel to have time rewinding powers.

[@BemusedOwl]

I don't believe that soft magic systems need a defence I believe that both types hard magic and soft magic systems have their place depending on what you're trying to achieve

[@travonarmstrong6093]

I completely agree. I also don't believe that some authors such as Brandon Sanderson would see some of the examples in this video as "bad writing", as Mr. Sanderson himself explained in his "Three Laws of Magic Systems" that a writer could follow none of his rules and still create a great magic system.

[@toocoldforyouhere8353]

Bemused Owl, yeah, most people don’t care how your magic works, unless you actually go and say, “this is how it works” then people want more

[@matrimalviarin5043]

Hard Magic: A Craftsman's chisel Soft Magic: A surgeon's scalpel Imagination is clay, until you change it into something else

[@samdurfee6093]

It's less a defense of soft magic and more a defense of Life Is Strange, Because the game explores mental issues therefore contradictions may be excused.

[@dream6562]

I will disagree

[@jacobottesen5279]

This is a good, fresh perspective that I don't hear much from anymore (though I'm someone who prefers harder magic, so it could be that). One thing I find interesting is that the rise of the hard magic system in popularity is a more recent phenomenon in fantasy. Brandon Sanderson described in his first Laws of Magic essay how he was once basically shouted out of one of his first convention panels for saying that magic needed rules. In fact, it was the reason why certain sci-fi authors like Asimov disdained the fantasy genre for many of the same reasons why other people liked it. What some tend to overlook, however, is that the whole discussion about soft vs hard is similar in application to outlining vs pantsing: Magic Systems fall into a spectrum between the two extremes, and what's "right" for a story just depends on what the story needs and the intended audience, not on which side is "better".

[@Lisa_Flowers]

Can't agree with your last paragraph enough. I feel it would be better if ppl viewed these things ('hard vs soft', 'plan vs pants') as tools that suit different situations as opposed to ideologies that need to be defended or hills that we need to die on. The discussion of which is better or worse is irrelevant. Discuss the strengths and limitations of each amd keep both in mind when you're making a decision about which better suits the story you want to tell and how you want to tell it.

[@princessthyemis]

oh my gosh you are so right! I feel like that is just what I needed to hear!!

[@VitruvianSasquatch]

Very much this. Hard magic is hardly the de facto even now, people have just recently encountered it in the mainstream and enjoy it. It's not best for everything, but for people who enjoy the world of a story as much or more than the rest of it, it's a welcome breath of fresh air.

[@BonaparteBardithion]

This is especially the case in stories with multiple types of magic. I have a harder magic system for humans since it's more important to know how it works, while faye have a very soft one in order to maintain mystery and felixibility. This isn't so different from plotting all the major plot points and pantsing through all but most crucial chapters. It leaves room for spontaneity and makes a more organic read.

[@Cachalyce]

This. Plus, the line is even blurrier than someone might think. I tought using as much physics as possible to define a magic system would make it ultra hard. Well, I learned that using particle physic is using too much physic and will make your system very, very soft. At least I'm now able to adjust this system (playing with culturall regulations and believes about which ways to cast magic are effectfull is fun) to the stories I want to tell in this world rather than needing to build and fit in other systems. Thats somehow relieving, because knowing that the contradictions are purely cultural frees me from exploring how different systems react to each other when combined or opposed.

[@deanospimoniful]

I feel like hard magic might have been inspired by a generation that grew up playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, where magic has clear inputs and outputs.

[@jasexavier]

D&D magic in turn was inspired by the magic system in the Dying Earth novels by Jack Vance, so much so that it, and other systems like it, are often referred to as "Vancian magic". Hard vs. soft magic has been around a long time. There's also a parallel in science fiction: hard sci-fi more-or-less follows the laws of physics as we know them, maybe with one or two conceits, e.g. everything is the same as the real world except faster-than-light travel is possible, whereas soft sci-fi tends to look more like fantasy, with "sufficiently advanced" technologies, e.g. teleportation, telepathy, pre-cognition, artificial or anti-gravity, etc.

[@reklin]

Ironically, the D&D novels are written with a soft magic system. Or at least, softer than most LitRPG novels that have been popular lately.

[@jasexavier]

@@reklin Some of the earlier novels, like the original Dragonlance trilogy, were a bit on the harder side, or at least more firmly rooted in the mechanics of the game, probably because they were based on actual D&D campaigns. I would agree that most D&D books tend toward soft magic systems though, even the later Dragonlance books.

[@rubbishopinions6468]

I think it's more that the scientific mindset became more commonplace among the general population mid way through the 20th century. Spawning a lot of hard sci fi novels that have inspired real scientific innovation. Makes sense people would adapt principles of hard sci fi to fantasy particularly when making up your own defacto laws of physics is much easier than making up fake, but potentially possible, technologies based on our current understanding of the laws of physics that sci fi dudes often do.

[@jasexavier]

@@rubbishopinions6468 I wonder if now that scientific thinking seems to be becoming less common, if that will go in other direction.

[@TheRealGuywithoutaMustache]

I just learned what “soft magic systems” meant. You learn something new everyday.

[@unformedeight]

You are a bad man, go to Hello Future Mes previous videos, also hard magic system is better, soft ain't inherently bad but I completely favor more understand rather than less understanding

[@Lewisking50]

@Dixie Pride South Wide ! Hunter x Hunter > Harry Potter

[@danielstellmon5330]

Well... You *should* learn something new every day

[@newdawnhorizon9879]

@@Lewisking50 theyre both 🗑

[@xord1946]

According to his explanation, soft magic isn't necessarly about less understanding. It depends on the story. it wouldn't make any sense to only be able to make characters that 100% understand and master the magic around them. If you just want magic and nothing else, it's about you, not about one being better than the other.

[@ethanfullmer5547]

I run roleplays with my cousins. I learned about soft and hard magic from this channel. I have been trying to define magic in the world, and although it has 'rules' the rules are very broad. The way it works in essence, is you create instructions whether in mind or in runic language, then give it power. I think it's a rather good balance.

[@YourBlackLocal]

As long as you have easily identifiable limitations, you'll be good.

[@shadowofchaos8932]

My wife was roleplaying pathfinder, and her DM uses elaborate ingredients to cast magic. Water from a Blue Moon, nightcrest flowers harvested during the equinox, that sort of thing.

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

Been GM'ing since I was about 10 (33 years ago now)... AND we developed a few odd "tricks of the trade" for softening up the magic system a bit in Games like D&D... From the "Dice Pool" games, there's an optional rule (for this I'm hitting a D6 Pooling system)... "The rules of 1 and 6"... Basically, the way it works is you roll from a "pool" of Dice, so a Player has a "Pool Score" of so many D6's, and can roll from any number up to his/her maximum... Once rolled, the first thing you do is go through and separate all the natural 1's, along with a "highest rolling die" to match... Whatever's left can be scored... That's the rule of 1's. The rule of 6's states that you reroll any natural 6's left in the pool (once the 1's and highest rolls have been separated) and continue to add cumulatively... so a single die may roll several 6's in a row, before hitting a 5 or less, and you just keep adding... It can get some really wild scores. In D&D, we used rules based on this to shift damage from damage-specific spells, like "Fireball"... which adds cumulative dice to the "pool" with every casting level of the Character in question. Another magic softening system, was the way I often define magic in my own "homebrew" games. Working out of Gurps, there's a lot to pick and choose from... and a lot to leave in the books when you've stripped down to what you need for the Game... Magic starts (in my worlds) from "mana"... a separate kind of energy/force. I've built systems where this is defined down to quantum physics and has a carrier particle and all... Sounds "Hard"? Relax, it's not so much... ALL magic runs on mana, so the only remaining difference is the wrapper in-game that defines how a magic user actually taps the mana to get a desired effect. Psyonics directly manipulate mana by pure thought. Their brains are somehow able to bridge between the tangible flesh and the intangible energy... The limitation is that it's mostly like a "super power"... that is, a specific conversation from mana energy to some other form of energy or energetic manipulation or sensitivity. Like Telekinesis (conversion to kinetic energy... "inertia") or Clairevoyance (sensitivity to energies from distance)... Arcane magic uses various forms of focus and material components and studies of arcane language, tone, and somatic elements to cast specific spells to create desired effects not dissimilar to the usual D&D stuff... Clerical or Shamanic magic users commune with spirits who are inherently capable of creating desired effects by manipulations of the mana... Each philosophy has advantages and drawbacks and their own unique challenges and limitations with regards to magic use. A psyonic can get nearly instant effects, but the "powers" are most draining to him for the direct exposure to mana (for instance)... While the Arcane Mage takes time, but gets a more precisely desired effect gauged upon what he's invested into his works, focii, and spellcraft. Meanwhile, the Shaman has to commune with spirits and await their response, whether they are obliging, if there's a debt owed, and so forth... BUT his is the CHEAPEST of all investments for the returns... presuming it works of course. There are plenty of other ways to predictably or unpredictably punch up or down on the scale of softness to coolness in a magic system. For Role Play, the purposes served are fairness (since you don't want to overtly favor one Player over all others at the Table... AND narrative space for craft. You still want a little wiggle room to generate cool story points and raise or release tension in pace with the Players' expectations of the Game. AND for those "rules lawyers" who are tempted to build a big ol' huff about me monkeying with in-game mechanics... First, I run the ideas by the Players before they even draft Characters, so everyone has some idea (at least) of whatever they're diving into... AND second (but more importantly) I have one Cardinal Rule to GM'ing. "Never EVER let the rules get in the way of the game." ;o)

[@azuregriffin1116]

It reminds me of my characters for my RP thing, and as I became the head admin (it's a Discord one), I have it so that powers can be almost anything, however they can be *one* thing - while it may have different components, all aspects of a power will fit together, although my earliest characters don't quite fit that, it was the start of that philosophy. My first character goes as follows, with the idea coming to me in the form of the mythological figure (and my old username) Lethe: a boy with a perfect memory, with retrograde amnesia (I know, cringe at the cliche, it was my second attempt at making a character leave me alooooone :c), who could mimic the effect of any drug on touch, however he himself could not be affected, and not for lack of trying - in his attempt to 'fit in', he ended up being a dickhead. He could produce a mist, inspired by the description of the river Lethe in 13 Days of Midnight (soft-ish magic done well, might I add). As the RP is sort of ongoing, with new people joining (we get maybe 2 new decent RPers each month, as most cannot bother themselves with reading my guides, which I've had to add to over the last year to idiot-proof them), it presents always new opportunities, which I think is a reason I love RP but, though I've attempted it and consistantly got almost top marks in creative writing when I still did English, I do not enjoy writing as much, because other people's input and their own aspects of storytelling will always be my favourite aspect.

[@MrRobot-0]

You can try use the metod used inheritance a safer hard sistem inside of a more dangeroussoft sistem

[@raylast3873]

In Life is Strange, a huge amount of your problems arise out of society itself. It‘s not just the psycho killer working against you, it‘s pretty much all the adults and authority figures. These games (LiS and the Prequel) are unique because for once you aren‘t on some Epic Quest outside of norma life, but instead the setting is the very mundane world of young adulthood. And it‘s exactly this that makes the games terrifying, as well as what makes the characters so relatable.

[@raylast3873]

Stellvia Hoenheim not really, especially if you factor in the „society-as-antagonist“ factor. Anyone can go around saying „the plot is bad“ but writing is more than a plot. The plot works, especially in Before the Storm. And hey, HP Lovecraft doesn‘t exactly have the most ingenious plots either. It‘s all in the telling, stakes and emotional weight. LiS gets to a lot of us mostly because the people who are in it are painfully familiar.

[@augustuzmoon3814]

@@raylast3873 I don't like the story and think its shit and a specail needs student can write something better but i agree what people find in the game

[@tsunamie1015]

Try a game called Night in the Woods, if you haven't already. It's also a coming of age story, but is presented in a better way, at least imo. It's only 20 bucks on steam, and the soundtrack alone is worth it.

[@d.b.4671]

I wonder how much the modern emphasis on hard magic systems comes from its use in tabletop RPGs and video games, and the expectations set by our familiarity with them. Those are often settings where clearly defined rules and limitations need to exist for the sake of balanced and challenging gameplay; e.g., your fireball spell does 'X' points of damage and costs 'Y' points of mystical energy stuff, plus 'Z' damage for your skill level and minus 'A' energy for the enchanted cloak you're wearing. How would you implement soft magic in such settings without either breaking the game or ruining the players' fun?

[@prettycoolguy3206]

Easy, by not giving it to the player XD I know that isn't a very satisfactory answer, bu the truth is there is soft magic in table top games and video games, but it is usually in the hands of the DM or as a handwave by developers for a plot point. For instance, in D&D the gods don't have a stat block or a feasible limit to exactly what they can do because they are so beyond the field of play that their power cannot be so easily defined.

[@vladprus4019]

I think there is one more factor: natural science and mathematics are much more widespread. When more and more people know that the way world is working can be described by numbers and formulas, there are statistics about everything and so on you expect that "magic" would also work that way. Just look how Sanderson's magic system have often more stuff common with physics than real-world folklore magic.

[@MrMultiJer]

For tRPGs I would make it so the GM makes the rule of the magic system while the developer gives you a platform to build upon. For example: player wants to attack with his or her magical sword. You have to role this die to hit and this die for damage. The GM then comes up with an effect. The GM can come up with loose rules of how a magic works and the players have to figure out what those rules are. The GM couls also give magic a will of its own. Maybe today you did something to appeal to magic and it gives you more control over power. As for magic in games. I would make it node based. So for example: a NPC betrayed you. You then get a menu of different choices for feelings and you choose anger then you choose rage. A random magical effect that has those creteria triggers.

[@heartofdawnlight]

outside of the Biggest TTRPG's (D&D warhammer etc) there are a few popular ones, usually ones that emphasize roleplay, that are far less focused and revolving around stat blocks and die roles

[@ADADEL1]

@@prettycoolguy3206 The gods definitely have a statblock. Hell, in previous editions there was whole books on that topic like Deities and Demigods or Faiths and Pantheons. Forgotten Realms especially was kind of infamous for killing off their gods and replacing them with elevated mortals for a while.

[@pianoraves]

"The only good hard magical system is physics" ~GOD

[@bobbycrosby9765]

Well, the definition of hard vs soft magic is based upon the reader's ability to understand the rules. Given that I would say physics is soft to a majority of the population.

[@cpenner7086]

@@bobbycrosby9765 no not really as physics is understood to a certain degree by many it is defintely more akin to hard magic than soft as thise people can teach others.

[@physe8052]

@@bobbycrosby9765 I would disagree simply because physics is predictable. It doesn't take a Ph.D. in physics to know what will happen physically in almost any circumstance. Physics isn't about studying weird niche cases of our physical reality. It's about studying the fundamental rules and forces at play to explain why our reality acts the way it does.

[@andreagiovannidemarchi9386]

​@@physe8052 Actually i think it's the exact opposite, I think the set of situations where we can instictively know what happens without relying on actually studying physics is extremely small. Anything beyond classical mechanics is in no way intuitive to us, and classical mechanics itself presents us with many unintuitive things.

[@physe8052]

@@andreagiovannidemarchi9386 Hmm, perhaps. I do see your point, and could agree that physics might appear soft from the perspective of an uninformed observer. However, I'm not sure that changes its fundamental hardness.

[@nataliemarieb14]

Brandon Sanderson is my favorite hard magic system author All his magic systems and worlds are so unique and clever too

[@tadious9415]

Yeah I definitely would've thought soft magic systems are better until I read all his amazing books! And now I know there is definitely room for both to be used in different ways.

[@zeldaharp4538]

I agree! His magic systems are amazing.

[@nataliemarieb14]

@ZOE STEVENS oh 100% agree on that

[@heavenlyspring.]

​@ZOE STEVENS Well then again it depends on the author. From what i've seen here is that a soft magic system is one where the author has clearly made the rules for him/herself but not explicitly showing them to the reader. Doing that does limit the rules that the author can set because they can easily seem like some asspulls even if it was in the made rules from the start. Which also makes soft magic system authors think creative. It's just depends on how well the author uses it. Oh and don't think that im doing this to argue that hard magic system is worse, i actually prefer hard magic system more. It just seemed that you see soft magic system as only some lazy way to write. Hell, both systems can be used lazily if you really want them to. Also sorry that i made this way longer than it needed to be.

[@borgestheborg]

@ZOE STEVENS Just because a writer implements a good hard magic system does not mean it's some kind of safety-net against bad storytelling. You can pull deux ex machinas even with a hard magic system in place. Bad writing is bad writing, no matter if the author implements a hard magic system or a soft one. The examples you gave are just tropes of bad storytelling, they are not inherent to stories with soft magic systems.

[@unformedeight]

Soft Magic gives more options but you can't use it as much coz otherwise "A WIZARD DID IT!" Hard can be used freely but it has to be in a specific box and can make expanding the box more difficult. Neither is inherently better but I personally favor understanding things more

[@macksonedinis3670]

me too,and soft magic can be more easily be used to do wharever you want and magic to become a plot device

[@newdawnhorizon9879]

I already found a solution to the box problem for hard magic systems

[@heartofdawnlight]

@Hans Hanzo Yes, in a lot of hard magic systems they already do! for example in the series full metal alchemist, there are clear limitations on the abilities and costs of alchemy, but those who have seen beyond the door, can fully bypass the runic circle aspect, and philosopher stones (though made at a great cost) can bypass the costs, and break the limitations of what alchemy is generally capable of.

[@doll_dress_swap12]

@@heartofdawnlight that's a great example!

[@LordOfTheTermites]

@@heartofdawnlight they dont really bypass the cost, they are Just a whole lot of currency in a Very small object, thinking again they do bypass from a plot perspective (?)

[@christopherrowley7506]

That's how reading old mythologies feels too, and that's exactly where Tolkien was coming from.

[@Lukas4182]

I've always felt that the magic system in Harry Potter doesn't fully manage to get the right balance between soft and hard magic. In the first books, all the magic is kinda soft and I like it, because the reader can, together with Harry, explore the magical world though naive eyes. Later in the series, Rowling tries to explain parts of the magic system. But by doing so, she just shows how illogical much of it is. And on the other hand, she's sometimes using soft magic to explain things that otherwise wouldn't work out. That's why, to me, the earlier books just seem much more magical and fascinating, whereas in the later, though having a great story, I felt a bit lost.

[@midastheunwise2423]

The thing is with HP, is that the books were primarily written for a younger audience, at least at first. Therefore whimsy and wonder were the key things that needed to be present in the magic system, since that is what the target demographic would resonate most with. It definitely delivered in this regard, and in all honesty I think the books peaked at 3 & 4, where the magic was still pretty soft and whimsical, but the stories around it improved and became more ambitious in scope. From book 5 onwards, the series definitely felt like Rowling was trying to please more adult demographics and the magic became more plot-focused. Before, a lot of the magic and magical elements were mostly in service of worldbuilding, things mentioned in passing that added colour to the descriptions. I think by the very nature of the magic shifting more to be a plot device, it lost some of the 'magic'. For me, a key error made in Rowling's writing was an inability to define what made a wizard powerful. It seemed like anyone was capable of casting any spell with a bit of practice, so the only tangible difference between a good wizard and a bad one is knowledge, or the wits to use the spells creatively. What makes Voldemort more powerful than any other wizard that can cast Avada Kedavra or use Horcruxes, besides his willingness to do so?

[@MRCOLOURfilld]

Yeah when it came to potions and spell creation in particular, nothing made sense. Kind of like ninjutsu from Naruto, I get that this almost arbitrary sequence of hand movements results in this jutsu but once it was revealed that the sequences if seals could be shortened it all went out the window.

[@SquatLight55]

Definitely large plot holes in the magic system present in HP, thankfully the world is so well built that I’m more than happy to overlook them.

[@karmiya-plays]

I think part of the problem was that as the story grew in scope, Rowling felt it was necessary to make it more of an epic fantasy, but that clearly just wasn't where here talents were. The early books feel a lot like a combination of Roald Dahl (think of the over-the-top Dursleys or mean teachers), The Famous Five, and The Worst Witch. It's a boarding school romp about a group of kids learning magic and solving mysteries. The shift to a more epic fantasy series felt really awkward in a lot of ways. One problem was that the addition of more concrete magical rules was iffy and often contradicted stuff which had happened in earlier books. Wand lore made no sense, and the sudden introduction of Transfiguration laws which prevented Transfiguration of food in book 7 was weird because we can easily think of a bunch of other spells which would have allowed the trio to feed themselves while camping (accio fish, incendio fish!). I also think that the shift to a more serious tone made previously metaphorical stuff suddenly more serious. When the only Muggles we saw were the Dursleys, who are Roald Dahl-esque abusive family members, 'Muggle' felt more like a metaphor for cruel, unimaginative people, rather than a serious term. But later on, it becomes very uncomfortable to see wizards denigrate Muggles (real world people are all Muggles!) and using brain-damage causing memory charms on them willy nilly to keep their secret society secret. TLDR: don't change your story's tone and style half-way through, it likely won't end well.

[@user-lk2vo8fo2q]

i'm honestly not convinced the hard magic/soft magic distinction is particularly useful, because it flattens a lot of different aspects to a single axis. does this magic system actually have rules at all? if so, are they revealed to the reader, or merely implied to exist? what is the difference, if any, between a deliberately soft magic system and a botched hard magic system? does plausibility count for anything? does similarity to our universe count for anything? compare, for instance: skyrim and avatar: the last airbender. which is "harder"? on one hand, magic in the elder scrolls universe is very explicitly treated like a kind of science. there are countless in-game tomes detailing exactly how it works and how the various different kinds of magic interact with eachother. i sure as hell haven't read them all, but i assume they're more or less logically consistent. hard, right? i'm not so sure. these justifications don't actually serve to establish what magic is capable of, because they're made in the context of a kitchen-sink fantasy setting where if magic needs to do some new thing that it hasn't yet been able to do, the writers can just invent a new kind of magic and add it to the pile. the setting wouldn't actually be particularly different if you just said "the mage was able to throw a fireball because he knows the fireball-throwing spell" with no further elaboration. avatar, on the other hand, makes almost no effort to explain how bending works in any pseudo-material sense. the best we get is depictions of what bending feels like from the characters' perspective, and some fleshing out of a few corner cases, but they stop short of even attempting to justify *why* e.g. electricity counts as "fire". it just does, ok? if this were the elder scrolls you better believe there'd be a book cluttering your inventory which talks about how electricity and fire are animated by elementals from the same astral realm and therefore can be controlled using a similar process of.... blah blah blah. but does this make the elder scrolls "harder" than avatar, when the rules of what is actually possible with bending are so much more clearly defined than the rules of what's possible with TES's magic? does it even make sense to compare the two magic systems in this way?

[@benhbr]

Soft magic in non-fantastical stories is a literary genre: Magical Realism. Prominent authors are Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende and Haruki Murakami.

[@acg6350]

First thing I thought when I read the title of the video was Realismo Mágico.

[@inplaid]

I prefer magical realism, honestly. It's why I love so much of Neil Gaiman's work.

[@TomorrowWeLive]

No you're confusing a classification of magic systems in the fantasy genre with an entirely distinct genre. Magical realism is any story where there are fantastical elements in an otherwise realistic setting. None of the stories you mentioned have magic systems to speak of at all, soft or hard. They're literary fiction, not fantasy. LotR has soft magic, but it's high fantasy, not magical realism.

[@MedievalSolutions]

There is still much discussion over what magical realism actually is and who really does write magical realism. Márquez is by many considered the only real author of magical realism. Simply for the reason, that it's a genre bound to a specific part of the planet.

[@nolesquad5162]

@@TomorrowWeLive it's both epic and high fantasy, as it has the scale and conflict of epic and the heroes journey and races of high fantasy

[@DMichaelAtLarge]

Sounds to me like "soft magic" is just "hard magic" where only the author knows the rules, not that it hasn't got rules. If there are no rules, then you end up with Inspector Gadget who can pull out a gadget to solve every problem, and voila! No tension. The One Ring did have rules. It operated in a consistent way. Tolkien didn't spell them out, but he knew them, because the ring behaved consistently. There has to be consistency, and there has to be limitations, otherwise the reader will simply not trust the author.

[@LaikaLycanthrope]

TBF, Gadget's gadgets are kind of irrelevant for tension - that comes in for Gadget being so dopey and everything being left up to a little girl and a dog. ;)

[@schwarzerritter5724]

That is correct. If the magic is hard or soft depends on how many of the rules the author has communicated to the reader. Also, since those rules are communicated to the reader through the characters, if the magic is hard or soft depends on what the point of view character is. Lord of the Ring's magic is soft, because Frodo is a normal guy; a normal guy who is very short and always runs around barefoot, but normal nontheless.

[@DMichaelAtLarge]

That's a good way to put it. Soft science is when the point of view character doesn't understand the rules.

[@alejoqc9540]

It obviously has limitations, but that's not the point. The point is that it works different for every character, and it's not something you can fully know or control at your will.

[@DMichaelAtLarge]

@@alejoqc9540 Irrelevant. COVID-19 works different for each infected patient, but there are still concrete biological rules behind how it works. The video suggests soft magic is magic without rules. That's a recipe for disaster. Soft magic still has rules. We the readers just don't know what they are. But the author had damn well better understand the rules, or his/her story is going to be a random mess.

[@HiddelS143]

Neither system is “better” each has its own pros & cons that are better suited to different types of stories. If you’re having trouble figuring out which is best for your story, ask yourself, “what does my magic system need to do to service the plot? Does it need to be a concrete science whose rules can be learned & understood? Or is it something that needs to be loose, flexible & mysterious?” Though keep in mind that because of the nature of soft magic systems, they can lead to situations where the magic users are overpowered in every kind of situation, so a good idea would be to write in some kind of limitation to prevent yourself from abusing the magic & boring the audience.

[@Stratelier]

Yeah, a dichotomy of rival approaches should _never_ be reduced to "one side is better" as if the conclusion is unambiguously objective, with examples proving _why_ it's better. The maximum reduction should be "one side is _better at [something]",_ with examples proving _where_ it's better. (...and by implication, where _not)._

[@midnightgreengaming3188]

Title: Soft magic systems are underrated Thumbnail: Soft magic systems are superior Bruh

[@blizzardregulus]

Yeah, kind of a click-baity title.

[@midnightgreengaming3188]

@Davide galeazzi There's a difference between showing appreciation and starting a discussion. Which is the divide between the thumbnail and the title.

[@TheRezro]

@Davide galeazzi It can. One describe quality and another popular opinion. Beta-Max is both superior and underrated and the same time. But back to the point. Neither of those systems are superior and to be honest you can mix them quite easily. Those are just different tools for different purposes, what can be equally mishandled. Main problem with soft-magic systems is that they tend to be used as deus ex machina, what is unrelated form of bad writing. But can doesn't mean need to be.

[@swine13]

@Davide galeazzi Must I once again highlight what "underrated" means? They aren't mutually exclusive at all. Underrated is a quantification of subjective perception, meaning: "better or more important than most people believe" Whereas superior is more objective, meaning: "better than average or better than other people or things of the same type" So all you need is someone who is better than average but at the same time is mostly recognised by people as less than average and then they are underrated and superior at the same time. Less common than all the far more likely "overrated and inferior" things like fortnite, maple bacon and reddit. 😅

[@jackbaxter2223]

Life is Strange was amazing for precisely these reasons. It was the characters that you grew to care about way more than you expected, and then, after using and abusing your powers for the most trivial reasons, you suddenly don't have them any more when it really matters.

[@brentc2411]

The Ring of Power honestly sounds like an analogy for drug addiction. When you're on the drugs, you feel great, powerful, but also sort of drained, and not right. And whenever you don't have them, you crave them, need them to an all consuming level. And even if you kick the habit, it's always a pit, a shadow in the back of your mind of that old feeling, not quite nostalgia, but some sort of yearning for something you hate.

[@richlee3777]

It doesn't have to be an analogy. It could simply be a parallel. Tolkien famously hated allegory, but this form of magic could function in similar ways.

[@silberblock3099]

also, you probably couldn't explain that with real drugs, since a ring looks good for the user and hasn't a bad face in society

[@richlee3777]

@@silberblock3099 Well, no, that one fits the parallel as well. The ring/drugs keeps him functioning longer than he would otherwise, but when he loses his cool he's bloody terrifying. Remember Bilbo's freakout? Gollum looks like he's strung out on meth. I still insist it's not an analogy, but rather a parallel, but the ring doesn't really leave people "socially acceptable" more than drugs do.

[@MrCmon113]

Not everyone feels "drained" when using the One Ring. Moreoever the One Ring gives different people different powers.

[@brentc2411]

The powers it gave the wielder were different, but the effects were largely the same, the book says there are always 1 of 2 outcomes when a barer wields the ring, either they are overtaken by it's power, and turned into a withered version of it's self that unwittingly brings the ring nearer and nearer to it's master. Or, the being wielding it is of enough power, that the ring corrupts and twists their soul, and essentially turns them into a new Soron.

[@desouj03]

I think soft magic systems allow emotional moments that don't clash with the rules and restrictions of magic. Which may help common tropes like Resurrection to flow smoother. As it is vague. But I do enjoy hard magic systems

[@MrSirFluffy]

Yeah, my favorite example on handling Magic is Avatar the Last Airbender. It allows for flexability but is tied to the skill level of the bender. When they want OP fights the Soft magic in the Lore allows for it such as Sozin's comet, Full Moons, and the Avatar State. However for the most part the bending of each character is respected because of the Hard magic system thats dominant overall and how they tie it to the characters and there discipline of bending form.

[@norfigrim]

Full Metal Alchemist has best hard magic system.

[@nouche]

To be fair, I’ve never really been mad at _Life is Strange_ for taking away its core mechanic for the Kate Marsh situation. And that is because it is a very interesting way of rising the tension of the scene, while also having it *MAKE SENSE* because Maxine had also had those nose bleeds and headaches before when she used her powers too much. That is just like the next stage of that sort of sickness. I, however, am much more unhappy with an episode like the 5ᵗʰ, which literally takes away almost every occasion of using magic or EVEN just letting the player make a choice. Most obvious point being: Max going back through Warren’s photo and asking Chloe to stay in her room “and do nothing”. That’s dumb because we just have to accept it as players and don’t get a say when… well, Max could’ve told Chloe the storm was real and they had to seek shelter. They even know about a bunker that the game itself calls “Stormbreaker”. That’s basically forcing decisions onto the player when the rest of the game was all about making choices and taking hard decisions, while being able to rewind to be fully aware of all short-term consequences, and actually taking decisions speculating on what the LONG-term consequences could be, and that’s a very interesting and new system for a choice-based game. I feel like the last episode was a betrayal to all of this. I generally don’t like sad endings, but when they’re executed so poorly, I’m really upset. I can accept a sad ending when it feels inevitable and is well delivered.

[@tsunamie1015]

I once saw a video of someone recommending "Night in the woods" over life is strange, and after playing both ... i agree. But that's just me. Go try it out. It's only 20 bucks on steam and the soundtrack is orignial and amazing, the entire game overall is amazing.

[@RyanAcidhedzMurphy]

That isn't new. Other games have done the same sort of thing, and they all fall flat in the end because no game development company can actually deliver on an ending where all the "choices" you made matter. It would require more work than could ever be achieved in any reasonable amount of time. Bottom line is games like Life is Strange, Walking Dead, The Last of Us, etc... and tv shows like game of thrones, breaking bad, etc... are all designed to manipulate people's emotions. They are terribly written, the characters are vacuous, they are full of plot holes, and are pure emo kid angst from beginning to end. Everything on HBO and Showtime are really just trashy soap operas with a lot of softcore scenes tossed in. All the modern day set ones are just an excuse for people to get off on misery and the worst aspects of humanity. People watch them for the high of being disgusted, shocked, going boo hoo and aroused. Because humans tend to think emotions matter, people think something that can manipulate their emotions must be good. For those of us who know that emotions are just chemical reactions in the brain and they mean nothing, it's just garbage.

[@StevenJQuinlan]

Fascinating review actually and as someone who has always preferred hard magic systems, I found your defense of soft systems really fun. As someone who failed Kate in Life is Strange, I was frustrated by the fact that the rules suddenly changed on me, but somewhere early in chapter three I had that moment of realisation that I could have saved her if I'd been, as you say, paying attention, but I've become so used to being able to solve problems with magic, I'd stopped really paying attention to the actual story. So thank you for this video, it was awesome

[@Torthrodhel]

So I guess that makes the previous reliance on that magic system to solve problems the bad writing, rather than the place where it was dropped? I gotta admit that having never played the game, the bit in the video where he explained that did make me go "well I get what you're getting at but at the same time my goodness that seems like an example of bad writing nonetheless".

[@thatjillgirl]

When the concept of hard versus soft magic systems was explained to me and I was asked which I prefer, I wanted to say hard magic, because on an intellectual level it just seems better. But on reflection, I realized that all of my favorite fantasy series* use soft magic, or at least magic that tends toward the soft side of the spectrum. When soft magic is done well, it taps into something almost Jungian and archetypal. *I will grant that I have yet to read any of Sanderson's works other than his contributions to The Wheel of Time, and people assure me that his series are top notch.

[@JustinBA007]

My favorite kind of magic is both at the same time. I like when the magic has rules, but there's so many different kinds of magic and new rules are being invented or discovered all the time so the magic is unpredictable and whimsical without feeling cheap. For the most part, this is what Harry Potter is, or tries to be, at least. Each spell, potion, and magic tool all feel like they have rules with how they behave, but there's so many of them being used and introduced all the time that you would never be able to figure out all the rules. And my favorite example of this actually isn't Harry Potter, but a manga called Flying Witch. It's like Harry Potter, but there's no Voldemort or Hogwarts, just a young witch living a normal life, or at least, a normal life for a witch.

[@alabasterindigo]

“Magic do as you will!” ~Schmendric the Wizard, The Last Unicorn

[@maxcasteel2141]

You a real one for that

[@MultiCaliffa]

I would argue that all of Tolkien's magic follows one hard rule and one only: the most powerful one wins. The Ring can corrupt anyone because it contains the greater part of Sauron's spirit and he's the most powerful being on Middle Earth, with the exception of Tom Bombadil, who cannot be corrupted. Sauron himself was originally corrupted by someone more powerful than him. Greater beings, like the Valar, would feel no effect if they were to put the Ring on, as they are many times more powerful than Sauron. We can see this rule applied other times, like in the duels between Saruman and Gandalf, or Sauron amd Lúthien. All they do is speak some non defined "words of command", amd the most powerful being wins. The Girdle of Melian was capable of protecting the kingdom of Doriath from the orcs, but it couldn't keep away Carcharoth, since he had swallowed a Silmaril, a gem much more powerful than the Maia. I'm sure there are many other examples, but you get the idea.

[@elli_senfsaat]

That's a theory I can agree with in general. But what's with Saruman being driven away by the Hobbits from the Shire? As a Maia, Saruman should be more powerful than a bunch of Hobbits. Or does this count as something like the "power of friendship" of the Hobbits working together?

[@MultiCaliffa]

@@elli_senfsaat By that time his staff's been broken and he's been cast out of the Order of Wizards by Gandalf the White. The Istari (the wizards) are special among all Maiar because they've been sent to Middle Earth by the Valar with the specific mission of guiding the free people against Sauron with the use of wisdom and not by force. For this reason their true power is very limited on Middle Earth. When Gandalf is sent back by the Valar as the White, and therefore the Head of the Order, he's also probably given the power to strip Saruman of his

[@Taeerom]

@@elli_senfsaat hobbits are also in some ways way more powerful than it is let on. Already in the hobbit, we constantly learn of new ways the hobbits are more powerful than expected. Their ability to resist the ring is probably the greatest tell that they actually are quite powerful despite almost never exercising that power. Hobbit have taken part in great feats, like singlehandedly defeating shelob, killing a nazgul, defeating trolls and great spiders, and tricking a dragon. That they are able to deal with a weakened saruman shouldn't be that surprising.

[@MultiCaliffa]

@@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz4839 Magic wasn't really involved, she just stabbed him in the face with a sword

[@ozzyp97]

@@MultiCaliffa Well, magic was involved when Merry stabbed the Witch-king with his enchanted barrow blade. The enchantment broke his magical defenses and allowed Eowyn to kill him with a regular sword.

[@ademonslayer7130]

The way I look at it, a good soft magic system in a story is less about the magic itself and more how it's used in the story. Lazy writing is always going to show, even if you try and use a hard magic system. The point is, and remains consistent; a story is first and foremost about the characters, everything else is secondary because if you can get the characters down, the rest should fall into place. A soft magic system where there are few rules or limitations, means that the magic isn't necessarily supposed to be the main focus of the story, rather it's a vehicle for characters to explore to world through and have emotional arcs within. You can use hard magic systems for that, but for an emotionally driven story, it's not really necessary and if it's not handled correctly it can ruin any story beats or emotional arc that arise from it. Especially with regards to pacing, because not every story has the time to explain a big complex magic system, or really needs one, instead magic can be the driving force in the story without being the main focus. Again, this isn't a justification for writers who use magic as a Deus ex machina for almost every tough situation, because that is lazy writing, instead when handled properly a soft magic system can be just as compelling and interesting as a hard magic system, even if for different reasons.

[@Fif0l]

Tolkien actually abides by Sanderson rules. "The writer's ability to solve a problem with magic is proportional to the reader's understanding of the magic". Tolkien's undefined magic makes more obstacles than bridges. And the few times random magic saves our protagonists serve to enhance the scope and it's pretty minor in solving the ultimate conflict of the story. Brandon Sanderson's rules apply to soft magic as much as they do hard magic systems. Also, inconsistencies of Life is Strange are among the more common criticisms of the game. Including a bs tornado that made all your choices irrelevant by the final choice. But you still have a point that still doesn't contradict Sanderson's rules: because the magic isn't consistent the major plot points CANNOT be solved by the magic. Except for the tornado, because screw everyone who cared up to this point.

[@matthewmuir8884]

Indeed. Soft or hard magic, Sanderson's rules still apply. "The writer's ability to solve a problem with magic is directly proportional to the reader's understanding of said magic" you already went over how this one applies. "What the magic can't do is more interesting than what it can do" even in soft magic systems, limitations and costs can make the magic far more interesting. I'd argue that the Ring's inability to control someone; that it has to worm its way into the mind of the ring-bearer and corrupt them, makes it far more interesting than if it could just possess the ring-bearer all the way back to Sauron. "Expand what you have before you add something new" Truth in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood would probably be the best example of this, given how much the story's able to expand on Truth and the Gate without revealing too much.

[@acrab6527]

Yeah, "The ring corrupts everyone, always, no exceptions, so we have to destroy it." is as hard as it's possible to be. Every other use of magic in the entire story hurts the story, leaving plot holes and writing problems we're still arguing over. And every single part of Life is Strange's writing is bad, so using it as any kind of positive example is a bad idea.

[@matthewmuir8884]

@@acrab6527 How so? I don't see how the soft magic in The Lord of Rings hurts the story or creates plot holes, nor is the One Ring "as hard as it's possible to be" just because it has one rule. Give me a single case where you think the magic in LOTR created a plot hole.

[@acrab6527]

​@@matthewmuir8884 Gandalf came back from the dead. Meaning anyone could potentially also come back from the dead because we don't know how. Bye any kind of tension. Hell they could kill Sauron and HE could just come back from the dead and everything would be pointless. Gandalf can call eagle taxis to get anywhere, but doesn't just fly to Mt. Doom. "But the Nazgul!" Okay call like 100 eagles, there's only 12 Nazgul. And there's no, "you only get 1 eagle ride" rule or anything. Gandalf can make THE SUN RISE EARLY to blind all the orcs and demoralize them at Helm's Deep, meaning he can either move the Star or the planet, but he has to stab people with a sword? Or get a ride from Eagles? Or die from falling in a hole? And the magic Shelob defeating device being a literal Deus Ex Machina. "The ring always corrupts everyone, no exceptions ever" is literally the hardest rule there can be. There's no times when it isn't true. Even the angelic, pure good type characters are tempted just looking at it. Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion, another entire book to explain everything because even he realized soft magic just causes plot holes. The only time Soft magic works is when it's in the background, being used by people not related to the plot at all, who thus don't impact the plot directly.

[@matthewmuir8884]

@@acrab6527 Gandalf isn't human; he's a Maiar (basically a lesser angel): his physical body is artificial and he's very tough to actually kill and easy to repair if on the brink of death and able to be healed by people who know he's a Maiar. You don't have to know what Gandalf is specifically, but it's all but spelled out that the Wizards in LOTR are not human. Sauron was already killed in a way that can kill a Maiar thousands of years ago; the Ring is the only thing keeping him alive. The book is more explicit, but the films still make it clear that the ring being destroyed means he's dead beyond any kind of recovery for Maiar. Ah; the old, "They could've flown the Eagles to Mordor". One: the journey to Mordor is established as excruciatingly long, so they would have to stop and rest at multiple points. Having the eagles means even more mouths to feed. Two: It's well-established that the enemies have forces in the sky. It isn't just Nazgul, it's also bats and crows. Three: Imagine if Frodo dropped the RIng while they were flying. Imagine the area that they'd have to search. Four: Gandalf doesn't control the eagles. They're willing to help him out of a jam because he's their friend, but they won't just do anything he asks them to do. Gandalf never makes the sun rise early; he's just well-aware of when it'll rise. Are you talking about the light bauble that the elf lady gave Frodo? That is not a Deus-ex Machina; that is literally a classic case of Chekov's Gun, or in this case, more like Q's gadget. It's given to Frodo, what it does is quickly explained, and both Frodo and Sam remember it and put it to good use against the cave-dwelling giant spider. Actually, there is an exception (though only in the books): Tom Bombadil. They actually consider leaving the Ring with Tom, but they realize that he can lose it or it can be stolen from him. Besides, as I said, one rule does not automatically make it hard magic. It is soft magic. Tolkien wrote the Silmarion because he loved worldbuilding.

[@bluehero-96]

I see Max in the thumbnail. Bay vs bae flashbacks intensify.

[@t.h.mcelroy6597]

Still hurts...

[@jacobhowie532]

I think this applies to sci-fi too. Instead of the mystery/limitations of magic it's that of the technology.

[@mytiliss682]

Nanomachines son

[@milanstevic8424]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" -Arthur C. Clarke edit: hm the exact same comment is immediately below this one (in my view), and I've seen it only after I typed it

[@lordofdarkness4204]

Jacob Howie but like, technology is an inherently hard concept. All technology in the world has an explanation for every part of its existence. So why shouldn’t fictional technology be the same?

[@jacobhowie532]

@@lordofdarkness4204 Because when making fictional technology, while it has to be roughly coherent, the science behind it doesn't have to be fully explained especially if it isn't relevant to the story.

[@happybluecat7175]

Sure does! Any real science fiction fan knows the difference between soft science fiction and hard science fiction. Soft science fiction is more about the fiction and hard science is more about the science. I hadn't thought of applying the same terminology to fantasy.

[@HulaShark]

That’s why I love Nen from HunterXHunter. Most Nen is a hard magic system, but the Nen affinity of “Specialist” throws that out the window and is a soft magic system.

[@tiagoguerreiro5937]

Nen powers basically become Stands from the Chimera Ant arc onwards. Just look at how specific Knuckle's, Cheetuh's, the darts guy, and even Netero's Buddha powers are. Not to mention the overt inclusion of Nen Beasts from the Expedition arc onwards

[@jordyrodriguez7203]

The best power system I've seen in anything

[@mreedulkh]

Hunter x hunter does a great job of using a hard magic system in a way that the individual psychologies and ideologies of the characters are embedded with the magic system

[@heartofdawnlight]

that's because Nen is framed as hard magic, and it was at first, but its actually very much soft magic. Just not nearly as soft as most anime. (based entirely off of how its used)

[@ruyman90]

I wouldn't say Nen is hard system. Actually I would say is more into the soft system because the only established rules are that you can use 1 of the fundamentals at a time and that hexagon system. Aside from that there are no limitations to how to use it, in what to transform it, what abilities it gives, or how does the cost is applied

[@schwarzerritter5724]

I never understood how deliberately building disadvantages into your abilities makes them stronger. The best explanation I could come up with is it works kind of like a battlecruiser. battlecruisers where essentially battleships with less armor, sacrificing durability for speed. Some abilities work like that, but others are completely different. It is more like having a battleship with a super powerful gun that will destroy every enemy in one hit, but only if the captain of the ship has shoe size 42. If he does not, the gun will explode when firing it, sinking your own ship.

[@princessthyemis]

whoa! :O

[@mreedulkh]

Schwarzer Ritter Conceptually, I’ve always thought of it as a form of equivalent exchange, you’re giving up something like your safety, or some stat like speed or strength, or even life itself after the fact, and the willpower you exhibit by giving something up manifests as nen, it’s like your body responding to your conviction but by design, not just “oh his conviction is so strong that he somehow surpassed his limits, without any mechanism to allow for that”

[@eliyahushvartz2167]

I feel like this division between Hard Magic and Soft magic is inherently harmful to the Literary tool in the first place. I see a lot of people on here citing real life mythologies to back their claims for this division, but I don’t think it’s as concrete as they think. Look at Hermeticism, Kabbalah, and other forms of High Magick. All of these systems have rules but they have a very distinct mystique to them. The character might view Hard magic like Hermeticism as soft magick because of lack of understanding, or the parts of magic not fully understood by the practitioner could be thought of as “soft magic” in the same way that scientists don’t fully understand everything. The wizard is more like an occult scientist than anything else in my opinion. Even historical folk traditions and systems of Magic have a why and a how. Look at traditional British witchcraft which ordinarily draws it power from the witch’s devil or God. Or look at tribal forms of magic that often do have “do’s and don’ts” for what works and what doesn’t work. I think that soft magic is simply hard magic that isn’t understood, or possibly just more ambiguous hard magic that isn’t delved into much. It reminds me of the Horadrim from Diablo, who have a clear magical tradition but it’s never elaborated on fully.

[@Stratelier]

I sometimes call this middle ground (between purely soft and purely hard magics) the "black box" approach. The fact that you don't know the internal mechanisms is irrelevant to the practical fact that certain actions *predictably* generate certain results.

[@ShiningDarknes]

It has nothing to do with understanding and everything to do with who knows the rules and the consistency to which these rules are adhered to.

[@anthonyryan9954]

That was impressive my friend. I would never guess to see that here. This is not a common place for that knowledge.

[@user-lk2vo8fo2q]

i think the hard/soft terms are overloaded to the point of meaninglessness. it can variously mean: - how many of the universe's rules are actually revealed to the reader: e.g. the elder scrolls (a ludicrous amount) vs. avatar: the last airbender (almost none) - to what extent the universe is actually implied to have consistent underlying principles in the first place: avatar: the last airbender (strongly) vs. adventure time (not at all) - how strictly various rules, once presented, are adhered to: adventure time (more) vs. harry potter (don't you dare use that time machine to save your dead friend. you're only allowed to do that once.) - how closely the fantasy setting resembles our own world: harry potter (closely) vs. dune (very little) - how thoroughly the consequences of its break from reality are considered: dune (extensively) vs. the elder scrolls (gold coins have value in a world with literal transmutation spells)

[@rpgchronicler]

Late comment but i can see this whole hard/soft problem affect sci fi as well. Idc if it should be called sci fantasy, soft sci fi is still sci fi if it doesnt look like spelljammer. I just want more genuinely optimist modern science fiction, idc if it riffs off star wars or the expanse just no more grimderp shenanigans.

[@UltimateKyuubiFox]

The power of Life Is Strange is that, where Hard Magic Systems establish limitations with what’s understood from the start, Soft Magic systems require the writer to create them scene by scene. In Life Is Strange, when the player is suddenly able to move through the world while frozen in time, a new limitation is created to balance it: you can’t rewind anymore and only get one shot to change what happens. Essentially, in order for Soft Magic to truly work throughout a story, the writer has to craft the narrative to provide restrictions that, while not fully explained or understood by the characters, nevertheless impact the characters’ ability to navigate the world. You don’t necessarily explain how things work or why they happen to the Nth degree, but they nevertheless maintain stakes or provide new ones. A good storyteller will know how to do this-essentially balance the power-dynamics by themselves. A rookie might fail to instill restrictions and simply pull out new magic rules that make it easier to reach a plot-based ‘finish line’. Hard Magic puts the training weights around an author’s ankles and wrists. Soft Magic gives them freedom of movement. It’s about how responsible the writer can be trusted to be when untethered. It’s why psychological metaphor works so well with Soft Magic-psychological storytelling is all about restrictions you can’t predict or see. The feeling of limitation comes built in and thus reinforces _itself_ via the magic. Like _Carrie_ by Stephen King: she feels lacking in agency and so when she loses control of her powers, that loss of control is the whole point. We don’t think it’s unfair that she can suddenly do all these supernatural things because her inability to inhibit herself is what the story has been all about, thematically and plot-wise. The story wasn’t “Can she get revenge on these people?” The story was “Can she finally be happy?” Her becoming an uncontrollable avatar of ill-intent isn’t the solution, it’s a tragedy. The story isn’t about what she can magically achieve in terms of power. It’s about what she can emotionally achieve in terms of community. Her moment of greatest power is her moment of deepest loss.

[@Knightfall8]

people nowadays like hard magic systems because the modern fan tends to be neurotic and obsessive about rules and worldbuilding

[@ohno4435]

I think it's more because too many bullshit writers love to use them as a Deus ex machina

[@jcavs9847]

True

[@TheBiggestMoneyBoy]

@@ohno4435 it's used a lot in hard and soft magic systems there's no escaping it

[@skullthunder3181]

Yah worldbuilding and magic systems are nice and all but I think too many people obsess a bit too much over these things in a story. These things are just there to add spice to the book/movie. The main story and characters need to actually be good and engaging otherwise having the best worldbuilding and the most in depth magic system wont matter

[@lukeulibarri3924]

I think it is because we want consistent rules.

[@lazilylapis676]

This has been really encouraging. I'm making my own story with a 'magic'element in it, but i never wanted to go in depth about it because i wanted it to be more about how the characters deal with it emotionally rather than know exactly what it is. You've helped me realize that this can in fact be a good thing in a narrative, and now i want to continue it... thank you

[@BenjaminScottCampbell]

This is a nice follow up to your hard v soft magic system video. Soft magic systems fundamentally fit the stage of fiction. Fiction is about the human experience, and soft magic--arcane and numinous--helps give shape to the inexpressible precisely by resisting the poking, prodding perfectionism of scientific experimentation. The worlds of soft magic tend to feel genuinely larger, deeper because they can't and won't be fully explored and understood. The point, I think, is not that they are not inexplicable logically, but that they are not meant to be explained logically. We don't have the power to explain it, and that's a fundamental part of being human--feeling, wondering, and finitude.

[@rezokiladze2334]

Excuse me but sanderson has a literal universe based hard magic system and it is and feels bigger than any of the soft magics out there

[@BenjaminScottCampbell]

@@rezokiladze2334 Hence "tend to."

[@TheOverArchiver]

I would love to introduce you to the world of Mistborn, which has a magic system so hard I could use it to hold up a skyscraper, but has a good deal of mystery to its world. He gives us a good idea of what happened in the past, but it’s never really clarified, and we have to figure stuff out on our own.

[@BenjaminScottCampbell]

@@TheOverArchiver Sounds interesting! I'll look it up.

[@PigreKo]

I get it, I get your point. The mystery, the emptiness to be filled by hope and possibilities, the vagueness and lack of absolutes of life. A soft magic systems is able to give much to the atmosphere... but it needs also to be a secondary presence to other forces. You cannot solve your plot around soft magic exploitation, or it would just feel shallow, no matter how immersive the atmosphere is. I like your reference to science, as science very much feel as magic to the eyes of many. A soft magic system may just explore the tip of what is the whole reality, and in such tip you just lack enough rules to understand it all. After all, we all live into and understand gravity... yet we do not know what particle vehicles gravity, or why it is generated by rotating mass and how. The ideal hard magic system could never be complete, as a soft unexplored side should exists to ever be explored; just like the hard coded science always probe at the unknown of the universe, very well knowing this kind of curiosity would find no end.

[@nazgardthecartographer6172]

Tim, you literally saved me. I've spent 2 weeks trying to create magic system for my next project, but now I understand - I don't need it! Thank you. Oh and ofc I'll be on your stream as long as I can. I can't promise 24 hours, but I'll be there until circumstances force me to leave xD

[@AxelQC]

The soft magic of the Ring makes it a sentient being and character in the tale. A hard magic ring is just a tool: it gives you +1 wisdom or allows you to throw a fireball. The Ring has a mind of its own and a goal: manipulate its way back to Sauron. It's a horcrux and tied to Sauron's soul, so it uses others to get its way by granting them varying powers depending on their will and intelligence. It allows simple creatures like hobbits to be invisible. It would allow Gandalf and Galadriel the ability to dominate others and command armies. Like the rings of the 9, it eventually dominates and controls even the strongest of the Ringbearers. Saruman never actually touches the Ring, but his desire for its power corrupts even a Maiar. Tolkein purposefully made the Ring's power vague to make it a character in the novel instead of just a McGuffin.

[@thelingeringdouche822]

"Chloe's self-destructive tendencies." One of the biggest understatement in gaming history

[@zain4019]

TheLingeringDouche I love her character. God she’s awesome:)

[@fredricknoe3114]

@@zain4019 I never thought they could make a character more painfully realistic than an actual girl.

[@zain4019]

jac of harts When she was crying over Rachel’s body, you could feel how deep her pain was. And losing her dad, then believing Max abandoned her- poor Chloe. Many children live a story just like that after losing their parents or sometime they love. It’s such a wonderfully told story they created:)

[@B0K0691]

Then again, she says shit like "Wowzers" So I am inclined to despise her

[@biglmaowski6509]

@@B0K0691 It is a pretty bad game so it fits I think.

[@glanni]

Soft Magic is more interesting, but harder to pull off.

[@Dramatic_Gaming]

I wouldn't neccesarily even say more interesting. Each system can be used well or poorly. The point about soft magic is that, if you're going to use a soft system, you shouldn't rely on it to carry your narrative. If the conflict could be easily solved by a power with no limitations, was it ever really a conflict? Conversely, if your characters run into a sudden, arbitrary reason why magic *can't* be used to solve the problem, is that actually a conflict or a plot contrivance? Soft magic enhances a story, but shouldn't resolve a story.

[@glanni]

@@Dramatic_Gaming Yea I was exaggerating when I said it's more interesting. To me it IS most of the time more interesting when I encounter it because it allows me to be in awe more than a hard magic system. With a hard system I am bound to figure out how it works pretty soon because the author needs to make us understand before using it to solve conflicts. With the soft magic system it's more mysterious, and when an author pulls it off without making it deus ex machina it's beautiful and aweinspiring. It also allows me to dream for a short period of time that somewhere on a hidden place this magic really exists, while in a hard system it's explained to be based off of other natural laws than our world in a way, and it's unbelievable that this stuff exists. Hard magic systems are almost like fantasy science, while soft magic systems are more similar the ones that were used in older stories that left pur ancestors in awe when dreaming about them. (simply because they didn't think in as much of a scientific way as we are used to) I *love* both, but over time I realized I'm personally feeling more inspired by things that are above and beyond my understanding in a bigger than me style, because it feels like a mystical revelation of almost religious nature. Hard magic systems are better fun to play with though :)

[@matsab7930]

Elsa Frost I agree - the magic in the discworld series for example never fails to draw me in to the world.

[@anthonyfaiell3263]

How is it harder to pull off? Soft magic is literally built on the freedom to do whatever... whenever.... for whatever reason you feel like it. While hard magic is built on writing a story devoid of plot holes and inconsistencies. For instance... If avengers end game says you cannot effectively change the past/present/future, and that any time travel simply takes you to a different multi-verse... and then shows captain america traveling back in time and then showing up older in the same universe he left... yea... inconsistencies... This type of thing is very common in hard magic systems. It's because a writer has to put EXTRA effort into things like this to make sure that they aren't contradicting ideas they have previously expressed. In a soft magic system, no such effort is needed. Just don't ever explain how time travel works, and then toss in that part with captain america at the end and no one would question it. I mean... that sounds a lot easier to do from a writers perspective. If you never have to explain yourself, that makes for easy writing... This guys hair is purple and he shoots laser beams from his eyes... why??? who cares... its a soft system... it's just how it is, accept it. Granted, this can be done really well... And I'm not hating on all soft magic stories or all hard magic stories. I am simply talking about the magical elements and their usage within each of these systems. And if all we are talking about is the soft/hard smagic systems themselves... Soft systems are definitely way easier to construct, and allow for much more freedom and lack of commitment. While hard systems are tougher to construct well, but definitely can restrict growth and trap itself into mediocrity.

[@glanni]

@@anthonyfaiell3263 It's harder to pull off writing it in a way where you actually would say it's contributing anything to the story. It's harder to pull off making it interesting, believable, useful (for whatever purpose of your story), not annyoing (or deus ex machina), because you can't lean on the functions and exact laws of the magic system. It's harder to make the whole fantasy stuff make sense. I don't think a well written soft magic system allows for a load of non-commitment either. Stuff still shouldn't be contradicting unless it's for a good reason. Points like these are what I meant with "harder to pull off". Both systems have their own pitfalls ofc. It's harder to create a hard magic system, but it's harder to fit in a soft magic system.

[@odojang]

In a nutshell, soft magic is for feeling and hard magic is for reason. That they should be seen incompatible however baffles me... unless it is synonymous to lazy writing versus serious writing. Look at Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. He gives you all the clues and, if you have the same knowledge and methodical, logical thinking as Holmes, you get to the answer even before the story unfolds and thus, adding great satisfaction from it while still enjoying fully the emotional journey. An author can build up a very hard and defined magic system but doesn't need to explain it in the story. Let the story expose the magic and the readers try to figure out how it works. Maybe they will and thus feel added satisfaction out of it, or they will not and stay mystified; but both can experience the feelings in equal measure through the writing, setting, plotting and character portrayals The danger with a soft magic system is that, if for the author at least that magic is not well defined, then, almost every time, it becomes a deus-ex-machina plot convenience at best; at worse, it opens the way to inconsistencies within the story that will ruin the enjoyement. Even full of mystery and wonders, fantasy does not mean nonsense. It's like worldbuilding; you show only the tip of the iceberg but most of it is hidden from view. The reader may not see it but will feel it... if it's there. It's how you write it. So my take on this is: make it hard but write it soft.

[@JaneXemylixa]

Conan Doyle giving you ALL the clues? What SH have you been reading? There's always something up Holmes' sleeve that he only reveals at the end, often after the culprit has been caught.

[@odojang]

@@JaneXemylixa You're confusing Holmes with Poirot, the Agatha Christie detective. Go reread Doyle. Yes, in every Holmes story, you have all the clues exactly at the same time he finds them; Nothing is hidden. No new clue is revealed at the end; only what the clues actually mean... which will surprise you if you lack the knowledge necessary to interpret them correctly and fail to use logical thinking. That's what makes Sherlock Holmes so compelling. Everything is before your eyes. You need to open them, have the knowledge and make correct deductions.

[@dmitriy9985]

Completely agree with you.

[@leow.2162]

Sherlock Holmes very often has information the audience doesn't have, makes illogical deductions and produces a culprit who was never even mentioned. He's nowhere near as bad as the BBC Sherlock stuff but let's not pretend Doyle wasn't using lots of sleight of hand to make him seem smarter than he wrote him.

[@odojang]

@@leow.2162 You obvioulsy did not read the original stories if you think so. Notice that the Holmes of radio, tv and movies has little if any ressemblance to the original one. Maybe that is where your confusion comes from. Here's a way for you to check; if you think Holmes ever said ''elementary my dear Watson, '' then you haven't read the real stories. In the original ones, he NEVER EVER says that. It's a myth born from the first radio shows and movies. Or the information you talk about is in fact the lack of knowledge about the clues. Knowledge of chemistry for example is needed to understand many clues as Holmes do. If you the reader lacks that knowledge, then of course it seems he's pulling out something out of nowhere. but he's not. he told you this is this color and has that smell on this surface; it's your lack of knowledge that makes you fail to understand the clue, not Holmes hiding anything.

[@mindofthelion712]

Be careful with that Livestream! Don't burn yourself out!

[@HelloFutureMe]

Also need to clarify that I will be eating and drinking! I was joking on the sustenance thing. ~ Tim

[@ethancoster1324]

@@HelloFutureMe Huge Spyro fan. Look forward to it.

[@jameswest6232]

I love this discussion! Hard systems are great for works like JoJo where mechanics are used strategically, but a soft system allows for more thematic story telling. I would still say that a soft system should be careful and avoid directly breaking one of the few rules it's established.

[@CantusTropus]

Given how vague "Stand Stats" are and how frequently Araki simply opts to drop certain restrictions and powers from the story when convenient, I'm not sure if I would quite call Jojo a hard system. I think it's better to call it a system with rules, but not very hard rules.

[@jameswest6232]

@@CantusTropus I was more talking about how the different abilities are often used strategically. That said.... yeah, calling it a hard magic system may have been a stretch.

[@sleepinbelle9627]

James West JoJo is interesting because, while stands are on the whole a soft system, they tend to establish rules at the beginning of each fight, which give it that strategic element.

[@bmardiney]

>Using Life is Strange as an example of good writing It’s a bold move, Cotton, let’s see how it works for him!

[@chiefpurrfect8389]

It got the thing he discussed right though. I mean don't get me wrong, the dialogue of this game was 100%, hella trash from start to finish and so were most of the characters but the overall writing certainly had some moments.

[@arbaazshaw8123]

@@chiefpurrfect8389 To be honest the game was great in a sweetly endearing way

[@daxlucero2437]

I love how he defended the game by saying magic stops working because, themes! Which is realllllly contrived and lazy

[@bmardiney]

@@daxlucero2437 People who care more about themes (which usually translates to "political messages") than consistency/continuity have missed the point of writing entirely. It's the kind of thing that only a English major grad would think. You have to go to college to think as backwards as that.

[@VideoMask93]

@@bmardiney People don't still read Shakespeare because of his continuity.

[@tommy4540]

1. You talk like a professor and your ideas are dope. 2. Soft magic systems are the shit 3. Thank you for using your platform for good 🤟

[@cutekitten4395]

dude, why you gotta hit me in the feels like that in all seriousness though I appreciate the fact that you care enough about these issues and I agree that soft magic systems where the magic system itself isn't the main focus of the story are really well done, but as you said it can play either role, for example, ATLA has some extremely well done psychological tension despite their hard magic system, can't wait for the stream

[@Andres33AU]

Brilliantly said, and what I love about the Lord of the Rings is how personal the stories feel. You have a rich history and amazing characters, but with very real situations and emotions. You reminded me of a great quote from the book, where the Hobbits return to the Shire at the end, and Merry and Pippin say something along the lines of "I can't believe we're back, it's like we've woken up from a dream!" but Frodo says something like "No, for me, it feels like I can finally go back to sleep." It shows how different their experiences were with just two lines of dialogue!

[@maxxam4665]

I love how you challenge yourself continuously, in your studies. Although myself many times strongly disagree with your arguments, I can feel an immense love in your researches, by the fact that nothing you say is written in stone, but it is like a journey in discovery, video after video!

[@valence686]

You bring up good points and I've always felt that my own view on soft magic vs hard magic very much boils down to science versus magic in the first place. Hard magic (mystic science) settings like the ones meticulously designed by Brandon Sanderson as example act as science. People in those settings use magic as a science obeying laws and well laid out rules, and as you said, as tools. In itself it's only called magic because it's not following the rules of science of our own real life universe, but some kind of other rules. I feel that hard magic systems also recently rose up a lot due to the emergence of video games and gameplay systems. Soft magic (folklore magic) is the closest concept to what magic initially is and has always been in folklore and other legendary tales. It's something that nobody quite grasps, it's something that defies logic and rationales. It's something obscure and elusive that even the master wizards sometimes fail to completely understand. You can obviously transform soft magic into hard magic as soon as you give characters the key to explain everything that happens and as soon as you start laying down laws and rules. After all, as the saying says, science that is sufficiently advanced becomes indistinguishable from magic.

[@Deathshead419]

Honestly, this is why I've come to view the Dichotomy of "Hard" vs "Soft" magic to be nonsense. Someone researches how actual humans actually practiced and understood "magic" for thousands of years, and that is called "Soft". Whereas someone comes up with a bunch of completely arbitrary rules, usually completely detached from actual practiced human magic, and that is called "Hard" If anything, it should be the inverse.

[@carso1500]

Valence one key thing i have never see anyone point out is that there is practicaly imposible to create a soft magic system, all magic system are hard, even if it seems to defy logic initially theres really nothing that can work without rules, so in a sence it wouldnt be "hard vs soft magic" but "well understood vs poor understood magic"

[@Dragrath1]

A criticism I have is that is a misrepresentation of science. Science isn't about establishing rules it is about using observations and evidence it applies just as easily to "soft" magic systems as "hard" carso1500 really hits the crux of the issue that to work there needs to be rules to some degree the nature of soft magic is just those rules are obscure. This is because our brains work on physical principals so good writing and consistent world building themselves provide a rule set which breaks suspension of disbelief if violated as opposed to mistaken rules. If a soft magic system had no rules there would be no meaning narratively and the story wouldn't be engaging or mystical.

[@valence686]

@@Dragrath1 I see where you're coming from but that's not what I intended to convey originally. Science is indeed not about establishing rules. Maybe the word is badly used here. But it is about establishing rules when you're in the shoes of "God", which is exactly what the author is. You can choose to establish loose rules, or hard rules. And then indeed, your characters and the people living in your new universe will maybe do some actual science and try to discover those rules. I also tend to think that yes, a soft magic system can very well be a hard magic one that nobody in the universe truly understands yet. It also tend to think that some deep folklore based magic systems truly don't have many rules. They do whatever the fuck they want as long as it provides to the plot and doesn't break suspension of disbelief.

[@wrenv9209]

@@carso1500 that... Is what soft and hard mean in this context. That's always been what it means.

[@dustinseth1]

I remember explaining this to an old friend when he was asking what Gandalf’s “powers” were. Though I didn’t have the genre vocabulary. Tolkien’s writing grand myths, not a D&D campaign.

[@ryzigg7187]

Life is strange is one of my favourite games the story is so simple and yet so complex at the same time. I agree with everything you said about the game and more people should play it.

[@froZn991]

Life is Strange is probably the only game that got me as emotional as the ending of the Mass Effect Trilogy. Maybe even more.

[@c0rpseplay655]

froZn991 Same here! How long has Life is Strange been your favourite game?

[@elijahw06]

I want to date you IRL

[@lishanglong6762]

Bro have you played The Last of Us?

[@froZn991]

@@lishanglong6762 yeah the last of us intro definitely hit me like a train. But the rest is not as emotional as LiS. Or the mass effect ending after hundreds of hours of playing

[@luuxii]

I wish I would have experienced that, but I fell asleep playing chapter 1

[@stephenrice2063]

The problem with hard magic systems for me is that they aren't magic systems; they are fantasy science. Back before relativity and quantum physics, science was clear-cut. Of course you can accelerate to faster-than-light speeds! Of course your experiment will yield the same result every time, even with subatomic particles! Golden Age sci-fi was about how comfortingly predictable science was. But then science and the universe turned out to do weird things, so people like Sanderson give us our childhood science back. When I read the Mistborn series, I kept thinking, "That's ingenious!" I didn't think, "That's marvelous!" Soft magic is about miracles: it inspires awe. The closest Sanderson comes to that is when he contradicts himself: You know that rule about metals that are in a body being immune to manipulation? Guess what....

[@wendyheatherwood]

I feel like any magic system that is too strict is missing something. In the real world we know there are rules for how things work, weather systems, chemical reactions, our own bodies... but those rules also have exceptions, some of which have been explained and some we still don't understand. And on a personal level that understanding gets even smaller. Researchers may have worked out why a particular drug causes a paradoxical reaction in 0.3% of the population, but half the population don't even know the drug exists and the majority of those that do don't know the issue even exists. Meanwhile some other medical issues don't have any hard explanations. We think it's a combination of genetics and environmental factors? Probably? We're not sure which ones yet. Why should a magic system be more set in stone than our understanding of our bodies or the world around us? Sure, rules are good, but it should be more of a case of these are the rules to the best of the characters' understanding and sometimes their understanding is limited or just wrong. Sometimes nobody understands a particular set of rules at all and that's fine.

[@purpleghost106]

This is how I feel about it too. Hard magic systems appeal to me, in that I like to have some rules so that the magic is to a degree known, but at the same time nearly everything that has knowns also still has unknowns. Even gravity( maybe especially gravity). It's a major aspect of sexual selection, every time a kid is created the dice get rolled on how those genes get combined, and each person starts out with an average of approx 150 unique mutations. This means that despite having an okay understanding of basic Big Umbrella aspects of biology, there are very frequently going to be people with unpredicted experiences simply because of how much random chance plays a role in our existences. Hard Magic is often said to be treating magic like a science, and well, that should include learning and having a bunch of unknowns that are being worked on becoming understood! :D

[@WolfJulia2001]

Exactly

[@poshboy4749]

That's exactly the problem with hard magic systems. They're just another field of science that we understand more than the current ones. If you want to write hard magic why not write sci-fi?

[@lordofdarkness4204]

Because sci-fi is a genre about science, not magic. Another point tab out hard magic is that hard magic can be used not just as a element of world building but a part of the plot. It can solve problems in a more satisfying way. A good way to think of hard magic is that it’s a branch of science we understand and use regularly. Also you are not taking into account the laws of physics in regards to you argument that science is soft. These rules are followed by everything and are consistent guidelines on how the world works.

[@purpleghost106]

@@poshboy4749 That's not a "problem" it is a feature. That's not what scifi is. Scifi is not just "has rules" fiction. There are genre-blends, science-fantasies which have basically space-wizards and improbable mcguffins, but those are blends because scifi is most scifi when it's about science. There is also speculative fiction, which is similar to both scifi and fantasy, and a book can be either and also be speculative fiction, because what defines something as speculative fiction is that it's based around a question. "what would happen if X?" Sometimes even ridiculous ones, like, What would happen if we were actually living in a hypercube? or the back of a giant cat. Or if giant tortoises roamed the earth. IDK, speculative fiction can get awesome and weird. Anyway, point being, hard magic systems are still fantasy, because there's nothing about fantasy that says it can't have a world with rules.

[@lukas.menhert]

You can also have hard magic, that feels like soft magic in the beginning and then when you discover that there are rules and it does make sense... ooh it just makes it that much more believable while also having that sense of wonder. Yeah soft magic is great, but is used very badly most of the time. It becomes bad when it starts to contradict itself in a way you just cant accept.

[@xuanathan]

That’s exactly what I’m attempting. I remember finding out exactly how magecraft in Fate/Stay Night worked and it felt SO COOL, I just want to replicate that.

[@cbwiese]

If it has rules then it's science ... Opposite of magic

[@lukas.menhert]

​@@cbwiese Magic always have some sort of rules, but they are implicit and vague. Everyone interprets it differently.

[@karlfranzemperorofmandefil5547]

Skullduggerly pleasant

[@Waterbug1591]

For soft magic, do not ever confuse ambiguity with inconsistency. Ambiguity is a mysterious teasing device(Good), Inconsistency is breaking rules to fit narrative(Bad).

[@najodo5209]

Another reason why I love the magic system is Eragon. I personally feel like it’s somehow both. It’s got clear limitations and rules but certain aspects and reaches that can never be found out or known. It’s gives you a sense of it’s power and presence without you ever really knowing it’s full influence. It’s so fun

[@armorfrogentertainment]

*My thoughts upon seeing that title card:* "Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?"

[@guillermoc7736]

Honestly, the title card was kinda clickbait compared to what he actually said.

[@vulpinedeity3379]

When I'm writing it, it's soft in the text, and hard in my head.

[@alestrius]

I find this really interesting because I have a magic system that's intended to appear a soft system in the text, but only because I'm intentionally obscuring large revelations until later in the book, at which point the harder nature of it becomes more apparent. (And then post-close on the end of the story, due to actions taken by the main characters, it may revert to a true soft system for the world post-books, or even just cease existing entirely. I haven't fully decided the ramifications.)

[@DGolden247]

That’s what I’m aiming for in my own writing, I feel like I need to know what’s going on before I start writing.

[@Yet.Another.Rapper.KiG.V2]

@@alestrius very interesting!

[@MedievalSolutions]

@@DGolden247 try writing without knowing.

[@andrews9615]

I’ve loved this channel for a long time, as a person who has struggled with this, I really respect this.

[@steffis9806]

Thank you for all the good you do, Tim. You made a difference to my life. I finally fought through my depression and right now I am writing that book that I always wanted to write. 36000 words in so far! My whole life I was afraid of doing any sort of creative work, because my brain will scream at me "You're a failure! You are the worst! You are the most untalented human being ever born!". I watched most of your videos and realized - I can understand the fundamentals of storytelling. I can improve. I can do it. Thank you for being part of my journey. I try to give something back as a patreon and I will proudly support your stream on Dec 6th. And once my book is finished, I will find a translator (I'm german) and send it to you :)

[@WhaleManMan]

"You cant use rewind to solve Chloe and Nathan's problems" And as the solution, they didn't solve them at all.

[@prinstyrio0]

I see a lot of comments talking about magic as if the story is actually around it and seem to not mention how immersive soft magic can be too. One major thing why I like soft magic over hard magic, is telling a story from the perspective of someone who doesn't use magic, which leaves this wonder as they observe it by others using it and they can't truly explain it because magic is like seeing, hearing, tasting, etc, you can't truly explain how it's like seeing things to a blind person, you can try to explain it in a very basic form (knowing object's forms from afar without touching), but no matter how you can't go into detail about it and how it's like experiencing it (colors, the details on objects, how it makes you feel, etc). That's where soft magic to me is amazing as immersion, where you can set yourself in this fantasy world as yourself where you're not a magic user and you get this wondrous feeling as you explore a fantasy world that way, rather than trying to immerse yourself as part of it as a magic user or understanding something that doesn't exist. While I often prefer to use said magic in games or when roleplaying with hard magic in place, when writing a story you might want to keep that mystery cause that mystery can be a tool of itself merely for adding questions the reader can speculate from the character's perspective. By that I don't mean a tool to solely fix or create problems, it can be a tool to simply make the world feel a lot bigger and way more to explore, soft magic systems allows you to introduce a wide variety of types of magic that has its own properties and conditions, but aren't fully understood even by its users at times, as if it's alive. Each corners of the worlds can have things be different. You can do that with a hard magic system too, but the more you explore the more you "check off a list" and places you've been to are done, rather than when a character leaves that area there's still a sense of wonder from it and that feeling of wanting to know more. Also it'd just take a lot of time unless you use something that already exists, but if the reader has experienced it beforehand then the whole feeling of exploration is gone beforehand. That said, a mix between the two is the go-to. Both can be used as tools for the author to create a story the way they want to and both are tools for the author to create a certain feeling for the reader. Hard magic gives the reader more control and when the author creates a problem the reader can follow it and even be struck by surprise when the character does something they didn't think of but makes sense. Whilst soft magic is meant to do the opposite but still be understandable, it's less an observation and a solution you can follow as much as a tool to set up a scene or the world itself almost like setting up an environment, where experiencing and feeling it is more important than knowing the "science" behind it, yet it doesn't feel completely unnatural and random even if it feels like it, like nature itself.

[@dondoloparisi5041]

I prefer soft magic systems just because hard magic systems have a feeling of craftsmanship to me that somehow takes the "magic" out of the magic.

[@Egeslean]

Have you read Brandon Sanderson's books? There is no lack of magic in those stories even though his Cosmere books are hard magic systems.

[@dondoloparisi5041]

@@Egeslean I tried Sanderson's books but - although I really appreciate his online lectures - it was exactly his hard magic systems that prevented me from really diving into his worlds.

[@matthewmuir8884]

What about when shows have both a hard magic and a soft magic system that go hand-in-hand? For instance, Avatar: the Last Airbender has bending as hard magic, and the Spirit World/"Avatar-Stuff" as soft magic, and the two/three go hand-in-hand. Similarly, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood has alchemy as hard magic (though most characters in the show call it a science), and Truth & the Gate of Truth as soft magic, and again; they go hand-in-hand.

[@Egeslean]

@@matthewmuir8884 Avatar's bending is also soft magic because it's inconsistent with what its protagonists can do vs what the other characters (basically NPC's) can do.

[@matthewmuir8884]

@@Egeslean I would disagree with both there being inconsistency and it being a factor even if it were the case. Also, what about Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood? There's no denying that alchemy in that show is hard magic while Truth and the Gate is soft magic?

[@glitchygear9453]

It can sometimes feel tedious talking to writing communities, even the most optimistic and supportive, because they're so attached to these rules and concepts of writing betterment... Concepts which, while helpful, are imperfect and have their many exceptions. Being too attached to a concept like Sanderson's Law and too unwilling to admit it doesn't apply here and there serves to the detriment of everyone, but especially amateurs like... Well, me. Listen, I'm a writer who always swings very psychological, and always deals in characters' traumas and failures. This is a stark contrast to the modern mainstream, which focuses on a character's successes and power more often than not. Even in psychological stories like Life is Strange, driven by trauma, the root focus is still on our protagonist's power to change circumstance, not on her struggle to live despite something out of her control. Soft magic, for me, is a tool I use to, as I always describe it, make the hidden and ignored a very visible reality. My favorite examples of this are Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai and the Bakemonogatari Series; though the latter has a few problematic elements which make it hard to recommend, if you're curious about why I say that, go watch Bunny Girl Senpai...'s first three episodes. Trust me, you can walk away after that, if you really want to. It's the perfect ending. Tim, if you're reading this, you mentioned how you used Spyro as an escape during a period of darkness. My own escape was to create stories for myself, and tell them, in my head. That was my coping mechanism. My motivation, as a writer, is to tell these same stories to others, to hopefully help others out of their own personal darkness, whether that be mental illness like myself, traumatic experiences, or just a bad habit or two, nothing more would make me happy than if I knew of even one person who was helped by my storytelling and its messaging. And, to accomplish this, I've always leaned hard on a system of soft magic or two. And yet whenever I ask for feedback within XYZ writing community, from the best to the worst, I always end up in this position where my helpers care almost nothing about how the magic system reflects and affects my character's traumas and lives, but instead how logical and rules-driven it's typically not, which serves to the explicit detriment of the conversation and advice. While It's objectively less important, I subjectively value this video far more than your mental illness commentary. It just means so much more to me than having people understand my mental issues, than it is to have a better opportunity to help others improve and cope with these issues. This is a video which I feel I'll come back to time and again, despite its length and relative lack of content, just because it can better explain to people what I can't. Thank you.

[@maxxam4665]

I feel you so much!

[@Lisa_Flowers]

Such a beautiful and well-expressed comment! Thank you for saying something i've never adequately expressed in words. I also write similar fiction and have used stories in my head to help me get through trauamatic times. I also hope to help others with those stories. And yes, it is unforunate that the writing community so often privileges certain types of approaches above others. I've found there's a tendency to favour this logic driven approach even when it comes to things like the writing process, where 'planning' is often seen as superior to 'pantsing', regardless of what works best for a particular person or story. It does seem though that professional writers themselves honour these differences more than online writing communities do at times - sometimes these norms and rules only exists in these confined spaces.

[@closeben]

+1 for using They Shall Not Grow Old footage.

[@IberiusFP]

Life is Strange! Dude this game is amazing! In time: Hard Magic (as someone said before) is somewhat fictional science. I'm DM of a D&D campaign with hard system for a long time now. Everyone knows what to expect and what can be pulled off using magic because (ahan....science) and it became kinda boring (when you can sort out every magic move or trick). I bought back excitement when some NPCs simply use magic that they don't understand (soft magic, away from the rules I setup for my world...).

[@kevingonzalez3673]

If you canot use magic missle, forget about it.

[@eliroth9978]

No u

[@HavocLoods]

How did you pull it off? I'm looking for a magic system that brings back genuine wonder and excitement, without being inconsistent.

[@kevingonzalez3673]

@@HavocLoods just make it up and do a sound effect.

[@FirstNameLastName-ug7rp]

Im writing a book and this vid randomly popped up in my feed. Actually solved alot of my issues. Thank you.

[@spartanalex9006]

Hot take: Hard magic isn't magic and is just a type of in universe science due to it being a calculable, constant, well understood, and studied thing that has little mystery left in it. I personally like how hard vs. soft magic is handled in the Nasuverse with there being the hard system of Magecraft which is said to be basically a science and True Magic which is neigh limitless in power and ability, but has been lost to time for the most part.

[@aliceliddell8413]

i mean, if you did the science we know now back in the middle ages people would say you're using magic magic is science

[@spartanalex9006]

@@aliceliddell8413 As a great Sci-Fi author once said, "Any significantly advanced science is indistinguishable from magic."

[@LightLukus]

Each and everytime, at the end of your video, I got the tought: "Oh, the tone is so enjoyable!" You're doing great and I enjoy the time you take for mental illness. As a former psychological degree student, I truly support your effort to promote the helpline. Keep on going. From QC, Canada.

[@samanthalacroix2687]

I am deeply touched by your compassion for others. Living in the US as of late I find such a noble virtue missing from so many and it is deeply refreshing to find that spirit is still alive.

[@JustAnArrogantAlien]

I personally have always preferred soft magic systems. I fully understand the advantages of hard magic and why a lot of people like it, but one of the qualities that I love about magic in fantasy is its mystery, its wonder, its other-worldliness. Hard magic annihilates that, because the more you understand a thing, the less wonderful and alluring it is. Hard systems turn magic into a sort of alien science, which isn't the effect I like to go for in my writing.

[@angusmayo4493]

I’ve always thought that the star wars prequels hardened the magic of the force so that instead of glorified flower power (like literally, telekinesis wasn’t even a part of the force back in episode iv), it was a tool with which the jedi could fight and do flips and stuff. One thing I really enjoyed about the sequel trilogy (especially the last jedi) is it went some way to make the force seem magical and undefined and capable of doing things we had no idea it could, creating more of a sense of awe around it. Like how in the originals almost every use of the force was something we hadn’t seen before so it was awesome to see. It’s a bit disappointing to me that so many star wars fans seemed to prefer the much more defined and (to me) less fascinating force of the prequels.

[@UtahSustainGardening]

I have only just discovered this channel today, but I am impressed by your deepness of thought and understanding the traumatic results of war and emotional damage. Thank you.

[@wraithreaper22]

Life is Strange is one of my favorite games ever and I took my time to complete it. Years actually. You get very invested in the characters. Seriously underrated game. ❤️💙

[@eliroth9978]

No u

[@xchronox0]

"...when I was going through some tough times and tough thoughts, I played Spyro." This hit hard. And honestly, I feel envious. The game I usually retreated to unfortunately wasn't a singleplayer game. It's now a dead online game.

[@darthfishiate2895]

I myself didn't manage to save Kate, because I and my friend remembered something wrong (i dunno what it was anymore, too long ago) and it was the hardest moment in the entire game. Even harder than the end of Part 5. We just stared at the screen for a few minutes. We said nothing, didn't move and sure as hell we shed some tears. Square Enix managed to pull this scene off so good. It was this scene that made me take in almost everything my friends are interested in, just to be able to better help them through hard times. Life Is Strange is by far my favourite game of all time and the soft magic system lets you explore things so well. Great video explaining the soft magic systems and thank you for stepping in for their defense c:

[@remnants9974]

Honestly, I like soft magic because it feels more mysterious, and well... magical. When everything is explained in detail, well it can be interesting to see a well thought out magic system and how it functions, but it loses the mysterious beauty of it. I like it to be a nebulous force that isn't so easy to explain or understand, though it can be hard to pull off in a story where you still want things to make sense, or want characters to be able to manipulate it.

[@Goblin4Coin]

"I'm a councillor in New Zealand" Me: "wait... I'm in New Zealand!"

[@inkscratch]

Soft magic is amazing because it also focuses on the symbolism and metaphor in the story. The magic can be as deep and literal as you read it to be, or it can be purely symbolic of the story being told. Soft magic gives your mind more room to interpret the story how you want, and it also leaves more mystery, and every story is better with mystery.

[@AScreenwritersJourney]

8:56 Be careful drinking "only energy drinks" for 24 hours. That could wreak havoc on your heart.

[@davidecarusone3333]

"Self care is important. That's why I'll stay awake streaming for 24 hours straight"

[@Lepong20]

I love this and I love you, I'm so sorry that I was a year late for your live stream I'm incredibly proud of the charity you choose to support. I've dealt with a lot of mental health problems my whole life so it means a lot that you support it like that

[@MrLegendofLP]

I was expecting a discussion on mechanically soft magic in a TTRPG. Not this beautifully written and presented video essay. Well done. Also how have I never heard of you?

[@bizarreworld2510]

So soft magic system for story focused on emotions and emotional trauma (like LOTR) and Hard magic for story focused on problem solving (like One Piece)