Magic as a plot device

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but it's the one where the main character is accused of a crime that he hasn't yet commited.

Minority Report.

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Should they murder an innocent, the powerful magic will recall them back to eternal imprisonment, or have a nasty effect such as mutating him into some foul beast,

I would think more along the line of if they tray to even harm ANYONE the magic will kick in. Kind of like Spike in Buffe/Angel after he had the chip implatned in his head that caused him pain everytime he harmed a human.

Anyway, Magic as a plot device....

- magic is failing and you need to save it.
- magic is too strong and you need to curb it.
- a magic "tidal wave" causes a location to become super charged thus atracting dragons and other magical beasts that plage the local inhabitance.
- the sun has burned out and someone needs to gather/concentrate enough magic to re-ignite it.
- magic starts to cause people who use it to go insane, like in the Wheel of Time series by Rober Jordan.
- magical lay lines shift or migrate causing magical creatures to migrate with them.

Nice reply. You bring up some interesting ideas, and have actually made me recall an older idea I had. I think I moved on from it because it felt a bit too cliche, but I can see some potential for the kind of game I'm making.

To bring anyone up to speed who isn't familiar with my project, I'm starting to make a game which involves small groups of players. Basically a lot like neverwinter nights in premise, but (in my mind at least) correcting a few flaws with the concept to make it more accessible while allowing more potential. I wish to allow players to operate as players or GM's, and give GM's a huge amount of control over what happens, control of monsters, posession of NPC's to perform dialog (instead of scripted dummies), run time control of object and item properties, etc etc.

Without going into too much depth into the actual design of my system (which I have started to document while coding the level editor), an old (and extremely rough as I'm recalling it, not writing it afresh) storyline I had planned for it was as follows:

Magic gives the capability to do almost anything imaginable, but requires great lengths of study to do anything amazing with it. Long ago in times of legend, magic actually existed. Magic was deemed too dangerous for the world by the most powerful group of sorcerors, so in an effort to cleanse the world of its' corruptive nature the sorcerors utilised the power of the magic to create what essentially could be likened to a feedback loop, entrapping all magic inside an artefact, leaving but a slight hole for a trace of magic to escape and propel the artefact into the heavens away from Earth.

Now the story would focus on a modern day Earth, upon the return of the first manned mission to mars. The artefact would have been discovered and unwittingly, the power of magic is unleashed once again upon the Earth, but in so doing a mighty vortex is created centred around the location of the artefact. This vortex represents the magic streaming out of the artefact and returning to an equillibrium(sp?) with the planet. In areas within close proximity of the artefact, the line between fantasy and reality would be severly blurred.

Now, I know that the storyline is no amazing novel, but please note that it isn't intended to be, it is just my recollection of my original idea. The prupose of the above (which does need fleshing out) was to enable the use of a world where we can still use all the typical creatures/monsters/locations of a fantasy RPG, but we could also mix in futuristic or present day content. Every adventure could have a different setting. This could also allow for things such as different (or even parallel)progression in different settings. In a fantasy zone you may acquire an axe a shield and some nice shiny armour. In the future setting this may translate to a chainsaw, a kevlar vest and a riot shield. So essentially, your character changes depending which setting they are in, using an equivalent (but different) set of gear. I think this could be interesting in a networked RPG, but another reason for probably abandoning the idea is that it seems likely overly complex for a first RPG project.

I recalled the idea based on the part where you mentioned magical creatures migrating due to changing ley lines. As part of my idea was that the return of magic to the Earth caused the return of magical creatures such as ghosts, goblins, zombies, elves, etc.

Anyhoo, thanks for the input, it will certainly help as I can get a bit more down in my documentation based on what I've recalled which should help me plan my game a little better.

Anyways I hope there will be some more input!

Cheers,

Steve

What about a world where magic was fading and so this big beaurocracy carefully controlled who could use it and in what situation? People could be waiting months to get permission to light their fireplace. Lots of possibilities with the beaurocracy getting bribed by certain evil wizards and so on here. The player(s) could be trying to bring back magic as a previous poster mentioned, but would also be trying to fight the corruption in the system. Or perhaps the reason the magic is failing is that people used it too much in everyday tasks, not just when it was actually needed, and so the player(s) could be trying to get rid of magic once and for all so people would have to get off their butts and light their own fireplaces, incidentally restoring the balance of the world and making magic build up to a normal level again.

Alternatively, I've always wanted to see a game where elves and other fantasy beings never left the world (the great stories ALWAYS have them leaving the world at some point to explain why humans never find them), and they're an accepted part of the modern world. Not like Shadowrun. I'm talking about stuff like, an elf working at McDonald's. Oprah being a dwarf. An evil wizard sending goblins through a portal that goes into Wal-Mart so they can steal random stuff. We have enough race problems as it is now...imagine what we'd be like if elves and dwarves were our next door neighbors, and the geeky hacker girl across the street had a pet unicorn. :P

Final Fantasy 6 (3 in the USA).
The empire of Vector was gathering "Espers" and using them to produce Magic-based warmachines to assist in their conquest of the world.

Final Fantasy 7
The ShinRA corperation is a power-utility company that converts the magic life force of the planet into energy.

Final Fantasy 8
The SeeD military organization utilizes the magic Guardian Forces in their fight against "The Witches."

Just to name a few. I think you're on to something and just need to see it in play so solidify how you want top use it.