Magic
ForeSight's magic — descended from HindSight & the Age of Reason (1987) — is generative: you don't pick a spell off a list, you compose an effect from the Applications of one or more Fundamentals. It is versatile to the point of danger, which is why the first rule of magic isn't a rule at all — it's a decision the GM makes about the world.
First, decide what magic is in this world
Magic shapes a setting more than any other system, so ForeSight's transparency principle bites hardest here: magic's reach must be an explicit choice, never an accident. Before anyone casts anything, the GM sets three dials:
| Dial | The question | Runs from… |
|---|---|---|
| Common | Who can do it? | no one · a rare few · commonplace |
| Powerful | How far does it reach? | parlour tricks · real force · world-shaking |
| Prominent | Does the world know? | hidden/feared/illegal · an open, ordinary craft |
These compose into the setting's Magic level (the character sheet's magic axis: none · rare-weak · rare · common-weak · common), and they change the world, not just the rules. A setting where a reliable truth-spell exists is a different world — its courts, its spies, its secrets all work differently. Decide that on purpose.
How casting works — gather, then weave
Magic runs on two skills, and the split is the whole engine:
- Mana — you gather the energy an effect needs. This is the roll that meters cost: it's the Exhaustion gather-roll, so reaching for a firestorm in a mana-poor place is simply more exhausting than a candle-flame in a mana-rich one.
- Incantation — you weave the gathered energy into the effect. Its difficulty tracks the effect's complexity, not its size.
Complexity and energy are separate axes. A big, simple effect (a wall of flame) is energy-hungry — that's what rituals buy: time traded for the power to gather more. A small, intricate effect (a subtle, conditional glamour) is complexity-hungry — that's a hard weave no amount of ritual makes trivial. Snap-casting is the reverse trade: speed bought with a harsh ease-factor penalty.
Effects are composed from Fundamentals
A Fundamental is a Field of Magical Knowledge (so it obeys the Fields rules — Basic covers the easy end, Advanced the deep). Each Fundamental offers a set of Applications, each rated by an Intensity (its difficulty and mana flux). A Magical Effect is one core application plus any number of modifiers — a spell and its metaspells — assembled just like modifying any other object in ForeSight. An effect is only ever as good as its meanest part: its range and duration are the smallest of its components'. The GM adjudicates whether the combination actually produces the intended effect.
There are 23 Fundamentals, each with its own page and its applications laid out as a table and cards (browse them below) — or, if you know the effect you want but not where it lives, find any effect by name or description across all of them.
Keeping it balanced — the keystones
Because the system is generative, balance can't live in a spell list; it lives in a handful of principles the GM applies to any effect a player invents:
- Conscious targets resist direct magic. An unwilling or unaware mind intrinsically resists a spell aimed at it — magic gets no free pass on people, which is what keeps "I charm the king" from ending campaigns.
- Coercion is never cheaper than consent. Bending someone against their will always costs more than the same thing done with their agreement.
- Bestowal is gated per effect — whether an effect is controlled (you steer it live), bestowed (handed to a target or item), fixed, or immediate is priced separately, because a fire you throw once and a fire you grant someone forever are not the same purchase.
- Benchmark against the mundane. Judge an effect against what a skilled person does without magic — in combat, a good archer; socially, ask what the world becomes if the effect is reliable (a reliable truth-detector is transformative, and priced as such).
- Price the capability, not its costume. Two effects that accomplish the same thing cost the same, however differently they're dressed.
Designer's Note: the point of a generative system is that players surprise you — four playtesters once found four different ways to conjure an instant fortress in about two minutes. That's a feature, but only if the GM prices the capability rather than the flavour, and only if magic can't quietly do to the setting what the GM never agreed to. Everything above exists to keep "you can build anything" from becoming "so nothing matters."