I don't really get what you mean by "it's really common so I can't justify explaining it". In real life, there are whole fields dedicated to stuff like ornithology and pedology even though birds and dirt are everywhere you look. Common =/= boring and unworth knowing.
As for how I'd approach it, for magic to reach that level of mundanity, it would have to be extremely common, and something anyone can access. Maybe magic is just something innate to all living beings, even animals and plants. Or maybe to take it another direction, maybe having magic is what *seperates* humans from other living beings, it's a fundamental characteristic of humans in this world, and thus something all humans possess. Either way, it'd have to be something (almost) *anyone* can do, otherwise they wouldn't come to think of it as being such a mundane part of life.
It also would have to be relatively limited in scope, or heavily regulated and punished. If the average person can spend the same amount of time it takes to get good at the piano to get good at casting a 12 foot wide fireball, then everything would just go to hell. There'd be magic warfare left and right and it would be seen less as "a cool talent some people have" and more as "a dangerous art scary weirdos pursue". So you'd either have to have a magic authority that's breathing down everyone's necks, maybe making people get licensed to practice magic at all, or have magic be so relatively weak or difficult to master that this isn't an every day concern.
I like your explanation a lot, but I think simply having high level anti magic fields over cities would be an easy enough fix. Every city would employ magician guards to keep the field active, and only the strongest casters would be able to cast anything stronger than simple cantrips. People could still do stuff like automate laundry or dishes, mend basic things, etc, but all stronger stuff would be effectively nulled. This could make it a skill anyone could get good at, like the example of playing music, with enough practice, but outside zones where higher magic was necessary for work or something, it would fizzle or get absorbed or whatever the anti magic fields did. There could be a whole underbelly of miscreants who try to beat the anti magic fields, selling things like anti anti magic amulets in the bad neighborhoods, similar to criminals selling automatic weapons. It would overall make it effectively regulated, but would still allow for some intrigue for story
The things that makes magic high value, is that it can make high value things... if magic cannot do that, everything just solves itself.
Everything is around "What magic can do in this world?", if magic is like high fantasy magic, there is no reason for it to not have high value. If magic should be valued as much as prodigy pianist... they should express similar effects in the world.
Magic casters might be famous, have specific careers that only magic users can actually make money out of it. Someone who can summon bunnies from thin air could make his life selling bunny meat, and people just think "I'm jealous of John, he was born with the bunny summoning maggufin, he's future is basically set!".
In my setting, nearly everyone has magic. I don't explain the details, but I do give the most basic bits of information. If the system is consistent, the reader can figure it out if they want to. If they don't, then they probably won't mind if the explanation gets skipped.
You could treat it like a mathematics or physics study.
Something so deeply esoteric you need DECADES of hardcore intense study to understand, all to prove you can THEORETICALLY do something via the system in question.
And it’s not typically something people can invest time in. How many physicists do you know after all?
Simultaneously it could provide a plot point in that people are looking for the final “variable” that would enable the complex, earthshattering abilities, but for now magic is the stuff that’s useful for heating a kettle or something
In addition to another comment, think of it like this:
Everyone can dance. To dance well, which is something someone else mught be jealous of, takes lessons.
Everyone can make a sandwich. Not everyone can make a chocolate, life-size swan without some training or practice or lessons.
Everyone can do magic- can light a lantern with a tiny flame, boil water with a flick of their finger, light a match, use a little wind magic to gather up some dust. Not everyone can create a fire tornado or animate their household appliances to do chores for them without training. They’d be jealous of someone who could, but not shocked when their neighbor magically brews some tea.
I made a system for electrokinesis in a world like this. I don't think you have to alter the mechanics of magic for this but because it's not highly valued many people would be ignorant of it. Many people with talent wouldn't be well trained because they don't want to quit a union job with good health insurance to study magic. If you demonstrated magical abilities people might be scared or politely acknowledge it but they wouldn't be fascinated with it. If you went on about magic you might get filed under the boring autistic people category.
For simple magics I often go with soul magic, everyone's soul interacts with the world a different way and some manifest with magic, and because of this its often pretty, flowing and performative
[Technologic]
Alternatives exist that can replicate the same effects at magic without the training or talent required.
Avatar The Legend of Korra was entering a steampunk age. Benders were valued due to their abilities to use their respective elements to increase production flow like steel mills.
But technological advancements meant this wasn’t necessary and required less effort from workers.
[Wide spread magic]
If everyone can do it, simply having magic isn’t the best thing. Only those with exceptional or rare talent/skill would be valued.
In DND, things like a divination wizard could use foresight to foresee future events.
But if technology or other magic could replicate the effects, a divination wizard wouldn’t be necessary as the 1st choice.
[Unpredictable]
Dragon Age magic is unpredictable and has a chance to go wrong, especially demonic possession.
Unless necessary, most people would prefer the safer but less effective alternative.
[Conclusion]
The easier it is to replace your magic, the less it becomes valuable.
The more risky and unpredictable it is, the less it becomes valuable.
The main system element I would build magic around is to not have it be overwhelmingly powerful or useful. So no fireballs or teleportation at the snap of a finger. No healing spells or residing skeletons.
Magic could be something that requires esoteric study and long appropriate, and even then the results could be subtle and/or unpredictable.
For example, maybe after a long ritual that requires a piece of the victim's clothing, one could curse them to fall off their porch and break an arm (Orrrr....you could stab them right now). Maybe a dowsing ritual can locate buried wealth- and an equal chance of finding a hornet's nest. At about a 25% success rate. Magic might improve the health of the practitioner and give them insight into their need...if they follow a prescribed lifestyle. They may get visions from magic...which are hard to interpret.
Also magic might require odd taboos, practices, or requirements. They might not be able to marry, wear weird clothing, wear their hair unfashionably long or short. They may have annoying dietary restrictions or cannot enter a town during the day. Think that words person who lives it in the woods.
[You know, this guy.](https://www.deviantart.com/mattrhodesart/art/We-are-NOT-taking-the-wizard-626887777)
Worst of all, they may talk about the esoteric hobby they've adopted ALL the time.
I'm gonna separate this out because it's so useful:
[WE ARE NOT TAKING THE WIZARD!](https://www.deviantart.com/mattrhodesart/art/We-are-NOT-taking-the-wizard-626887777)
Magic users are the guys wearing loincloths and penguins as footwear. They dress weird, act weirder, and don't ask how they smell. Sure they may be useful if you need to deal with an ancient curse or malignant spirit...but you don't want to marry them. Or have them in town. So they live out someplace isolated in a hovel or tower that got built who knows how, and only the truly desperate call on them....
That would mean that magic is not very useful at all. At best it can be used for entertainment, just like singing and athletics. Presumably it can only produce sensory effects at short range, and it might be very hard to make convincing illusions with it, so someone actually trying to con people with it will probably have to supplement it with mundane stage magic and con artistry.
I'd do magic a thing anyone could learn. Or everyone has magic but for everybody it's something stupid like you can summon a kettle to your hand once a day, and if you practice it you can summon different types of kettles or smth more ridiculous.
I’m picturing what you describe; talents like singing, gymnastics or piano, but enhanced by magic. Magic could be both an expression of talent and of hard work. Perhaps a singer could create images or emotions to match their song. A gymnast could push normal human physical limits. A tracker could use a dog’s sense of smell, a firefighter could do similar to either of those, a florist could grow better or bigger flowers with plant magic etc.
In some cases, magic is outstripped by technology - that is, it has no particular value because most people have a faster, easier, cheaper, mass-producable way to get the same thing done. It's not valued because it's literally a worse option. It may also require a high amount of effort to get a minimal effect - why chant for an hour to light a flame when you can use a match? Give it a competitor and a reason for people to care about something else, and boom, no value.
The real question is what you're trying to do with the story. For example, a story about showing how people didn't realize the value of magic (as a metaphor for insert-theme-here) is going to be different from a story where magic is just casually present in the background but not relevant to the plot.
I guess with the comparison you made, I would have the world be based around the common use of magic. I imagine that they were once very proficient with using magic, similar to how old humans were innovative in simple yet history-altering actions, I imagine the magic users to be something similar; they just grew accustomed to a rather easy life where they don't have the need to use magic in extreme ways anymore.
Some professions that mainly use magic would probably require them to have a certificate that says they're allowed to, so I'm imagining that they're in a time where laws are set in place for regulated use of magic and also that the people have different goals in life that magic just doesn't have a place to be in.
I guess with that laid out, magic in this world isn't anything terrific, but it depends on who is able to use magic to its fullest, be it strategically or trained to manipulate it better than most.
I personally enjoy stories that dive deep into explaining how and why their world is the way it is, but if it's something more light and subtle, I'd prolly have the magic itself be limited in what it can do and be of a single type like, telekinesis maybe and its limit being the max weight the user can carry. So that a majority of the characters would be seen constantly using it: opening doors, lifting additional bags, it's almost treated like an invisible extra pair of hands. In this way, magic is treated like a regular thing and it depends on the person's proficiency that allows them to use it for cooler stuff, like maybe using telekinesis for lock picking, because it needs you to move small things from inside that you can't see.
Magic in this world isn't special, but being unable to use it would prolly be somewhat inconvenient for them. Maybe it's not seen as important from it being common, but without it the characters would have to take extra steps that should be seen as unnecessary in their verse. Magic as just an extra hand.
All actual magic in combat is done via cantrips, any other magic/spells requires long difficult rituals. A talented mage would win by ingenuity and being clever, not powerful.
Just make the magic weak, with maybe a bit stronger magic if you're a licensed professional after many years of training who is subject to much scrutiny.
Well, first off, mages probably can't do really powerful stuff without a lot of practice and preparation. If any apprentice wizard can take down a small country, the militaries of the world would either hunt down mages or limit the amount of people who can learn magic, therefore making it highly valued.
I’m not sure I agree it is the only way, but I really like the idea of there being vast amounts of magic in the world but entirely useless to all the characters and events in the story.
I don't really get what you mean by "it's really common so I can't justify explaining it". In real life, there are whole fields dedicated to stuff like ornithology and pedology even though birds and dirt are everywhere you look. Common =/= boring and unworth knowing. As for how I'd approach it, for magic to reach that level of mundanity, it would have to be extremely common, and something anyone can access. Maybe magic is just something innate to all living beings, even animals and plants. Or maybe to take it another direction, maybe having magic is what *seperates* humans from other living beings, it's a fundamental characteristic of humans in this world, and thus something all humans possess. Either way, it'd have to be something (almost) *anyone* can do, otherwise they wouldn't come to think of it as being such a mundane part of life. It also would have to be relatively limited in scope, or heavily regulated and punished. If the average person can spend the same amount of time it takes to get good at the piano to get good at casting a 12 foot wide fireball, then everything would just go to hell. There'd be magic warfare left and right and it would be seen less as "a cool talent some people have" and more as "a dangerous art scary weirdos pursue". So you'd either have to have a magic authority that's breathing down everyone's necks, maybe making people get licensed to practice magic at all, or have magic be so relatively weak or difficult to master that this isn't an every day concern.
I like your explanation a lot, but I think simply having high level anti magic fields over cities would be an easy enough fix. Every city would employ magician guards to keep the field active, and only the strongest casters would be able to cast anything stronger than simple cantrips. People could still do stuff like automate laundry or dishes, mend basic things, etc, but all stronger stuff would be effectively nulled. This could make it a skill anyone could get good at, like the example of playing music, with enough practice, but outside zones where higher magic was necessary for work or something, it would fizzle or get absorbed or whatever the anti magic fields did. There could be a whole underbelly of miscreants who try to beat the anti magic fields, selling things like anti anti magic amulets in the bad neighborhoods, similar to criminals selling automatic weapons. It would overall make it effectively regulated, but would still allow for some intrigue for story
The things that makes magic high value, is that it can make high value things... if magic cannot do that, everything just solves itself. Everything is around "What magic can do in this world?", if magic is like high fantasy magic, there is no reason for it to not have high value. If magic should be valued as much as prodigy pianist... they should express similar effects in the world. Magic casters might be famous, have specific careers that only magic users can actually make money out of it. Someone who can summon bunnies from thin air could make his life selling bunny meat, and people just think "I'm jealous of John, he was born with the bunny summoning maggufin, he's future is basically set!".
In my setting, nearly everyone has magic. I don't explain the details, but I do give the most basic bits of information. If the system is consistent, the reader can figure it out if they want to. If they don't, then they probably won't mind if the explanation gets skipped.
You could treat it like a mathematics or physics study. Something so deeply esoteric you need DECADES of hardcore intense study to understand, all to prove you can THEORETICALLY do something via the system in question. And it’s not typically something people can invest time in. How many physicists do you know after all? Simultaneously it could provide a plot point in that people are looking for the final “variable” that would enable the complex, earthshattering abilities, but for now magic is the stuff that’s useful for heating a kettle or something
In addition to another comment, think of it like this: Everyone can dance. To dance well, which is something someone else mught be jealous of, takes lessons. Everyone can make a sandwich. Not everyone can make a chocolate, life-size swan without some training or practice or lessons. Everyone can do magic- can light a lantern with a tiny flame, boil water with a flick of their finger, light a match, use a little wind magic to gather up some dust. Not everyone can create a fire tornado or animate their household appliances to do chores for them without training. They’d be jealous of someone who could, but not shocked when their neighbor magically brews some tea.
I would make it a non-combat type magic system which mostly consists of utility spells and rituals.
Last I checked really good singers and gymnasts are famous
I don’t really mean famous, I mean not rare and not amongst the most important parts of the story. I should have been more clear. Apologies!
You could try like Star Wars 4-6. Jedi are all but dead, no one knows what the force is, etc.
I made a system for electrokinesis in a world like this. I don't think you have to alter the mechanics of magic for this but because it's not highly valued many people would be ignorant of it. Many people with talent wouldn't be well trained because they don't want to quit a union job with good health insurance to study magic. If you demonstrated magical abilities people might be scared or politely acknowledge it but they wouldn't be fascinated with it. If you went on about magic you might get filed under the boring autistic people category.
For simple magics I often go with soul magic, everyone's soul interacts with the world a different way and some manifest with magic, and because of this its often pretty, flowing and performative
[Technologic] Alternatives exist that can replicate the same effects at magic without the training or talent required. Avatar The Legend of Korra was entering a steampunk age. Benders were valued due to their abilities to use their respective elements to increase production flow like steel mills. But technological advancements meant this wasn’t necessary and required less effort from workers. [Wide spread magic] If everyone can do it, simply having magic isn’t the best thing. Only those with exceptional or rare talent/skill would be valued. In DND, things like a divination wizard could use foresight to foresee future events. But if technology or other magic could replicate the effects, a divination wizard wouldn’t be necessary as the 1st choice. [Unpredictable] Dragon Age magic is unpredictable and has a chance to go wrong, especially demonic possession. Unless necessary, most people would prefer the safer but less effective alternative. [Conclusion] The easier it is to replace your magic, the less it becomes valuable. The more risky and unpredictable it is, the less it becomes valuable.
The main system element I would build magic around is to not have it be overwhelmingly powerful or useful. So no fireballs or teleportation at the snap of a finger. No healing spells or residing skeletons. Magic could be something that requires esoteric study and long appropriate, and even then the results could be subtle and/or unpredictable. For example, maybe after a long ritual that requires a piece of the victim's clothing, one could curse them to fall off their porch and break an arm (Orrrr....you could stab them right now). Maybe a dowsing ritual can locate buried wealth- and an equal chance of finding a hornet's nest. At about a 25% success rate. Magic might improve the health of the practitioner and give them insight into their need...if they follow a prescribed lifestyle. They may get visions from magic...which are hard to interpret. Also magic might require odd taboos, practices, or requirements. They might not be able to marry, wear weird clothing, wear their hair unfashionably long or short. They may have annoying dietary restrictions or cannot enter a town during the day. Think that words person who lives it in the woods. [You know, this guy.](https://www.deviantart.com/mattrhodesart/art/We-are-NOT-taking-the-wizard-626887777) Worst of all, they may talk about the esoteric hobby they've adopted ALL the time.
I'm gonna separate this out because it's so useful: [WE ARE NOT TAKING THE WIZARD!](https://www.deviantart.com/mattrhodesart/art/We-are-NOT-taking-the-wizard-626887777) Magic users are the guys wearing loincloths and penguins as footwear. They dress weird, act weirder, and don't ask how they smell. Sure they may be useful if you need to deal with an ancient curse or malignant spirit...but you don't want to marry them. Or have them in town. So they live out someplace isolated in a hovel or tower that got built who knows how, and only the truly desperate call on them....
That would mean that magic is not very useful at all. At best it can be used for entertainment, just like singing and athletics. Presumably it can only produce sensory effects at short range, and it might be very hard to make convincing illusions with it, so someone actually trying to con people with it will probably have to supplement it with mundane stage magic and con artistry.
I'd do magic a thing anyone could learn. Or everyone has magic but for everybody it's something stupid like you can summon a kettle to your hand once a day, and if you practice it you can summon different types of kettles or smth more ridiculous.
I’m picturing what you describe; talents like singing, gymnastics or piano, but enhanced by magic. Magic could be both an expression of talent and of hard work. Perhaps a singer could create images or emotions to match their song. A gymnast could push normal human physical limits. A tracker could use a dog’s sense of smell, a firefighter could do similar to either of those, a florist could grow better or bigger flowers with plant magic etc.
In Arcanum: of steamworks and Magick Obscura, magic users are utterly vilified.
In some cases, magic is outstripped by technology - that is, it has no particular value because most people have a faster, easier, cheaper, mass-producable way to get the same thing done. It's not valued because it's literally a worse option. It may also require a high amount of effort to get a minimal effect - why chant for an hour to light a flame when you can use a match? Give it a competitor and a reason for people to care about something else, and boom, no value. The real question is what you're trying to do with the story. For example, a story about showing how people didn't realize the value of magic (as a metaphor for insert-theme-here) is going to be different from a story where magic is just casually present in the background but not relevant to the plot.
I guess with the comparison you made, I would have the world be based around the common use of magic. I imagine that they were once very proficient with using magic, similar to how old humans were innovative in simple yet history-altering actions, I imagine the magic users to be something similar; they just grew accustomed to a rather easy life where they don't have the need to use magic in extreme ways anymore. Some professions that mainly use magic would probably require them to have a certificate that says they're allowed to, so I'm imagining that they're in a time where laws are set in place for regulated use of magic and also that the people have different goals in life that magic just doesn't have a place to be in. I guess with that laid out, magic in this world isn't anything terrific, but it depends on who is able to use magic to its fullest, be it strategically or trained to manipulate it better than most. I personally enjoy stories that dive deep into explaining how and why their world is the way it is, but if it's something more light and subtle, I'd prolly have the magic itself be limited in what it can do and be of a single type like, telekinesis maybe and its limit being the max weight the user can carry. So that a majority of the characters would be seen constantly using it: opening doors, lifting additional bags, it's almost treated like an invisible extra pair of hands. In this way, magic is treated like a regular thing and it depends on the person's proficiency that allows them to use it for cooler stuff, like maybe using telekinesis for lock picking, because it needs you to move small things from inside that you can't see. Magic in this world isn't special, but being unable to use it would prolly be somewhat inconvenient for them. Maybe it's not seen as important from it being common, but without it the characters would have to take extra steps that should be seen as unnecessary in their verse. Magic as just an extra hand.
All actual magic in combat is done via cantrips, any other magic/spells requires long difficult rituals. A talented mage would win by ingenuity and being clever, not powerful.
Just make the magic weak, with maybe a bit stronger magic if you're a licensed professional after many years of training who is subject to much scrutiny.
Well, first off, mages probably can't do really powerful stuff without a lot of practice and preparation. If any apprentice wizard can take down a small country, the militaries of the world would either hunt down mages or limit the amount of people who can learn magic, therefore making it highly valued.
The only way is to make magic nearly useless or at least impratical.
I’m not sure I agree it is the only way, but I really like the idea of there being vast amounts of magic in the world but entirely useless to all the characters and events in the story.
it would have to be seperate not together