IsaaKc

Preface

        Before I begin this guide, I want to address something that I know is going to show up in the comments of this thread. Voidal Magic, in its current position, is very flawed both structurally and thematically. The Void, a metaphysical body that holds terrors and cold, bitter truths incomprehensible to the average joe, is being misappropriated to serve as a narrative explanation as to how Mages sling fireballs around. Additionally, many of the Magicks encompassed in Voidal Magic have their own flaws and inconsistency. This, I all acknowledge and am in concurrence with. I wish for change just as much as you do. That being said, I believe it wise to make the best of the situation you're given, which is why I have decided to write this guide for an objectively flawed subtype of Magic.

The Mage's Influence on New Players

        What goes unrealized by many on the server is how Mage personas impact fresh players that have just joined. I wanted to get this out of the way, as I consider this a cornerstone of why this guide is necessary. Simply put, new players often look to Mages for roleplay guidance. Picture this:

        You just logged onto the server after learning you got accepted. Excited to find people to interact with, you quickly rush out of the Cloud Temple after setting up your character card and find yourself confronted by an Orenian human, aiming to recruit you for the ISA. You consider the offer in roleplay and exchange Discord tags, then continue on with your journey. After running down the roads for awhile, you run into about four players, all exchanging emotes with one another. Among them is a Mage, muttering an incantation and hurling a large ice spike towards the presumed aggressor's chest. Immediately, as an impressionable new player, you're amazed at the scene. This person is a mage, they must be caught up in SOME sort of interesting situation since they're doing Magic RP, you think. Once the altercation settles, you eagerly begin talking to the Mage and querying their Arcane ability, hungry to know more. Before you know it, you're following them into the local tavern for further conversation.

        Of course, this is often not the case, but due to LotC's notoriety for Magic related lore, new players may generally look to Mages for guidance in the new world that they're immersing themselves in. Chances are, you, a Mage, may have more influence over what a new player's next action is over a human or dwarf that's trying to recruit them. This is why it's so damn important that Mages set a good precedent for roleplay. The way you present how Magic is roleplayed on the server and how your character interacts with it will quite possibly be their first impression of the server, and possibly even roleplay as a whole. This isn't a jab or assertion of superiority over non-magical playerbases, but its just a common trend and it is what it is: new players are very very often drawn to Magic roleplay.

So What's the Problem?

        Listing every difficulty with the current Voidal Magic playerbase would take away the purpose of this guide, so I'll simply point out what I believe to be the key issues as to why Mages are played so poorly as of the past few years. I've narrowed it down to three core problems:

        - The trend of Magic being scientific in roleplay and little attempt to break away from it

        - A lack of player-created cultures/motives

        - Its use as OOC Empowerment and minmaxing

"Scientific" Magic Roleplay

        If you don't understand what I'm talking about when I say scientific Magic roleplay, I mean the most common descriptions of Voidal Magic by Mages. The kind of things you hear in roleplay that go along the lines of "Evocation is a subtype of Voidal Magic that allows the user to manifest pure elements by picturing them in the Void and drawing them into the material realm," or "Transmutation is a subsect of Transfiguration that gives Mages the ability to manipulate the Mana makeup of an object, such as changing its temperature, shape, color, and density," and stuff that looks like it came straight out of a lore post without any regard for in-universe interpretation.

        To be completely fair, this problem isn't unique to recent Voidal Mages. This is the result of older Mages and the precedents for roleplay they set—some of which have expressed regret for aiding in the creation of this style. This style was passed down from teacher to student through several generations, and as a consequence, has led a very bland and non-whimsical way of Magic roleplay—hardly even "magical" due to how over explained it all is.

Be Vague and Whimsical

        It can be difficult to change the way you express something in roleplay, but the best advice I can offer as a solution to over-scientific Voidal Magic roleplay is to take a step back and look at what makes Magic so enjoyable in other media. Let's take Star Wars as an example (spoilers ahead for the +40 year old movie franchise). In the Original Trilogy, the Force is displayed as something otherworldly and autonomous, acting in mysterious ways. It may be as subtle as sending visions to characters when danger draws near, or seen as crude displays in which its users may channel the Force to manipulate people and the environment. There isn't ever a solid, defined explanation for what the Force exactly is. All the viewer and characters know is that is just is. 

        However, this changes with the Prequel Trilogy that came out a little over twenty years later. It was "revealed" that one's ability to use the Force was now determined by the amount of microorganisms—dubbed "midichlorians"—they had in their body. This drew away from the mystical and ominous nature of the Force, as it now seemed that one's prowess with such was much more scientific and less "magical." I see this as similar to the problem Voidal Magic roleplay is plagued with at the moment. Too much science and overelaboration leads to a dull experience. It's much more fun to fill in the blanks yourself rather than have some stuffy explanation forced down your throat.

        Try to put yourself in this mindset. Have your character come up with their explanations and theories on how Magic works that don't operate off of over-scientific tomfoolery. Have debates over it in roleplay, write books about it, share those books, incorporate your character's theories and theses into their teaching, passing the knowledge down to your apprentices for them to build upon and teach. When someone asks you, "what is Evocation?" in roleplay, maybe you'll say "Evocation is the manifestation of elements dependent on your emotional well being and willpower" or "Evocation is a gift that my family have been passed down for generations as a tool to enact our will and keep our bloodline prospering." In essence, don't just reword what the lore says—put yourself in the shoes of your character and create some sort of analogy or logic in their eyes that explains why they have their Magic and how it works.

Lack of Culture and Motive

        One of the most common complaints I see among Mages is that the Lore Team never wants to give them anything interesting to do with their Magic, and that the Lore Team only mean to constantly beat down on Voidal Magic like a worn out punching bag. This is not the case. Voidal Magic encompasses what are effectively neutral Magicks that have no obligation to Dark or Holy beings, and thus are perfect for persona interpretation and the creation of culture. This sort of goes hand-in-hand with the problem of over-scientific roleplay. Because everyone is stuck in this mindset that Magic must be roleplayed one specific way, unique cultures fail to develop among groups of players, and when they do, they don't last long usually.

        Just as often as I see a presence of culture, I rarely see quality incorporation of Magic into a character's goals or motives. This results in people basing their character entirely around Magic and nothing else. Ideally, your Magic shouldn't define your character, but your character should define Magic.  Your character's actions shouldn't necessarily be act towards Magic, but instead your character's goals and motives could be influenced and enacted through Magic.

Incorporation of Culture and Motives into Roleplay

        As I said, the fact that Voidal Magic is very loose and abstract in how it may be interpreted, there's nothing stopping your character from building up cultures around such. Maybe among your Mage associates, create a sort of hierarchy that allows Mages to be seen through a different lens. In another example, a group of elitist Mage aristocrats could form a political party within a city, the aim being to take control of it and better it through the use of the Arcane.

       These sort of motives and cultures can be even more easily expressed and create narratives of RP than can affect everyone with the introduction of recently accepted world lore and Feats that give Mages even more freedom, allowing a myriad of intriguing narratives to be produced. Take Voidal Tear lore, for example. Although there isn't direct motive or reason to create a Voidal Tear within the lore itself, a Mage may have numerous reasons personalized to their own hopes and objectives, such as an old wrinkly elf sorcerer giving up hope in the world, and thus looking to open Voidal Tears as a means of drawing an apocalypse nearer, or a crazed dwarf seeking communion with Horrors, and ripping holes in the Veil as a medium of potential contact.

       To summarize, the most dynamic way to incorporate culture and character motive into your Magic is to make things up (so long it doesn't break any lore). Think about the bigger picture and how your narratives could not only impact you and your fellow Mages, but other personas outside of your cliques. There's plenty of room for Voidal Magic to create interesting narratives. You're the painter, and Magic is simple the brush.

OOC Empowerment and Minmaxing

        Let's tackle the elephant in the room—minmaxing and empowerment of your character for OOC reasoning. If you're unfamiliar with the term "minmaxing," it's a meta term on LotC for the act of filling up all five of your Magic "slots", often quickly, with arts that are the most expansive and/or may provide an ideal advantage in combat. This phenomenon is not unique to Voidal Magic, but is most commonly seen in Voidal Mages. Instead of promoting roleplay, collecting Magic like baseball cards becomes a sort of game to get an edge in a particular sector on the server. It should also be noted that just because all of one's slots are full, does not always have a correlation with that player minmaxing. Minmaxing is something that will never be entirely eradicated on the server as it is entirely based on what kind of player you are, but it is best to be constantly decouraged.

        The issue with minmaxing is that it largely waters down roleplay and turns any sort of Magical discussion in character into an argument over who has the best Yu-Gi-Oh cards. What could be a tasteful discussion between two Mages on their own theories and study is instead a superiority contest based on who has more slots filled or "better" Magic, which not only hurts your own characters' narratives, but those around you.

        Be Thematic and Consistent

        I'm guilty of having minmaxed too, I won't lie. That being said, through my wrongs, I've found that OOC-based motive for power be averted through limiting your character's MA slots and being incredibly chaste when your persona picks up a new magic. I would like to clarify that this doesn't mean it's bad, per se, to occupy all five of your slots, but each selection should be considered carefully from an OOC perspective. The reason being that through picking up Magic that often goes hand-in-hand with the theme of your character, you are limiting how much room you have to minmax and pick up "ideal" Magic.

       To further elaborate on this, let's say that your Mage is a thirty year-old farfolk. He's garnered lots of experience and wisdom through the past twenty years, and gives off a very calm and collected demeanor, deeming it best to act with effective, yet organized means. This attribute is reflected through his use of Water Evocation—a very fluid, serene, yet effective means of Magic in combat. Now, let's say that upon entering a city and meeting some new folk, he's offered Fire Evocation by a teacher. Would it make any sense thematically for one who is calm, composed, and wise to pick up something as destructive and volatile (literally) as Fire Evocation? Sure, it would be an ironic contrast, but it wouldn't make much sense for the character at their current age and state.

        This isn't to say that a Magic couldn't be picked up as an intentional polar opposite of their character's personality, (such as a very gullible, naïve, push-over Dark Elf learning Earth Evocation, which is durable and tough) and could actually work quite well if executed correctly. However, the reality of the situation is that most Mages pick up Magic offered to them with no regard for how their characters may actually perceive the Magics. They accept MAs because they want them, not the character itself.

        When all is said and done, you're much more likely to create interesting, complex characters through limiting your Magical knowledge intentionally and being conservative in what sort of arts your character decides to practice. Maybe your Mage doesn't know every spell in the lore, or maybe your Mage wasn't aware of the effects of a niche Magical creation that you just heard about in roleplay. You don't have to be the "scholarly Mage" that knows everything and has the capability to DO everything.

Things to Remember

        - Don't feel trapped within the standard of roleplay that old Mages have built up and contemporary Mages continue to enforce.

        - Be creative and have your character create their own theories and laws surrounding Magic, even if it's ridiculous and easily falsifiable from an OOC perspective.

        - When you read Voidal Magic lore, read in-between the lines and ponder on what sort of narratives could be crafted—don't limit yourself to just what the lore intends/allows (don't powergame, that's not what I'm asking you to do).

        - Don't let Magic define your character, let your character define their Magic and incorporate it into their motives and long-term goals.

        - You don't have to know everything about your Magic in roleplay. If your character wasn't taught a specific spell and they see another Mage use it, act intrigued or surprised.

        - Be chaste when selecting Magic to learn on your character and ensure that it ties in with their own personality/attributes in some way.

        - Create narratives not strictly for your own enjoyment or empowerment, but keep a bigger picture in mind and think about how you can impact roleplay outside of your niche/group.

Purpose

        As I said in the beginning of this post, Voidal Magic is in a rock and a hard place right now. We hope for a resolution, but in the meantime I want to give misguided Mage players a push in the right direction and broaden their perspective a tad. As someone who had been doing the exact opposite of what I've specified in this guide for around the past three years, I like to think that I know what I'm talking about, and I hope that my experience can be carried on and passed down to others as fuel to correct bad habits within Mages and produce narratives that can bring something to the table that most people can enjoy.

Credits

Isaac - Author

Pundimonium, Spoon, Snow - Helped me organize my thoughts a bit better

ScreamingDingo - Various rants in Lore Discord that gave me an idea of what needed to be addressed in this guide.