@indi This. Thisthisthisthis.

This is what I want. Absolutely.

@literorrery @indi It's not quite /that/ syncretic, but have you looked at The Magician's Reflection, by Bill Whitcomb?
He wrote The Magician's Companion specifically as a huge encyclopedia of magical systems comparisons.
Reflection is more narrowed down: it's a specific manual on how to build your own magical system, and make it rigorous and work for you.

I've only read it in fits and starts and bits and pieces, like everything, but what I did read has been helpful.

@emanate @literorrery Yeah, this is probably one I should read. I've been shying away from it because I have found that pure-theory texts don't give me what I need to work with, but maybe now I have enough grounding of my own to get more out of it?

@indi @literorrery It's meta-theory, rather than pure theory. But I know what you mean, yeah.

@emanate Oh right also I haven't read it because there's no ebook.

Can I borrow your copy sometime?

@indi @emanate I think I have a copy, too; absolutely it can get loaned out. We just have to locate it on the shelf.

@indi Sure! Kinda surprised there's not one, but... *shrug* I think that press in general doesn't do that.

@emanate Well, for Magician's Companion I would not WANT an ebook.

I mean, if it was an entire app, the quality of that one cocktail book/app I have, that'd be one thing, but... that's a pretty tall order.

@indi Yeah, fair. It's more useful as a reference thing you can bookmark and scribble in the margins. :-}

@literorrery So, what's step 1?

Maybe a list of common magical operations that multiple folks independently write implementations of?

@indi I would say that, and the _briefest_ of nods towards "what problems magic systems are meant to address/explore." If this is longer than a page, we did it wrong, but an intro of "why this idea is important" (because it closes the gap between "anything can be a system" and "here's the book of All the Spells There Are" with little means from getting from A to B) I think will help establish what we're trying to accomplish.

@literorrery Yeah. I think one thing that's important, Design Pattern style, is to say 'this is the scenario where this is useful' rather than anchoring on specific terms.

Case-study: As a spirits-first practitioner, the focus lots of ceremonial paths put on 'banishing' makes me kinda twitchy. In general it often seems to be talking more about personal cleansing and alignment with the subject of focus, but, y'know, I think it's really useful to call that out.

@literorrery "You want to open a ritual, that means you need to ensure X, Y, and Z. This is how the Clockwork Alchemist does it, this is how the Plushie Spiritworker does it" ;)

@indi Exactly. Language is going to matter a lot, and we're going to need to find ways to explore these ideas that are value-neutral for most cases, but that will itself help show the "pattern" nature.