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I'm imagining a sort of magic that only manipulates probabilities. That is, you cannot achieve something that's against the laws of nature (for example, you cannot create energy out of nothing), bu...
#1: Initial revision
by
celtschk
·
2024-10-03T10:01:03Z (about 2 months ago)
What are reasonable limitations for probability-manipulating magic?
I'm imagining a sort of magic that only manipulates probabilities. That is, you cannot achieve something that's against the laws of nature (for example, you cannot create energy out of nothing), but you can make unlikely events more likely and likely events more unlikely (as a simple example, you can cause dice to fall on six far more often than they should). The strength of a wizard is then given by how much he can bend probability; with sufficient strength a wizard can do "thermodynamically impossible" tasks like heating up stuff without a heat source. Now I imagine that those with the ability can do it just with the power of their mind (maybe some quantum consciousness thing). This however raises two questions: * If you can do it with your mind, then why can't everyone do it, and why are there wizards with inherently different strengths? * Any magic should come with a cost (or else it would be overpowered). What would be a reasonable cost for this type of ability? It would be nice to find "natural" answers to those questions (that is, answers that don't seem arbitrary, but intrinsically linked to this type of magic).