Note: this is me, verbally throwing up ideas on the page. They aren't thought out. I'm writing as I go and will refine later. Some of them contradict themselves or other ideas expressed. Some of them are even really bad ideas or obvious misconceptions in retrospect. That said...

Back when we were playing our game of Dark Sun with Donjon's rules, one of the issues I ran into and never liked was the openness of magic and the number of Spell Dice one could roll for one-word spells.

Given it was Dark Sun and all characters traditionally have psychic abilities, everyone had at least one Magic Word which represented some minor psychic ability. Two of the characters were also straight-up psychics: one was a warrior-priestess and the other was a wandering monk of the Way (a philosophy-religion followed by the psychics of the setting).

The problem was having just one or two words made supernatural abilities...well, weird. One of my monk's words was "stone", and frankly, I could do a whole lot with just that word. I used it to throw rocks, bring the stone ceiling crashing down, mentally incapacitate opponents, increase my defense, create a giant stone hand to hold opponents, and turn things to stone.

This bothered me because the word is meaningless by itself and must be interpreted in order to work, and so you have to add other words in order to describe the actual effect (which always felt like cheating to me).

The other thing is that since you use Magic Words to base spells on, you spend more dice to add more Magic Words to a spell, but at a reduced number of dice. It seemed to me this was backwards because you always had more effectiveness with one-word spells than with multi-word spells, so why ever use multiple-word spells? It seemed multiple word spells should be more powerful and common, not less, and the more dice you should receive to roll for them.

On reflection, maybe it isn't so backwards, as you can cause more effects at once with more powerful (ie: multi-word) spells, forcing the opposition to roll multiple times against what is essentially one action on your part.

Still, the incredibly open nature of the Magic Words bothers me.

My hack is adding/codifying Magic Phrases and Spells.

A character still gains Magic Words, but instead of being able to use them for whatever you would like, you must clearly describe the general effects of that word (ie: a Spell). You get one described Spell per Magic Word. These described Spells must be tied to at least one Magic Word and must be based on a reasonable application of the word, but you don't have to make one Spell per Word. You can have Words without spells.

What if you don't use a Spell to define a Magic Word or you want to do something you haven't defined as a Spell with a Word or set of Words?

You can still make your Magic Words do other things than you've defined, but the opposition has three extra dice to roll against you in contests to resist the effects of that Word(s) -- or you roll three less dice, whichever is easiest.

Additionally, if the use of the Word is a real contextual stretch or the combination of Magic Words used do not generally and clearly describe the desired effect, the opposition gains another two bonus dice.

Note that combining Words to make new Spells is different from combining Words to create multiple effect Spells.

You can combine as many Words as you would like to cause a single effect and so avoid the die penalty for vague/indefined Word usage (ex: "Fiery" is vague, unless you add another word or two to describe exactly what the Word does), or you can combine Words for multi-effect results with the die penalty.

The more applicable the Words used from your list to the current situation, the more bonus dice you gain during a roll. For example, you could use "Mend", or you could use "Mend Sword" and gain a bonus die or "Mend Broken Sword" and gain two bonus dice.

I'd strikethrough all the following, but that's messy. Just pretend I did.

Some examples, because that's not at all clear:

Azar has the Words: Fiery, Cloud, Madness, Gnawing, Reversal.

He has defined the following Spells:

- Azar's Fiery Cascade: causes flames to rise around the target(s) and burn them, causing damage. (Fiery)
- Undeniable Racial Role Reversal: causes hostile target(s) to view and obey the caster as their leader. (Reversal)
- Hellish Fiery Cloud of Gnawing Madness: creates a fiery cloud around the target(s) that causes fire damage to the target(s), inspires a deep hunger for flesh, confuses the target(s) into attacking (and trying to eat) the first creature they see, and reduces the caster's chance of being the target. (Cloud)
- Fiery Reversal: removes the damage done by fire to any burned object or individual and restores it to its pre-burned condition. (Reversal)
- Some Other Spell: does something. (Madness)

As you can see, Azar has defined five Spells, but has not defined a Spell for Gnawing. If he uses Gnawing, he will always suffer the three die penalty for using an undefined Word until he uses Gnawing to define a Spell.

Additionally:
- Azar can add another Word to any Spell to either gain a situational bonus die (adding Cloud to Fiery Reversal to help affect an area rather than an object or set of objects), or add an additional effect at the cost of one Spell Die (or three dice if the Word use doesn't match a defined usage/is a stretch).
- Azar can use a Word instead of a Spell at a three die penalty (ex: using "Fiery" to create a campfire or light a torch) or a five die penalty if the Word use is a stretch (ex: using "Fiery" to inflame the spirits of his comrades; note that he could define a new Spell later that utilizes this meaning to thereafter avoid the two die penalty for non-defined Word use).
- Azar can (I forget where I was going with this).

End the ridiculous fake strikethrough here.

Obviously, this makes verbs the most valuable words for low-level casters: run, jump, hide, mend, break, etc. While nouns become more useful at higher levels when they can be combined to make new spells.

This means you aren't rolling ridiculous numbers of dice just for using a broadly-applicable single Magic Word like "Fiery" or "Stone", at least not without having a described spell or spending dice to add more Magic Words. It also means not using a one-trick word like "stone" to manage a variety of incredible and dangerous effects at high numbers of dice.

Comments? Problems? Clarifications?