Hello, everyone! As some of you may know, I'm designing my own Pen and Paper Role Playing Game, and one of the design goals of this game is that, despite being in a fantasy/sci-fi setting, it will have a detailed guideline of how the setting's physics work. In other words, I want my game's setting to be in a functional universe, which is why I want to learn about physics. That said, I'm not very learned in physics; the most formal education I have is one college course about technical physics. This question, however, is a lot simpler than most questions I may ask here: How closely related are the concepts of Electricity and the Electromagnetic Spectrum? The reason I want to know this is because, in my game's setting, magic is really just a psionics-like application of science, and I want to know if magic involving electricity belongs in the same study as magic involving light and such, or if they should be separated into two different magic colleges. Thanks in advance for any help provided.
[I must stressed that, of the physics subjects, Electromagnetism is my worse, so it's best to wait for some other users to provide some more detailed explanations] Basically Electricity: A result when there is electric current, when there is moving charges such as electrons Electromagnetic spectrum=light=Electromagnetic waves=Oscillating electric and magnetic fields There are related because electric charges (like electrons), respond to electric fields. For example like charges repel, unlike charges attract. This is because (in classical electromagnetism) positively charged particles will accelerate (be pushed) along the direction of electric field lines (conversely for negatively charged particles). MOVING charges, also respond to magnetic fields, and they will be deflected in a perpendicular direction to its direction of travel in a certain way (e.g. if an electron travel forward, and magnetic field is directing from the left, then it will be deflected downwards). STATIONARY charges do not respond to magnetic field, other than its spin (a quantum property of particle that make them act like little magnets) will align or anti align with the magnetic field So back to your context, you can have light magic of various types affecting magic of electric nature, because of how electric charges and electromagnetic waves (light=visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum) interact in ways governed by electromagnetism If you start to throw in relativity, than magnetic fields and electric fields can be transformed into one another, depend on whether you are moving relative to your target, but I am also not famialr with that enough to say anything more
Jadebrain_Prime: Light, radio waves, x-rays, gamma rays, infrared, ultra-violet etc. are all electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic waves are caused ultimately by accelerating charged particles (often electrons). For example, when a transmission tower broadcasts a radio wave, it does it by accelerating electrons in a metal antenna. That creates the electromagnetic wave. At the receiver end, the radio in your house has an antenna. The electromagnetic waves hit the antenna and cause electrons in the antenna to accelerate. This forms an electric current, which is then processed and amplified in various ways inside the radio, then converted to sound.
I too am inventing a role-playing game, but this one is played on the internet. I believe the key is simplicity: any game should be easy to play, difficult to master.
So, from the responses thus far, electricity and electromagnetism are closely related enough to put related effects in the same college of magic? All right.
When you're talking about magic, you're talking about fantasy, so you can do whatever you like. I'd be more worried about how conducive your game system is to making the role-playing enjoyable, and less worried about getting the physics right. Gary Gygax, the inventor of Dungeons and Dragons, had much to say about balancing realism against playability. For example, the concept of "hit points" in D&D is not realistic, and the melee combat system doesn't really reflect reality very well either. These things are deliberately sacrificed to enhance playability. Often in RPG's, magic involving light is dealt with separately from magic involving electrical or magnetic effects (e.g. under the categories of Illusion and Conjuration, respectively). But it's your game, so you have total freedom to organise things in whatever way suits your system best.
Some more info (from my head) Often in RPG Magic involving light are in separate categories from those of electric or magnetic effects. For light magic, if in a very fantasy setting, it is often associated with the concept of good, thus it may have passive buffering properties such as healing, purify etc.. For active offense properties, it is similar to how laser weapons were used in scifi settings, often in the form of beams For passive offensive properties, it deals with vision, such as the illusion effects mentioned by James R For electric magic, it is often portrayed in the form of lightning, and it often set to work well against water (because of how in real life water (not pure water) is a good electrical conductor due to the dissolved mineral ions etc.). More scifi natured ones will associate plasma with this class of magic because of how plasma is loosely speaking a "gas of ions and electrons" For magnetic magic, it often involve attracting and repelling metal objects, sometimes even loosely extended to manipulating non metallic objects (well there is a grain of truth in it, since all known matter (except dark matter) consist of atoms, thus they have electrons, neutrons, protons. All of these particles have spin thus they can act like small magnets. But for most objects (things not made of magnetic materials like iron, nickel, cobalt etc.), they are weakly diamagnetic, which means they are (almost imperceptibly) repelled by magnetic fields. In short, all known matter made of atoms can respond to magnetic fields). I personally have not heard of conjuration being related to magnetism, but that does not mean it is not true in RPGs So in the end, it really depends on what suit your system best, particularly how to balance the playability with the physics. If you aim for something more fantasy sided, than all that matters is how the various magic interact in a consistent manner with other game elements If you aim for something more realistic, then you can consider making the light and electric magics interact with each other in some way similar to what physics said. Although light and electricity is one aspect of electromagnetism, they are often treated separately since IMO it gets a bit too technical when you try to illustrate their relationship in a deeper level than something like "light interacting with electrons"
Well, I'm not going to bore players with the details about how the universe works, but I want to have guidelines for my own purposes. By the way, in regards to conjuration, if you mean summoning, that's probably going to be under the category of Dimension-bending magic. When it comes to light being "good," there won't be an actual physical link between light and goodness. In fact, the only real link between light and goodness in my game so far is the deity (which, in my game, the deities that people worship aren't nearly as powerful or cosmic in nature as they are in real world religions) called "Shamutesh," which, incidentally, despite being both light and holy, defies common tropes by having no more of a problem with the undead than most. The deal with Shamutesh is basically that light brings clarity and allows one to see the truth; thus, his domain is truthfulness, especially when it comes to catching liars and criminals, and as such he's a popular deity among lawmen and the like. On a similar note, most of what I had in mind for "light" spells was along the line of manipulating what people see, such as illusion spells (it's also interesting to note that, unlike in other fantasy settings, illusions and charm spells are in entirely different colleges of magic, despite having the same deceptive purposes). Lasers are also a good idea, though it would probably be awkward from a mechanical perspective, since it would be a spell dealing fire damage in a college focused on electricity. Ah well...
