Be interested in people's opinions and suggestions on the following.
(And grateful to anyone who actually takes the time to read it.)

Some people are satisfied with the Everway magic rules as written.
This article will not be to their taste. The Magic Formula aims
to provide players and gamemasters a systematic guide for designing
Everway magic schools and using them in play. To this end, the system
resorts to - numbers. However, in the spirit of Everway, the numbers
are small and the most complicated mathematical operation is subtraction.
Values are themselves approximate, as will be seen. The Magic Formula
steals
equally from the old DC Heroes RPG (now Blood of Heroes) and Boyle's
Law, with a further swipe from Runequest 3rd Edition. It's the Everway
version of a magic system I developed for a Theatrix campaign a
couple of years ago.

The bedrock philosophy behind the Magic Formula is that
magic should be _efficacious_. When a player creates a
magic-wielding hero, she is sinking substantial points
into what amounts to a fifth, comparatively-restricted,
element. She is necessarily sacrificing between four and
six points that would otherwise go into powers and
elements. She should get something for that. By clarifying,
in general terms, what can be done with magic, I hope to
minimize the sorts of misunderstandings and resentments I've
seen crop up in actual Everway play. To wit, I've seen a
number of mages feel they got shafted. This is by no means
always the GM's sole fault. (See THE MAGIC FORMULA
AND SCHOOL DESIGN below.)

The MF assumes a preference for the Law of Karma.


THE MAGIC FORMULA

Prowess + Performance = Target + Duration + Effect

Actually, that's the simple version. Two more terms may be added.

P + P [ + Bonus ] = [ Penalty + ] T + D + E

That is, the GM may decide that things are easier or harder (or
easier _and_ harder) based on circumstances.

PROWESS - Sum the Mage's Magic score and its governing Element.
The ready-to-run hero Serenity has 5 points of Flux Magic. The
governing element is Fire, and her Fire score is 5, so her
Prowess is 10. The Amberway hero Starwind has 4 points of
Windspeaker magic and 6 points of Air (the governing element).
Her Prowess is likewise 10.

Note: Prowess doesn't change much and is easy to remember. You
only have to figure it once. (Until the hero's scores change.)

PERFORMANCE and DURATION - These usually represent time -
Performance is how long the mage spends casting the spell
(chanting, meditating, dancing etc as appropriate to the school).
Duration is how long the spell lasts. Like
the four Everway elements, Time is represented on a scale - in this
case from 0 to 10 rather than 1 to 10. Time is the Formula element
most subject to the mage's control.

0 - A moment. The time it takes to utter a short word or
make a gesture. An instantaneous effect.
1 - A minute. About as long as it takes to utter four
quatrains of iambic pentameter or establish a complex
pattern of movements through repetition.
2 - A watch. One tenth of the night (or day). Something more than
an hour and less than two.
3 - A day. The sun comes up. The sun goes down. The sun
comes up again.
4 - A week. On most spheres, the number of days it takes
for the moon to change its facing by one quarter.
5 - A month. Roughly one lunar cycle.
6 - A season. Did you know the Japanese consider the
equinoxes and solstices to be the _middle_ of their
seasons rather than the beginning? Just thought I'd
slip that in.
7 - A year. A complete turning of the seasons.
8 - A decade. One day in the week that is a mortal life.
9 - A lifetime. It goes on four legs in the morning etc.
We're talking something up to about a century.
10 - An era. Some coherent span of time with a beginning
and an end. The age of an empire, the life span of a
religion etc.

Like the element scales, the time scale increases exponentially. But
but it does not simply double. The values are also approximate -
nobody in the Thousand Worlds has a stopwatch.

Example: Feels His Oats has been cursed to stutter
until he convinces an outcast woman to marry him -
in other words, until he moves into his next life stage. The span
of time is the moral equivalent of a decade (Duration 8), though
he might succeed in his quest tomorrow, or might never succeed.

TARGET - Spells are cast _on_ something. Target represents the
resistance value of whoever or whatever or wherever is at the business
end of the mage's attention. In the case of a single creature it will
probably be the creature's Earth score. In the case of multiple
creatures the rule of doubling may come into play. (e.g., two Earth-4
opponents resist at Earth-5.)

Some spells are cast on regions rather than beings. So we need another
scale. Like Time, the Space scale runs from 0 to 10.

0 - a wineskin / an infant / a spot
1 - a pack / a child / a puddle
2 - a barrel / a youth / a trough
3 - a coffin or closet / an adult / a bath
4 - a hovel / a boar / a wagon / a fountain
5 - a house / a horse / a garden / a stream pool
6 - a village / a bear / a field / a pond / a knoll
7 - a town / a platoon / a lake / a mountain
8 - a city / a company / a valley / a sea / a range
9 - a realm / a legion / an ocean
10 - a sphere / an army

Again, increases are variably exponential. 0 does not mean
"no space." It is the smallest value of space that, magically,
matters. (Think of 0 too as an exponent. Any number to the power
of 0 equals 1.) Definitions are approximate. A Great Lake might
count as a sea (8) rather than a lake (7). "Locations" should not
be confused with the people in them. If you are bringing rain
to a village on a knoll, the Target value is indeed 6. If you
are trying to bring instant death to all the residents, they
probably count as a platoon (7) or company (8).

EFFECT - In practical terms, this is the value left over after
you take the others into account. Like everything else in
Everway, it's on a 1-10 (or 0-10) scale. The Effect scale
is generic:

0 - none
1 - barely noticeable
2 - minor
3 - "average"
4 - solid
5 - strong effect
6 - "olympic-caliber"
7 - legendary
8 -
9 -
10 - divine force

Example: Talks to Himself wants to make it rain. If the effect
of the spell ends up being 1, he accomplishes little more than
a light mist. 3 would be good-for-the-crops.
5 would send people scurrying for shelter. 7 would be the sort of
storm people tell their grandchildren about. (Think Hurricane
Agnes.) 10 would give rise to terms like "antediluvian" to describe
the time before this transforming deluge.

Note: For each specific school, GM and player should probably
discuss what different Effect values mean for the mage's various
abilities.


THE MAGIC FORMULA IN USE

Two of the six values - Magic and Element - don't change. And
the way characters are generated, they're usually the same number.
So just add them once and remember the value. The Casting Time
spent is up to the player, within reason - It's hard to chant over
and over if someone clamps a hand over your mouth. You can't do
your magic dance if your legs are in irons. If someone snaps your
head around, so much for fixing your baleful gaze. And
eventually fatigue sets in. (See THE MAGIC FORMULA AND THE ELEMENTS
below.)

The values on the right side of the equation interact in more
complex, somewhat voluntary ways. Generally, the mage decides
what his or her aim is. The mage determines the target. The mage
generally determines either the level of effect desired (e.g.
I want to kill them) or the desired _duration_ of effect (e.g.
I want it to rain for at least an hour). Once two of the
elements are fixed, the GM calculates the third.

Example: Let's go back to Talks to Himself. He wants to impress
the inhabitants of a village with his might, so he's going to
call down a rainstorm using Words of Summoning. His Magic is 4
and his Air score is 6. He's going for a flashy effect, so he'll
just say his Word once and gesture impressively. (Performance
Time = 0). So

Prowess(4+6) + Performance(0) = 10

What is the target? The GM says that Talks needs to blanket the
entire hillside on which the village sits - it would actually be
more difficult to exert the fine control that calling rain down
on, say, just the village square would entail. So the Target
value is 6. Now Talks needs to decide whether he wants to fix
the storm's Duration or its magnitude (Effect). He decides to
go for Duration - if the rain lasts for a watch or more, it
should start to wear on people's nerves. So the Duration is
fixed at 2. So

10(remember?) = Target(6) + Duration(2) + Effect

which means the Effect value is 2. (Aren't these nice, easy
numbers to work with?)

Alas, 2 is not a very impressive rainfall. It's a noticeable drizzle,
but that's about it.


THE MAGIC FORMULA AND TIME

Now, if Talks figures he can chant his word for about a minute
before someone decides to stone him, his new Value is 11, that is

Prowess(10) + Performance(1) = 11

So his effect now increases to 3, which is rather more impressive.

The other feature of time worth noting is that an increase in
Performance time can have an outsized effect on spell duration.

Example: Talks to Himself is content with the strength of rain he
is getting (3 - Average) after chanting his Word of Summoning for a minute.
But he decides he'd like to prolong the storm. If he chants for a
_watch_ (about an hour and a quarter) rather than a minute, his
Performance time increases to 2, so his overall spell value is 12. If

12 = Target(6) + Duration(?) + Effect(3)

then Duration = 3, or an entire day! An extra hour's effort has
netted him an extra 22+ hours' result.

Moral: Ritual is good. If you can get away with it.


THE MAGIC FORMULA AND THE ELEMENTS

The element governing your magic school figures directly into the
formula. The Earth score of your target may well function as the
resistance to your spell. Other elements matter as well.

Earth determines how long you can Perform a spell before
keeling over completely. The simplest system is to say a mage can
spend units of time equal to her Earth score in ritual vigil. That
means a mage with 3 Earth can spend an entire day performing (dancing,
gazing balefully, inhaling essences etc). Then she passes out. This
means a 5 Earth mage could spend a month invoking a single spell -
the ready-to-run hero Cleft could spend the entire month of the
Spading Moon blessing the crops of a village. This may bother some
GMs. You might prefer to think of the month as incorporating breaks
for light nourishment and even short catnaps. GMs may wish to rule
that certain schools are limited in the lengths of rituals possible.
They may also decide that certain schools require _minimum_
casting lengths. For instance, Elric of Melnibone's Friends in High
Places magic may require that Elric spend at least one minute (one
point) of casting time on every invocation.

The number of "instant" spells (Casting time = 0) possible for a
given Earth score remains undefined.

Other elements may come into play as necessary. Example: Smoke
Too Much casts illusions. The Effect value determines who can see
through them. If a particular illusion has 6 Effect, then those with
6 Water have a chance of feeling that something about the illusion
is amiss, and those with 6 Air might notice inconsistencies in the
presentation. Someone with 7 Water or Air would almost certainly
see through it, while those with scores of 5 or below would be
completely taken in.


THE MAGIC FORMULA AND THE FORTUNE DECK

The most obvious use for the fortune deck is to modify one of the
desired results - Duration or Effect. A good draw might increase
the value by one; a bad draw lower it by a like amount. Particularly
germane cards might herald some prodigy of success or spectacular
failure. The fortune deck may also determine whether the mage
succeeds in casting the desired spell at all.


THE MAGIC FORMULA AND PLAY

Every effort has been made to keep the system simple enough to
use _quickly_. Numbers are kept small, and abstruse
math like multiplication and division <g> has been shunned.
Because the units of time and space are defined in terms of
common experience, it should be possible to minimize
mechanic-speak.

Some GMs will look at the numbers and worry that the Magic
Formula opens the door to a level of flashiness they'd
rather not see in their campaigns. The MF can still work
for them. The simplest hedge is to play with the concept
of spell duration: what, for instance, is the _duration_
of an instant death spell? Is it 0 (instantaneous?), or
9 (the rest of the life the target "should" have lived)?
Or maybe by definition it needs to be 3 (a watch), 4 (a
day) or 5 (a week) - the length of time it takes for the
opponent's soul to decide that it really ought to separate
from the body. So long as you clarify this kind of thing
with your magic-wielding player in advance you should
be covered.

One last thing: the Magic Formula aims to be scalable.
Can that Sorcerer Supreme (9 magic, 9 element) put a
Legendarily-powerful (7) curse on an entire realm (9)
for an Age (10)?

9 + 9 + Casting = 7 + 9 + 10 = 26

If he spends a decade (Casting = 8), yes. Or if he adds
Something Else to the mix (see BONUSES AND PENALTIES).


THE MAGIC FORMULA AND SCHOOL DESIGN

Many real schools I've seen designed by players and
approved by GMs are much narrower in scope than the
examples provided in the Everway game itself. Consider
Cleft's Soil and Stone magic. He can Aid against sickness,
Speed healing from wounds, Ward against magic or physical
danger, Bless crops, Counter poison and Counter curses.
That's a lot.

Using the Magic Formula, school design does change
slightly. Since the degree of effect of a particular
action (spell) is determined by the MF, the
school writeup focuses on 1) HOW one performs the
magic (rhymes? dance? meditation? study? prayer?
ingestion? touch?) and 2) what new things
can be done at each new level. Soil and Stone magic
might then look like

1 - Aid the ill
2 - Heal wounds
3 - Ward someone against a particular danger or magic
4 - Bless crops; counter poisons
5 - Counter curses
6 - Destroy spirits of corruption
-
10 - Raise the dead

Other abilities included in the book writeup are simply
greater Effects of existing abilities. For instance,
"let[ting] a mortally-wounded person recover (slowly)
from wounds" is simply a more impressive "Heal wounds."
The MF determines how impressive a result the mage
obtains.

Every school of Magic should have at least a half-dozen
distinct abilities available as the magic level increases.
This tends to match the sample schools available in the rulebook.

NOTE: BY PROVIDING NEW CAPABILITIES WITH NEW LEVELS OF
MAGIC, YOU GIVE THE PLAYER AN INCENTIVE TO SPEND MORE ON
MAGIC ITSELF, RATHER THAN JUST INCREASING THE MORE VERSATILE
ELEMENT SCORE. A mage with 7 Element and 1 Magic has the same
Prowess as a mage with 4 Element and 4 Magic. But the Mage
with 4 Magic is more versatile by far.


THE MAGIC FORMULA AND FUDGE FACTORS

Now is the time to talk about Bonuses and Penalties. These
will vary with the situation and the school. Bonuses and
penalties can be treated as modifications to the mage's
Performance. Possible bonuses include

Calendar Effects - What if a spell can only be cast under a
full moon? Only at the spring equinox? At the precise moment
of a planetary conjunction that happens every 10 years? Give
a bonus up to the value of the period of time represented by
the calendar phenomenon. A spell that must be cast on any
solstice or equinox is restricted to once per Season (6);
one that can only be cast on Midsummer's Eve is restricted
to once per Year (7).

Example: There are three days of full moon per month (5).
So the bonus for spells that must be cast during the full
moon would be less than 5 - either 3 or 4 make sense.

Extra Effort - This could get cheesy, and a player who
invokes extra effort too often may need a talking-to. "Extra
effort" should carry some tangible negative effect, such as
a loss of consciousness or loss of face. Which brings us to

Sacrifice - There are all kinds of possible sacrifices. A
given set of GM and players will be comfortable with different
sets of them. They range all the way from token destruction
of materials (powder of rhino horn e.g.) to an entire cohort
of an opponent's army. Note that, however squeamish the idea
makes us, the concept of offering life to supernatural powers
was once current throughout the globe. As a general, non-
moralizing rule, use the Earth or Water score of the
sacrificial victim(s). The rule of doubling applies.

For non-living sacrifices, scale based on the generic Everway
1-10 scale. Value may well depend on context - a wineskin
"sacrificed" outside a vintner's may not be worth anything.
The same wineskin sacrificed in the Trackless Wastes, when it's
the group's last drinkable liquid, may be more precious than
life itself.

What if a 5-Earth Mage offers the permanent sacrifice of a point
of Earth? That might be worth a 5-point bonus right there. (And
should make a dandy role-playing moment.)

A sacrifice assumes some power that will be moved by it. Depending
on the Mage's school, the prevailing circumstances and the
campaign's cosmology, such a power may or may not exist.

Sacrifice: it's not just for lambs and virgins any more.

Other bonuses - at the discretion of the GM.

Penalties may result from any number of circumstances.

Levels - GMs wishing to complicate their lives may penalize tasks
that are close to the limit of a mage's ability (or give bonuses
for easy tasks). For instance, Cleft's ability to Aid the ill is
Level 1, while Countering curses is Level 5. Since Cleft's Magic
score is 5, the GM may subtract points when Cleft counters a curse
or add points when he aids the ill.

Example: Smoke Too Much has offended his god. His magic
derives from his god. Smoke Too Much is in for some
penalties.

Example: Greyhawk Flotsam is trying to hit a soldier with
a lightning bolt. Since the lightning bolt is a physical
attack, the Target value is the soldier's Fire score of 3.
But the soldier is on the other side of a field. Since
the Space value of "a field" is 6, Flotsam suffers a six-point
penalty - the Soldier's Target value is raised to 9.

Example: The GM decides it's harder for Talks to Himself to
make it rain in a desert than in a swamp, harder if the sky
is clear than if it is overcast. If it is Dry, Clear and Hot,
the mage's first 3 points of Effect merely make it Humid,
Overcast and Cooler. The fourth point of Effect brings the
suggestion of a drizzle. It takes a full 6 points to summon
a rain worthy of the name.


THE MAGIC FORMULA OFF THE SCALE

So how do you cast a spell that lasts longer than an Age? How
do you cast a curse on more than one sphere at a time? In short,
how do you get a supernatural effect "off the scale."

There are two approaches. One is to make such effects entirely
at the whim of the GM. The other is to rule that one can only
get off the scale with some kind of Bonus, most commonly a
sacrifice or calendar effect. Now you know why those priests
are tossing everyone into the volcano during the perigee of
Halley's Comet.