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I'm preparing to start playing a wizard from Tian Xia in a new Pathfinder campaign. It occurred to me that it would be fun (for me, at least) to describe her spell casting a little differently than how the spells are described in the RAW, to show that she comes from a different culture and a different magical tradition.
I wondered what other groups do when it comes to describing spell casting. Do you read the spell description from the rulebook aloud? Do you make up one of your own, or have special code words to tell your fellow players and GM which spell your PC is casting? Do you make gestures or use special dice?
Or do you just announce which spell you're casting and roll for the result, as my fellow players usually do?
I played a cleric that worshiped a god of luck, whenever he cast as spell I would write a short 'description/proverb' such as for unseen servent, May you find a helping hand when you need and all the loads you carry be lighter.
Then I would pop that description into google translate and translate it to Irish. After the translation I would put in some extra flavor text such as, there is a slight shimmer in the air that is vaguely human shaped that quickly disappears, then the pack that you wanted carried was lifted off the floor and slung over an invisible shoulder. That was via PbP of course I cant actually speak Irish.
For a table top game example; I played a Sand Shaper sorcerer that specialized in fire spells. He had the meta magic feat elemental spell to change spells that were normally not fire to fire type spells, I then changed all the descriptions that I told the table to something to do with fire.
Hope this helps/ gives you some ideas
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This is how my tiefling abyssal sorcerer casts Grease:
Seeing the new combatants enter the room, Pyotr snarls and clutches his throat menacingly. He emits a guttural, deep, chasm-like rattle from his throat, and vomits forth a foul, black expectorate. It hurtles across the room to land with a sickening squish on the floor in front of the skeletons. The ichor spreads of its own volition to cover a wide section of the floor. It bubbles and hisses, already beginning to dissipate, its volatile state vaporizing into sooty tendrils of smoke.
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one of our players has printed a complete spellbook with explanations of the spells, "the magic words and gestures" (actualy drawn the armmovements step by step for each spell) and given me a copy so I know what the hell he's doing. He prefers my rolling the dice for it, and telling him what happens
That's a really interesting option! I like that a lot, though I'm not sure about having the GM roll. In my group the players always do the rolling for their spells.
I guess I should have specified this is tabletop, not PbP. I worry about taking up too much time in giving spell descriptions. I don't want to hog the limelight with my character's spellcasting. It seems to me that it's easier to do elaborate spellcasting descriptions like Wrong John Silver describes in a PbP game, since no one is waiting on you to finish typing before they can take their turn.
I suppose the extent of detail one can use depends on the style of play and the dispositions of the other players, as well. If you're playing with a group of people who just want to get to the action and don't like much in-character dialogue, then they probably won't enjoy listening to a detailed description of what the wizard is doing when he casts 'magic missile'. But a group that likes lots of in-character dialogue and flavor text won't mind lengthier descriptions.
I hadn't thought about that when I started this thread, but the GM of this new campaign loves flavor text from players. In his last campaign we had many sessions where we only rolled dice once or twice in a four-hour session.
My play group has some problems with turns taking too long already, so I typically just say the spell name and, if necessary, as brief as possible a description of the effects. That said, I do usually come up with a general flavor of magic for each of my characters that comes up in less time-sensitive situations. I'm playing a summoner right now and all of his magic manifests as pulling things, creatures, or phenomena through to this plane from the First World. Prior to that I had a wizard whose spells all involved fireworks and moving tattoos. Ages ago I played an oracle who accessed all of his magic through ancestral chants.
When I play a Sorceror or an Oracle I tend to go more thematic with the description of the casting.
My Oracle of the Ancestors actually calls on the spirits of her legendary undead fighting family to create the spell effects and abilities.
Depends on the GM, the group, whether or not it slows combat significantly and how many times my character has cast the spell in front of the group. Lately, I've been a fan of reciting short phrases backwards (a la Zatanna) and describing a general effect.
"Ho ythgim nedyac, tnarg em ruoy rewop!" followed by "a golden aura flashes around the priest, swelling the muscles in his arms and legs". (Divine Favor)
My advice is to be descriptive as long as people are enjoying it. If you cast the same spell repeatedly, just give the name and save the description for new spells you unleash.
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Another player in my group chanted this prayer for an Enlarge Person spell (complete with a flexing dance):
Make my arms big and strong!
Make my legs big and strong!
Make my chest big and strong!
This is my enlargement song!
If a spell has a verbal component, I have a list of words that I assign to each spell. Most of the time it's 1 to 4 syllables, so as not to get rediculous. I write them down on my spell list and am consistent with them.
I took the idea from the Ultima computer games and use the magic syllables used in that game series. Each syllable has a meaning and I string them togehter to basically describe the spell. For instance, Light is "IN LOR" which means "invoke light". Dancing Lights is "IN POR LOR" which means "invoke moving light".
For spells that are more complex conceptually and cannot be described with the basic syllables, I use syllables from the Gargoyle language from Ultima 6. I write each line of syllables next to the spell in my notes once I've assigned it so it's consistent and I don't waste other people's time trying to assign these on the fly.
As far as describing other things, I more or less just do it like I would in combat. Nothing too fancy, I guess.
Not to be disparaging to others, but I would definitely not present the GM with a catalog of actions and expect him to do all the descriptions for me like Snorri Nosebiter wrote. I'd hate to put more work on the GM like that. I think this kind of thing should be the player's responsibility.
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I've always liked the idea that the somatic components are dramatic. Not like ninja-esque hand-signs or anything like that, but more like....hm...more like slow-motion martial arts. Or like a conductor leading an orchestra. Except in this case, what you are conducting is not a band but rather the very basic forces of the universe. I imagine, and sometimes describe, the body language intent. If you're casting a fireball, you'd thrust a hand forward in the direction of the attack, a look of wild fury on your features (for fire, like anger, is all-consuming and is often colloquially referred to as "burning").
Of course, I also like the whole "runes around the hands" thing Paizo art draws out, though I imagine the runes not to be a flat disk of magic runes, but rather a long pale stream of letters that slowly revolve around the hands in a snake-like pattern, the color varying caster to caster, and sometimes spell to spell.
I've always toyed with having a character that recites a small poem for their verbal component, like a short haiku or something along those lines. But my creativity is not good enough for me to do this in its entirety, so I've never tried.
I'm lazy with my spell flavor, but some of that is the group I am currently playing with. That said I have to play in a few hours and I might start working on a list of prayers for me/my cleric to say when casting a spell. "Iomedae give me strength!" That said I also have a tattoo that works with Iomedae and my character has the birthmark trait...
My players just say "I cast ______", and when I'm playing I usualld do the same. However, when I'm running spellcasting NPCs, I get a little poetic with it, because I need to indicate to them that the enemy is casting a spell, giving them a chance to roll Spellcraft to identify and possibly counter it.
When I'm playing a bard I go all out on the spell verbosity.
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In one adventure I was in, a CG Chelish wizard's magic missiles took the form of spectral imps that popped up, stung their targets once each, and vanished. He was never able to change it.
Meanwhile, the player of the cleric of Shizuru told everyone ahead of time, "Since Destruction isn't an evil spell, he can cast it, but he'll call it Cleansing Flame."
Later on, in a fight with an oni, he thrusts his holy symbol at it and roars out, "Cleansing FLAAAAAMMMME!!" and otherwise shouting out the names of the spells he casts.
I once made up a halfling WoP sorcerer who had a different syllable for each Magic Word, hissing them for his wordspells.
Plus, the fun thing about alchemists is that their extracts don't have to always be drank.