Not really a difference but I was just thinking on this.

The games, mechanic wise, have to change different things that may conflict with the lore. For instance the removal of different magic throughout the series. What I'm curious about is how does the world work in terms of these things compared to how the games implement them.

I remember writing a fan-fic years ago and I wrote a scene with magic but it was stuff you couldn't do in game but seemed reasonable to me.

So compared to the games, how does magic actually fit into the world of Nirn? Are all of the spells used in Morrowind still spells that can be used in Nirn even though spells like levitate and mark, recall have disappeared since then? Has the ability to use these spells been lost over time in Nirn or was it simply a gameplay decision and has no tie to the lore.

I've just been curious because magic is such a big part of TES and the world use of magic has to be different from the worlds use. On that note, is it explained how the use of magic is restricted in the actual world? Do they actually say that you have an amount of mana that is used up or do you have to have a certain amount of magical power within or magical understanding to be able to cast powerful spells.

Meh just my worldbuilding OCD kicking in and wanting to understand how these "systems" work.

What other things are in the games that are different in the actual world aside from world scale like cities, population, and province size.

If you have any continuity in roleplaying you can pretend youre are a really crappy wizard now

Im sorry.
I have many good things to say about Skyrim, but I am appalled by the magic.
Other games earlier made have better magic.
Better magic than a TES game

You want an excuse?
There really isnt any, as all previous lore is written with the old spell system in mind.

You can pretend you are a really lousy mage now.
That is it.

Even when Oblivion came out I tried coming up with reasons why they would have removed some of the spells from Morrowind and could only think that it wouldn't "fit" into the game. Well now that I've been devouring lore it turns out that some of those things are based in the lore, so there is really no reason for them to be removed unless the developer makes that decision.

What any folks in the history of TES who were masters of mysticism, while it wouldn't get them to far, it would have at least been an amazing feat (in the world of Nirn not the games.) Now with Skyrim, what happens? If you ask an NPC about Mysticism how would he respond? (Mage at the Winterhold College - "What? Mysticism? I've never heard of such a thing. It sounds useless to me and anyone who would study such a thing would have to be a fool. Ha, what nonsense!" Just doesn't seem to.....fit the game really.

I haven't read many RP's lately either or fan-fics so I don't know how people tackle magic in those either.

I don't like that way of seeing it. Mysticism was one of the best things about Morrowind for me. And it's dissapearance is more a consideraton to create a balanced engine than lore consideration. The devs retcon what they can't or simply don't code in.

True mysticism for me died when the Two of the Three died.

In Morrowind I never really played it as a full mage so I never really got into all the magical classes.

I know with Oblivion I played a hunter Wood Elf and I used mysticism all the time. I used detect life spells constantly in caves to see enemies so I could make sure I could sneak up on them and get that critical arrow since I wasn't as strong in melee combat.

I agree that gameplay wise it is a choice that was made for balance, but in keeping with the lore of the world its not. I guess I can't really criticize them for it because I can't imagine how difficult it is to build a game around such a complex story when so many games these days develop the story around the game. I'm really just looking for what things are different between the games and the real lore of the world, and magic just stuck out for me seeing as it is what has changed so much over time.

Magic systems in games whether it be table-top or video games always fascinate me and in this case it's even more interesting because of how they have worked it in the lore and how its worked into the games.

Iirc, every change to the spell-list has been recognized by ingame lore. Levitation & Mark & Recall & Passwall et cetera were banned by the Empire for their obvious illegal uses, while some spells & magical techniques were simply lost to the ages, like enchanting an item with multiple effects.

For spells like the sound spell I'd surely understand that being lost to time. I completely accept that sort of explanation but for the empire to ban the use of spells and for the game to not let you use them, sounds a little weak in my opinion >.>. It's still an interesting way for them to explain it though and a good thing that they at least do. Thanks for the info.

I can somewhat go along with prohibited magicks. Even if it had little impact on the player or on spellmerchants, necromancy was a pretty big theme in Oblivion and the older games. There have been crackdowns on rogue mages and the like in some in-game documents. Again, not that it had any actual impact on gameplay back then.

As for Mysticism. I dunno. I imagine it was The Old Way. The indescribable misc spells ended up in Mysticism bc we were unable to categorize them "easily/naturally" into the other schools.

I have to hand it to you: you were right about the magic. I thought that they'd never be stupid enough to only give you ninety-six spells, because that's like making you choose between a dagger, a sword, and a greatsword to use for the entire game. Just one of each. And they never do more damage. And that's exactly what they did with magic. When's that CK coming out again?

I've imagined Mysticism to be the school of magic that focuses on manipulating magic itself. And they do talk about mysticism in Skyrim. As per the OP's question, yes I believe the spells still do exist, even if they player doesn't have access to them. In Skyrim some boss-mages teleport around the room. Annaig, from the novels, makes use of levitation and other effects. They're just removed from the game because they are quest-breakers.

What if there are still as many schools of magic as there were in Morrowind or Daggerfall (I forget which had more) but the game simply ignores this? It's a grievous breach of the suspension of disbelief but it's not like those are exactly uncommon in TES coughdicerollattackscough.

There are perks that increase damage of Destruction spells, and the Destruction skill makes them more efficient to use (cost less magicka, which means you can use it more to do more damage before your magicka runs out). The dual-casting perks also makes the spells do more damage for the magicka cost. IIRC, bound weapons also do more damage with a higher conjuration skill. There's also potions and enchantments to help do the same. You just have to play smart, and know what to use when. Lay down traps with runes before starting battle, conjure creatures (or raise the dead) to help you, use the *flesh spells for extra physical protection, use AoE spells if you get surrounded, use conjured weapons if you have to go melee. Use the correct element against specific enemies (eg, use fire against furred animals, don't use frost against ice wraiths, don't use fire against fire atronachs).

Also, to a previous poster, the removal of mysticism was not a retcon. Magic is magic, and the schools of magic are an artificial construct designed to help people learn, even within the world lore.

Yeah, but that's [censored].

I'd rather they ignored certain things for gameplay purposes than think up embarrassingly stupid excuses. Especially when some of their excuses are so good and become serious lore (Dwarves, Dragon Breaks).

I understand the issue with Dragon Breaks, but what excuse was there for what happened to the Dwemer?

Their disappearance wasn't a lore discontinuity, it was like the entire plot of Morrowind.

I meant the fact that they are called Dwarves, the term being either an Altmeri insult concerning non-physical characteristics or (this one told with a wink) a description of their height from a giant's point of view.

I really disagree. It get's a bit silly when illegal organization (including enemies) don't know the spells, or when my potentially-five-hundred-year-old Altmer Wizard doesn't know about things, but is it really more ridiculous than the idea that all of the mark & recall scrolls are just hidden in another castle, so to speak?

It's a stupid idea for a host of reasons, not the least that agents of the Empire and the Mages Guild relied on it enormously just a few years earlier. Not even a police state could ban it, much less the hoary old Empire.

The point is that the absence of presence of a spell is a gameplay abstraction that has no bearing on the lore. It's on the same level as hitpoints and the Leyawiin dam.

I still don't entirely understand how the spells could break quests. In Morrowind you could fly across the who island if you wanted and there aren't any quests that are messed up with it. In Oblivion if you could levitate, what would be broken? Sure, in Oblivion you could effectively fly up the towers, but after 1 or 2 towers that would have been a blessing. They could have just made the spell much more expensive to use so only real mage's could effectively use them.

Something I thought about today is the combat, namely the melee. Does anyone think that there are any "styles" of melee combat between the races and cultures? I mean sure they all have different weapon styles but what about actual combat styles? Stances, attacks, things like that. I'd assume that a redguard would fight with a sword and shield or a scimitar than say a Nord with a two hander, or even a sword and shield as well. The Redguard I assume would be very professional and very effective, fast precise strikes, while a Nord would be strong, slower, yet much more brutal and unpredictable. I understand why these sorts of things couldn't be implemented in game because of the need to make animations for some many different things but I'm wondering if combat or fighting is really discussed in the lore?

Fair enough.

A pox upon the College of Winterhold quests. Even the Oblivion Mages' Guild questline was better!

Older sources say Redguards were godly ominpotent swordsmen. Some mythical stances were on the level of a nuclear bomb, planetcracking their Atlantis in half. Of course, the swordsmen capable of that were seers and saints, etc. Only a few. And Cyrus. Cuz he might as well be badass for fun.

Levitation isn't questbreaking, so to speak, but dungeonbreaking. Difficult to design a multileveled dungeon when you can float from point A to B. Might argue that all you need is a little creativity and elbow grease, but we lose out on varied, simpler designs when you can just float up to that catwalk up high. Ends up as a matter of dev-said-she-said. Player temptation versus houserules. Oh, I could see it getting boring having to run through those tunnels up to that passage, though. Especially later on when I'm already highlvl godmode.

I like to think that mark & recall & intervention & such do exist, but are very rare, expensive, difficult to use (only for powerfull mages), dangerous (you can accidentally teleport into a stone and die), limited in distance, so you don't often see them. Otherwise it would skew (is that really a word?!) the entire economic system and the way of life into a world we won't recognize as tamriel (who'll need horses, ports & ships, military strategy as described in various books, etc.). I mean, come on, in http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:2920,_Evening_Star, vivec needed to hurry to get from balmora to the imperial city in a week. And it was Vivec, a god!

Moreover, I like to think that magic in general is much more scarce than seen in games.

Laziness, then. Because Morrowins'a dungeons did great things with levitation.

When some one makes this argument I always have to chuckle a little. There are rumours that the Telvani had little problems closing the Oblivion gates. Well obviously because they could levitate right to the top of the tower, go in through the roof and extract the Sigil Stone. Avoiding all the lava, the doors and stairs and everything. Clearly Mehrunes didn't design with levitation in mind either.

In this case, the developers designed the game around the mechanics instead of around the lore. Very apparent in this example.