Reality Hacking

Brainstorming / musing / discussing the idea of magic as "hacking reality" -- that reality itself (in the game / fiction setting), physics and metaphysics, operates something like a computer.

Thus working magic is sending an instruction or set of instructions to reality in a "coding language".


The universe is actually running the equivalent of machine code. If you have a specific creator or creator deities, they used this.

The highest-order deities (other than the creators) are effectively using assembly language.

Spells are written in various high-level languages, allowing for multiple "traditions" or "schools" in the same setting.

Freaking scary "eldritch" entities are also able to work in or "hack" the "machine code", making them a real threat to the deities despite not having the raw power that the deities do.


This is a spin-off from another thread, and these posts:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy

For a fantasy setting, I really like the idea of "ur language", the words of creation, the language the gods used to bring the universe into existence -- I have that in one of my settings. For those who've mastered the language, speaking the words with intent has effect, but how much effect depends on how much of the power you can handle without it "leaking" and cooking you from the inside out. Mistakes can be lethal, in the "we heard a loud 'CRACK' like thunder from his study, but all we found was a black scorch mark centered here, and charring on the furniture and books" sort of way.

When one really intends to cause another's death, and speaks the word in that language aloud and directed at the target of one's enmity, with utter perfection, they might actually die -- because it's the word that the gods would speak to make a mortal die and carries that power with it.

Also, because it's the ur language, any being that can understand any language can understand it when spoken, at a fundamental level that's as much psychic as it is audible -- as long as they're of the solar deities' creation or descended therefrom. (Which becomes a plot point in the fiction, as there's a character who is not descended from creation, and all she hears when someone's speaking it is meaningless random babble -- she needs a translator for the words that should never need translating.)


On an entirely different note, the guys who make Thieves Can't did a 5e supplement called Power Chord Kill for musical magic.

:amused:

---

And then there was the following exchange:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard

I've been considering a setting which had a symbol sey of creation, but instead I'm working on one where 'multiple languages of creation' is a thing. Essentially there's the Language of the Gods, which is what the world was programmed in created with, and then in the Time of Legends some of the mortals patched in a bunch of 'languages of powet', which cam be used to create effects. Essentially I'm running with a 'magic as programming' analogy, where the world is the operating system written in the LotG, while spells are cast using a language the universe interprets to do additional things. I'm still working it all out, but one of the miscasts is 'the universe does what you say, not what you want'.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy

So... spinning an idea off that...

Universe is actually running the equivalent of machine code. If you have a specific creator or creator deities, they used this.

The highest-order deities (other than the creators) are effectively using assembly language.

Spells are written in various high-level languages, allowing for multiple "traditions" or "schools" in the same setting.

Freaking scary "eldritch" entities are also able to work in or "hack" the "machine code", making them a real threat to the deities despite not having the raw power that the deities do.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy

Tangent...

Spoiler

Show

For purposes of this idea, include microcode in "machine language" -- it's the underlying stuff that even most of the deities don't have access to.

RISC is more a specific type of hardware and instruction set architecture than a level of programming language layer/level.

Hardware description language would be orthogonal to the layers I laid out.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mark Hall

I kinda want to see more about this idea, but think it might be a thread of its own.

---

So I'm starting another thread.

I'm actually building a bit of unified magic system with this kind of concept in mind, with all forms of magic springing up from some form of reality hacking to make the magic system, but the reality hacking doesn't really do anything itself- its just used to make magic systems that does things.

and that the reality hacking is the result of this proto-magical metaphysical cosmic force called Thesis which naturally tries to define, order and organize all things in some manner. that Thesis is this programming language and it doesn't just exist for magics benefit, but to try and make everything in the universe make sense as constant self-updating process. its ability to make these new magic systems is a side effect of it constant interaction with its opposing force, Antithesis which seeks to makes glitches, anomalies and exceptions to Thesis's efforts in defiance of Thesis's all-defining nature, since Antithesis does not want to be defined, so the new magic systems can be invented and thus not work on the same rules as another is the result of Thesis having to redefine and update itself to account for such exceptions. (in fact now that I think about, Antithesis is probably the one who made magical energy in the first place, but Thesis was the one who started make rules about it.)

Of course, I personally allow the Thesis programming language to be usable not just by gods but by mortals to make the magic systems, thus resulting in magic systems being something you can create and invent in setting, but of course some are more popular than others, some are dead or unused magic systems, some are complex and are some seemingly basic and results in a lot of magic systems that most people probably wouldn't see as necessary.

but thats just my thoughts on this sort of concept. there is much more on this magic system I'm making, but this all thats really relevant to this thread.

https://qntm.org/ra

Might interest you. Personally, I think the magic as programming trope is a little worn out and kind of transiently topical. Like in viking times when writing was rare and important, it was "zomg dude runes are magical", and now that computer programming is important, it's "zomg dude programmers are like wizards".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elves

https://qntm.org/ra

Might interest you. Personally, I think the magic as programming trope is a little worn out and kind of transiently topical. Like in viking times when writing was rare and important, it was "zomg dude runes are magical", and now that computer programming is important, it's "zomg dude programmers are like wizards".

---

Not really, but thanks for trying to reduce it to something stupid.

For me, the origin of this idea is a combination of "ur language" (that is, the concept of a language of creation) and "what if math was actually prescriptive instead of descriptive?"

As an actual programmer I have issues with the magic-as-programming language idea.

The primary difference between fully developed languages (thats languages that have all the useful options built into them) is speed and ease of use. Machine will be faster than assembly, assembly will be faster than basic languages, basic languages will be faster than object oriented languages. But its basically the reverse for how easy and fast it is to write any given program.

Now you could reverse the order and it would make more sense. Gods get to say "planet Earth = new planet (habitable) {oceans: 7, minerals: 'high'};" and they get a nice planet using high level code, if they want changes they can define or refedine them sort of on-the-fly. Your grand high wizards are declaring a pointer to a struct, defining all the variables in the struct, entering the values, and then managing to get a demi-plane out of it, but they can't change what was set in the first place. A first level wizard would be checking his cheat sheet for the op-code for the multiplication operation and writing down what memory registers he initalized to hold the two numbers (that's what coding in assembly is like, annoying, slow, and easy to make mistakes in).

Your outer planes weirdness wouldn't really even be programming. It would know about buffer overflows, page file operations, race conditions, and hardware weaknesses. Using that knowledge of the operating system and hardware to force faults, throw errors, and expose data in ways that the programmers wouldn't be able to affect or counter.

Perhaps a better analogy would be permission levels in the operating system. The creator has root level access and can do stuff like delete users with impunity and tell the os to kill it's own processes. Gods have admin level access to run any programs and control users within their user groups. The mortal casters get to use and write apps but don't have access to the operating system, if they run a program that doesn't have an end condition (infinite loop, no interface) they have to ask an admin to kill the process. Then your SLAs or inherent abilities are just a group login with predefined apps they can use and no other access at all.

In this scenario the elder abominations are black hat hackers doing phishing attacks or trying for open com ports over wi-fi in order to insert viruses.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Telok

As an actual programmer I have issues with the magic-as-programming language idea.

The primary difference between fully developed languages (thats languages that have all the useful options built into them) is speed and ease of use. Machine will be faster than assembly, assembly will be faster than basic languages, basic languages will be faster than object oriented languages. But its basically the reverse for how easy and fast it is to write any given program.

Now you could reverse the order and it would make more sense. Gods get to say "planet Earth = new planet (habitable) {oceans: 7, minerals: 'high'};" and they get a nice planet using high level code, if they want changes they can define or refedine them sort of on-the-fly. Your grand high wizards are declaring a pointer to a struct, defining all the variables in the struct, entering the values, and then managing to get a demi-plane out of it, but they can't change what was set in the first place. A first level wizard would be checking his cheat sheet for the op-code for the multiplication operation and writing down what memory registers he initalized to hold the two numbers (that's what coding in assembly is like, annoying, slow, and easy to make mistakes in).

Your outer planes weirdness wouldn't really even be programming. It would know about buffer overflows, page file operations, race conditions, and hardware weaknesses. Using that knowledge of the operating system and hardware to force faults, throw errors, and expose data in ways that the programmers wouldn't be able to affect or counter.

---

So we have two scales here, somewhat inverted in comparison to each other.

One based on how close one is working to the fundamental level of reality and how directly one's "code" runs on the "hardware", and the other based on how quick and easy it is to write something and have it work.

Interesting.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Telok

Perhaps a better analogy would be permission levels in the operating system. The creator has root level access and can do stuff like delete users with impunity and tell the os to kill it's own processes. Gods have admin level access to run any programs and control users within their user groups. The mortal casters get to use and write apps but don't have access to the operating system, if they run a program that doesn't have an end condition (infinite loop, no interface) they have to ask an admin to kill the process. Then your SLAs or inherent abilities are just a group login with predefined apps they can use and no other access at all.

In this scenario the elder abominations are black hat hackers doing phishing attacks or trying for open com ports over wi-fi in order to insert viruses.

---

A third scale has appeared. :smallbiggrin:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Telok

Now you could reverse the order and it would make more sense. Gods get to say "planet Earth = new planet (habitable) {oceans: 7, minerals: 'high'};" and they get a nice planet using high level code, if they want changes they can define or refedine them sort of on-the-fly.

---

+1 to this. In this paradigm, I would view higher level spell slots as essentially more and more complex machine code macros. Gods, of course, have the best and most complicated macros, ie high level languages and libraries like Python. The first level wizard can create a small macro to change something he's very familiar with—his hand into a heat source like an oven. And it can shoot some impressive fire!

At 2nd level spells, he's created a macro that can create a custom object with heating properties, like a sphere made out of flame.

At 3rd level spells, he's able to create a macro that can redefine any arbitrary pointer in a reasonable distance to an extremely high temperature range, creating a fireball out of thin air!

...On the other hand, at 9th level spells, he has a veritable library of macros, pointing to a near-arbitrary set of creature forms and he can just type wizard.BecomeDragon() and keep spamming that.

There is a quirk of this, because some low level things can corrupt data in ways that high-level languages can't easily fix. And that can be a good setting building thing! After all, if you corrupt a pointer to a bit of reality (Private Sanctum), not even the gods will be able to tell what you do in there, with all their macros and high-level commands. It takes a wizard on the ground to free that memory with a dispel... giving you a very reason for clerics.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy

For me, the origin of this idea is a combination of "ur language" (that is, the concept of a language of creation) and "what if math was actually prescriptive instead of descriptive?"

---

I think Georg Cantor must have discovered this game's Pun Pun. :smalltongue:

That's more or less how it works in the Unsounded webcomic. Might be work looking at for inspiration.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy

For me, the origin of this idea is a combination of "ur language" (that is, the concept of a language of creation) and "what if math was actually prescriptive instead of descriptive?"

---

Have you read 'Elantris' by Brandon Sanderson (or 'The Emperor's Soul', which uses a similar magic system)? The magic system is somewhat like you describe, with the magic itself using a set of fundamental runes describing basic concepts, and a simple spell generally consisting of a base rune with some modifiers describing what you want to do, while more complicated spells would require more symbols. For example, a 'Fireball' spell would be the rune for fire, with some additional symbols indicating how far away it needs to explode and how big the explosion needs to be.

As something to perhaps help, I'll share my attitude towards programmer, as a programmer.
I grew up playing a lot of RPGs and reading a lot of fantasy, and the idea of magic had a huge appeal to me. I think a large part of what I love about programming is that it feels like magic to me. So I'm sharing something sorta from the reverse attitude: not making a magic system akin to programming, but describing how programming is akin to magic.

I have this base stuff (usually raw data stored in a table), and I want to transform it into other stuff (usually different data based on raw data, or tables/graphs based on data). The code I type is like entering the strange runes or saying the arcane words that reshape the stuff according to what I want.

Though, to go off some stuff already mentioned in this thread, that would be the wizard-type of using a high order programming language to reshape reality on fixed constraints (e.g., what the languages' syntax allows for).

Maybe that helps, maybe it doesn't, but I wanted to share that bit in case it could help with any worldbuilding.

I enjoyed Rick Cook's take on this. Throwing out some random thoughts.

This is a system that runs without power. Plucking the strings of reality, inserting code, altering code or settings is what changes reality. That could lead to some imbalances if all you have to do is think the changes. In Cook's books the protagonist essentially puts a bunch of simple cantrips together into an operating system that can allow for the creation of powerful magics. Of course that also makes it vulnerable to catastrophic infinite loop errors. What powers the system?

I've always thought of Vancian magic as script-kiddies finding the reality manipulating tools of the creator(s). The current users aren't sure what the magic was originally used for but know that when they do things just right it gives them an effect they can use.

One word that really makes this paradigm appeal to me: viruses. I've used this before (infernal viruses) but there are so many possibilities. A magic virus that shuts down a spellcaster (blue screen) or just shuts down their ability to cast spells. A virus that hijacks spellcasters and turns them into a bot net that can be used to carry out super powerful attacks (even against the gods? cool) A virus that grounds out magical power so a spell-caster is unable to cast at full strength. And reality altering viruses? Oh, boy. You could even make the case that some creatures are nothing more than self-replicating programs. Celestials? The protective daemons created by the creators. Devils? Corrupted daemons. Demons? Pure malicious viruses. I mean, you could really go to town on this.

IMO, it usually feels like gods are utilizing rather high-level structures, with limited comprehension of low-level details. Now, arguably, you could make some form of Wizards that are "mini gods", utilizing a scaled down version of language of the gods, optimized to run on mortal hardware. But, conceptually, Wizards with their spell research feel like they're doing somewhat trail and error poking at lower-level systems, hoping that they've translated the instruction manual / circuit diagrams correctly.

The Muggle knows that he can push these buttons on dishwasher to wash his dishes. He masters using reality as designed. The Wizard works to adjust the nozzle size and settings to pour himself a glass of cold water - and, at higher level, uses the dishwasher to make ice cubes.

Eh, it could work, I suppose. Personally, I view D&D Wizards as using reality as written exactly as much as the Fighter does. They just focus on different areas. Writing a Wizard from scratch as a reality hacker should end up, IMO, as a cross between a 2e Wild Mage, and a WoD Mage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Telok

...

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fable Wright

...

---

I really like this idea. It subverts the standard ur language trope and creates an interesting dynamic. High level spells are powerful and fast to prepare, but they lack customization and are slow to take effect. Meanwhile, low level spells are almost the exact opposite. They're slow to prepare, fast to cast, and can be tweaked to exact specifications, and while they're not weak, they are limited in what they can do without excessive preparation. It creates a spellcasting mechanic that intrinsically maintains the usefulness of low level spells without adding in arbitrary and, often, annoying rules to limit the usage of high level spells. This could really work in a system where spells can be used at will (or with a cooldown) but have very specific uses, necessitating either specialization or lots of out of combat time to develop more spells.

About customization: a good high level language will retain the ability to do low level operations, you just almost never need to. You don't need to reference a memory address to flip a bit to set something, there's a command for that. You could do it if you wanted to, but its extra work for the same result.

About speed: the speed difference in high versus low languages is, in reality, quite small with a decently efficent program. If its a sloppy program with lots of extra loops or bad sorting or something then its bad no matter the language. Also a lot of what people think of as high level is really interpreted languages that have an interpreter using resources. But the only time a user would notice a difference is when something consumes most/all cpu resources for at least a couple minutes. Even then the time difference is a couple seconds at the most. Just choosing a better sorting method on a single large data set can erase that entire difference.

Have any of you read the Cast in <string> books by Michelle Sagara (also known as the Chronicles of Elantra)?

The immortal races all have a Name at their core that grants them life. Said names are written in the Old Tongue, the language of the Ancients who created worlds. Stories told in the Old Language can affect reality in ways much more powerful than "ordinary" magic. Knowing someone's Name gives you power over them, assuming you have sufficient will to overcome theirs. The elements' names are also written in the Old Tongue, and if you know the Name of Fire, you can summon it (just be careful not to summon more than you can control). These True Words can be used to, say, transform people into sentient buildings with powers over their interiors, and even the surrounding lands. Some immortals see the name as a weakness, and attempt to divest themselves of them (which usually doesn't turn out well for them).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Telok

About customization: a good high level language will retain the ability to do low level operations, you just almost never need to. You don't need to reference a memory address to flip a bit to set something, there's a command for that. You could do it if you wanted to, but its extra work for the same result.

About speed: the speed difference in high versus low languages is, in reality, quite small with a decently efficent program. If its a sloppy program with lots of extra loops or bad sorting or something then its bad no matter the language. Also a lot of what people think of as high level is really interpreted languages that have an interpreter using resources. But the only time a user would notice a difference is when something consumes most/all cpu resources for at least a couple minutes. Even then the time difference is a couple seconds at the most. Just choosing a better sorting method on a single large data set can erase that entire difference.

---

Well, sure, but we're not discussing actual programming; we're designing a magic system inspired by programming. If that involves exaggerating some small quirks, then that's perfectly fine.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Celestia

Well, sure, but we're not discussing actual programming; we're designing a magic system inspired by programming. If that involves exaggerating some small quirks, then that's perfectly fine.

---

There are two sorts of people, those who understand programming, and those who don't. The neat thing is that nobody fully understands programming.

That Matrix quote about rules being broken is wrong, programs follow the rules, explicitly and always, they don't always do what was intended, because a programmer failed to make the intentions explicit in the programming, but the program always exactly follows the rules.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lord Torath

Have any of you read the Cast in <string> books by Michelle Sagara (also known as the Chronicles of Elantra)?

The immortal races all have a Name at their core that grants them life. Said names are written in the Old Tongue, the language of the Ancients who created worlds. Stories told in the Old Language can affect reality in ways much more powerful than "ordinary" magic. Knowing someone's Name gives you power over them, assuming you have sufficient will to overcome theirs. The elements' names are also written in the Old Tongue, and if you know the Name of Fire, you can summon it (just be careful not to summon more than you can control). These True Words can be used to, say, transform people into sentient buildings with powers over their interiors, and even the surrounding lands. Some immortals see the name as a weakness, and attempt to divest themselves of them (which usually doesn't turn out well for them).

---

I've seen that series recommended before, I'll have to check it out.

Funny thing is, in my setting that uses "ur language", the exact opposite is true of many of the "immortal" (ageless) beings -- they're the ones without "true names". They don't come from the solar/creator deities, and weren't created using the "ur language".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy

I've seen that series recommended before, I'll have to check it out.

Funny thing is, in my setting that uses "ur language", the exact opposite is true of many of the "immortal" (ageless) beings -- they're the ones without "true names". They don't come from the solar/creator deities, and weren't created using the "ur language".

---

In this setting, the immortals are the first "children" of the Creators, and as such required Names to bring them to life. Humans, aerians, leontines, etc., are later creations, after the Creators (or possibly early creations of the Creators) learned how to bring things to life without giving them a Name. And any race that doesn't need a name is mortal, with a normal sub-century lifespan. Some of the immortal races never 'wake' after birth until a Name is delivered to them, while others are little more than beasts until they find their Name.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Telok

About customization: a good high level language will retain the ability to do low level operations, you just almost never need to. You don't need to reference a memory address to flip a bit to set something, there's a command for that. You could do it if you wanted to, but its extra work for the same result.

---

Absolutely. But I view high level slots as executing existing programs, not coding them on the fly. And it's really easy to do low level operations that bork or manipulate data in ways that a running program might not have error handling for. And error handling is a hugely expensive operation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Telok

About speed: the speed difference in high versus low languages is, in reality, quite small with a decently efficent program. If its a sloppy program with lots of extra loops or bad sorting or something then its bad no matter the language. Also a lot of what people think of as high level is really interpreted languages that have an interpreter using resources. But the only time a user would notice a difference is when something consumes most/all cpu resources for at least a couple minutes. Even then the time difference is a couple seconds at the most. Just choosing a better sorting method on a single large data set can erase that entire difference.

---

Speaking as an embedded engineer:

You will never convince me, ever, to run an operating system in Python, or do timeline processing for microsecond based hardware operations in Java or Matlab. Nor will you convince me to use Javascript to do big data crunching.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elves

Personally, I think the magic as programming trope is a little worn out and kind of transiently topical. Like in viking times when writing was rare and important, it was "zomg dude runes are magical", and now that computer programming is important, it's "zomg dude programmers are like wizards".

---

Eh, to me the idea still had merit. The points of programming I'm using essentially boil down to:

-You need to run it on something. In my seeing this is the World(OS)/Universe (physical architecture).
-There are multiple languages, each of which has advantages and drawbacks. Learning multiple languages is fairly common among professional magicians.
-The universe does exactly what you tell it to do. I hope it's what you wanted it to do.

I've been wavering over whether learning a spell should count as 'compiling' it or if spells need to be rewritten every time, but I'm leaning more and more towards the former, which means that a lot of this comes up during spell design rather than casting.

Suffice to say, this isn't a D&D setting, but it is one that plays with a lot of fantasy tropes. This came up after I was happy with what I did with dwarves (renowned for their immaculately trimmed beards, skill at painting and music, and cuisine) and moved onto magic. In play it doesn't change a lot rules-wise, because I'm going for a rough analogy rather than basing magic on programming, but it does have some changes to the thematics of the setting (to start with inborn magic is pretty much out).

I like the idea of spells basically being exploits, bugs, and viruses.

Which also makes magic a lot less predictable and more dangerous.

It also means that doing magic might expose you to various levels of corruption/virus/bugs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard

Eh, to me the idea still had merit. The points of programming I'm using essentially boil down to:

-You need to run it on something. In my seeing this is the World(OS)/Universe (physical architecture).
-There are multiple languages, each of which has advantages and drawbacks. Learning multiple languages is fairly common among professional magicians.
-The universe does exactly what you tell it to do. I hope it's what you wanted it to do.

I've been wavering over whether learning a spell should count as 'compiling' it or if spells need to be rewritten every time, but I'm leaning more and more towards the former, which means that a lot of this comes up during spell design rather than casting.

Suffice to say, this isn't a D&D setting, but it is one that plays with a lot of fantasy tropes. This came up after I was happy with what I did with dwarves (renowned for their immaculately trimmed beards, skill at painting and music, and cuisine) and moved onto magic. In play it doesn't change a lot rules-wise, because I'm going for a rough analogy rather than basing magic on programming, but it does have some changes to the thematics of the setting (to start with inborn magic is pretty much out).

---

With something like this, you can use "programming" or "reality hacking" as the skeleton of your magic system, and never explicitly spell out that framework at the fiction or rules text levels.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy

With something like this, you can use "programming" or "reality hacking" as the skeleton of your magic system, and never explicitly spell out that framework at the fiction or rules text levels.

---

Yes, and from an in-setting perspective very little of this is known (it being a millennia or so since the AoL, which ended with a global societal collapse, and so a lot of information is distorted). It's really something that never comes up except as the reason the magic system has the quirks it does. You can overcomplicate stuff.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kyoryu

I like the idea of spells basically being exploits, bugs, and viruses.

Which also makes magic a lot less predictable and more dangerous.

It also means that doing magic might expose you to various levels of corruption/virus/bugs.

---

Curiously, I've never gotten sick from a computer virus.

However, I'm left to wonder just what a *program* that's a hacker would look like, and whether it would actually face more threats than a mundane, non-hacking program.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Quertus

Curiously, I've never gotten sick from a computer virus.

However, I'm left to wonder just what a *program* that's a hacker would look like, and whether it would actually face more threats than a mundane, non-hacking program.

---

That you know of. Imagine that the world is the matrix - a virus in the matrix could "infect" you, right?

I THINK there's a path from Mage: The Ascension that believes their magic works like this. And because it's Mage, they are probably right.

The character Krona from Grrl Power has this exact super-power.

https://grrlpowercomic.com/