Yeah I think the magic in Lord of the Rings is awesome. But that's a series of books, not a game. I know there's been games out there based on Lord of the Rings before, but not really a fan of those games. Why play that stuff when I can just read the books or watch the movie again? Much better IMO

Some of these magic system ideas are intriguing however, particularly the one mentioned by Jormengand, Dishonour before Death. That seems like a cool way to do the magic.

But I'm just going to stay away from magic systems for now and instead go with a more gritty SciFi game and setting that I have thought up. It's post-apocalyptic, but has nothing to do with nukes. More to do with aliens