General Magic or Sorcery as a Limited/Locked/Banned Power?

What is says in the thread title. Magic without a clear focus seemingly goes inherently against the Three Power rule by being the power to have all powers(believe it was ebonynightmare who brought this up). At the very least I personally believe it should be limited to only site veterans who have proven that they know not to power-play or go godmode.  

What is everyone else's thoughts on the matter? 

(liking for the "edit reason")

But yeah, I think there should be some serious restrictions on general magic, spell casting, and other things of that kind. Even without control of those powers, the character could accidentally harm or even kill another character. And with control, being able to cast spells allows the character to counter any other power on this site while also simultaneously being able to inflict damage (meaning the power encompasses offense and defense on every imaginable level).

Seren Redgrim , thoughts?

Generally speaking, spellcasting in most cases would have to fall into a focused camp in order to be accepted by the Admins in the first place. As Turt has stated, the classic portrayal of a spell caster would fall into the realm of having too many powers. That is why the current population of spell casters and their magic fall into the realm of a certain category, such as Stella being an elemental witch of water and Mona being specifically a witch based around machines.

In which case, I don’t see why spell casters would necessarily need to be banned to one of the other categories so long as they are being regulated in a proper manner. The idea of ‘general magic’ is too vague of a concept and can’t be quantified, thus it would not be accepted as a power. As for it being too dangerous, if they are being regulated as I stated above, they are no more a danger of accidentally killing someone as most other powers (fire benders, were-beings, electricity benders, etc). Besides that, banning spell casting could lead to misconceptions as magic is a very vague concept to begin with and as thus anything that could be seen as supernatural could be dubbed as magic.

In short, general spellcasting is not a well-defined power on its own, so it would not be treated as one power.

I like the idea of general sorcery and magic being more of a limited power than anything else. On the other hand though there's only been about maybe two people in the past three years on this site that have used general magic/sorcery in their apps. It's not something that comes up all that often.

I'm not very keen on banning anything since I feel like once I start banning powers it's just going to open up a big load of problems and technicalities that are very difficult to get into with this kind of role play setting. I'd like to keep things as open as possible and as Grim was saying if things are regulated then there shouldn't be too many problems.

Grim's point about misconceptions is a good one, but I think if the description of the power was clear enough it would only benefit you guys by making it clear in advance that a typical spell-caster is not usually a welcomed addition while say someone who can use flame conjuration is, thus saving one of you guys from having to correct them down the line.

Of course, this is all assuming this person read the power section in the first place, and if they're making a jack of all trades magic-dude then they probably haven't. :/

As someone who has an interest in witches and spell-casters, I guess I could weigh in here, though this could turn into rambling.

Magic, in its simplest definition is changing or influencing objects or events with a supernatural force. For general sorcery, it's the idea of chanting words and making something happen. With recent events, I can understand how general magic can be vague to gauge. A person who has only a grasp of general magic can be confused with someone who has mastery of all magic. As Grim pointed out, focused spell-casting in certain fields of magic is more easily acceptable than someone who can do all sorts of magic without any kind of set back or visible weakness.

General magic, I assume, is including every type of magic for a given purpose at any moment. Unless they're old wizards or ancient sorcerers, students who have general spell-casting should more likely be able to cast only basic spells in small burst, such as lighting only a single flame on their finger, or making a tiny gust of wind. Characters who are focused into a single category are more efficient in casting their magic of choice, while barely even using any other magic. But even then, sometimes such magic might take a bunch of basic spells to form a new one.

Take Mona for an example. She's a witch who can modify, take apart, and even create mechanical objects and machines, and in the meanwhile, can change certain parts of her body into a mechanical forms. While I haven't depicted her magic in detail, Mona is using a bunch of spells to create a category of magic that relates to machinery. Taking apart machines with magic is a form of telekinesis. Shifting materials within a machine or her body to make new parts can be defined as transmutation  or even transformation to a lesser extent. In some machines that require programming and have to be made on the spot, there is going to be some animation magic, if temporarily, especially if Mona is transforming her limbs into machines, which is going to throw off some logic down the drain.

Basically, if someone wants general magic, or be a spell-caster, they can make their spells work together to form a focused specialization of magic. If they can use general magic in a way that is to achieve a specialization, then I'm all for it. While I do like the idea of limiting sorcery, I don't think it should be outright locked or banned. If anything, I would like to see someone take a power and deconstruct it into its basic forms. Magic spells are the most easiest to do so, since its understandable for someone to know some simple magic in an early stage.

I want to see someone do something like explosion blasting or puppet controlling, since I can imagine simple spells being the ingredients for bigger results.

I don't think magic should be banned, but for example, with Wilta's app, her character has no clear focus, or, as Kaeru called it, specialization. So in general, I think "magic" should be restricted to a point where if your character is "generally magical" their abilities should focus on one type of ability.

Or you can make them refer to The Malleus Maleficarum and make them single or widows, make potions out of babies, cast impotency curses, and steal guys penises. There's always that option so that we can burn them at the stake later. School bonfire parties are pretty great.

Liking that post for the sheer amount of passion you put into it Kaeru.

Kaeru raises some excellent points on how closing off general magic would be bad, but I'm not sure if Foresta's rules cover things like the small amount of telekinetic power that would be required to operate Mona's tech-magic. That is pretty much a required secondary power that has no effect on anything else, at least at the moment, and only works to get Mona's abilities functioning and up to a level comparable to other students. The site will never require something so minute and only important to a single character to be registered as a power. So even if they are using other spells to combine and make their own, as long as they're only getting use out of them through the combination process then I feel the three power rule is not being violated. All those spells are also covered under the 'powers must be related' ruling as well.

However, the moment Mona uses that telekinesis to pick up a rock or something is when we start having issues, and why 'general magic' is a problem. Different magic as a means to an end, the end being a perceivable ability on level with other character's, is okay. Different magic that are all ends unto themselves, where all the magical skills have clear applications outside of just creating one ability, gives them ALOT of abilities and makes them a walking bundle of unfairness.

Thus General Magic, as in being able to cast any spells they learned, should be restricted. It does not affect characters like Mona simply because her use of different magical abilities is simply restricted to the production of the ability in her Powers section, which is fairly balanced with other student characters.

I think we're all basically in agreement here?

If someone is going to do general magic as a focus, then I suggest either laying down some ground rules or discuss it with an admin to see what can be done. 

I don't know what ground rules you could even come up with to balance that, aside from the character's ability being that they can preform imitations of the magic other people use that is incredibly more weak. And no matter what someone trying to pull the generalist mage card will be speaking to an admin.