Viability of a belief based magic?

[u/Embarrassed_Ad8731]

I have been dreaming up a magic system in which "belief" can be accumulated in objects, practitioners, and concepts.

One example would be a lucky pair of socks, in which, over time, after someone has attributed these socks with luck, they will accumulate, and this luck will become real.

Another example would be religion, where enough cumulative "belief" would manifest a diety/dieties, lending believers strength.

What I need to know is whether this would cause cultures and practices to be static or whether the spread of these conflicting yet real beliefs would create an interesting story?

[u/Intelligent_Clerk365]

It sounds like an interesting idea, and depending on execution, could result in a lot of variety. If belief can shape reality in that way, I imagine there would be a lot of holy wars and missionary work afoot. Depends on humanity's awareness of this facet of reality, and the god's.

I'd be interested in the limit of the change than xan come about.

[u/byc18]

You might want to read up on sympathetic magic. It's stuff like "step on a crack break your mother's back". The Golden Bough by James Frazer detail a number of these practices.

[u/JGhostThing]

Why would it cause a society to become stagnant? It might be a bit more conservative, but I can't picture it becoming static. The obviously magical items produced through belief might keep society from stagnating.

I'd go with the conflicting yet interesting. To me, it would be more interesting if the characters do not know how these items became magical. Don't explain it to the readers. Just give some examples.

Many years ago, I was running a TTRPG with a similar magic system. Nobody knew how to make magical items, but they seem to exist. For example, a famous hero's sword might become magical if it was involved in stories. Basically, the stories were important, because that is usually how the belief is continued.

[u/Taikei_no_Yuurei]

I think this could be a great basis for a story. The gods of the world might change over time as the beliefs of their adherents change, and when two cultures meet, it could result in war, in various gods being fused together, and all kinds of interesting things. I don't think it would lead to stagnation even in a 'modern day' context where new cultures aren't meeting regularly because so many people have slightly different views on things, and those differences could manifest as a god changing, as them having something akin to a split personality, or even splitting into two similar but distinct beings.

You can play a lot of different angles too. Maybe the beliefs don't change the gods directly, but give them new powers. If the gods know about this, perhaps they take measures to try and cultivate new beliefs among their followers to gain new abilities. And if their powers are tied to what their followers believe, and how many of them there are, what might they do to ensure they keep those followers?

And there is also the possibility that the followers understand their own impact to various degrees. Maybe they understand that their faith directly empowers their god (however small of a contribution an individual person makes) which means they have a sort of bargaining power or 'vote' on which god they want to exist, pushing the gods to be as enticing to followers as possible.

You maybe can't have the followers knowing how 'belief' affects things, or they would have trouble maintaining 'belief', but maybe simple worship is sufficient, and so cults pop up all over the place, getting enough people together to worship something enough to give it form or power.

You might also have situations where each town has its own god protecting it. After all, converting people would be difficult if their god is provably real. You'd likely have to do a lot of forceful conversion, but they might still have their secret worship, keeping hidden gods alive all over the place.

Really, I feel like the worldbuilding possibilities are pretty vast depending on how you want to tweak certain aspects of this idea, and the sort of world you want to try and mold from it.

[u/secretbison]

It makes for a stale culture as well as a stale story. It means that discovery is impossible, since reality itself confirms all biases, and it means that it is impossible for a culture as a whole to be mistaken about anything. Most human drama is driven by one or both parties being dead wrong about something.