Magic system ranked by convenience
For this topic, we will have to assume that with any power system it is possible to write a great story with enough skill. Great as in, people will love it, not neccesarily having some deep meaning or commentary.
My question is, amongst these power systems, which ones do you think are the easiest one to write a great story with? I'll add some examples.
Raw power (dragon ball, baki, wuxia novels)
Soft magic (lord of the rings, game of thrones)
Hard magic (fullmetal alchemist, witch hat atelier, naruto)
Cultivation (xianxia novels exclusively)
Console (solo leveling, sword art online)
Superpowers (invincible, marvel, mha)
I'll give my own opinion to start with.
raw power - 5/10, will use it as a baseline because it doesn't add any extra context to the novel other than, well, people being able to obtain powers.
Soft magic - 7/10, it is more challenging because you can not use it to attract the attention of the reader. It acts as a seasoning for a story that is already good without any powers.
Hard magic - 6/10, it attracts a lot of attention and if your story has good hard magic then it can get away with a lot of stuff. However, ensuring that it is consistent is pretty annoying.
Cultivation - 4/10, because as long as you actually bother to get familiar with the canon, you get a bunch of "guidelines" on making a beautiful story automatically. It takes some time, but it takes less creative skill.
Console - 10/10, I haven't seen one good story in this genre. Makes everything feel generic, has no benefits.
Superpowers - 8/10, shifts attention from cool powers to personality. You can't write A LOT of interesting characters with good personality? Well, you suck at this genre then.
Posted Aug 27, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC