The Colors of Magic and Specializations

Anyone who's played MtG knows that certain colors are better at certain schools/specializations of magic than others. White provides the best Protection, Blue provides the best Counterspells, Black provides the best Curses, Green provides the best Enhancement, and Red provides the best Elemental Damage. In that vein, which Affinity you choose to add to your dice pool can have an effect on your Specialization dice.

If you use a Specialization which is one of the Linked Specializations with the Affinity you use in your die pool, step up that Specialization die. There's no penalty for out-of-color magic, because that makes things less Epic and that's the whole point, right? (Editor's Note: I may make it so that if you're using one of the enemy colors of a specific effect [using Red or Green for Counterspell], it'll step-down the Specialization die. We'll see how each plays during the next playtest.)

White: Protection
Green: Summoning
Red: Elemental Damage
Black: Curse
Blue: Counterspell

The other specializations fall in to more than one color, so they've got no specific bonuses.

So, taking from last week's character creation example:

Uriel is stalking the streets of Mercadia, hunting down a criminal. He corner's the poor sod and gives him a chance to surrender. Being a nonsensical criminal scum, he draws a knife. Uriel reaches deep into his magical reserves to Justice the wretch into ashes.

Uriel's die pool is as follows:

Red Magic (d10) - Affinity.
Elemental Damage (d8) - Specialization.
"Burn with me!" (d8) - Characteristic.

Since the Specialization matches the Affinity, it is stepped up to a d10. Uriel's final die pool is two d10s and one d8.

If he had, instead, tried to restrain the criminal, his die pool would look more like:

d10 (Red Magic) + d6 (Domination) + d6 (Heart of Darksteel). Since Domination is a non-color tied effect (being historicall used by White, Blue, Black, and Red), he gets no bonus step-up.

I've got a second playtest this Friday, so I'm sure there'll be more changes coming down the pipe.

Glo.ri.ous.

I should probably get to work on clarifying that MtG:PtC hack from Monday.

The idea behind the hack is rather basic. Everyone who's tried to make a MtG RPG in the past has erred on the side of Look-at-All-My-Rules. I've seen D&D 3.5 hacks that take up hundreds of pages. That's insanity. Sure, I'm sure someone likes things like that, but I'd rather be able to hand my players a sheet of rules and say "make anything in the multiverse".

Character Creation:

- Make up a concept. One would hope that this would be an obvious first step, but you'd be surprised. For the purposes of this example, our concept will be Former Drill Sergeant Turned Pyromancer.

- Choose Three Characteristics. These are the qualities which define your character's mentality. They also provide bonuses or hinderances to your dice pools, as you can choose to roll them as a d6 or as a d4. If you choose d4, you also get a Plot Point. For FDSTP, I've chosen the following: Heart of Darksteel, Military Bearing, and "Burn with me!".

- Choose an Affinity Array. Affinities relate directly to the five colors of magic. You can choose to be Monocolored or Dual Colored. Monocolored Planeswalkers have a single higher die and the rest are lower. Dual Colored Planeswalkers have two higher dice (though not as high as the Monocolored's prime affinity) and the rest are lower. (d10, d6, d6, d4, d4) vs (d8, d8, d6, d4, d4). FDSTP chooses Monocolored, with the following array: White d6, Green d6, Red d10, Black d4, Blue d4.

- Choose one Specialty at a d8. This is the type of spellcasting you're best at. Since we're making a Pyromancer, Elemental Damage is an obvious choice.

- Choose two Specialties at d6. These are your secondary spell types. Since FDSTP was formerly a drill sergeant, we'll pick out Enhancement and Domination.

- Design Limits. For the purposes of this, all Planeswalkers have the following limits.

Limit - Mana Burn: Shut down any one Affinity to gain 1 plot point. Recover on during a transition scene.
Limit - Mental Misstep: Shut down any one Specialization to gain 1 plot point. Recover on an Opportunity.

- Design Milestones: These are personal. Follow the general guidelines in the MHR book.

And now, the finished product.


Uriel Dastar

Heart of Darksteel, Military Bearing, "Burn with me!"

White d6, Green d6, Red d10, Black d4, Blue d4

Elemental Damage d8, Enhancement d6, Domination d6
 Limit - Mana Burn: Shut down any one Affinity to gain 1 plot point. Recover on during a transition scene.
Limit - Mental Misstep: Shut down any one Specialization to gain 1 plot point. Recover on an Opportunity.




-J

MtG: Planeswalking the Cortex

I bashed out a really rough Magic the Gathering hack for Cortex+ at lunch today, based on some ideas that Cam Banks and some of his followers were having on Google+.

Here's the link. Remember, this is a work in progress and it's really really basic. Feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

-J