Magic the Gathering Tabletop Role Playing Game Format (MtGTTRPG) Development and Discussion
General forum
Posted on May 6, 2016, 9:41 a.m. by SubstituteHero
tl;dr - I made a tabletop format for mtg and want to test it. Talk at me.
In a fit of inspiration and possibly the effects of a Tormenting Voice granting mad insight, I put together the basic rules to play a game of magic the gathering as a tabletop role playing game. If you are unaware, tabletop role playing game refers to the ol' pen and paper games like Dungeons & Dragons and its ilk. It closely resembles a d20 levels 1-20 system without any necessary dice, instead using an MtG deck and character sheet.
I did all of this (all ~20 pages, that is) because I have never seen a system in place that uses both a traditional battle map and role playing segments as well as a deck of trading cards. Characters are all planeswalkers with skills, unique abilities, a color identity, and a library of spells given their plane and continuing adventures.
The game is based on a GM running encounters that include skill challenges, combats, and similar conflicts and determining conditions of victory for the players.
There are special rules of movement based on keyword abilities and rules for ranges of cards. A great deal of the game's basic aspects have been translated to work on a standard battle map arrangement. Being a new system devised by one person in a few bursts of a Descent into Madness, there is naturally a lot missing.
Find my baby here: Google Docs page
I'd love your input and questions, to help develop the system. I plan to play test it in the near future and would love others help with that as well. Really, anything related to this weird new system I'd love to discuss here. Let me know what you think!
Other Material: Scute Mob Sample Encounter
SubstituteHero says... #4
Thanks for the interest!
I've made a quick encounter hand sample based on Scute Mob. I'd love to see any that anyone else things up.
May 6, 2016 10:24 a.m.
JerichoDarkstar says... #5
This looks absolutely amazing! I would totally love to play this with my MTG buddies.
Also, I'd like to help out anyway I can. So, when you get to playtesting and need an extra guinea pig, just let me know.
May 6, 2016 11:25 a.m.
JerichoDarkstar says... #6
Had this idea for a sample encounter: THE WALL
"While continuing on in my travels, I came across this wall. Daunting and strong, like an immortal testament that no living thing should pass this way. I will never know how long I would have stared at its magnificent structure because not long after arriving, I was attacked by its ancient guardians. Great steel gargoyles, breathless, yet alive, fell from the lofty heights and crashed to ground below. As the earth shook, I thought it was from their impact. I wish that assumption was correct, but it was the protective spells from unknown magic that caused the thorns and forest behind me to come alive. The malicious energy surged all around me as I realized my great predicament. I was trapped on all sides. The wall in front, the gargoyles to the sides, and the magical barrier of plants behind me... there was no escape. I would have to fight."
Hand:
So, the concept here is that the Player runs into a barrier, I guess Steel Wall, and needs to get past it. However, there are security measures like Wall of Tanglecord created from a protected hex and Reinforced Bulwark as support to help keep people out. There are also special Gargoyles like Warden of the Wall, Manor Gargoyle, and Darksteel Brute. The wall is trying to keep them out for a reason.
Treasure:
The Darksteel and indestructible theme come out in the treasures. The Darksteel Ingot and Darksteel Mutation are drops from Darksteel Brute and lead to a side quest. Mortal's Resolve is a spell that came from the experience they received from fighting.
SPECIAL TREASURE: (not a card)
One Ebon Steel Fragment -- The idea here,I guess, would be an 11 part long string of encounters. Each victory grants one of these fragments. Once all 11 Fragments are collected, the player can choose to bind the fragments together to make Darksteel Colossus for themselves. However, if they received a "Corrupted Steel Fragment" from a specific encounter, they can choose to combine it with the other 11 fragments to create Blightsteel Colossus as a secret boss fight with tons of rewards.
I'm just throwing ideas out as they come. My concept for this put out very hurriedly
May 6, 2016 12:04 p.m.
SubstituteHero says... #7
@JerickoDarkstar thank you very much for the interest, I hope if you end up playing with your friends you let me know what you think. I love the encounter, a wall-based fight would lead to a very interesting combat scenario given a condition. May I suggest the special treasure be a Darksteel Relic instead of the fragment?
May 6, 2016 6:55 p.m.
michael921 says... #9
I would love to help you out with this!
My current hesitations and recommendations with the system is to make leveling up feel more relavent, streamline the deck building for those with smaller collections, and revamp the color rules. Players should be allowed to play a three color, four color, or mono color planeswalker if they want. This could be remedied by having five stats with sub stats, such as DND, with each attribute corresponding with a color. In addition to this, some roleplay guidelines would be incredibly useful, with unique abilities. An example of this in DND 5e is the different sub classes of rogue. This could be implemented at level X in a color to increase the diversity in player choices.
May 6, 2016 7:41 p.m.
SubstituteHero says... #10
Thank you for the input, michael921. I've written notes about smaller card collections in the last couple of sections to address that now, it's an excellent point.
Players are allowed to play a planeswalker with between 0 and 5 colors in their identity, it's just a questions of gaining the access to those colors as they level up. Similarly, if they decide not to gain access to more colors, their ability with their existing colors or colorless mana increases.
I'll be writing roleplay guidelines and abilities in, because I do want to see more emphasis on skill encounters and role playing taken into account. I think it'll have a lot of room in the system when I've overhauled it.
By the way, I'm overhauling and completely changing the system.
I plan to completely change the battlefield placement rules, as I've realized the notion of tracking all permanents on the battlefield would have been an act of absolute futility. I also plan to implement more mechanically-backed skills and roleplaying abilities instead of relying only on loose traits. I'll be compiling all of this into a Doc for MtGTTRPG 2.0 as soon as its completed. Thank you all for the interest, I'll hopefully have something entirely more playable soon.
May 7, 2016 6:54 p.m.
SubstituteHero says... #11
Side note, I glanced and have now realized that I've been tagging users the wrong way all along. Whoops~
May 7, 2016 6:55 p.m.
SubstituteHero says... #12
Above is a link to the updated rules to prevent absolute nonsense related to the number of permanents to track. Skills are more significant and player-specific advancements happen more frequently. While there are not stats, planeswalkers of different color affinities will have completely different abilities once on the battlefield.
I think this is a huge improvement in terms of time and space used, but let me know what you all think and what could be done to further make it fun to play. I'll be writing in a flavor section on dealings with the infinite consortium and doing proofreading. Looking forward to seeing what this revamped version can do.
Once proofread and flavored, I'm going to try to find a way to make a character sheet
May 8, 2016 5:56 a.m.
JerichoDarkstar says... #13
I didn't even know Darksteel Relic was a thing, but that is perfect! And yes, come Summer, I intend to playtest A LOT with my buddies. I'll let you know how our games turn out.
SubstituteHero says... #2
Any interested co-conspirators, please leave a comment or send me a message or an email or something. I would love any help that people are willing to offer on this ridiculous endeavor. I need to make character sheets, write test encounters and modules, play test the system, spruce up the formatting of the book after a proofreading, and distribute the material on various forums after it's fully developed.
Hell, I'd love to hear if you plan on glancing at it. I'm interested to see where this can go, and frankly it won't go anywhere without the interest of the community.
May 6, 2016 9:44 a.m.