Magic as a D&D Edition Setting

[Almaz]

We can include Thrulls. They're "undead" in a way, but they're actually quite alive and are still pretty much people. They've also gotten play beyond Fallen Empires - appearing in Ravnica and so on. They're also recognizably "Magic."

Hell, we could include Zombies. PC-functional zombies appear all the time in Magic.

I don't feel the Kor are a good addition - they're a B-lister race, okay, fine. I won't hold that against them much, since I just suggested Thrulls. But they don't really stand out from Humans much in playstyles, unless we're talking about the il-Kor, and that is a pretty fine distinction, and yeah, I dunno. Yeah yeah, "but dwarves and elves don't either." Shush.

Frank's argument is persuasive re: such things, so I think that is the best solution.

Let's not include classed Angels and Demons as 1st level options - they're a "powerful race" in MtG, by most standards, and should thus be restricted to a class of their own or higher levels, I think.

I'm not sure if Vampires qualify as a "powerful race" the same way. They don't always fly, etc. Thoughts?

Also, you haven't brought up ogres or minotaurs at all, which are definitely not the same kind of super-race that Angels or Demons are.

EDIT: Somewhat sleep-drunk when I typed this, I retract my statement regarding "you didn't mention Minotaurs," but I continue to disagree that Zombies should not be included as a default player option.

[zugschef]

The issue is that anything can become a Zombie, that's why it should be a template.

[RadiantPhoenix]

We can include Thrulls. They're "undead" in a way, but they're actually quite alive and are still pretty much people. They've also gotten play beyond Fallen Empires - appearing in Ravnica and so on. They're also recognizably "Magic."

No.

Hell, we could include Zombies. PC-functional zombies appear all the time in Magic.

Necropolitan-type Zombies seem fine.

Let's not include classed Angels and Demons as 1st level options - they're a "powerful race" in MtG, by most standards, and should thus be restricted to a class of their own or higher levels, I think.

They should be their own class, but that doesn't mean you can't play them at level one.

The reason there aren't creatures like:

Baby Angel {W}
Creature -- Angel
Flying
1/1

and

Baby Demon {B}
Creature -- Demon
Intimidate
1/1

Is because they want to make those creatures feel important

I'm not sure if Vampires qualify as a "powerful race" the same way. They don't always fly, etc. Thoughts?

They used to be a monster class, but recently they've been demoted.

They're probably also a better choice than Zombie.

So: Core races:

• Human (WUBRG)
• Elf (G)
• Goblin (R)
• Vampire (B)
• Merfolk (U) (Zendikar-style)
• Kithkin or Kor (W)
• Elemental (WUBRG monster)
• Dryad (G monster)
• Dragon (R monster)
• Demon (B monster)
• Shapeshifter (U monster)
• Angel (W monster)

And then we have some NPC-only monster types:

• Wurm/Serpent (GU)
• Beast (RG)

Artifact creatures would be an early splatbook.

[zugschef]

First off: No Dwarves?!

Kithkin are essential as a Halfling-like Rogue race, we can't leave them out. The Kor, however, are far less important, but there are a few Black Kor in the game, that's why I included them. Vampires as a race doesn't really work, since they are Undead like Zombies, even in Magic. I'd treat Undead as a type sometimes gained via templates (as in the case of Vampires and Zombies), just like D&D does. Undead aren't born, they are either raised or created, thus, they aren't lifeforms which you can divide into races and neither can you categorize Undead as a race. As for Black, a lesser Demonic race are Imps, but if you include them you sure as heck include Faeries.

What if we included a colorless race (construct)? Kobolds Gnomes are mostly constructs, for instance.

[RadiantPhoenix]

First off: No Dwarves?!

Magic hasn't had many Dwarves lately, but it's had lots of Goblins.

I suppose we could just have a lot of red races.

Kithkin are essential as a Halfling-like Rogue race, we can't leave them out.

Sounds fine.

Vampires as a race doesn't really work, since they are Undead like Zombies, even in Magic.

So what?

The point is that (almost) all vampires are humanoid, and have classes. They can even become Planeswalkers. Becoming a vampire just swaps out your race.

What if we included a colorless race (construct)? Kobolds are mostly constructs, for instance.

What are you talking about? Kobolds are red red red.

My reasoning for saving artifact creatures for another book is that twelve seems like enough races for the core, and artifact creatures want a whole bunch more content.

Maybe if we're running low on content, artifact creatures could be moved up to core.

[zugschef]

Magic hasn't had many Dwarves lately, but it's had lots of Goblins.

We've already discussed the issue of old and new Magic cards. And Dwarves are the most iconic fantasy race since like ever.

The point is that (almost) all vampires are humanoid, and have classes. They can even become Planeswalkers. Becoming a vampire just swaps out your race.

Yeah, but that is exactly the point: You become a Vampire. So it's still a template and we're talking about races. We can of course include templates from the very beginning, so you can start out as a Vampire or a Werewolf, but that's a seperate discussion.

What are you talking about? Kobolds are red red red.

Sorry, I meant Gnomes.

[OgreBattle]

White- catfolk (lions)
Blue- Merfolk
Green- Elf
Red- Goblin
Black- Vampire

Those are the races that represent each color. I picked catfolk for white because the White Planeswalker is a lion dude and lion soldier dudes were a big part of M:tG recently

I'd rather have race restrict you to certain colors though, that's just more iconically M:tG.

[zugschef]

White- catfolk (lions)
Blue- Merfolk
Green- Elf
Red- Goblin
Black- Vampire

Those are the races that represent each color. I picked catfolk for white because the White Planeswalker is a lion dude and lion soldier dudes were a big part of M:tG recently

Merfolk can't go on an adventure with the absolute majority of low level parties, though. Vampires are fuckin' Undead. I'd actually say that Humans form the core of White and Black. To me U, R and G are much more race-driven because they somehow resemble the elements of fire, water and nature (earth being part of Red and Green), whereas W and B are like Jedi and Sith. They are more like a belief/religion/etc..

I'd rather have race restrict you to certain colors though, that's just more iconically M:tG.

This has already been discussed and labeled Gygaxian DM dickery.[/i]

[Almaz]

We can include Thrulls. They're "undead" in a way, but they're actually quite alive and are still pretty much people. They've also gotten play beyond Fallen Empires - appearing in Ravnica and so on. They're also recognizably "Magic."

No.

Dude, Thrulls are also humanoid.



In fact, they are predominantly so.



Now, it's true they also show up with nonhumanoid, monstrous appearances.



But they continue to be mostly humanlike.



The reason is simple: A thrull is a lifeform created from dead flesh, and as such can take on monstrous forms. However, it is much simpler to make one from a humanoid corpse and go with it. Thus, they are every bit as playable as Zombies, and skip around the "being a template" tidbit-slash-argument since they're their own creation - instead, they're just a PC race that, like Yuanti, also has an NPC variant.

[Username17]

Merfolk can't go on an adventure with the absolute majority of low level parties, though.

M:tG Merfolk can. They grow legs when they leave the water.



There are a grand total of two Merfolk cards who require water to continue being in the adventure. One of them is the Vodalian Knight, who rides a fish horse, and the other is the Sea Singer, who lives in a giant clam. In no case do Merfolk themselves actually require water to adventure.

What they have is the ability to go on adventures that most low level parties cannot go on. Merfolk can adventure under water, which most low level characters cannot do. Of course, there are characters of other races who can:


Now on other races: I also don't see what the Kor bring to the table. They are basically an "Our Elves Are Different" race, except that there is totally already actual Elves. They are given a history, but I'm damned if I could tell you a single thing about them that makes them physically different from an Elf. However, here's the rub: Who cares? I'm sure somebody somewhere likes the Kor and wants to play one, so why not include them?

Racial packages are very much not like class packages. They don't have 10 or more levels of scaling abilities. It's just a small package of low level bullshit and a list of class skills and such. The game mechanics for a race only take up a couple of paragraphs. And while at first level it matters greatly whether you're a Guul Draz or a Kitesailer, at seventh level it basically doesn't mean dick.

With a ten page mini-chapter on races, you could cram in like twenty playable races, including art and flavor text. And you might as well.

-Username17

[RadiantPhoenix]

It's specifically Zendikar's merfolk that have legs. That's why I specified, "Zendikar-style"

Anyway, I can definitely buy Frank's argument for including all the however many races.

[zugschef]

I didn't know about Merfolk and legs. In this case Merfolk is of course the Blue race.

As for Thrulls, there are 22 of them in total and about half of them are obviously not viable as a PC. Also, they're basically nothing more than a sentient flesh golem. I'm not sure how you would put Thrulls into the player races chapter because they obviously need extensive ruling. I'd throw them in as monsters.

Well then, Frank said something about 20 player races, so let's try:

Races	Templates
Angels (W) Birdfolk (WU) Catfolk (WG) Centaur (G) Cephalides (U) Dwarves (R) Elephantfolk (W) Elves (G) Faeries (BU) Goblins (R) Humans (X) Imps (B) Kithkin (W) Kor (W) Lizardfolk (R) Mantisfolk (G) Merfolk (U) Minotaur (R) Moonfolk (U) Ratfolk (B) Rhinofolk (WG) Snakefolk (G) Verdalken (U)	Lycanthropes (BRG) Vampires (BR) Zombies (B)

Explanation: Flying and marine races.

[Username17]

First of all, you really don't need to write Angels up as a playable standard race. There are literally zero 1 mana Angels (by contrast, there are eight 1-cost Vampires). In fact, I would say that if you don't have a 1 CMC version, you probably don't rate being a player race. Let's call those "foundation characters".

So going through that suggested list:

Race	Foundation Characters
Angel	0
Aven	1
Leonin	2
Centaur	1 (Also a Zombie)
Cephalides	0
Dwarves	9
Loxodon	0
Elves	53
Faeries	8
Goblin	60
Human	174
Imp	2
Kithkin	9
Kor	3
Lizardfolk	1
Insectfolk	0
Merfolk	19
Minotaur	1
Moonfolk	0
Nezumi	1
Rhox	0
Ophidians	2
Vedalken	3
Vampire	8
Zombie	14
Spirit	~6

Now obviously, that's just a first approximation. I don't see any particular reason why foundation characters who happen to be Moonfolk or Insectfolk couldn't exist, they just happen to not have any cards.

-Username17

[talozin]

As for Thrulls, there are 22 of them in total and about half of them are obviously not viable as a PC. Also, they're basically nothing more than a sentient flesh golem. I'm not sure how you would put Thrulls into the player races chapter because they obviously need extensive ruling. I'd throw them in as monsters.

Thrulls are basically Warforged, except instead of being sentient iron golems, they're sentient flesh golems. And while there are probably thousands of Warforged who are not independent free agents (I don't know, since I don't give a shit about Eberron, but it seems likely) the only thing necessary for them to be a PC race is that there are enough independent free agents to accommodate all the players who want to play one.

And so too with thrulls. You wouldn't want to play a play a Basal Thrull or an Armor Thrull or maybe even a Thrull Retainer, but a Thrull Wizard could totally be just a wizard who happens to look creepy as fvck. A Necrite could just be an Assassin whose race happens to be "Thrull." Et cetera. There's no need to overcomplicate by throwing in a ton of special rules for PC thrulls. There can be special rules out the ass for thrulls that are monsters, but there is no reason we can't say "PC Thrulls are independent free-willed creatures of roughly humanoid shape" and leave it at that.

[Almaz]

With a ten page mini-chapter on races, you could cram in like twenty playable races, including art and flavor text. And you might as well.

-Username17

Oh, I am not opposed to the inclusion of Kor inherently. My objection was more "those shouldn't be on the list of the first ten things we're writing up." The Kor are eminently sacrificable as a race - they add so very little that they should be fairly far down the list of things we include, and I'd rather write the first ten things, then the next ten things, and so on, so that we aren't spinning our cycles very long on the Kor when there aren't even Goblins written up yet. On the internet, you can fill out your pdf to whatever length (sorta), but priorities take place in front of space concerns.

I am also not sure that we want to get into the business of templates. While obviously there are zombie centaurs that are fucking zombie centaurs and not just zombies and not just centaurs but both, I think it might be best to instead write "template races" as total overwrites in 90% of the cases, with a set of advisories on how to houserule this shit to apply to centaurs or whatever until the formal special-case rulings come out in sourcebooks. I mean hell, most templates get "special exception versions" anyways.

[RadiantPhoenix]

First of all, you really don't need to write Angels up as a playable standard race. There are literally zero 1 mana Angels (by contrast, there are eight 1-cost Vampires). In fact, I would say that if you don't have a 1 CMC version, you probably don't rate being a player race. Let's call those "foundation characters".

I was imagining Angels as the white, "playable monster," race. As in, they eat both your class and your race. Like Dragons and Demons and such.

Besides, Angelic Curator is overcosted. The only problem with it being one mana is that it still wouldn't live up to what you'd normally expect of an Angel.

[Username17]

The Angelic Curator is overcosted, but it's also out of theme for angels in Magic. While if it was made today it wouldn't be printed at that cost, it also wouldn't be printed as a 1/1. Even token angels are 3/3s or 4/4s.

Anyway, there are a number of undiscussed creatures that have foundation creatures and classes.

• Harpies.
• Thrulls
• Shades
• Shapeshifters
• Camarids
• Homunculus
• Kitsune
• Soltari
• Ogres
• Kobolds
• Orcs
• Apes
• Dryads
• Elementals
• Ouphes

And of course, there are a number of cases you could make for others. There are Insects with character classes, but the type also applies to just regular beast insects. The Insect people come in at 2 mana, but there are lots of 1 mana "Insects" that happen to not be the Insect people. But there's no reason to believe that the Insect people are too powerful to have foundation characters, they just happen to not have any.

The Soltari have a Foundation character, while the Dauthi and Thalakos do not. But the Thalakos Mistfolk are a collective in one card. Might you be able to play a single Thalakos in the same way you could play a single Soltari?

But I don't see any reason why you'd jack things around to make Angels into a PC race. It's not like the setting is short of plausible PC races.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

But I don't see any reason why you'd jack things around to make Angels into a PC race. It's not like the setting is short of plausible PC races.

The reason you'd put the work into making Angels playable over Harpies or Homunculus is because Angels are an iconic Magic race and plenty of those others really aren't. I don't get excited to play a Magic RPG because I really want to play a Kitsune. Angels are intelligent and humanoid enough to make a good playable character if you went down that route.

But really that begs the whole question of monster characters. Which is probably something you'd look at once the basics were already in place.

[zugschef]

I'd personally avoid races whose gender is predetermined (angels, hags, etc.), anyway.

So we have classes, we have races (doesn't matter if there's no consense on which races to include as playable in the core package, yet),but what we don't have yet are abilities, skills and traits. Actually we don't even have a skill system and base stats, let alone a core mechanic. In order to flesh out monsters and playable races (which needs to be done before writing up class abilities) we need these.

[OgreBattle]

How much have the rules been thought out, is there a mana tap/untap system for actions?

[Sigil]

How much have the rules been thought out, is there a mana tap/untap system for actions?

That's a good question. You'd want a tap mechanic to be a common thing in the game in order to give the game that magic 'feel'. I could easily see a system where each power and feat a character has adheres to a common format, much like all spells in 3.5 adhere to a format. This would allow you to represent all feats and powers as cards that you could lay out in front of you, even if you weren't a class that used any kind of 'draw' mechanic. The caveat here is that you would want to make sure that none of the feats or abilities actually require cards to keep track of.

Also, are we going to have multiclassing between different classes, or only between subclasses? It would be much harder to implement something like this if characters could have multiple resource schemes.

[Krusk]

I read a few of the magic novels. From what I remember, tapping was literally "I tap into the lands I control and draw power from them".

In RPG sense, that could be the generic action of taking mana from your pool and spending it on a power. You tap mana, and can use it to cast a spell/do a thing.

[Username17]

I would think that something being "tapped" means that it cannot be used again until it becomes "untapped". So let's say we decide to have Rogues or Soldiers or someone work kind of like War Blades: rather than having their maneuvers get "expended", they stay in front of them and "become tapped" until they spend a turn doing basic attacks (or whatever their refresh action is) and get to "untap" their used abilities.

Now let's consider the Shaman in terms of tapping and untapping. Rather than explain it that he has seven mana and can save two mana from the previous turn, we say that he has nine mana and he can untap up to seven mana per turn. In order to preserve multi-class functionality, we let the Shaman "side board" two of his tapped mana at the end of his turn. That's mathematically pretty much the same thing, but it feels more viscerally "Magicish".

-Username17

[Sigil]

There are several mechanics MTG uses that I think would work fine in as resource systems in a TTRPG. Tapping, drawing cards, played cards going to a discard pile, spending mana, and placing and removing counters all come to mind as things that would work well. I'm sure there are more.

Tapping: An obvious analogue for any ability you can use once per turn, if you use this terminology I think it should be an assumption that it untaps at the start of your next turn unless the ability specifically says otherwise (likely after a rest of some sort).

Drawing cards: Any class using a winds of fate system could be represented as drawing cards.

Used cards going to a discard pile: Vanican spells could use this system. The wizards prepares his spells and they sit in his hand until he casts them, after they resolve they go to the graveyard.

Spending Mana: Another obvious analogue for any system that has limited resources to spend, either on a round for round or 'encounter' basis. This one can add a lot of variety to the other resource systems. Spending a regenerating pool of mana every round to play randomly drawn abilities feels different from spending a large pool of mana that regenerates per encounter on preselected abilities for example.

Placing and Removing Counters: I could see the Berserker using a system where whenever he takes or deals damage, he gets to place a rage counter onto one of his ability cards, and can remove them to produce effects.

Any two classes that both use one of these things doesn't necessarily use them in the same way. The scout draws his powers, plays them whereupon they go to the graveyard, and he then can tap his refresh ability to shuffle his graveyard back into his deck. The wizard on the other hand preselects which spells go into his hand, plays them whereupon they go into the graveyard, and doesn't get them back until some condition is met (and this condition is probably represented by an ability you can sit on the field, much like an enchantment).

None of that is any more complicated than a warbled or a wizard from 3.5, but it does certainly feel more magic-like.

[zugschef]

Well, the system could generally use cards. Abilities go on cards and mana goes on cards. This way you can tap mana and abilities.

Some examples:

The Knight has mana cards (like lands) lying in front of him which are tapped for activated and sustained abilities. Sustained abilities are represented by cards which are lying in front of the player, activated abilities are all played from hand, after which they immediatly return to the player's hand (no deck and no graveyard). As long as you have the actions and mana needed to activate an ability you can play it over and over again (or a different ability). Mana cards untap each turn unless they fuel sustained abilities in which case the sustained ability must be deactivated first.

The Rogue has his ability cards lying tapped in front of him. They are untapped when certain conditions arise and must then be used before the condition is no longer met. Additionally higher level Rogues could have some limited mana to "emulate" conditions which untap their ability cards (or something similar).

The Scout has a pool of class abilities from which he can construct a set of playable cards (readied maneuvers). Analog to ToB, these abilities are divided into strikes, boosts and counters (stances are dealt with independently). Each division has a minimum amount of abilities and every turn a specific amount of options from each division becomes randomly available (WoF).

The Wizard is the magic player: She has a collection of cards (spellbook) out of which she prepares three shuffled decks of cards (prepared spells), namely direct attacks, battlefield control and buffs. The first hand can be set in advance with enough time. She draws her hand of currently available abilities from these decks and once played, ability cards go on the graveyard; she draws a card each turn (from a any one deck) as usual. A mechanic I'd like to install is, that she can alternatively spend a turn to search her decks for a specific spell. Drawing cards is like fumbling through your memory, while searching for a specific spell requires the concentration to remember the best prepared spell for this situation. She doesn't pay mana for her spells. Her maximum hand-size is determined by her level and/or key stat, if she has more cards than her maximum at the end of her turn, she must discard excess cards (her mind can only handle so many spells at once).

The Cleric's class abilities are divided into different focuses. He sets the focus to determine which focus's ability cards lie in front of him. The abilities can then be activated (and tapped) at any time, but they have a cooldown in form of a counter which is reduced by one each turn before they untap again. He could use mana to reset his focus.

The Shaman has two pools of mana (cards) in front of him: His base mana pool and the reserve pool. The base pool refreshes each turn, but the reserve pool is filled with untapped mana from the base pool from the last turn and empties after the current turn, no matter if there is tapped or untapped mana left. His abilities are useable at will but can be fueled with more mana to produce greater effects.

The Berserker gets a counter every time he is attacked or hits somebody. His abilities are divided by how many counters they require to be used; he also gets at least one counter after each turn. Most abilities are paid with these counters, and are thus tiered by how many they actually cost, but there are, of course, abilities which don't cost a counter to use, too. The counters can also be measured as rage mana: A level-dependent amount of mana cards lie in front of the player tapped and every time a counter would be set, one mana is untapped.

* * *

While this is a rough outline for an action resolution system, we still don't have a RNG and base mechanic.