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After a long (8 months!) stretch of RPGless life, I've come down with
the desire to GM again and three players willing to go along.
I already know exactly the campaign I want to play, inspired by a recent
thread on RPG.net. I know the setting I want to play it in: Mage.
But I'm really tired of Mage's messy and contradictory rule set. I like
the nWoD rules. I'm not willing to wait until whenever for a system I'm
not even sure I'll like.
So I'm rewriting Mage for the nWoD rules to match what I think should be
done. A lot remains the same. A lot changes. Please, read and tell me
what you think. Help me expand them. Point out flaws and
inconsistencies. With luck, I should be running an actual game based on
these rules before the end of the month.
Unless noted otherwise, assume all rules from MageRev are in effect.
The Eight Spheres:
Forces
Fortune
Life
Matter
Mind
Prime
Space
Spirit
Each sphere has five levels.
1: Percieve
2: Influence
3: Transform
4: Control
5: Create/Destroy.
In addition, a character may have specialties. Each costs as much as a
sphere of equal level and effectively increases Arete and Sphere by its
level when dealing with that specialty (examples: Fire, Travel).
Making Rolls:
The dice a mage rolls depends on the time taken to cast the spell:
1 turn = Arete + Sphere
1 minute = (2* Arete) + Sphere
1 hour = (3 * Arete) + Sphere
6 hours = (4* Arete) + Sphere
Day or Night = (5* Arete) + Sphere
Week = (6* Arete) + Sphere
Season = (7* Arete) + Sphere
Beyond this time point, it is up to the GM.
All rolls are made as standard for nWoD - 8+ is a success, one success
means the effect succeeded.
All difficulty penalties/bonused from MRev translate to dice lost/gained
on 1 to 1 basis.
All additional successes needed from MRev translate into dice lost on a
1 to 1 basis.
The Consensus:
The Consensus is the unconscious willworking of sleepers keeping the
world the way they believe it is. All sleepers are subconsiously aware
of all existence through their avatars, but care less about it the less
closely related it is to them. For this reason, the consensus varies
across space and time (the "Here be Dragons" effect).
The Consensus
Unexpected: Would a sleeper, being told of the event by an watcher with
the normal senses, go "Of course." or "Bullshit."? Unexpected magic has
a penalty of 2 die. Heavily dependent on circumstances and the
reputation of the caster or focus used for the magic.
Witnesses:
An additional penalty is accessed for every person present and actively
disbelieving the magic. The person must be firmly certain what he is
seeing is impossible. Other mages could count, though their conception
of the possible is usually broad enough that this is irrelevant. Beware
casting in front of Mages in Quiet, however.
The penalty is:
1 die for 1 sleeper.
2 dice for 2-10 sleepers
3 dice for 11-100 sleepers
ect.
Both of the penalties above can and should be considered in reverse. A
Priest may get a bonus if a true believer is watching him, knowing he
will succeed, a Doctor performing surgery in a world-renowned hospital
gets a 2 dice bonus because success is Expected.
Paradox:
Paradox is an unconsious willworking of sleeper's avatars to punish
those who are violating their beliefs about reality. Paradox accrued is
equal to the penalty dice from the Unexpectedness and Witnesses.
Roll the paradox gained for an effect (not total pool) after each
effect. If the roll is a success, the entire pool backlashes. Otherwise
the paradox is added to the character's pool.
Example Sphere Effects:
Fortune:
Level 1: Percieve Fate, Know Fortune, Premonitions
The Mage can see if a person, place, or endevor is being influenced by
fate (ie, Dark Fate, cursed, blessed, ect). He can forsee what moves
will be lucky for him or another, adding his successes on the roll in
dice to an activity where his advice is heeded (or in straight successes
in games of pure chance). The mage can also get limited information on
future and past events of significance of person, place, thing or
concept. Without further levels of Fortune, the future forseen can not
be changed.
A mage may cast a spell that will wait (duration must be bought) until
a forseen or fated event occurs being taking effect. This spell,
however, can not divert or alter the fate itself.
Level 2: Influence Destiny, Internal Fortune
The mage can delay, hasten, or make minor alterations to a forseen
future or predestined fate. The mage can change the results of systems
involving a lot of chance (ie, win at cards.)
Level 3: Transform Fate
The mage may attempt to change significant details of a fate, but may
not control how these changes come about.
Level 4: Control Fate, External Fortune
The mage may transfer, merge or split destinies and fated futures. Fate
must still be conserved - if the President of the US was fated to die,
someone or something else of equal importance must die in its place. The
exact details and circumstanes by which fates occur is now yours to
alter as you wish. The mage may also cause complex manipulation of
random chance to give a desired result due to outside influences(ie, win
at chess due to someone your opponent knows passing by and distracting
him for a crucial move).
Level 5: Create/Destroy Fate
Fashion new fates from whole cloth and turn certainties into mere
possibilities.
Forces:
Note: to affect a force in a way directly distructive to the object
carrying that force (ie, making it rip itself in two, removing all heat
ect) you need Matter of Life as appropriate.
1. Percieve Forces
As forces 1 in MRev.
2. Influence Forces
Alter the direction of a force, but not its nature or magnitude. Ex,
you deflecting bullets, invisibility, focus light, control who hears a
sound, but you can't alter the color of light or how bright it is
(except by concentrating it).
There are many tricks that can be used at this level to simulate the
effects of higher levels with disproportionate effort.
3. Transform Forces
Alter the nature of a force, but not its magnitude. This, of course,
is highly subjective when tranforming between different forces, but in
general a sound loud enough to cause pain is equal to a light bright
enough to cause pain, ect.
4. Control Forces
Use forces in wholy unnatural ways beyond simply directing and
transforming them. Force fields which allow things to pass in only one
direction are an example of Forces 4, as is solid darkness.
5. Create/Destroy Force
You may alter the fundamental rules under which forces work and deny
their very existance or invent entirely new ones.
Life:
1. Perceive Life
You can see sickness and health, growth and death. You may add any
successes in a percieve life roll as successes on medicine rolls or dice
in athletics rolls for yourself or others who listen to your advice.
2. Influence Life
You can cause others or yourself to heal faster, grow stronger, feel
better, or succumb to otherwise minor illnesses.
3. Transform Life
You can cause dramatic changes in yourself and other living things.
This includes incredible growth/shrinking, aging or rejuvenation, and
transformations between species. However, the end point must be a real,
viable lifeform. You can, however, introduce flaws into another that
will cause quick and certain death shortly afterwards.
4. Control Life
You can instantly heal sicknesses and dying wounds, cause deaths with
no cause, and transform yourself and others into chimera.
5. Create/Destroy
You may create life without source, and create or transform into beings
whose like and abilities have never been seen before.
My hands are tired. This should be enough to give you a good idea of
where I am going with this.
William
After a long (8 months!) stretch of RPGless life, I've come down with
the desire to GM again and three players willing to go along.
I already know exactly the campaign I want to play, inspired by a recent
thread on RPG.net. I know the setting I want to play it in: Mage.
But I'm really tired of Mage's messy and contradictory rule set. I like
the nWoD rules. I'm not willing to wait until whenever for a system I'm
not even sure I'll like.
So I'm rewriting Mage for the nWoD rules to match what I think should be
done. A lot remains the same. A lot changes. Please, read and tell me
what you think. Help me expand them. Point out flaws and
inconsistencies. With luck, I should be running an actual game based on
these rules before the end of the month.
Unless noted otherwise, assume all rules from MageRev are in effect.
The Eight Spheres:
Forces
Fortune
Life
Matter
Mind
Prime
Space
Spirit
Each sphere has five levels.
1: Percieve
2: Influence
3: Transform
4: Control
5: Create/Destroy.
In addition, a character may have specialties. Each costs as much as a
sphere of equal level and effectively increases Arete and Sphere by its
level when dealing with that specialty (examples: Fire, Travel).
Making Rolls:
The dice a mage rolls depends on the time taken to cast the spell:
1 turn = Arete + Sphere
1 minute = (2* Arete) + Sphere
1 hour = (3 * Arete) + Sphere
6 hours = (4* Arete) + Sphere
Day or Night = (5* Arete) + Sphere
Week = (6* Arete) + Sphere
Season = (7* Arete) + Sphere
Beyond this time point, it is up to the GM.
All rolls are made as standard for nWoD - 8+ is a success, one success
means the effect succeeded.
All difficulty penalties/bonused from MRev translate to dice lost/gained
on 1 to 1 basis.
All additional successes needed from MRev translate into dice lost on a
1 to 1 basis.
The Consensus:
The Consensus is the unconscious willworking of sleepers keeping the
world the way they believe it is. All sleepers are subconsiously aware
of all existence through their avatars, but care less about it the less
closely related it is to them. For this reason, the consensus varies
across space and time (the "Here be Dragons" effect).
The Consensus
Unexpected: Would a sleeper, being told of the event by an watcher with
the normal senses, go "Of course." or "Bullshit."? Unexpected magic has
a penalty of 2 die. Heavily dependent on circumstances and the
reputation of the caster or focus used for the magic.
Witnesses:
An additional penalty is accessed for every person present and actively
disbelieving the magic. The person must be firmly certain what he is
seeing is impossible. Other mages could count, though their conception
of the possible is usually broad enough that this is irrelevant. Beware
casting in front of Mages in Quiet, however.
The penalty is:
1 die for 1 sleeper.
2 dice for 2-10 sleepers
3 dice for 11-100 sleepers
ect.
Both of the penalties above can and should be considered in reverse. A
Priest may get a bonus if a true believer is watching him, knowing he
will succeed, a Doctor performing surgery in a world-renowned hospital
gets a 2 dice bonus because success is Expected.
Paradox:
Paradox is an unconsious willworking of sleeper's avatars to punish
those who are violating their beliefs about reality. Paradox accrued is
equal to the penalty dice from the Unexpectedness and Witnesses.
Roll the paradox gained for an effect (not total pool) after each
effect. If the roll is a success, the entire pool backlashes. Otherwise
the paradox is added to the character's pool.
Example Sphere Effects:
Fortune:
Level 1: Percieve Fate, Know Fortune, Premonitions
The Mage can see if a person, place, or endevor is being influenced by
fate (ie, Dark Fate, cursed, blessed, ect). He can forsee what moves
will be lucky for him or another, adding his successes on the roll in
dice to an activity where his advice is heeded (or in straight successes
in games of pure chance). The mage can also get limited information on
future and past events of significance of person, place, thing or
concept. Without further levels of Fortune, the future forseen can not
be changed.
A mage may cast a spell that will wait (duration must be bought) until
a forseen or fated event occurs being taking effect. This spell,
however, can not divert or alter the fate itself.
Level 2: Influence Destiny, Internal Fortune
The mage can delay, hasten, or make minor alterations to a forseen
future or predestined fate. The mage can change the results of systems
involving a lot of chance (ie, win at cards.)
Level 3: Transform Fate
The mage may attempt to change significant details of a fate, but may
not control how these changes come about.
Level 4: Control Fate, External Fortune
The mage may transfer, merge or split destinies and fated futures. Fate
must still be conserved - if the President of the US was fated to die,
someone or something else of equal importance must die in its place. The
exact details and circumstanes by which fates occur is now yours to
alter as you wish. The mage may also cause complex manipulation of
random chance to give a desired result due to outside influences(ie, win
at chess due to someone your opponent knows passing by and distracting
him for a crucial move).
Level 5: Create/Destroy Fate
Fashion new fates from whole cloth and turn certainties into mere
possibilities.
Forces:
Note: to affect a force in a way directly distructive to the object
carrying that force (ie, making it rip itself in two, removing all heat
ect) you need Matter of Life as appropriate.
1. Percieve Forces
As forces 1 in MRev.
2. Influence Forces
Alter the direction of a force, but not its nature or magnitude. Ex,
you deflecting bullets, invisibility, focus light, control who hears a
sound, but you can't alter the color of light or how bright it is
(except by concentrating it).
There are many tricks that can be used at this level to simulate the
effects of higher levels with disproportionate effort.
3. Transform Forces
Alter the nature of a force, but not its magnitude. This, of course,
is highly subjective when tranforming between different forces, but in
general a sound loud enough to cause pain is equal to a light bright
enough to cause pain, ect.
4. Control Forces
Use forces in wholy unnatural ways beyond simply directing and
transforming them. Force fields which allow things to pass in only one
direction are an example of Forces 4, as is solid darkness.
5. Create/Destroy Force
You may alter the fundamental rules under which forces work and deny
their very existance or invent entirely new ones.
Life:
1. Perceive Life
You can see sickness and health, growth and death. You may add any
successes in a percieve life roll as successes on medicine rolls or dice
in athletics rolls for yourself or others who listen to your advice.
2. Influence Life
You can cause others or yourself to heal faster, grow stronger, feel
better, or succumb to otherwise minor illnesses.
3. Transform Life
You can cause dramatic changes in yourself and other living things.
This includes incredible growth/shrinking, aging or rejuvenation, and
transformations between species. However, the end point must be a real,
viable lifeform. You can, however, introduce flaws into another that
will cause quick and certain death shortly afterwards.
4. Control Life
You can instantly heal sicknesses and dying wounds, cause deaths with
no cause, and transform yourself and others into chimera.
5. Create/Destroy
You may create life without source, and create or transform into beings
whose like and abilities have never been seen before.
My hands are tired. This should be enough to give you a good idea of
where I am going with this.
William
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