Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 dirtymef Feb 03, 2010 10:19:16	A few weeks ago I posted a thread about making a Magic: The Gathering setting for 4e D&D. Id like to make this thread for Mechanics. There is alot about mtg's magical mechanics that are in a grey area.  Some things are not (fire is red, water is blue, undead are black).  Somethings I am not sure how to represent in a the game. Here are examples for this that are hard to represent and the challenges of letting characters do certain things. Lands Magical power comes from lands.  The wizards of M:TG draw magic from the different areas of different worlds to power their spells.  The main question here is, "How do players get lands and what does it mean to have a land?".  Now allowing a first level character to "own" a land can mean alot of things.  I'd rather not have it to where a character conquers the the land area and attains the mana in it.  The idea I'm having is that players "tag" a land.  At start certain players will have different starting land that they can tap to gain mana.  As they progress through the game they gain new land that they can tag.  Certain areas of Dominia are not exactly open to just show up and tag, Yavamaya for one.  I'm also thinking about making this as a drive for characters.  To journey Dominia and gain new magic sources. Land Destruction I remember one of my favorite decks to play during the urza block was land destro.  If a land is a place or region, what would it mean to destroy it?  Maybe a land destruction spell could just cut off the player from the magic source for awhile.  I'd rather stick away from the actual destruction of a land geographically.  Spells like Armageddeon could unmake a large portion of the setting. Draw a Card What would it really mean to draw a card?  The diiference between D&D and M:TG is randomness.  D&D is alot more focused where M:TG determines what you can use based on what cards you have in your hand (what was drawn from the deck).  That also brings up the point, what is a deck and how does a hand relate to that? The Power Swing Dominia is an ever changing world.  Spells come and go really.  But the real issue is what spells are too strong?  Being a level 1 character in D&D should make you a hero but not a worldender.  A level 20 character who would be on his way to being a Planeswalker should be able to do some spells that could mess up a good deal of area, but what about a level 3? I really have no idea on what would be to powerful or not powerful enough.  Guess that all will come when really get most of the mechanics hammered out. "How am I helping?" Well I made this post so I could look to the community for their input.  Every week me and my group will be testing new ideas and refining the setting.  If you post and idea and it works, we will use it.  When the setting has finally been hammered out and playtested then I will post a complete setting for every member to see and use.  Don't worry I will not steal your ideas.  If you post an idea and we use it we will make sure credit is given where it is due. This could end up being a community project.  I welcome new and innovative ideas to this thread.
#2 pluisjen Feb 03, 2010 10:30:24	I once thought about the same idea, and the eventual idea was that to have a "land", you needed a portion of it (ie; you need to obtain a few grams of actual soil from the area) to draw energy from. To get more land, you need to get pieces of soil from all over the world to grow in power. I'm curious though if the basic idea behind 4e lends itself for MtG roleplaying, but I'm interested in seeing where it goes.
#3 dirtymef Feb 03, 2010 11:21:03	Well back when WotC bought the rights to D&D I got real excited for them making M:TG setting but it never happened.  I think the reason why they have never done the setting is that they don't want to hammer down any real codified material for M:TG.  Most people pick up a D&D book and figure it canon.  To make a M:TG "Canon" would take alot away for the setting of M:TG and the game itself.  Alot of people miss the mark on D&D as well by thinking that just because the book says so it means you have to it that way.  Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson never used the rule books verbatum and neither should every player.  The rules are a guide line really.  They provide a great base from which to build an adventure on.  Rules for the game are really just parameters to put your players in place where they have boundaries.  The main problem with making this setting is placing boundaries on magic in a universe where magic's boundaries are loose.  Tefari made a whole continent disappear as a response to the Phyrexian invasion.  That also brings me to another point on power level.  Yawgmoth was just a regular wizard at one point in the Thran empire.  He became the bane of all life later on just by using a whole lot of black magic.  Same deal with Yavamaya.  Let's also not forget Urza, or "Generalisimo-Pwn-Face" as I like to call him. Using soil is an excellent idea and might use it. About 10 years or so a buddy of mine gave me a novel for M:TG can't seem to remember the name of it.  In the beginning of the book a small village is the center for a battle between wizards.  One wizards summons an army of soldiers and they other summons barbarians.  They fight and do their thing and wreck the village in the process.  The wizards where doing this to gain more power by conquering the actual land. On the flip side the main character had a sister that was "touched by the angels" as they used to say in medieval times.  She would spend her time in the forests listening to the natural world and it would fill her head, making her seem mentally challenged.  All that changed as soon that power awoke in her.  Basically she was building up heaps and heaps of mana to only release it and become a Planeswalker. I've always felt a good campaign word was never there to justify powers in it, but the powers were there to be an expression of that world. But now typing this out makes me think we will need more than one way to get mana.
#4 dirtymef Feb 03, 2010 23:02:49	One of my players gave me the most interesting ideas today. The discussion lead to what type of Magic the character would use.  We talked about it and said it would boring if everyone was caster.  So the idea we came up with is coloring magic for classes. In every creature there is inherent magic in Dominaria so why not in each class?  Make everybody a caster.  Make the classes that are straight caster better at magic where the other classes have spells and their abilites. Cleric-Black or White Fighter-Color based on race Paladin-White Ranger-Green Rogue-One color of choice Warlock-One color of choice; spells cost one less from chosen color Warlord-Color based on race Avenger-Color based on alignment Barbarian-Red or Green; has the option to use both at later levels. Druid-Green Monk-Green or Blue This is all we could agree on tonight. what do you guys think?
#5 Polis Feb 05, 2010 16:00:32	To make this easier, I would suggest creating an "Add-on" to D&D instead of re-defining the system.  One way you could do this is to have an additional "color" you pick for your character, so your char would be a Green Elf Druid.  Each color can give access to benefits of some sort or even powers. You could follow the current mutli-classing theme and allow characters to swap powers from their class for powers from their color. Or You could simply give more powers, either make your own for each color or allow a character to choose a power of X level from any class ( or restricted) with a certain keyword.  For example, illusion for blue or healing for white.    The way they use these extra powers is with mana, whatever system you end up using.  Perhaps they "tag" a land, tap it once a day and can use a power.  Something like that. Alternatively you, as the DM, can have a deck of land and flip a land over every turn.   Each turn the PC's can tap that land using the mana to fuel a power.  So a green daily (maybe one with the summon or poison keyword) would cost a green mana to use.  However, the whole group would use 1 mana set. OR #2 You could have the characters pick a class/color combination and let them pick any powers with certain keywords or classes associated to their class/color combo.   This would require tweaking of some class abilities and what not, but essentially a character would keep their class abilities and gain access to a themed set of powers.
#6 Sinasilver Feb 06, 2010 7:38:42	One of the other times a thread like this popped up, I thought that a good way to represent the land connection might be to essentially place conditional riders on powers that trigger if you're literally standing someplace. For an arbitrary example with zero eye for balance applied: Mountain Kicker: Each target successfully hit is also knocked back 3 squares and dazed. Adding that onto.. Any power it was appropriate, would allow a player in/on mountainous areas to gain an additional effect on their power. Or, since I just thought of it now looking at suggestions earlier in this thread... When you have each player pick their colour, you could assign them a "minor feature", like kicker above instead, that would affect all their powers.
#7 Krusk Feb 06, 2010 11:16:23	I like Polis' idea, and think you ought to build off it.  To make this easier, I would suggest creating an "Add-on" to D&D instead of re-defining the system.  One way you could do this is to have an additional "color" you pick for your character, so your char would be a Green Elf Druid.  Each color can give access to benefits of some sort or even powers. At level 1 each player can choose a color for their wizard. (Much the same way as a race) Red - Gains some benefit to red style spells Black-  Gains some benefit to black style spells Blue - Gains some benefit to blue style spells White - Gains some benefit to white style spells Green - Gains some benefit to green style spells Then, to allow multi-color decks/wizards that are all the rage now lets say that at "arbitrary level point lets say 11, and 21" you can choose to either focus in a color you already are, or pick up a new colors power This way you can be Green/Focused Green/Red if you want. Or Green/Focused Green/Super Focused green. OR Red/Blue/Green. Change the arbitrary level point to every 5 levels, and you get more variety. I didn't do the legwork and tell you what benefits to use, but this is the core system I would use.
#8 dirtymef Feb 24, 2010 7:24:47	Well my group said screw M:TG as a setting. We have been working on it for the better part of a year now and we are our own worst enemies.  To make this setting we needed to not play any other setting and that didn't sit well with alot in the group.  So this one is going on the back burner for awhile and I will lazily work on it now and again.  Hey, who knows, maybe WotC will finally make this setting and take it out of my hands, or some other member of the community.  Right now I'm not working on it.