So, I had a long drive for some boring meetings today and developed a pitch for a new hack. Let me know what you think? Of course, I can’t work on it until I make more progress on Blades in the Brokenlands.
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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Behind the Curtain.
Illuminati? A bunch of stuffed shirts. Knights Templar? Call me when they find their cup. Freemasons? Fools with a silly handshake. They are all a bunch of posers compared to the puppet masters that we are destined to become. Born to power, raised for greatness; it is our turn to rise.
Players take on the role of mages in a cabal, extending their influence to dominate the modern word. Characters take on a role (e.g. operator, polymath, socialite), a magic sphere (e.g. body, mind, spirit, elements, technology), and a dominion (e.g. deep state, media, industry). The game also encourages troupe play through creation of a crew of champions to support the cabal while the mages are working on downtime actions.
(A longer abstract is include at the link below)
When you say “magic is controlled by” and list the attributes, is that to say PCs will roll to resist when performing magic? Or that they roll their attribute as they might roll an action rating?
Magic is used through actions, just like shooting a gun or throwing a punch. If an elementus wants to use a fire ray to attack, they roll invoke. If a spiritus wants to engage in a ritual to add spiritual energy to a weapon, they would roll “craft.” If a tellus (druid) wants to ask a nature spirit for assistance, they would roll “attune.” It gives magic greater freedom than focusing it all on special abilities, but also forces a tradeoff for a player because it isn’t all tied to one stat. Just like a “non-mage” in combat. If you have everything in prowl and nothing in skirmish, you will be awesome in some situations, but disadvantaged in others.