Interest Check - Big Book of Madness Inspired Group Game?

[Ryven]

Hello!  This idea was discussed in passing with a few regulars from the Elliquiy Game Night.  If you don't know what that is, it is a group of us on E who routinely get on Mumble (the voice chat application w/ our own server) and play virtual board/card games with each other.  One particular game seemed to strike a creative spark between us, and I think everyone at the time of playing seemed to be interested in the idea of turning the game concept into an RP.

For those who haven't played the game, I'll lay out the basic idea of what the RP theme would be about.  To put it simply, it's 1 part Harry Potter and 1 part Avatar (TLAB or Korra).

The theme of the game involves a group of frustrated students who become fed up with their boring theoretic learning of elemental magic (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), so they sneak down into a forbidden part of the library and open the Big Book of Madness to learn the forbidden knowledge within.  However, in doing so, they release a whole horde of eldritch monsters that they must use their powers to defeat.

In framing an RP with this theme, the concept is left very open because there aren't really any other descriptions of what else could be in the world because its more about the game than the theme behind it.  But I'm thinking that we'd have instructors in the elemental arts, student characters, and anything else that you could think of that would be in a world where elemental magic was a pertinent aspect.

I may or may not be willing to play a GM, but I would not be the only one if there was enough interest.  I don't have enough experience running group games to do it on my own, so I would be willing to try co-GMing something like this.  My goal with this is to gauge interest first and work out perhaps a starting point second if there is enough interest.

Some game art for added flavor:

[Aiden]

Uhh yes!~

[Remiel]

Whoa! O_O

[Ryven]

Whoa! O_O

Wut?

[Rel Mayer]

As long as it doesn't turn out to be the big book of saddness!

Just kidding. I'm totally in! I want to be the blue lady who's probably been smokin' too much seaweed.

JUST KIDDING!

...

[Ryven]

As long as it doesn't turn out to be the big book of saddness!

Just kidding. I'm totally in! I want to be the blue lady who's probably been smokin' too much seaweed.

JUST KIDDING!

...

Characters will be original, so you could probably make your own water wielding mage.

[Madame Professor]

[Galactic Druid]

Definately interested, I'll be able to post and commit more in a few days, I'm mid move right now.

[Galactic Druid]

Also, I'm so glad you liked BBoM so much. I introduced you, didn't I?

[Angie]

I am tentatively interested, mostly because, well, I don't quite know what's happening, but I'm interested anyway!

[AndyZ]

[Ryven]

Also, I'm so glad you liked BBoM so much. I introduced you, didn't I?

I think it was you, yes. :)

[Galactic Druid]

<3

Trying to decide on a male or female character for something like this...

This game, along with Tokaido and a handful of others, was illustrated by my favorite gaming artist. His pen name is Naide, and he's amazing. I'll see if I can find something of his for this game.

[Ryven]

I'm trying to decide between water and earth, but I just don't know.

[AndyZ]

Most likely I'll go Air.

Do we want to try to have one male and one female per element?

[Rel Mayer]

Most likely I'll go Air.

Do we want to try to have one male and one female per element?

That would be pretty cool. Or at least two per element.

[Ryven]

Would we want to structure it like the game or as a free form creation of our own with college grounds, non-student characters, and other things of that nature?

[Aiden]

That sounds good to me, let us go off and fight monsters (to a certain extent) on our own. Without it turning into the book of loss and sadness. >.>

[Rel Mayer]

That sounds good to me, let us go off and fight monsters (to a certain extent) on our own. Without it turning into the book of loss and sadness. >.>

Many losses, many sads.

[Ryven]

That sounds good to me, let us go off and fight monsters (to a certain extent) on our own. Without it turning into the book of loss and sadness. >.>

So loss.  Much sad.

[Angie]

So many possibilities...would Water allow ice, by chance?

[Galactic Druid]

It's canon in the game, more icy spells than wet ones really.

Debating between water and earth myself, as well as the gender of my PC...

[Amelita]

Yeeeesssss!

[Angie]

It's canon in the game, more icy spells than wet ones really.

Debating between water and earth myself, as well as the gender of my PC...

Then there will be castings of Blizzard, a spell that can be very Entertaining!

[Galactic Druid]

I don't know how Ryven plans to run it, but in the game it's noteworthy that players are not bound to a single element. While it's not a bad idea to pick one that is a strength, players can collect elements and spells of any kind.

[Ryven]

I don't know how Ryven plans to run it, but in the game it's noteworthy that players are not bound to a single element. While it's not a bad idea to pick one that is a strength, players can collect elements and spells of any kind.

I don't know how I'm going to run it either, to be honest.

[Galactic Druid]

Could have magic be a bit like bending in avatar, or how elements work in the Iron Trials book series, if you're familiar.

[Ryven]

Could have magic be a bit like bending in avatar, or how elements work in the Iron Trials book series, if you're familiar.

I'm not familiar with the books.

[Lockepick]

Posting interest -- but to be honest, I don't think I'd be capable of taking on another sandbox type game. If this ends up being more structured -- I'd be down! Not familiar with the game, but that doesn't seem too necessary anyway!

[Ryven]

I'm looking for some kind of structure to be put in place, but I'm unsure exactly what right now.  I'm doing a bit of research here and there, and looking over the Fate system, that might be something worth looking further into.  Anyone who has suggestions, please speak up.  I need all the help I can get.

Edit: I'm thinking that there will be enough interest for this, so I'll probably get a world building thread started so I can jot down at least the ideas for the system of how magic works.

Current thoughts on it:

- Each character will have a 'patron' element, but this will be more like your major in college rather or the house you were sorted in via the sorting hat for those who have seen or read harry potter.  It will have no mechanical impact on how a character will cast their spells.

- To keep in theme with the board game, I'm thinking that characters will be limited to a number of spells they may know.  However, I'm thinking that having enough study or talent in a particular element will offer passive bonuses of some sort.  For example, an earth mage may have studied enough so that their affinity offers them the passive ability to never be knocked down with the exception of being physically forced to the ground.  A player with a water mage may choose the ability to breathe underwater.

- The world in which the game is built is practically a blank canvas, so I'm hoping for collaboration for anyone willing to offer ideas of how the college will look and operate.

- I need to come up with some kind of loose character creation guidelines.  The magic system will be more stringent, and I'm thinking of ways to incorporate spell diversity, resource generation, use and replenishment, and a fun & interesting way to practically implement this.  I'd like to be able to take inspiration from the board game, the traditional qualities associated with the 4 elements, and player creative to create spells, so that, ideally, each player can come up with spells that best fit their character without being too powerful or being seldom used.

There will be more ideas to come.

[Lockepick]

I think I say this about every setting - but nWoD could always work. It's a lot more modular than people give it credit for -- and creating your own sub systems means you can post it all in one place without worrying about who has what book.

Start with typical Mortals, and add a few little simple sub-systems -- could even allow some Second Sight merits (supernatural/psionic merits) if you wanted, though that would increase the complexity and could be redundant in some cases. I'd be happy to go into more detail about any of these.

... You could create a Merit that's basically 'Patron House' and offer bonuses based on how many dots people have. Either based on natural potential or as a form of Status. Mystery Cult Initiation or even fighting styles is a great base for that.
... You could even allow people to buy up dots of each 'school' of magic if you wanted, ala Mage: The Awakening or the Blood and Smoke supplement (replacing their Spheres/Arcana with just Elements) -- and give general ideas of what you can do with dots. Blood and Smoke would actually fit better, but is a little less known. You could control how spread out characters are through chargen (say that everybody gets 3 dots in their primary, and two dots to spread elsewhere, or can take one-dot in two others, or whatever).
... With or without the 'rated schools' system, you could set a cost for buying new spells -- and could make that go up as you get more and more, or be based on the strength of the spell or whatever you want!
... You could encourage people to pick a skill that represents their 'philosophy' type of magic (maybe an electricity guy uses Science, maybe a martial artist uses Athletics) -- which would help prevent every character from having Occult 4 to start. Could limit them to only Mental skills, or specifically disallow 'combat' skills if you're worried about that.
... Magic 'costs' could flat out steal the rules for Mana from Mage the Awakening (if you wanted Mana to do more than just power spells) -- including rules for Tass (portable mana). You could also just use Willpower as a cost, but that limits magic usage more than I think you'd want for a game where that's the main focus. Or just make up your own new thing.
... Magic vs Magic could be broken down into something similar to 'Mage Duels' from Mage: The Awakening. I could easily TL;DR those rules too -- but basically allows for defense magic in a way that's more dynamic than WoD's 'defense' score.
... Just flat out restrict or refuse many of the Social Merits -- the stuff that usually slows down a group game, if you want to keep things more simple and insular. Could also restrict them to only being School related, which reduces the power compared to what people are expecting, but... keeps things in theme.

[Ryven]

I'm not familiar with nWoD, so I would need major help implementing anything like that.  I'm also fine with limitations to magic as it keeps in the spirit with the game it's based on because the whole game is based on working around your limitations.  Each character only has so much mana in their hand, so if we could somehow emulate that even a little, that would be cool.  I'm all for this, but again, I have no familiarity with it.

Also, perhaps I may play a fire mage?


By Jo Ji Art

[Aiden]

Meh the simpler the better imo
I'm not joining a pvp game, I'm joining a game to have cartoon level craziness with a possible side of smut.

[Ryven]

That's the aim, and i think Locke is suggesting taking what we need from that system without going overboard.

[AndyZ]

NWoD is one of the worst systems in existence.  It's actually designed so poorly that getting one hit and four hits on the dice do the exact same thing.  Only use it if you truly want Big Book of Sadness.

If we actually want some form of system, it wouldn't be difficult to design something.  Maybe ranking numbers for each element from 1-10, and when you use an element, you roll that number of d20s and add them up to see how you do.

[Lockepick]

NWoD is one of the worst systems in existence.  It's actually designed so poorly that getting one hit and four hits on the dice do the exact same thing.  Only use it if you truly want Big Book of Sadness.

Emphasis mine. That's simply not true for the vast majority of checks. Anything contested, combat, or extended places a value on additional successes -- which is most of the interesting/dramatic checks anyway. Checks with your character doing stuff in a vacuum without any real risk of failure (such as remembering a fact or identifying a model of car) are kept simple because they are, quite frankly, not interesting to the greater game. The results may be -- but the actual check itself isn't exactly an 'edge of your seat' moment.

@Ryven: I'd be happy to work with you on designing the mini-system around the base nWoD -- but I also don't think base nWoD is a very large system. The skill list is perhaps a little broad -- but once skills are selected, it's pretty moot, and nWoD encourages you to apply your character's focus when applicable (obviously with some logic in place there). Though I won't really start anything here unless you say -- since there doesn't seem to be a lot of agreement in using nWoD -- but I'd be happy to talk more about it if you'd like, either here or in PMs.

[AndyZ]

Inconsistency across the rules is certainly another of the issues.  I can just point things out, though; I can't make y'all listen to me.

[Lockepick]

I'd be happy to discuss any specific fears or concerns about the system in hopes of alleviating them -- but this isn't the right place to have an argument about opinion, especially since it was just one idea that may or may not be used. I'd be happy to have that discussion over PMs if you wanted.

I'd also note that it was just one option. I believe Ryven is still accepting other suggestions for systems if anybody has any.

[Ryven]

Id much rather use even a skimmed down version of a system already in existence because the heavy lifting has already been done.  I'm still waiting on other opinions of other systems that might work before deciding to dig deeper into one.

@Locke, if i do end up going with nWoD, i will definitely take any help you can provide.

[AndyZ]

I think the next question would be difficulty level.

While systems like Unknown Armies, nWoD and the like might seem thematically appropriate due to being horror games, most of us don't appreciate losing.  nWoD is set up where you're just an ordinary person trying to get by with mediocre stats and the like.

Not coincidentally, when I've tried to run quite a few of these, when we see crap go down, it's not uncommon for people to try to go get help instead of deal with the situation.  Arnold Schwarzenegger (I love that Google will just autocorrect the spelling for me) can deal with the Predator because he's Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Nobody wins in actual horror games.  Freddy Kruger has been in a ridiculous number of sequels because nobody can stop him.

In games like Mansions of Madness, you're dealing with various crap but you're also given all sorts of perks.  Maybe you're an Ace Detective, or able to cast spells, or whatever such else.  Put any one of those against the entire group of teenagers in Cabin In The Woods and they'll wipe the floor with them.  Same deal with Hermione Granger.

If you use a system like nWoD, unless you ramp the power levels up to ridiculous levels by giving out hundreds of XP at the start, you're stating that you mathematically want Ron to have maybe a 50-50 shot of getting that Alohomora spell off correctly.  It's just how the dice work.

Rel is running a horror game right now, and certainly nothing wrong with that, but I doubt anyone wants this game to end the way every horror movie does.  We call it the Big Book of Sadness because of how often it fails.  If that's not what we want, let's not make the same mistakes that lead to that end.

[Lockepick]

I simply disagree with your entire assessment of the system -- especially since most of your concerns seem to be thematic, and are not mandatory for the system. These are, again, opinions. I'll try to tackle how the mechanics specifically don't fit your assumptions though.

In nWoD: probability suggests that you'll get about one success per three dice in nWoD. This is, obviously, not a guarantee: I've seen people get five successes off three dice, and zero successes off thirteen dice. A pool of three is very easy in anything you want your character to be good at. Even the stuff you put no weight intoare likely to be a pool of two (outside of extraneous penalties).

I will say that nWoD does allow a chance of failure -- of course. Though if we're looking for something where we can't fail -- then we're looking for free form. Which is perfectly fine, but does narrow down our system choices.

How strong we're supposed to be (I assumed the setting was 'students') could be reflected in nWoD -- and without the cumbersome process and ledgers of spending a large amount of XP. You can simply up the amount of starting 'dots' during chargen to keep things simple, keep characters balanced, and give you whatever power level you want.

[Angie]

This thread has gone from "interest in this idea" to "debating nWoD". I'd like it to stop so we can get back to the ACTUAL topic of discussing how this game is going to work.

Speaking of systems, what system we want to use depends on how we want "skill checks" to resolve. Do we want to roll big handfuls of dice and get successes, or roll one die and figure out how much we succeed from there? I can play with both, and can suggest good ideas for both.

[AndyZ]

Angie, for your sake, I'll snip my discussion.  From my perspective, though, that's what we were trying to figure out.

Why not give a list of all the ones you want to suggest?

[Angie]

Angie, for your sake, I'll snip my discussion.  From my perspective, though, that's what we were trying to figure out.

Why not give a list of all the ones you want to suggest?

Because I would like to start with "how do we want to roll". I do lean towards rolling a bunch of dice, because I think people like rolling a lot of dice and it's hard to get away from d20 if we go with the "roll one die" option.

For anyone who actually cares about my opinion

From there, it becomes, well, how do we want to do it? There are many systems where you roll another die if you roll the highest result, much like nWoD, but I kind of reject it for this particular setting because while the rolling would be good, nWoD has a way of spellcasting that doesn't really fit an academy setting in my humble opinion.

So where do we go from there? Many places. Shadowrun 4th edition has the same "roll a bunch of dice, roll an extra if you get the high number" thing, but with d6s. The spellcasting is also quite good in my opinion, as you can cast forever as long as the spell's feedback doesn't knock you flat on your arse.

Classic Deadlands also has a fun bit of rolling, where instead of rolling dice for more successes, however, you roll and add the numbers up if you Ace and get a really big number. It also has a VERY CLEAR way of getting 'criticals'-for every 5 over you get on a roll, you get a "raise" which gives you some kind of benefit. Deadlands is kind of shaped for its Western setting, though, and I've never played Savage Worlds so I have no idea if it fits.

I also can not BELIEVE I am saying this, but...if you follow some of my threads, you remember that I did a review of a game called Bellum Maga. It was awful, but the system was actually pretty good. it was another d6 rolling system, with 4-6 being a hit and 1-3 being a failure. 6s count twice while a 1 subtracts a hit. I actually kind of liked it because it was simple, and that was good. The problem with Bellum Maga is the rest of it is so poorly designed that we'd have to houserule quite a bit or even rebuild the damn thing from the ground up-something I personally am not opposed to, but this ain't my game.

While we do have options, I just wanted to roll the discussion back a bit because well, Ryven hasn't picked anything yet and I felt the thread was going off the rails. The first discussion is just "if we have rolls, how do we want to roll?"

[AndyZ]

Tell me more about this Bellum Maga.

[Angie]

Tell me more about this Bellum Maga.

Some opinions have changed since my review so I can't really just link it to you, especially because it was less review and more grandstanding.

The idea behind it is a group of lady mages empowered by the lifeforce of Earth to beat the everloving hell out of Nazi super soldiers, snakemen from Mars, and the lifeforce of Mars that's trying to take over our world-the setting is slightly complicated. The largest problem, however, is the editor didn't do a day of work and it's riddled with typos and mistakes that'll make your inner English teacher cry. On the other hand, the system itself, right up until the setting chapter is fairly well written and balanced. I'm not sure if the entire system would work for us, but I do think the way of rolling dice is pretty good, hence why I included it.

[Amelita]

Why do we need a system? The monsters will not be played characters, simple guidelines about spell casting and a reminder that the GM decides how much damage got dealt should be enough.
IMO

No need to make it complicated.

[AndyZ]

What was the magic system like?  Elemental?  Spell based?

As a note, I'm totally cool with freeform also.

[Angie]

I am also cool with freeform.

The magic system was, well, you picked spells, each having a level, and you couldn't take a spell that was higher then your level + 2. You used Mana to cast, got mana back depending on your Spirit.

I have always flirted with rebuilding the system, making it decent, and then doing my own game of it. Anyway, now I'm guilty of what I yelled at you guys about-Freeform might be the best way to go.

[AndyZ]

Here's my suggestion if we do Freeform:

You have 1 element in which you are fantastic.  We'll call that A.

You have 1 element in which you are meh average.  We'll call that C.

Between B and D, you can either have all of them be meh average, or have one of them be good at the cost of the other.  If you're just as good at B as you are at A, you have absolutely no talent for the fourth element.

[Ryven]

Why do we need a system? The monsters will not be played characters, simple guidelines about spell casting and a reminder that the GM decides how much damage got dealt should be enough.
IMO

No need to make it complicated.

I'm fine with freeform, but I think the scope we were shooting for in the beginning became too narrow.  Perhaps we don't need a system but rather guidelines by which to form the characters and how they interact in the world, particularly with spell casting.

Here's my suggestion if we do Freeform:

You have 1 element in which you are fantastic.  We'll call that A.

You have 1 element in which you are meh average.  We'll call that C.

Between B and D, you can either have all of them be meh average, or have one of them be good at the cost of the other.  If you're just as good at B as you are at A, you have absolutely no talent for the fourth element.

This is a good place to start.

[Rel Mayer]

I'm all about the freeform. We're all good enough RPers here to be able to go with the flow and do things without stepping on each other's feet.

I, too, am just looking for something simple and fun. Some baddassery. Some jokes. Some sexytime.

[Aiden]

[Amelita]

+1 to all three before me, even if I don't know what Aiden's gif means ::)

Also, I'd be going for main earthy, minor water girl methinks.

[Ryven]

I've had some thoughts on a simple system to emulate the luck of the draw aspect regarding the 4 different mana types from the game.  I can elaborate more when i get home this evening

[Ryven]

Double post!  Woo!

Alright.  I've thought a lot about how to implement something that will give us structure without making it too restricting or require a lot of mechanics.

Mana Capacity - I like the idea of the limitation placed upon how much 'power' a mage can hold.  In terms of the card game, we were limited by the 6 card limit in our hands.  I'd like to mimic this in the RP with a rule that each character will have 6 slots for mana, and these slots will hold any of the four types (fire, water, earth, air).

This leads us into the way in which these mana slots are filled or refreshed when emptied.  A percentile method came to mind when I was thinking this through (probably because I had been reading through the Call of Cthulhu book recently), and I think a method employing D100 dice would work without being too cumbersome.

Let us say that a mage's potential power spans the entire D100.  The most powerful mages have reached their full potential and mechanically would use the entire span of the die to accumulate mana they needed efficiently where as a beginning student would only use, let's say, 60%.  Here's what I'm thinking by saying this.

If we say that each player gets 12 points for their character and each point represents a 5% chance.  They could distribute those 12 points between the four elements.

For example:

Fire: 6 (30%)
Water: 2 (10%)
Earth: 3 (15%)
Air: 1 (5%)

This would make up the 60% potential for a student mage.  However, that still leaves 40% unaccounted for.  I'll need to explain where I'm going with this for it to make sense.

When refreshing your mana slots, you'd roll 1D100 for each slot and would compare each roll to your character's percentile layout.  Of course, we'd have to set the percentages back to back so the die rolls would make sense.  See below:

[01 - 30] - Roll within to get Fire mana
[31 - 40] - Roll within to get Water mana
[41 - 55] - Roll within to get Earth mana
[56 - 60] - Roll within to get Air mana
[61 - 100] - Roll 1d4 -> 1=Fire, 2=Water, 3=Earth, 4=Air (This will represent the mage's inexperience as they haven't learned how to gather mana efficiently, so they basically grab what they can).

When gaining experience (which I think could be done freeform as long as it isn't abused), simply add a point to whichever element you wish to develop, and the table would change accordingly.  See below an example of gaining a point in Fire:

[01 - 35] - Roll within to get Fire mana
[36 - 45] - Roll within to get Water mana
[46 - 60] - Roll within to get Earth mana
[61 - 65] - Roll within to get Air mana
[66 - 100] - Roll 1d4 -> 1=Fire, 2=Water, 3=Earth, 4=Air

As you can see, the increase has taken from the 40% where you'd get a random element, now making it more likely that this character would get fire mana.

If we wanted to add another (tiny) layer of mechanics, we could add sort of a 'critical' percentage within their chosen element.  See below:

[01 - 30]/(10%) - Roll within to get Fire mana -> This additional percentage would mean that if you roll within your Fire range, if you roll in the first 10% of it, the character would have gathered mana exceptionally well, giving them double mana for that slot.  For those who had played the card game, this will mimic the 2x cards.  This, however, is an optional thing, I think.


[31 - 40] - Roll within to get Water mana
[41 - 55] - Roll within to get Earth mana
[56 - 60] - Roll within to get Air mana
[61 - 100] - Roll 1d4 -> 1=Fire, 2=Water, 3=Earth, 4=Air

Now, how often do we do this or should we do this?  That's up for debate, but my initial thought is while in combat, you'd do it every round where a round is defined as some kind of amorphous amount of time.  That can be freeform as long as any players combating each other agree and anyone battling any NPCs we come up with don't abuse it.  For example, don't expect to cast 16 spells in a single round.  I should explain that, loosely, easy spells cost 1 mana, moderate spells cost 2, and difficult spells cost 3 mana.

Outside of combat, I think the system need not apply.  Feel free to RP out that you have X amount and types of mana (assuming you don't go above the character limit), but keep in mind, given the system, you will have a few random elements popping in here and there.

Now what do we do with this mana?

Spells, of course!  But I have intended much, much more.

Players can feel free to come up with spells that their mages might know, but I'd like to keep it within the scope of the game.  No more than 4 to start, and they should all be of the Easy difficulty. 

Direct adaptations from the game:

Growth - 1 Earth
- Roll 1D100 and add mana of the appropriate type to an empty slot your character has.

Ice - 1 Water
- Allow 1 nearby ally to use a single mana from one of your slots.

Incinerate - 1 Fire
Given that this destroys your own cards in the game, I don't think it can fit within the die system I explained above.

Telepathy - 1 Air
I don't know that this can be directly adapted.  The spell allows another player to take an action when it is not their turn within the card game, but I think something like this would work in an RP if it was shifted to something like a Speed spell instead.  It would, in essence, give more actions to a character without being misnamed.

This all in mind, I don't think there are limitations as far as what your spells can do.  Just keep them realistic within the confines of Easy, Moderate, and Difficult.  Don't expect to summon a tornado with an Easy air spell.

One thing I'd like to point out is that elements may not be combined to make spells.  It isn't standard in the game world, and I think it would be more interesting if perhaps one character was able to do it, but it was an incredibly unstable thing.  It would be a great way for a character to have a struggle because sometimes their casting just goes a little awry.

I think it will also be a good idea that raw mana can be used in combat for damage and defense.  Think of the Avatar series for this.  Expending mana of the appropriate type would let you throw fire, ice, or earth at your enemies, and in the same theme, spending appropriate mana could create ice or earth barriers to block attacks.  It needs to make sense, however, in both power and application.  Not that we'd have guns in this game, but don't expect a wind gust to stop a speeding bullet.  At the same time, if someone is using 3 fire mana at once to throw a fireball at you, don't think a 1 mana ice barrier will completely save you.  Have it be reasonable.

Other character things

Think your character would need more power in one element over another?  Don't want to be too confined to the randomness of the dice system?  Just want to add a little personality to your character's powers?

Go right ahead.  We'll have some kind of special powers, feats, or whatever we want to call it for your characters.

For example, maybe you want your character to be exceptionally good at Fire magic.  You could give him a special power that went something like "When refreshing your mana slots, you may choose to fill one with Fire mana instead of rolling."

Or perhaps your character is gifted with spells.  You could give them 1 extra spell when you create them with a special power that was passive.  This, again, is not really restricted, but limit these to 1 or 2 max, at least in the beginning.

This is all I have thought of for now, but please let me know what you all think thus far.

[Amelita]

I spaced out after paragraph one.

I will just keep an eye on this and if someone can translate the end result to Ames-speak I'll stay on board.

[Galactic Druid]

If you want to keep it super simple, you could just do skill lebels, with a skill rated 1-5, to cast a spell, you need a skill level to match it for 50%, 1 above for 75, and 2 above for 100%, so a player with 5 skill can cast any spell of the element without fail. Additional skill points could be a very rare reward.

You could let players either start with, say, 8 points to allocate, or take an idea from an elemental system I'm working on, and say the stronger a student is with one element, the weaker they start with the opposing one. So fire and water would oppose, as would air and earth. A slider might look like this;

1 2 3 4 5
5 4 3 2 1

1 2 3 4 5
5 4 3 2 1

The character in the above example would be great with fire, weak with water, and okay with the other elements...

[Angie]

Allow me to explain Ryven's current system, with my good friend, Black Mage!

Ready, Black Mage? Ready!

Our buddy Black Mage gets 12 points to put into 4 elements of magic. He has to put 1 into each element anyway, and he decides he wants to be something of a generalist and distribute his points evenly! So he has 3 Fire, 3 Water, 3 Air, and 3 Earth. What do these points mean? Why, these points mean a 5% chance to gain a certain element of Mana in each round of combat. Let's say he gets in a sparing match with a buddy. Both Mages have to "Draw" magic in order to cast a spell, so at the beginning of the round, each of them rolls a 100 sided die.

Black Mage's sheet looks like this: Since each point in the 4 elements translates to a 5% chance of drawing, 3 points in each element translate to this:

1-15: Gain 1 Fire mana
16-30: Gain 1 Water Mana
31-45: Gain 1 Air Mana
46-60: Gain 1 Earth Mana
61-100: Wild Magic! (Roll a 4 sided die, rolling a 1 gets you 1 Fire, rolling 2 gets you Water, 3 gets Air and 4 gets Earth)

Black Mage rolls a 42, getting himself 1 Air Mana. He adds this to his pool, and looks down at his sheet. He has an Air spell, Windcutter, which uses 1 Air Mana and deals some damage, hooray! He casts this spell, damages his opponent, and waits for his opponent to strike back.

Next round comes up, Black Mage rolls, and gets 73! Wild Magic! He rolls a 4 sider, and gets a 1, giving him Fire magic. Black Mage decided to play up the generalist thing and took one spell from each element, each one doing damage because that's all he wants to do-fry bad guys. He throws a fireball and does damage.

The battle continues, each Mage drawing magic each round and continuing until one of them gives up or a teacher catches them blasting each other in the halls and puts a stop to that nonsense.

So Black Mage had one spell of every element, but what if he didn't? What if he didn't have Windcutter, or for some reason, didn't want to use that spell that round? The Air mana he drew in the first round would go into his pool, ready to be used later. If he couldn't, or didn't use it, it would just sit there. And because of the random nature, well, it might be smart for each mage to learn at least a couple spells of each element, if only so you don't have mana that sits there uselessly.

Black Mage and myself hope this little example of play was useful to you! Say goodnight, Black Mage! Goodnight, Black Mage!

[Ryven]

That is, actually, exactly how I had mechanically intended it to work except you'd roll 1D100 for each empty slot.  If combat began with combatants having all slots filled, they would not need to roll and thus start casting immediately.

I think I mentioned that raw mana could be spent for damage or defense directly because I think using one of your spells to describe yourself doing damage is just window dressing that takes up a slot for something more useful like a spell that allows you to fly.  For instance, if you have 2 fire mana but no fire spells, you could just use those two mana to strike at your enemy with fire damage, describing how you do so in your post (do you throw a fireball?  Do you use a firepunch?  Do you breathe fire?).

[Amelita]

Mkay. I'm going to go ahead and withdraw my interest. I was all over a Book of Madness theme, but I don't feel like dealing with a system.
Have tons of fun you guys :)

<3

[Ryven]

Mkay. I'm going to go ahead and withdraw my interest. I was all over a Book of Madness theme, but I don't feel like dealing with a system.
Have tons of fun you guys :)

<3

I honestly don't think it will come to fruition with the amount of discrepancy in opinion everyone has about it.  I would love something with a simple system to run off of for some things but not for others, but everyone has different ideas of what they're looking for.

[Bibliophilia]

-peers around.-  Well, hell....I was all excited and then I get here to the end and it's all fallen apart!