This is the first post anywhere public I am making about an RPG that I am designing.  It's a series of core games with rules for universal possibilities.  Current title of "LORE"

I'm working on a magical system that would be available to only some creatures (races) and wanted some input.

Basic background, all rolls are pools of D12.

3 big stats besides attributes; Dark Passions, Mana, Willpower...all with perm and temp points 1-10.  All attributes, powers, skills, etc have 1-5 (not counting health).

Main theme behind game is balance.  Not necessarily stagnation and lack of growth, but trying to keep order and chaos in check.  Some races do this on a broad scale within their niche, others are less aware of it, down to humans who rarely recognize it, but are affected by it.  This does cause a character to sometimes have to kill the good guys and subsequently deal with the negative emotional aspects of their natures.

Dark Passions:  higher the perm, the less you care about balance, less ethical you become till you are intrinsically chaotic and evil.
Mana:  Mystical strength and power, perm denotes how fast you recover mana as well as your max possible temp pool.
Willpower: Your strength of will.  Duh.  ^_~

As it stands, only humans (cheap merit) and rare other races (has to buy as expensive merit) can have access to magick.  3 categories of magic.  White/Order/Light...you get bonuses to cast for low DP, Grey...general magicks that are only tinted by DP for affect, not effect, and Black/Chaos/Dark...you get bonuses for High DP. 

What do you think of this concept?  Would you prefer to see an extensive spells list, or generic rules to create spells for each category, or a mixture?

Thanks,

-Chris "Gaelyn"

LORE Games and Publishing (tentatively)

Thanks for taking the risk in airing your ideas. That's the big first step. When you do it you overcome a lot of internal fears like "What if no one likes what I say?" etc.

I personally like the idea of players working to maintain balance in a world of magic. It is a classic tale (very Star Wars and Lord of the Ringish).

How your rules will work, where are the holes, etc. is much harder to say. One thing I've suggested to other people is to write an example of play so you can imagine how it might work. Then try it out on some friends and see how the two examples compair. For instance, how fast does this work mechanically. Were players allowed to do enough? Did it hold their attention? Did it give you the feel you wanted from games?

Contrasting like this will teach you a lot more about game making than people liking your idea or not.

A key skill of game making is clear communication. doing the above exercises will help you see if you have the skill. If you find room for improvement then you can work on that. For me, all this game making stuff has been a journey of self discovery. I'm 20 years into it and still have a lot to learn.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

Thanks for the input.  As it stands, I've talked back and forth with some close confidants, but I'm not quite ready for alpha testing.  I hope to be at that level within the next month to 2 months. 

As it stands, I need to create a general list of spells of all three catagories.  My inspiration was Harry Potter's magickal system.  Patronus being powered by happy and positive emotions, unforgivables by the opposite and then the generic spells.  One of the things I'm adding is that all Grey (Gray) spells' affects (visual) is "flavored" by the DP.  So a truely good person (DP 2) who casts levitation on an object, it seems to have some positive feeling to it, or angel wings, what-have-you, and a high DP character (DP 7) would have it encased in dark flames that do no damage, but send feelings of terror and hate around the object...the worse the person/longer the spell...the more that emotion imprints...same as the opposite.

So, an example of play would go like this:

Order of St. George Paladin stands facing a Dragon of the Abyss protecting a ravine that has not yet been explored.  The Dragon (who's powers are still feuled by Mana, cheaper to use, just not as flexible as Magick) calls forth a dark mist to obsure the Paladin's sight.  The Paladin has a few options, a simple Light spell that he would boost in power with temp Mana, or a Light Magick spell that banishes darkness.  His DP is 4 and gets a -1 to his Light Magick and casts "Banish Darkness."  A blinding light is put forth from his focus (read wand or enchanted item) and the successes for each spell are compared.  The highest wins and play continues to next round.

The -1 reduces the target number on his d12 pool, giving him a higher chance of success.

The resolution for any roll/confict is 2 fold.  A sliding target number and success requirement. Harder to get botches (I like when ppl screw up royally) as well as rerolls of 12s.  Though, if you get enough of a modifier of the target number, then rerolls expand.  Seems to be pretty neat mathmatically on d12.  Easy to follow for Players, GMs have a pretty straight forward explination on determining both.  Success Reqs are more along the lines of more success = better you did...only certain actions are defined needing a specific number of successes (extended rituals/actions/etc).

For me it seems like Dark Passion is the central stat of the game, so I would like to hear more about how you want to handle this stat. How do you gain and lose Dark Passion? Does it affect other part of the game?

What do you think of this concept?  Would you prefer to see an extensive spells list, or generic rules to create spells for each category, or a mixture?

Dark passion is not the primary focus...but is one of the most broad reaching stat.  It is gained by doing horrendous or counter balance activities.  Gained similar to White Wolf's Morality.  There is no way to reduce the DP...someone may stive to be less moraly irreprehensible, but if they've murdered, then it will be always easier to do it again.