While I was working on my OmniSphere setting for Genesys, my mind wandering to another multiverse: The Multiverse of Magic the Gathering. How would you guys model the 5 colors of magic from MtG using Genesys’s magic system?

Just the color pie, not the actual MtG mechanics? I’d start by using the genesys rules to define an assortment of spells for each color, then create lists of color appropriate side effects that threat and advantage could be spent on.

1 minute ago, Forgottenlore said:

Just the color pie, not the actual MtG mechanics?

Yeah, I don’t even want to try to figure out how one would model drawing extra cards or forcing other players to discard cards in an RPG.

If you wanted to suggest the flavor of needing lands to cast spells, you could say that spell casters can perform a ritual of some sort at particularly (color) aspected locations to attune themselves to that site and can then treat that attunement as some form of implement in genesys (wand, maybe). To balance that, make suitable locations rare, only able to handle so many attunements, so if someone else comes along you could loose it in the middle of an adventure unless you have trustworthy people guarding it, and possibly it creates an exploitable connection to the mage that an enemy could use (target the mage by targeting the site, or the mage has a harder time resisting). Could also spend threat on spell casting rolls to mess with the site. Imagine having other mages come hunting for you because your constant bumbling in your casting rolls is gradually tainting "their" aspected site.

5 magic skills, spells appropriate to each, casting is easier in the lands of the Spell you’re attempting.

Edit: Perhaps the right spell in the right place gets free Enhancements

Willpower for Black/White spells

Intellect for Blue/Colorless

Cunning for Green/Red

this could be a possibility

3 minutes ago, Zalakoth said:

Willpower for Black/White spells

Intellect for Blue/Colorless

Cunning for Green/Red

this could be a possibility

I agree with all of these except Black and Red. I don't really see Red as a Cunning thing. Red is very forceful, very aggressive. If anything, I'd switch it, with Red as Willpower and Black as Cunning. Green displays the nature side of Cunning, while Black displays the darker, deceptive side of Cunning.

Actually, now that I think about it, White might be more of a Presence thing.

Just now, Johan Marek Phoenix Knight said:

I agree with all of these except Black and Red. I don't really see Red as a Cunning thing. Red is very forceful, very aggressive. If anything, I'd switch it, with Red as Willpower and Black as Cunning. Green displays the nature side of Cunning, while Black displays the darker, deceptive side of Cunning.

Works for me man. A lot of them could fit any characteristic. Do what makes sense to you

No, I see red as cunning. Fast, ever changing. It requires the mage to be ever adaptable to the chaotic nature of the color.

I agree with presence for white though.

I might also be tempted to make it a clean sweep of the attributes and put green under brawn and colorless under agility, but those would be a lot harder to justify.

22 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

No, I see red as cunning. Fast, ever changing. It requires the mage to be ever adaptable to the chaotic nature of the color.

I agree with presence for white though.

I might also be tempted to make it a clean sweep of the attributes and put green under brawn and colorless under agility, but those would be a lot harder to justify.

I mean, I tied both white and black to willpower because that is what divine falls under. Green for brawn makes sense but I didn't want to incorporate Physical characteristics

I guess there’s a good question to be asked about Skills. Would every PC be a planeswalker? What application would Combat skills have? Would most fights be resolved between summoned creatures? Would this be more of an apprentice setting, where the mages have to do more of the heavy lifting themselves?

Yeah. It’s a stretch. But using toughness because your channeling the raw, untamed power of nature could work, if one were so inclined.

With white, depends on whether you see the color as more associated with angels and celestial, or the "white weenie" aspect of civilization and hordes of soldiers and commoners and such.

3 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

I guess there’s a good question to be asked about Skills. Would every PC be a planeswalker? What application would Combat skills have? Would most fights be resolved between summoned creatures? Would this be more of an apprentice setting, where the mages have to do more of the heavy lifting themselves?

I don’t think the idea was to imitate the MtG setting so thouroughly, just capture the general flavor. So planeswalkers wouldn’t even be a thing, and summoning would be no more prevelant than in other settings.

18 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

I guess there’s a good question to be asked about Skills. Would every PC be a planeswalker? What application would Combat skills have? Would most fights be resolved between summoned creatures? Would this be more of an apprentice setting, where the mages have to do more of the heavy lifting themselves?

The idea would be less to make the card game into an RPG so much as to make a RPG based off the lore of MtG. If you have read the stories they have on their site, you see that Planeswalkers can't bring other beings with them when they planeswalk, which means there isn't actually much in the way of "summoning" going on. Planeswalkers have their "focus", usually one or two colors of magic they are a master of. Jace is a Blue mage that is a master of telepathy and illusions, definitely max Intellect for him. Chandra is a pyromancer with a fiery temper and a rebellious spirit, definitely a strong Willpower for her. Gideon is a battle mage, using his magic to enhance his own physical capabilities and also to make himself temporarily invincible. Anyways, yes, combat skills would still be important, and there would actually be very little, if any, summoning going on. The only real "summoning" would be things like illusory creatures, necromancy, transforming plants into plant monsters, stuff like that.

Also, the whole "lands" thing really means jack squat in the actual lore. Yes, each plane has its own natural mana that planeswalkers draw from, but a Red mage can summon just as much power in a forest as they can on a mountain.

17 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

I don’t think the idea was to imitate the MtG setting so thouroughly, just capture the general flavor. So planeswalkers wouldn’t even be a thing, and summoning would be no more prevelant than in other settings.

Why wouldn't there be planeswalkers? Planeswalkers are a huge part of MtG lore, not just the gameplay. Why would I want to run a campaign exclusively on Amonkhet when I can have a planeswalker campaign where we go from Ravnica to Innistrad to Amonkhet to Zendikar and then back to Innistrad, or even to places like Dominaria and Tarkir? I completely agree with the very low amount of summoning, but planeswalkers would definitely be a thing.

You certainly could. It’s just that the way you phrased the initial question, asking how to simulate specifically the colors rather than the whole setting, suggested that you were merely looking for inspiration, rather than musing on how to adapt the whole shebang.

Ok, sounds good to me. I can see the five colours really being a blend of at least 2 characteristics each

White seems closest to Willpower to me with elements of Presence

Blue seems like a blend of Intellect and Agility

Black is definitely a combination of Cunning and Willpower

Red mostly aligns with Presence and Brawn

Green is tricky, but Brawn and Cunning seems best.

If I was to pick a single attribute though it’s much harder.

White for Willpower, it’s the conviction and purpose it has

Black for Cunning, they’re devious in their ways

Blue for Intellect is fairly obvious.

I really like the association between Fire and Passion and therefore Presence.

Green... Cunning again? But I cannot go past the image of a tough Druidic type who runs with the wolves, Brawn would be an excellent choice too.

What if you took a leaf out of the recent L5R beta and have the ability to choose Characteristics for a Magic Skill. Some spells hang on one characteristic while others use the second. For example a Green magic user could enhance themselves resist attack with Brawn while their control of nature utilises Cunning.

8 hours ago, Johan Marek Phoenix Knight said:

Yeah, I don’t even want to try to figure out how one would model drawing extra cards or forcing other players to discard cards in an RPG.

Your hand in Magic is supposed to represent your mind. Card draw is usually portrayed as expanding your knowledge (e.g. divination, investigation) and discard as psychic attacks.

That said, turning Magic into an RPG depends on what focus you want. The spells you see on cards are the kind of stuff planeswalkers use - they're the ones with large groups of creatures at their disposal, and with a large range of magical effects they can use. If you look at cards representing the actual people in the different worlds, they usually only have like one or two magic tricks up their sleeve (but more reliable access to it). Or at least that's what the cards representing them have, though it's implied that they usually have a wider range of abilities that aren't represented on their cards.

Shall we look at example plainswalkers?

Ajani: White, White green, with a rage version that's white red. Burly, heroic, resolute.

Chandra Nalaar: Mono red. Has copius lore. Will let a lorehead fill this out.

Elspeth Tirel: Mono white. Again, heroic and resolute, but not as burly as ajani

Garruk: Mono green, with a dip into black occasionally. Another brawny caster

Gidion: Heroic and resolute.

Jace Beleren: Mono blue. Smart, snarky

Liliana Vess: Mono black Scantilly clad madwoman/=

Nicol Bolas: Blue Red Black Elder Dragon Legend.

Nissa Revane: Green elf

Sarkan Vol: Red, with a big splash of green and small splashes of blue and black. "Dragonspeaker", Black when "mad"/crazy

Sorin MArkov: BLack or White black. Undead noble

Tezzeret: Blue black, an artificer

Initial thoughs:

Green: Brawn or elfyness. Cunning? Agility?

White: Heroic champions, (or at least noble) all of them. Presence or brawn?
Blue: Definately mental stats, and artificers would mean Intelect, but would the other be cunning for manipulation or willpower for... i dunno, sorcerery? Let's go cunning.

Black: Madness, undeath. Not much to work with here stat wise. Possibly Presence, for both the noble vampire, and the scantilly clad necromancer?

Red: Fire, damage, destruction. Not suure on this one either.

In the interest of a "stats pie"...

Brawn: Green/white (ajani)

Presence: White/black (Sorin)

Intelect: Blue, Waste

(Agility) Green Red

(Cunning) Black Blue

(Willpower) Red Waste

I'm less certian about the last three, but they... kinda sorta make sence? Maybe?

1 hour ago, Rakaydos said:

Black: Madness, undeath. Not much to work with here stat wise. Possibly Presence,

I’d put black under willpower too. Black mages have to be willing to put up with some fairly unpleasant stuff, face down horrors without flinching, and be able to deliberately harm themselves without flinching or breaking concentration.

25 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

I’disput bisack under willpower too. Black mages have to be willing to put up wisome fairly unpleasant stuff, faown horrors without flinching, and be able to deliberately harm themselves without flinching or breaking concentration.

More than the cunning to come up with ways to "break the system"? I dont really disagree with your logic, but the two...

So, willpower Is red/black under that logic, presence Is white black, brawn Is white green, agility red green, and cunning Is blue alone. Or something.

...the black-white presence link is solid, but difficult to work around.

Possibly...

Red black- Willpower

Black white- Presence

White green- Brawn

Green blue- Cunning?

Blue red- Intelligence?

Leaving AGILITY the odd stat out, which may leave it underpowered in a non-ranged combat system.

I really like the idea of two characteristics per color.

White: Presence for the leadership part, Willpower for the divine part.

Blue: Intellect for the knowledge part, Cunning for the illusion and tricksy part.

Black: Cunning for the subverting laws, Willpower for the horrific and demonic part.

Red: Presence for emotions, Cunning for fire/lightning/earth.

Green: Brawn for the physical might, Willpower for the natural knowledge.

Colorless spells don't really exist outside of the Eldrazi (the ones that do are artifacts or Ugin related, and Ugin probably has his own OP school of magic) and devoid, and devoid spells still require one of the five colors.

The GM and the player will have to agree on which characteristic to use for each spell cast, using the above as guidelines: Red (Presence) probably can't be used for Attack spells, but it falls perfectly with Boost and Curse. Conjure it depends on the color and what you're summoning. And while summoning is not a particularly common ability in the lore, keep in mind that Lilliana almost exclusively uses Conjure to summon zombies (Cunning) forgoing most other uses of black mana, while Nissa frequently uses Willpower to summon elementals. In Theros, Nissa very prominently summons soldiers to fight a hydra and an archon in the final battle. It's just that planeswalkers can't summon specific people - it's archetypes, generally, and they are formed out of mana (with the general exception of zombies)

I would add a new skill: Planeswalk. This can only be used by planeswalkers, and the difficulty is determined by how specific the planeswalk is. If they're just trying to leave the plane, no difficulty dice are needed. Going to a specific plane is difficulty one, a specific area (roughly city sized) is difficulty 2, and anything more specific than that is difficulty 3. You can get boost dice for going somewhere you've already been, following someone else, or targeting a specific person you know well (as seen in the latest story) but setback dice can be added due to environmental factors - are you in combat? Is your target moving? How's the weather? All of this is supposed to represent that it's easy to planeswalk but harder to aim it.

magic released supplements for d&D 5e, maybe that could help give some ideas - check out the "plane shift" series at wizards

If it was me, I'd figure out a way to use each school of magic, the complements of that school, the reversals of that school, and the final question is:

What do you get if you remove -all- Air, -all- Earth, -all- Fire, and -all- Water? Is this "Swamp" or something even greater such as a whole new "school" of magic -

"Void" mages. They would be awesome with Swamp magic, and the =only= one that could take all four other schools of magic as complementary.

I wouln't have a clue right now as to how to do it, but now that you have me thinking about it - it shall be done.

Eeeek! I think I've invented a monster!

Bruce