Magic: RPG, Revisions - 03

So after talking with a friend about how the system is shaping up, we had a few breakthroughs as to what we envisioned the system. One thing we wanted to be sure of: The game is secondary to the flavor of Magic. We won't compromise on small details like the color distribution of wedge/shards when possible but will definitely let that take a back seat to what makes sense in the Magic game. So, what changes were made? I'll post two pics to go over the schools for each color.

Version 1.0

First I'll go over why I had a few of the colors the way they are so that I can explain what was changed and for what reasons. This is how it initially was:

Red has Temporal Magic: I had counter magic under the temporal domain as well as uncounter-magic. It made sense that to understand counter-magic would allow you to protect yourself from it so Red got it. This could also be a source for haste and first strike in Red as well.

Green has Energy Magic: Energy covered elemental and enchantment. It let you make fire/water/ice elementals and what fueled spells to become temporary and permanent enchantments. Paired up with blue and white, these three deal with enchantment and interact with them the best. Black and red both have a hard time touching enchantments so this made sense.

Having these two there made some sense with these ideas, but a few things were really awkward. Boros has their overlapping schools as Temporal and that just made no sense. Simic has Energy and that was kind of awkward. I could reason that Enchantments is how the Cytoplast works, as a physical manifestation of mana. Izzet has temporal magic which makes sense. Still, Boros was the biggest offender and I had to rethink how this was going to work. After some discussion with a friend, we came up with a good  This is the new chart.

Version 2.0

Red has Energy Magic: What falls under Energy has changed. Enchantments are now part of Temporal magic to make. Energy currently only has 'elemental' which 'kind of' works for blue and red, not so much for white. I'm going to have to revisit what Energy does. The flavor aspect for me needs to be expanded on or changed completely.

Green has Temporal Magic: This was a big change in how I saw things. Temporal magic was used in green as removal for artifacts for accelerated aging and for increasing growth rates. This also gives white/blue/green the combination for having non-threatening removal (pacifism effects, paralyzing grasp, arachnus web) which, for green is kind of a stretch but makes -enough- sense for me to understand.

This makes Boros' overlap Energy which. I don't know what that means anymore. In my mind, direct damage type abilities (Fireball, lightning bolt) is just a manifestation of Physical + Conjure. However, I can argue that can be just for actual solid objects. For things like lightning, where they are not a 'solid' aspect it would make sense. What would that mean for white and blue? This can be part of their warding ability (Sphere of Safety, Hover Barrier). Blue can also use this to create illusions perhaps.

If this is the case, then I can make the argument that Boros uses Energy to throw their lightning helices (apparently that's an acceptable plural for Helix). Selesnya's overlap is now Temporal which works with their removal access and creature growth. Simic touches Temporal now as well and that also makes sense with their belief in manipulating evolution with accellerated eugenics.

The flavor for each guild's overlapping focuses feels MUCH better now. I've also modified some of the keywords in the schools as I feel it is unnecessary or just doesn't fit as well. This is how the current breakdown of each school is:

• Physical
• Living - Affects living creatures only.
• Dead - Affects once living creatures.
• Object - Affects objects that are not living, and has not been living (at least recently)
• Mental
• Skill - Muscle memory, physical skills.
• Emotion - Feels.
• Knowledge - Book smarts.
• Spiritual
• Faith - You know, that stuff. Yeah.
• Empathy - Removed, being merged with Life Force.
• Life Force - This combined with Physical magic can create intelligent living/unliving creatures. It also is used for empathy and can be used to gain/lose life.
• Temporal
• Time - Manipulate time and speed, can counter spells.
• Taxing - Removed, being merged with Time.
• Transport - Used for portals and dimension doors. 
• Enchatnment - Temporal magic now can manipulate magic to be enchantments.
• Astral (Replacement name, temporary placeholder?)
• Energy is used to create walls of force, barriers and energy bolts, and provides illusions with a physical form (though it's fragile).

The second part that requires a lot more work 

Manipulation 1.0

Now don't berate me just yet. There's a lot of work that needs to be done on this one. Red, as always, is a big problem. These are suppose to be manipulations that are easier or more efficient for certain colors. 

• Negate - Creates wards (absorbs spells), counters magic, and banishes summoned creatures and harms living creatures.
• Physical - Creature destruction (black), Wards (what I was thinking was a ward that prevents specific people from passing by), -X/-X (black).
• Mental - School/skill prohibition (discard, black)
• Spiritual - Ghost removal 
• Temporal - Counterspells (Tax), remove temporal enchantments (haste, slow, stop, etc)
• Astral - Counterspells (hard counter), Remove Illusion (blue)
• Sense - To find something 
• Physical - Search for physical aspects (such as scent), alterations
• Mental - Read minds and traces of memories. Zone of truth, mind censor. 
• Spiritual - Search for a person's spirit or ghost, empathy.
• Temporal - Find time distortions. 
• Astral - Find traces of rifts to the blind eternities, traces of astral magic,
• Conjure - To create something in a specific form, summoning components from the blind eternities.
• Physical - Create a physical object. Can create bodies, but no life (needs Spiritual to give it life essence). This is useful for creating mindless drones that can listen to basic commands.
• Mental - Draws inspiration, tap into additional resources
• Spiritual - Create ghosts, instill hope/dread, 
• Temporal - Create time fields, areas of difficult/easier casting. Long term strengthening of mana bonds.
• Astral - Fast mana tapping into the aether. Lightning bolts, walls of force.
• Alter - To change or modify something. While this is similar to conjure, it's a different form to affect something that already exists.
• Physical - To grow, weaken, or alter something physical. It could be to weaken the foundations to a building, strengthen a person, or grow vines.
• Mental - Enrage, mind control, alter memories, blind.
• Spiritual - Purify/corrupt, heal/harm, shroud, uncounterable creatures.
• Temporal - Growth, aging, freezing time, preservation.
• Astral - Redirect spells, modify spells, splice. 
• Forge - To create something false, deception.
• Physical - Create a false objects that can be interacted with but will not last under investigation. Forge documents, forge your looks, create false walls.
• Mental - Fake memories, trick senses. Difference between forge physical and forge mental is subtle sometimes. Physical can make you look like something else. Mental can be you fooling one person.
• Spiritual - Can fake relationships, impersonate someone's life force. 
• Temporal - No idea. Gotta think this one through.
• Astral - Illusions. Need to think of what else goes in here.