Ex-WotC Employees Weigh in on the No M:tG RPG Debate

TGryph said:

While it had interesting ideas, there was one part of it that rendered the game unplayable. We were in deep discussion to fix said issue when we got the cancellation notice.

and no, I can't post all my old playtest files and notes (which I still have). WOTC Non-Disclosure agreements are fierce!

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What, if anything, can you tell us about Manastorm?

Well....lets see...

We received the first packet in January of 1996. There were 3 booklets, a package of template, some special cards, and some colored stones, all necessary to play. It had a lot of the usual concepts to a roleplaying game (Characteristics, Flaws and Virtues, different races, etc), plus some more unusual ideas. Most of these ideas were pretty cool, and the system did a LOT to simulate what you would expect from a Magic:The Gathering RPG. Character Generation was pretty cool and interesting, as was the Magic system.

Where the game broke down was combat. From the notes I have, it was kinda clumsy, and the GM had a BIG advantage in the combat system...more so than any other rpg I have seen. It seems we were pretty close to getting it fixed (among all the playtester), when the project was dropped. It was actually a shame...I don't know if it wold have seriously challenged D&D or any of its major competitors back in the day, but I for one would have liked to see it finished.

TGryph

TGryph said:

Well....lets see...

We received the first packet in January of 1996. There were 3 booklets, a package of template, some special cards, and some colored stones, all necessary to play. It had a lot of the usual concepts to a roleplaying game (Characteristics, Flaws and Virtues, different races, etc), plus some more unusual ideas. Most of these ideas were pretty cool, and the system did a LOT to simulate what you would expect from a Magic:The Gathering RPG. Character Generation was pretty cool and interesting, as was the Magic system.

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Oh wow, so this was being explored by WotC prior to it's purchase of TSR.