MtG the RPG

[MtGtheRPGDM]

If this homebrew is placed in the wrong location please move it with my most sincere apologies.

That being said, welcome to the forum in which I will be talking about my Magic the Gathering to D&D conversion. I understand this has been something that has been worked on before, and stopped by WotC (Most famously Michael Morris's Dusk setting). But I feel the internet has changed a great deal since that incident and am determined to complete this project and send it to the masses. The overview is as follows. MtG the RPG is a conversion project that has the goal of taking almost all of your favorite magic the gathering creatures, spells and artifacts and bring them into a Roleplaying game. Almost every aspect of the standard MtG game will be present. Mana? Check (This will not come from tapping lands each turn) Creatures with pretty much any ability? Check (This includes lifelink, deathtouch, trample, vigilance, and many many many others) casting sorcery and instant spells as they SHOULD be cast? Check-ish (You will be limited on how many spells you can cast in a turn, but as you increase in level you will be able to cast more spells through various feats)

More or less what will be present is a set of rules so you can take your favorite magic the gather card and within a few seconds have all the stats to be used in D&D. Just as a little teaser of things to come lets look at a creature, the old red favorite. Raging Goblin!

First the normal verison. Mana cost R. Power and toughness 1/1. Special abilites Haste.

D&D Version. Mana cost one red mana. Damage per attack 1d4 slashing. Hitdie 1d4. Special Ability. Haste (The creature may attack as soon it comes into play. All creatures without haste must wait until their controllers next initative turn before he can act)

Without giving everything away Mana Cost and the die that is represented in power and toughness is based on the cards rarity. So while a rare card might have more health and do more damage it will also cost more. A rare card may have 1 mana cost in normal MtG but I can assure you it will not be one in MtG the RPG.

I hope that people on these forums are as excited about this project as I am. As of this writing I have spent well over 30 hours in R&D and in the first write up of all the rules (That will eventually come in the form of a PDF)

Wanna know what the cover is going to look like?

MTG_RPG_Final_img | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

My GF Angel did the shopwork on this image. Please feel free to leave feedback and ideas. Any reasonable idea that is left WILL absolutley be taken to the R&D team that I have set up, and if we use the idea I will give you credit!

 

[MtGtheRPGDM]

Just a quick addition. I am watching this thread pretty closely even when im out and about on my DroidX. So I should be able to answer any questions or reply to comments rather quickly. So if you have any, feel free to post!

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Will this be played as if the Player is a summoner within the world?

Will this mostly have dueling applications, or, as in D&D, will the player be interacting with the world at large?

 

[Asmo]

What is the default Plane? Will players be able to planeswalk?

Asmo

 

[kitcik]

I love the idea of having a mechanic to bring the cards to life in D20 D&D.

Monsters = monsters
Spells = spells
Artifact creatures = constructs
Artifacts = magic items

or something like that, with some way of converting them easily.

I have played D&D since the basic set and Magic since the Alpha set. I have met both Gary Gygax and Richard Garfield. I think this is a fantastic idea.

I have a little less enthusiasm for bringing over the mechanics - mana sourced by tapping lands and summoning creatures. That would be, as your graphic suggests, MTG the RPG, which is entirely different than converting MTG to D&D.

I picture Raging Goblin pretty much as you say, but no "mana cost" (although you can certainly add it to Summon Monster I) and the Haste ability basically giving them an automatic surprise round.

Anyway, good luck with this project - I am curious to see where it goes.

 

[MtGtheRPGDM]

Will this be played as if the Player is a summoner within the world?

The player will be a summoner on the battlefield.

Will this mostly have dueling applications, or, as in D&D, will the player be interacting with the world at large?

This will be a full blown RPG. Characters will have skills (from the players hand book with a few custom ones built for this game) buy their spells from other wizards. And do pretty much everything that you and your DM can come up with.

What is the default Plane? Will players be able to planeswalk?


Asmo

The main plane will be a custom one of my own creation (using a few famous names thrown around). My R&D team is currently working (and by currently I mean as I type this, im taking a few minutes to answer everyone) on doing a few of the more famous planes and adding them to the end of the book.

I love the idea of having a mechanic to bring the cards to life in D20 D&D.

Monsters = monsters
Spells = spells
Artifact creatures = constructs
Artifacts = magic items

or something like that, with some way of converting them easily.

I have played D&D since the basic set and Magic since the Alpha set. I have met both Gary Gygax and Richard Garfield. I think this is a fantastic idea.

I have a little less enthusiasm for bringing over the mechanics - mana sourced by tapping lands and summoning creatures. That would be, as your graphic suggests, MTG the RPG, which is entirely different than converting MTG to D&D.

I picture Raging Goblin pretty much as you say, but no "mana cost" (although you can certainly add it to Summon Monster I) and the Haste ability basically giving them an automatic surprise round.

Anyway, good luck with this project - I am curious to see where it goes.

Thank you for the good wishes, as I stated this is becoming a much larger project than I had originally envision (hence the reason i set up a team of a few friends for some help). I suppose a straight MtG to D&D is a bit of a misnomer on my own part. Its going to be a D20 game with alot of rules from D&D to run things with a few custom changes to make everything function. I will use the example that you used if I may about tapping mana.

In MtG the RPG the word tapped is replaced with "exhasuted". Each turn (imagine magic where each turn starts with Untap Upkeep Draw" Well in MtG the RPG There will be a global "mana" phase. Where each "mage" on the field will roll to get the amount of mana they will be able to use during that turn to cast spells. each Mage has a maximum amount of mana they may never go over (to prevent infinite mana combos), and any mana not used in one turn does carry over, but again they may never excede their Max. Here is a gameplay example (Note how each mage determines their mana will be explaned in the book)

Example: A red mage (RM) stumbles upon a blue mage (BM) out in the wilderness, neither of them are willing to let the other leave so they engage in combat. Initative is rolled. RM's total initative is 10 after his roll, BM's is 11 after his roll. Now we enter the mana up phae. RM has a 10 BM has a 8. Rm will roll a d10, whatever he rolls is how much mana he has for the turn. BM will roll a d8, and again how much he rolls is the mana for the turn.

The rolling for mana helps keep a bit of the randomness of Magic. So a mage isnt "tapping" land to cast a spell, they are just exhausting some of the available mana they have for the turn.

 

[Pergentile]

So... this is going to be a whole D20 system (like Pathfinder, and the various editions), that revolves around players being "Plane walkers" like in MtG? How will the classes vary enough to make things interesting and have the players enjoy the uniqueness of their own character?

What I really want to know is how cards like Omnath, Locus of Mana (Which is MY favorite card) will be brought in, since it is one of many cards that literally overrule the rules of the game, and change how things work.

The thing with MtG is it is HUGE, as huge as a full edition of D&D, which means material that can fill dozens of printed books. It is also constantly growing, and older material is constantly being amended.
Are you going to do only certain sets, or are you going to do all the sets, regardless of the trouble that will cause?

What will you do when one person doesn't have enough mana to do anything on their turn, and the other guy decides that instead of summoning something, he is going to go up and kick the other guy in the scrotum? Is it going to be an RPG of MtG, or is it going to be a D20 RPG of MtG?

 

[MtGtheRPGDM]

So... this is going to be a whole D20 system (like Pathfinder, and the various editions), that revolves around players being "Plane walkers" like in MtG? How will the classes vary enough to make things interesting and have the players enjoy the uniqueness of their own character?

What I really want to know is how cards like Omnath, Locus of Mana (Which is MY favorite card) will be brought in, since it is one of many cards that literally overrule the rules of the game, and change how things work.

The thing with MtG is it is HUGE, as huge as a full edition of D&D, which means material that can fill dozens of printed books. It is also constantly growing, and older material is constantly being amended.
Are you going to do only certain sets, or are you going to do all the sets, regardless of the trouble that will cause?

What will you do when one person doesn't have enough mana to do anything on their turn, and the other guy decides that instead of summoning something, he is going to go up and kick the other guy in the scrotum? Is it going to be an RPG of MtG, or is it going to be a D20 RPG of MtG?

First uf all thanks for the interest ill do my best to answer all your questions, if I leave something out please tell me, and ill come back to answer it.

Yes it is going to be a new D20 system with a lot of similarities to D&D. Enough that you will need the players handbook and other corebooks to make full use of everything that im going to include.

To answer your question, there are some cards that I feel just will not work. Right off the bat I cant think of any. But the card you asked about, it is a ledgendary. Any card that is ledgendary (be it a creature or artifact) will NOT be available to players. Ledgendary creatures will be unique NPCs. The artifacts will be powerful relics that the players will be able to adventure for and maybe one day get their hands on.

If you do not have enough mana to do anything on your turn you will still be able to attack with a weapon that you have. The classes are set up with BaseAttack bonuses, saves, class skills. Now the BaB and Saves for all base classes (each based around a color) are the same BUT they gain special abilites based on their color. IE, Green xtimes a day (based on level) can give a creature it controls trample. Red can give a creature haste. etc, etc.

I used as many of the normal D&D 3.5 rules as i possibly could, but had to change some as need. And as far as Planeswalkers, not everyone will be a planeswalker, as a matter of fact it is going to be prestige class where you will need to have certain things (specific ranks in certain skills) and must find a way to ignite their "spark"

If I fogot anything im sorry.

 

[MtGtheRPGDM]

Another followup

As one of my R&D guys told me after they read this thread I did forget one question. I am doing the keywords for every expert level expansion that they have done. I wanna make sure that within reason new MtG players and Old MtG players alike can use some of their favorite creatures and their favorite abilites.

 

[Pergentile]

So this is NOT going to be a whole new D20 system, since it will use 3.5 material... it will simply be an alternate version of 3.5. THAT makes me leery.

There are VERY powerful cards that are not Legendary, and many Legendary cards that have little to no power OR flavor. To base the availability of them simply based on them having the "Legendary" type, seems a bit... ignorant of both D&D and MtG.

In the end, since a "Planeswalker" could easily be made in D&D following the current rules... and almost every creature and spell in MtG could be easily (if slowly) converted into D&D, I really think any rules changes/bastardization of the 3.5 edition would ruin itself.
I would personally suggest simply doing those easy but time-consuming conversions and simply making a 3.5 edition book of extra content from MtG, assuming one knows well how to make monsters, spells, etc. for 3.5 edition.