World Setup

Decide what level of magic the game will have?

• High Magic -- magic is everywhere, everyone has access to magic.
• Low Magic -- magic is limited, PCs have access to magic.
• No Magic -- magic does not exist, PCs do not have access to magic.

Recommend Low or High magic using this method of Story Mode.

How would you like to start?
If you are solo you can just figure out your backstory and keep on going. If you are playing in a group we need to figure out how you meet and got together.

Some options:

• You all grew up in the same village and something happens that sends you all out into the world to do something or just run away and adventure together.
• You are from everywhere around the world, and you came together to go to "Adventuring School", where you are assigned (or choose) to go one your first mission as graduates together.
• You were all invited from wherever you hail to put together a team to go on this particular adventure together.

If you like world building I would choose one of the later two and develop your own hex with details of where you grew up.

If you'd rather work together and build only one hex, choose the first option.

Character Creation

1. Come up with an overarching concept of what you'd like to play with in the World confines.
2. Use the Character Creation rules to define what your character can do.

Species

You can play any species you like. You can name it whatever you like.

You must define 2 descriptive tags and 1 flaw for your create species.

You should think about what your species looks like and describe your character accordingly.
You should also consider how long they live. In most cases you want to be playing as a young adult or older. But this is not a hard and fast rule.

The last thing you should consider is whether or not this species has innate magic, can learn magic, or is resistant to magic.

Example

Human

Short Lived: ~100years
Magic: Can learn magic

• Born to Improvise
• Jack of All Trades
• (flaw) Quick to Judge

Types

A type is like a class in other RPGs. This can be anything from a Monster Hunter to a Bard, and even an Astronaut if it fits the world.

A type can do many things, but should have two defining tags.

Example

Bard

• Uses Music to Cast Magic
• Has a Silver Tongue

Soldier

• Knows Only Forward
• Keeps the Line

Does Something

The Does Something part of the character sentence is what is special about your character. This can be anything as is a tag unto itself.

This phrase should always start with a verb!

This does not need to be part of your type, species or anything else of your sentence. This is what makes you special.

Examples

• Sows Chaos
• Wields an Enchanted Blade
• Made a Pact with a Powerful Entity
• Speaks to Spirits
• Has a Silver Tongue

Mission Setup

There are several ways you can set up a mission, quest, or adventure. Since this is the Magic: The Gathering Method, we'll be using cards to draw what exactly you are adventuring for.

But first we need to decide what kind of question to go on.

In a Hexcrawl, You can either rely on the random chance that you will stumble upon the creature in a terrain type. Or you can ask the oracle "Do we see signs of the creature we are hunting?" And use its answer to determine whether or not you just automatically use that creature or draw a creature card.

For a Carta style map, you can replace the creature card with one of the terrain types. For specific locations or dungeon cards you can replace a randomly chosen one with your mission location. There must be only 30 cards in your map deck total.

Map Setup

• Start of campaign: Randomly choose 3 wild lands and 1 dungeon from your pools and shuffle them into the 26-card terrain deck.
• Gameplay: When the dungeon card is drawn, place it in the hex, then remove it permanently from the deck (deck becomes 29 cards).

Hexcrawl

For a hexcrawl draw a terrain card for each adjacent hex you just entered.

After all adjacent hexes have a terrain, replace all but the dungeon card, if drawn, back into the deck then shuffle the deck.

Carta Style Map

For a small scale 6x5 or 5x6 map (depending on your table layout), find one plains card and turn it right side up, while all other cards are face down. This will be your starting settlement.

Shuffle the deck with the single plains card face up. And lay out each card as they are presented to you (plain card up, all others face down) in either a 5x6 grid, or a 6x5 grid until all 30 cards are laid out.

You may move in any direction touching the current card you are in. Flip the card if it's face down to reveal the terrain type.

If you have a mission you should replace the appropriate cards as in the mission instructions.

Alternate Style

Instead of drawing terrain. Shuffle all the creature cards together. Start placing the cards in a 5x6 or 6x5 grid. While you are placing cards flip ONLY one card. This will be your starting place. The color of the card indicates the terrain type for all related card details.

If you have a mission you should replace the appropriate cards as in the mission instructions.

Note: to reduce the number of mountain and forest cards you can remove the cards listed as Beast or Goblin from the deck.