[MtG]RPG - Ver 10.20.21 - Streamlined!

[NoR]RPG

To play [NoR]RPG, you will need a deck of Magic: the Gathering Cards, a Twenty-Sided die [d20], and a copy of this ruleset for reference. First, choose a sixty-ish card deck that you own.  This will be your character. Sort the deck into piles based on the card types - Lands, Instants, Sorceries, Enchantments, Creatures, Artifacts, and Planeswalkers. Take this opportunity to fill out a Player Token. Half of an index card is a good option. Your Player Token is representative of you within the game, so for the sake of mechanics, mark the lower right corner with [0/0/0]. Note all of the colors found within the Mana costs in your deck in the upper right of your Token. This is your Color Identity. Put your Character's Name at the top, and you are now complete. Shuffle your deck back together.

Stats

There are eight statistics to represent your character’s variables. Two are static, while the other six shift as you play. There are varying ways to use these stats, so review them and try to build a mental picture of your character based on the cards you have in your deck.

HP – HP is your inherent connection to your power, as well as a measure of the energy drawn from your memories. HP is equal to the number of lands in your deck, and that number is your starting life total. Your life total carries between scenes, and doesn’t change or heal when the game goes from passive to active. If for some reason you have less than 20 lands, then ignore that count - Your HP value is 20 instead.

ACT – ACT is your latent capability for spontaneous ACTion, which is explained further below but for now can be imagined as the point pool from which Planeswalking deducts. It is equal to the number of Card Types represented in your deck, up to 7.

HP and ACT are unchanging between scenes and modes.

When starting a session, or going from Active to Passive, you will draw 12 cards and lay them out in six piles of up to 4 cards each. Those piles will represent your score in that respective stat. You must select a card that matches the type or color for that stat; otherwise, you may use a land in any of the piles.

	Physical	Mental	External
Force	BOD [Creatures, (G)]	ARC [Sorceries, (B)]	TCH [Artifacts, (C)]
Finesse	REF [Instants, (R)]	KNO [Enchantments, (W)]	CHA [Planeswalkers, (U)]

BOD is the ability to manipulate your physical form directly, AKA your BODy, through movement and exertion. Bod is akin to the classic STR.

REF is your REFlexes, your precision and dexterity, the control on the peripheral of your conscious direction. It is akin to the classic DEX.

ARC is the force of your ARCana, a measurement of your Magical structure and its inherent tension.  Think of it as a Magic STR equivalent.

KNO is your KNOwledgeability, or much like ARC is roughly equivalent to STR, KNO is more or less Magical Dexterity or Finesse.

TCH is your TeCHnological aptitude, or in a broader sense, how you manipulate external objects. This could be controlling a vehicle, flipping a switch, disassembling a device, or other similar actions.

CHA is how well you manipulate other sentient individuals, or your CHArisma.

Now look through the different piles and visualize the spells and creatures in them. Familiarize yourself with how these spells might be cast and how you might be able to abuse them dramatically. Think of them as Actions, or Skills, instead of just rote effects. By this point you should have a decent grasp of the character you are going to play, but if you require further help or examples, your DM will be able to point you in the right direction.

Levels

Leveling in NoR is done at the GM's discretion, however it is recommended to start all characters at LVL 6. This will affect what you can play safely-see Mana Burn V2.

Health

Creatures have a third statistic - Health. Health is equal to a card's printed toughness and cannot go above that value. For example, a 3/4 has a Health of 4, or [3/4/4]. A creature with a * or a 0 for their Toughness will instead use their value upon entering the field as their health.

Each attack will do a minimum of 1 damage, with any damage over the toughness being done directly to their health. Toughness is a defensive stat in this sense. Put another way, Damage is equal to [(Attacker's Power)-(Defender's Toughness)+1]. If the Toughness drops the damage to 0, the defender will still take 1 damage to their health for having been engaged. The exception is if a creature’s Power is 0 - then the attack will do nothing.

For example, if a [3/3/3] attacks a [5/5/5], the [3/3/3] will deal only 1 damage, as its Power is not above the required 5 [3-5+1=0 = Minimum Damage = 1]. However, the [5/5/5] will hit for 3 damage and destroy the aggressor [(5-3)+1=3].

Modifications to toughness will not affect Health, IE a [1/1/1] who equips a scimitar [+1/+1] goes from [1/1/1] to [2/2/1]. Due to Health, a creature dropped to 0 toughness will not die immediately - they will simply take all resultant damage directly. They will die at -1.

They also will not die at 0 Health, but will instead be tapped and treated as ‘Unconscious’. They will not deal damage, cannot untap, and will die immediately if attacked again, regardless of damage dealt. This way you can heal creatures before they die completely.

Damage via Abilities or Spells is calculated the same way, with a minimum of 1 damage being dealt regardless.

If you draw to 0 and must draw again, you pass out for a period of time determined by the DM.

Player Tokens

During the game, your Player Token will ALWAYS remain in play. For all intents and purposes, it is you. However, being a part of the game also means that your Token can now be targeted as a creature, enchanted, equipped, etcetc.

Your token is capable of making attacks; however as a [0/0/0] you will not do anything until you can increase your power, and you will take all the damage dealt to your token due to having zero toughness.

Your Token cannot be sacrificed, cannot be destroyed or exiled, and, in fact, cannot leave play. Any effects which extend to ‘You’ also extend to your token – if an effect says ‘You have Hexproof’, so does your Token. However, this does not go the other way – giving your Token Hexproof will not prevent a player from targeting YOU with a Lava Axe, for example. This is the difference between targeting the Body and targeting the Soul.

Player Tokens can carry up to 4 objects with them when the mode changes from Passive to Active, be it Artifact, Enchantment, or Aspect. You can think of it as one card to each side of your Token.

Targeting and Resultant Effects

Since Players [Or more specifically, their Tokens] are creatures regarding targeting limitations, this also means you may target Creatures as though they were Players, with the following effects:

Abilities which increase a Life Total or have you Gain Life may be used to restore that much of a Creature’s Health, up to their maximum.

Abilities which draw a card will increase a creature’s Power OR Toughness, Caster’s choice, by the amount of cards drawn. The effect wears off at the end of the turn.

Abilities which discard a card or put a card from a library into a graveyard ['Milling'] may be used to decrease a creature’s Power OR Toughness, Caster’s choice, by the amount indicated. The effect wears off at the end of the turn.

Searching a Player’s Library for x Cards and removing them will drop the Creature’s Power OR Toughness, caster’s choice,  by a set amount depending on where the cards end up – Sending X cards to the Graveyard will drop them by only 1X, while exiling will drop them by 2X.

Abilities which cause the entire Hand to be discarded will drop the target’s Power AND Toughness to 0 until the end of the turn.

Aspects

Players may ‘wear’ a creature as their Aspect. They cast the creature as normal, but place their Token under it once summoned. For all intents and purposes, you are that card, and it is your Token. An Aspect’s Health is ignored and all damage done is to your Health, while its Toughness will act as your Toughness. Your stats will otherwise remain the same.

If a source deals damage to you that would be equal to or greater than your Aspect’s Toughness [Before calculating damage taken], then that Aspect is dismissed and sent to the graveyard. This does not have to be damage taken, only damage dealt - This is equivalent to blocking with it. As an Example, while wearing a [4/4/X], if you are attacked by a [5/5/5], you will be DEALT 5 Damage, but you will TAKE [(5-4)+1] 2 Damage and your Aspect will be dismissed.

Keep in mind that your Token can still be targeted, meaning that direct damage is not 'rerouted' to your aspect, although it does count towards Dismissal. This means a Lava Axe will hit YOU for 5, but still be damage enough to ‘kill’ your Aspect of [4/4/X].

Mana Burn V2

Mana spent on your turn over your current level will do increasing damage to you, indicative of your need to train yourself to channel that much power. IE; At level 6, spending 7 mana will do 1 damage to you, 8 mana 3, 9 mana 6, ETC.

Combat, Recoil, and Ability Table

The defender’s attack during combat is referred to as ‘Recoil’, and can be mitigated in some instances. A creature with 0 Attack will deal no Recoil. Please see the affected keywords below for the updated effects. For brevity, only stats with changes are listed here. All other abilities function as written through common sense or creative roleplaying. If you are directed to halve a damage result and you need to round, always round up.

Keyword	Effect
Deathtouch	Creatures with this ability may deal damage directly to a creature's Health.
Flying	Creatures with this ability take half Recoil damage from those without, unless they have Reach.
Indestructible	This creature cannot lose Health. Not applicable to Players or Player Tokens.
Intimidate	Creatures with this ability take half Recoil from those without, unless they are of the required quality [Color or Artifact].
Landwalk	This creature takes half Recoil from the colors of the land represented.
Protection	D.E.B.T.H. - This creature cannot lose Health from the stated quality.
Reach	This creature deals full Recoil to Flying creatures and may block them normally.
Trample	If you deal lethal damage, the remaining may be dealt to another creature, and so on.
Regenerate	When you Regenerate this creature, remove all damage obtained so far this turn from its Health as well as tapping it and removing it from combat.
Clash	As there is no proper opponent, Clash VS a d6.
Shadow	Creatures with this ability take no Recoil damage from those without.
Totem armor	When this creature would be destroyed, restore its Health to full and sacrifice the Totem Armor.

Game Modes

There are two playing modes – Active and Passive.  These are the two kinds of situations your character may be in – an Active scenario, where the adrenaline flows and you must make hurried decisions with limited attention and focus, or a Passive scenario, where you can take your time and discern a solution at your leisure.

Passive scenarios are the most common. These are the day-to-day, the bar scenes, the casual moments. In passive scenarios, you will have 3 Mana of any color in your Color Identity added to your pool at the beginning of each of your turns if your pool is empty. You can pass your turn to draw an additional Mana on your next turn, in case you wish to cast something more expensive. For Example, should you charge one turn, you will gain 4 Mana on the next, where you can charge again to gain 5, and so on. However, should you cast anything, your count will reset. You may also pass your turn to Scry 1d20.

Passively, you cannot gain life above double your HP Score, and each turn your Lifetotal will drop by one until it stabilizes at your HP. You do not draw at the beginning of your turn.

During Passive Scenes, your ‘hand’ is anything in your stat piles. You may play them with the passive Mana, but if they are not permanents, you must put them into the graveyard upon their resolution as normal. You may choose to put a permanent into play when resolving it as well. You may play lands in order to stockpile mana for future turns, and also to adjust your stats. Once the card resolves, if it left your stat piles, you draw the top card of your deck and place it in an applicable pile. In this way, your stats may dynamically change during passive scenarios.

Active Scenarios are when you are in a state of increased awareness and hypertension. The Planeswalker equivalent to adrenaline flows, and you have to work harder to focus. In Active scenarios, anything not on your Token as well as anything else you control is shuffled up. Each Player draws Seven Cards and takes their turns simultaneously when the DM instructs, roleplaying each action. Write down the last value for your stats and use that during the Active Scenario.

Casting a Spell with CMC 6+

Casting a Sorcery with CMC 4+

Summoning a Creature

Nonlethal Damage

The Game Mode can also shift in response to certain events, or ‘Triggers’.  The table lists these Triggers.

Wearing an ‘Aspect’ will not count as ‘Summoning’ them since you are effectively Shapeshifting into the Creature, although a CMC 6+ Aspect WILL shift modes.

Summoning a creature that shifts modes will still result in the creature being shuffled up as the mode changes. Aspects are the exception to this.

The game will shift from Active to Passive when prompted by the DM, usually after all the threats have been dealt with in the area. When the game shifts from Active to Passive, any life you have above your HP Score leaks at 2 points per turn until you stabilize at your HP Score. This is due to your body not being meant to handle the excess energies involved for extended periods of time.

When going from Active to Passive, draw 12 cards and lay them out in six piles of up to 4 to make a new set of stats. You must select a card that matches the type or color for that stat; otherwise you may use a land. Shuffle the rest up and set it aside as your Library.

Movement

An average playmat will support three rows of nine cards, or a 3x9 play area. The DM has a similar area to the Players’ to represent the enemy field. These ‘zones’ together are the entire battlefield.

In the middle of the zones, the DM places a map of the current Area. During your Main Phases, each creature/player may move once per turn. If a creature/player needs to interact with an individual or the environment, it must expend a Movement point to do so. Physical attacks can only be made on the targets within 1 unit of you, although spells can target and affect anything within line of sight.

Units are decided based on the size of the miniatures and the scale of the map being used. A general example would be standard Tabletop Minis, which have a roughly 1 Inch scale. You can move 1 unit per point of SPD in any direction. If using grids or hexes, this still applies.

There are 4 Speeds in-game – 1/2/3/4. Each object will move 1, 2, 3, or 4 units per turn, per their SPD. On each turn, the opportunity to move arises during the Main Phases. The DM will move his creatures as well, alternating between a Player movement and a DM movement until all the moves have been made for that Main Phase. First each player moves a 4 SPD creature, then the DM moves a 4 SPD, then back and forth until all the 3s have moved, at which point this is repeated with the 2s, then the 1s. A Player or Creature may choose not to move on a Main Phase to move on a later phase, or to conserve movement for a burst of activity, such as moving 2 on the second Main Phase instead of once each.

[Power > Tough]	(+1)
[Power < Toughness]	(-1)
[Movement Ability]	(+1)

Creatures default to a SPD of 2. Player Tokens and Planeswalker Cards have a SPD of 3. Cards can have their speed adjusted following the table.

Double Strike	Flanking
Flash	Horsemanship
Flying	Ninjutsu
Haste	Split second

Movement Abilities are any of the 8 in the table, and do not stack – that is, a Creature with Flying and Haste only gets +1, not +2. Tapped Creatures do not move.

ToHit

Whenever you Target or Attack a permanent you don't control, unless the target accepts it you will roll a check [1d20].

ToHit [1d20]
1	Backfire
2|19	Success
20	Critical

A Critical will modify the action by a set value. Physical attacks will do an additional 50% damage, while magic and effects of abilities will see a doubling of effect [200%]. A Backfire means that the action fails. Roll on the applicable table for the effect.

Backfire [1d20]
1|5	Reversal of Effect
6|14	Miss
15|20	Hit next nearest Entity

An Entity may choose to forgo the roll and simply accept the action, such as when a Player targets a Team Member with a life gain spell.

Challenges

Whenever you need to make an opposed roll, you will be told which stat to use by the DM and then roll a d20 and add the stat value as a modifier. If you can use one of the cards you selected for that stat in that situation in order to increase your odds of success and manage to convince the DM that it would work through creative roleplaying, they may grant you an additional +1 or +2 for that roll, per their decision.

Action Points

AP do not leave your pool until used or until you start a new session. AP may be spent per the table at Instant Speed.

AP USES

Gain 4 Life

Add (2) to your Mana Pool

Reroll a Roll

Draw a Card

Fly, 'port, 'walk, hover

Materials

In order to destroy objects or environments, you will only need two values – a rough estimate of their strength on the scale seen in the table below, and a rough estimate of their thickness. The values are listed in the format of [Hit Points|Toughness]. Inanimate objects have a different manner of health. The HP is a cumulative total of damage dealt to the object, while the Toughness is a value of the material’s strength. If you hit an object for over half of its toughness, you will deal an additional 50% damage to its HP. If you manage to hit for the Toughness or more, you destroy that object.

THICKNESS	WOOD	PLASTIC	STONE	STEEL	ADAMANT
>2"	2|1	3|2	6|3	10|6	20|10
2"-5"	3|2	6|3	10|6	20|10	40|20
6"-10"	6|3	10|6	20|10	40|20	75|40
11"-24"	10|6	20|10	40|20	75|40	120|75
24"+	20|10	40|20	75|40	120|75	200|120
[If ATK > 50% TOUGHNESS :: DMG = 150%]

For Example – a [6|3] is hit by a [2/2/2]. It will deal 3 damage to the HP of the material, leaving it a [3|3]. Were it a [4/4/4], it would destroy the object outright.

If an object is more than 24” thick, it is considered ‘Solid’. Any attacks above the Solid value will not destroy the entire object, but rather excavate ~24” worth of material – in this way, you can tunnel, or other similar such actions.

A Note on Character Growth

You may notice [NoR]RPG does not have an obvious mechanism for character advancement - this is by design. In a classical RPG, characters start as peasants and grow into gods, only to be retired so that a new character can take their place - not so with [NoR]. As planeswalkers, players are inherently more powerful to start - while the challenge roll values are similar to low-level D&D, the actual forces at play are very much at an equivalent Level of 10+. As such, instead of incrementally improving your character after each encounter, your progress is made between sessions by adjusting your deck to suit the situations you are in. A DM may restrict the number of cards you are allowed to change between sessions, but in practice, any adjustments made by the players will be within the ability of the DM to address. This also lets you ‘change’ the character you play by simply using a different deck.