Casting Spell with Mana. I’ve tried to do this before, and there are a ton of moves created by others, but i keep trying to create something more simplistic and great for a pick up game of World of Dungeons. This is my next attempt at a stream lined Cast Spell move using mana. Thoughts?
Mana Reserve
You hold Mana equal to your INT. When you fully rest, restore your hold of Mana.
Cast Spell
When you use your mana to conjure up a spell, roll+Mana.
10+ Cast the spell successfully
7-9 You cast the spell, and reduce your Mana by 1.
The biggest question I have is what does fully resting mean? The trigger of that move definitely needs to be expanded
Like the simplicity. Can you hold -1? It doesn’t seem quite like ‘hold’ if it can go negative.
This is for WoD, yeah?
In that case, I’d probably go with:
Mana Reserve When you are fully rested, hold Mana equal to INT. Spend 1 Mana to quickly conjure up a spell (always risky!).
Thought process: WoD uses much, much tighter language than even DW moves and the special abilities never specify what happens on a 10+ or a 7-9. The game leans heavily into the single attempt something risky “move.”
WoD characters are also resource-scarce and squishy, so limiting the number of times you can conjure up a spell (on the fly) fits with the rest of the game.
I’d pair this with something like the rules for “MAGIC” in WoD, where a spellcaster/sorcerer gets two or three “realms” they can conjure spells in, and conjuring up a spell either requires time (like an hour or so), expending a dangerous/limited resource (like quicksilver doses) or a special ability (like Mana Reserve).
Your mileage, of course, may vary.
Ben M i was thinking that at zero mana, you couldn’t cast again. Should have clarified.
Jeremy Strandberg great point. That fits much better with WoD. My version was, even still, too lengthy. Thankyou!
P.S.
I love how adding ‘(Always risky)’ at the end automaticlly defines all the needed roll information. Elegant
Elliott Ambrosetti fully rested is what ever you make of it in your fiction. DW uses Make Camp but WoD has no such restrictions
My next issue of Session Zero (hopefully out at the end of this month…) is inspired by Final Fantasy VII (because I just got my PlayStation Classic and have been playing FF7 every available hour since LOL).
Here’s my take on Materia and MP for that issue (although I still have lots of time to tweak it):
docs.google.com – FF7 DW Materia and MP
I’ve done a thing where you have a pool of mana, spend Mana and roll +spent. 7-9 meant the magic went arwry somehow. We also allowed people to spend 0 Mana (and therefore roll+0). It worked just fine.
I have played Dungeon World with my mana system, but not WOD.