Simple D6 expansion Creative Magic

Intro

This is an expansion with concepts and ideas usable with the Simple d6 system. This page will not discuss specific rules for the SD6 system but rather give suggestions for skills, qualities, equipment, character concepts, aspects and common themes you might find useful when running a game with creative magic in Simple D6. Creative magic is magic which is worded by the players based on different spheres of magical knowledge. Examples of Creative Magic are White Wolf´s Mage the Ascension or the idea of generalist spell casters who focus on a concept, like Sun Mage or Good Priest rather than a list of powers.

The current version of Simple D6 can be found here

Common themes with Creative Magic

There are no specific themes associated with Creative Magic because it´s not a part of a specific setting or genre.

No Quality is needed to cast spells in a Creative Magic scenario in general.

Aspects

Common aspects usable in games with Creative Magic are Willpower and whatever aspects fit to the setting

Willpower is used to defend against spiritual magic, supernatural horrors and corruption of the soul. Magic with physical effects like a fireball is a Physical Aspect.

Spheres of Magic

Sphere Examples	Influences
Energy	Heat, light, energy conversion
Substance	Matter, conversion of basic elements
Spatial	Space and distance
Time	Time, duration and timing
Spiritual	The spirit, spirit world, ghosts, gods
Mental	The mind, thoughts, identity, ideas
Fate	Chance, entropy
Fire	The element of fire and life
Water	The element of water and soothing
Earth	The element of earth and stability
Air	The element of air and dynamics
Faith	Stability, life, calm, the spiritual world
Evil	Despair, sacrilege, undeath, disease
Good	Hope, divinity, life, healing

In settings with Creative Magic it is often implied that all the player characters will know some magic. Instead of focusing on specific powers, players chose domains, or Spheres, of powers. When a player wishes to do something supernatural, he explains how he uses one or more of his spheres to do that deed. Since Spheres are limited in their nature (you can probably not use the Fire sphere to make a magic time bomb for instance), you will have to combine different Spheres to make your effect. Fire could be used to make an explosion instantly, but adding Time sphere could delay the effect by 5 minutes so you can get away before the blast. Different spheres of magic is used as skills and all spheres have a Novice, Media, Advanced and Master level, each costing 1 Skill and each level giving the normal dice a skill gives. All effects of the spell must be explained using only the sphere(s) used casting that spell.

Spheres and Skills are a little special at character creation. You may pick 2 additional skills which may only be Sphere skills. You may use the other skills as normal, also buying Sphere skills for them if you please.

Using more than 1 sphere of magic gives you a 1 dice penalty when casting a spell but also gives more ways to cast a spell and more possibilities to make useable effects. Each sphere should be strictly limited to itself (a Fireball might require Energy as well as Spatial for instance)

Combining the Spheres of Magic

The different spheres of magic may be combined as you please. A generic fireball for instance would require Energy to create the fire and Spatial would be used to make it hit its target, Mental would be used to read the mind of someone and Fate would be used to make the subtly change their mind, Substance would be used to make a remote control into a silver dagger and Spiritual would be used to bring it into the spiritual world to fight evil spirits for instance.

A higher level of a sphere means you can make greater effects. Novice levels means you can sense it, Media means you can manipulate it on a low non-specific level, Advanced means you can make it very specific and Master means you have very few limitations.

Combining a higher sphere with a lower sphere gives you the penalty that you can only ever use the highest level sphere you have when rolling. Remember that the effect of each sphere of magic is restricted by the level of the Sphere. For instance, a Novice Spatial skill would make for very low ranged spells

Disbelief

Creative Magic is often used in a setting where magic is restricted in some way by paradigm of the people inhabiting the world. The people witnessing the magic may disbelief it, the collective conscience of the world’s inhabitants may shape the world as it is, making the world attempt to act against magic itself or even cause paradoxes because reality is not as it should be. In these settings, when a player explains what kind of spell he wants to cast, the GM decides how much mental energy it takes to resist the backlash of Reality/Disbelief – this ranges from 0 to 3 (or more) and is the cost in Willpower HP it takes to cast said spell. Very minor, discrete spells which could easily be counted off as chance cost 0 HP, impressive luck would cost 1 HP, outright impossible or physics defying spells would cost 2 HP and truly unbelievable and obvious feats would cost 3 HP. Further feats are at the discretion of the GM naturally – blowing up a building by causing all the light energy inside to convert to fire, causing a spontaneous explosion would probably cost 5-7 Willpower HP and require one hell of a skill composition.

Q&A Section

Simple d6 - Low Fantasy expansion resource in jpeg form for sharing on image boards or easy print

Those magic attacks - how do they work?

First and foremost, there are two kinds of magical attacks: Spiritual effects and Physical effects. Spiritual effects are anything mind or soul related and is resisted with Willpower. Physical effects are basically anything else, like anything which holds or damages you physically, and is resisted with normal physical or combat defense. If an effect is Spiritual or Physical should be determined as the spells are implemented in the game. Any spell not used to attack or hinder an opponent in a combat is not considered either

How do Physical spells work in combat?

Physical spells work just like any other attacks except that they may have range and, depending on the type of spell, may have extra effects like setting the surroundings on fire or something like that. Examples of physical spells are Fireball, Flaming Hands, Icebolt, Firestorm, Entangling Roots, Flesh to Dust, Cripple, Summon Poison Arrow, Lightning Bolt, Acid Splash, Meteor Strike and so forth.

How do Spiritual spells work in combat?

Spiritual spells work just like any other attack in combat but instead of going by the Physical aspect, they go by the Willpower aspect. If you are reduced to 0 Willpower, you are affected by the spell. Several spells can help harm your Willpower as your strength of mind is under attack. Needless to say, people who are already reduced to 0 Willpower HP are extremely susceptible to Spiritual spells and one could make an army of thralls as long as they don't get time to regain their Willpower HP. Examples of Spiritual spells are Stand Still, Commandword [insert verb here], Fear, Mind Control, Charm, Sleep, Incite Hunger, Curse of [insert negative quality here], Slow, Wipe Mind, Despair, Demoralize and so forth.

How about summoning spells

This is an optional rule and if you want to keep the simple format of SD6, just do what feels right. If you want to make summoning spells special you can use these rules: Summoning spells cost 1 Mana per roll to cast and each roll takes 10 minutes. The Degree of success equals the number of points you can use on the specific spell. Degrees of Successes can be divided into skills, HP and Defence OR they determine how many creatures are summoned by the spell. All summoned units have 1 HP minimum. Skills cost 1 Degree, HP cost 1 Degree and Defence costs 2 Degrees plus 1 additional Degree per point beyond that. The GM should make sure that the player agrees to the kind of spell. You can not regain Mana lost when summoning until the summons you created are dead (or gone or destroyed or however you want it spelled it out you damn munchkin!). Instead of Mana you may want to make it require additional Physical HP to summon stuff but its up to you as a GM to make it whatever fits your setting - this is just an example and can easily be dismissed if you think it makes it too cumbersome

Example 1 - Summon Skeletons

Each Degree of Success summons 1 skeleton. Each skeleton has 3 Physical HP, 1 defense and +1 defence against piercing weapons. Trying to cast this spell would cost 1 Mana and a roll of 6, 3 and 2 (4 degrees of success) would summon 4 skeletons with the above stats.

Example 2 - Create Magical Being

Each Degree of Success gives 1 point to spend between HP, Defense and Skills. HP and Skills cost 1 point each and Defense cost 2 points (so a creature with Claw Attack, Swipe, Melee Attack, 2 Physical Defense and 5 HP would require 12 degrees of success combined). Since you can spend more Mana to make more rolls (if you spend more time on the casting) you can create truly powerful creatures. If you have, say, 3 dice to summon, you can spend 1 Mana to roll to summon the creature, spend another Mana to roll the dice again (stacking up your degrees of success) and continue to do so until you don't wish to spend more time or Mana. For instance, spending 1 Mana, you roll 4, 6, 5 you get 4 successes. You spend 1 more Mana and roll 6, 6, 2 and get 5 successes (9 total) and finally spend one extra Mana (3 Mana now in all as well as 30 minutes in total) to roll again and roll 5, 3, 1 for 3 extra successes. 12 total successes which makes it possible to summon the powerful creature above.

Is there an easily printable version somewhere?

Yes, right here to the right

Can I pass this off as my own?

No. If you are going to use this, at least give some credit where due. And no permission is given for use in anything which includes anyone making a profit from using this set of rules in any way.