Sorcery Street Rules

14 Dec, 2023

Inspiration

The Sorcery Street ruleset draws heavily from the GLOG, which originated with Arnold K over at Goblin Punch, which you should really check out! As you may know, however, the GLOG has no one true creator, but rather a seething mass of demiurges. For more inspiration, merely plumb the profane depths of anyone's blogroll.

The idea for how seizing Mana works is very very inspired by Tabletop Curiosity Cabinet's post on their own magic system. Also worth a look!

There’s also some Into the Odd DNA in this ruleset: credit where credit is due. I’m less familiar with that design scene, but that does not stop me from being impressed! Especially inspirational texts from this realm are Electric Bastionland and the upcoming Mythic Bastionland.

What’s Sorcery Street?

Nouveau old school roleplaying game of street-level mages trapped in an ancient dying megacity called Tower.

Rather than work together to find a way out, the many mages of Tower have inevitably turned to gang politics.

It's meant to evoke the faction play of Blades in the Dark, but this is only the core rules, so who knows how that all works.

Warning: Sacred cows were killed during the making of this game.

Making Your Mage

You’re an upstart mage of Tower, the worst, best, and only city.

Your Level is 1.

Roll 1d12+6 for each of your three ability scores.

Roll 1d6 for your Hit Protection.

You have 3 Mana.

Roll for three random spells from an available grimoire¹.

Come up with a descriptor for your Maleficence. In other words, when you shoot hurt-magic at somebody, what does it look like? How does it manifest? Lock that in now.

Lastly, do the rest: what’s your name and what do we call you behind your back, what do you wear on a shitty day, are your eyes sad or hungry, etc. Make a character that everyone at the table wants to root for, and everyone at the table wants to see fall like Icarus...

Core Mechanic: Saves

When you take action to overcome problems, perils, etc, make a save.

Roll d20 and compare to the relevant value.

If you roll over, you fail.
If you roll under, you succeed.

Opposed Saves

When your efforts are opposed by another character, you both save.

Whoever rolls highest without failing gets their way.

Ability Scores

Usually when you make a save, the relevant value is one of your three ability scores.

Body: Save Body to tear apart obstacles, dodge attacks, climb things, or perform delicate physical tasks. Test your strength, endurance, reflexes, finesse.

Intellect: Save Intellect to call up trivia, parse obscure texts and symbols, or investigate the scene of a crime. Test your recall, logic, analytical skills.

Psyche: Save Psyche to connect with people, intimidate enemies, manipulate rivals, or sense motives and lies. Test your willpower, empathy, charisma.

Casting Spells

To cast a spell, spend 1 Mana, gesture aggressively, and mutter ominous dissuasions against catastrophe.

There are two types of spellcasting.

Prepared Casting

You can prepare spells equal to your Level during downtime.

During initiative, casting a prepared spell uses a quick action.

Casting a prepared spell a second time before preparing it again is treated as spontaneous casting.

Spontaneous Casting

You can cast any spell you know spontaneously, without preparing it, but there are risks.

During initiative, casting a spontaneous spell carefully uses a full action. If you don’t cast carefully, save Intellect or suffer a spell catastrophe according to your grimoire.

Overcharging

You can overcharge a spell by investing extra Mana.

For each extra Mana invested, you get an additional or better effect from the spell. Work out the specifics with the GM; if the spell has mechanical effects, bump them up one step.

When you overcharge a spell, save Intellect or suffer a spell catastrophe.

Casting Without Mana

You can cast a spell without Mana, but this automatically triggers spell catastrophe, and always uses a full action.

Maleficence

You can spend 1 Mana to conjure maleficence on your enemies.

You can either deal 2d6 damage to a single target or to everyone in the immediate area. Targets may save using an ability score appropriate for your maleficence descriptor. If targets succeed their save, they take half damage.

During initiative, conjuring maleficence uses a full action.

Seizing Mana

Each location in Sorcery Street has ambient magical energy coursing through it. You recover all spent Mana by taking downtime, by passively absorbing that energy.

When you’re in a pinch and you need Mana now, you can seize Mana.

Seizing Mana is a gamble, and uses a full action during initiative.

First, say how much Mana you want to pull from your location’s ambient magic pool. The GM might prep the magic pool of a specific place, or if they're improvising, they can scale it with weirdness.

• Actively non-magic places have 0
• Mundane places have 3
• Creepy, bizarre, or secret places have 6
• Magically-significant places have 8

By default, you get the stated amount of Mana, and save Psyche or trigger spell catastrophe. However, if you pull more than the location has left, you:

• Wipe out all the Mana left in this area
• Get no Mana yourself
• Automatically trigger spell catastrophe

Like I said, seizing Mana is always a gamble.

Initiative

When a time-sensitive crisis is unfolding, like combat or a car chase, use initiative to track the chaos.

Initiative is broken into rounds.

Each character gets one turn per round.

At the start of initiative, each character rolls d20 + Body.

Everyone’s result is their turn order, from highest to lowest.

On your turn, you can take two quick actions or one full action.

Quick Actions are things like casting a prepared spell, popping off a shot at someone, running across the room.

Full Actions are things like carefully casting a spontaneous spell, engaging someone in melee, climbing a fire escape.

Hit Protection & Damage

Many spells deal damage to their victim. Regular weapons deal 1d6 damage. Improvised weapons deal 1d4 damage.

Damage reduces Hit Protection.

When someone takes damage past their HP, they are knocked senseless. Senseless characters can’t act until they get some downtime. Any damage dealt to a senseless character with the intent to kill does just that.

Characters recover all lost HP during downtime.
Characters who were knocked senseless recover only 1d6 HP.

Ascending to Horrible Heights of Power

Starting mages are Level 1, and there’s no XP to get you past that.

To gain Levels, you must become significantly more magical.

Maybe you undertake a ritual to feast on the essence of a slumbering demon. Maybe you’re fed the still-beating heart of a powerful ally. Maybe you spend a timeskip researching arcane formulae and upping your game. Doesn’t matter to me.

When you gain a Level, you get the following benefits:

• You get +1 Mana
• You can prepare one more spell during downtime
• You get +1d4 Hit Protection

What’s Missing

The current Sorcery Street ruleset presented here doesn’t say anything about what a roleplaying game is, how to run one, best practices for players, or anything like that. I guess we’ll say “this game assumes you’re already familiar with roleplaying games” rather than “I simply couldn’t be asked.”

You’re also owed a glossy PDF of these rules, but that’s later.

#actual games #design #rules #sorcery street