Mythic Magazine #59
Greetings Mythicists! Before you finish putting on your Halloween costumes, go ahead and open up your treat bags so I can drop this in ...
It's Mythic Magazine #59! This issue brings magic with it, and cybernetics. Cyber magic!
The Spell Crafter: Whip up random spells with varied effects and requirements quickly and easily, and when you need them, during play!
Mythic Cyber Dystopia: Boot up your cybernetic implants and head into the grim future with this guide to creating cybernetic settings and characters in your Mythic adventures.
Happy trick-or-treating and adventuring! :)
Comments (7)
I love the updated Mythic Ranks rules, and I am going to have endless fun with the spell creation charts. I have a character who is a planes hopping magician. I like the magic rules to be a little different everywhere he lands. I can make one or two spells as blue prints for the magic style of the new setting. Looking forward to reading the cyber dystopia article today, as that is one of the projects I am working on now.
Mythic Ranks in Mythic Magazines. So, I have been working on using the Mythic Magazine to do a Mythic RPG before Mythic RPG 2e comes out. I have noticed that different issues have a different baselines for ranks. The latest magazine, Mythic Mag #59, has the normal human Rank at 3. Mythic Magazine #40 has Science Fiction Rank Examples and the "Regular human" is rank 0. In addition the mini rpg "Steal the Rebellion" from magazine #48 has the "typical citizen" at rank 1. Don't know if this helps anyone, but I point this out in case there needs to be editing. For me, I like the "normal human" rank at 3 so I can go lower if needed.
You are correct with the changing of the Ranks standard. The reason for this is that the Ranks, as represented in the magazine, are following how they develop in the Mythic RPG 2e book. Originally, the human baseline was 0 with negative Ranks below that. But this was confusing in the new rules since some Ranks can also be Rank Shift modifiers, like -1RS. It was difficult to tell the difference if -1 in a Rank meant it was Rank -1 or it meant a -1 Rank Shift. To avoid negative Ranks I shifted the standard up to 3, with 0 now being the lowest possible Rank. I like this a lot more. That's actually a reason why I put that in issue #59, I want to see how people react to this Rank system. Steal The Rebellion was a bit of an aberration. I adjusted the Ranks specifically for that setting, so they aren't representative of any wider rules. Thanks for bringing this up :)
As a Shadowrun player, I really enjoy this volume! ^^ I'm psyched to couple Mythic interpretative power with a magic system! If anything, I think this article is selling itself a bit short by presenting itself as a mean to generate spells for NPCs and environment: it looks to me perfectly fitted to generate spells for the PCs as well - maybe by choosing the elements in the tables instead of rolling for them. Or by going full chaos and making some sort of wild magic character who never quite knows what is going to happen when they tap into magic, that could be fun as well. Being able to use magic without the usual very rigid classification of magic systems if something I can't pass. :P Regarding the cyberware and cyberpunk settings, there are a couple things I usually like to add in them that make them more realistic (and, ironically, less naive and optimistic): bugs and planned obsolescence. I find it funny that settings that present themselves as dystopia would imagine that the commercially provided cyberlimbs they have, created by profit obsessed megacorporations, would be for life and work just fine. A few things I like to add: - there's a random chance the cyberware will not work at critical moment, or do something completely unexpected - features of the cyberware degrade with time, with some minor functions stopping working altogether, and the advise to fix them being to "just buy a new model" - trying to fix the cyberware by not going to an overpriced repair shop (who will most like advise for replacement), either doing it ourself or going to an unlicensed repair shop, is a violation of the Terms of Service and can trigger fines or get the device to brick itself, if device's logs are not scrambled cautiously - engaging in illegal activities against a megacorp that produced your cyberware can cause it to brick itself as well, unless you can fool it into thinking you're targetting some other megacorp. - there is constant social pressure, both from invasive ads and from other people reactions to you, to make you upgrade your cyberware frequently. If you don't have the latest and it's visible, you're seen as has been, which can impact social encounters. Cyberware is considered has been after two years. You can buy means to mask your cyberware to make it appear like a more recent model, but the social cost is even bigger if it's discovered. - alternative firmwares to keep old cyberware working exists, but they are highly illegal (and expensive) - new models cost the same price as previous cyberware when it was new, and provide meaningless upgrades, that are basically just flair, except for the charisma boost in social encounters, which diminishes with time. To compensate for that, I cut the cost of cyberware by three, in Shadowrun.
Those are great ideas for the magic system, using them as wild magic and for a more freeform magic system. By choosing some spell types, you could make it similar to a Mage: The Ascension or Ars Magica system. Maybe your PC knows a set number of Types with associated Effects tables, with scores in each Type which allow you to do any effect in those tables up to that score. Something like that. I love your ideas on cyberware. Not only does all of that make sense within the setting, but it adds all kinds of additional limits, risks, and reasons for doing things that make the setting richer. That may help the concept of the high cost of cyberware, cost aside from money, stick better too. You don't just gear up and go battle the world like a superhero, that tech comes with strings attached. Thank you for the great ideas!
With the Cyberpunk setting creation utilities, I'm just wondering where this sits in relation to general strategies of world creation tools. I notice in your podcast you specifically use the World History tool with adventure genre/tone tables to create your post-apocalpytic world. But in this magazine article you have specific focus tables to help flesh out a Cyberpunk world. Does that mean it makes sense to have similar focus tables to create post-apocalyptic settings?
Like a lot of my material, you can plug in or take out components as you wish. So I would say if you wanted a cyberpunk setting, the table in the magazine would be better than the general purpose setting table from the world article. Actually, you could use the cyber dystopia setting table and the tone table for even more specificity. As far as a post-apoc table, honestly, I would love that! I mean, if it were possible, I'd love to have a specific setting table for every major theme in the general purpose table. Imagine that, rolling on that table, then jumping to a more specific table :) Maybe this is something that should be a magazine article. I'll have to think on that, because we're talking a lot of possible setting tables. But that's also enticing :)