[Mortal Coil] Magic Tokens

Going further on the Mortal Coil development, let's review the setting statement:

Mortal Coil is a game of emotional drama with a supernatural theme.

We dealt with the emotional drama portion of this with the passion system. Now let's take a look at the supernatural theme. I have envisioned Mortal Coil taking place in what is expressly our own world, but with fabulous or magical details added in. The game was originally conceived in large part as an alternative to Vampire: The Masquerade, but I don't want to limit its scope at all at this point. The more I worked with the system, the more I wanted to make the magical portions at least partially customizable by group, and this is where I still want to go with it. Mortal Coil vampires, for example, should be defined by the group itself.

To do this, we need some sort of currency within the game that can be spent to create this content. I already have a set of tokens called Magic Tokens, but I am not entirely satisfied with what they do at the moment, and I want to give some power to all players at the table, not just those who decide to play magically based characters.

Mortal Coil is intended to be a fairly general supernatural game. All kinds of different campaign worlds can be created for potential play, and the tools for doing this will be in the hands of the players. They will collaborate to create a unique game world, with its own rules of magic.

What Magic Tokens will do is create a special sort of world-building right for players when they use the tokens. Sacrificing magic tokens will allow a player to create a new magical fact in the game world. When character generation begins, the players will begin to create the sort of world they want to play in, and decide what the level of magic will be and begin to define its characteristics. When creating a character, facts can be established by sacrificing magic tokens to buy magical abilities for the characters. These facts will then be established parts of the world.

For example, a player building a vampire character can draw on all sorts of folklore to create this type of character. Are vampires burned by sunlight? Repelled by crosses? Can they fly? When the player creates the character and adds these magical characteristics, they become facts established in play that now apply universally. Likewise, during play, Magic Tokens can be sacrificed to establish facts about magic in the game.

The exact mechanic is still a bit in flux, but I will post more as I work it out.