Alternate Magic System

Hello dear folks

After trying the game a couple times after finishing the project, I have gotten a couple ideas for possible improvements. One thing is that I have found that when playing HoH or even Glitter Hearts, that the amount of moves that needed to be looked through would affect the game in negative ways. Players could feel overwhelmed by the amount of choice and character creation felt slow, taking up valuable time and energy which could have been spend on the conversation with the group.

So I have tried to make an alternate system that people can use, which simplifies magic and leans more into narrative play. The idea is from the game Masks: A New Generation, which is a fantastic game about teenage superheroes trying to find out who they are.

With this alternate magic, the player chooses 3 mystical powers for their character, which doesn't have a specific mechanics tied to them. Instead like tags, these will give fictional positioning and weight to do things related to the powers. This is done like anything else in the game, by the player describing what the character does and their intention. The GM then checks if a move is triggered and if so, have the player roll the move that was triggered.

Some key changes when using this system:

• Many of the "power moves" for the archtype playbooks have been removed (telekinesis, mindmeld, etc.), and replaced with moves that lean into the role of the archetype itself. Many of these moves are from Masks: A New Generation and Absurdia, a game where the absurd is the norm and the norm is the absurd (inspired by Welcome to Nightvale).
• Since there is less healing moves, have added a Comfort or Support move inspired by Masks (might be changed later)
• Wield the Mystical have been rewritten to cover the much broader way powers can be used.

THOUGHTS & FEEDBACK:

I havn't had the chance to playtest this concept through, so there will surely be things that can need some changes. Any feedback or thoughts would also be greatly appriciated.

I have also had other thoughts about potential changes for the game, but these will be very dependant on feedback from others and playtests:

• Since Wield the Mystical and Thwart Peril feels like they have some overlap, I have considered merging them
• I feel like improvements needs something else to make it more interesting besides "pick a move" and increase a stat.
• I want to fill in those large empty blank spaces on the playbook and reference sheet with something useful/informative. But at the moment, they can serve as a doodle area for all the creative folks.
• Remove the stress aspect of weapons so it becomes less about "best weapons" and more about "best feeling weapon". Maybe move more of the stress sources over to the playbooks or the Clash move.