ShadowRun in the RISK engine: Magical shenanigans

So Shadowrun is one of my favorite settings. It was the thing to play with my high-school friends, and has been continually supported and updated in the <mumble mumble> decades since those wild days. While the fifth edition of the core Shadowrun game has updated concepts and modernized the setting well, it's also become an incredibly crunchy and over-complicated game in my opinion.

Thus, I've been thinking about using other game systems to play in the world of Shadowrun, or any urban-fantasy 'esque setting, really. Because 7th Sea 2nd editions' RISK engine is my current favorite to hack, i'll start with that.

First up: magic. That's the key change to RISK to align with the concepts and feel of Shadowrun.

My goals in writing this were:

• Use RISK mechanisms: Raises, Approaches, Consequences and Wounds.
• Keep the spell Categories and have them do double duty as magical Approaches.
• Rather than worry about individual Spells the characters know, this lets players freeform what their characters are capable of doing. If characters are well versed in specific kinds of spells, that's handled by Advantages that grant dice pool bonuses when they use that Approach.
• Support the themes (Shamanic vs. Hermetic traditions) while still using the same core mechanisms
• Physical Adepts
• Conjuring/Summoning Elementals and Spirits, and use the Brutes rules to handle them.
• Drain as a possible Consequence for nearly all magic use; this helps keep Mages from overpowering things. You can push your limits and take more Drain when dramatically appropriate.

MAGIC Trait

Mages gain a sixth Trait:  Magic. This represents how attuned your body is to channeling  the alien energies of the ether. Your Magic Trait is primarily used to determine when you suffer Drain. Sometimes, you’ll use your Magic Trait when involved in approaches where sensitivity and attuning to magical energies is involved.

Your Magic Trait starts at 2 when you buy the Mage Advantage. There is also a Neophyte Mage Advantage, which costs less and your Magic starts a 1.

Your Magic Trait can be increased via Stories, just as any Trait can, however there is no upper cap to your Magic trait!

Magical Skills:

Spellcasting
Summoning
(no Enchanting skill for now; making magical things should be the goal of a Story).
Rely on the Larder, Armory and Stash optional rules to handle acquiring goods and resources.

Dramatic and Action Sequences.

Magic Approaches and their dice pools:

• Combat   Brawn + Spellcasting
• Illusion  Panache + Spellcasting
• Manipulation Finesse + Spellcasting
• Health     Resolve + Spellcasting
• Detection Wits + Spellcasting

REMEMBER: if you spend Raises during a Sequence that aren't within your Approach, the GM can tax you with another Raise to do so. No cheating "I roll lots of Raises using Magic. Then spend them on non-magical things during my turn" behavior, and this enforces that when Mages light up the 'juice, doin' magic will be all they focus on.

Drain:

Every time take a magical Approach to a Risk, you risk taking Wounds called Drain. On any given action where you spend more Raises than your Magic trait rank, you take the excess in Drain.

Another way to look at it: every time you spend Raises to do magic, you take that many wounds of Drain. Your Magic Trait is how much of that Drain you can soak before it actually affects you.

Wounds from Drain fade quickly, just as flesh Wounds do. They disappear after the Dramatic or Action Sequence they're acquired during ends.

Magic Advantages:

• (3pts) Mage - allows spellcasting in the first place; grants you the Magic Trait at 2.
• (2pts) Neophyte Mage - allows spellcasting in the first place; grants you the Magic Trait at 1.
• (3pts) Physical Adept- you're a Physical Adept. Now go buy some Adept Advantages to do something with it.
• (1 or 2pts) [School-specific boons]  (totemic connections , or specific hermetic lores?) Add two dice to a specific magical Approach
• (2pts) Spellslinger - Act as if you generated one more Raise than you did, for determining Initiative
• (4pts) Warcaster - (as Duelist) Combat spells inflict your (Skill rank) in Wounds, for 1 Raise. Otherwise Raises spent = Wounds inflicted. (Note that most magic attacks don't automatically inflict Dramatic Wounds, but maybe some major metamagic feat can cause that...)
• (3pts) Initiation - repeatable; unlocks 1 Minor and 1 Major metamagic feat per level of Initiation.

Initiation Metamagics:

    Minor metamagics add free minor tweaks to how your spells work
    Major metamagics add Drain, but have major effects on how your spells work
    <Obviously there's more to expand upon here yet to do.>

Physical Adepts:

Buy the Physical Adept Advantage. This opens access to more Adept Advantages.
Each Adept Advantage changes how the character can use their Magic trait when performing very  specific other Approaches.In general: you’ll get to add your Magic trait in dice, get free Raises, or be able to do something  ordinary humans can’t without magic.

For example: "Supernatural Strength" lets you add your Magic Trait in dice to your Brawn when your Approach is all about applied force.

Physical Adepts don't have to worry about Drain.
<Yeah, there's a lot more to explore here, but I wanted to hammer out the framework first.>

Summoning:

Summoning is a separate skill than Spellcasting; it’s used when summoning and binding  Bound Entities to your service, as well as Banishing them back to whence they came.

• At any one time, you can have up to your (Panache) in Bound Entities in your service.
• Each Bound Entity has a Threat Rating, and works like a Brute Squad. Depending on the type, the Entity may have special rules or traits.
• Each Bound Entity owes you a number of Services. When it completes the last Service, it dissipates or returns to wherever it came from.

Summoning a Bound Entity is a Dramatic Sequence:

• Declare the Type and Threat Rating of Entity you wish to summon.
• You must generate (½ Threat Rating) Raises to successfully summon/conjure the Entity.
• You must resist (Threat Rating) Wounds of Drain.
• Opportunity: you get one Service for free when you succeed. You can gain additional Services, one a one-for-one ratio for additional Raises spent on this Opportunity.

Burning ritual summoning materials can add dice to the summoning test.
See Larder, Armory and Stash for optional rules about acquiring and using expendable assets.

Banishment:

You can use your Summoning skill in a Action Sequence or Dramatic Sequence to do damage  directly to a Bound Entity; weakening it, or removing it entirely from this plane of existence.

On your turn, declare Banishment as your Approach. Roll Resolve + Summoning to generate Raises.

Each Raises Raise spent on banishment reduces the target Entity’s Threat Rating on a one-for-one basis.

The Entity will inflict it's Threat Rating in Drain upon you; resist with your Magic trait rank. This Drain can also be resisted with Raises from your Banishment test.