Mages & Mansions: A Limitless System

What is Mages & Mansions: a Limitless System?

Mages & Mansions (or MaM:aLS/M&M), is a Tabletop Roleplaying Game, that provides Players and GMs the tools that they need, in order to tell the story they want, without getting in the way.

It features Solo Play in case you want to test anything, or struggle to line up schedules, Homebrew guides to help you build anything including Monsters without hassle, and the things you need to play with pen and paper.

Why MaM:aLS?

When you look at the TTRPG market today, you see good titles like D&D, Pathfinder, DC20 RPG, Shadowdark RPG, Call of Cuthulu, Daggerheart, and on and on the list goes.

And like a few of these systems, Mages and Mansions is a d20-based system that most D&D players will recognize, and quickly pick up.

However, unlike most of these, Mages and Mansions stands out for its modularity and flexibility, Monsters that pose real challenges, and some of its unique and uncommon takes on common rules that encourage risks and rewards. Like some of the following:

• Actions/Initiative: When you roll for Initiative, you roll Perception, or a different Skill like Stealth if you're sneaking around (like Pathfinder 2e). And every Action you gain, lose or spend changes your Initiative in the exact same way.
• Pain-based XP: Instead of getting XP for killing Monsters, you get XP when you end Combat with low HP, Resources, or lots of debuffs. Goodbye immortal rat murderers, hello Wizard punching bag!
• Minimal Gating: Because why wait until Level 20 to get a low-Level Spell you can cast endlessly? Seriously, why is this good if you get it when the very fabric of reality is at your every beck and call?
• Persistent and Lenient Attrition: Instead of getting everything back after a single night's rest, your resources gradually accumulate over multiple rests, while debuffs and diseases decay over time.
• Quick Start Guide: Because let's be honest, nobody has time to read 200 pages of rules, especially if there's 400 of extra stuff. You can start playing in 3 pages of rules, and 3 to 7 pages for your Ancestry, Background and Class (and maybe Spellcasting if you get that).

These are but a few examples of what it has to offer you.  If you have the time and the courage, go ahead and crack it open. Who knows what you'll find?

Pre-FAQ:

Q: Why provide it for free?
A: This system was never meant to be locked behind a $90 paywall. It was meant to be shared for anyone who wants it. Perhaps if there is sufficient demand, a physical version will be designed, and made available for print in various places.
Q: It's still in Beta?
A: Yup! Right now, we'd like to know if everything feels good to play.
Q: Hey, why is only one person credited?
A: Currently, Mages and Mansions is developed on a shoestring budget of $0. Just a from-home college student in his parent's basement, making a cool idea. Should this project become popular enough to justify it, artists may be commissioned later down the line.
Q: Why make a new system? We've already got so many!
A: I don't know any system that uses an Action Economy like this and couldn't homebrew it into 5e or Pathfinder 2e. Besides, it's much easier to share ideas like this!
Q: I'm not switching from [insert system].
A: Then don't. It's your group, your game, your rules. Take what you want, leave what you don't. That's one of the lessons we want to share: take inspiration from other systems to make a game ideal for you.
Q: I think this is bad.
A: Well, we aren't holding you at gunpoint. But we ask that you give details. Why is it bad? How do you think it could be done better?