Hi Carl, thanks for asking.

Ah, bearing in mind Graham W's comments on free-form I need to answer this carefully! Instead of delving into an exploration of free-form I'll just tell you how it works in the game. Much more useful.

Each character has a Magik Trait that gives them their 'power level'. Alongside this, each magic using character has one or more Talents that describe the type of magics they use. In the book there are 16 broad Talents given as examples (pyromancy, necromancy...etc). In play, Talents can be essentially anything, in recent games they've included: teleportation, shapeshifting, optic blasts, detachable limbs, telekinesis, shadow control.

When using Magik, a player states their intent, the GM determines opposition (fixed/NPC stat) and cards are drawn to determine success. If the player wins they can narrate their success as desired. However, if Magik is used to deal Grief directly to another character then we go to combat.

It's scientifically 1600% faster than RoleMaster. I know cos I'm currently playing in a game using both systems (yes it is a bit crazy). It's a point's buy system with three primary stats, nine second order traits and vitally important character ego's and driving goals. To get an idea of Chargen check out the flash generator on my site. Ultimately Chargen depends upon the type of game you want to play...

All of the above! And supers, it's really good for super heroes. I wouldn't use it for tech heavy sci-fi though.
The best game I ran last year was a period drama supers campaign 'Best Men' set in Elizabethan England - one day I will bring out that setting but I need to do more research to truly do it justice.

It's like Texas Hold Em with Tarot cards. Each character declares an action and is dealt a hand of cards, then decides whether t Commit to the exchange or Yield and take a minor hit (while retaining narration). Once Committed, characters can deal out - or be dealt - a lot of Grief. Once a character has taken more Grief than his Essence he begins to Falter and can be eliminated from the combat by a Finale. Important characters cannot be killed unless the death card is played.

Yes but no but...My immersionist ways mean I prefer for social/intellectual exchanges to be handled by role-play, with the GM having the final say on advantages etc. However, you can go to the mechanics to impose a character's will or use guile (in which case the cards decide). Also Grief represents any sort of temporary disadvantage and can be commonly described as social 'damage'. So social or intellectual techniques can be narrated into combat exchanges.

Pretty easy, if you want to go the whole hog and work out the points cost of NPCs it takes about 20 mins per NPC. There's really no need to though - if you just eyeball the stats you can do an NPC in a couple of minutes. Or if you're an extra lazy GM like me just give minor NPCs a score of 1-5 for each Stat and assume they have the same score in each associated Trait.

Hope that helps!

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JoE
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Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....

I played a demo/short game of it with JoE, Malc, Matt and Iain when we were down at GamesExpo.

I liked that you could have a banked card which you could use. Especially as the card I have banked was an exact match for one of my things on the character sheet. What's that called JoE, when you play the exactly right card?

It also uses "Flair Points" which appear in a few of Joe's games. You get some points in return for doing things in game or role-play.

The major arcana corresponding to a Trait is called a Power card, e.g. strength for Melee.

Each character also has a significator based on his ego, which can act as a wild Power card.

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JoE
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Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....