Magical Regulators

Magical Regulators is a tabletop fantasy RPG about magic, bureaucracy,  hijinks, chaos, and making the world a better place. Usually. Well, hopefully usually. On balance at least.

Overview

The City is a large cosmopolitan city at the cusp of industrialization. It is ruled by a variably benevolent dictator called The Custodian. Under them, The City has been prosperous, peaceful, and safe (at least for those that don’t cross The Custodian). Until recently.

You see, long ago, the wizards and The City came to an agreement. The wizards received generous funding for a magical university, granting them privacy, freedom, and comfort. In return, the wizards would refrain from blowing things up, turning people into frogs, and generally making trouble. This worked well for almost 300 years. 

But then some jerk wrote a book. Not any normal book either, they used that newfangled movable type and created hundreds of copies. “Magical Theory and Practice for the General Reader”. Now laymen are getting their hands on it and anyone with some free time and literacy can learn to cast basic enchantments. In fact, these untrained dabblers are finding new uses for spells, and sometimes even creating their own. They’re getting creative with it! Entrepreneurial! Using milk and binding rituals to replace cobblers, abusing alchemy to build a more lethal mousetrap, and other wildly dangerous ideas. 

Of course, this counts as a breach of the University's duty to contain magic. The Custodian is not pleased. They have ordered the university to create a panel of wizards to investigate these new Magical or Otherworldly Practices (MOOPs) and propose regulations. Your PCs are this panel. Good luck.

This world takes inspiration from the Ankh Morpork Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, the TV shows Parks and Recreation, and Yes Minister, and the Pigsmoke RPG (from which I borrow heavily). These rules are based on the Brindlewood Bay rules (Carved from Brindlewood). You don’t need to be familiar with any of these to play.

Special Features

• Earn experience through puns!
  
• Delve deep into how new magical items change society!
• Enjoy the catharsis of everything going wrong, and sometimes fixing it!
• Pre-Built Character Keeper for online play!
• Make enemies of powerful people who hate your regulations!
• Five Pre-Written MOOPs (adventures) 
  • GraveSave; OR Work-Life Balance After Death
  • Sunshine Reassigned; OR It's Raining When?
  • Alchemeat; OR Little Curses Everywhere
  • Fade Jade; OR Working Memory
  • Doors Galore; OR A Room Without a View
  • and ideas for a dozen more!

Playbooks

Play an accomplished wizard in one of 7 departments:

• Play the Department of Life and Death if you like the word “dead” (with or without the prefix “un”), or want to unleash your inner goth. These wizards wield misunderstood powers, make undead friends, and sometimes even become undead themselves. 
• Play the Department of Mindbending if you like self-control, but like other-control even more. Also shiny crystals. These wizards are tricksters, schmoozers, and social butterflies
• Play the Department of Foretelling if you have trouble focusing on the present, love being mysterious, or just like saying "I told you so". These wizards are the most 'witchy' in flavor, welding curses and divination to great effect.
• Play the Department of Elements if you like aggressive combat magic, or want to be make puns like a second string supervillain. These wizards are quick to anger, and tend to have an unhealthy obsession with one particular element. 
• Play the Department of Alchemy if you like gold, explosions, and golden explosions. These wizards have money to throw around, but mostly blow stuff up. I mean, sure, they also create wild steampunk, magipunk, or whateverpunk creations. But lots of those blow up too.  
• Play the Department of CABSA if you want a DIY magical specialty, enjoy making deals, or finding loopholes. These wizards make carefully worded promises and stick to the letter of the law.
• Play the Department of Paraventerinary Medicine if  you love animals, plants, or the natural sciences. These wizards aren't great at magic, but still manage to get their daily dose of weirdness from their furry friends and/or feathery nemeses.  

Check out the free Character Keeper to see all of the playbooks.

Community copies are available, but supporting this game will allow me to spend money improving the layout and adding additional art.