> but what about JRPGs using the term since forever
Before MTG though? I just remember magic depending on "MP" was "magic points/power" just like "HP" was "hit points" (i.e. 'life'). What's the earliest JRPG to call it 'mana?'
Before MTG though? I just remember magic depending on "MP" was "magic points/power" just like "HP" was "hit points" (i.e. 'life'). What's the earliest JRPG to call it 'mana?'
Don't know about JRPGs, but at least some American tabletop RPGs used the term "mana" relating to magic earlier than M:tG -- e.g., GURPS used "mana levels" to describe the strength of the ambient magical field (not as "magic points") since at least the publication of the first edition of GURPS Fantasy in 1986.
Whether it mana from polynesia or manna from Exodus is was ambiguous for broadly but spottily educated seventeen year olds.
But yes, I am sure that any rigid tracing of the term in role playing to 2 or 5 sources is going to fail.
> The story takes place in a fictional world where mana represents an ethereal, but finite, energy source.