“All you have to do is make a pact with me.”
Magical girls get to wield magic powers, to fight to protect the people they care about. You’ve seen it in your favorite anime shows again and again, and when a real talking bunny came to you it seemed like a great idea. But somehow those shows never mentioned the cost. They don’t talk about how keeping a secret eats you up inside. About how some magical girls get killed fighting monsters. About how magic can have consequences.
Magical Burst is a role-playing game about a different kind of magical girls.
Players: Recommended for 1 Game Master and 2-5 Players, Age 16+
Play Time: One or more sessions of 3-5 hours
Materials Required: Paper, pencils, six-sided dice, and pawns or miniatures
Magical Burst 5.0 Alpha
I decided to try taking a more incremental approach to what will hopefully be the last leg of the development of Magical Burst, starting with an “alpha” that will have the bare minimum necessary to play and then filling out more and more elements of the game as I go along, hopefully better informed about how the game really works at the table while I do so. For previous drafts I put in a whole lot of work on things that ultimately wound up being wasted as the game changed, so this time around I’m going to get it out there before I get too far, and not worry too much about stuff like formatting.
Download Magical Burst 5.0 Alpha PDF
Magical Burst 4.0
Magical Burst 4.0 Rules
Character Sheet
Reference Sheets
Battlefield Map
Magical Burst Fan Works
Magical Burst has inspired quite a few people to create new works based on it. If you created or aware of something that should be on this list, please let me know!
Tangent Zero Instant Magical Girl
Magical Burst Tools by Carly Ho
Magical Burstnary by Rabbit Eclair
Chinese Translation
Bloody Crown by ~insanity-eternal
Sumire Character Portrait by Len
Forum Threads/Wikis
Ballad of the Einherjar: A Magical War in a Little Kingdom
Magica Mima Umbra Puella
Yaruki Zero Games 
Is there a character sheet for magical burst 5.0?
Not yet; I want to get a little further along with the game before I get into that sort of thing.
I think that this should be added to the fan works: https://desudiary.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/credens-justitiam-1-0.pdf
Please release Magical Burst 4th draft. I’m not allowed to print it out for reasons I would rather not discuss. The reasons aren’t illegal stuff I promise.
Uh, 4th Draft was the one I released just over 2 years ago. I did update this page to the newer version, but I didn’t take 4th Draft down. You can grab it here:
Hi, Ewen! Can I release a table setup for Tabletop Simulator? Your name and site are mentioned in the description of mod and in in-game notebook, and players are asked to get the rules directly from this page. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=795606515
By all means! Just be aware that you’d definitely need to update it for whatever the final version turns out to be.
Hi Ewen,
Some friends and I ran a lengthy campaign of Magical Burst 4.0 and got a lot of mileage out of it, thank you very much for your work! After a hiatus we decided to try and resume the game, but were looking for other systems to experiment with, because of balance issues we ran into later on in the game. Do you still intend to release a new version? I’ve seen an incomplete 5.0 alpha document from 2015, but I’m not sure if that’s still in development or if you’ve put it on the backburner. If you have anything more recent, we’d love to give it a shot.
Thanks again!
I’m definitely planning to do more with Magical Burst, but at the moment 5.0 alpha is the most recent I’ve done, since I’ve just been constantly overwhelmed with other stuff lately, and have had more ideas than I know what to do with. ^^;
All good! We’ll keep an eye out for newer versions and maybe see if the alpha’s in a sufficiently playable state in the meantime. Thank you~!
Hello, some friends and I are working on an indie RPG podcast with the help a producer from the local NPR affiliate. We’re currently playing Magical Burst 5.0, as we’re all massive weebs and love the character creation system. Have there been any updates on the 5.0 ruleset? More specifically, templates for enemy characters like youma and witches.
I actually just started working on the game again, but I’m just starting and there isn’t anything new just yet.
Just wanted to let you know that i’m starting a campaign of 5.0 with six(6!) friends tonight. Everyone is crazy excited. There are definitely people still interested in your project. Hopefully the inspiration bug hits you soon. :)