Hi Ken.
Magic the gathering is a ccg, not an rpg. That is, it's a collectable card
game, albeit one with a fantasy theme (other ccgs exist for everyting from
pokemon, to wwwe wrestling, to harry potter).
Ccgs work as effectively two or more player battle games. players collect
cards (usually in unnumbered packagess at random), make a deck comprising a
specific numbers of cards they've made, and do battle against each other
attempting to win in statistical, and usually rather complex strategical
combat, btw, my brother was in the world championships for several ccgs,
hence where I got to know this sort of thing.
This is not however an rpg, sinse the object isn't to progress a character
through a story or explore a world engaging in statistical combat or making
choices as part of that ongong exploration, but for two players to first
build decks out of these thousands of cards and then play a statistical
combat game against each other simply to see who wins, sort of like an ultra
complex version of bridge, indeed "deck building" ie, choosing which of the
thousands of available ccg cards to have in a player's deck in matches is
it's own skill, quite aside from actually playing the deck against your
opponent.
Making a ccg, much less making one from scratch electronically would be
quite the task. Definitely not impossible, but a rather different project
from a streight up rpg game, so magic the gathering probably isn't a good
inspiration to look into, though confusingly enough there are some card
based rpgs which function in a different way with the cards actually telling
a story and providing randomized factors, and the player or players all
playing from the same initial deck rather than collecting and building their
own decks.
Munchkin is one I've heard of that works this way, as does the more recent
heroes of the multiverse (a game several of my friends play).
hth.
all the best,
Dark.
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