Star Magi Mystery School

A new campaign for us. I'm hoping to weave meta-gaming into the story such that it no longer irritates my sensibilities during play; allowing us all to enjoy a smoother experience of the unfolding narrative. I'm incorporating the players into the narrative as helping spirits who exist in a different space/time and suddenly begin to advise and guide their characters (good luck convincing the peasants that your characters aren't possessed). The players will have a host of magical abilities, anything meta-gamey is explained away as some innate magical effect indicative to the nature of spirit (like having whole conversations between sword swings, telepathy between party members, even asking the DM to change reality within the game can be explained as the daemons interceding with a higher power).

I'm overhauling my magic system, breaking it into categories tied into the ability scores and with xp costs for use. So, if the player wanted to make their character ,say, immune to all fire and heat for a duration of "long enough to cross this room/chamber" might cost 100xp of the Comets/Dexterity flavor. I'm adding a new ability score called Conviction and the possibility of overpowering your character's mental guards and taking direct control in those instances when they are under magical control or just being stubborn about swimming across the river of lava even though you promised them that you remembered to cast the fire protection spell this time.

So yeah. The jist of it is that the players are spirit wizards amusing themselves by haunting their characters into the insanity of dungeon delving... but that seems a bit dark for me. Instead, the characters are all part of a cult called Star Magi Mystery School, based upon the teachings of the feral atlanteans who survived the flood. They've awoken their inner star magi, given self-awareness to their subconscious, they see their imagination as both creator and creation. They say that we are all one; that life is but a dream, and that we are the imagination of ourselves. They seek to give themselves over to the highest good that they can accomplish with their life, and so.. dungeon delving, to fight the cosmic evil named Kur whose comets evaporated ice sheets and flooding the ancient world in the times forgotten. The dungeons of Kur are dangerous, full of traps, and so it was decided that they should channel the spirits of the "Future Ancestors" who walk upon the Moon and hold the in their hands the Tablets of Fate which tell them the destiny of anyone who ever was, they who are expert in all manner of tricks and traps will help guide them (enter the players with science/smartphones). All the xp expenditure magical effects is actually being performed by the Star Magi, who teach/learns only to the character but seems happy to provide any magical service the player wants to spend xp on.

I gotta go make a living right now, but I'll be back later to pull more of this game into reality; daily if I can build up the discipline.