Playing Out an Episode

Parts of this document are based on Clinton R. Nixon’s Solar System(approve sites), the system for his game The Shadow of Yesterday(approve sites). That system, and therefore this document, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/(approve sites) or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.

I have given Clinton’s Pools different names and definitions for my purposes, and created some new Secrets and Keys in addition to his. I have renamed the “Greenhorn” level as “Apprentice” to fit in better with my setting.

I have also spread the function of the Game Master/GM/Storyguide across several players in a rotating fashion. This was inspired by Jasper McChesney’s game City of Birds.

Preparation

Before the game starts, take a standard pack of playing cards and separate it into the 40 pip cards plus one Joker, and the 12 face cards. Shuffle each of the two resulting groups of cards separately.

Introduction

Each episode on your way to achieving your quest has two possible major outcomes:

You succeed spectacularly in a trial (of valour, courtesie or artes) and progress towards succeeding in your quest, either by discharging an obligation or receiving a boon.
You fail a trial spectacularly and gain an obligation, which must be discharged before you can fulfil your quest.

Additional minor outcomes of an episode can include:

You refresh one or more pools.
An encounter character joins your party.

An episode consists of the following steps:

Establishing the Scene
Fleshing Out the Encounter Character
Determining the Outcome

Establishing the Scene

The first step in an episode is to establish the scene.

There are three or four roles to assign:
1. The Venan of the episode, who will be the central focus and will attempt to achieve a goal, such as fulfilling an obligation or obtaining a boon.
2. The Tenan of the episode, who will describe the setting and play any encounter characters who occur there.
3. The Marshal of the Lists, whose role is to ensure fairness. The Marshal’s intervention should be required seldom, and when it is required it is appropriate for the Marshal to request opinions and suggestions from the other players apart from those directly involved.
4. Optionally, the Herald, who keeps things interesting while the tenan is coming up with the encounter character by describing the setting.

The designations “venan” and “tenan” come from the late-medieval practice of the “Pas d’Armes” or passage of arms, and mean “comer” and “holder” respectively. The “holder” would take up a station at a point such as a bridge, and challenge all “comers” who wished to pass to fight an honourable battle for the right to do so.

The roles should rotate in each scene by an agreed formula, such as clockwise rotation of each role around the group based on their seating position. One way to start is to declare the player whose character has the highest Valour pool the first Venan, and the player to his or her left the first Tenan and to his or her right the first Marshal, then rotate clockwise. This does have the disadvantage that the same player will play Tenan and Venan on consecutive turns; other schemes may work better for you, depending on the number of players available.

If there are fewer than three players, omit the Marshal, and alternate roles. If playing alone, you will need to play both the Venan and the Tenan.

Some groups may wish to appoint a permanent Tenan who only plays the encounter characters (as a Game Master or Storyguide does in other games).

The Venan sets the stakes by declaring his or her intentions for the scene, for example:

“I want to fulfil my obligation to the Knight of the Green Tree to deliver his daughter safely to a convent.”
“I want to gain a boon to advance the quest.”
“I want to refresh my Valour pool with a tournament.”
“I want a scene based around my Key of the Guardian.”
“I want to use the spell I got as a boon from the Enchanter of the Clear Well to enter Castlecrag.”

Based on the Venan’s declared intention, the Tenan either selects an existing encounter character to play in the scene, or draws a card at random from the smaller packet (the court cards). This is the “Encounter card”.

If you haven’t drawn this card before in the game, the Tenan creates a new encounter character as set out below (Creating an Encounter Character). The suit and denomination of the Encounter card are used this in creating the character.

If you have drawn the card before, there are three possibilities:

You are meeting the same character again. The Tenan finds their character sheet and plays out the encounter.
If circumstances make it unlikely that you are meeting the character himself or herself (for example, a bishop in the middle of the wilderness), the Tenan can elect to say that you are encountering messengers, friends, vassals or other associates of the character, and play out the encounter from that perspective.
If the character has died, the Tenan can choose either to create a new encounter character to associate with this card, to “discover” that in fact the character escaped somehow, or to encounter their ghost.

Creating an Encounter Character

To create a new encounter character, draw two cards at random from the larger packet of cards (the non-court cards). The order in which you draw them is important. The first represents tens, and the second represents ones. Read “10/A” to “10/9″ as 01 to 09, and “10/10″ as 100. Note the suits also, as they are used later in the character creation process.

If you draw the Joker as either of your cards, treat it as if you had drawn the same card (suit and denomination) twice. For example, count “Joker plus ten of clubs” as two tens of clubs.

The cards give you a number 1–100, which you can use to look up the Encounter Character Tables to see who or what you have encountered. If there is a specific reason for encountering a different type of character, ignore the random result and choose a different one. The suits of the cards are still important.

Optionally, the cards can also be used to generate the environment - the landscape and weather.

Based on the character encountered, the Tenan decides where the action of the scene will take place, the usual choices being:

Settled, cultivated lands.
The forest.
The wilderness.
At sea.

Within each of the land-based settings, the specific setting can be:

A castle.
A monastery.
A settlement. (There can be settlements in the wilderness; bandit camps, for example.)
On the road, between settlements.

If you are using the optional Environment Generating rules, the population level indicated will affect the setting to a degree. However, you can choose to state that you are outside the town, for example, rather than inside it when you meet the encounter character.

Typically, your adventure will start in settled lands and pass through the forest and the wilderness on the way to the object of your quest. You may wish to sketch out a map either beforehand or as you go.

Use the suits of the three cards, and the denomination of the Encounter card, to look up the character’s individual features on the Character Type Charts. This will tell you how many points they have in their pools, what abilities they have, any secrets they possess, and which key they possess (which indicates how they are likely to act). It will also tell you what their initial attitude is to you.

The character type charts also include suggestions for character names/designations and details of appearance, such as heraldry for knights. You can generate literally tens of thousands of characters using these charts.

The Tenan plays the encounter character for the duration of the scene (and may also play his or her own character, if that character is present in the scene; the Marshal should step in if he or she detects bias).

If you are playing an extended campaign (that is, a game which extends over a long period), having spare encounter characters as part of your group can enable new players to join partway through with minimal setup. Alternatively, they can create a character and join in in place of a randomly determined encounter.

Resolution

At some point in the scene one or more characters, including the Venan, may well have a trial of Valour, Courtesie or Artes against the encounter character. What follows are the rules for resolving this.

The trial is resolved, not blow-by-blow, but by a single “ability check”. However, you can zoom in by “Bringing Down the Pain” if the result of the check is not to your liking, or if you want the action to be played out in more detail.

The Ability Check

The following refers to these tables.

Intention

When performing an uncertain action, the player states his or her basic intention for the character and the ability they are using. (They don’t have to have this ability on their character sheet, but, as you’ll see, it helps.) This is not a full description of the action, as the dice provide a randomizer that let the player know how well this action happened.

The intention and its consequences may be discussed among the players and changed. This is known as the “Free and Clear” stage.

Initiation

After stating the character’s intention and deciding on the relevant ability, the Ability Check is made.

The Marshal sets the difficulty of the Ability Check. This is determined simply. If the task is one that any person could do, even if unlikely, the difficulty is Marginal. The player must get a Marginal or better result in order to succeed. If the task is one that requires specialized training or information, the difficulty is Good.

An example will clarify this further. Let’s use climbing. The difficulty is Marginal to climb anything an untrained person could climb, no matter how much effort is required. A tree, a fence, a wall, the side of a house, or a rocky mountain can all be climbed by amateurs. The difficulty is Good if the climbing would normally require specialized training. A hundred-yard sheer rock face usually requires knowledge of belaying, rope use, pitons, and the like. An amateur might, under optimal conditions, make it, but generally this requires training. Therefore, it is of Good difficulty to climb a sheer rock face of any height.

Fudge Dice

The Ability Check involves a dice roll. This roll uses special dice you can find at hobby stores or online called “Fudge dice.” They are six-sided dice; two sides of them have plus signs on them, two sides are blank, and two sides have minus signs.

If you don’t have Fudge dice, you can make your own. Get a red and a green marker and some white dice. Color two sides red and two sides green. The green sides are pluses and the red sides minuses. (You may need to use another colour such as blue if someone in your group is red-green colourblind.)

Alternatively, you can alter ordinary six-sided dice with a permanent marker, as follows:

Connect the four pips of the 4 in a square. This is a squared-off zero.
Do the same to the 6 as you did to the 4.
Connect the three pips of the 3 in a line. This is a minus (slanted diagonally on the die face.)
Do the same to the 2 as you did to the 3.
Connect each of the outside pips of the 5 to the pip in the middle, forming a cross. This is a plus (again, slanted diagonally on the die face).
Do the same to the 1 as you did to the 5.

There are two more ways of achieving the effect of Fudge dice. One is to roll ordinary six-sided dice and treat 1–2 as minus, 3–4 as zero and 5–6 as plus. The other is to use a card draw from a packet of face cards and score Jacks as minus, Queens as zero and Kings as plus.

The rules given here assume you are using dice of some sort (proper Fudge dice, red-white-and-green Fudge dice, marker-altered standard dice, or unaltered standard dice). If you are using cards, make the appropriate mental substitution of “cards” for “dice” when reading.

The Ability Check

The ability check process is simple: roll three dice and add them to your character’s rank in the ability being used. As you probably remember, each ability rank has a number as well as an adjective. So, a character who is an Apprentice (1) in Athletics that rolls two pluses and a minus on the dice has a total of 2. That’s your success level (SL). However, you can’t get a success level lower than zero. Treat anything lower than zero as a zero.

Just as every ability rank has an associated number, each success level has an associated name.

Success Level Chart
0	Failure
1	Marginal
2	Good
3	Great
4	Amazing
5	Legendary
6	Ultimate
7	Transcendent

That name is just there to help you describe the outcome. It doesn’t have a mechanical effect.

A Marginal success is all that is needed to succeed at most tasks, unless special training, knowledge or abilities are required (as mentioned above, the Marshal should declare this before the check is made). In such special circumstances, a Good success is required.

Success levels may be modified by Secrets and weapons or armour.

Weapons and armour bonuses do not add to one another; if you have two +1 bonuses on your weapon, you only get to add one of them to the success level. However, a weapon only adds to harm from a success, it doesn’t turn what would otherwise be a failure into a success. Nor can a weapon increase your success above 6 or armour reduce your harm below 1. In other words, no weapon gives an automatic success, and no armour gives an automatic immunity from harm.

Bonus and Penalty Dice

Characters may often have either bonus or penalty dice because of Secrets activated, pools spent, harm taken, or The Gift of Dice, as set out below. In addition to any bonus or penalty dice outlined elsewhere in these rules, the Marshal of the Lists may assign one or two penalty dice to any Ability Check. One penalty die may be assigned if circumstances render a task especially difficulty. A penalty die would not be assigned to our example climber above if it were drizzling, or dark, or a bit chilly, but one could be assigned if there was an icy wind and hard rain coming down at night. Two penalty dice can be assigned in the very worst of circumstances, such as hail coming down in the midst of an icy rain while gale-force winds tear at the climber in the pitch dark.

If the Marshal’s character is the one attempting the action, the Tenan may impose the penalty dice if the Marshal does not.

While an ability score determines the range of your character’s ability, bonus and penalty dice are a mechanic to determine the consistency of your character’s ability. When making a Ability Check, bonus dice add to the number of dice rolled, as do penalty dice. Roll three Fudge dice, plus a number of Fudge dice equal to all your bonus and penalty dice. Whenever possible, bonus and penalty dice cancel each other out, so if you have two bonus dice and a penalty die before your roll, you end up with only one bonus die.

After you roll, remove a number of your dice equal to your penalty dice, starting with pluses. If you run out of pluses, remove blanks, and then minuses. Bonus dice work the opposite way: you remove minuses first, then blanks, then pluses. More simply, penalty dice take away your highest rolls. Bonus dice take away your lowest rolls.

Put another way: You always end up with three dice, regardless of how many you rolled. If the extra dice were bonus dice, you take your highest three. If the extra dice were penalty dice, you take your lowest three.

Players can always spend one point from the ability’s associated pool to get one bonus die on a Ability Check. This is limited to one bonus die per Ability Check. This can be done after the roll.

Range and accuracy

Every Ability Check can be described in terms of range and accuracy. The term range refers to all the possible outcomes of an Ability Check. As the player rolls three Fudge dice, results from minus three to plus three plus a character’s pertinent ability are always the range of a check. Note that a character with no ability has a range with no result better than Good (2), and a character with a Master ability cannot fail. Related to this is the idea of an average outcome, the outcome most expected with any level of ability. Since zero is the most likely outcome on any roll of three Fudge dice, characters with no ability (−1) or a Novice (0) ability can be expected to fail most of the time. Characters do not succeed on average until their ability reaches Apprentice (1).

Notice that a character with even a Novice ability always has a chance of beating a character with a Grand Master ability, albeit small. This is entirely on purpose: with this system, your character has a limit to how well he or she might do at a task, but it always might be good enough to beat the other character.

Accuracy is the other parent of an average outcome. Ability Checks can have bonus and penalty dice, as explained above. Each bonus die raises the chance of having a higher result significantly, increasing accuracy. Penalty dice do the opposite, lowering the average outcome, thereby lowering accuracy. Knowledge of the exact statistic is not necessary to play the game, but it’s useful to know that you have a very good chance of beating a character with an ability rank one higher than your character if you have a bonus die.

Effect

The players decide what the effect of the task is, whether successfully completed or not. The Marshal rules in cases of disagreement.

Consequences of Success

The Ability Check is the core of this system and all other mechanics derive from it - this injection of fortune that serves as resolution for both instant actions and entire scenes. Here we break down the ways the mechanics grow from the Ability Check.

Types of Ability Checks and How They Work

While the Ability Check is the core mechanic that ties the entire game together, it actually comes in several forms, each of which add on a layer of complexity.

Unopposed Ability Check

The first and simplest type is the unopposed Ability Check. This is used when a player wants his or her character to try a task in which no other character is attempting any action which would stop him or her, and is using only one ability to do so.

If the success level is equal to or better than the difficulty, the character has succeeded. The players should use the success level to describe how the character performed at the stated intention.

Complex Ability Check

If you want your character to perform a complex action that uses two abilities together, decide which ability is most appropriate to the action and which is secondary. The secondary ability is used first and the success levels are used as bonus dice on the second Ability Check. The players will have to decide what happens if the first Ability Check is failed: in some situations, the second Ability Check can still be attempted without harm; in others, the Ability Check can be attempted with a penalty die; and in others still, the second Ability Check cannot be attempted. The Marshal rules if agreement cannot be reached.

A character is trying to cut a thong from a guard’s belt and snatch his keys, using Melee Weapon: Sword to chop the thong, and Stealth to grab the keys without being seen. While he is using Sword to actually get the keys free, the Stealth part of the action is most important. The player makes a Sword Ability Check. If successful, the success levels are converted to bonus dice on the Stealth Ability Check. If unsuccessful, however, the keys are still on the guard’s belt, so the Stealth Ability Check cannot be attempted.

Another character wants to approach a wild bear without getting attacked using Animal Ken. In order to help with this, he’s going to attempt to remember what bears like to eat and see if he can find some, using Woodscraft. The Woodscraft Ability Check is secondary, and if successful, will add bonus dice to the Animal Ken Ability Check. If unsuccessful, there is no complication; the character just must approach the bear with no food gift.

Competitive Ability Check

The competitive Ability Check occurs when two or more characters are attempting the same task, but each wants to do it better or faster. All rules for the standard Ability Check apply, and in addition, the conditions of victory are set before the Ability Check: if the Check is over a foot-race, the victor went the fastest; if it’s composing a song, the victor made a better piece of work. This should be fairly obvious, but the players can decide together what the conditions of victory are if there’s any question.

All players with competing characters make Ability Checks. After Ability Checks are made, any character who succeeded actually completed the task with some proficiency and the player can use the success level to compute any relevant outcomes. The character of the player with the highest total score, however, completed the task better or faster, and the other characters are ranked in the order of their players’ rolls. In the case of a tie (equal success levels), the characters’ feats are so close in speed and quality that a winner cannot be determined between them. They can either tie, or if the players want to, those players can roll again to see which is the victor.

Resisted Ability Check

The last type of Ability Check is the resisted Ability Check. This Check occurs when two characters attempt tasks that would cancel out each other. Examples include:

One character swinging a sword at another character, who is dodging.
One character trying to get information by twisting another character’s arm, who is attempting to suffer through the pain.
One character sneaking up on a character who is keeping watch.
One character trying to seduce a character who is trying to deny the pleasures of the flesh.

All normal Ability Check rules apply to resisted Checks. The two players involved make their Ability Checks and then compare their success levels. The higher success of the two wins. In the case of a tie, however, the instigator of the action loses.

When narrating a resisted Ability Check, both players’ success levels come into account. For purposes of computing results, the winner’s success level is used, but the loser’s efforts are still significant. An example:

The character Sir Mortimer, played by Craig, is attempting to drive the character Sir Jaufre, played by Sarah, to his knees with a savage sword attack. Upon rolling, Craig ends up with an Amazing success level, and Sarah ends up with a Great success level. Craig’s roll wins, but Sir Jaufre still made a great block. The action is narrated as, “Sir Mortimer brings up his sword and makes a vicious stroke down, aiming for the lower leg. Sir Jaufre, anticipating the swing, throws his shield in the way, but the sword crashes down it, the force driving the shield itself back into Jaufre’s shins as he falls.”

The losing player must abide by the winner’s stated intention for the Ability Check, even if it was “I kill him.” However, there is a way to extract your character from any sticky situation you don’t like. See “Bringing Down the Pain” below.

Bringing Down the Pain

Simple Ability Checks make resolution a quick and painless matter. Sometimes, though, you may want to see the full action played out blow-by-blow. An expanded resolution system called Bringing Down the Pain provides this. Bringing Down the Pain is an option for players to allow them to not only get out of sticky situations, but focus the story where they want it. It also allows you to win Boons to help you on your quest, although you risk incurring Obligations if you lose.

Any player involved in a conflict can Bring Down the Pain after a resisted Ability Check. Normally, a player has to abide by the results of this check. However, when a character belonging to a player loses at a resisted Ability Check, that player does not have to accept the outcome. Instead, he or she can ask that the Pain be Brought Down. On the flip side, a player can demand this even when he or she succeeds at a resisted Ability Check. This not only allows him or her to zoom in the imagined camera on this conflict, but is the only way to permanently injure or get rid of a named encounter character.

The Tenan may not Bring Down the Pain on behalf of an encounter character.

Surprise

Surprise is not part of the Bringing Down the Pain system. Instead, it takes place beforehand. If a character acts against another, and the latter has no clue what’s going on, the player will not be able to make an Ability Check to resist. However, for Bringing Down the Pain purposes, this still counts as a resisted Ability Check, and the player can announce that he or she would like to Bring Down the Pain.

When a player declares they are Bringing Down the Pain, action breaks down into a blow-by-blow basis in a series of resolutions called “rounds”, instead of overall conflict resolution.

Both sides of the conflict must make certain their intention - their goal - is clarified and well-stated, for it is very important here. This intention must be clear, but can allow room for differing actions to achieve the goal: “drive away these opponents in battle,” “embarrass the noble in front of his peers,” or “out-perform this troubadour on the lute” are all fine intentions.

The intention should be something under the direct control of the character attempting the action, that would be a feasible result of success at one or more ability checks. “Cause an eclipse of the Sun” is not a well-formed intention, since this isn’t something a character in Errantry can bring about. Nor is “Impress this other character so she will love me.” While the characters in Errantry live in an idealized world in which they have heroic abilities beyond the norm, this doesn’t mean that anything and everything you propose as an intention will be “realistic” in the context of the setting. The other players, and the Marshal in particular, should feel free to object to a stated intention on grounds of feasibility and require the player to choose a different intention.

After intentions are stated, everyone who has a character involved in the conflict should state what their action will be. Actions can be changed during this “free and clear” stage, where everything, even actions hidden to the characters, is discussed in the open.

Whose actions affect whom is important to establish here. Actions can be visualized as perpendicular or parallel actions. What this means is:

Perpendicular actions get in the way of each other. If Sir Mortimer’s action is to stab Sir Jaufre with a spear and Jaufre’s action is to wrest the spear away from him, these actions are perpendicular. They’re fighting each other, and part of that is keeping advantage. Only one of the two actions will succeed, and the other will fail.

Parallel actions do not necessarily get in the way of each other. Let’s say Mortimer is trying to convince Jaufre to join his quest. Jaufre would rather he shut up and is cooking him dinner, hoping the smell of his cooking distracts Mortimer. Both of these people can do this at the same time, and the winner will definitely have an effect on the loser, but as far as actions go, they don’t get in the way of each other. Both actions can succeed, or both can fail.

There is one other main type of action, the defensive action. You can use a relevant innate ability (Endure, React, Resist) to resist what’s happening to your character. You cannot deal harm this way, but otherwise it counts as a perpendicular action. If you win at defense, instead of dealing harm you gain bonus dice for the next round.

After the free-and-clear stage, everyone rolls Ability Checks for their action.

When all rolls are resolved and harm is dealt, another free-and-clear stage (and a new round) begins. This continues until one side of the conflict gives up, at which time the winners’ intentions happen.

In any free-and-clear stage, a player can announce that he or she is changing his or her character’s intention completely. This could change from “sneak up on my enemy” to “kill my enemy,” “best the queen in a war of words” to “seduce the queen,” or even “out-play this troubadour on the lute” to “magically put this troubadour to sleep.” He or she does not have to state the new intention until the next free-and-clear stage. During this round, he or she may only make a defensive action.

There is one exception to the idea that it takes a round to change your intention. If you and an opponent find yourself at a stalemate - you have perpendicular actions and roll the same success level - you can both immediately change intentions.

Harm and Defeat

“Harm” in this game does not necessarily refer to physical rending of flesh and bone. Instead, it is a quality of the character in both narrative terms (in the world of the game) and mechanical terms (in the world of the players). Harm is a count-down of when a player loses control over his or her character, and can be expressed as any of these things in-game:

Cuts and bruises
Fatigue and weariness
Embarrassment and crushed esteem
Loss of concentration and will

Taking Harm

Whenever a successful Ability Check is made against a character while Bringing Down the Pain, that character takes harm. The base harm is equal to the success level of the acting player’s roll, which can be modified by Secrets or weapons. Again, the type of action being done against the character does not matter - you can take harm from seduction as easily as you can from a sword.

Take that success level and check off the corresponding box on the harm tracker on your character sheet. If that checkbox is already filled, check the next unchecked one, even if there are lower boxes still unchecked. You’ll see that one to three harm is bruised. This means on your next ability check, you’ll have a penalty die. These accumulate - if you get bruised twice in a round of Bringing Down the Pain, you’ll have two penalty dice.

Instead of checking (and later erasing) boxes, you could also use small counters placed on the harm tracker. This has an advantage when the harm “shakes out” as described below.

For one to three harm, whether you have taken harm in Valour, Courtesie or Artes doesn’t make any difference to the game mechanics (only to the narration). In any case, you get a penalty to every roll. Loss of concentration will hinder you in a fight just as wounds will; conversely, wounds will hinder you in a duel of wits.

Four to six harm is bloodied. This time it does matter whether you took harm to Valour, Courtesie, or Artes. This is usually determined by the associated pool from the ability used to harm you, but might be different if everyone involved agrees. Once you are Bloodied for a particular pool, all your abilities that are associated with that pool now take a penalty die. Again, the penalties accumulate.

Seven harm is broken. If broken, in order for your character to perform any action, even defense, you must spend a point from the ability’s associated pool, and you still receive one (further) penalty die to this action.

Harm past broken results in the attacker’s intention immediately happening.

At any point during Bringing Down the Pain, a player may decide that the harm taken is enough for this conflict and give up. Before a free-and-clear stage, the player gives up the conflict, and his or her opponent’s intention occurs. It is often a good idea to give up before your opponent changes to a more deadly intention.

Shaking Out and Healing Harm

After Bringing Down the Pain, harm “shakes out.” That means that all damage collapses into the low end of the harm tracker. As an example, if you had checks at 2, 3, and 6 on the harm tracker, they’d collapse to 1, 2, and 3 after Bringing Down the Pain. If you are using counters rather than marks on your character sheet, it is easy to slide the counters along to the left.

Healing works in this same way: if someone rolls an Ability Check to get rid of your harm (First Aid and Counsel can do this), it removes the harm you have corresponding to their success level, or the highest harm you have if their success level is higher. All harm above their success level collapses down.

Example TO DO

Obligations and Boons

If you are bloodied or broken in a trial, you gain an Obligation. This obligation must be discharged before the game is considered complete.

If you succeed in a trial, bloodying or breaking another character, you gain a boon.

Since you must gain boons in order to complete your quest, Bringing Down the Pain is essential, at least sometimes. This would be a good reason to Bring Down the Pain when you won your initial resisted Ability Check.

Multiple Characters in a Conflict

For simple Ability Checks, having multiple characters involved is easy to handle. If the characters are using varying abilities, each building to help another one, it’s handled like one character using abilities together. Decide the order the checks have to be performed in, and have each player roll, with success levels being added as bonus dice to the next player’s roll. As with one character, failure at an Ability Check may mean that the overall action cannot continue, that the next player must roll a penalty die on his or her Ability Check, or that the checks may continue, with no penalty dice.

If multiple characters are using the same, or fairly equivalent, abilities to perform a task together, use the method above, with the following caveats:

Failure always means the next player adds a penalty die to his or her roll.
Always roll from the character with the highest ability to the character with the least ability.
If a penalty die is given because of difficulty, it applies to all rolls.

This does mean that having a character weak with the ability helping may hinder the task.

Example TO DO

If Bringing Down the Pain is the ultimate way to test two differing wills, how to you manage it when more people want to get in on the fun? The standard way is easy: whenever one player declares that he or she wants to Bring Down the Pain, any character around can get involved. Part of the declaration of intention is who you’re planning to affect: your character can only damage that character until you change intention. The Bringing Down of the Pain does not end until only one character is left standing, or all the other players have given up.

The Zeitgeist method of group Pain-Bringing may be an easier and more fun way to arbitrate these situations. If everyone on one side of a conflict has a similar intention towards the other side, you can use the above rules for a group Ability Check when everyone is using similar abilities. In the Zeitgeist mode, anyone can spend from their pools to help anyone else, and damage taken is distributed by the losing side among their characters however they like. Whenever a character is broken, his or her player falls out of the group Pain-Bringing.

The Gift of Dice

At the beginning of each session of the game, every player receives a number of gift dice equal to the number of players at the table. At any point during the game, one of these dice can be given to another player to be added as a bonus die to that player’s current Ability Check. This is most often used when a player’s character is attempting something especially dangerous, or the player describes his or her character’s intention in a cool way.

These gift dice are an important part of play and should not be forgotten. They encourage cooperation among the players as much as among the characters.

After use, the die is set aside and cannot be gifted again during that session.

Pool Refreshment

Whenever an attribute is not at its full level, it can be refreshed, restoring it to its full level by the character performing an in-game action.

Valour is refreshed whenever you engage in an act of physical exertion (including physical abuse, such as drinking or staying out all night) with another character, specifically for the intent of enjoying yourself. If it is a physical contest, you must win.

Courtesie is refreshed whenever you engage in an act of social pleasure (examples: going to a party, playing a game of chance) with another character. If it is a social contest, you must win.

Artes is refreshed whenever you engage in an act of religious, magical or intellectual significance (examples: a philosophical debate, playing a game of skill, going to church, telling a story, reading a grimoire, praying all night) with another. If it is an intellectual contest, you must win.

Note that if no one cares who wins, it’s not a contest.

Character Transcendence

Transcendence is the result of a Transcendent (7) success level on an ability check. It signals the end of a character’s story, and is a special occasion for that character’s player. With this result, the player should narrate the outcome of his or her roll, with any help he or she likes from the other players. If the roll comes during Bringing Down the Pain, that ends immediately.

The story should immediately focus upon the transcendent character. He or she has just accomplished a feat that will be spoke of by his or her companions forever. Within 24 game-hours, his or her story will be over. The character may die; he or she may retire for a quiet life, perhaps to a monastery; he or she may disappear over the hills; or he or she may become something else entirely. His or her story will end and he or she will be retired from play.

This does not mean the quest is over. The player may bring a new character into play after the current character leaves. This character may well be established during the day of transcendence, and carry on the legends of a character who has just had his or her most glorious moment.

Flow Diagram of Game Currency

These are notes for a work in progress. Don’t expect everything to be consistent or make sense.