I'm posting it here in an effort to clean it up for publication - I'm also looking for playtesters, so if you'd like me to run a game for you, leave a comment here and I'll get back to you. Notes in double brackets are not included in the text.
The Makeup of Rules
Rules are composed of the following:
- Trigger (”When”), or…
- Condition (”If”)
- Outcome (”Then”)
- Terminal Condition (”Until”), or…
- Duration (”For”)
Most rules are structured like this:
(When/If) ____, Then ____ (Until/For ____).
Or this:
(When/If) ____, Then:
If ____, Then ____ (Until/For ____).
If ____ ,Then ____ (Until/For ____).
Etc.
Rolling Dice
When a move tells you to roll+(something), roll three six-sided dice (3d6) and add that value to their sum. The sum of your 3 dice is your roll, the values you add or subtract from this sum are called modifiers, and the sum of all these is your result. Positive modifiers are called bonuses, and negative modifiers are called penalties. Modifiers cannot add up to less than -3 or more than +4.Example: You’ve got Mighty +1 and a move tells you to “roll+Mighty”, so you roll three dice and add 1 to their sum.
Degrees of Success
If your result’s 9 or less (9-), you fail.3- is a dismal failure.
If your result’s 10 or more (10+), you succeed.
10-13 is a weak success.
14+ is a strong success.
18+ is a remarkable success.
Special Results
Rolling triple ones or Fates is very good! Whoever rolls Fates succeeds in the most spectacular way imaginable, beyond all reason.Rolling triple sixes or Devils is very bad! Whomever should roll this accursed number fails in the most squalid and dismal way possible, shaming their ancestors living and dead.
Variations on the Basic Roll
Roll d6/2: Roll d6, then divide the result by 2 and round up.Flip a coin: Self-explanatory.
Take: Take a specific result without rolling. eg. “Take 10-13”. Also used with reference to modifiers, eg. "Take +1".
Variations on Modifiers
Upshift/Downshift: Improve/Worsen your result by one rank (eg. 10-13 becomes 14+)Cap/Floor: Your result cannot rise above/fall below the number indicated.
When to Roll?
Only roll when:- The outcome of an action is unclear.
- The stakes are significant.
- The most likely outcome is not the most interesting.
- Failure is as interesting as success.
The Basic Move
This is the basic template for all moves, and should be employed when no relevant rule can be found:
When the outcome of an action is in doubt, roll+(relevant modifiers).
14+: It succeeds.
9-: It fails.
10-13: It's a weak success, which means one or more of the following:
- Unwanted Consequences
- You succeed, but other bad things happen as a result.
- Worse Outcome
- The goals you achieve are deficient in some way.
- You only achieve some of your goals. (Partial Success)
- Hard Bargain
- You are faced with a worse outcome or unwanted consequences, but you can pay a price to avoid it.
- Ugly Choice
- You must choose from a list of worse outcomes or unwanted consequences.
[[List of examples of worse outcomes, partial successes to come.
eg. You do less damage; The outcome is temporary where it would have been permanent.]]
Lists, Tokens and Points
Where most moves have a single predetermined outcome which occurs at the moment they’re made, lists allow you to choose from a range of options, tokens allow you to choose when it happens, and points allow you to choose from a range of options of different value.
When should lists be used?
- When there are multiple desirable outcomes and you don’t want to make a move for every situation in which a single outcome is desirable. (Solution: Provide a list of options, one of which can be picked)
- When you can’t come up with a single benefit which is worth the risk of a roll. (Solution: Provide a list of smaller benefits, a number of which can be picked.)
When should tokens be used?
- When you can’t come up with a single benefit which is worth the risk of a roll. (Solution: Provide tokens which allow a smaller benefit to be collected multiple times.)
- When it would be tedious to roll every time you attempted to use the power, but you need limits on how often it can be used. (Solution: Provide a number of tokens at the start of the session)
When should points be used?
- As lists and tokens, but when certain options are clearly better than others.
Consequences of a Weak Success
Weak success on a move which forces you to choose from a list can mean:
- Choosing fewer good options.
- Choosing more bad options.
- The GM chooses for you.
Weak success on a move which bestows points or tokens can mean:
- You get fewer of them
- You can't hold onto them for as long
- You have to spend them that instant.
- When there are multiple desirable outcomes and you don’t want to make a move for every situation in which a single outcome is desirable. (Solution: Provide a list of options, one of which can be picked)
- When you can’t come up with a single benefit which is worth the risk of a roll. (Solution: Provide a list of smaller benefits, a number of which can be picked.)
- When you can’t come up with a single benefit which is worth the risk of a roll. (Solution: Provide tokens which allow a smaller benefit to be collected multiple times.)
- When it would be tedious to roll every time you attempted to use the power, but you need limits on how often it can be used. (Solution: Provide a number of tokens at the start of the session)
- As lists and tokens, but when certain options are clearly better than others.
Consequences of a Weak Success
Weak success on a move which forces you to choose from a list can mean:
- Choosing fewer good options.
- Choosing more bad options.
- The GM chooses for you.
Weak success on a move which bestows points or tokens can mean:
- You get fewer of them
- You can't hold onto them for as long
- You have to spend them that instant.
Skills and Knowledges
Skills and knowledges (henceforth skills) have four ranks, each adding a bonus to rolls made with them:+1: Apprentice
+2: Journeyman
+3: Adept
+4: Master
1 XP improves a skill by 1 rank. By default, PCs start with 3 XP to buy skills. Any XP they don’t spend is retained.
With sufficient justification (GM’s call), you can improve skills in play. PCs can always train other PCs to their rank in a skill.
(Alternate rule: Escalating skill costs: The cost of improving a skill equals the rank you’re improving it to, so improving from rank 3 to 4 would cost 4 XP. Provides a barrier to mastery, and encourages generalisation of skillsets.)
Sample Skills
Before chargen, GMs should provide a list of sample skills which can be taken by the PCs. This list should short descriptions of what each skill does if it's not obvious. Some examples:
- Architecture
- Sculpture
- Writing
- Painting
- Carpentry
- Animal Lore
- Smithing
- Mathematics
- Medicine
- Cooking
- History
- Chemistry
- Sailing
- Riding
- Breaking & Entering
- Forensics
- Riding
- Driving
- Sailing
- Programming
The Domain of Skills
The domain of a skill is the set of scenarios in which it can be made use of. Skills should be broad enough that the GM doesn't have to make any particular effort to make them come up, and narrow enough that they can't solve every problem.As they cost the same, each skill should be roughly as broad as the others. It's impossible to ensure that every skill will be as useful as every other in all circumstances, but a resourceful player should be able to make use of each skill in most.
[[Aside on do-everything skills: Do-everything skills are boring because they solve every problem and leave no room for improvement. Doing things is not fun - working within constraints to overcome obstacles is fun. Do-everything skills are like cheat codes or crack - really fun for a little while, then boring as shit. It doesn't matter if your do-everything skill does everything in a Batman way or a Viking way or a Wizard way, it's still boring. This applies to FATE's aspects and 13th Age's backgrounds when they're handled poorly (though the concepts and their implementations are flawed).]]
Variations on Skills
Minor Skills
If a skill doesn’t quite come under the banner of another but the GM decides it’s not worth a skill of its own, it can be purchased for 1 XP, or provided to characters with relevant skills for free. (eg. SCUBA diving to a character who can swim). Whenever you would use the minor skill, roll with the bonus of the skill that's most similar to it.If the skill is essential to the game, the GM can provide it to all players for free as a starting skill.
Skill Requirements and Costs
Skills might require certain traits to take, or impose certain traits on their bearers. Skills of the former kind may not function as well in the absence of these traits.The use of a skill should be proportional to its cost. Any skill which demands costs above and beyond the norm should provide benefits to match.
Examples:
Ranks 2, 3 and 4 of Xenopsychology require a Minor, Major and Ruling insanity respectively. If this insanity is cured, your rank falls to the rank whose requirements you do meet, as only the mad comprehend the impossible wisdom of the Outsiders! When you again meet the requirements, you regain access to that rank. Alternately, ranks in Xenopsychology might cause this insanity permanently, as understanding these things drives one mad.
Ranks in Abyssal Lore and Telekinesis require a degree of insanity as above, or a Willpower of +1, with minor variations on their capabilities and consequences depending on which requirement is fulfilled.
Ranks in Ride Pegasus require ranks in Ride Horse and Charisma +1. Your rank in Ride Pegasus is limited to your rank in Ride Horse.
Skills, Perks and Moves
Ranks in skills might be a prerequisite for the purchase of other moves, or offer them as a bonus on some rank's attainment.Examples:
A character’s bonus on rolls made while mounted is limited to their ride skill.
An adept rider can purchase a move which allows them to handle flying mounts.
A master rider can attempt to tame monsters in combat and ride them.
Move: Use Skill
When you use a skill to do something, roll:+(rank), or
-1 If you’re untrained but there’s a chance you could do it.
14+: You do a fine job which no reasonable person could take issue with.
10-13: You do a passable job with a single flaw (GM’s call).
Difficulty
An action’s difficulty is applied as a penalty to the result of a roll.There are two steps to take when determining an action's difficulty:
Firstly, consider an average application of the skill. The average application should be just difficult enough to justify a roll. Its difficulty is 0.
Example: Cooking a meal with familiar ingredients in a kitchen to satisfy an important diner.
For every significant point of difficulty differentiating an action from the average, increase difficulty by one.
Example: Cooking a meal with unfamiliar ingredients (+1) on a camp stove (+1) to satisfy a famous gourmand (+1)
Secondly, check your difficulty against the probability chart. [[Here]] This will become easier as you become more familiar with it. Here is a helpful heuristic:
Ask how often a PC of some rank should succeed flawlessly or fail at an action of that difficulty:
Examples:
What should a Master (+4) be able to succeed at flawlessly 25% of the time (3d6+1)? Difficulty 3.
What should an Adept (+3) fail at 50% of the time (3d6-1)? Difficulty 4.
What should a Journeyman (+2) fail at 40% of the time (3d6)? Difficulty 2.
What should an Apprentice (+1) fail at 15% more often than they usually do? Difficulty 1.
If the probability of success seems far too low or too high, adjust the action's difficulty accordingly.
Trivial and Prohibitive Difficulty
If you’ve got a less than 10% chance of failure (3d6+3 or 4), the action is trivial. If you've got a greater than 60% chance (3d6-2 or 3) of failure, it's too hard. In either case, don't roll except in exceptional circumstances.
Time and Difficulty
Generally, it's only worth considering whether a person has significantly more or less time than they need. If they have more, waive a single point of difficulty. If they have less, add a point.
Help and Difficulty
In any scenario where helping hands could make things easier, waive one point of difficulty. In any scenario where they would usually need help and have none, add one point.
Reducing Difficulty
On being informed of an action's difficulty, PCs will usually want to take steps to reduce it. They can do this by addressing points of difficulty.
For example:
Our chef sends someone away to delay the gourmand (-1), recruits some help (-1), then commandeers a kitchen (-1).
Knowledges
A PC’s rank in a knowledge corresponds to their capacity to learn more about it, as well as their crystallised knowledge. For instance, a PC’s rank in History represents both their accumulated knowledge of historical facts and their capacity to conduct historical research, and so increases the chance that relevant information can be found in a library or that they know it off the top of their head.
Examples:
A doctor of medicine diagnoses a wound.
A cat burglar figures out how a house was broken into.
A painter recalls the biography of an old master.
Working Knowledge
Where sensible, skills double as knowledges.Examples:
A doctor of medicine diagnoses a wound.
A cat burglar figures out how a house was broken into.
A painter recalls the biography of an old master.
Move: Consult Knowledge
When you consult your knowledge on an obscure subject, roll+Rank, or
-1 if you're uneducated but there's a chance you might know it.
14+: You have comprehensive knowledge on the subject, and you might know a secret or two. The GM will tell you everything he judges relevant, and answer further questions at his discretion.
10-13: You know a few fragments which don’t quite add up to a whole. The GM will not answer questions, but may tell you where you could learn more.
Once you’ve made this move, you can’t use it on the same subject again. (See Libraries below)
Knowledge and Difficulty
The difficulty of a knowledge roll is determined by two factors:- The obscurity of the knowledge sought.
- The usefulness of the knowledge sought.
In practice, this means three things:
- Knowledge should typically be as obscure as it is useful.
- The GM should not make something absurdly obscure just because it's useful, nor should they make arcane facts common knowledge because they're useless.
- The GM should feel free to include a few useless, obscure facts for flavour's sake on a successful roll.
That said, difficulty will generally follow this chart:
0: Typically only know by professionals and enthusiasts.
1: A little obscure.2: Obscure.
3: Very obscure.
+1 if the connection to your field of knowledge is tenuous.
For example: Knowledge with a tenuous connection to architecture includes architectural history, famous architects, the significance of a piece of architecture to a people, etc.
Library
A library is an extensive repository of knowledge on a subject. At the GM's discretion, you can use it to raise your result if you rolled a failure or a partial success on Consult Knowledge, or to roll again with or without a bonus.Alternately, the GM can simply tell you what you could find out about and how long it would take. This is simple enough to eyeball by comparing the cost of the time spent against the benefit of the knowledge: Labouring under ignorance, how long would it take the PC to achieve what they could with the knowledge, assuming they could at all?
What Should a PC Be Able to Learn by Consulting Their Knowledge?
The knowledge offered by a roll should be that which the PCs would otherwise learn the hard way.
Examples with regard to an enemy: Its patterns of attack, its weaknesses, its vices, its special abilities.
Secrets offered on a 14+ should provide leads for the PCs to follow up on foot.
Players should be rewarded for seeking out knowledge, but not to the extent that they opt for research over action. Significant, plot-relevant revelations should come about as a result of adventure and risky investigation on the part of the PCs, not as the result of a dice roll.
Examples with regard to an enemy: Its patterns of attack, its weaknesses, its vices, its special abilities.
Players should be rewarded for seeking out knowledge, but not to the extent that they opt for research over action. Significant, plot-relevant revelations should come about as a result of adventure and risky investigation on the part of the PCs, not as the result of a dice roll.
Alternate System: Depth of Knowledge
Here, difficulty is replaced with a system which buries knowledge of the subject at different depths.The depth of a PC's knowledge = (their result on Consult Knowledge - 10). Depth counts from 0, representing surface knowledge.
The GM can offer a fragment of knowledge or two from a lower depth at their discretion, but I don't recommend he do this by default.
The Depth of Knowledge Chart:
All Depth of Knowledge charts are derived from the chart below:
RAW DEPTH OF KNOWLEDGE CHART
How often a PC of a given rank will know something of a given depth.
Because separating information about a thing into 12 different degrees of value is too difficult, and because it's not really worth devising results for Depth 10 and below, we're going to use the following chart as our basic template:
BASIC DEPTH OF KNOWLEDGE CHART
It's probably not worth working up results for Depth 6-7 until one of the PCs is an Adept in some field of knowledge, and it's probably not worth working up results for Depth 8-9 at all. This leaves us 3 degrees of success to work with: 0-1, 2-3, 4-5.
Example: Depth of knowledge chart for study of a local building:
0-1: Details about architect, local history.
2-3: Layout.
4-5: Secret passages.
Libraries and Depth of Knowledge
Under this system, Libraries can be rated on how deep their knowledge goes on certain subjects. This is represented as follows: (Subject: Depth)
Example: Library (Local History: 4-5) could get you to Depth 4/5 knowledge on subjects of local history.
===
Extended Example:
Gascon, an Apprentice of History (+1), rolls 14 to consult his knowledge of the local courthouse, at which his companion Bertrand will be charged with treason on the following day. With his result of 15, he would know that the courthouse was once also a prison (designed by Porthos Lemarchand, the debauched uncle of the Queen Mother), and that secret passages extend from the old cells to a trap door beneath the Judge’s bench. After hours spent poring through documents under the royal library, Gascon finds the building’s blueprints hidden inside a book of old recipes (authored by Lemarchand’s chef!).
Gascon employs his Apprentice talent in Writing (+1) to forge a notice from the Viceroy urging the judge to acquit Bertrand. With his roll of 11, it’s only a partial success (12). That night, sneaking past the guards into the old prison, Gascon gets under the judge’s bench through the trap door and exchanges his forgery for the Viceroy’s orders. Bertrand is released, but it’s only a matter of time until the viceroy recognises Gascon’s hand on the forgery…
If Gascon were an Apprentice of Medicine, he might know which herbs could induce an allergic reaction in the judge. If he were an Apprentice of Law, he could discover some arcane technicality which would delay the case.
Language and Etiquette
Languages are purchased like skills and knowledges, but they only have 2 ranks: Passing (1) and Fluent (2). Ranks in a language apply to both spoken and written communication.The rules on languages also cover:
- Operation in unfamiliar or hostile social settings. (eg. Ball ettiquette, navigating bureaucracies, dealing with hostile crowds.)
- Codes. (eg. Thieves’ cant, flag semaphore.)
Move: Use Language
When you’re fluent in a language, you speak, write and understand it flawlessly.When you try to speak, write or understand a language in which you have passing knowledge, the GM will flip a coin and conceal the results.
Heads: You communicate flawlessly and understand what they mean.
Tails: You miscommunicate or misunderstand them (GM’s call).
One flip is enough to cover a single conversation, although the GM can flip again if any party tries to communicate a particularly difficult or obscure idea.
If the parties involved have the time and inclination to sit down and talk something out, they will almost always come to an understanding, and no flip will be necessary.
Dead Languages
If it becomes clear that a language will be of no more use to a player, the GM can return the XP they spent on it.Minor Languages
The GM can grant free ranks in language and etiquette at their discretion. This is usually done if its field of use is very narrow. Once these ranks are granted, the GM cannot revoke them.Eavesdropping
When you try to eavesdrop on someone, the GM will flip a coin and conceal the results.
Heads: You understand them and remain concealed.
Tails: You misunderstand them or are found out. (GM's call)
Optional Rule: Linguistic Difficulty
Instead of flipping a coin, the GM can roll a D6 and set the success threshold at 2+, 3+, 4+, 5+, or 6 to represent easy or difficult tests of linguistic proficiency.===
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