Characters, Dice, Specialization

Stats

Art: faith, reserve, calculation, skill, training, discipline, experience, knowledge, wisdom, cunning, practice, carefulness, education, lore, subtlety, level head.

Grace: style, wit, wits, humor, agility, flair, presence, composure, patience, ease, rhythm, manners, class, fashion, beauty, balance, graciousness.

Guts: passion, instincts, nerve, will, resolve, determination, doggedness, balls, recklessness, brashness, boldness, daring, cool.

Core Endeavors

Asserting myself: in words, in actions, in some artistic form; acting on your faith or with confidence, taking space in a room or a conversation.

Defending myself: physically, armed or unarmed; even attacking another, if she's capable of fighting you back.

Enduring duress: enduring pain, fear, injury, cold, tedium; staying still and silent, surviving torture or illness or the elements.

Exerting myself: physically again, or mentally; lifting, climbing, carrying, running, swimming, memorizing, yelling to be heard.

Influencing others: winning them to your point of view, bullying them into submission, deceiving them, seducing them.

Other Endeavors

Very notably: doing magic.

But also: doing productive labor, doing burglary, building houses and walls, surviving in the wilds, making a way on the road, holding a house, cooking meals, buying and selling goods, fighting dirty, praying to the gods, speaking prophesy, smithing swords, performing feats of strength, acting a part, reciting from the ancient books, doing thuggery; making poetry, making war, making love.

Character Sheet Procedure

1. Give your character a name. Copy down her description from your list of characters present.

2. Assign dice to your stats. Assign two dice to each stat. In total, assign a d12, a d10, a d8, two d6s, and a d4.

So you might assign thusly: Art d12 d10, Grace d8 d6, Guts d6 d4.

Or you might assign thusly: Art d8 d6, Grace d10 d6, Guts d12 d4.

Or whatever other arrangement you like.

When you roll a stat's dice, you'll roll both, but read only the higher.

So let's say that you assign Art d12 d10, and I assign Art d12 d4. If we roll Art against one another, I'm capable of rolling as high as you - a maximum of 12 - but it's likely you'll roll higher than I will anyway.

3. Assign one stat each to your five core endeavors. You must assign each stat at least once.

So you might assign thusly: Asserting myself - Art; Defending myself - Grace; Enduring duress - Guts; Exerting myself - Guts; Influencing others - Guts.

Or you might assign thusly: Asserting myself - Guts; Defending myself - Grace; Enduring duress - Art; Exerting myself - Guts; Influencing others - Grace.

4. List one or a few other endeavors. List at least one or two; you may list as many as five or six, if that's how many it takes to flesh out your character.

Assign them stats.

Here's one thing you can do: "Commiting burglary - Guts." If you don't list "committing burglary," which endeavor will it be? Exerting yourself, maybe? But by listing it, you assure that when you have your character do it, no one will scratch their heads.

Here's another thing you can do: "Defending myself - Grace; fighting dirty - Guts." Use your endeavors to say "usually I do it with this stat, but if I do it this way I use this stat instead."

Here's a third thing you can do: "Description: a poweful war-sorceress, slender but commanding, with golden hair -" but don't list "doing war-sorcery" as an endeavor. When you have your character do war-sorcery, what stat will you roll? It depends! If you're having her do war-sorcery to defend herself, roll that stat. If you're having her do war-sorcery to influence others, though, or if doing war-sorcery is exerting herself - roll those stats instead.

If you're the GM player, give your characters only one non-core endeavor: add "-ing," to their descriptions to make them into verbs. A warlord's sixth endeavor is "warlording," a priestess' sixth endeavor is "priestessing," a wind devil's sixth endeavor is "wind deviling." I find this easier and no less interesting than detailing their other endeavors out.

5. Sometimes you may add a specialization.

Non-GM players: when it's at least the third chapter of play and your character's new, or when your character's recurring from an earlier chapter and you've chosen to add a specialization to your character sheet, per setup.

GM player: whenever you like, but only for one or two characters per chapter.

You can create a whole new specialization, create a specialization sheet for a specialization someone has already named but not created, or choose an apllicable existing specialization.

It doesn't profit you to choose a specialization that allows you to add the stat you already use; specializations do not allow you to double a stat. "Doing magic - Guts; Doing fire magics - specializes Doing magic - adds Guts" - no. Choose a different specialization instead. Consider "Doing celestial enchantments - adds Art."

Example Characters

EG...

Specializations

Specializations allow you to both refine and strengthen your character.

Specializations are like "Defending myself - Grace; Fighting dirty - Guts," except that they add instead of replace. "Defending myself - Grace; Fighting dirty - specializes Defending myself - adds Guts."

Create a Specialization

...Before you begin playing a chapter, after you've consulted the Clinton Oracle.

...In the midst of an chapter only when a) you're the GM player and b) the chapter demands one.

Specialization Procedure

1. Name the specialization. Say which endeavor it specializes, and which stat it adds.

Make sure that the stat suits the name. Of course fighting dirty adds Guts; of course a formal dueling style adds Art.

2. Name a specialization to which it is vulnerable. You may name an existing specialization or make one up new. If the latter, don't create it, just name it.

You can expect someone to create it soon enough.

3. Name three or more formal challenges.

When you're the challenger in a conflict, using this specialty allows you to make these challenges. Maybe you could have anyway - "I throw grit into your face and blind you" - but maybe you couldn't - "I summon fire down from the heavens to consume you" - and you should list some even so.

4. Name one or more opponents' challenge.

When your opponent has the opportunity to challenge you in a conflict, the fact that you're using this specialty allows her to make this challenge. Best if the opponents' challenge gives your opponent power to say something happens to your character directly, in this narrow circumstance, rather than something her character does - "the fire you've summoned explodes inside of you."

Example Specializations

EG...

Specializations on and off character sheets

If a specialization isn't on your character sheet, you can still use it, if it makes sense given fictional events.

EG...

You can add a specialization to your character sheet only at the beginning of an chapter, as part of setup.

If a specialization is on your character sheet, it comes with your character into each new chapter. If a specialization isn't on your character sheet, your character can have it for the duration of this chapter, if it makes sense for her to do so, or not. She can lose it, give it away, be robbed of it, whatever, and in any case she'll by default not have it still when her next chapter begins.

EG...

Single-chapter specializations

A single-chapter specialization is most likely to be a concrete thing, not a skill. Like in our game we've had a warlord's ancestral sword (specializes Influencing Others, adds Guts), bracelets of improbable strength (specializes Defending Myself, adds Guts), and an army (specializes warlording, adds Art). Then, just, whoever's character has control of the thing gets the dice for it.

Like, in our most recent session Julia's character had the army, just as a feature of how the initial setup went, but not written on her character sheet. She got to use the army for warlording purposes, until Emily's character swiped it from her (by getting a hateful priestess to disguise her voice). Then Emily's character got to use it for warlording purposes (although she didn't happen to). Julia's character won it back before the end of the chapter.

So it changed hands a couple of times, and whoever had it, got to use it. At no point could Meg have said "I use the army to roll Art in with my warlording," because at no point did her character have the army.

Now - that's true of specializations written on somebody's character sheet, too. If Julia had written the army on her character sheet, Emily's character could still have seized it like she did. The only difference is, next chapter, Julia's character would have it again. If it's written on your character sheet you bring it with you into the next chapter; if it's not, you don't.

That probably all makes fine sense to everyone, when the specialization's a thing. What about when it's a skill? Like "mastery of the necromantic arts - specializes Influencing Ghosts, adds Art"?

The answer is, of course, that it works exactly the same. Whoever's character has it, gets to use it; whoever has it written on their character sheet gets to have it again next chapter. Whoever doesn't, doesn't!

What if I want to give a specialization to someone else?

Most specializations are not unique - as many people can have them as happen to have them. At their heart, specializations are for making schools of magic, fighting styles, membership in a mystical order, things like that.

But then you can also use them to make powerful unique things, like ancestral swords and magical bracelets. The only difference is what it means to have them.

"I have frog alchemy. Here, I give you frog alchemy. Now we both have frog alchemy!"

"I have my family's ancestral sword. Here, I give you my family's ancestral sword. Now you have it and I don't!"

Whether it's in play only for this chapter or someone has it on their character sheet doesn't change this.

Using your specialization to help someone else

When one character gives another character something that'll substantially help out, it's kind of like a mini-specialization, except:

a) You set terms on how often or for how long it'll be useful, to a maximum of "for the whole rest of the chapter"; and

b) The helped player rolls one of the helper's stats in with her own.

If you're reading this, Emily, this means that when the priestess disguised your character's voice, you would've been rolling the priestess' Art as well in your roll to seize the army.