| Authors: | Robert Donoghue
Fred Hicks Leonard Balsera |
|---|---|
| Copyright: | This document is Open Game Content, as described in section 1(d) of the License. The license is found at the end of this document. 'Spirit of the Century' and the stunt names used with kind permission by the authors. Thanks, guys! |
| Editors: | Lydia Leong, Leonard Balsera, Christine Hicks and an assist from the "Typo Ninjas" of the FateRPG list |
| Typesetting: | Nick Moffitt <nick@zork.net> and Harald Wagener <fate@mausdompteur.de> |
You’ll need a few supplies along with these rules to play the game. Here’s a list of mandatory items, as well as some recommended ones.
You’ll need:
You’ll find useful:
Most things in the system are rated according to the ladder below (when we say “the ladder” throughout the text, this is what we mean). Usually, the adjectives are used to describe things – someone might be a Good Pilot or Poor at Academics. The adjectives and numbers are interchangeable, so if a player or GM is more comfortable with numbers, it is equally valid to say Pilot: +3 or Academics: -1. The best compromise is often to use both, as in a Pilot: Good (+3) or a Academics: Poor (-1). On this scale, Average represents the level of capability that someone who does something regularly and possibly professionally, but not exceptionally.
| +8: | Legendary |
|---|---|
| +7: | Epic |
| +6: | Fantastic |
| +5: | Superb |
| +4: | Great |
| +3: | Good |
| +2: | Fair |
| +1: | Average |
| 0: | Mediocre |
| -1: | Poor |
| -2: | Terrible |
Most people are Average at the things they do for a living, like Science for a scientist, and are Mediocre or Poor at most other things. It is only when they are driven to excel that they surpass those limits.
Pulp heroes push the very boundaries of what “normal” people are capable of, and as such, they tend to be Superb at whatever their central passion is. This means that pulp heroes are genuinely exceptional individuals, and are frequently recognized as such.
Whenever a player rolls dice, he rolls four Fudge dice (abbreviated as 4dF) to generate a result between -4 and 4. When reading the dice, a + equals +1, a - equals -1 and a 0 equals 0. Some example dice totals are shown to the right.
The total of the dice is then added to an appropriate skill to get a result. This result can be referred to as the effort made, but sometimes, it’s just “the result”.
<Example>
If you find yourself without Fudge dice, then roll 4 six-sided dice. Any die showing a 1 or 2 is treated as -, and any die showing a 5 or 6 is treated as +.
When a character rolls for a result, he is trying to meet or exceed a target value, which is the difficulty for the roll. The difficulty indicates how hard it is to do something. Difficulties are measured on the same ladder as everything else. For instance, it might be a Mediocre (+0) difficulty to jumpstart a car, but a Good (+3) difficulty to repair that same car after a serious breakdown. Guidelines for setting difficulties are found in the GM’s section of the book.
The difference between the difficulty and the result of the roll (the effort) is the magnitude of the effect, which is measured in shifts. Shifts are used, primarily by the GM, to determine the potency of a character’s efforts and to govern the resolution of complex actions. We’ll talk about shifts more in the coming chapters.
<Example>
Characters have skills, like Drive and Guns, which are rated on the ladder (page XX). Considered on the most basic level, skills represent what your character can do. When a character rolls the dice, he usually is rolling based on his skill.
Nearly every action that the character might undertake is covered by his skills. If he doesn’t have a skill on his sheet, either because he didn’t take it or the skill itself doesn’t exist, it is assumed to default to Mediocre.
Skills are covered in greater detail in their own chapter, beginning on page XX.
Characters also have a set of attributes called aspects. Aspects cover a wide range of elements and should collectively paint a picture of who the character is, what he’s connected to, and what’s important to him (in contrast to the “what can he do” of skills).
Aspects can be relationships, beliefs, catchphrases, descriptors, items or pretty much anything else that paints a picture of the character. Some possible aspects are shown here.
For many, many more examples see the aspects section starting on page XX. An aspect can be used to give you a bonus when it applies to a situation. Doing this requires spending a fate point (see below). In this capacity, called invoking an aspect, it makes the character better at whatever it is he’s doing, because the aspect in some way applies to the situation (such as “Dapper” when trying to charm a lady).
An aspect can also allow you to gain more fate points, by bringing complications and troubling circumstances into the character’s life. Whenever you end up in a situation where your aspect could cause you trouble (such as “Stubborn” when trying to be diplomatic), you can mention it to the GM in the same way you mention an aspect that might help you. Alternately, the GM may initiate this event if one of your aspects seems particularly apt. In either of these two cases, this is called compelling an aspect, and its effect is that your character’s choices are limited in some way. If the GM initiates or agrees to compel the aspect, you may get one or more fate points, depending on how it plays out.
We’ll talk more about fate points shortly.
Stunts are those things that a character can do which stretch or break the rules. They are the special tricks the character has up his sleeves. Stunts have very specific uses and rules, and are detailed extensively in their own chapter (page XX). Starting characters will have five stunts.
<Example>
Every player begins the first session of the game with a number of fate points (FP) equal to how many aspects he has, usually ten. Fate points give players the ability to take a little bit of control over the game, either by giving their character bonuses when they feel they need them, or by taking over a small part of the story. Fate points are best represented by some non-edible token, such as glass beads or poker chips. (Previous experiments with small edible candies have left players strapped for points!)
Characters may, at any point, spend a fate point to gain a bonus, invoke an aspect, tag an aspect, make a declaration, or fuel a stunt.
Aspects (see above, page XX) are those things that really describe a character and his place in the story. When you have an aspect that’s applicable to a situation, it can be invoked to grant a bonus. After you have rolled the dice, you may pick one of your aspects and describe how it applies to this situation. If the GM agrees that it’s appropriate, you may spend a fate point and do one of the following:
You may do this multiple times for a single situation as long as you have multiple aspects that are applicable. You cannot use the same aspect more than once on the same skill use, though you may use the same aspect on several different rolls throughout a scene, at the cost of one fate point per use.
<Example>
Scenes, other characters, locations, and other things of dramatic importance can have aspects. Sometimes they’re obvious, and sometimes they’re less so. Players can spend a fate point to invoke an aspect which is not on their own character sheet, if they know what the aspect is. This is referred to as tagging an aspect, and is covered in greater detail in the Aspects chapter, on page XX.
As a rule of thumb, tagging someone or something else’s aspects requires a little more justification than invoking one of your own aspects. For scene aspects, it should be some way to really bring in the visual or theme that the aspect suggests. For aspects on opponents, the player needs to know about the aspect in the first place, and then play to it.
<Example>
You may simply lay down a fate point and declare something. If the GM accepts it, it will be true. This gives the player the ability to do small things in a story that would usually be something only the GM could do.
Usually, these things can’t be used to drastically change the plot or win a scene. Declaring “Doctor Herborn drops dead of a heart attack” is not only likely to be rejected by the GM, it wouldn’t even be that much fun to begin with. What this can be very useful for is convenient coincidences. Does your character need a lighter (but doesn’t smoke)? Spend a fate point and you’ve got one! Is there an interesting scene happening over there that your character might miss? Spend a fate point to declare you arrive at a dramatically appropriate moment!
Your GM has veto power over this use, but it has one dirty little secret. If you use it to do something to make the game cooler for everyone, the GM will usually grant far more leeway than she will for something boring or, worse, selfish.
As a general rule, you’ll get a lot more leniency from the GM if you make a declaration that is in keeping with one or more of your aspects. For example, the GM will usually balk at letting a character spend a fate point to have a weapon after he’s been searched. However, if you can point to your “Always Armed” aspect, or describe how your “Distracting Beauty” aspect kept the guard’s attention on inappropriate areas, the GM is likely to give you more leeway. In a way, this is much like invoking an aspect, but without a die roll.
Players usually regain fate points between sessions when a refresh occurs. If the GM left things at a cliffhanger, she is entitled to say that no refresh has occurred between sessions. By the same token, if the GM feels that a substantial (i.e., dramatically appropriate) amount of downtime and rest occurs in play, the GM may allow a refresh to occur mid-session.
The amount of fate points a player gets at a refresh is called his refresh rate and it is usually equal to the number of aspects the player has. When a refresh occurs, players bring their number of fate points up to their refresh rate. If they have more, their total does not change.
<Example>
Players earn fate points when their aspects create problems for them. When this occurs, it’s said that the aspect compels the character. When the player ends up in a situation where his compelled aspect suggests a problematic course of action, the GM should offer the player a choice: He can spend a fate point to ignore the aspect, or he can act in accordance with the aspect and earn a fate point. Sometimes, the GM may also simply award a fate point to a player without explanation, indicating that an aspect is going to complicate an upcoming situation. Players can refuse that point and spend one of their own to avoid the complication, but it’s not a good idea, as that probably means the GM will use things that aren’t tied to you.
<Example>
This isn’t just the GM’s show; players can trigger compels as well either by explicitly indicating that an aspect may be complicating things, or by playing to their aspects from the get-go and reminding the GM after the fact that they already behaved as if compelled. The GM isn’t always obligated to agree that a compel is appropriate, but it’s important that players participate here. See the Aspects chapter on page XX for a more detailed treatment of compels.
While players have the leeway to explore any ideas that interest them, it’s worth remembering that the pulps have a handful of easily recognizable character types. While you are far from obliged to fit characters into these neat little “boxes”, we encourage you to create characters that match the overall flavor. Beyond that, you’re free to fill in details as you like. A pulp setting can support characters of almost every stripe, but there are a few common themes worth taking a look at.
The academic lives somewhere between the scientist and the explorer. The academic is compelled by his interest in his field, which is usually something like history, linguistics, anthropology or (most famously) archaeology. The academic knows that lost, hidden, and forgotten knowledge exists all over the world. Ancient ruins, obscure libraries, mysterious artifacts – all these can offer answers to questions that have not even been asked yet.
What are you doing: You are answering questions, finding what was lost, and trying to expand the breadth of human knowledge.
Though much of the map of the world is filled in, much of it remains blank or is simply wrong. The explorer thrives on discovering who and what is in those unknown places. The khaki-clad, pith-helmeted image of the explorer is perhaps the most compelling, but the same spirit can beat in the hearts of ship captains, spelunkers, or even ambassadors.
What are you doing: You’re discovering the world, opening new doors and seeking lost secrets and treasures.
The gadget guy is the recipient of the wonders of science. He is the keeper of a unique piece of technology, usually at the behest of its creator. The creator may or may not still be alive and serving as a patron for him (and in some cases, the creator and the gadget guy are the same person!). The device in question is usually quite potent, and serves as a signature for the character – something interesting and immediately recognizable, like a jet pack, a super car, or an exotic weapon.
What are you doing: With great technology comes great responsibility. Your gadget has made you more capable of taking action (whatever action you pursue), so you have embraced it.
Crime is usually a brutish thing, fueled by necessity, but for some it is the only true challenge available. Usually possessed of copious talents, enough that they have already found success elsewhere, gentleman criminals pursue a life of crime because of its excitement. Such characters enjoy the good life and civilization, so the adventures of exploration hold no appeal to them, especially when compared to the thrill of the chase, outwitting investigators, and similar brushes with danger.
Often, these criminals turn into sociopathic masterminds as they turn more and more to crime. But others maintain a certain basic, albeit twisted, honesty that informs their crimes. A burglar may have a strong code to harm no one, or may rob from the rich to give to the poor. An assassin may only accept contracts on those he feels society is better off without. Most such ethical criminals can be convinced to leave their past behind them and use their talents to more challenging, world-bettering ends, but true retirement is not often in their nature.
What are you doing: You’re trying to find something worth doing. When you find it, you seize upon it with gusto.
When we speak of the jungle lord, we’re speaking of characters like Tarzan or Mowgli, a man raised by animals, possessed of great strength and ability to communicate with or command animals.
Usually awkward in the face of civilization, these heroes act with a simpler understanding of things like justice, but with time, they can become bridges between two worlds.
What are you doing: You’re protecting your home and your pack, and attempting to understand the world outside.
There is no magic, only things science does not yet understand – and there are a lot of those. The man of mystery has delved into these secrets, be they the true workings of the mind, the “kung fu” of the eastern warriors, or perhaps a handful of syllables of the true name of God.
Whatever this knowledge is, it separates him from his fellow man, often so much that the hero adopts a persona to allow separation between his heroic personality and his normal life.
There’s a proximity to madness which mystery invites that can mean these heroes are of a darker, more disturbing character than the norm.
What are you doing: You’ve seen the darkness, and you’re on a mission to strike it down. You’re punishing those who think they’re above punishment.
The Operator is an agent, perhaps for a government agency that can’t be acknowledged, perhaps for a secret organization. He may not know, himself. But it means he’s connected (well connected), and is privy to secrets that others just don’t know about.
His job? Whatever the agency says it is. Thankfully, that is usually exactly what the Operator would be interested in doing in the first place. When conflict eventually arises between the operator and the agency, it usually goes very badly indeed for one of them or the other.
What are you doing: You’re serving a greater cause – perhaps for your government, or perhaps a higher or more secret authority than that.
One of the things that makes the world so much smaller is the news. A few decades back, if something happened a few states away, or anywhere else in the world, it would take time to trickle into the awareness of the average person.
Now, with the telegraph and radio, people know what’s going on almost as soon as it’s happened. The demand for regular news is fierce and competitive, and in this day and age, “The Scoop” means a substantial advantage for newspapers – if you’ve got the story, there’s no alternative, so people buy papers.
With this in mind, newspapers are always looking for news of the exotic and interesting, and they’re willing to tolerate a lot of foibles from a reporter who can bring in the big story.
What are you doing: You are finding out everything you can so you can share it with the world.
Usually of a people that some explorer has ‘discovered’, the primitive is an outsider in the world that other heroes operate in. The subject of condescension and curiosity, he is also the keeper of knowledge that has been lost, or not yet discovered, by the white man in his tall cities.
Perhaps this knowledge is some form of “magic” or something more recognizable as science, like a knowledge of botany far beyond what “modern” man has discovered. One way or another, the primitive is usually quite sophisticated, albeit in a way that most people don’t recognize.
What are you doing: You are representing your people, looking for knowledge to take back to them, or perhaps trying to carve out a new life in exile.
The science hero is the best way to summarize a character like Lester Dent’s classic pulp hero Doc Savage: brilliant, tough, strong, basically better than you at everything, and made that way by science!
Thankfully, most science heroes are slightly less obvious examples of the superman incarnate. A science hero may be very much like a gadget hero, someone who has benefited from extreme science in some way – perhaps making them a little stronger, tougher or faster than they would have been. Such characters tend to be well rounded (though rarely to the somewhat silly level of a Doc Savage himself ) but their specific interests are frequently tied to their origin.
What are you doing: You do a bit of everything, taking all comers.
In pulp, everyone is a scientist. Science is the door to the future, and every educated man has an interest in it. Despite that, it is easy to spot the committed scientist, master of one or more fields, dedicating his time and effort to the pursuit of science. Whereas other heroes seek adventure and appreciate science, the scientist seeks science and appreciates adventure.
While the scientist may have richly appointed labs or shops, there is still too much to be found, too many theories to be tested, too much to do, to simply stay cooped up. Scientists can have one or more fields of interest, which will generally be reflected by their equipment. A chemist or botanist may have a steady supply of bizarre and unique concoctions, while an engineer might have exotic gadgets or weapons.
What are you doing: You’re challenging assumptions and testing theories, bringing science out into the field with the intention of proving a theory that can solve a problem or create something new and beneficial to mankind.
The world is getting smaller as we watch, and aviation lies at the heart of it. Every year, the utility of planes is growing, and their range and power increases in kind. The pilot shares much of his spirit with the explorer, and in many ways is the next step in the chain of discovery. The explorer may find an exotic locale, but it is the pilot who ties it in to the rest of the world.
The Great War made pilots into dashing, romantic figures, and the commercial realities of the post-war era are making them more and more important.
What are you doing: You’re connecting the world to itself. Your passion is in seeing all there is to see, going to strange and exotic locales and bringing the outside world along for the ride, and taking a piece with you when you leave.
Character generation takes place over five phases. Each phase outlines events in that character’s life. The first phase sets up their general background, concept, and early youth. The second covers the events of The Great War (the common term of the time for World War I), bringing them to adulthood. The new characters become adults in the final year of the War, and the last three phases delve into the character’s post-War adventures.
As laid out, character creation is a group activity, done at the same time, with at least three players (remember, the more players for a character creation session, the better!) in addition to the GM. The character creation process includes a number of built-in ways to establish ties and history between the characters and the setting. Character creation can often take the time of a full session of regular play, and is a good opportunity to lay out the foundations of the setting, and allow everyone to establish a common understanding of each others’ characters. During character creation, players are encouraged to talk out loud about their characters, make suggestions to each other, discuss how to make their characters intersect, talk about relationships and interactions between the characters, and otherwise establish some of the campaign background.
Before the first phase, it’s a good idea to think about the concept for your character. Your character could be modeled after a particular pulp hero, or could be based around some specific thing that you want to be able to do, like fly with a jetpack, blow things up, or break boards with your head. Pulp heroes can usually be described briefly, so try to think of a concept that you can express simply. If you can express it with an exclamation point at the end, all the better!
Pulp names can be like any kind of name, but there is usually a particular cadence to them. The most common model is a short first name and a last name which is also a word (usually a noun or adjective, but sometimes a proper noun will be a good fit). This allows for simple, resonant names like “Drake Devlin”, “Maggie Honor”, “Jack Stone”, and so on.
More “normal” names are fine too, but in the world of Pulp, they suggest a bit of removal from the action. Such names are more appropriate if your character also has an alias (a la Lamont Cranston and The Shadow) or is intentionally cultivating an aristocratic air.
<Example>
This phase covers the character’s youth, from birth to age 14, but in a more abstract sense also covers the core concept for the character as a “normal person”. While youth may be a time of adventure and excitement, it is also the time when we are most shaped by our family and environs. This phase is an opportunity to reflect the character’s family and upbringing. When describing events in this phase, consider answers to the following questions:
Phase two is World War I, or as it’s called in the 1920s, The Great War. While the characters may technically have been too young to serve, they may have done so anyway; as exceptional individuals, it would not have been hard for them to fake their age. Because we’re talking about pulp heroes here, while they may have spent some time in the trenches, it’s more likely that they spent most of their time on top secret missions for elite soldiers, spies, researchers or pilots. Alternatively, they may have spent their time in other parts of the world, dealing with the end of colonialism, or exploring the mysterious East.
This is the time when the characters start coming into their own, and begin realizing their true potential.
Some questions to consider during this period:
Phase three is the character’s first pulp novel, starring him or her! Each player needs to come up with a title for the novel starring his character, in a fashion reminiscent of the pulps. The general pattern is:
Character Name (vs./in.../and) Adventurous Thing!
As such, Diego MacKinnon and the Spider's Web or Drake Devlin in... The Redemption Game would be ideal.
Then, each player needs to think up a story to go with his title. The story doesn’t need to have a lot of detail – in fact, it should be no more detailed than the blurb on the back of the paperback.
At the beginning of this phase, the GM writes down all the book titles on separate sheets of paper or a set of index cards, shuffles the stack, and hands them out. If a player gets his own novel, he should trade index cards with the person to his right until everyone has a title that isn’t theirs. The title of the book a player is now holding is a book that his character had a supporting role in. For each index card, the involved players – the player whose book it is, and the player who has just received that book’s index card – should discuss the story, and add one or two sentences to the description of the novel to reflect the supporting character’s role.
Phase five is identical to phase four, with the sole caveat that no character can costar in the same book twice.
Players who join after the initial character creation session should ask for volunteers to be in their book (volunteers do not get additional aspects, however). They should also pick two books that sound interesting to costar in.
Once all players have mapped out their phases and chosen their aspects, it’s time to pick skills. Each player gets to choose skills as shown here. Any skill the character does not explicitly take defaults to Mediocre. Because of the “shape” of this set of skills, this is sometimes referred to as the character’s skill pyramid.
Each player selects five stunts for his character. These are likely to be stunts that are associated with the character’s most highly-ranked skills, but there is no restriction in that regard. In a number of cases, it may be fine to take a stunt that’s tied to a skill that the player has left at the default, if the GM agrees to it.
For more on stunts and how they can affect the game, see the chapter on stunts
At the end of the character creation exercise, each player should now have a complete character with:
We keep coming back to this, but it’s critical to determine why your character does what he does. SotC characters are exceptional, and they could very easily find success in less exciting fields than those that are likely to come the way of the characters, so it is on your head to figure out why your character is going to keep getting involved in these things. If you don’t, the GM is under no obligation to go out of her way to make the game work for you – she’ll be too busy with other players who made characters that have a reason to participate.
This may sound a little harsh, but there’s a habit that a lot of smart, talented players develop over time that leads them to want to “win” the game. By having a character leave the adventuring life and become wealthy, powerful and successful elsewhere, they beat the system that otherwise forces them to constantly grind against an escalating scale of opposition for negligible rewards.
The thing to remember with SotC is that your character has already won. He’s successful enough that he doesn’t need to do anything adventurous with his life, so it’s up to you to figure out why he does so.
One way or another, the answer almost always points to the idea that success is not a goal, it’s a means. The true goal, whatever it is for the character, is something that calls for action. Once you have that pinned down, you almost definitely want to reflect it in your choice of aspects.
Aspects can be both useful and dangerous, but they should never be boring. Whenever you choose an aspect, stop a minute to think about what kinds of situations you can imagine using it for, and what kind of trouble it might get you into. The very best aspects suggest answers to both those questions, and an aspect that can answer neither is likely to be very dull indeed.
When you’re picking aspects, one of the best ways to determine that you and the GM are on the same page is to discuss three situations where you feel the aspect would be a help or a hindrance.
This is especially handy if the GM suggests the aspect – she probably has a pretty clear idea of what it means when she suggests it, but that idea may not be immediately obvious.
<Example>
At first glance, the most powerful aspects would seem to be things that are broadly useful with no real downside, things like “Quick”, “Lucky” or “Strong”, and a lot of players are tempted to go with those out the gate. Resist that temptation!
See, there are three very large problems with aspects like this: they’re boring, they don’t generate fate points, and they surrender your ability to help shape the story.
Boring is a pretty obvious problem. Consider a character who is “Lucky” and one who has “Strange Luck”. The latter aspect can be used for just as many good things as the former, but it also allows for a much wider range of possibilities.
You’ll also want to have some room for negative results of aspects. This may seem counterintuitive at first, but remember that every time an aspect makes trouble for you, you’ll receive a fate point, which is a pretty powerful incentive.
To come back to “Strange Luck”, it means that the GM can throw bizarre, even unfortunate, coincidences at the character, but you get paid for it. If this doesn’t seem tempting enough yet, remember that the GM is probably going to do something bizarre to you anyway – shouldn’t you benefit from it, and have some say in how it happens?
And that leads to the last point. When the GM sits down to plan an adventure, she’s going to look over the aspects of the players involved. If one character has the aspect “Quick” and another has the aspect “Sworn Enemy of the Secret Brotherhood of the Flame”, which one do you think suggests more ideas for the GM?
Your aspects give you a vote in what sort of game you’re going to be playing in, so don’t let it go to waste. If nothing else, you have just established that the Secret Brotherhood of the Flame exists in the setting, and the GM will probably turn to you for the details.
So in the end, the most powerful aspects are easy to spot, because they’re the most interesting ones. If you consider that you want an aspect you can use to your advantage but which can also be used to generate fate points, then it’s clear you will get the most mechanical potency out of an aspect that can do both. What’s more, aspects that tie into the world somehow (such as to a group, or a person) help you fill in the cast and characters of the world in a way that is most appealing to you.
Bottom line: if you want to maximize the power of your aspects, maximize their interest. For more extensive advice on choosing aspects, see the Aspects chapter, starting at page XX.
Sometimes you simply do not have time to do a full character generation and you just want to get started. In those situations, simply begin with a blank character sheet, and ask each player to choose the following:
That’s it. Players are free to fill in more details as they see fit, but that’s all you need to do to start playing. If you’re looking to make your game as much of a pickup game as it can be, this may be exactly what you need.
Once play begins, whenever the GM calls for a roll on a skill, each player has three options.
This way, the player ends up filling out the skill tree over the course of play. Similarly, the player may write in aspects and stunts at the point where they would use them.
Every time you write down an aspect, take a fate point. This way, when you’ve filled in your 10th aspect, you’ll have earned a total of ten fate points, just like other starting characters.
<Example>
Players are still expected to come up with their character’s novel and guest appearances in other novels, but this is also done on the fly. Players should feel free to think about their title of their novel over play, and at any point when they need a fate point they can launch into a flashback, generally prefaced by a statement line “This reminds me of * <Title of their Novel> * ”. The players give a quick blurb of a salient point from their novel and how this reminds them of it, however tenuously. As soon as this is done, the player gains a fate point. If the player then immediately spends the FP to make a declaration about the scene, the GM may give it extra weight for falling in line with the flashback.
Character Story Worksheet for: Sky Hobo
| Events: | Diego was born Lexington Becksmith. His family had made quite a lot of money from industrial inventions and married into nobility in the 19th century. His father pressed upon him to become an inventor and engineer, and to marry someone of the appropriate social standing. Diego, however, longed for the freedom to mix and mingle with other children his age. He consumed his lessons on mathematics, physics, and engineering of various types with gusto. No one ever realized that he rushed through his studies in order to disguise himself as a street urchin, stealing away to the streets of Manchester to run with the local boys. |
|---|---|
| First Aspect: | Engineering Prodigy |
| Second Aspect: | Dandy Living Rough |
| Events: | It was at 16 that Lexington first knew that he would one day steal away from his family's estate and never return. His father's business was doing well contracting on a secret weapon known as the "tank", and the pressure to learn all aspects of the business kept him away from his friends. When he heard that the older boys were enlisting in the army to fight the Germans, Lexington knew what he must do. His father had taught him to see bureaucracies and societies and organizations as great machines. The right adjustment could improve their function or send them crashing down. A more subtle adjustment, and they do your bidding without even realizing. In the Autumn of 1916, he boarded the ship with a new identity to fight in the trenches in Flanders. His ability to blend in with just about everyone from any upbringing made him an ideal candidate for espionnage. He learned the tricks of the trade from Captain Jake Forsythe, who acted the kind father that Lexington (now Diego) always dreamed of. He was as supportive as he was firm, and always covered for Diego. Alas, on a mission in Budapest in 1917, the two were separated and Diego was forced to return alone. When he reached Paris, Diego vowed to find Captain Forsythe before he died. |
|---|---|
| First Aspect: | Tinkerer in the societies of Men |
| Second Aspect: | Man of a thousand faces |
| Title: | Diego MacKinnon and the Spider's Web |
|---|---|
| Guest Stars: | Drake Devlin, Maggie Honor |
| Events: | As our hero tramps through the war-torn lands of Eastern Europe, hoping to find some sign of his long-lost comrade, he uncovers signs of a vast conspiracy. Tripping over a web of clues, he awakes the hungry predator at their center. Stowing away in trains, ships, and aeroplanes, can he stay one step ahead of forces eager to re-carve the world map? And who is the sinister Khronos Group that sends its messengers to contact him via clockwork music-box? And what of the rumors of a devastating new many-legged war machine sighted in the Siberian forests? Diego comes within a hair's breadth of catching the dastardly Drake Devlin, but soon finds himself on the trail of the very core of the Khronos conspiracy. |
| First Aspect: | Catchin' out |
| Second Aspect: | Hobo Detective |
| Guest starring in...: | "The Struggle to Build Zeppelin City" |
|---|---|
| Events: | Battered by his encounter in Siberia and near death, Diego stowed away in the great dirigible Indefatigable. Fortunately for him, the rarified air at high altitude aided his recovery, and he rose to find that his transport had joined an armada of independent craft. Fearful that the flotilla might be building an engine of war, Diego joined the construction teams that connected the great ships together. As blueprints and work orders passed through his hands, he began to comprehend the grand design of Zeppelin City. As admiring as he was of the elegance of the vision, he imagined there to be flaws in its ivory tower planning. It was a city beautiful, built to be admired and wielded by those in power, and offered little for the lowly prole. As with all systems in motion, it could be brought down with a single carefully placed blow. Or, a more subtle change... |
| First Aspect: | Clinging to life by a thread |
| Second Aspect: | My trusty hobo harpoon |
| Guest starring in...: | Gerald Carter - The Heritage |
|---|---|
| Events: | Living rough on the underside docks, Diego is witness to a cruel murder. Unable to let injustice persist, he moves to track down the killer. Taking advantage of his knowledge of the city, he shadows the men involved. Eventually his investigations lead him to one Clyde Cummings, a ne'er-do-well after the Carter fortune. Diego helps Carter thwart the vile plan. |
| First Aspect: | "I built this city, so I know it better than anyone." |
| Second Aspect: | Protector of the citizens |
ASPECTS - Engineering Prodigy - A dandy living rough - Tinkerer in the societies of men - Man of a thousand faces - Catchin' out - Hobo detective - Clinging to life by a thread - My trusty Hobo Harpoon - I built this city, so I know it better than anyone. - Protector of the citizens.
SKILLS :Superb: Rapport :Geat: Endurance, Stealth :Good: Investigation, Engineering, Deceit :Fair: Athletics, Guns, Burglary, Mysteries :Average: Sleight of Hand, Survival, Pilot, Resolve, Alertness
STUNTS :Engineering: Jury-Rig [juryrig] :Athletics: Mighty Leap :Alertness: Danger Sense :Deceit: Clever Disguise :Personal Gadget: The Hobo Harpoon [harpoon]
| [juryrig] | The character is adept at putting together small devices and quick contrivances using available materials. He never faces increased difficulty due to poor tools, and can assemble available materials into something of use one time increment faster than usual. |
| [harpoon] | This is a harpoon-gun that can be used like a weapon with the Guns skill. Improvements: Additional Capability (Grappling Hook); Upgrade (+2 bonus when using it to grapple onto something using Athletics); Craftsmanship (+1 to Weapons rolls when using as a weapon) |
STRESS :Health: OOOOO OO :Composure: OOOOO O
Characters have a set of attributes called aspects. Aspects cover a wide range of elements and should collectively paint a decent picture of who the character is, what he’s connected to, and what’s important to him. (By contrast, skills could be said to paint a similar picture of what the character can do.) Aspects can be relationships, beliefs, catchphrases, descriptors, items or pretty much anything else that paints a picture of the character.
Scenes also have aspects. Aspects in this context serve as a compact way to describe the relevant details of an environment, and can be used by the characters present in the scene. See Encountering Other Aspects, page XX, for more.
In terms of game rules, aspects are the main avenue by which a player gains or spends fate points, a kind of currency that can be spent for bonuses or earned when aspects cause problems for the player. Some possible aspects for characters include:
| Quick Witted | First on the Scene |
| Sucker | Girl in Every Port |
| Rugged | Silver Spoon |
| Irish | Big Man on Campus |
| “You’ll never take me alive!” | Ivory Tower |
| Stubborn | Honest |
For many, many more examples, see the Sample Aspects section (page XX).
More than anything else, aspects are a player’s most explicit way of telling the GM, “This is the stuff I want to see in the game”. If the player picks an aspect like “Death Defying”, then he should be able to fully expect that the GM will put him in death-defying situations. GMs should want players to use their aspects; players should pick the ones they want to use, and GMs should encourage them to choose aspects that will be both interesting and useful.
Once a player decides on an idea for an aspect, he needs to figure out what aspect name best describes what he intends; there are usually many possible names for a desired aspect, which can make this choice somewhat difficult. However, most of the time, an aspect is going to be a phrase, a person or a prop.
A phrase can be anything from a descriptive phrase (“Strong As An Ox”) to a simple descriptor (“Strong”), or even a literal quote (“No One Is Stronger Than Sledge!”). Phrase aspects come into play based on how well the situation matches them; a colorful phrase adds a lot of flavor and innately suggests several different ways to use it. This potentially makes phrase aspects some of the most flexible aspects in the game.
A person can be anyone important to the character. A friend, an enemy, a family member, a sidekick, a mentor – as long as someone matters to the character, he makes an appropriate aspect. A person aspect is most easily used when that person is in the scene with the character, but the aspect can come up in other ways, depending upon the person’s history and relationship with the character. For example, if a character has his mentor as an aspect, that aspect might be useful for things his mentor would have instructed him on.
Props are things, places or even ideas – anything external to the character that isn’t a person. A prop can be useful if it’s something the character has with him, or if it’s the crux of a conflict, but it may also imply things about the character, or even be useful in its absence (if only I had my “Trusty Toolbox”!).
These three categories of aspects aren’t hard and fast. An aspect like “Maggie needs us now!" has elements of both a phrase and a person, and that’s just fine. We’ve just provided these categories to help provide a way to think about how to frame aspects.
You may have noticed that a number of the aspects throughout this book are “bad” aspects – they indicate a downside for a character, either in their directly negative connotations, or in their two-edged nature. Aspects like Drunkard, Sucker, Stubborn, and Honest all suggest situations where the character will have to behave a certain way – making an ass of himself at an important social function, falling for a line of bull, failing to back down when it’s important to do so, or speaking truth when truth is the path to greatest harm.
So why put such aspects on your sheet if they’re only going to make trouble for you? Simple: you want that kind of trouble.
On a basic, game-rules footing, “bad” aspects are a direct line to getting you more fate points – and fate points are the electricity that powers some of the more potent positive uses of your aspects. We’ll get more into how aspects can generate and use fate points later on in this chapter.
Outside of just the rules, a “bad” aspect adds interest and story to a character in a way that purely positive aspects cannot. This sort of interest means time in the limelight. If someone’s trying to take advantage of the fact your character’s a Sucker, that’s an important point in the story, and the camera’s going to focus on it. “Bad” aspects also immediately suggest story to your GM; they tell her how to hook your character in. From the perspective of playing the game to get involved and have fun, there’s nothing but good in this sort of “bad”.
Clever players will also find positive ways to use “bad” aspects. The Drunkard might get looked over more easily by prying eyes as “just a drunk”; someone who’s Stubborn will be more determined to achieve his goals. This brings us the “secret” truth about aspects: the ones that are most useful are the ones that are the most interesting. And interesting comes most strongly from aspects that are neither purely good nor purely bad.
As a rule of thumb, when picking an aspect, think of three situations where you can see the aspect coming into play. If you’ve got one reasonably positive situation and one reasonably negative situation out of that set, you’re golden! If they’re all of one type, you may want to reconsider how you’ve worded your aspect – try to put a little of what’s missing in there. Ultimately, though, one aspect that’s “all good” or “all bad” isn’t that much of a problem, so long as you have a good mix throughout your whole set.
Aspects are one of the major sources of flavor for your character; they’re the first thing a GM will look at on your sheet when trying to work out what sort of stories to throw you into. This is powerful juju, and the best part is, you are in total control of it with the words you choose for your aspect.
Whenever you’re writing down the name of an aspect, ask yourself, “how much flavor does this aspect suggest?” If it seems fairly colorless, then you might well be off the mark, and it’s time to kick it up a notch. Certainly, don’t feel like you have to do this with every aspect you take, but if your character is served up as a bland dish, you may discover that your GM is at loose ends for keeping him involved in the story.
A few “good – better – best” examples are pictured here.
| Bland | Tasty | Bam! |
|---|---|---|
| Strong | Strong as an Ox | Man of Iron |
| Dark Past | Former Cultist | Eye of Anubis |
| Swordsman | Trained Fencer | Trained by Montcharles |
In each of these cases, the “bland” option certainly suggests its uses, but doesn’t really jump off the page as something that suggests story. The “tasty” option is certainly better by dint of being more specific; both GM and player can see some potential story hooks in these, and they serve to differentiate themselves interestingly from their blander predecessors. But the “bam!” options are where it’s at.
“Man of Iron” could easily be the phrase others use to identify the character, and suggests more applications than simple strength. “Eye of Anubis” names the cult the character was once a part of, sends the GM looking to ancient Egypt for some story ideas, and starts to put some NPCs onto the map. “Trained by Montcharles” gives the player plenty of opportunity for flashbacks to his time with Pierre Montcharles, which may include lessons and history that don’t just have to do with fencing, and also hints at the possibility of Pierre himself showing up in a story down the line. So when you pick an aspect, ask yourself: is this bland, is this tasty, or is this “bam!”?
Here’s a point to follow on the previous ones: more often than not, aspects tend to divide into another set of two camps – story and situation – and it’s a good idea to make sure you have aspects of each type.
Story aspects suggest one or more sources for stories involving the character, by bringing in an external element from the world at large. People and prop aspects are almost exclusively story aspects. Phrase aspects might be story aspects, but if they are, it’s usually because they mix in some elements of the other two Ps. You can most easily identify a story aspect by asking yourself if the aspect, independent of the character, is something other characters might interact with, affect, and change. Strange cults, lost artifacts, enemies, hidden lairs, foreign lands, spouses, and more, all fit into this category.
Situation aspects suggest the kind of situations a character might be in much more than they suggest the origin of those situations. Phrase aspects fall strongly into this camp, and they operate as a statement to the GM of the style of stories the player wants his character to be in. Phrase aspects like “Nick of Time”, “Stubborn as a Mule”, and “Last Man Standing” all suggest vivid situations – ones which should rightly repeat themselves over the course of playing the character – but don’t really suggest the context of those situations.
We’re taking a few moments to focus on the split between story and situation aspects, because it’s an easy one to miss if you’re not looking for it. You can very easily fall into the trap of creating a character who only has situation aspects. On the surface, situation aspects may be more attractive, since they usually apply in a multitude of circumstances; certainly, you’ll want to have at least a few situation aspects in your repertoire.
But if situation aspects are all that your character offers to the game, you run a real risk of being difficult to hook into the bigger storyline. This is why you should be certain to include a few story aspects on your character. Fundamentally, story aspects offer easy hooks to your GM to pull you into her story. You want this, since you came to the party to play the game. But it’s more than just that. By providing story aspects, you’ve provided some things which exist separately from your character. At the core of it, this means you’ve helped to build the game world. You’ve got ownership and stakes in the bigger picture. The GM will be grateful to you for it, and that kind of gratitude pays out in the form of a more satisfying game.
You may have noticed that, so far, we’re using a lot of ink to talk about how your aspects communicate things about your character to the GM. We mean it. Out of all the things in the game, aspects are probably the clearest message you can send to the GM about what you want from the game, short of walking right up to the GM and saying so. Also, in all likelihood, the GM is going to have copies of your character sheets when you’re not around, so the aspects you’ve picked are going to represent you in absentia. Once you’ve picked all the aspects for your character, take a step back and look at them as a whole, and ask yourself if they make the kind of representation you’d want them to. If they don’t, change them!
By themselves, aspects can’t say it all, of course, and it’s important to remember that. Short of making each aspect a paragraph or essay, you’re dealing with a few short, catchy phrases and names here. You want them reasonably short, because you want to be able to talk about them casually without running out of breath.
But the brevity of an aspect’s name means some things are left unspoken. Take the time with the GM to speak these unspoken things when you can. Both the player and the GM should look at an aspect not as the end of an idea, but the start of one. You’re both going to bring your own ideas of what the aspect means to the table and, at least to some extent, you’re both right. Usually this works out fine – the combined perspectives make the whole greater than the sum – but sometimes the GM and the player will have a radically different idea of what the aspect entails. Be clear with one another, and figure out how to iron out any differences – ideally, before the fate points start flying.
That said, after you’ve gotten one or more sessions of play under your belt, you might feel like you’ve picked one or more aspects that don’t “feel right”. We’re sympathetic to that, and your GM should be, too. If an aspect doesn’t seem to be working out well for you, you should feel free to ask your GM if you can change it.
The process of using an aspect begins by declaring that one is relevant. Either the player or the GM may make this declaration. Then, determine if the aspect’s relevance is working for or against the character who has the aspect. As a general rule of thumb, if it’s for, the owner spends a fate point. If it’s against, the owner gains a fate point unless he pays to avoid it.
This is the guiding principle that all specific uses of aspects – invoking, tagging, compelling – start from. Each type of aspect use has specific rules governing how it functions, but if you ever find yourself confused about from there.
An aspect can be used to give you a bonus, when that aspect applies to the situation you are in. Doing this requires spending a fate point (see below), and is called invoking the aspect. In this context, the aspect makes the character better at whatever it is he’s doing, because the aspect in some way applies to the situation. Invoking an aspect can be used to either:
It is possible to use more than one aspect on a single roll, but you cannot use the same aspect more than once on the same roll or action; even if you’ve re-rolled the dice, that’s still the “same roll”. Re-rolls are riskier than just taking the +2 bonus – you can always end up worsening things or not making much improvement – but when a lot of ⊟ dice hit the table, a reroll can be a much cheaper way to recover.
The GM is the final arbiter of when an aspect is or is not appropriate (see “Getting On the Same Page”, page XX). Usually this means the player must invoke an aspect that is appropriate to the situation at hand. If the player wants to invoke an inappropriate-seeming aspect, he should be given a chance to describe how the action is appropriate to the aspect. The GM’s priority here is not to strictly limit the use of aspects but rather, to encourage their appropriate use by encouraging players to make decisions that keep their aspects interesting.
<Example>
A player can also invoke an aspect for effect, using it for a related benefit that is not related to a die roll or skill use at all. This costs a fate point like any other invocation does. For example, a player could invoke a Secret Organization aspect to declare that the group has a chapter in town.
This is subject to the same sort of restrictions as spending fate points for minor declarations (see page XX) but is more potent due to the focus of the aspect. To be explicit, when an aspect is part of a declaration, it can make the less plausible more plausible, thus allowing the player to “get away with” more. The scope of the minor declaration can be … well, less minor, and the GM is encouraged to keep this in mind.
For example, if the GM is inclined to hem and haw over whether or not the character can spend a fate point to declare that he arrives at the exactly right moment, invoking the character’s Perfect Timing or Grand Entrance aspect for that same effect should remove any of the GM’s doubts. That said, this is not a method for the players to get away with anything; as always, aspect invocation is only allowed when the GM approves.
The aspects on your character are not the only aspects that you can potentially use. Your fellow players’s characters have aspects, of course, as do some NPCs; sometimes even the scene itself may have aspects, like Dark or Cluttered.
To invoke an aspect other than your own, your character needs to directly interact with the object, location, or person that has the aspect you want to invoke, in a way appropriate to the action in progress. This means that if a scene has an aspect of Rigging (since it’s on a pirate ship), not only does that mean characters can be described as swinging from the ropes, but characters can invoke the Rigging aspect when they do so. And that leads us to…
Tagging refers to the act of invoking an aspect that isn’t your own; this includes scene aspects and aspects on other characters. In most respects this functions the same way as with an aspect on your own character’s sheet – spend the fate point, and get either a +2 bonus or a re-roll.
<Example>
Taggable aspects are sometimes introduced into play as the result of your character’s action. This can happen due to a maneuver in a conflict (see page XX), a declaration of a previously nonexistent aspect (see page XX), or the assessment of a target and revelation of one of the target’s previously hidden aspects (see page XX).
Whenever an aspect is introduced into play like this, it’s because the character has made some sort of effort to bring it to the fore – he’s rolled well on whatever skill check brought the aspect onto the map. Because this is the case, he’s earned the right to tag the aspect in question once, without spending a fate point. In this way he’s able to turn his previous success into a momentary advantage without it hitting his fate point budget.
A free tag is subject to one key limitation: it must occur immediately after the aspect’s been brought into play. Some minor delay isn’t encouraged, but is acceptable. This usually means that the free tag must be taken within the same scene that the aspect was introduced.
The player who introduced the aspect has the option to pass his free tag to another character if he so wishes. This can allow for some great setup maneuvers in a fight; one person maneuvers to place an aspect on a target, then passes the free tag to an ally, who attacks, using the advantage. This can only be done, however, if it is reasonable that the advantage could be “passed off ”. A sniper who uses a maneuver to aim his rifle at a target, putting an “In My Sights” aspect on it, can’t pass the advantage to someone else – the aspect placed is specific to him. But if one pugilist used a maneuver to put an “Off Balance” aspect on a foe, he could reasonably pass the advantage to his buddy who moves in for the knockout blow.
When the character does spend a fate point to tag another character’s aspect, it might mean that the character getting tagged is due a reward. If the character tagging is getting a benefit out of it that is to the tagged character’s detriment, then the fate point spent on the tag goes to the tagged character at the end of the exchange (i.e., he can’t use it until the next one).
Tagging often involves temporary aspects that result from maneuvers. Make sure you have a grasp on how temporary aspects behave; see the “How to Do Things” chapter, page XX, for more. Many temporary aspects are fragile, and may disappear after their first tag (what does that mean exactly? – read that chapter!).
It’s important to remember that the aspects which have been placed on a character can be invoked for effect just as easily as they can be invoked for a bonus. A classic example of this is from the play Hamlet, where Hamlet arranges a very specific play to test the king’s guilt. There, the performance by the actors was less about putting an aspect on the scene (see page XX), so much as putting a specific aspect on the king himself (such as “A Revelation of Murder”).
If a character is aware of such an aspect on another, he may tag for effect, spending a fate point to trigger (potentially) the circumstances of a compel (see “Compelling Aspects”, page XX) depending on what the player declares and the GM accepts.
If it does turn out to be a compel-worthy circumstance, then the GM may proceed with it. This is a chain reaction; the tag for effect occurs, and concludes with the GM indicating whether or not it struck home.
If it struck home, then it’s now the GM’s job to run the compel with the target – and since it’s a compel, it includes the option for the target to spend a fate point instead of receiving one, to buy out of it. Note that because this is a compel that is now in the GM’s hands, if the target buys out of the compel, the fate point spent does not go to the tagger!
As far as the tagger’s involvement is concerned, however, this is often happening as part of his “free tag” for placing or revealing the aspect on the target – so his own fate point liability is trivial.
Sadly for Claudius (and ultimately Hamlet!), he accepted the fate point (perhaps as a compel against his “Guilty Conscience”) and betrayed himself.
Tags usually happen when the tagger has a clear idea of what aspect is there to be tagged. But this is not always the case; sometimes, the player’s making a guess. Guesses are allowed, but are subject to some special rules.
If the guess hits reasonably close to the mark conceptually, even if it doesn’t exactly match the aspect’s name, the GM should exercise some flexibility and allow it. For example, someone might guess that a scene has a Darkness aspect on it and ask if they can tag it for their Stealth roll. Even though the scene had the aspect “Shadowed Corners” instead, this is reasonably close to the mark; the GM should reveal that the aspect is Shadowed Corners, and allow the tag.
If the guess just plain misses the mark, and the fact that the mark was missed doesn’t constitute a significant, potentially secret, piece of information, the player should get the chance to reconsider and take back his fate point. Using the same example, if the player was asking if the scene had a Darkness aspect, and the GM instead believes the scene is too well lit for that, she would simply tell the player it’s a no-go. While the fact that the scene is well lit is certainly important, it’s something the player could discover with a simple question and answer about the details of the scene, so it doesn’t really rate as a secret; he shouldn’t be charged a fate point for that.
If the guess misses the mark, but missing the mark tells the player something significant and potentially secret, the fate point is still spent. This sort of circumstance almost never comes up with scene aspects, but can come up when guessing at aspects on another character. For example, if a character is looking to tag someone’s “Guilty Conscience” to help him intimidate that target, and it turns out that the target doesn’t have that aspect for him to tag, the fate point stays spent, because it is significant and secret that the target does not have an aspect that’s even in the ballpark of “Guilty Conscience”.
In the worst case scenario, a character’s guess misses the mark because he’s been duped. This will most often happen as the result of a Deceit action (see page XX), although it might arise from other circumstances. In such a case, the deceiver has the option to return the fate point to the tagger, or to leave it spent. If he leaves it spent, the tagger just learned he was duped. The deceiver does not get this spent fate point for himself – it’s simply gone. If he returns it to the tagger, things may actually be a bit worse for the tagger: the deceiver gets to place a temporary aspect on him (and the first tag’s for free, as above), representing how the deceiver managed to snooker the target.
Regardless, guesses can’t, and shouldn’t, be made willy-nilly – there must always be a justification for making the guess. If the guess seems unjustified – if the player is “shotgunning” guesses to randomly try to figure out another character’s aspects – the GM is completely justified in shutting that player down cold.
An aspect can also allow a player to gain more fate points, by bringing complications and troubling circumstances into his character’s life. When this occurs, it’s referred to as compelling the aspect. The GM performs compels; when she compels someone’s aspect, she’s indicating that the character is in a position where the aspect could create a problem. However, players can cause the GM to compel another character’s aspects, via tagging, with a similar rationale and results (see “Tagging for Effect”, above). The target whose aspect is compelled usually has the choice of spending a fate point and ignoring the aspect, or taking the consequences and limitations on his choices and receiving a fate point. When the target accepts the fate point, the aspect is officially compelled.
There are a couple of ways an aspect can complicate a character’s life.
An aspect may limit actions and choice. If a character is given a situation where he would normally have a number of choices, and limiting those choices to act in accordance with his aspect is going to make more trouble for the character, that’s grounds to compel the aspect. It’s important to note that an aspect may dictate the type of action, but it usually shouldn’t dictate the precise action, which is always the player’s decision. In this way, the compel highlights the difficulty of the choices at hand by placing limits on those choices.
<Example>
An aspect may also complicate a situation, rather than directly limiting a character’s choices. If everything would be going along normally, and the aspect makes things more difficult or introduces an unexpected twist, that’s also grounds for a compel. In come cases, complications may suggest that certain consequences are mandated, such as failing at a particular action – perhaps the character would succeed at a defense roll against a Deceit action, but his Gullible aspect is compelled, forcing a failure if accepted.
<Example>
Sometimes the aspect may add a complication “offscreen”, such as when the GM decides to use a character’s personal nemesis as the villain for a session. In such a case the GM should remember to give the character a fate point. This is technically a compel – it does complicate things – but more practically it’s more of a “thank you” to the player for giving the GM a hook to build the adventure around, and is done without offering the player the option to buy out of it.
In play, both the GM and players can initiate compels. When the GM initiates a compel, the process is very simple. The GM remarks that the aspect might be appropriate here, and offers the player a fate point and the player either accepts it and takes appropriate action or accepts appropriate consequence, or he pays one of his fate points to the GM and chooses not to accept the consequences of the compel.
In a perfect world, the GM is always aware of all aspects and always knows when they should be compelled and rewarded. In practice, the GM is keeping track of a lot of stuff, and may not realize that a player has an aspect that is appropriate to the situation. When that happens, the player should feel free to capture the GM’s attention and point to the appropriate aspect, and hold up a fate point, indicating that he thinks it’s time for a compel.
The GM will then do one of two things.
When a player calls attention to one of his character’s aspects, it may be as formal as “I think my Greedy aspect applies here” or it may be more conversational, like “Boy, this is tough. I mean, I am pretty * Greedy * ” (brandishes a fate point). There’s no one way to do it, and groups are encouraged to fall into whatever pattern is most comfortable for them.
<Example>
Sometimes characters simply play to their aspects without thinking to compel them. When that happens, the GM should make a note of it (sometimes with the player reminding her) and, if possible, award the player with a fate point retroactively. If it’s too late for that, the GM should make a note to give that player one extra fate point next session.
It’s important that the GM keep in mind what sorts of things would normally constitute a compel. Compels happen in order to make certain choices or situations more difficult or more dramatic for the compelled character. Certainly, staying in character and playing in a way that’s appropriate to a character’s aspects should be praised; but it should be rewarded only when the player’s aspect-consistent play has actively made his character’s choices more difficult.
Occasionally a character’s aspects will be in head to head conflict with one another. This should not be seen as a problem — rather, it’s an opportunity for high drama! When two aspects are in conflict with one another, they are both subject to a compel. If the player can’t see a way to act in accordance with both aspects, he must buy off at least one of them. In a number of cases, this can lead to a “zero sum”, where one compel is accepted, gaining a fate point, and the other is refused, spending that fate point. If the player can see clear to acting in accordance with both – fantastic! He’s just gotten himself two fate points (and a world of trouble).
The GM needn’t always press the issue in this fashion. Nothing says she has to compel both aspects. But occasionally it’s more interesting if she does.
Rarely, in moments of high tension or drama, the GM can choose to escalate a compel. This is an optional rule, and really should only be used when the character getting compelled is having a defining moment in his or her story.
Escalation can occur only when a player has bought out of a compel. To escalate, the GM slides forward a second fate point, and prompts the player with something like, “Are you sure…?” If the player accepts, he’ll get two fate points instead of one; if he refuses, it’s going to cost him two fate points instead of one. In the rarest of cases, facing a second refusal, the GM may escalate a final time, making the reward and cost to buy out three fate points. If the player is willing to spend three to refuse this truly monstrous compulsion, the book is closed.
If a player’s willing to step it up, he can prompt the GM to start an escalation as well. When sliding forward his first fate point to buy off a compel, the player should say something like, “I won’t go along for one fate point…” Most GMs will look at the situation at that point and decide whether or not it’s a moment of high drama; if it isn’t, they’ll take the proffered point, but if it is, the escalation’s on!
Whatever the case, escalation should be done sparingly; it’s best as a spice, and can be overwhelming as a main dish.
To get a sense of how aspects might be used in play, consider the examples below. These are not “bam!” aspects in most cases (see page XX), and that’s intentional; “bam!” only really works when an aspect is personalized.
The character’s rage simmers just below the surface, awaiting opportunity to burst. Sometimes his rage gives him the drive to see things through, but more often it leads him to rash action rather than forethought.
A player might invoke this to: Vent his frustration, usually through explosive action towards whatever he’s mad at.
The GM might compel this to: Cause the character to lose his temper at an inappropriate moment. Interfere with any action that requires calm.
The character is an academic, well versed in all manner of obscure lore. His knowledge, unfortunately, is almost entirely from books, and theory is not always the same as practice.
A player might invoke this to: Dig up an obscure fact or other bit of knowledge at the right time. Research like a fiend.
The GM might compel this to: Cause problems when the character is faced with the need to apply his knowledge under the stress of “real world” conditions.
The character is a firm believer in the better part of valor, either out of meekness, deep self interest, or some other motivator.
A player might invoke this to: Run, hide, or otherwise get away from something dangerous.
The GM might compel this to: Inspire the character to flee when he really needs to stand his ground.
The character owes a duty to some one or thing which should come out of creation. Alternately, the character may simply take all of his responsibilities very seriously.
A player might invoke this to: Perform an action which directly upholds the duty.
The GM might compel this to: Present a player a choice between upholding his duty or doing something more practical. Raise an issue of responsibility at an inconvenient moment.
The character is smart, simple as that.
A player might invoke this to: Know useful things, or find them out if they aren’t known.
The GM might compel this to: Unless there are monsters that specifically like eating big brains, there’s not much the GM can do with this. Consider “Bookworm” instead!
The character is very thorough in his approach to almost everything.
A player might invoke this to: Get a bonus to any task where he has the time and resources to do a thorough job, “discover” that he packed just the right tool.
The GM might compel this to: Interfere with the character being spontaneous.
The character is a member of the priesthood, and is expected to support the appropriate dogma, as well as accept whatever duties, responsibilities and powers come with the position.
A player might invoke this to: Give a stirring sermon. Resist the powers antithetical to his faith. Attempt to use the resources of his church.
The GM might compel this to: Deliver inconvenient orders from a superior. Present temptations that contradict the Priest’s Dogma. Raise the ire of opposed religions.
For whatever reason, the character seeks his own destruction, although he is unwilling to take direct action to do something about it. Instead, he throws himself wholeheartedly into dangerous situations in the hopes that this time will be his last.
A player might invoke this to: Help the character do something stupid and dangerous.
The GM might compel this to: Make the character do something stupid and dangerous.
This should be given the specific name of the character’s family estate, it is a place of rest and refuge from the troubles of the world.
A player might invoke this to: Draw upon the resources of the house.
The GM might compel this to: Threaten the house, use the house as the scene of a murder (thus pulling the character in).
The character has a knack for betrayal. He’s the type of character who, when he shows up on the movie screen, everyone watching knows that he’s the one who’s going to whisper lies in the king’s ear and try to seduce the naive princess. Betrayal comes easily to the character, and while he may be steadfast and true in the end, it would be so easy not to be.
A player might invoke this to: Lie, spy or generally connive.
The GM might compel this to: Incite suspicious reactions from NPCs, especially when the character is telling the truth. Offer opportunities to stab comrades in the back.
The character is the survivor of many battles, and the experience has shaped him. He probably was in the Great War, but may possibly have been elsewhere. This is appropriate for a seasoned campaigner who has seen many battles (in contrast to Gallipoli, below).
A player might invoke this to: Keep his wits about him in a fight. Assess a tactical situation. Pitch camp in unfriendly country.
The GM might compel this to: Invoke flashbacks. Introduce old rivals from the other side of the battlefield.
The battles over the Dardanelles, the straits separating the Ottoman Empire from Europe, were supposed to be easy, a swift strike at the soft underbelly of Europe against the virtually helpless Turks. The result was a long, brutal battle causing hundreds of thousands of deaths from fighting and disease on both sides, and striking a devastating blow to ANZAC, Great Britain’s Australian and New Zealand Corps.
A player might invoke this to: As with Veteran, but also to know a bit about the Turks.
The GM might compel this to: As with Veteran, but also for many other consequences. For ANZAC members, this battle is the root of vast swaths of anti-British sentiment and inspiration for independence.
In case you end up hard up for an idea, consider this list:
| “Gimme a Minute” | Eureka! | One Step behind |
| Fearless | “It Works on Paper!” | Over My Head |
| Femme Fatality | “Maggie’s in Trouble!” | Player or Pawn? |
| First on the Scene | “Just Use More” | Putting in Long Hours |
| Fly By Night | “Amazing Jetcar" | Raised by Wolves |
| Respectable | Friends in Low places | “Return to Normalcy” |
| Respected Authority | Girl in Every Port | “Manfred, Save Me!” |
| S.O.S. (Save Our Souls) | Glory is Forever | Scrappy |
| “Something’s Not Right" | Grease Monkey | Great Expectations |
| “This is Bigger than I Thought" | Gumshoe | Sharpshooter |
| Shattered | Hard Boiled | (Sword’s Name) |
| Haunted | Short Fuse | |
| A Few Dollars More | Heart of Gold | Silver Spoon |
| A Fistful of Truth | Hidden Crush | Social Chameleon |
| A Good Day to Die | I Know a Guy | Soft Hearted |
| Alone in a Crowd | Import/Export | Something to Prove |
| Amazing Jet Pack! | Business | Strength of the Earth |
| Architect of Destruction | Interesting Times | Sucker for a Pretty Face |
| Barbarians | Intrepid Investigator | Sultan’s Wrath |
| Been There | It Wasn’t My Fault | The Awful Truth |
| Black Sheep | It’d Take a Miracle! | The Granite Family |
| Bookworm | I’ve Got an Angle | The Names of Evil |
| Champion | Johnny on the Spot | The Price of Glory |
| Chosen of the Dark | Knows Too Much | Tongo, Witch Doctor |
| Continent | Kung Lao | Troublemaker |
| Codebreaker | Man of Two Worlds | Twitchy |
| Collector | Marked by Destiny | Two Fisted |
| Cutting it Close | Monkeywrench | Uncivilized |
| Death Defying | Motorhead | Unspoken Love |
| Deathbed Legacy | Muckraking | War Buddies |
| Dogged | Mysteries of the East | Well Traveled |
| Dreamer | Naïve | Work in Progress |
| Easy Mark | Never Good Enough | |
| Eavesdropper | Nosy | |
| Enemy: Woodrow Wilson | On the Run |
Characters in your games are going to do a lot. For most things they do, there’s no real need for rules. Characters can stand, walk, talk, go shopping and otherwise do normal things without needing to roll dice. They can even take actions that use their skill, like driving to work, without worrying about the dice. The dice only come out when there is an interesting challenge with meaningful consequences.
On the simplest level, when a character rolls the dice, if he matches or exceeds the difficulty, he succeeds; if he doesn’t, he fails. When the issue is simple, then this may be all that’s necessary, but sometimes you also need to know how well a character did or did not do. Clearly, if a character rolls three higher than the target, that’s better than rolling only one higher.
The result of the roll is called the effort. Each point that the effort beats the difficulty by is one shift. If a roll is below the target difficulty, it’s a failure and it generates no shifts – there are no “negative” shifts (if you flip the perspective, the opposition could be said to generate shifts – but this is rarely relevant). If a roll matches the target difficulty, it is a success but generates no shifts. If it beats it by one, it generates one shift; if it beats it by two it generates two shifts, and so on. The number of shifts generated by a roll is used as a measure of many elements, and is referred to as the effect.
<Example>
Shifts may be spent to affect the outcome of a roll. Often, the GM will implicitly spend shifts in accordance with the player’s description of his character’s actions. Sometimes, players may explicitly spend shifts as well. Basic uses for one shift include:
| Reduce time required: | Make the action take less time. |
|---|---|
| Increase quality of outcome: | Improve the quality of the job by one step. |
| Increase subtlety: | Make the job harder to detect by one. |
<Example>
Exactly how shifts can be applied depends on the skill, and is detailed in the write-ups of the individual skills, beginning on page XX. Later in this chapter, we’ll also talk about how to deal with an excess of shifts, using the concepts of overflow and spin (page XX).
Dice are used in one of three types of situations:
| Simple Actions: | Where the character is rolling against a fixed difficulty. |
|---|---|
| Contests: | When two characters each roll, with high roll winning and generating shifts. |
| Conflicts: | When two or more characters act in direct opposition to one another, but where resolution is not as simple as a contest. |
Simple actions are rolled against a difficulty set by the GM and are used to simply see if a character can do something, and possibly how well he can do it. The GM describes the situation and the player chooses a skill to apply to it, and rolls against a difficulty determined by the GM (by default, Average). Some sample simple actions include:
Contests are very much like simple actions, except the action is in direct opposition to someone else and easily resolved one way or another. Rather than setting a difficulty, each party rolls the appropriate skill, and the outcome is resolved as if the high roll had beaten a difficulty equal to the low roll. A tie means both succeed, but whether that means the outcome is a tie or if it calls for another roll depends on the situation. Some sample contests include:
Conflicts are what happen when two or more characters are in opposition in a fashion that cannot be quickly and cleanly resolved. A conflict is broken down into a number of exchanges where each party makes an effort to try to achieve their goal, taking turns to act. Opponents who stand in their way may be called upon to roll a response. They will accumulate success in the form of stress on opponents. Eventually, opponents will accumulate enough stress, or suffer enough consequences, to be taken out; alternatively, opponents may preemptively offer a concession.
Conflicts are the most involved actions, and an entire scene may revolve around a conflict. Conflicts include:
The complexity of conflicts is such that they merit an entire section detailing how they are handled.
Once a conflict begins, follow this regular pattern.
Over the course of a conflict, the elements in play in the scene can play a part in how the conflict unfolds. In framing the scene, the GM declares if there are any aspects on the scene, and lays them out for the players. (The use of scene aspects is detailed on page XX.)
If the scene is taking place over a broad area, the GM also describes the zones the scene will be occurring in. Each zone is a loosely defined area where characters may directly interact with anyone else within that zone (which is a nice way to say talk to or punch them). Who is in what zone affects things like whether or not characters can attack each other or if they’ll need to throw things or use ranged weapons. At the outset, determining which zones characters start in should be reasonably intuitive, but if there is a question, the GM can rule on where the character starts.
<Example>
When looking for a quick rule of thumb, remember that people in the same zone can “touch” each other, people one zone apart can throw things at each other, and people two (and sometimes three) zones apart can shoot each other. Any one given scene should not involve more than a handful of zones. Considering that guns easily operate over three zones, sometimes a few more, a comfortable number would be around three to five zones – but don’t feel like you’re forced to cram in more zones than the area readily supports.
Opposing individuals may all be detailed characters like the player’s characters, but often minions, mooks, or other faceless supporters will supplement the opposing force. These supporters are collectively called “minons” and are handled slightly differently than other characters (page XX). Minions divide themselves into a number of groups equal to the number of opposing characters. If a side is composed of a mix of characters and minions, characters may “attach” themselves to a group of minions, directing it and taking advantage of its assistance.
<Example>
Dealing with large groups is a potentially complex exercise for the GM. We have several recommendations and strategies for making this a lot easier, later in this chapter (page XX).
The order of characters’ actions is determined at the beginning of the conflict, with characters acting from highest to lowest Alertness skill (for physical conflicts) or Empathy (for social conflicts). This is referred to as the order of initiative (i.e., “who takes the initiative to go when”).
Ties in initiative are resolved in favor of characters with a higher Resolve. Any remaining ties are in favor of the player closest to the GM’s right.
When a character is attached to a group of minions, use the character’s initiative. Otherwise the group of minions has initiative as indicated by the quality of the group (as determined in “Minions”, page XX).
Once that order is established, that is the order in which actions are taken for the duration of the exchange. When the last person has gone, the exchange ends, and a new exchange begins with the first character acting again, and everyone else acting in the same order.
For some play-groups the idea of using particular skills to determine initiative may seem “unbalancing”, or at least unpleasant, in that it tends to force certain skills to prominence in many a skill pyramid. Also, some GMs don’t like having to keep track of a detailed order of actions. If your group doesn’t like skill-based initiative, use this alternative method instead:
This simple method makes sure that everyone gets a chance to go first over the course of a game, and doesn’t require the players to make any sorts of special initiative-based decisions in their skill selections.
When a player takes action, he describes what his character is doing and, if necessary, rolls an appropriate skill. Each action is resolved as either a simple action (if there is no opposition), or as a contest, with the details depending upon the specifics of the action.
Most actions in a fight will be either attacks or maneuvers.
An attack is an attempt to force the attacker’s agenda on a target, by attempting to injure them, by bullying them, or by some other means. An attack is rolled as a contest, with the attacking character (the attacker) attempting to beat the defending character (the defender) in a roll of skills.
Not all attacks are necessarily violent. An attempt to persuade or distract someone is also a sort of attack. When determining whether or not the attack rules apply, simply look for two characters in conflict, an agenda (or “want”) pushed by the acting character, and the target or obstacle to that agenda, the defending (or “responding”) character. The skills used to attack and defend depend on the nature of the attacker’s agenda. Here are some examples.
| The attacker wants... | So he uses... | And the defender can use... |
| To physically harm | Fists, Guns, Weapons | Fists, Weapons, Athletics |
| To deceive | Deceit | Resolve, Empathy |
| To scare | Intimidation | Resolve |
| To charm | Rapport | Resolve, Deceit |
| To force movement | Might | Might |
If the attacker wins the roll, his shifts may be spent to inflict stress on the defender (see “Resolving Actions”, page XX). If the defender wins, the attack fails; if the defender wins significantly, he may even earn spin (see “Spin”, page XX), which he can use to his advantage.
A maneuver is an attempt to change the situation in some way, affecting the environment or other people, but without damaging or forcing the target (if force is used or damage is dealt, it would be an attack). When a character tries to jump to grab a rope, throw dust in an enemy’s eyes, draw eyes upon himself in a ballroom, or take a debate down a tangential path – that’s a maneuver.
A maneuver is either a simple action or a contest, with the difficulty or opposition determined by the nature of the maneuver. A maneuver that doesn’t target an opponent is resolved as a simple action. Most simple maneuvers like this result in a character rolling against a GM-set difficulty and doing something with the resulting shifts. A maneuver can also target an opponent, and, if successful, place a temporary aspect on him. Either kind can also be used to place a temporary aspect upon a scene. See the “Resolving Maneuvers” section later in this chapter (page XX) for details.
Some kinds of actions are “free” – they don’t count as the character’s action during an exchange, regardless of whether or not a roll of the dice is involved. Rolling for defense against an attack is a free action. So are minor actions like casting a quick glance at a doorway, flipping a switch right next to the character, or shouting a short warning.
There is no limit on the number of free actions a character may take during an exchange; the GM simply has to agree that each action is free, and should feel free to impose limits if it seems like someone is taking excessive advantage of this rule.
A character can opt to do nothing but protect himself for an exchange. By foregoing his normal action, he gains a +2 on all reactions and defenses for that exchange. Characters who are defending may declare it at the beginning of the exchange rather than waiting for their turn to come around. Similarly, if they have not acted in the exchange at the time when they are first attacked, they may declare a full defense at that point, again foregoing their normal action for the exchange.
A character can opt not to act when his turn comes around. When a character takes a hold action, he has the option of taking his turn any time later in the exchange. He must explicitly take his turn after someone else has finished their turn and before the next person begins. He cannot wait until someone declares what they’re trying to do, then interrupt them by taking his turn.
When the character’s action is preventative – trying to keep something from happening, rather than taking direct action to make something happen – he is performing a block action. He declares what he’s trying to prevent and what skill he’s using to do it. Players may declare a block against any sort of action or actions and may theoretically use any skill, but unless the block is simple and clear, the GM may assess penalties based upon how hard it would be, or how much of a stretch it would be. Players should never be able to “cover all bases” with a single block.
A blocking character can declare that he is protecting another character. He makes this declaration on his turn, and rolls the skill he’s using to block; the result is the block strength. When, later that exchange, any enemy tries to attack the protected character, the protected character gets the benefit of both the blocker’s defense as well as his own, whichever is better. The attacker rolls his attack as normal. The defender rolls his defense as normal. If that defense roll is higher than the block strength, he uses the defense result; otherwise he uses the block strength. The attacker then generates shifts as normal.
<Example>
For other types of blocks, the blocking character declares the block on his turn, and rolls the skill he’s using to block, subject to any penalties imposed by the GM. The result is the block strength. Later that exchange, every time another character tries to perform the blocked action, he enters into a contest with the blocker. The character trying to get past the block rolls the skill he’s using for the action (not a skill specifically appropriate to the block), and compares it to the block strength. If the attacker gets at least one shift, he successfully overcomes the block.
<Example>
Trying to get past a block always takes an action, though the GM may grant similar latitude in deciding what skill is being used to get past it. Even if the action is normally “free”, getting past the block takes additional effort, and thus the GM can declare that it takes up the player’s action for the exchange.
A variety of skills may be appropriate to getting past a block. Getting past a block may occasionally require rolling a skill modified by another, secondary skill, as demonstrated in this next example.
<Example>
Sometimes a character needs to do something more complicated than just taking a single, basic action. Sometimes the complication is simple, like drawing a weapon and attacking; sometimes it’s more complex, like composing a sonnet while fencing.
When the character performs a simple action while doing something else, like drawing a weapon and attacking, or firing off a signal flare while intimidating the snapping wolves at the edge of the firelight, it is a supplemental action, and simply imposes a -1 on the character’s primary action roll (effectively spending one shift of effect in advance). When in doubt about which is the primary action and which is the supplemental one, the supplemental action is the one which would normally require no die roll.
Sometimes the GM may decide a supplemental action is particularly complicated or difficult, and may increase the penalty appropriately.
Movement is one of the most common supplemental actions. When it is reasonably easy to move from one zone to the next, characters may move one zone as a supplemental action (see “Framing the Scene”, above, for an explanation of zones). If they wish to move further than that, they must perform a primary (not supplemental) sprint action, which entails rolling Athletics and allowing the character to move a number of zones equal to the shifts generated.
Sometimes, it is more difficult to move from one zone to the next, such as when there is some sort of barrier (like a fence or some debris) or there is some other difficulty (like getting from a rooftop to the street below and vice versa). This movement complication is called a border. The numeric value of that border increases the penalty for a move action and subtracts shifts from a sprint action.
<Example>
Sometimes the character needs to perform a task that really requires using two or more skills at once. You never know when a character is going to need to throw a knife (Weapons) while balancing on a spinning log (Athletics) or when he’s going to need to explain germ theory (Science) to one of the Dead Gods (Resolve).
In those situations, the GM calls for a roll based on the main skill being used (the primary thrust of the action), but modified by a second skill. If the second skill is of greater value than the first, it grants a +1 bonus to the roll; if the second skill is of a lesser value, it applies a -1 penalty to the roll.
<Example>
When the second skill can only help the first, which is to say it can only provide a bonus, it complements the skill. A complementing skill never applies a -1, even if it’s lower than the primary skill. This usually happens when the character has the option of using the secondary skill, but doesn’t have to bring it to bear.
If the secondary skill comes into play only to hold the primary skill back, it restricts the skill, meaning it can only provide a penalty or nothing at all. A restricting skill never applies a +1, even if it’s higher than the primary skill. Often skills like Endurance or Resolve are restrictive skills – as you get more tired, you won’t get better, but if you’re resolute, you may not get worse.
In very rare circumstances, a primary skill may be affected by more than one secondary skill – say, a situation where a character needs to climb a wall (Athletics as primary), but is tired (Endurance restricts), but the wall’s part of a building the character has been studying in order to burglarize (Burglary complements). In such cases, no matter the number of skills in play, the most the combination can produce is one +1 and one -1. This is actually very quick to reason out. First, look at all of the skills that modify or complement; if any of them are higher than the primary skill, a +1 is applied. Next, look at all of the skills that modify or restrict; if any of them are lower than the primary skill, a -1 is applied. This may mean that multiple skills all affecting a roll will result in no modification at all – both a +1 and a -1!
It’s important to note that combining skills can never be done to perform two full actions at once – if that’s the goal, it should take two exchanges. When skills are used in combination, one skill is almost always going to serve a passive role, as the thing the character needs to be able to do in order to be able to perform the other skill. If a character is trying to throw a knife while balancing on a spinning log, Weapons is the main skill rolled, but Athletics restricts the roll, because without it, the character falls off the log, and his throw is moot. Similarly, if the character is gibbering before an ancient horror, his knowledge is simply not going to help him.
The difference between an action that combines skills, and a supplemental action, is not always obvious. In general, if both components of the action are something you’d expect to roll for if they were done separately, then it’s time to combine skills. If the lesser part of the action is something that normally doesn’t require a roll, just handle it as a supplemental action. Sometimes, an action will be both supplemental and modified – maybe the character is moving a little (supplemental), but is using his Athletics skill to get an edge (modifying the primary roll):
<Example>
When a character is in a position to control the pacing of a conflict (which generally requires the conflict be one on one, or ritualized in some way), he may stretch it out and try to wear down his opponent. When this happens, actions in a conflict start using the character’s Endurance skill to restrict (see page XX) the skill used on any of his actions. Similarly, actions may be restricted by Alertness if the conflict starts having too many distractions, or restricted by Resolve if the conflict has become mentally fatiguing.
A successful attack inflicts an amount of stress on its target equal to the number of shifts on the attack (the difference between the attacker’s effort, and the defender’s effort). Stress represents non-specific dif ficulties a character can encounter in a conflict.
In a fight, it’s bruising, minor cuts, fatigue, and the like. In a social conflict, it’s getting flustered or being put off one’s game. In a mental conflict, stress might mean losing focus or running in circles.
Stress can usually be shaken off once a character has some time to gather himself, between scenes.
The type of stress that a character takes in a conflict should be appropriate to the type of conflict. Every character has two stress tracks. The first is the Health stress track, used for physical stress, such as wounds and fatigue. The second is the Composure stress track, representing the ability to “keep it together” in the face of social and mental injuries.
A character can only take so much stress before being unable to go on, represented by a stress track filling up. Each stress track defaults to 5 boxes, but the tracks can be increased by certain skills: Endurance can increase the Health stress track, and Resolve can increase the Composure stress track. See the skill descriptions of Endurance and Resolve on page XX and page XX for more details.
When stress is determined, the character should mark off that box on the appropriate stress track. For instance, if the character takes a three-point physical hit, he should mark off the third box from the left on the Health stress track.
<Example>
At the end of a scene, unless the GM says otherwise, a character’s stress tracks clear out; minor scrapes and bruises, trivial gaffes and embarrassments, and momentary fears pass away. Deeper issues resulting from attacks, called consequences, may last beyond the end of the scene, and are covered further below.
Stress is a transitory thing, but sometimes conflicts will have lasting consequences – injuries, embarrassments, phobias and the like. These are collectively called consequences, and they are a special kind of aspect. We’ll talk more about what this means shortly.
Any time a character takes stress, he may opt not to check off a box and instead take a consequence. If the character takes a hit which he doesn’t have a box for, either because it’s higher than the number of boxes on his stress track, or because it rolls up past his last box, the character must take a consequence.
The exact nature of the consequence should depend upon the conflict – an injury might be appropriate for a physical struggle, an emotional state might be apt for a social one. Whatever the consequence, it is written down under the stress track. The first consequence a character takes is a mild consequence, the second is a moderate consequence, and any additional consequences are severe. (To understand exactly what these mean, “Removing Consequences”, page XX .)
Normally, the person taking the consequence gets to describe what it is, so long as it’s compatible with the nature of the attack that inflicted the harm. The GM acts as an arbitrator on the appropriateness of a consequence, so there may be some back and forth conversation before a consequence is settled on. The GM is the final authority on whether a player’s suggested consequence is reasonable for the circumstances and severity.
Characters may only carry three consequences at a time (barring certain stunts which allow more). If the character has already taken a severe consequence, then the only remaining option is to be taken out. We’ll talk about that next.
But here’s the thing about consequences being a special kind of aspect: As long as the consequences are on the character’s sheet, they may be compelled or tagged (or invoked!) like any other aspect. This also means that opponents may start tagging those aspects pretty easily, since it’s no secret that the consequence aspects are now on the character’s sheet!
If a character takes a hit which takes him past a severe consequence, that character is taken out. The character has decisively lost the conflict, and unlike the other levels of consequence, his fate is in the hands of his opponent, who may decide how the character loses. The outcome must remain within the realm of reason – very few people truly die from shame, so having someone die as a result of a duel of wits is unlikely, but having them embarrass themselves and flee in disgrace is not unreasonable.
The option to determine how a character loses is a very powerful ability, but there are a few limits on it.
First, the effect is limited to the character who has been taken out. The victor may declare that the loser has made an ass of himself in front of the king, but he cannot decide how the king will respond (or even if the king was particularly bothered).
Second, the manner of the taken out result must be limited to the scope of the conflict. After the victor wins a debate with someone, he cannot decide that the loser concedes his point and the loser gives him all the money in his pockets – money was never part of the conflict, so it’s not an appropriate part of the resolution.
Third, the effect must be reasonable for the target. People do not (normally) explode when killed, so that cannot be a part of taking someone out. Similarly, a diplomat at the negotiating table is not going to give the victor the keys to the kingdom – that’s probably beyond the scope of his authority, and even if it’s not, it’s unlikely something he would give away under any circumstances. What he will do is make a deal that is very much in the victor’s favor and possibly even thank him for it.
Lastly, players are not always comfortable with being on the receiving end of this and may, if they wish, spend all the fate points they have left (minimum one) and demand a different outcome, and the GM (or winning character) should then make every effort to allow them to lose in a fashion more to their liking. That said, if this is a real concern, the loser may want to concede somewhere before things reach this point (see “Concessions”, below).
Any time a character takes a consequence, he also has the option of offering a concession. A concession is essentially equivalent to surrendering, and is the best way to end a fight before someone is taken out (short of moving away and ending the conflict). The character inflicting the damage can always opt to not take the concession, but doing so is a clear indication that the fight will be a bloody one (literally or metaphorically). If the GM declares that the concession was a reasonable offer, then the character who offered it gains one fate point, and the character who refused it loses one.
The concession is an offer of the terms under which the character is taken out. If the concession is accepted, the conceding character is immediately taken out, but rather than letting the victor determine the manner of his defeat, he is defeated according to the terms of his concession.
Many conflicts end with a concession when one party or the other simply does not want to risk taking moderate or severe consequences as a result of the conflict, or when neither party wants to risk a taken out result that might come at too high a price.
<Example>
Some NPCs may be listed as having a certain amount of grit, usually rated at 1 or 2. This represents how committed the character is to the conflict at hand, and is the number of consequences the character will take before offering a concession. It is fairly rare for a character to be willing to go to the mat over trivial matters, so grit is somewhat contextual. If the matter ends up being of direct importance to the NPC, his grit might be considered to be higher, but if the matter is trivial, his grit might be considered to be lower.
Consequences will fade with time – characters heal, rumors die down, and distance brings perspective. How long this takes depends upon the severity of the consequence, which in turn depends upon how it was received.
Mild consequences are removed any time the character has the opportunity to sit down and take a breather for a few minutes. These consequences will last until the end of the current scene, and will usually be removed after that. The only exception is if there is no break between scenes – if the character doesn’t get a chance to take five, the consequence will remain in place.
<Examples>
Moderate consequences require the character get a little more time and distance. A good night’s sleep or other extended period of rest and relaxation is required. Moderate consequences remain in place until the character has had the opportunity to take several hours (at least 6) of “downtime.” This may mean getting sleep in a comfortable bed, spending time with a charming member of the opposite sex, reading by the fire, or anything else of that ilk, so long as it’s appropriate to the consequence. An afternoon of hiking might be a great way to get past a Heartbreak consequence, but it’s not a great choice for a Bad Ankle.
<Examples>
Severe consequences require substantial downtime, measured in days or weeks. Generally this means that such a consequence will linger for the duration of a session, but will be cleared up before the next adventure begins.
<Examples>
If the character is in back-to-back sessions where no in-game time passes between them, such as in a multi-part adventure, he gets a break – any consequences he begins the session with are treated as one level lower for how quickly they’re removed.
<Examples>
Some skills (such as Science, page XX) and stunts (such as Bounce Back, page XX) can also reduce recovery time, as described in their write-ups.
There are three types of maneuvers – uncontested maneuvers (without an opponent), scene-altering maneuvers, and maneuvers that target another character.
If the maneuver is uncontested – for instance, the character is trying to grab an idol or swing from a rope – it is a simple action, resolved just like any other simple action. The GM sets a difficulty, and the character rolls his skill and applies the resulting shifts as normal.
A maneuver can alter the scene in some way. How hard this is to do can range from trivial (knocking over a candle in a hay loft to add an “On Fire!” aspect to the scene) to virtually impossible (flapping one’s arms very hard to try to remove the “Foggy” aspect from a scene .) Whatever the result, the GM can decide whether or not the change the character makes merits adding or removing an aspect to the scene. The expenditure of a fate point can usually make a reasonable argument for making such a change; if the player’s willing to spend the point, his character’s actions to remove the aspect are invested with an unusual potency.
If the target is another character, the maneuvering character and the target make opposed rolls, using whatever skills the GM deems appropriate. Success is usually achieved if the maneuvering character generates at least one shift. A successful maneuver may add a temporary aspect to the targeted character; the target can either accept the temporary aspect, or spend a fate point to avoid accepting it. An aspect that results from a maneuver is temporary and does not last very long – we’ll get to the duration in a moment. The temporary aspect may then be tagged for a bonus on a subsequent roll. The first tag usually doesn’t cost the tagging player a fate point, but subsequent tags usually do (see the Aspects chapter, page XX, for more on the methods of tagging aspects). If a character is simply trying to increase the difficulty of another target’s action, this is considered a block action, and should be resolved as such; see page XX.
Manuevers can also have other special effects, as determined by the GM. Some examples of these kinds of maneuvers are given later in this chapter.
Temporary aspects that result from maneuvers are usually fragile. A fragile aspect only exists for a single tag, and may even be cleared away by a simple change of circumstances. Consider someone who uses a maneuver to take aim at a target, placing an “In My Sights” aspect on the target. Once the shot’s taken, the aim goes away – this is clearly fragile. But it could get lost even before the first shot, if the character who (likely unwittingly) has the aspect on him manages to break line of sight or move significantly. Fragile temporary aspects are usually much easier to justify and pass muster with the GM.
Some aspects that result from maneuvers can be sticky. (Aspects that result from assessments or declarations, explained on page XX, are also usually sticky .) Sticky aspects don’t go away after they’re first tagged, allowing people to spend fate points to continue to tag them. The GM is encouraged to be much more picky about whether or not to allow a sticky aspect to result from a maneuver.
In many cases, the GM may require that the maneuvering character use spin (see page XX) in order to succeed at placing a sticky aspect. Sticky aspects may be easier to place on a location or scene than on another character, especially when they potentially offer complications to everyone present, on both sides – such as a maneuver to add an “On Fire!” aspect to a scene. It may be possible to remove a sticky aspect via a successful manuever.
This is not a comprehensive list of all possible maneuvers, but the examples provided below should cover a wide range of circumstance and provide the tools needed to cover unexpected situations.
<Example>
<Example>
The term minions is used to refer to the large number of “faceless” followers of more important, “named” characters in a scene. The named characters are the villains of the piece; the minions are the bodies of the faithful (or at least the hapless) that the heroes must climb over to take on the named characters.
Minions have two important statistics, quality and quantity. The GM may build their villains’ minion mobs using stunts – see page XX – but should feel free to be a little loose with the rules if looking to size the minions appropriately to the opposition.
Minions may be either Average, Fair or Good quality. This quality denotes their base effectiveness in one sort of conflict (physical, social or mental), as well as their capacity for stress. Average minions can take one box of stress, Fair can take two, and Good can take three.
The quantity of minions is simply the number of minions present, but together, minions act in one or more groups, each of which is treated as single characters in a conflict. This allows the GM to minimize the number of die rolls she’s making, even when her heroes are facing off against a group of twenty frothing cultists. This shorthand technique also makes it a touch easier for the heroes to eliminate several minions in a single action.
Minions who act together as a group are much more effective than individual minions. When there are two or three minions in a group, the group receives a +1 bonus to act and react. If there are four to six minions in a group, the bonus is +2; seven to nine minions get a +3 bonus, and any single group with ten or more members gets +4.
As a rule of thumb, when a GM has a large number of minions, she should split them up into several smaller groups – preferably one group for each player character they face. These groups don’t necessarily need to be equal in number; sometimes it makes sense to pit the largest group of minions against the most capable opponent.
<Example>
When minions take stress, it is applied sequentially (i .e ., filling all boxes instead of just a single one). Damage that overflows one minion is applied to the next minion. This means a solid enough effort can take out an entire swath of minions.
<Example>
One of the main uses for minions, be they ninjas or yes-men, is to improve the effectiveness of their leader. Whenever a named character and a group of minions are attacking the same target, they are considered to be attached. This has two benefits for the leader: he receives a bonus based on the group size (including him), and damage is applied to minions before it’s applied to him. It has no benefits for the minions, who give up their ability to act independently, but that’s more or less their job (see the Leadership skill for more, page XX). Leaving or attaching to a group is a free action, and a character may detach from a group automatically by moving away from it.
<Example>
Companions are characters who are a little more important than minions but are not quite full-fledged named characters in their own right. They are attached to named characters in the same way minion groups are, and grant a +1 in appropriate conflicts due to group size. Companions do not have stress boxes, like minions do; instead, they give the character the ability to withstand an additional consequence – specifically, the consequence that the Companion is taken out, kidnapped, or otherwise removed from the conflict.
Type Conflicts Sidekick Physical Aide Social Assistant Mental/Knowledge
Companions are either granted as a short-term story element by the GM, or are established through the purchase and use of a number of stunts. By default, a companion is of Average quality and can assist in one type of conflict. The type of conflict that the Companion can assist with determines her type.
A companion can have a number of advances, with each advance making her more capable. Usually, when a named character gains a sidekick, aide, or assistant (through a stunt), the companion gets a number of advances to begin with, and the named character can buy more advances with additional stunts.
An advance can do one of the following:
While characters are not obliged to take their companion as an aspect, it is highly recommended. Companions are the first people villains choose as hostages and targets, and by choosing to take an appropriate aspect, the player ensures that he’ll be rewarded for the inconvenience.
Unspoken in the above is a simple assumption, which you may choose to make use of or ignore as you see fit, and it’s this: minions are for bad guys – or at least NPCs – while companions are for the players. There will most certainly be exceptions – companions are the most able to show up in both – but very often it simply isn’t thematically appropriate for a player’s character to run about with twenty-odd minions at his beck and call. A plucky sidekick, on the other hand, is entirely in keeping…
When a character takes an action (an attack or a maneuver) against groups of minions, he will occasionally succeed by far more than anticipated. This leaves him in a situation where he has a large number of “wasted” shifts. These surplus shifts are called overflow, and can be used in an immediate, follow-up action so long as it’s not as another attack or other offensive maneuver. To put it simply, overflow is used to take supplemental actions.
<Example>
When fighting “named” (non-minion) characters, overflow exists only as the number of shifts that are left over after the minimum number are used to produce a taken out (or consequence-producing) result.
<Example>
In its broadest sense, spin is a special effect that occurs whenever a character scores a significant or better success (3 shifts or more). That special effect may simply be color – it may mean the character looks particularly cool, or is due some recognition for excellence. However, in some cases, gaining spin can result in an actual game effect.
Specific to combat, spin is a minor, defensive form of overflow (see above) used to represent minor changes in the cadence of a conflict. Applied to a defense, when a character who successfully defends against an attack roll by three or more, he gains spin.
Having gained spin, the character has the option to apply a bonus or penalty to the next roll that occurs. Defensive spin must be used on the very next action taken by anyone in the scene (whether it’s a hero’s action or villain’s action). Used this way, spin either adds one or subtracts one from any roll involved in that action (e.g., either the attack roll or the defense roll).
The player who gained spin on his defense chooses how that spin works into the scene. Thus, the only qualifier for using spin is that the character must explain how he was able to help or hinder, even if it’s just as simple as shouting some encouragement or providing a distraction. A player might not always be able to justify using spin. Spin that isn’t used on the next action simply goes away.
<Example>
Note that spin, when used, is an effect that occurs instead of overflow. For example, someone might succeed on a defense by 3 shifts, generating spin. He could use his spin to give someone else a +1 as described above, or he could instead treat those three shifts as overflow, using it to dive clear of an impending explosion, or some other supplemental action.
Spin may affect certain maneuvers; see “Temporary Aspects” earlier in this chapter (page XX). And there are other applications of spin, found throughout this book. In general, spin serves as an easy way of making note that a character has done particularly well on a roll. In particular, skill and stunt uses might also create spin and utilize spin in special ways; see the individual descriptions for more details. The “+1 on the next action” effect of spin, however, only occurs as a result of a defensive roll in a con flict. This is because defensive rolls don’t usually get to use shifts when they succeed ; spin allows for a particularly good roll to be recognized, and not to go “wasted”.
In the Aspects chapter, we’ve already talked about tagging scene aspects for bonuses. Another thing that scene aspects can be used for is the occasional use of one skill in lieu of another, in a way that skill wouldn’t normally be used. To do so, invoke the aspect (spend a fate point) to create a reasonable justification for the unusual skill’s use; the character may use the new skill for as long as the GM considers appropriate. If the new skill has a dramatic impact that is potent for its novelty, it is probably only appropriate for one roll, but sometime the skill may be appropriate for the entire scene.
<Example>
This chapter is focused on getting an idea of what each skill does and why someone might want a particular one for a character. This means that the information offered here is player-focused; it offers a “I have this, what can I do with this” perspective.
Skills can be enhanced by the addition of stunts; stunts are covered in their own chapter (page XX). There are also additional concerns for the GM involving adjudication of the use of these skills; that’s covered in the chapter on “Running the Game” (page XX).
Here, each skill has a description of what it does, and a write-up of how it is most commonly used.
Each skill also has a number of trappings, which are the rules for how to use the skill in certain specific circumstances. Whenever you encounter a trapping, you’ll see the eye glyph ◉ next to it. We’ve given these circumstances names in order to make them easier to reference. In some ways, trappings are like stunts which anyone with the skill can perform. The specific rules governing setting difficulties for these various trappings of a skill are not covered here. You’ll find those guidelines in the Running the Game chapter (starting on page XX, but we’ll cross-reference it for you on a per-skill basis). Here, we’re simply focusing on giving you an idea of what the trappings are.
Skills can sometimes be combined (see page XX). It’s also possible to use one skill to set up a situation that another skill can take advantage of, via maneuvers and temporary aspects (see page XX). Finally, skills can sometimes be used in partnership with one another, via assessments and declarations.
Sometimes skills will be used in careful assessment well in advance of taking action – maybe as part of putting together a plan, or simply observing the target long enough to learn something that would be a critical advantage. This approach is most often used with skills that have an element of perception – including Investigation, Empathy, and even Burglary. Here, the skill is not used to place a temporary aspect so much as discover an existing one. The character making the assessment still can tag this aspect for free, but is still subject to the usual limitations of a free tag – they must do so immediately after revealing it. This usually means that the free tag must be taken within the same scene as the assessment or, if the assessment takes longer than a scene to perform, in the scene which immediately follows. This provides a reward to balance out the time the player might otherwise spend talking through a more cautious plan.
All assessment efforts require the use of a significant chunk of time, usually indicated in the skill write-up. This can allow skills that usually can’t come to bear in more time pressure environments (like a fight) to come to bear thanks to the time invested in advance.
Perception skills only allow the discovery of what already exists. By contrast, knowledge skills will often allow declaration – in other words, using a knowledge skill successfully can allow a player to introduce entirely new facts into play, and then use those facts to his advantage. The new facts take the form of a temporary aspect. The GM is encouraged to use creativity as her primary guideline, when judging the use of knowledge skills. Creative and entertaining facts will be more likely to result in a successful use of a knowledge skill, and thus give rise to a temporary aspect, than boring facts will. For example, an anthropologist with a solid Academics skill might use the declaration ability to state new truths about a tribe the characters have just encountered – and if successful, suddenly the scene or the tribe has an aspect on it in keeping with the fact the player just invented. As with maneuvering and assessment, the first tagging of this aspect is free.
Unlike assessment, declaration doesn’t take any actual in-game time at all – just the knowledge skill to make use of it.
Example for Declaration
A player, whose character is an expert in architecture, attempts declaration: "Many houses of this type have historically had secret doors in the bedrooms to escape police pursuit" The GM allows it, the player succeeds at the roll and 'creates' a secret door that the GM didn't plan. The player and the GM discuss where it ought to lead, etc. PC: "There might be a secret door somewhere near this wall... <thump thump> ah, here it is! Now, to find out how to open it..."
Any aspects brought into play by these methods do not have to go away after they’re used, if the GM wishes them to persist (or if circumstances merely make it reasonable that they hang around). Any subsequent uses of such aspects, however, will cost (or grant!) a fate point, as usual. This does mean that occasionally maneuvers and assessments and declarations will backfire, leading to a compel. Since aspects are involved, such things are easily double-edged!
Finally, when dealing with a target that has multiple aspects on it due to assessment and/or declaration, it is not possible to use multiple “free” tags at the same time. On a given roll, only one “free” tag may be used. Fate points may be spent to tag the other aspects that have been assessed or declared on the same roll, and later rolls may use other free tags.
<Example>
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Academics is a knowledge skill. It measures the character’s “book learning”. Any knowledge that would not explicitly fall under Science, Mysteries, or Art falls under this skill (though some overlap may exist among all of those). Characters with high Academics include scholars of antiquity, professors and know-it-alls.
The main use of Academics is to answer a question. Questions covered by Academics include those of history, literature, sociology or any of the “soft” sciences – in short, most information that is neither art nor science.
The player can ask the GM “What do I know about this subject?” or “What does this mean?” Often, there will be no need to roll, especially if the subject is within the character’s specialty (see Scholar, page XX) but if the GM feels the information is something that should be hard to attain (such as a clue) then she may call for a roll against a difficulty she sets. If the character succeeds, he receives the information. If he fails, he does not, but he may still attempt to research the topic (see below) – or, perhaps more entertainingly, may stumble onto a false lead that gets him deeper into trouble.
Researching a topic is frequently a time-consuming and arduous task, and exactly the sort of thing worth skimming over with a few quick dice rolls. It is treated as an extension of what knowledge the character has – he can answer some questions off the top of his head, and other questions because he knows what book to find the answer in.
As such, research is something that can happen when a character fails an Academics check. Provided the researcher is willing to spend time researching (and that the answer can be found) the only question is how long it will take and how good a library they have access to (more on libraries in a bit).
One important note: because the GM is not always obligated to reveal the difficulty of a given roll, players may not know how much they failed it by, which means they don’t know how long they’ll need to research. Usually they’ll just research until they find the answer, but sometimes, when time is tight, they may be limited to less time. GMs are encouraged to read “Setting Difficulties” (page XX) before making any decision about how to deal with a failed roll.
Academic research requires a library. The quality of the library determines the hardest possible question that can be answered within it (so a question of Good difficulty requires a Good library or better). If a character is attempting to answer a question in a library that’s not equipped to answer it, the GM is encouraged to be up-front about its shortcomings.
Most schools and private individuals have Mediocre, Average, or Fair libraries. Small colleges often have Good libraries while larger institutions may have Great ones. Superb and better libraries are few and far between. Many Libraries also have a specialty or two where they are considered one step higher – for example, Georgetown’s library specializes in law, so it has a Great Library, which is treated as Superb for questions of law. Characters may own libraries of their own; see the Resources skill (page XX) for more.
<Example>
Sometimes the GM just needs to give the group a lot of information, and the character with a high knowledge skill tends to be the conduit of that. When the GM needs to drop a lot of information on the group, she may ask the character with the most knowledge if she can use them as a mouthpiece. Assuming the player agrees, the GM can share all appropriate background, and is encouraged to give the player a fate point for having his character temporarily commandeered by the GM.
The character may use his knowledge to declare facts, filling in minor details which the GM has not mentioned. These facts must be within the field of Academics, and the GM has the right to veto them. However, if the GM is all right with it, she may let the player make a declaration and roll Academics against a difficulty she sets. If successful, the fact is true, and if not, the character is mistaken. Like most Academics rolls, the GM may or may not wish to share the difficulty, so the character may not know if he succeeded.
This is a straight up declaration action, as described earlier (see page XX). If the academic or another character takes action based on the declared fact, that person can tag the aspect that has been introduced. If the academic is wrong, there is no penalty, but there may be complications – at her option, the GM could place a temporary “mistaken” aspect on the academic, compelling it to represent the fall-out (and netting the mistaken academic a fate point!). If the academic was right, the aspect is placed, and is taggable as described earlier – first one being free.
<Example>
For GM advice on setting difficulties for declarations, see page XX.
Languages are part of a good classical education. A character may speak a number of additional languages based on his Academics score. Each step of Academics above Mediocre gives the character knowledge of one additional language (so one at Average, two at Fair, and so on). The player does not need to choose the languages when the character is created; instead, he may simply choose languages in the course of play, as is convenient.
Under normal circumstances, the character may know the answer or not, but will not get a wrong answer. A wrong answer should only be a result of one of two things. First, it may be the result of the compelling of an aspect – the player may be offered a fate point for his character to go haring off on a tangent or to reach the wrong conclusion. Alternately, it may be as a result of an active deception, such as someone planting bad information.
To plant bad information, a character must decide what question (in general) they’re providing false information about. The character must have access to the target’s library (see Research, page XX) and make an Academics roll modified by Deceit (see “Combining Skills”, page XX) in addition to whatever rolls he may need to get in and out of the place where the information is stored.
The result of that roll is the difficulty to spot the false information. When someone tries to discover information that is affected by this deception, he must make an Academics roll as usual. If that roll less than the difficulty set by the deception, then the false information is discovered one step earlier than the real information might be. If the failure is significant (missing the mark by three or more), then the true information may simply be unavailable. If the researcher meets or exceeds the roll for the deception, he finds the false information and recognizes it for what it is.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Alertness is a measure of the character’s regular, passive level of awareness. Specifically, it is the perception skill to notice things the character is not looking for. In an exchange where characters are surprised (and as such, are prevented from choosing which skill to roll), Alertness is the skill which is rolled. In conflicts of an active, physical nature, Alertness determines initiative. Characters with high Alertness include bodyguards, outdoorsmen and criminals of a sneaky variety.
Players will rarely ask to roll Alertness – if they are actively looking for something, Investigation is usually more appropriate. Alertness is more appropriate for things that players and characters do not expect or are not looking for, such as whether they notice a surprise, or if they happen to spot a hidden clue. In short, it is reactive perception. As such, it’s a skill that, more often, the GM calls for people to roll.
Whenever ambushed (see Stealth, page XX), a character may make one final Alertness check against the Stealth of his attacker, in order to see if he is surprised. If he fails this check, his defense skill is considered to be Mediocre for the first exchange.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Art measures the character’s overall artistic ability, covering the gamut of endeavors, from painting to dance to music. This includes knowledge, composition, and performance. Characters with high Art include artists (obviously), aristocrats, and those of the avant garde.
Art is usually either used as a knowledge skill, for knowledge about art, artists, and what it takes to make art, or as a crafting skill, to create a work of art, or as a social skill to entertain.
As a knowledge skill, Art is basically identical to Academics, though the fields it applies to are more limited and more focused – a few shifts of success on an Art roll may “pay out” more information than if someone applied Academics to the same art-related problem.
As a crafting skill, Art is fairly straightforward – characters can make art of virtually any type of a quality equal to their skill. Without stunts, none of them will be masterpieces, but any art that’s Mediocre or better can be displayed without any real embarrassment.
Sometimes, however, creations must be improvised, and that can be a little more fast and furious. This usually takes a few minutes, and the character can make a roll to create their piece. Generally speaking, for the duration of the scene where it is displayed, the quality of the piece is equal to their roll, with it degrading one step in each subsequent scene.
While Academics covers the technical building blocks of communication, language, grammar and the like, Art covers the expression of ideas, and as such, covers most means of broad communication, like writing. These are not “pure” art forms, however, and a character’s other skills play a role in their application, so a character’s writing is usually modified by their Academics. There are exceptions, such as dry, academic documents (which use pure Academics) and poetry (which uses just Art).
Public speaking is a similar creature, but it is more beholden to the charisma and presence of the speaker – in those cases, Art modifies whatever skill (Rapport, Intimidate, Leadership or Deceit) the character is using, as long as there is a creative aspect to the communication.
Art can also be used to shape the mood of a group. Whenever a group is exposed to an artist’s work, such as at a performance or a show, the scene may gain an aspect appropriate to the performance. Normally, this aspect only remains on the scene for the duration of the performance, but some stunts allow this to extend into subsequent scenes.
In effect, this is a declaration on the part of the artist, but limited to declaring mood and emotional impact, rather than anything specific. In general, art inspires passion in a broad sense; for example, in may make someone feel hopeful, but not determine what he’ll feel hopeful about. When making a standard performance, any temporary aspects that result – either by treating the performance as a maneuver, or as an attack yielding consequences – must also be broad and nonspecific. “Hopeful” is good; “Hopeful That Doktor Herborn Will Be Defeated” is not. There is an exception; a performance that very clearly has a target, such as a satire, may plant fairly specific opinions of a target, with the difficulty based on the status of the target.
Imitation has a long-standing place in the art world, and thus Art is quite good at making fakes, be they “lost” symphonies or falsified documents. When a character uses Art to make a forgery, the difficulty depends on the complexity of the thing being duplicated. Having an original on hand can help reduce the difficulty. Deceit should also be used to complement the effort.
For more on how forgery difficulties are set, see page XX.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
This measures the character’s general physical capability, excepting raw power, which is a function of Might. Athletics covers running, jumping, climbing, and other broadly physical activities you might find in a track and field event. Characters with high Athletics include athletes, soldiers and outdoorsmen.
Athletics is often the “when in doubt” physical skill, and it can get a lot of use. There’s sometimes confusion as to when to use Athletics and when to use Might. As a rule of thumb, Athletics is used to move yourself, Might is used to move other things and people. When an action calls for both, they may modify one another. If there is no clear indication which should be primary, default to Athletics as primary and Might as secondary.
This is not the Olympics – jumping is something one does to get over obstacles or across bottomless chasms, and in those situations the GM will set a fixed difficulty to be met or exceeded. Generally, that difficulty is going to be the bare minimum to clear the distance, so beating that by a few shifts is often a good idea. Outside of that, jumping is often just considered an extension of normal movement. For GM advice on setting difficulties and designing jumping challenges, see page XX.
A character may use their Athletics to move faster by taking a sprint action. Normally, characters may only move one zone on their turn by turning over one of their shifts as a supplemental action. Characters who spend their entire action moving are sprinting; rolling Athletics against a target difficulty of Mediocre, they may cross a number of zones and borders equal to or less than the total shifts of effect. In the absence of borders, characters can always move a minimum of one zone. See page XX for additional details.
Athletics is the skill for climbing. The GM will set a difficulty for how hard it is to climb a given obstacle. At the GM’s option, shifts may be used to speed the process if the character succeeds. For GM advice on setting difficulties and designing climbing challenges, see page XX.
Athletics can be used as a defensive skill to respond to attacks in physical combat, and works very well in conjunction with taking a full defense action (yielding a +2 to the roll; see page XX). The one important thing to note is that taking a defense action means that you can’t use Athletics for other things, like sprinting.
When characters fall, they bypass the physical stress track entirely, and hop right to a consequence, with the severity of the consequence being determined by length of the fall. Characters who fall can roll Athletics to try to limit the severity of the result. For guidelines on the severity of falls, please see the chapter on Running the Game, page XX.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
The ability to overcome security systems, from alarms to locks, falls under the auspices of this skill. This also includes knowledge of those systems and the ability to assess them. Characters with a high Burglary include burglars, private eyes and even some cops.
Burglary can also be used as a very specialized perception skill, specifically to assess the weaknesses and strengths of a potential target. Here, the character is trying to determine the existence of inobvious or hidden aspects, using assessment (see page XX). This usage of Burglary can be blurred together with something like declaration, if the player comes up with an entertaining new aspect to place on the target of his future burglaring. Thus, either the GM can indicate that some flaw exists and has been discovered, or the player can make a declaration about a flaw in the security that he intends to defeat.
Regardless of the method, the character then makes a roll against a difficulty determined by the GM, and if he succeeds, that fact is true, and may grant a +2 bonus to a roll where that information is useful. When a player is making declarations, casing follows the same guidelines as the minor details trapping for Academics (page XX), but is limited to security facts (including potential escape routes). As in either case this reveals an aspect waiting to be tagged, the first +2 is free, and subsequent uses on other rolls cost a fate point, as always.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Contacting is the ability to find things out from people. A character may know a guy, who knows a guy, or maybe he just knows the right questions to ask. Whatever his methods, he know hows to find things out by asking around. Characters with high Contacting include reporters, private eyes and spies.
A character with a high Contacting skill knows a wide variety of people and has at least a mild amount of connection with virtually any organization. There are Contacting stunts which give a character deep ties to a specific field like crime or business, and those allow a deeper level of contact within that field.
Contacting does not work in a vacuum. The character needs to be able to get out and talk to people for it to be useful, and when that isn’t possible, neither is Contacting. Contacting is also limited by familiarity – a character finding himself in an entirely unfamiliar environment may encounter difficulties increased by as much as +4. Thankfully, Contacting also covers the skill for building new social networks, so if a character stays in an area for any amount of time, he can diminish the difficulty by one per week spent.
As with the research trapping from Academics (page XX), gathering information begins with a question, except the character goes out and talks to people, trying to find the answer to a question like, “Who’s trying to kill me?” The player describes where his character is going to talk to folks (usually “the street”), the GM sets the difficulty, and the player rolls at normal, at which point the GM passes on whatever the player has discovered. If the Skills roll fails, then the research time investment table may be applied; instead of needing a library, the character needs people to talk to. These people must have the right level of access to answer the question; this corresponds to the “quality” of a library. If the character is being “shut out” for one reason or another, no amount of dogged persistence through time investment is going to help. When that happens, it usually means there’s another problem the player needs to solve first.
One important warning about authenticity – being the most informed guy and knowing all the latest gossip isn’t necessarily the same thing. Contacting finds out what people know, and people always have their own biases. Information is only as good as the sources it comes from. Contacting rarely tests the veracity of the information provided – save by the discovery, through several sources, that contradictory answers are coming from different sources. If a character wants to determine the truthfulness of the information he’s finding, that’s a more in-depth conversation, and may involve Empathy, Rapport, Deceit, and more.
Contacting also keeps the character apprised of the general state of things, and acts as a sort of social Alertness, keeping the character abreast of things that might be coming his way. It’s far from foolproof, and like Alertness, the GM is usually the one to call for a roll – a player can’t go out looking for a tip off (though he can tell the GM he’s going out talking to his contacts just to check on what’s up, which is a good hint that he’d like a tip off ).
Contacting is also useful for planting rumors, not just for ferreting them out. The player simply tells the GM what rumor he wants to plant, and the GM may assign bonuses and penalties based on how preposterous or reasonable the rumor is. The GM then uses the final roll to determine what the result of the rumor is.
It’s worth noting: the character’s roll is also the target for someone else’s Contacting roll to find out who’s been spreading rumors, so be careful!
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Deceit is the ability to lie, simple as that. Be it through word or deed, it’s the ability to convey falsehoods convincingly. Characters with high Deceit include grifters, spies, and politicians.
For simple deceptions, a contest between Deceit and an appropriate skill (usually Empathy, Alertness or Investigation) is all that is necessary, but for deeper deceptions, like convincing someone of a lie or selling someone the Brooklyn Bridge, a social conflict is appropriate, complete with Deceit attacks and social stress being dealt. Sometimes, Deceit is the undercurrent rather than the forefront of an action, and as such, the skill may be used secondarily to modify, restrict, or complement another skill’s use.
Deceit does cover disguises, using the disguised character’s Deceit skill against any attempts to penetrate the disguise. Such disguises are dependant upon what props are available, and won’t hold up to intense scrutiny (specifically, an Investigation roll) without the use of stunts, but they’re fine for casual inspection (Alertness rolls).
A character with Deceit may opt to use Deceit instead of Rapport to defend against another character using Empathy to get a read on him. This roll is modified by Rapport.
If the character loses his defense roll, then the Empathy reader may proceed as usual – in attempting to hide himself, the character has blundered and revealed a truth. If the character wins the roll, however, he may provide a false aspect to the reader, sending her off with an utterly fabricated notion of him.
When a character tries to take advantage of an aspect that they falsely think is there, it can end up being a waste of a fate point or worse! (See Guessing Aspects, page XX)
Deceit can be used for more than just dodging attention; it can be used to riposte a social query with a web of deception. When another character initiates a social contest, including an Empathy read, the character turns the tables, using his Deceit as an offensive skill, and representing any Skills particularly convincing lies as consequences. This is a dangerous game though, as the deceiver is opting not to put his false face forward, and if his opponent succeeds, he’ll hit upon the truth. However, if the deceiver outclasses his opponent significantly, this can be a powerful technique.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Drive is the ability to operate a motorcar, one of the greatest inventions of recent memory. Mister Ford has put these all over the roads of America, and the first folks truly comfortable behind the wheel are emerging. Why, the most daring speed-demons among them can make the most of its 20 horsepower, nearing speeds of 45 miles per hour! Characters with high Drive include chauffeurs, racers and getaway drivers.
Drive is pretty easy to use. Trying to do something in a car? Roll Drive, simple as that. If a character trying to do something fancy, like drive and shoot at the same time, Drive will restrict the skill being used (not modify, as a high Drive skill won’t make someone a better shot).
Cars inevitably lead to chases, one of the major trappings of this skill. In a chase, a character’s Drive skill is used to close the distance between him and the car he’s chasing (or increase the distance if he’s the one being chased!). It’s also used to bring quick resolution to the issues brought up by terrain and other obstacles. For an extensive treatment of car chase rules, see the GM section on page XX.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
This is the ability to understand what other people are thinking and feeling. This can be handy if a character is trying to spot a liar or wants to tell someone what that person wants to hear. Empathy is usable as a defense against Deceit, and is the basis for initiative in a social conflict. Characters with a high Empathy include gamblers, reporters and socialites.
Empathy can be used to figure out what makes another character tick.
Given at least a half hour of intense, personal interaction, a character may make an Empathy roll against the target’s Rapport roll (see page XX for more on Empathy vs. Rapport when reading people). This is an assessment action (see page XX). If he gains one or more shifts on the roll, he discovers one of the target’s aspects which he is not already aware of. It may not reveal the aspect in precise detail, but it should paint a good general picture ; for instance, it might not give the name of the character’s brother, but it will reveal that there is someone with that relationship. This process may be repeated, taking longer each time and ultimately can reveal a number of aspects equal to the character’s Empathy skill’s value (minimum one) – so, a Fair skill (value 2) would allow two aspects revealed through at least two different rolls.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Endurance is the ability to keep performing physical activity despite fatigue or injury. It’s a measure of the body’s resistance to shock and effort. In addition to fatigue, Endurance measures how well a character shrugs off poisons and disease (for a treatment of poisons, see page XX). Characters with a high Endurance include explorers, athletes, and sailors.
Endurance is a passive skill. Players will very rarely need to ask to roll Endurance; instead, the GM will call for rolls when appropriate.
Endurance can particularly come into play in long-term actions, as a secondary, restricting skill, where the character’s ability to keep performing at peak is limited by how able he is to overcome fatigue and pain; this is why top athletes have their Endurance skill on par with (or better than!) their Athletics skill. Someone without a solid Endurance skill may be a good sprinter, but will find themselves winded and falling behind in a marathon.
Endurance also determines a character’s Health capacity (the length of a character’s Health stress track), since Health stress represents physical wounds and fatigue.
By default, players have 5 boxes for their Health stress track. Better-than- Mediocre Endurance increases the number of boxes as shown here.
| Endurance | Health |
| Average-Fair | +1 |
| Good-Great | +2 |
| Superb -Fantastic | +3 |
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX; Gadgets and Gizmos, page XX)
Engineering is the understanding of how machinery works, both for purposes of building it and taking it apart. While it is complimented by an understanding of Science, Engineering can just as easily be the result of getting one’s hands dirty and having a natural feel for how things work. Characters with a high Engineering include inventors, mechanics, and frequently, drivers and pilots.
An engineer with time and tools can build a variety of items. For details on how to go about that, check out the Gadgets and Gizmos chapter (see page XX).
Engineering can be used to repair devices, given the right tools and enough time. Details on difficulties are in the GM’s guidelines (see page XX).
Engineering is also the skill for unmaking things. Given time and tools, an engineer can topple virtually any building or structure. In those circumstances, Engineering works like a very peculiar combat skill, possibly resulting in maneuvers or weirdly indirect attacks (like setting up a bridge to collapse when someone walks across it).
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
This is the ability to hold one’s own in a fistfight, with no weapons available but one’s two mitts and a load of attitude! With specialized training, this may include the practice of more disciplined fisticuffs, such as the martial arts of the Orient. As a combat skill, Fists allows characters to defend themselves as well as attack. Fists fighters are also well-versed in a variety of fighting styles from all over the world, and may use this skill as a limited sort of knowledge skill covering those areas. Characters with high Fists include sailors, thugs, and martial artists.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Some games are pure luck, but a good gambler doesn’t play those. Gambling is the knowledge of how to gamble and moreover, how to win when gambling. It also includes knowledge of secondary things like bookmaking. Characters with a high Gambling include gamblers and dapper secret agents.
A gambler can usually find a game when he’s short on cash – or just in the mood for sport. Finding a game, or obtaining an invitation to one, requires a Contacting roll (complemented by Gambling), with a difficulty equal to the quality of the game (page XX). Characters with the Big Man stunt (see page XX) can automatically find a game with a quality up to their Gambling skill, but such a game is automatically high stakes (see below).
The quality of the game determines the base value of its pot, unless the gambler declares he’s looking for a high stakes game, in which case the pot is two steps higher. However, a high stakes game also includes the potential for complications, like sore losers, or strange table stakes. Once at the table, the gambler’s Gambling skill roll will determine if he wins or loses, and if the pot is bigger than his Resources, that might be a problem. The particulars of running a Gambling focused scene are covered in the GM’s section, page XX.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Sometimes characters just need to shoot things. Thankfully, there’s a skill for that. With a gun, characters can shoot up to two zones away – three if it’s a rifle (borders may or may not count, depending on their nature). Unfortunately, without a gun in hand, or at least close at hand, the skill isn’t much use.
Guns can also be used to cover non-gun weapons that shoot at a distance, such as bows and strange electrical spears that shoot lightning, though usually with a small penalty. If, at the time the player takes the skill, he decides the character is focused on using a method of shooting other than a gun, he may rename this skill to something more appropriate (e .g ., Bows) and instead face the familiarity penalty when using actual guns. Under such an Skills option, most Guns stunts are still available (though Two Bow Joe might be a little tricky).
The Guns skill does not allow characters to defend themselves as well as attack; it trades the a defense component for ability to act over greater range. A character who’s both a good shot and good at getting out of the way will also want to invest in either Athletics or Fists (or both!).
Guns users are also well-versed in a variety of small arms, large arms, and ammunitions, and may use this skill as a limited sort of knowledge skill covering those areas.
Characters with high Guns include soldiers, assassins, and hunters. If someone is devoted to using Guns as a strong component of their fighting style, it can safely be assumed that they possess at least one or two guns, regardless of Resources rating (though whether or not they will be allowed to such things whereever they go is another matter entirely). This is, of course, subject to the rigors of character concept and GM approval.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
There are more graceful social skills for convincing people to do what a character wants, but those skills tend not to have the pure efficiency of communicating that failing to comply may well result in some manner of harm. Nothing personal.
Using Intimidation is a blatant social attack, which someone can defend against with their Resolve. This is the skill for interrogation (as opposed to interviewing) as well as scaring the bejeezus out of someone. Even without a basis for fear, Intimidation can occasionally be used as provocation, to produce a strong “burst” of negative emotional response (such as provoking someone into a fight, or at least to anger). Regardless, it’s never pretty.
Characters with high Intimidation include mob enforcers, bouncers and “bad” cops.
If there is a reason for the target to believe that the intimidating character is capable of harming the target when they can’t do anything about it, such as if the target is unarmed and the intimidator is wielding a weapon, it is worth a +1 bonus, +2 if the target is completely helpless. Conversely, if the target is the armed one, his defense roll is likely at +1, and can be at +2 or more if the target is very secure in their position (such as being behind something solid, or having lots of backup). If these circumstances suddenly change, it’s certainly call for another Intimidation roll!
The lesson here is simple: Intimidation works best from a position of power. Achieve that position first, then apply the skill.
If things get to the point of a face off, there are a lot of other actions an opponent can do other than stand there and be intimidated, such as disengage or pull out a weapon. However, one of the real strengths of Intimidation is at the first flash of contact, when people instinctively get out of the way of someone intimidating. Intimidation can establish a powerful, menacing first impression. If the character is actively doing something intimidating, he may roll a quick contest of Intimidation against the opponent’s Resolve. If successful, the target is taken aback for a moment, generally long enough to brush past them, though usually with plenty of time to call for help if appropriate. This cannot be done in a fight, or against any target who is already ready for a fight, but in those “first contact” situations, Intimidation is gold for control.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Investigation is the ability to look for things and, hopefully, find them. This is the skill used when the character is actively looking for something, such as searching a crime scene or trying to spot a hidden enemy. Characters
Investigation is the skill most commonly called for when the character wants to look for something like clues. It is also useful for eavesdropping or any other activity where someone is trying to observe something over a period of time. When looking for deep patterns and hidden flaws, Investigation may be used as an assessment action (see above, page XX).
This makes Investigation the flipside of Alertness; it is mindful, deliberate perception, in contrast to Alertness’s passive mode of operation. This also means that an equivalent Investigation effort is nearly always going to yield better, more in-depth, information than an Alertness effort would; the downside is that Investigation is far more time consuming.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Leadership is a multi-faceted skill. A good leader knows how to direct and inspire people, but he also understands how to run an organization. As such, the Leadership skill covers acts of both types. Characters with a high Leadership include military officers, politicians, bureaucrats, and lawyers.
Any organization which the character is in charge of uses his Leadership as its default value for any question of how organized it is. This establishes the difficulty for things like bribery or theft, and also gives a general sense of how quickly and efficiently the organization acts.
A good leader has knowledge of organizations and the rules that govern them, including knowledge of laws, bribery and other means of dealing with red tape; this is why Leadership is a key skill for lawyers. Leadership serves as an all-purpose knowledge skill for knowing how to act in a given organization, including important things like how much to bribe.
Leadership can be used to direct troops, workers or any other group activity. Any time the character is in a position to give orders to a group of minions, he may apply his Leadership as a modifying secondary skill on the minions’ skill roll. In a conflict, offering this assistance takes the character’s action, but can affect the minions attached to him. While attached minions cannot normally act, when they are being directed by the character with leadership, they act as if they were not attached.
<Example>
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
This is a measure of pure physical power, be it raw strength or simply the knowledge of how to use the strength one has. For lifting, moving and breaking things, Might is the skill of choice. Might may be used indirectly as well, to modify, complement, or limit some skill uses. Characters with a high Might include strongmen, laborers, and lords of the jungle.
In combat, Might can be used to help with particular applications of Fists and Weapons – if force is a very significant element at play, Might will modify the primary skill. Furthermore, someone successfully engaging an opponent in a one-on-one exchange can potentially switch from Fists to Might, if executing a hold or other wrestling move where it’s less about hitting someone as it is about overwhelming them with physical force. Such a switch would result from a maneuver of some sort.
Might is the skill of choice for applying brute force to break things in halves or smaller pieces, and includes breaking boards, knocking down doors and the like. Using Might, items can be damaged over time or broken with a single dramatic blow. (For guidelines on breaking things, see page XX .)
Might also controls how much the character can lift or move. The weight of the thing being moved sets the difficulty for the roll. (For a discussion of weight and the lifting of heavy things, see page XX .)
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
There is more to the world than science has explained yet. Ethereal photography, mesmerism and other mentalist tricks, rituals of lost pre-Roman empires, secrets of the distant East – all these and more are known to a master of Mysteries. Characters with high Mysteries include mystics, explorers, and adventurous archaeologists.
The actual use of Mysteries is fairly flexible – in appropriate situations it can serve as a knowledge skill like Academics, a perception skill like Alertness, or even something else entirely.
The GM may occasionally call upon a character to roll Mysteries in the same way she might ask for Alertness rolls. As the name implies, this will tend to be for things that are strange and mysterious, so predicting when it’s applicable can be hard to do. Occasionally, it may allow the player an assessment action to discover hidden aspects of a locale that are shrouded in mystic and arcane ways.
Mysteries can be used for hypnosis. This is more of a parlor trick than anything else, useful on the weak minded when you’ve got lots of time to put on a show.
Technically speaking, Mesmerism is a basis for a mental conflict, but practically speaking, both parties need to be willing participants, so it’s not really a conflict at all. People are hypnotized because they want to be, and they suffer no lasting consequences. There are no post-hypnotic suggestions or other mind control tricks (though certain mesmerism-focused Mysteries stunts break this rule).
Despite those limitations, mesmerism does have some practical uses. First, it can be useful to recover lost memories. A mesmerist can put another character in a trance and give them a chance to try to remember a scene more precisely.
Additionally, a Mesmerist can put a willing subject into a calming trance to help them ignore external distractions. This can be very useful in leading a panicked arachnophobe though a room full of spiders or the like.
Mysteries can be used in the same way Academics can, for research of exceptionally esoteric topics. The main limitation is that libraries necessary for this sort of research are few and far between, though characters may have an Arcane Library of their own if they have sufficient Resources (see page XX).
Casting tarot, throwing chicken bones or reading horoscopes – a character can use Mysteries to try to make guesses about the future. The knowledge gleaned is never terribly specific, but it allows the player to determine if a course of action is auspicious. The character should summarize the fortune as best they can, ideally to something that could go on a fortune cookie. The fortune may be general (“The cock will crow when the thunder strikes”) or about a specific target (“You will meet a tall, dark stranger”) but that’s the limit on the specificity. The GM can guide a player through building a proper fortune, using her guidelines (page XX).
Fortune-telling is a form of declaration. The character may, once per session, make a prediction, and make a roll against a difficulty set by the GM. If the roll is successful, it’s a true fortune, and there is now an aspect that represents it. If the target of the fortune was a person, they receive the temporary aspect for the duration of the adventure. If it was a general prediction, it is considered to be a scene aspect on every scene for the duration of the adventure.
Mysteries can be used to create artifacts and talismans in much the same way that Engineering can. This requires an Arcane Workshop of appropriate level, but otherwise follows most of the same guidelines as Engineering (see page XX).
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Perhaps even more exciting than the automobile is the airplane. The Great War brought numerous advances in aviation into the world, and the pilot is still a dashing, heroic figure. With the end of the war, the commercial and practical applications of aviation are beginning to be explored.
Characters with a high Pilot are usually professional pilots, though it is sometimes the domain of the idle rich. In play, the trappings of Drive can easily apply to Pilot as well.
Pilots with a low Resources skill probably don’t own their own aircraft, but it is entirely likely that they can charter one.
Alternately, certain stunts may lead to the possession of an aircraft, regardless of Resources.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
The flipside of Intimidation, this is the ability to talk with people in a friendly fashion and make a good impression, and perhaps convince them to see one’s side of things. Any time a character wants to communicate without an implicit threat, this is the skill to use, which makes it appropriate for interviewing. Characters with high Rapport include grifters, reporters, and good cops.
The first time a character meets someone, the GM may call for a quick Rapport roll to determine the impression the character makes. For more guidelines governing first impressions, see page XX.
Rapport controls the face the character shows to the world, and that includes what they choose not to show. As such, when a character tries to use Empathy to get a read on a character, it is opposed by Rapport. If the character wishes to simply reveal nothing, they may use Rapport and take the equivalent of a defensive action, gaining a +2 on their roll.
This is over and above the “default” of a Rapport defense because it is openly obvious: the character is wiping all emotions off of his face. It also requires that the character be consciously aware that someone’s trying to get a read off of him. If the character is trying not to look like he’s actively warding off the read, or isn’t really aware he’s being read, then he isn’t taking a full defensive action, and does not get the +2.
Characters skilled in Rapport are able to control which side of their personality is shown to others, seeming to open up while actually guarding their deepest secrets. Since true things are still revealed about the character, this is not an inherently deceptive action. When a character opens up, he defends against an Empathy read with Rapport, as usual. If his opponent succeeds and generates at least one shift, he finds something out, as usual. If not, he still discovers an aspect – but it’s one of the defending character’s choice.
This can effectively be used to stonewall someone without the obvious poker face of Closing Down. On top of it all, the character opening up can always choose to reveal something that the other character already knows about.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Resolve is a measure of a character’s self-mastery, as expressed through things like courage and willpower. It’s an indicator of coolness under fire and also represents the drive not to quit. It plays a key part in efforts to resist torture or the strange mental powers of psychic villainy.
Resolve is almost always rolled in response to something, rather than on its own. Its primary role is as defense against most kinds of social manipulation or distraction. Resolve also shines in situations which have spun very much out of control. Characters with a high Resolve have a distinct advantage in continuing to keep their head about them and respond calmly. Similarly, when all seems lost, a character with a strong Resolve is often capable of soldiering on. Resolve is the mental or social parallel to physical Endurance.
Resolve also determines a character’s Composure capacity (the length of the Composure stress track), indicating the character’s resilience in the face of mental, emotional, and social stress. By default, players have a Composure capacity of 5, but they may increase that capacity based upon their Resolve. Better than Mediocre Resolve adds more boxes to the stress track as shown here.
| Resolve | Composure |
| Average-Fair | +1 |
| Good-Great | +2 |
| Superb -Fantastic | +3 |
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Usually Resources is simply a measure of available wealth, but the specific form this takes, from a secret family silver mine to a well invested portfolio, can vary from character to character (and may be indicated and enhanced by their aspects). Usually this skill passively informs the GM what the character’s available resources are, but Resources may still be rolled for large expenditures, like purchases and bribes. Some large-scale conflicts may be about trying to out-spend the other guy; here, Resources can act as an attack or defense skill.
Note: characters who have access to a fairly sized organization's resources can act as if they have Resources at Fair and, with the backing of the organization, can potentially make bigger purchases. These expenditures are tracked by the organization, and as such, if subterfuge is important, personal resources are a wiser choice.
Characters with high Resources include robber barons, aristocrats and successful criminals.
The cost of items is measured on the adjective ladder (for an examination of the costs of things, please see page XX). Characters can buy reasonable quantities of anything of a value less than their Resources without worr ying about it. For items greater than or equal to their Resources, they need to roll against the cost of the thing. If successful, the character can afford the item; if not, they can’t. Characters can only make one Resources roll per scene.
Characters are generally assumed to have all the tools they would normally need to do their job, whether that job is fixing engines or shooting people. Still, sometimes a situation will arise where something needs to be bought. When that happens, the price is measured in terms of how much Resources it requires.
Characters are assumed to live in accordance to their means, which may mean that rich characters may not even need to go shopping. Generally speaking, if something costs two steps less than the character’s Resources skill, he probably has one already, assuming it’s something that would make sense for him to have previously obtained.
Part of the passive measure of Resources is the tools and spaces the character has access to. Workspaces are environments where a character can perform a certain type of work, and owning and maintaining a world-class lab or library requires a certain amount of resources.
Characters may use their Resources to set up the tools they need for their job. A character’s home may have, for free, a single Library, Lab, Workshop, Arcane Library or Arcane workshop of a quality equal to their (Resources-2). As described in Academics, above, the quality of a workplace determines the highest possible difficulty of a “question” or project that can be pursued there.
For the various types of skills which need workspaces, the breakdown is as shown in the following table. See the respective skills for more details.
| Skill | Work | Workplace |
| Academics | Academic Research | Library |
| Science | Lab Work | Lab |
| Engineering | Gadgeteering | Workshop |
| Mysteries | Arcane Research | Arcane Library |
| Mysteries | Artificing | Arcane Workshop |
If the character wishes to have a specialized workspace, such as a workshop that can only work on guns, they may have it at a quality equal to their (Resources-1) instead. Higher quality workspaces may be constructed, but will require a Resources roll with a difficulty equal to the quality +2 (or only +1 in the case of a specialized space), and will not be made immediately available at the time of purchase (though additional shifts may be spent to reduce time, as usual).
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
Not just science, but “Science!” Science holds the promise of revealing all the world’s secrets to mankind. This skill represents a broad knowledge of entific method, and includes the field of medicine. Characters with a high Science include scientists and physicians, but any gentleman of quality has at least some familiarity with the sciences.
Science can be used to answer all manner of questions, provided there’s time and equipment to look into them. A scientist looking to solve a problem should figure out what question he’s trying to answer, like “What killed this man?” or “What is this object composed of ?”. The GM will call for a roll to see if the character can answer the question. This will require a lab of some sort, and it’s possible that some questions can’t be answered without the right equipment. In the end, this functions the same as Academics performing research in a library (see page XX).
Pulp scientists are broadly versed, and this includes a basic understanding of medicine. A character can use the Science skill for first aid and more advanced medicine. See page XX for a discussion of the difficulties in using Science for medical purposes.
More importantly, Science here means pulp science. Do mathematical equations Is there a cure for lycantrophy and vampirism? Of course there is, and Dr. Thanatos has a glowing syringe to prove it in his bag! Is phlogiston, the subatomic particle of fire, a valid theory? My friend, not only is it valid, but I’d like to show you my phlotomic bomb!
In practice, this simply means nearly anything can be explained with “Science!” It may not necessarily make sense to anyone other than the person doing the explaining, but it at least sounds authoritative, and sometimes it’s even right. When confronted with a challenge, the character can apply a scientific explanation, and roll against a difficulty set by the GM. This is a declaration action. If a character acts in accordance with the resulting scientific advice, and he succeeds on the roll, he gains a +2 bonus or a reroll on the action, by tagging the aspect he’s introduced. The science of this declaration doesn’t really need to be accurate to the real world – it just needs to sounds scientific, and can even just be regular advice using long scientific words. Since the bonus comes from tagging an aspect, the first one’s free, and subsequent uses will cost a fate point.
<Example>
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
The hand can certainly be quicker than the eye. This skill covers fine, dexterous activities like stage magic, pickpocketing, and replacing an idol with a bag of sand without tripping a trap. While Athletics is appropriate for gross physical activities, most things requiring manual speed and precision falls under this skill (that said, if you’re picking a lock, use Burglary). Characters with a high Sleight of Hand include stage magicians, pickpockets, and jugglers.
Picking a pocket is a quick contest between Sleight of Hand and the target’s Alertness (which may be complemented by the target’s own Sleight of Hand). Due to the difficulty of this sort of work, the target usually receives a +2 bonus, as if he were performing a full defense against the action. If the target is distracted by something else, he loses the +2 bonus. If anyone else is in a position to observe the attempt, they also may make Alertness rolls to spot the attempt (though they don’t gain the +2).
Characters may use Sleight of Hand to try to hide things in plain sight, and may use Sleight of Hand to oppose any perception check for something that they could try to hide, misplace, or distract attention from. When a character uses this skill to hide something, his skill roll indicates the difficulty of any Investigation rolls to find it.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
This is the ability to remain unseen and unheard. Directly opposed by Alertness or Investigation, this ability covers everything from skulking in the shadows to hiding under the bed. Characters with a high Stealth include burglars, assassins, and sneaky children.
When a character is hiding, he’s remaining perfectly still and (hopefully) out of sight. Lighting, obstacles and other environmental factors can affect the player’s roll, and the result of his Stealth roll is the basis for any contest with a searcher’s Alertness or Investigation.
Skulking is the art of moving while trying to remain unnoticed. It uses many of the same rules as Hiding, but is somewhat more difficult for obvious reasons.
While we can be sure that heroes would never strike an opponent from ambush, they may end up on the receiving end of such nefarious actions! When a strike is made from ambush, the target gets one last Alertness check to see if he notices something at the last moment. On a success, the target(s) can defend normally. If that Alertness roll fails, the attack is made with the target’s first defense roll at Mediocre.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
This is the skill of outdoorsmen. It covers hunting, trapping, tracking, building fires, and lots of other wilderness skills that a civilized man has no use for. Characters with a high Survival include explorers, hunters, scouts, and lords of the jungle.
Survival also covers the breadth of interaction with animals, from training them to communicating with them, albeit in a limited fashion. This includes handling beasts of burden and carriage animals, as well as common pets. Survival serves as a stand-in for all social skills when dealing with animals. Not to say animals are great conversationalists, but when one is trying to soothe or stare down an animal, Survival is the skill to roll.
The horse is not yet absent from the landscape, and other exotic beasts occasionally need riding across deserts and through time-forgotten jungles. The Survival skill may be used for riding animals, and should operate much as Drive does when it comes to chases.
Survival also covers the basics of riding. Characters looking to be accomplished horsemen should consider the Equestrian stunt from Athletics (page XX), but for getting by and not falling off a horse, Survival does the job.
Whether the character personally commands a mount may be subject to character concept or judicious application of the Resources skill. Truly exceptional mounts are the domain of stunts.
Survival can be used to construct blinds and other ways to help remain hidden outdoors. On a Mediocre roll, a character can build a blind or otherwise create a place to hide, which lets Survival modify Stealth rolls. Such a construction takes a few hours to build, and will last a day, plus one extra day per shift.
If characters need to scrounge up something from the wilderness – sticks, bones, sharp rocks, vines that can serve as rope and so on – they can roll Survival to find these things.
(Stunts, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
This is the skill for fighting with weapons, from swords to knives to axes to clubs to whips. The exact weapon is more of a choice of style than anything else, as this covers everything from fencing in European salons to sailors using knives and batons on the docks.
The Weapons skill also covers the ability to throw small handheld weapons up to one zone away, or to use weapons (like a whip) with unusually long reach to attack adjacent zones, so a character would use this skill to be a good knife fighter and knife thrower. This gives Weapons-focused characters a small leg up on folks who fight with their Fists, with the downside that a Weapons user needs to have a weapon in hand in order to make much use of the skill.
As a combat skill, Weapons inherently carries the ability to defend oneself in a fight and as such, may be rolled for defense. Weapons users are also well-versed in a variety of fighting styles and weapons, and may use this skill as a limited sort of knowledge skill covering those areas.
Characters with high Weapons include sailors, fencers, and some kinds of athletes and circus performers.
If someone is devoted to using Weapons as a strong component of their fighting style, it can safely be assumed that they possess the sufficient weaponry in order to make use of the skill, regardless of Resources rating. This is, of course, subject to the rigors of character concept and GM approval.
Stunts exist to provide guaranteed situational benefits, or special abilities or minor powers, under particular circumstances.
A stunt may grant a character the ability to use a skill under unusual circumstances, such as using it in a broader array of situations, substituting it for another skill, or using it in a complementary fashion to another skill. A stunt might allow a character to gain an effect roughly equal to two shifts, when used in a specific way, or otherwise grant other small effects. Put more simply, stunts allow the usual rules about skills to be broken – or at least bent.
Some stunts may have prerequisites (other stunts or even aspects). Particularly potent stunts may also require the use of a fate point in order to activate. In general, a character should not take a stunt tied to a skill he does not have at least at Average.
What follows is not a comprehensive list of stunts. GMs (and players under GM supervision) are encouraged to create their own to fit their game. The important thing to keep in mind is that entry level stunts – without prerequisites – are the baseline; if the effect of the stunt is really unusual or particularly potent, it may be somewhere down the line of a chain of stunts.
<Example>
The stunts in this chapter are presented skill by skill, and under each skill they are further divided into thematic groups. Each group usually has one or more “entry level” stunts – ones that don’t have prerequisites – and several which require one or more of those entry level stunts to be taken first.
When building a character quickly, take a look at these groups – you may find it easiest to simply take all the stunts within a group, as they are all thematically similar, and can quickly establish what your character’s niche is. As mentioned in Character Creation, characters start with five stunts. As you’ll see later in the Tips and Tricks chapter, characters may be able to gain additional stunts as the game progresses.
In order to help separate the stunts from the skill and category headings, you’ll see a star symbol ✪ next to each stunt listed.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
Normally, someone may only speak a number of additional languages equivalent to the value of his Academics skill. With this stunt, your character may speak five additional languages.
<quote>
Requires Linguist.
There is no “mainstream” earthly language you cannot read or speak – no need to pick your languages. In addition, you may use your usual language “slots” to read and speak languages you have no business having learned, such as languages from lost fantastic cultures (Atlantis, Erehwon, Lemuria), of extraterrestrial or extradimensional origin, etc.
Your slots remain increased by the Linguist stunt, so someone with Average Academics and these two stunts can speak every normal language on the planet, plus six (1+5) very unusual ones. The Linguist stunt may be taken multiple times in order to increase this number.
<quote> The character’s prodigious reading has paid off in spades, and he is able to recall minute details from even the most obscure literary works. The character is always considered to have a library on hand of a quality equal to his Academics skill, enabling him to answer questions with a base difficulty less than or equal to his Academics skill, using nothing other than his brain and some time for contemplation. Additionally, any research performed by this character in a real library automatically takes one unit less time (see “Taking Your Time” on page XX), and any libraries with a quality less than his Academics skill do not limit the difficulty of the question asked, as they normally would.
<quote>
Requires Walking Library.
If you’ve read it, you remember it. If the answer lies in something you’ve read before (this must be reasonable), then any research effort takes an additional two units less time – stacked on top of the benefit of Walking Library, this means that a half hour’s worth of research in books you’ve already encountered can be resolved in a matter of seconds, and a day’s worth covered in a mere hour. See the time table on page XX for more.
<quote>
Requires Photographic Memory.
Your photographic memory extends outside of books. Once per scene, you may spend a fate point and roll Academics against a difficulty of Mediocre. Each shift you generate may be used to specify a target that you wish to memorize as you might a book – returning later, in your mind, to assess new details (using an appropriate perception skill, usually Investigation).
This ability differs from Investigation’s Eye for Detail stunt in that Eye for Detail covers the entire location, after the fact, whereas Studied Recall requires you to specify which individual pieces of a location you are studying, while you are still in that location.
<quote>
Your character is a respected authority in a specific academic field. Possibilities include history, English, archeology, mathematics and so on. In the elite circles of that particular field, you are recognized for your expertise. Even if your skill level is low, it merely means you are towards the bottom of that particular group of the elite.
When you make an Academics roll pertaining to your general area of expertise, you automatically receive a +1 bonus. Beyond this, you should pick a specific specialization within that area (like ancient Sumerian history, or cryptography). When an Academics roll involves that specialization, you gain an additional +1 bonus (for a total +2 to the value of the research effort).
Any research efforts involving the specialization take one unit less time; this may be combined with Walking Library, in the Memory group of stunts, for lightning-fast research. When taking part in an academic conference or otherwise interacting with others in the field, you may use Academics to complement your social skills (Rapport, Empathy, Deceit, etc). Your skill is considered elevated by these bonuses, so someone with Good Academics, acting in his area of specialization, would complement skills as if his Academics were Superb (Good+2).
This stunt may be taken more than once, each time for an additional field. The bonuses may not overlap, however.
<quote>
Requires Scholar.
Your area of knowledge is so advanced, there’s usually no one around who can tell if you’re making things up. Whenever your area of expertise (as defined when you took the Scholar stunt) comes to bear, and you would use Academics to modify Deceit, you may use your Academics skill instead of Deceit, gaining its full value rather than a simple +1. If you’ve taken Scholar multiple times, this stunt applies to all covered areas.
<quote>
Requires Scholar.
Your specialized knowledge gives you flashes of insight into all manner of things.
Once per session, you can use this ability when you are about to perform an action which your academic field touches upon. The connection can be tenuous, provided you can explain to the GM how it might apply.
Make a declaration attempt as described under “Declaring Minor Details” (see page XX). If you get at least one shift, you successfully declare one aspect; for every two shifts you gain beyond the first, you may declare one additional aspect about the subject in question (so two aspects total at 3 shifts, three aspects total at 5 shifts, etc). If you opt to declare only one aspect in total, you may instead convert these additional shifts into non-aspect facts.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
You may spend a fate point to go first in an exchange, regardless of your initiative. If multiple people with this stunt exercise this ability, they go in turn of their normal initiative, before those who don’t have the stunt get a chance to act. If the exchange has already started, and you have not yet acted, you may instead spend a fate point to act next, out of the usual turn order.
This may only be done between character’s actions, and cannot be done as an interruption of any kind (so if you spend the fate point to do this while someone else is acting, you must wait until they’re done). Your character must not have acted yet in the exchange in order to use the ability in this way. If your character’s turn has passed, and you elected to hold your action, then there’s no need to activate this stunt; use the held action rules normally (page XX).
<quote>
Requires I’m On Top Of It.
The character’s senses are so keyed into minute changes that he is able to respond more quickly to new details. The character’s Alertness skill is considered to be one higher for purposes of determining initiative (allowing someone with Superb Alertness to have Fantastic initiative). This stunt breaks ties whenever facing opponents with the same initiative. This stunt may be taken multiple times, each time increasing the character’s initiative one step.
<quote>
Requires On Top Of It.
The character’s always watching for his opponents to try to get something past him, and can cut that option off, even when he fails in his primary effort against them. Whenever your character attacks an opponent (or performing an attack-like maneuver), then no matter how well the opponent rolls on his defense, the opponent does not generate spin, and thus can’t provide a +1 in his side’s favor (see page XX).
<quote>
Requires Ready for Anything.
Normally, a character who has held his action cannot interrupt another’s action at all; he must allow the action to finish before acting. If your character has this stunt, you may bend that rule.
Whenever you choose to hold your action, you may spend a fate point before someone acts to have that person truthfully declare what he is about to do. You may then use your held action to block (see page XX) the action your target has declared, using whatever skill is appropriate to create the block. If you are not opting to block the effort, you may not use your held action before your target, and your target may proceed. If you commit to performing a block action regardless of what your target declares, before he declares it, you do not need to spend the fate point. Be clear about this when you make your demand!
Regardless, if you do act and your most recent target then changes his mind based on that block, he must do so as a supplemental action (page XX), putting him at a -1. If he continues his declared course of action despite what you did, he must overcome the block.
<quote>
The character maintains a quick and easy awareness of ambushes and other nasty surprises – perhaps preternaturally, perhaps simply due to finely tuned mundane senses. Whenever ambushed (see page XX), the character is able to take a full defensive action, gaining a +2 on his defense roll, regardless of whether or not he’s surprised (if he is surprised, dropping his base defense to Mediocre, this stunt takes his base defense up to Fair).
<quote>
Requires Danger Sense.
The character is never surprised; he may always take a full defensive action when ambushed, and his base defense is never reduced to Mediocre by surprise.
<quote>
Requires Saw It Coming.
Not only is the character never surprised, he is never forced onto a defensive footing by an ambush. The ambush rules simply do not apply to him; in the first exchange, where others may normally only defend (if that), he may act freely, in normal initiative order.
<quote>
Requires two other Alertness stunts.
The character has tuned his Alertness to the point where, if he takes a normal Investigation length of time to open his senses to a location, he can gather an Investigation level of detail about it, without really going through the motions of a methodical search. When acting in this fashion, he may use Alertness instead of Investigation (which, really, is nearly all of the cases where he might use Investigation).
The trick with the results, here, is that they may come to the character with a different set of details than a methodical approach would yield. Conclusions may precede supporting details; the GM might choose to describe the middle part of a piece of information before the beginning or the end. Such are the hazards of Alertness.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
The artist is always examining the world for the creative hand at work. Even in endeavors which have nothing to do with art, he can recognize the elements of personality – the “signature”, if you will – of those at work.
While this does not reveal identity, it does allow the artist to determine common traits, themes, and behaviors with ease. Whenever making a determination as to the source of something (its “author”, after a fashion), characters with this stunt may use their Art instead of the usual skill that would be rolled. If the character has encountered several products of the same person, he may see past those things to the person – thus confirming a common source.
Furthermore, the character’s keen eye enables him to connect the metaphor of the artist – his work – with the artist himself. When encountering a work of art in any form, the character may roll Art to gain insight into the artist behind the work, as if he were using the Empathy skill on the actual artist (resisted by the usual skills). This stunt may only be used once per piece of art.
Taken as a whole, this stunt allows the artist to make assessment efforts against his target in absentia.
<quote>
The character is a master of some specific form of art – painting, composition, singing, conducting or playing music, or the like. The character is a virtuoso in his field and recognized worldwide for his skill. Even if his actual skill level is not high, he is still on the list of the finest artists in the world, just not necessarily at the top of it. The character receives a +1 knowledge bonus when performing his art form. He may also pick a specialty (such a specific instrument or a specific school of painting) for which he receives a +1 specialty bonus. When applicable, the virtuoso may produce works of art one time increment faster than would normally take.
<quote>
Requires Virtuoso.
Whenever the artist uses his art to place an aspect on the scene, the aspect remains in place in any subsequent scenes involving the audience, up to a day from the end of the performance. At its best, this can essentially move such an aspect from a scene to the story itself, persisting across many scenes and many office members.
<quote>
The artist has a way with words, and knows how to craft the most exquisite insults. Whenever making a social roll that uses such words, he may automatically complement the effort with his Art skill – this is particularly potent when complementing Intimidation to get a rise out of someone, and in such a case, grants an additional +1 regardless of the level of skill.
<quote>
Requires Razor Tongue.
The artist’s skill at satire is so profound as to take the whole audience with him. The artist may choose a target normally, and that target need not be in the audience (though it should be one familiar to the audience). Normally, aspects resulting from a performance may not be specific; with this stunt, however, the player may specify the target in any aspect he puts on the scene. Thus, while an artist might normally be able to add the “Hate” aspect to a scene, but one with this stunt may make it “Hate Lord Octavian”.
<quote>
Requires Virtuoso.
The artist’s works cannot be ignored. The character halves any additional difficulty bonuses due to distractions (rounded down); see page XX for details.
<quote>
Requires one other Art stunt.
Normally, acting is somewhat obvious for what it is, meant for a stage and not elsewhere, but with this stunt, the character’s talent is natural and unquestionable, and he may easily, convincingly adopt a persona off-stage. At that point, normally it would stop being a performance and be more about trying to fool someone – crossing over to Deceit. With this stunt, however, whenever asked to make a Deceit roll to convince a target he is someone he isn’t, the artist may choose to roll Art instead.
<quote>
Requires Virtuoso.
Your works and performances are heavily sought out, and there are those who will pay handsomely for it. Once per session, you may use your Art skill instead of Resources, representing a successful past commission.
<quote>
Requires Virtuoso.
Your widespread name and your art are interlinked as one. When identif ying yourself in order to get your way in a social or other applicable situation, you may complement Rapport, Intimidation, Deceit and Contacting rolls with your Art skill.
<quote>
Requires Do You Know Who I Am?
Your reputation as an artist is so well known that it occasionally covers up for your social shortcomings.
For a fate point, you may use your Art skill instead of Rapport, Intimidation, Contacting, or Deceit, provided those you are dealing with are aware of your reputation (a second fate point will nearly always assure that they are).
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
You can fit into and through spaces and shapes that no normal human readily can. Normally, contorting tasks are impossible to attempt, or at best default to a (non-existent) Contortion skill rated at Mediocre. With this stunt, you can use your full Athletics score instead, and have rationale to attempt feats of contortion that are simply unavailable to others.
<quote>
You are able to perform any number of impressive acrobatic feats. Difficulties assigned for complex maneuvers while acting (e .g walking on a tightrope, doing brain surgery while hanging from a trapeze) are reduced by two. Falling rolls gain a +2 bonus. When used acrobatically, your Athletics skill can never be used to restrict another skill, only complement it.
<quote>
Requires Acrobat.
The character can skip effortlessly down sheer surfaces without harm, allowing him to safely fall great distances. When the character falls, but is near a solid surface, such as the wall of a shaft, or has sufficient other things like ropes to offset his fall, all falls are treated as two categories shorter (and may be reduced another step with Athletics as normal).
<quote>
Requires at least one other Athletics stunt.
You gain a +2 to all attempts to defend against knockback or push attacks, as well as any attempts to escape from bonds.
<quote>
You know how to conserve your energy when undergoing lengthy athletic activity (long-distance running, multi-day climbs, etc). You may use Athletics instead of Endurance under such circumstances, and in most other cases may complement any Endurance rolls with your Athletics.
<quote>
Requires Marathon Training.
You are incredibly fast on your feet. Whenever taking a sprint (but not move) action using Athletics, the value of that action is improved by two. Alternately, you may set aside this bonus in order to be considered on an “even footing” in a race with a mounted beast or a car (in 1920, cars aren’t that fast).
<quote>
Requires Fast as a Leopard.
You are simply, astonishingly fast. Whenever you roll to sprint, it’s at +4; you can reduce this to +2 and be considered on an even footing with a horse or a car. Furthermore, you face no penalties for moving one zone as a supplemental action.
<quote>
The character can climb surfaces he oughtn’t be able to. He receives a +2 bonus on any climb, and by spending a fate point, he may eliminate the effects of all difficulty modifiers resulting from the environment or the characteristics of the thing he’s climbing (so he can climb a slick, mostly flat surface in a rainstorm at much less difficulty).
<quote>
The character’s leaping ability borders on the superhuman. The character may reduce any height related borders (see page XX) by up to three.
<quote>
The character can use Athletics instead of Survival for all maneuvers when riding horses or other riding animals.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
You have an acute understanding of what it takes to burglarize a place, and can investigate such crimes from the perspective of the criminal instead of the cop. You may use your Burglary skill instead of Investigation when investigating a theft or other act (such as arson) committed by someone using the Burglary skill. If the crime closely matches one the character has himself committed before, he gets a +1 bonus for familiarity right off the bat (it’s the GM’s job to factor this in).
<quote>
You’ve run into enough traps that you’ve developed an instinct for avoiding them. You may roll Burglary instead of Alertness or Investigation in order to uncover or otherwise avoid stumbling onto a trap. When your GM calls for an Alertness roll, be sure to make her aware that you have this stunt – it may change the skill to roll.
<quote>
Requires Tripwire Sensibilities.
Whenever you’re running a burglarizing operation, you operate on very precise internal clock. You are always aware of exactly how much time has passed, and further, may use Burglary instead of Alertness as your initiative skill while everything is going to plan.
<quote>
The character’s skill with improvisation when bypassing a lock or similar contrivance is improved, so long as he has something that could pass as a tool, such as a hatpin. Characters with this stunt never suffer an increased difficulty for lacking proper tools on a Burglary roll, and when given proper tools, can defeat locks at one time increment faster than usual.
<quote>
You’re highly skilled at visualizing the whole of a target based on just a part of it. When casing a location, you receive a +2 bonus on your roll.
<quote> <quote>
Requires Mental Blueprint and at least one other Burglary stunt. When the character is casing a location (see “Casing”, page XX), he normally reveals or declares only one aspect about the location, in advance. With this stunt, however, if the character gains spin on his roll, he may reveal or declare one or more additional aspects (one additional aspect at 3 shifts, two at 5 shifts, or three at 7 or more shifts).
Further, regardless of spin, if the player is using the declare method with this stunt, he may save off from making his declarations until he’s already in the middle of making the heist – in essence, retroactively introducing elements he’d “already planned for”. Only one such retroactive declaration may be made per scene, but in the truly big heists, the job rarely lasts only one scene.
Alternately, the character may trade in one of his “retroactive” aspect picks in order to declare up to three non-aspect-based lesser details about the scene. This may be done in addition to making an aspect pick for the scene.
<Example>
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
At the time your character takes this stunt, you must define a specific contact, with a name, a brief sentence about the contact’s personality, and her relationship to your character. This contact is a companion as described on page XX, willing and capable to accompany you on your adventures, with three advances for you to spend as you wish. For maximum effect, you may wish to allocate one of your aspects to this contact as well. This stunt may be taken multiple times, defining a different contact each time.
<quote>
Requires at least one Contact.
When you select this stunt, you may spread three additional advances out amongst your existing contacts, creating unusually talented companions. You may take this stunt multiple times, but can’t ever apply more than six additional advances (for a total of nine) to any one contact.
<quote>
Requires at least one other Contacting stunt.
The character can choose from a large number of companions available to him when he needs them. With this stunt, when the character begins an adventure, his companion doesn’t need to be defined. Instead, at the point where he decides he needs the companion, he may reveal her, giving her a name and a few brief cues to the GM to base a personality on.
This companion starts out at Average quality and may have up to two advances.
If the character takes this stunt more than once, he has two additional advances which he may use to reveal an additional companion, or combine together to create a more capable companion on the fly.
Only one “reveal” of this kind may be done per scene. Once revealed, the companion will be involved and reasonably available at least until the end of the adventure.
If, instead, you choose to have the companion available to you for only one scene before the companion is called away to other things, you may build the companion with three advances instead of two. Once the scene ends, the companion is removed from the adventure, one way or another.
<quote>
Sometimes it’s not who you know, but who the people you know, know. Many of your contacts are, themselves, very well connected. The breadth of your contacts make all Contacting rolls take one unit less of time, and you gain a +2 on any “second roll” efforts made to corroborate information you’ve gotten from another of your contacts. Consequently, this bonus is useful on a follow-up, but not on the initial roll.
<quote>
The character is able to navigate bureaucracies easily, not because he understands them, but because he knows people embedded in the bureaucracy who can provide shortcuts. Normally, a character must roll Leadership in order to deal with any sort of bureaucratic entanglement (see page XX). With this stunt, the character may roll Contacting instead.
<quote>
The character’s travels have taken him to every corner of the globe. His familiarity with the streets and peoples of the world allow him to function easily, at home and abroad. The character never suffers any additional difficulty from unfamiliar circumstances when Contacting.
<quote>
When selecting this stunt, the player picks a specific field (Criminal, Business, Politics, Espionage and Occult are the most common); this stunt is often written with that field incorporated, e.g., Big Man in Politics. The character is not merely well connected in that community, he is actually a person of great importance within that area; for maximum benefit, this should be paired with an aspect that indicates similar things.
In addition to the narrative benefits of such a position, the character may use his Contacting skill in lieu of the Resources skill for anything which might fall under the auspices of members in that field. This stunt may be taken multiple times, each time for a different field.
<quote>
Requires Big Man.
Whenever dealing with members of your chosen field, you put out all the right signals, say all the right things. In such circumstances, you may roll your Rapport at +2, or, alternatively, use your Contacting instead of Rapport, in order to get a favorable reaction.
<quote>
Requires Big Man.
You’re so well known that an awareness of your name has crossed over into other areas as well. The first time you deal with someone who’s heard of you (spending a fate point can assure that they have), and you’re using your name, you get a +2 bonus to a Rapport or Intimidation roll.
<quote>
Requires Big Name.
Your reputation has reached great proportions, and people are willing to believe all sorts of things about you.
For a fate point, you may use your Contacting skill instead of Rapport, Intimidation, Deceit, Leadership, or Resolve, provided those you are dealing with are aware of your reputation (a second fate point will nearly always assure that they do).
This stunt combines with the bonus from Big Name, getting the character a +2 to Contacting when using it instead of Rapport or Intimidation.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
You are a bona fide confidence man, and that lets you get a read on people, easy.
You may use your Deceit instead of Empathy to get a “read” on someone (see page XX), but the type of aspects that may be revealed are limited only to things like character weaknesses, never strengths or other advantages (unless you win the contest or are otherwise in control of which aspect is revealed).
Some aspects will completely miss you; a Good Hearted Person might just fly right over your head.
<quote>
Requires Con Man.
The character is adept at cheating, so much so that he may use his Deceit skill instead of Gambling whenever he chooses.
When he does so, he is cheating, which means if he fails, he’s caught, and the game’s loss is treated as if it were a high stakes game, even if it wasn’t.
<quote>
Requires Con Man.
You’ve got this guy completely suckered – or at least, if he’s on to you, he’s rich enough that he doesn’t care. Design a companion (page XX) with two advances. In addition, he is automatically Fair quality, and Skilled with Resources. He tends to buy things for you, along with whatever else it is he does.
The downside is that he’s a sucker – you hooked him in, but he is a Poor difficulty target for anyone else looking to sucker him too (although if you when that happens).
Heck, you may even have some fondness for the guy – you certainly won’t leave him hanging out to dry, and that’s not just because he pays for everything – but, still, the relationship’s not entirely honest.
<quote>
Requires Sucker.
You hit it big – this guy’s loaded. Your companion’s Resources skill is considered to be two steps higher than his quality; if you’ve advanced him to a maximum quality of Great, this means he’s running around with Fantastic Resources. You may also spend one additional advance on him. He’s not just about the money, you know.
<quote>
Normally, a character cannot create a disguise that will stand up to intense scrutiny (see page XX). With this stunt, he may defend against intense scrutiny (anything short of physically trying to remove the disguise) with his full Deceit skill. Furthermore, he may assemble disguises of this quality in a matter of minutes, provided he has a well-equipped disguise kit on hand.
<quote>
Requires Clever Disguise.
Deceit can be used to convince people you are someone you aren’t – but usually only in a general sense. You can seem to be a cop, an author, et cetera, but you can’t seem to be a specific person without a lot of work (and an elevated difficulty). With this stunt, you can easily imitate the mannerisms and voice of anyone you’ve had a chance to study – removing another potential cause to have a disguise examined, or perhaps convincing someone who can’t see you that you’re someone else even though you’re undisguised.
Studying someone usually requires only an investment of time, and not a roll of the dice – at least half an hour of constant exposure. This timeframe can be reduced, but will require an Empathy, Investigation, or Deceit roll against a target of Mediocre, increased by one for each step faster on the time chart (page XX).
<quote>
Requires Clever Disguise and Mimicry.
The character can convincingly pass himself off as nearly anyone with a little time and preparation. To use this ability, the player pays a fate point and temporarily stops playing. His character is presumed to have donned a disguise and gone “off camera”. At any subsequent point during play the player may choose any nameless, filler character (a villain’s minion, a bellboy in the hotel, the cop who just pulled you over) in a scene and reveal that that character is actually the PC in disguise!
The character may remain in this state for as long as the player chooses, but if anyone is tipped off that he might be nearby, an investigator may spend a fate point and roll Investigate against the disguised character’s Deceit. If the investigator wins, his player (which may be the GM) gets to decide which filler character is actually the disguised PC (“Wait a minute – you’re the Emerald Emancipator!”).
<quote>
Requires Master of Disguise.
While the character is disguised (see Master of Disguise) he may make a single Investigation roll against at target of Mediocre. Each shift gained can be used to do one of two things: gain a useful (but general) piece of information about the area or group being infiltrated, or leave a clue, hint or message for the rest of the player characters without revealing himself.
<quote>
Requires Master of Disguise and a Deceit skill of Great or better.
You inhabit your disguises so completely that you can actually fully inhabit another persona and unlock hidden skills and knowledge you don’t normally possess. While in a disguise, you may roll your Deceit minus two (so Fair if Great, or Good if Superb) instead of any other skill the disguised persona might reasonably possess. If you are outright imitating someone specific, sometimes this might give you a higher effective skill than they actually have – which is fine. You’re not a mind-reader, you’re simply so good at pretending that you can actually, temporarily unlock a skill that you believe your persona could have.
Any time you use this stunt, you must pay a fate point; if you do not wish to pay a fate point, you may instead roll your Resolve against a difficulty equal to the “false” skill. If you miss that target, you become lost in the persona for a time, and may be subject to one no-fate-point compel before you break out of it. The aspect compelled might not even be one of your own – it may be one possessed by the persona you’re mimicking!
<quote>
The best lies are the ones that contain a healthy dose of truth. Whenever the character incorporates a hefty portion of the truth into a lie, he gains a +2 bonus. The truth must be relevant, not unimportant, and significant, not trivial – it must be on par with (or bigger than) the lie, or at least in the ballpark.
<quote>
As an accomplished liar, you’re especially able to figure out when someone else is lying as well. You may use your Deceit skill instead of your Empathy skill when trying to figure out if someone is lying. This is not the same thing as getting “a read” on someone, as with the Con Man stunt, above; instead, it’s a quick check: Is this guy lying? Is it a big lie or a small one? Is he mixing in the truth or is it all fabrication?
<quote>
Requires either The Honest Lie or Takes One to Know One.
Whenever the character is the target of an Empathy “read”, and decides to put a false face forward (see page XX), and wins the contest, he not only provides a false aspect to the reader, he also gets a read on the reader himself (revealing an aspect). The reader has fallen for your clever little trap!
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
You’ve been gripped by the American fascination with the automobile early on, and have one car in particular that you take special care of. When driving that car, you receive a +1 bonus (it’s assumed to have the craftsmanship improvement – see page XX).
Additionally, you’ve added (or had added) a little something extra to the car, and you may, once per session, spend a fate point and declare that the car has some extra device (such as an oil slick, speed boost or the like) – for guidelines, see the Universal Gadget stunt (page XX). You can’t go too crazy with the improvements on this on-the-fly gadgetry – many forms of miniaturization and futurization, and several kinds of alternate usage and additional capability, are disallowed at this level of the stunt. To drive a truly unusual car, you must also take Prototype (below).
<quote>
Requires Custom Ride.
You have a one-of-a-kind vehicle. For starters, your once-a-session gadget, as described above, can have any kind of improvement – the restrictions described in Custom Ride do not apply.
Secondly, your vehicle has three additional built-in improvements you may select. These improvements must be defined in advance of a session (only at the beginning or end), but you needn’t pick all of them at the time you take this stunt. Once they’re picked, they’re set, until an engineer can get a chance to work at changing them.
Your vehicle is instantly recognizable as something unusual, unless you spend one of your improvements on making sure that it looks just like any other vehicle of its base type. Regardless, once people learn of its nature, there’s almost certain to be attempts to steal it or otherwise learn its secrets. You’d be well advised to take an aspect tied to your vehicle, so you can get fate points when this happens!
<quote>
Requires at least two other Drive stunts. Your character may not understand the broader aspects of engineering devices and such, but when it comes to cars, he knows them inside and out. Whenever working on a car, you may use your Drive skill instead of Engineering. Due to common principles, you may also use your Drive skill to work on other vehicles, at a -1.
<quote>
You’re good at keeping your car in one piece. Whenever attempting a driving maneuver in a chase (see page XX), you may treat the difficulty as if it were one lower. The difficulty of the maneuver itself is not affected, however, for any cars that might be chasing you.
<quote>
Driving while doing some other action normally results in a -1 penalty. With this stunt, you don’t suffer that penalty, regardless of whether you are rolling Drive (driving is your primary action, and the supplemental action is something minor), or rolling some other skill (you’re taking some other primary action, but keeping the vehicle on the road isn’t all that challenging, allowing driving to be the supplemental action). Furthermore, if Drive would be a secondary skill that restricts or modifies a primary skill, but your Drive skill is lower than the primary skill you’re using, your Drive skill has no negative effect.
<quote>
Requires Defensive Driving.
Somehow, no matter how crazy you drive, you always seem to pull it off. You’re always able to make very tight turns and drive through very narrow spaces without suffering any sort of increased difficulty due to environment, unless it is in fact physically impossible for your vehicle to fit. In many ways this functions like the Defensive Driving stunt, but instead of lowering many difficulties by one, it potentially lowers these specific difficulties quite significantly.
<quote>
Requires at least one other Drive stunt.
The character is the bane of curbside markets and rickety struts holding up awnings. The value of any damage this character does to the environment (but not characters or their vehicles) when driving a vehicle is doubled. Any time an object is taken out by the damage, the result should be spectacular – an explosion or collapse. This is not guaranteed to always fall in the character’s favor (though it often can, and should)!
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
The character is so aware of the social currents in a situation that he is able to see something of what’s coming before it arrives. At the beginning of any social exchange, before proceeding with the usual initiative order, the character may spend a fate point and attempt a quick read – looking for surface moods and other social cues – on any one target of his choosing, as a free action. He may then act normally on his turn as usual.
<quote>
Requires Ebb and Flow.
You are so tuned into social situations that you may act quickly and decisively to shape the situation to your liking. Empathy is used to determine initiative in a social conflict, the same way Alertness is used in a physical one. With this stunt, your Empathy is considered two higher for the purposes of initiative. If you’re tied for initiative with someone who does not have this stunt, this stunt breaks ties.
<quote>
Your understanding of people you’ve met is sufficiently strong that it gives you an easy sense of how to find them. In any situation where you’re tracking down or otherwise trying to find someone you’ve met before, you may roll Empathy instead of Investigation.
<quote>
Requires at least one other Empathy stunt.
The world is full of lies and liars, and your character is always on the lookout for them. The character always knows when someone is using the Deceit skill on him, and may take full defensive actions (getting a +2) with his Empathy if appropriate.
Normally, the use of deception is not so easy to spot in advance, and thus justifying full defensive actions is difficult. Successfully determining that something is trying to deceive you is not the same as revealing the truth, however, no matter how well you do.
<quote>
Normally, to use empathy to get a read on someone it requires at least a few minutes of conversation, if not more (see page XX). Characters with this stunt may do so after much less time – two or three steps faster on the time table (see page XX).
<quote>
You have an instinct for going right to the heart of a person and finding out what matters most to them. Whenever you make a successful Empathy read on someone (see page XX), the GM must select from the aspects that are of the utmost importance to the character, unless you explicitly instruct her otherwise. Normally, the GM has a freer rein in her selection.
While this still can’t get you to trip over anything that’s truly still a secret to you (this isn’t an instant mystery solving stunt!), it should at least put you as close to the core truth about a character.
<quote>
Your skill at reading people makes you adept at provoking a strong emotional response if you’re trying to get them angry, depressed, or something similar. Normally, the Intimidation skill would be used for such efforts; however, if you’ve succeeded at any Empathy roll against the target previously, you may use Empathy to wage such psychological warfare instead. In the hands of a character with high Empathy, this is especially lethal when combined with a successful read on someone that reveals an aspect.
<quote>
Requires at least two other Empathy stunts.
Once you get an insight into someone, you may try to look much deeper than one normally can. Trying to learn something specific and concrete about another person can be a lot like trying to catch a specific raindrop – you can be sure you got wet, but figuring out if you actually got the one you were going after is another matter. In the best case scenario, you’ve revealed one of the target’s aspects.
With this stunt, however, you achieve such a strong understanding of your subject that you can start to make some fairly accurate guesses about his behavior.
After you have successfully gotten a “read” as described in the Empathy write-up (page XX), you may immediately ask the GM a hypothetical question about the target’s motives, which the GM must be able to answer with yes, no, or maybe, to the best of her ability. The question must speak to the kind of person the target is, not things they’ve done, though it may ask if they are capable of doing such things. If the GM answers with a maybe, you may ask a second question to get clarification. This second question may seek details, rather than another one-word answer.
<Example>
See Investigation, page XX.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
The character may spend fate points to keep standing. Any time the character would be taken out by (or otherwise suffer a consequence from) a physical hit he may spend a fate point to remain standing or otherwise defer a consequence or concession for one more exchange, or until he’s hit again, whatever comes first. Once the extra time he’s bought is up, all effects he has deferred come to bear at once. He may keep spending fate points in this fashion until he runs out, each time the time limit expires.
This means that with a whole handful of fate points he might go on for three exchanges with no consequences or collapse impeding him, and then suddenly keel over, revealing Multiple Bruises and a Broken Rib and a few surplus consequences – which would suggest an immediate taken out result to be determined by his attacker, even if that attacker has been defeated in the intervening time!
<quote>
The character can push through incredible pain in order to reach his goal. The character can take one extra moderate, physical consequence (see page XX) before moving on to a severe physical consequence, allowing him to take a total of four consequences in a physical conflict.
<quote>
Requires Feel the Burn.
The character is able to lessen the effects of physical injury thanks to his incredible stamina. Once per scene, he character may spend a fate point, and remove move any single check mark from the injury track.
<quote>
Normally, someone who has not gotten a regular night’s sleep takes a consequence indicating his lack of rest, which cannot be removed save with the requisite amount of sleep. Not so for the character with this stunt.
Whenever this character would need to sleep, he may roll Endurance (see below for the difficulties) and spend shifts to reduce the amount of time he needs for a regular night’s rest. Each shift spent reduces the time increment (to get a full night’s rest) by one. One shift gets from 6-8 hours down to 3-4; two gets it down to an hour; three gets it to half an hour; four gets it to a few minutes.
The character may continue sleeping past that point, but if awoken suddenly, he does not face any issues due to insufficient sleep – he is refreshed and alert. Normally the difficulty for the Endurance roll is simply Mediocre, but if the character chooses to skip a night of sleep, the difficulty of the roll is increased by one step each night. Once he fails the roll, he must get a full, normal (6-8 hours) night of sleep to “reset” the clock; if he succeeds on subsequent nights, and chooses to sleep, he can still sleep for the truncated amount of time.
<quote>
The character heals faster than the norm, which has the effect of reducing the severity of consequences resulting from physical injury. On some characters this means no matter how bad of a beating they seem to have taken, they shrug it off. When considering the amount of time it takes to recover from a consequence of a particular severity, reduce the timeframe by two steps on the time chart (page XX). This means that mild physical consequences will be removed between scenes even if there’s no “break” between them, moderate consequences will take about an hour of rest instead of six, and severe consequences may be reduced from months to weeks, weeks to days, or days to the length of an afternoon!
<quote>
If the character is ever taken out away from the view of other characters and death appears imminent, certain, or absolute, (such as from dropping off a cliff, apparently failing to escape from an exploding building and so on) then coincidence will conspire to keep the character alive. This stunt does not protect the character from dying “on camera”.
The player then spends half of his remaining fate points, rounded up (he must have at least one to do this), and may watch play and think of a good explanation for how he survived.
Once he has a story, he may re-enter play in any subsequent scene in as dramatic a fashion as he sees fit, with all of his physical stress cleared and a single consequence to reflect the dangers survived.
<quote>
Requires at least one other Endurance stunt.
Whether through natural aptitude or careful exposure and development, the character is quite simply immune to most common poisons, and terribly resistant to uncommon ones.
He may resist any uncommon poison he has not previously encountered at a +2 to his Endurance roll. If he has previously encountered the poison, even in trace amounts, this bonus increases to a +6.
<quote>
When the character takes a hit which would roll up, he may instead choose to fill in any number of lower wound boxes that total the value of the hit. Thus, if the character took a 4 point hit, but the 4th box was already filled, he could either roll up to the 5th box, or he could check off the 1st and 3rd box.
<quote>
Requires One Hit To The Body.
This character just doesn’t feel pain and can take more punishment than a lesser man. A character with this stunt gets one additional stress box beyond those normally granted by his Endurance score – meaning a character with Superb Endurance can have a top physical stress capacity of nine.
<quote>
Requires Thick Skinned.
The character’s physical injuries roll down rather than up. Whenever the character takes a hit which would fill a box that has already been checked off, they check off the next lower box that has not been checked off. If no lower boxes are available, hits roll up as normal. Very simply, this means that the character doesn’t start picking up consequences unless someone hits him for more than his capacity (difficult at best!) or all of his boxes are filled up.
<quote>
Requires two other Endurance stunts.
Once per scene, the character may turn a wound he has taken into pure motivation. After the character takes physical stress, spend a fate point and the character gets to add the value of the wound (the original value, not the box it was recorded in, if it rolled to a different box) to an action in the next exchange taken against the person who inflicted the stress.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
You have a personal gadget based on an existing (or potentially existing) piece of technology, with three improvements. You must define at least the basic nature of the gadget, and one or two of the improvements, at the time you take this stunt. You may take this stunt several times, either for several personal gadgets, or to provide additional improvements to the same gadget. See page XX for detailed gadget design rules.
<quote>
A universal gadget is, essentially, a personal gadget that you may design on the fly, in the middle of a situation, as if your character happened to have “just the thing” in his satchel at the precise moment when it was needed. This gadget follows the same design rules as a personal gadget (above), but is only allowed two improvements, not three. Once defined, the gadget is locked in for the remainder of the session. As with personal gadgets, see page XX for detailed gadget design rules.
The trade-off is that you can define the gadget on the fly and in the moment, as something your character already happened to have on hand (or just whipped up in a matter of seconds). As with personal gadget, you may take this stunt multiple times.
<quote>
The character is an expert with explosives. Any time he can take the time to properly set up charges, the resulting explosion’s force rating is increased by three, by placing the bombs at the exact weak points of the targeted structure.
This benefit does not apply without preparation, a target structure, and a chance to study the target. Thus, it doesn’t apply in situations such as setting charges hastily or lobbing explosive devices at zombies.
<quote>
Requires one other Engineering stunt.
You have an innate knack for crafting weaponry. Whenever dealing with an Engineering roll involving a weapon – repairing, designing, upgrading, etcetera – your difficulties are reduced by one, and additionally, the time to get the work done is reduced by one step on the time table (see page XX).
<quote>
Requires one other Engineering stunt.
If it has an engine and wings, propellers, or wheels, you “get” it, intuitively and completely. Whenever dealing with a Engineering roll involving a vehicle – repairing, designing, upgrading, etcetera – your difficulties are reduced by one, and additionally, the time to get the work done is reduced by one step on the time table (see page XX).
<quote>
The character’s talented at getting things repaired under time-critical circumstances. The time it takes to get something fixed by the character is reduced by two steps. If the situation is already operating on the fastest possible amount of time the difficulty of the repair effort is reduced by one. These bonuses stack with Grease Monkey (above)!
<quote>
Requires Mister Fix-It.
Sometimes a bunch of repairs can get short-handed with a good swift thump. A character must spend a fate point to activate this ability, and roll Engineering. He then hits a device or other contraption that isn’t working, and it starts working immediately, regardless of the difficulty rating to repair it under time pressure. It will continue work for a number of exchanges equal to the shifts gained on the Engineering roll (vs. a target of Mediocre). Once the time is up, the device stops working again, and any efforts to repair it are at a one step higher difficulty (since, after all, you hit the thing). If the character wishes to thump again, he may do so for another fate point, but the difficulty for the Engineering roll increases by one on each subsequent attempt.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
You’re at home in any big old burly brawl, with multiple opponents and ideally some beer in you.
Whenever you are personally outnumbered in a fight (i.e., when someone gets to attack you at a bonus due to a numerical advantage) your defense rolls with Fists are at +1. When fighting two or more minions, you deal one additional stress on a successful hit.
<quote>
Requires Brawler.
Your character has a talent for fighting dirty and is experienced in pulling all manner of tricks in order to get the upper hand on his opponents. By exploiting an opponent’s weakness, you are able to strike deep and true. Any time you tag an opponent’s aspect in a fight, you get an additional +1 on the roll.
<quote>
Requires Dirty Fighter.
When you injure an opponent with your Fists, you may spend a fate point to force the target to take a consequence rather than check off a box. This can only be done once per opponent in a given fight scene. The target may choose not to take the consequence if he is willing to concede.
<quote>
Requires Crippling Blow (above) or Fist of Death (below).
Your character has a specific attack which he has honed to devastating perfection. It may be a formalized punch with an appropriately dramatic name (Thousand Whirlwinds Strike As One!) or may be as informal as complete mastery of the kick in the crotch.
Once per fight scene, the character may use this strike. To do so, the player must clearly describe whatever posturing or preamble the strike requires, declare he’s using the strike, and roll the dice.
If the strike successfully damages the opponent (inflicts stress or a consequence by itself), it imposes a consequence in addition to treating the attack normally (such as checking off a box due to stress inflicted). This means that if the the stress would normally produce a consequence, the victim will end up taking two consequences.
<quote>
Requires Brawler.
Overwhelming odds are your bread and butter. You are used to dodging and twisting, keeping multiple opponents in each other’s way. You actually get better the more people pile onto you. You may save up your spin whenever you gain it on a defense, and apply it to your next attack, no matter how many other actions happen in between. Multiple successful, spin-generating defenses may allow you to save up multiple points of spin, for a single large bonus on your next attack.
<quote>
Requires Mix it Up.
You are a one-man army; the odds don’t matter to you. Whenever you are attacked, opponents simply do not get a bonus to their attacks due to an advantage of numbers.
<quote>
Requires Brawler.
The character is skilled in the use of improvised weapons, and may use Fists instead of the Weapons skill when using an improvised weapon. Improvised weapons tend to break, and thus don’t usually last for more than one exchange, so players are encouraged to choose weapons which smash dramatically.
<quote>
Requires Brawler.
Swinging wildly and with force, the character strikes at an opponent over and over again, wearing down his defense with each blow. Against such an onslaught, there is simply no good defense. Opponents who attempt to use an all-out defense against your Fists attacks do not get a +2 bonus.
<quote>
Your training in the martial practices of the Far East have honed your abilities with your Fists into a finely disciplined form that is part combat skill, part art form. This gives you an acute insight into the means and methods of barehanded warfare.
You may use your Fists skill to study an opponent by engaging him and testing his defenses with your own martial techniques. You must do this as a full action during an exchange. Your target must defend against this action, which is essentially a maneuver, with his Fists skill.
If you succeed, you have gained insight to your target’s fighting techniques, and may place an aspect on the target, as with a successful maneuver. Whenever you tag this aspect, you gain an additional +1 to your roll, for a total of +3 instead of the normal tagging bonus of +2.
<quote>
Requires Martial Arts.
You are able to focus the force of your blows into a concentrated, small area that is devastating to solid materials. Any stress you deal to a non-character target with Fists is doubled, once per exchange.
<quote>
Requires Martial Arts.
As a trained fighter, you are able to adopt a stance that makes it unequivocally clear how capable you are of handing someone his ass. Whenever displaying your fighting stance or techniques, you may roll Fists instead of Intimidation.
<quote>
Requires Martial Arts.
You are able to leap through the air, leading with a powerful kick that can lay an unsuspecting opponent out. You may move one zone and launch a Fists attack without taking a penalty for moving, or you may move two zones and make an attack at -1. All other actions, including those with Fists, that are not a Fists attack described as a flying kick, require a roll at -1 if you move a single zone on your action, as normal.
<quote>
Requires Martial Arts.
Whenever you mount a full defense, you gain an additional +1 to your Fists rolls, for a potent total defense bonus of +3.
<quote>
Requires Flow Like Water.
You have a flexible martial arts style that allows you to turn an opponent’s force against himself. Whenever you gain spin on a defense, you may imme- diately take a free action against the attacker to make a throw maneuver (see page XX).
<quote>
Requires Martial Arts.
Your martial skill is dedicated to dishing out punishment, and your hands are practically illegal in most civilized countries. Any time your opponent opts to take a mild or moderate consequence from a blow you have dealt, you may spend a fate point to increase the severity of that consequence by one step, increasing mild to moderate and moderate to severe. The opponent may then reconsider whether to take the consequence, or instead offer a concession. You may not do this to an opponent who is already taking a severe consequence.
<quote>
Requires Lethal Weapon.
By concentrating your force into a powerful blow, you may devastate even the most potent of opponents. Once per opponent per fight, you may spend a fate point after landing a successful blow to fill your opponent’s highest unchecked stress box, regardless of how much stress you would normally inflict.
As with the stunt of the same name, above (page XX).
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
Requires one or more compellable aspects related to gambling.
As a gambling man, the character is rarely able to turn down a bet or an opportunity to take a risk. Compels involving your gambling aspects auto- matically start out at a point of escalation – you must either spend two fate points to avoid them, or gain two fate points if you accept them, right at the outset.
<quote>
Requires Gambling Man.
When it comes to head to head conflict, the character’s skill at gambling and taking risks is paramount.
Once per scene, after the gambler has lost a Gambling roll, he has the option to declare “Double or Nothing!” This is a call for both sides to reroll (and as such doesn’t involve fate points). If the gambler wins the next roll, the initial exchange is treated as a scratch (no loss to any participants), but if he loses (by whatever amount) he takes a hit equal to double the value of the initial loss. Regardless, such a move often elevates the stakes of a game. This can turn a regular stakes game into a high stakes one, and a high stakes game into a matter of life and death.
<quote>
Requires Gambling Man and at least one other Gambling stunt. On games of pure chance, like roulette, where a character could not normally roll a skill to affect the outcome, the character may use his Gambling skill at its full value (otherwise he’d be rolling Mediocre or worse instead).
<quote>
Whenever gambling with NPCs, the player may ask that the GM roll the NPC’s Gambling in advance. Whenever the GM does this, the roll is automatically considered to be secret – she doesn’t have to show it to anyone.
The twist is that the GM must indicate to the player whether the NPC’s roll is above or below the player’s character’s Gambling skill – just not by how much. Given this knowledge, the player may then choose whether his character participates, or excuses himself, from the Gambling contest. If the player’s character does participate, the GM reveals the value of the roll, and may still spend fate points on behalf of her NPC as usual once the contest starts in earnest.
<quote>
The character’s experience with Gambling gives him an occasional insight into other parts of life. Whenever dealing with a bluff of some kind, he may use Gambling instead of Deceit (to run a bluff ) or instead of Empathy (to see through one). The player should remind the GM that he has this stunt whenever he’s the target of something that might be a bluff, so that the GM knows to call for the correct skill to be rolled.
<quote>
The character wins more than he loses, and is often flush with cash. Once per session, he may use Gambling instead of Resources to represent these winnings, so long as he hasn’t recently experienced a loss. The player must provide a quick one-sentence explanation of what the resource is and how he won it, when using this stunt.
<quote>
Requires at least one other Gambling stunt.
You’ve played in so many games, and in so many places, that it’s rare that you can’t find someone who knows you. You may use your Gambling skill instead of Contacting whenever making a Contacting roll – though doing so invariably colors the results with the nature of Gambling.
<quote>
Requires Players’ Club.
Once per session, you may introduce a companion character into a scene, on the fly, as suits the convenience of the moment. This companion character has the Skilled (Gambling) advance for free, and two other advances which you may define at the moment of the reveal, or after the fact as you travel around with your buddy.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
For whatever reason, you’re always able to take shots at a greater distance than you should be. You can use pistols up to three zones away (instead of two); furthermore, rifles and other such weaponry reach an additional zone (or two, if the GM feels generous).
<quote>
The character is light on his feet with a gun in his hand, able to keep the gunplay going while evading attempts to harm him.
This character may use Guns as a defense skill against physical attacks; normally, Guns cannot be used defensively.
<quote>
Taking slow and careful aim can be done as a maneuver, placing an aspect on your target (such as “In My Sights”).
Whenever performing an aiming maneuver against a target, you may roll your Guns at +1 to place the aspect, +2 if you’ve brought along a targeting scope or similar aiming device (in addition to whatever bonuses the scope itself provides).
<quote>
Your character gains +2 on the roll for any Guns action that involves shooting an inanimate object. While this cannot be used to actually attack another character, it can be very useful for indirect effects, like shooting down a chandelier.
<quote>
Normally, reloading your guns is considered a part of the normal ebb and flow of combat and doesn’t become an issue until something happens to make it relevant. A lack of ammunition can show up one of two ways. First, “out of ammunition” can often show up as a minor consequence for someone with a gun. With this stunt, the character may spend a fate point in order to remove this consequence immediately, at the end of any exchange.
The character is still considered to have taken a minor consequence for purposes of determining whether his next consequence is moderate – the minor consequence simply won’t be there.
Second, “out of ammunition” can show up as a temporary aspect resulting from a maneuver (to try to get someone to use up his shots). Whenever this character is the target of such a maneuver, he may defend at +2.
<quote>
That last bullet has a kind of magic to it. A character with this stunt may declare that he is on his last shot, and may make any single Guns attack at +3. This is the character’s last shot – its use means that there’s no more ammo, no holdout guns or the like. The only way the character is going to be able to use his Guns skill in the scene is if he takes an action acquiring a new weapon or ammunition, which may not always be possible. Even the Fast Reload stunt cannot be used to remedy this situation; you really are out of ammunition.
<quote>
Your character is skilled at laying down a scathing hail of suppressive fire. When using Guns to perform a block (see page XX), the character can ignore up to two points of penalties imposed by the GM due to the complexity of the block.
<quote>
This allows a character to bring his gun or guns to his hand so fast it’s as if by magic. The character takes no penalty for drawing a gun as a supplemental action; if someone is actively blocking such an action (see page XX), you may treat that block as if it had a value two steps lower.
<quote>
Requires Quick Draw.
The character and his gun are as one; the thought to take aim and fire is the same as the action. With this stunt, the character may use his Guns skill to determine initiative, instead of Alertness.
<quote>
Requires Lightning Hands.
Once per exchange, between or before other characters’ actions, the character may spend a fate point to preempt the usual turn order and act next.
The action taken must involve a roll with his Guns skill – usually an attack. This may be done in addition to the character’s normal action, but each time it’s done in the same scene, the fate point cost increases by one.
<quote>
The character’s so thoroughly into the modern phenomenon of gunsmithing that he’s developed a focused talent for working on the things.
Whenever working with guns specifically, this character may use Guns instead of Engineering.
<quote>
Requires Gun-Crazy.
You have one special gun that you hold above all others. This is a gadget, which automatically has the craftsmanship improvement (see page XX), as well as two other improvements which you may change between sessions. In addition, the gun is so well-made that it never needs repairs of great length if it’s damaged; reduce the time it takes you to repair it by four steps.
<quote>
Normally, shooting with two guns just looks cool without providing a bonus. With this stunt, a character firing two weapons has a decisive advantage.
Any time this character uses two guns and hits a target for at least one stress, the stress of the hit is increased by one (meaning, essentially, that he never hits a target for less than two stress, when he hits).
Furthermore, any defense against maneuvers to deprive the character of either of his guns is improved by one. The two belong together, after all, in the hands of a Two Gun Joe.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
Intimidation gives you a real talent for scaring people, but sometimes fear isn’t an option. That doesn’t mean you can’t still get up someone’s nose, so long as you’re willing to sacrifice a bit of the control that fear gets you.
Whenever deliberately trying to get someone angry with you, you receive a +2 bonus. If this results in an attack or other action against you by your target, you may use Intimidation to complement the skill you use on the first exchange, no matter the circumstance – after all, you made it happen, so you were ready for it.
<quote>
The character exudes menace far in excess of his capability to act. Even bound and behind prison bars, the character is so ripe with the promise of the awful things he could do that he’s still scary. This character may use Intimidation no matter what the power imbalance in the situation is, and reduces his target’s bonuses for acting from a superior position by 2 (to a minimum of +0).
<quote>
Requires Subtle Menace.
It’s hard not to talk to this character. Not because he’s approachable, but because it seems like such a bad idea not to. Fear makes people uncomfortable, and they occasionally let things slip they would not otherwise.
The upshot is that the character may use Intimidation in lieu of Empathy or Rapport when trying to get information out of someone in a “softer” fashion. If successfully used in this way, the target is definitely rattled – so it certainly doesn’t leave the target in the same pleasant state he might be left by one of those other skills. If used to get a “read” on a character, the aspects revealed are limited only to those which might be expressed in the language of fear.
<quote>
It’s difficult to try to manipulate someone when you’re constantly reminded of how scary they are. A character with this stunt may use his Intimidation in lieu of their Resolve to defend against Rapport, Deceit, and Empathy.
<quote> This character is just someone you don’t want to cross, and that’s clear even to other intimidating folks. Normally, Intimidation attempts are resisted by Resolve; with this stunt, the character can use his Intimidation skill to resist Intimidation attempts.
<quote>
Requires Scary.
Characters with an Aura of Menace are the terror of all those who oppose them. Others are often powerless to describe what exactly it is about the character that is unsettling, but regardless, it has the effect of rooting them to the spot and believing the threats the guy makes.
Once per scene per target, the character may spend a fate point to intimidate a target as a free action, no matter what the circumstances, immediately (if between actions), or immediately after the current action underway.
This free action takes place in addition to any other action the character might take during the exchange.
<quote>
Requires Aura of Menace.
The character’s intimidating appearance and attitude is potent, making him able to intimidate entire crowds. As a full action, and only once per scene, the character may spend a fate point and make an intimidation attempt against all opponents in the scene. The effort is made at a -2 to the roll, but the character only rolls once, essentially setting the defensive difficulty that everyone must beat. If the effort at least beats the quality level of the minions present in the scene, at least half their number are automatically affected by the Intimidation effort regardless of their roll. This effect on minions may be cancelled if they have a leader with Leadership present, who may take a second defensive action on their behalf, using that skill.
<quote>
Requires Scary.
The character makes a promise (really, a threat) to a target, and makes an attack using Intimidation. If he scores a successful hit of one or better on the target’s mental stress track, he may spend a fate point to immediately force a psychological consequence instead. The consequence must represent an appropriate response (such as folding up in fear, or a broken spirit) to the threat.
<quote>
Requires Scary.
Your character’s unflinching gaze can lock an opponent in place. When a character with this stunt looks an opponent in the eyes and makes an Intimidation check, it locks the two of them into a contest that will last until either something interrupts it or one of them flinches. Both characters are locked in a contest of wills, and can only take Intimidation actions against each other until one or the other either takes a consequence, concedes, or is interrupted (by, say, a gunshot). Any defense rolls either makes against an interrupting action while this is in effect is at -2.
<quote>
Requires Steely Gaze.
Your character’s gaze is so terrifying that those faced with it can end up paralyzed with fear. This stunt is used in the same fashion as Steely Gaze, but if the opponent loses to the point of taking a consequence, he takes two consequences, one right after the other, immediately. Even if this means he’s taken out, the target retains the option to concede after recording the consequence, thus keeping his right to define the nature of his defeat (subject to the gazer’s approval).
<quote>
Requires Fearsome Gaze and Aura of Fear.
Your character is a master of the terrifying, and can have an entire room cowering within moments. When this character uses the Aura of Fear stunt, he does not take the -2 penalty.
Furthermore, minions (see page XX) whose quality level is beat by the roll fail entirely and may not even roll to defend unless their leader discards his next action for the exchange to roll Leadership to defend them. Without a capable leader, these minions simply flee, faint, or otherwise take an immediate consequence, to the last man.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
The character has a strong visual memory, and whenever he revisits a place where he has used Investigation before, he may make an immediate use of Investigation in a matter of seconds in order to determine what changed since he was last there, as if it were an unusually detailed Alertness check.
<quote>
Requires Scene of the Crime.
Your character’s visual memory is so strong that with a little concentration, he can revisit any place he’s been to in his memory in exacting detail.
Sometimes, he can even pick up on details that he hadn’t consciously realized before.
To use this ability, the character spends a fate point, and may make a single perception based roll (usually Investigation, but not necessarily limited to that) to find things out as if he were still in the location, no matter how long ago he left the scene.
<quote>
Requires at least one other Investigation stunt and one other Empathy stunt.
Sometimes your guesses play out to great advantage. Once per scene, you may make a guess about what the “deal” is with a particular character, object, location, or situation.
Do not speak this guess aloud; write it down on a piece of paper and give it to the GM. The GM must accept it as a valid hunch that would be something of a revelation if true (i.e., no “I’m convinced that moon orbits the Earth!” – that’s too obvious). If, at some later point, your hunch proves to be correct, you may use your Investigation or Empathy skill instead of any other skill, where that target is concerned, for one exchange. (A savvy GM will occasionally alter her characters’ motives to match your hunches; if she does, that’s absolutely perfect!)
<quote> <quote>
The character may use Investigation to eavesdrop on conversations he can only see. If the GM would normally allow someone to attempt to read lips, the difficulty is reduced by two; otherwise, you may simply roll Investigation when others may not.
<quote>
The character is skilled at concentrating on one of his senses to the exclusion of all others. The sense must be specified at the time this stunt is taken. With a few moments of concentration, the character may enter a focused state. So long as he remains in that state, for as long as the character uses nothing but Investigation, all Investigation actions the character takes that use the specified sense gain a +2 bonus. While in this state, if the character needs to make a non-Investigation roll, that roll is at -2 due to this intense focus.
This stunt may be taken multiple times, each time for a single sense. If the character has specified multiple senses, his focus may cover all of them at once.
<quote>
Requires Focused Senses.
When paying attention, the character’s senses operate at a profound level of focus, allowing him to pick up on details that, very simply, no one else easily or even possibly could.
With this stunt, the character faces no increased difficulties due to a physical detail being too small or subtle. As an example, this can reduce the difficulty to detect the presence of nearly any poison to Mediocre (as, honestly, subtlety is all it has to conceal itself ).
The use of this stunt may color what details a GM chooses to reveal to a character as well, on a successful Investigation roll. Make sure to let the GM know you have this stunt whenever rolling Investigation.
As this involves a use of Investigation, it must still be a deliberate exploration, rather than a casual use better suited to Alertness.
<quote>
The character is able to investigate a location much more quickly than others, while still being very thorough.
All Investigation efforts the character makes happen one to two time increments (page XX) faster than usual, allowing him to make one or two additional rolls in the same amount of time, or simply conclude his investigation faster than he would otherwise.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
Taking this stunt is an explicit indication that you are a member of some manner of global conspiracy; it’s probably worth making sure you have an aspect indicating as much. This stunt functions identically to the Network of Contacts stunt for Contacting (see page XX), but in a fashion that is both more and less powerful than that stunt.
Whenever you call upon a functionary or thrall of your conspiracy, creating a companion on the fly, the companion is created with only one advance. If, instead, you’re looking to call upon one of the movers and shakers in the conspiracy – not a peer, per se, but at least someone who’s significantly more capable than a functionary – you may create the companion with one additional advance, instead. This companion receives the Independent advance for free.
Doing so, however, means that your conspiracy now has one or two needs you must fulfill – you immediately gain a temporary aspect related to these needs, determined by the GM, and may not refuse compels of this temporary aspect whenever it comes up. Occasionally this temporary aspect may instead reflect a hidden agenda on the part of your momentary companion, rather than an explicit “need”.
<quote>
You must take this stunt two or three times.
You have a single, exceptional companion, well equipped to handle leadership duties in your stead. He is Fair quality, and has the Independent and Skilled (Leadership) advances for free (see page XX).
This stunt must be taken multiple times, either two or three, in order to build an exceptionally capable companion. Taken twice, this stunt lets you define 4 advances beyond the two free base advances. Taken three times, the stunt allows you to define 2 additional advances and, in addition, promote your lieutenant to Good quality. If you’ve already promoted your lieutenant to Good quality, you may take a different advance.
<quote>
You have minions – lots of them. As a default, in a scene, you may have the bare minimum of minions easily on hand – two or three of Average quality (page XX).
You may make three upgrades to improve your minions, spent at the point you bring them into the scene. Each upgrade either by adds three more to their number, or boosts the quality of three of them by one step (no minion can be more than Good quality).
This stunt may be taken multiple times to increase the starting number of minions (taking it twice means you start out with five or six of Average quality) and the number of upgrades (taking it twice also means you have six upgrades). You must spend all of your upgrades at the start of the scene when you bring in your minions, but you needn’t bring them all in right away. <Example>
<quote>
Requires Minions.
During a fight, you may spend a fate point to call in reinforcements. The reinforcements show up at the beginning of the next exchange. You may replace up to half your lost minions by doing so.
<Example>
<quote>
You are very-well acquainted with the law in any place you’ve spent a significant amount of time, and are skilled at exploiting loopholes in it. You gain a +2 whenever using Leadership to deal with the law under such circumstances. Further, you are able to get legal paperwork processed one time increment (page XX) faster than normal.
<quote>
Requires Legal Eagle.
Your exposure to international law is so extensive that you’re at ease in any situation involving legal wrangling, wherever you are. You never suffer any increased difficulty from a lack of familiarity with the laws of your locale; your experience is so broad that you’ve either know it already, or can make highly educated guesses about how it functions.
<quote>
You head an organization that is profitable and generates some of its own cash. Your organization may draw on an effective Resources skill equal to your Leadership minus two, regardless of whether or not you’re present. When you personally make use of these resources it may take some time to filter through the power structure to reach you; the GM may increase the time it takes to acquire something by one step.
<quote>
You’re skilled at seeing the shape of an organization from the underside, and in organizations of sufficient size, you can easily convince anyone that you’re just another cog in the machine. This allows you to substitute your Leadership skill for Deceit whenever pretending to fill the role of a minor functionary of a target organization.
<quote>
Whether or not you lead it, you are like the spider at the center of a web regarding any organization of which you are a part. Information about the organization flows your way naturally, taking one time increment less to reach your attentive ears than it would normally, and so long as you are able to make any sort of contact with the outside world, you are quickly able to find out information about your organization’s dealings. Your Leadership shifts may be spent to improve the speed of information by up to two additional steps with GM’s approval.
<quote>
Requires Center of the Web.
First, this stunt steps up the intensity of your Center of the Web stunt – information flows your way a total of two time increments faster. Second, this stunt removes the restriction “so long as you are able to make any sort of contact with the outside world .” Your ties into the organization are so thoroughly widespread that the outside world makes every reasonable effort to stay in contact with you. For a fate point, your organization can even make some fairly unreasonable efforts to stay in contact.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
The character is incredibly strong, capable of lifting great weights. All weight-based difficulties that don’t involve combat are reduced by two steps. See page XX for more on weights.
<quote>
Requires Herculean Strength.
The character is capable of landing powerful blows with hammer-like force. At their best, these blows can rip apart steel cages and knock down walls. A character with Piledriver adds four to his attacks with Might against inanimate targets.
<quote>
If you are physically restrained in some fashion – be it by chains or a mob of people – you receive a +2 bonus to your Might in your efforts to break out of those bonds.
Combined with Piledriver (above), the character simply cannot be held in place by most mundane methods.
<quote>
Requires Herculean Strength and at least one other Might stunt.
Once in motion, this character is very difficult to stop due to his sheer muscular force.
The character may use Might rather than Athletics for move actions; this includes sprinting (see page XX). Furthermore, all blocks to his movement, including borders which can be “smashed” through, are considered to be two lower.
<quote>
Requires one other Might Stunt.
The character is a trained wrestler. The character may use their Might skill instead of Fists.
<quote>
Requires Wrestler.
You know how to apply your strength in a fight to take people off their feet. Whenever making a throw or a push maneuver (page XX), you may consider the target to weigh one weight factor (page XX) less than usual.
<quote>
Requires Wrestler.
Whenever you perform an action block (see page XX) by personally grabbing hold of someone, you do so at +1. Any time that person tries to break through the block and fails, you may inflict a single point of stress.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
The character is capable of using Mysteries to improve artifacts (mystic gadgets, essentially) in the same fashion that Engineering does, albeit on radically different principles (see Gadgets and Gizmos, page XX). “Devices” worked on in this fashion will be clearly arcane in appearance and will work on principles that may make no sense to logical men. You may include some advances that are not available to “normal” Engineering.
This sort of work requires an arcane workshop in the same way that engineering requires a regular workshop (page XX).
<quote>
An artifact is a magical item or device that does… something. As far as game rules go, it is identical in function to a gadget (see the stunt by that name under Engineering, page XX), though you may have some broader leeway to describe what it can do, given that it’s based on magic instead of technology. Certain unusual upgrades may be incorporated into the design as well.
This stunt may be taken multiple times, but multiple Artifacts may not be combined the way Personal Gadgets can be (as described in the stunts on page XX).
<quote>
You may introduce an artifact that you design on-the-fly, in a fashion similar to the Universal Gadget stunt (see page XX).
Because this is an artifact, however, a few differences exist. The artifact gets three improvements, same as a Personal Artifact, instead of only two improvements, the way a Universal Gadget does. Furthermore, this stunt may be taken multiple times and, unlike a Personal Artifact, may combine those improvements into a single, more potent artifact.
There is, however, a downside…
All Rare Artifacts inevitably have origins shrouded in darkness and mystery. In order to introduce such an artifact into play, the character must take on a temporary aspect which vaguely, colorfully references the secret (and unknown) past of the artifact. The GM may then incorporate its dark past into the storyline, hitting the character with compels as appropriate.
If the player’s uninterested in having his impromptu artifact misbehaving on occasion, he may spend a fate point to avoid the temporary aspect’s placement. And that might just be a good idea. .. Beware the sinister secrets of the arcane!
<quote>
The character is adept at using his Mysteries skill as described under Mesmerism (page XX). When helping another character to remember things with hypnosis, the other character’s skills are not limited in any way, and in fact may be complemented by the hypnotist’s Mysteries skill.
Further, rolls with a willing target – even if that target is not actively participating – are always at +2, as if the target was actively participating (see page XX). Finally, the time it takes to put someone into a trance is reduced by one step, if applicable.
<quote>
Requires Mesmerist.
When interacting with others socially, you are able to weave the patterns and methods of mesmerism into your words, potentially putting someone you’re talking to into a partial trance – even without them realizing.
Provided you have had several minutes of calm conversation with another character as a preamble, you may start using your Mysteries skill instead of Rapport or Deceit. You may not make such a substitution if the conversation becomes strongly charged with emotion or if other distractions surface to break the air of calm. This stunt works even when dealing with an unwilling subject (in part because it simply allows you to substitute Mysteries for the perfectly normal functions of Rapport and Deceit).
<quote>
Requires Mesmerist.
Whenever you have someone in a full trance, you may plant false memories, or remove existing memories. The partial trance resulting from the Hypnotic Speech stunt does not count – this must be a full trance, which is usually only possible with a willing target. Unwilling trances resulting from the Enthrall stunt do, however, count.
To use this ability, for each memory to be planted or removed, roll your Mysteries skill. The result indicates the difficulty for someone to recognize the memories as missing or false, as well as the difficulty – for the subject or another mesmerist – to penetrate the shadow you have lain over their mind.
<quote>
Requires Mind’s Shadow and Hypnotic Speech.
You are able to place even unwilling subjects into a hypnotic trance by using Mysteries as an out-and-out attack.
This works best with a restrained subject, but so long as a target can hear the sound of your voice, you have a chance to begin your workings upon him. Targets who are not restrained or forced to be a captive audience defend with their Resolve at +2, though a full defense action does not help them further.
You may approach this mental assault in one of two ways – either as a maneuver, placing a temporary aspect that will only last the scene, or as an attack that inflicts composure stress.
Maneuvers will be short-lived, but may be easier and more useful for immediate effects. If you’re looking to lay on something more profound, you must attack for stress instead.
If you inflict enough stress to indicate a consequence, concession, or taken out result, the results must “play along” with the goals of your hypnotic attack. Such results still can’t force a character to do something completely contrary to his nature, but there should still be a lot of latitude in terms of what sorts of compulsions you can place in the mind of your victim.
It’s easy to use this stunt improperly… and if you do, people are in the right to label you as a villain.
<quote>
The character is unusually adept at predicting the shape of future events. With this stunt, he may make two predictions per session, instead of the usual one.
<quote>
You have specialized in non-traditional medicine to such an extent that it is many ways superior to modern medicine – even if most might scoff or not understand.
In the wilderness, you can find medical supplies easily, and may roll Mysteries instead of Survival to find such things; further, you may roll Mysteries instead of Science in order to perform first aid or proper medical care (see page XX). Using this stunt, you face no penalties for using unorthodox “tools”.
<quote>
Using palm reading or other techniques of personal examination (such as phrenology and aura consultation), you may make a single Mysteries roll as if you were using Empathy. This usually only takes a few minutes, so if you can get someone to be willing to be read, it can sometimes yield information faster than a standard Empathy read would.
At the player’s option, this may be combined with a second Mysteries roll to make a fortune-telling prediction, either before or after the palm-reading roll, so long as the player’s not past his per-session limit. Such predictions must focus on the character being read.
<quote>
The character is respected authority in a specific occult field. Possibilities include ancient mythology, psychic phenomena, cryptozoology, and so on. In the elite circles of that particular field, the character is recognized for his expertise. Even if his skill level is low, it merely means he is towards the bottom of that particular group of the elite.
This stunt is, essentially, the Mysteries parallel of the Scholar stunt, under Academics (see page XX). When the character makes a Mysteries roll pertaining to his general area of expertise, he automatically receives a +1 knowledge bonus. Beyond this, the character should pick a specific area of specialization within that area (like extraterrestrial demonology, or xenomorphic symbology – the more syllables the better). When a Mysteries roll involves that specialization, he gains an additional +1 bonus (for a total +2 to the value of the research effort). Any research efforts involving the specialization take one unit less time.
<quote>
You are open to the strange and paranormal – though sometimes that means letting in the Unpleasant Things from the Darkness and other such nuisances.
Normally, a character may be called upon by the GM to roll Mysteries as a kind of paranormal Alertness skill, to pick up on the surface strangeness in a place. With this stunt, you may deliberately use your Mysteries skill to gain some mystic or terrible insight into the occult “climate” of an area, as if it were Investigation – using a similar time-frame and gaining a similar level of (paranormal) detail.
This also means that you may use Mysteries instead of Alertness when surprised, if the origin of the surprise is in some way supernatural, and can even use Mysteries as your initiative skill when locked in a conflict with otherworldly forces.
Used with this stunt, Mysteries can give you access to information that would normally be impossible to get – though the GM is under no obligation to give you that information in any clear fashion. Muddled riddles and vague intimations are the mode of the day.
There is an additional catch: Using this ability may open you up to an unpleasant psychic attack by the presence or residue of Unnatural Creatures that have touched the area … but at least you’ve learned something.
<quote>
You have a companion with three advances (as described on page XX). This companion is vulnerable to the flux of the spiritual aether, however, and must be summoned into your presence – either pay a fate point to get his immediate manifestation or take roughly a minute to roll Mysteries against a target equal to the companion’s quality as a more gentle summoning.
This companion can never act in physical conflict, but may be visible to others; this may limit what skills he can use with the Skilled advance. He automatically gains the Independent advance as well. The companion will need to take Skilled (Stealth) if he wishes to be undetectable on occasion; otherwise, visible or not, his presence in a location is an immediate call for people to roll Mysteries to notice something amiss.
If you take this stunt a second time (the maximum) you may provide another three advances to your companion. If you have not yet increased the companion’s quality to at least Fair, you must spend one of your advances to do so.
<quote>
Requires Psychic.
Given time to prepare and perform the ritual, the character may perform a real, functioning séance to try to call out to spirits dead or never living. A Mysteries roll must be made against a difficulty set by the GM, in order to cause a particular spirit to manifest.
Summoned spirits are not under any sort of compulsion to be cooperative, and may have their own agendas, but once summoned, they may speak through the character with others in attendance. At the GM’s option, especially if the summoner gains spin on her Mysteries roll, the spirit may even manifest visibly.
Should the spirit be malicious in any fashion, or wish to escape the summons, the character may use Mysteries or Resolve as his skill of choice when struggling with the spirit.
<quote>
Requires Psychic.
There are patterns to things that are not always obvious, even to the wise.
This character looks in the right places, and hears the right things. Once per session, when he is not otherwise occupied, he may request an omen from the GM, and roll Mysteries against a target of Mediocre. The GM will use the results to guide her decision about how obscure the information gained is. It may be as arcane as a snippet of a riddle, or as mundane as news that a strange shipment is coming into the docks at midnight.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
This pilot can squeeze his plane through places where it has no business fitting. Normally, a pilot can spend a fate point for a coincidence or declaration to assure that the plane has enough clearance space to fly through. Characters with this stunt never need to spend a fate point: if it could fit, it can. What’s more, if your character does spend a fate point, he can fit the plane in places it absolutely should not be able to. This stunt is also useful for landing planes in improbably tight quarters.
<quote>
The skies are an open map in the character’s mind. Unless bizarre circumstances are afoot, he can never get lost in flight. If something strange is happening – such as when flying through the Bermuda Triangle – the difficulties to his Pilot rolls are never reduced by more than 2.
<quote>
Whether in dead of night or during a storm, your character’s piloting skills remain true. The character never faces increased difficulties due to environmental factors (darkness, weather) when flying. This does not protect his plane from taking damage from the environment – but his skill remains unreduced.
<quote>
The character is a skilled combat pilot, and may use his Pilot skill to attack in a dogfight, assuming the plane is suitably armed. Normally, a pilot uses Pilot on his defense actions, and must use Guns in order to attack (similar to someone on foot using Athletics for defense and Guns for offense).
<quote>
Requires Flying Ace.
The character’s combat flight experience makes him a deadly force when he gets the upper hand. While in flight, if he is able to make an attack on another flying target from an elevated position, he does two additional points of stress on a successful hit.
This stunt can’t be used two exchanges in a row; whenever making such an attack, the acrobatics take him out of his position of advantage.
<quote>
Requires at least two other Pilot stunts.
The character has a great instinct for crash-landing planes, and is able to walk away from even the most catastrophic-seeming landings. While the character is piloting a plane into its crash landing, he and his passengers get the benefits of the Death Defiance stunt (see page XX), and are all considered “out of sight” when the plane crashes.
<quote>
You have a personal aircraft that you own or have the exclusive right to fly. In all respects, this stunt functions like the Custom Ride stunt (page XX). Please refer to that stunt for details.
<quote>
Requires Personal Aircraft.
Identical to the Prototype Car stunt (on page XX), but for your plane.
<quote>
Requires at least two other Pilot stunts.
Your character may not understand the broader aspects of engineering devices and such, but when it comes to planes, he knows them inside and out. Whenever working on a plane, you may use your Pilot skill instead of Engineering. Due to some shared principles, you may work on other vehicles at a -1.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
<quote>
You’re adept at making first impressions – sometimes you might not improve the preconceived attitude someone holds towards you, but you can at least assure you don’t get off on the wrong foot when you meet for the first time.
Whenever rolling to make a first impression with an NPC, no matter how severe the failure, you cannot cause them to have a lower or more negative opinion of you than they already had, unless you’re making an active effort in that direction.
In rules terms, this means that if your target ever gains spin on an impression “defense” (see page XX), it does not cause his attitude to degrade by one step.
<quote>
For a fate point, you can make a steadfast friend in a place you’ve never been, given a chance for five minutes of conversation. This stunt makes nearly impossible opportunities to make friends merely improbable, improbable opportunities probable, and probable opportunities outright certain.
<quote>
The character’s mastery of etiquette leaves him comfortable, and even glib, in any situation. The character never suffers any penalties or increased difficulty from unfamiliarity with his setting, making it easy to maneuver through local customs he hasn’t encountered before, and to cover up any gaffes with a laugh and a sparkle in his eye.
<quote>
You’re adept at catching the eye of the opposite sex, and keeping it once you’ve got it. Any seduction attempts you make with Rapport receive a +2 technique bonus provided the target is someone who could be receptive to it (this is not always a simple case of gender and preference).
<quote>
It’s not that you’re a good liar – possibly far from it. It’s more that you have a skill at talking so fast, and not letting the other guy get a word in edgewise, that he doesn’t ever get the chance to figure out if you’re lying or not.
With this stunt, so long as you can keep talking, you can cover up increasingly ludicrous lies. Start your fast-talk conversation with your target as a contest between your Rapport and their Resolve or Rapport. If you win, the conversation continues, and you repeat the roll on the next exchange. If you fail, no matter how poorly, you can spend a fate point to continue the conversation as if you had won.
So long as you can keep talking uninterrupted and continue to spend fate points to defer any failures, your endless blathering will prevent your target from realizing quite what you’re doing. For the duration of the conversation, the difficulty of any perception (usually Alertness) checks by the target are based off your base Rapport skill, or your last successful roll, whichever value is higher.
The target of this effort is by no means helpless – if they are attacked or otherwise disturbed they may respond normally, and they will respond to obvious stimuli (friends being attacked in their line of sight, fire alarms going off and such). However, the target is definitely distracted. When using this ability on multiple opponents at once, they each get to defend, and you take a -1 penalty for each opponent past the first.
Of course, once you stop talking, it may be time for a quick exit.
<quote>
You’re a regular stand up guy with no secrets, at least so far as anyone can tell. But even so, you’re in control of which part of your best face you’re putting forward.
Whenever using the Opening Up tactic (see page XX) to “defend” against an Empathy read, you gain a +1 on your Rapport roll. If you gain spin on your defense, you may substitute one alternate true, non-trivial fact about yourself instead of revealing an aspect.
The reader must still get an insight into you if you’re providing a fact; it’s just not necessarily one that has the weight of an aspect.
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Smaller parts of a larger truth can contain a blueprint of the whole – and as a skilled conversationalist, you are adept at pulling the larger truth out of a single individual. Provided the person you’re talking to is at least neutral towards you, you may use your Rapport skill instead of Contacting for any effort to gather information (see page XX). The results are limited and colored by the knowledge available to your chat partner, but it’s always possible he doesn’t know that he knows certain things, and as such, your acquaintance effectively acts as a small “cluster” of contacts.
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You’re adept at stepping into a bad situation and dialing it down to something more reasonable. So long as you are not the direct reason someone is upset, your attempts to calm them down using your Rapport receive a +2 bonus.
(Skill, page XX; Adjudication, page XX)
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While most characters with Resolve can keep things together under stress, for your character it is second nature, allowing him to regain his footing in the face of even the direst of outcomes outside of physical conflict. This stunt allows the character to take one additional moderate, social or mental consequence than normal, allowing him to take up to four total consequences of that variety.
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Requires Smooth Recovery.
The character is so at ease in times of social stress that nothing seems to dent his calm regard of the situation. The character may take a full action once per exchange to roll his Resolve against a target of Mediocre.
If successful, he may remove a checkmark in his first mental stress box (at the one-point stress position). If he desires, after a successful roll, he may instead spend a fate point and remove any single composure stress track box of a value equal to or less than the shifts he gained on his roll.
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Requires Smooth Recovery.
When possible, the character’s composure stress track rolls down instead of up. Whenever the character’s composure stress would roll up to the next empty box, it instead rolls down to the first empty box of a lesser value. If there are no available boxes of a lesser value, the stress rolls up normally.