# Personae System Reference Document
Craig Hatler, author, designer and developer.
Todd V. Ehrenfels, lead contributor and consultant.
Text by Craig Hatler Games under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC BY 4.0).
Version 2 (v2) up-to-date as of Feb 1, 2023.
# Introduction And Objective
The objective of Personae is to facilitate rewarding, enjoyable roleplaying game experiences. Personae provides a rules system for resolving conflicts within the confines of a shared, collaborative interactive fictional environment consisting of one or more players and the chorus, referred to hereafter as “the fiction”.
- Every player controls one or more _identities_ (may be abbreviated as _IDs_ or _idents_, as a shorthand): unique entities from the perspective of the game’s mechanics that are capable of issuing or answering challenges. Identities might be creatures, people, places, ideas, or phenomena. Every player begins play with at least one identity—their main character—but might control additional identities as play progresses. Some identities may last a long time, and some might be more volatile, depending on their relevance in the fiction.
- The terms identity and character might be used interchangeably, but whether an identity is a character is predicated on the circumstances of the fiction; identities and characters are, for the purposes of the game’s mechanics, identical.
- Unless otherwise specified, the pronouns of identities and characters are they/them. Identities that represent non-people objects, obstacles or other such phenomena may be it/them where appropriate.
- The chorus may control one or more identities in addition to the players’ main characters, such as supporting characters, at any time during play. The chorus’ identities might be on the same side as the players’ characters, against them, or somewhere in-between. The role of the chorus is explained in greater detail in "Moderating a Personae Game”.
- The success or failure of actions undertaken by identities is addressed by the issuing or answering of challenges. Challenges are resolved by the rolling of one(1) or more ten-sided dice by either a player or the chorus. The faces of the dice are labeled 1 to 10. The outcomes of the dice rolled interact with and may be modified by an identity’s relevant game mechanics statistics, referred to hereafter as “stats”.
- Conflicts are resolved through methods of social interaction such as teamwork, problem-solving, critical thinking, improvisation and cleverness, undertaken not only by the players and chorus outside the fiction but within it as well by the identities under their control.
- Other players, as well as the chorus, might offer suggestions as to how an identity might act, behave, perform or function within the fiction, but every player has principle authorial agency over their main character’s details, thoughts, behaviors and actions by default. Any influence over a player or chorus’s identities that come from the chorus or other players may only impact the fiction if the controlling player has given consent; the controlling player has “final veto power”.
- Unless otherwise specified, the pronouns of identities, characters, players or the chorus are they/them by default.
# Before We Start
_Credit to Fari RPGs - Breathless RPG SRD - https://fari.community/creators/fari-rpgs/projects/breathless_
Before starting it is highly recommended that the group define lines, both within and outside the fiction, that should not be crossed. Feel encouraged at any time to pause or rewind the game if something uncomfortable happens during a session. Everyone should always be mindful that everyone else is comfortable with the direction of the story.
--
Here are two toolsets that may be of benefit to you in helping to establish and maintain safety at your table:
- X-Card - John Stavropoulos - http://tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg
- Script Change - Beau Jágr Sheldon - http://briebeau.com/scriptchange
One person is the chorus, the rest are players.
##### The Chorus
- Narrates what chorus-controlled characters (CCs) do;
- Guides the story and presents challenges to the group;
- Asks the group questions and fills the world with their answers;
- Will let things be tried if they're cool!
The chorus is a fan of the whole group, and are players as well!
##### The Players
- Narrate what player-controlled characters (PCs) and identities do;
- Issue or answer challenges when things are risky;
- Fill the world of the fiction with their ideas, take risks, and rise up from their failures;
- Give everyone a time to shine!
Unless it's stated otherwise, which it almost 100% isn't, everything below exists in the game's mechanics by default. When in doubt, it's a default.
# The Measure Of An Identity
Personae identities, whether they be characters or otherwise, are comprised of attributes and traits.
### Attributes
Every identity has **attributes**, an array of innate descriptive qualities. Attributes are an identity’s point of origin: they provide modifiers to skill rolls, and determine the maximum number of a trait that each attribute is associated with. Abbreviation functions as reference to attribute value, e.g. POW for Power. Each attribute is assigned a numerical value, expressed as whole numbers. By default they are never less than one(1), with the exception of hindrance priority attributes which can be zero(0). The maximum value of an attribute is imposed by the order of importance.
### Attributes Explained
- By default, all Personae identities have six(6) attributes.
- When an attribute value is referenced in the text below, the following abbreviations will be used to mean the corresponding attribute’s value:
- Competence - CMP
- Cunning - CNG
- Power - POW
- Prowess - PRO
- Knowledge - KNO
- Stature - STA
#### Competence
_Competence_ represents keeping your head in the midst of uncertainty. It's a combination of an identity's force of personality, their presence of mind, social awareness or "street smarts".
The greater your Competence is, the more capable you are at performing different types of actions under pressure, in situations where your skill is matched in opposition with another identity.
- The maximum number of unlocked skills an identity can begin play with is equal to their CMP.
- Competence is a good attribute to add to skills rolled in interaction challenges that involve social situations.
- The Counter skill is automatically unlocked for all characters when play begins, modified by their CMP.
#### Prowess
Whereas Competence deals more with the big picture, _Prowess_ is all about details and particulars, formulating a plan and seeing it into action. Prowess is the measure of a character’s capacity for organization, their receptiveness to rigor and formal training, turning broad fields of capability into well-honed assets that get results.
Whereas Competence opens the door to a skill by unlocking it, Prowess improves the skill, increasing an identity’s chance to succeed a challenge, whether in stressful situations or when pitted against their opponents.
- A character's Prowess pool, the maximum number of dice an identity’s unlocked skills can be increased by when play begins is equal to their PRO × 3.
_Ex. Your PRO is 4, you have 12 dice in your Prowess pool_
- The Prepare skill is automatically unlocked for all characters when play begins, modified by their PRO.
- Prowess is a good attribute to add to skills rolled in challenges that involve discipline and rigor.
#### Cunning
_Cunning_ represents the quickness of a character’s wits—their perceptiveness, ingenuity, hand-eye coordination, agility (particularly of the mind), ability to improvise, and poise/positioning.
- The maximum number of enhancements an identity can begin play with is equal to their CNG.
- The Discern skill is automatically unlocked for all characters when play begins, modified by their CNG.
- Cunning is a good attribute to add to skill rolls in challenges that involve maneuverability, awareness, and acting on instinct rather than rational thought.
#### Power
_Power_ represents exerting force of will. There are many words synonymous with this, such as determination, resolve, drive and conviction, but they all refer to the same principle: ensuring that your desire takes shape when confronted with the desires of others who may stand in your way, and refusing to allow those conflicting desires to take shape as well. For characters who practice the supernatural, it is the avenue by which they tap into the source of their craft to manipulate reality, breaking the theories and laws dictated by science.
- The maximum number of powers an identity can begin play with is equal to their POW.
- The Steel skill is automatically unlocked for all characters when play begins, modified by their POW.
- If the supernatural exists in the fiction, all characters have the capability to manipulate it in one way or another. Not all characters produce the more drastic types of effects covered by powers, however, and may use those points to upgrade enhancements instead.
- Power adds to skills that are necessary for using powers (that call for you to issue a power challenge), and otherwise is a good attribute to add to skills rolled in challenges that involve rebuffing challenges intended to sway the character’s mind.
#### Knowledge
_Knowledge_ represents a character's aptitude for academic interests and craft. This includes what the character knows about any given topic (such as history, alchemy, medicine), or how to make things with craftsmanship (such as weapons, sailing ships or furniture). The character turns what he knows into languages, areas of expertise, or resources that represent material wealth.
- The maximum number of talents a character can begin play with is equal to their KNO.
- The Deduce skill is automatically unlocked for all characters when play begins, modified by their KNO.
- Knowledge is a good attribute to add to skills rolled in challenges involving knowing, learning, or acting on information already known.
#### Stature
_Stature_ represents the character’s physical body. Stamina and raw might both fall into this category. Stature reflects how much punishment a character can take, expressed as the character's vitality.
- The number of hits a character may sustain before marking shock level 1 is equal to their STA + 1.
_Example: An identity’s STA is 5; they can sustain 6 hits before marking shock 1._
- The Defend skill is automatically unlocked for all characters when play begins, modified by their STA.
- Stature is a good attribute to add to skills rolled in challenges that involve , brute force, endurance, or hardiness.
### Traits
It's not enough that characters are strong, smart or wily—if that strength, intelligence or cleverness can't be put to use, then they can't ever accomplish anything worth telling stories about. Traits are the means by which identities interact with the fiction, turning their hopes and dreams into reality. Characters with compelling stories don't exist without a vehicle for achieving the goals and desires that they cherish the most.
By default, Personae identities have five different types of traits: skills, enhancements, powers, talents, and vitality.
#### Skills
Skills represent the time, training, and devotion that a character invests into becoming better at performing actions. Skills are the foundational basis for performing actions.
Most of these actions are what any sentient creature might be capable of doing: swinging a sword, deciphering encoded text, or avoiding notice from others. Skill is not just performing at the action in question, but excelling at it—performing it with skill.
Supernatural practice is included in these types of actions, initiating effects that transcend the mundane world. Those who conduct supernatural practices who wish to succeed more often than not spend a great deal of time turning mere practice into mastery in the use of their powers.
- Skills involve both violent and nonviolent applications—mechanically speaking there is no difference between striking a dragon with a sword and using rhetoric to convince a listener of your political opinion.
- When a character issues or answers a challenge, the player rolls one or more dice for the purposes of resolving the challenge.
- A character does not have to have a skill unlocked in order to perform an action; a character can attempt any action that the player chooses, even if the appropriate skill has yet to be unlocked (the character is considered unskilled for a skill that has yet to be unlocked). Players attempting an action that isn't covered by one of their unlocked skills may always roll one(1) die by default, and add an attribute considered appropriate to the action being attempted.
- If a character has unlocked skills, then this allows the player to roll more dice if the challenge involves one of the unlocked skills; the rating of the skill equals the number of dice you roll. Unlocked skills always have a starting rating of two(2) dice.
- When a skill is unlocked, the player then chooses an attribute that they will, by default, add when rolling that skill in the process of either issuing or answering a challenge. Sometimes this will be obvious—weapons-related skills, for example, that involve hand-to-hand combat will generally involve adding the character's STA, whereas ranged weapons (bows and the like) will add CNG.
- Provided that the player has a valid rationale, however, for picking the default attribute for the skill being unlocked, and there is agreement between player and chorus that makes sense in the fiction, then any attribute could conceivably be chosen as the default for a given skill when it is unlocked. This does not mean, however, that the default attribute will always be added for a given skill; the chorus may note that circumstances warrant another attribute being used to add in lieu of the default. (chorus should note that these should be exceptions rather than rules, otherwise it marginalizes the default attribute chosen by the player when the skill was unlocked.)
**Specific Skill List:** By default, Personae has no specific list of skills. Any skills chosen by player- or chorus-controlled identities will depend entirely on what makes sense within the fiction. That doesn’t preclude, however, a group deciding on a list of common skills in advance to serve as a handy reference when it comes to choosing new skills to unlock as play progresses.
**_Prowess Pool:_** Players increase their characters' skill ratings with dice from the Prowess pool.
- The character's Prowess pool is the sum total of dice that the player has assigned to the character's skills, whether play progresses over the course of one session or several.
- The Prowess pool is initially set at creation (see Prowess above). The player may distribute dice from the pool to the character's skills as he or she chooses. When a character's Prowess increases, their Prowess pool increases accordingly.
- It is not mandatory that the player assign all of the character's starting Prowess pool dice at creation. If a player chooses to leave dice from the Prowess pool unassigned, however, then those unassigned dice should be noted as distinct from the total pool.
- Your skill rating, the maximum number of dice that can be allocated to a skill, is equal to the character's potential threshold (potential + 2).
_Ex. Your potential is 1, your skill rating max is 3_
#### Enhancements
Enhancements (Es) take a character from ordinary to extraordinary, constantly testing the boundary between possible and impossible. Es make a character better at their other traits in a variety of different ways, such as superior training or the more subtle influence of the supernatural. Es can also improve or modify the effects of a character's powers. The exact benefit that each of a character's Es provide are agreed upon and defined through player-chorus consensus, in keeping with commonly agreed-upon internal consistency and sense of the fiction.
At creation the maximum number of Es a character can begin play with are equal to their CNG.
**What Enhancements Can Do:** Better defined by the Es themselves than an over-reaching description, the category encompasses a variety of resources available to the character. Es can, for example...
...add an additional number to the result of a skill roll in addition to attribute, thereby improving it.
_[Skill] Training: Add one(1) to the result of all attack challenges issued or answered with your [Skill], along with all other modifiers._
...add one or more dice to a skill roll. These dice are in addition to the rating of the skill, but it should be decided as to whether or not they can cause the number of dice rolled to exceed the maximum skill rating.
_Expert [Skill]: Roll one additional die whenever you issue or answer challenges with [Skill]._
...allow you to reroll one or more dice before determining the result of a skill roll. It should be decided whether or not the second or better result is taken, and if any other special circumstances must be considered.
_[Skill] Focus: Reroll one die whenever you issue or answer challenges with [Skill] (take second result, can't be highest)._
...force an opponent to reroll one or more of their dice before determining the result of a skill roll. Just as with the character having a reroll enhancement, the fictional circumstances must be considered.
_Misdirection: When you succeed an interaction challenge against an opponent with [Skill], you can issue an immediate follow-up challenge; when your opponent answers the follow-up challenge, it must reroll one of their dice in the skill used to answer (take second result, can't be highest)._
...increase the number of hits an opponent sustains with a successful attack challenge.
_Brutal [weapon Skill] Strike: Your opponent sustains one additional hit when you succeed an attack challenge with [weapon]._
...provide an additional or alternate benefit to one of your skills.
_Taunt: When you succeed an interaction challenge against an opponent with [Skill], you automatically escalate to a violent encounter, and your opponent must immediately issue you an attack challenge._
...provide an additional or alternate benefit to one of your powers.
_Spread [Power]: [Power] can affect one additional opponent._
...allow you to perform stupendous feats of derring-do by spending criticals.
_Horrific Wound: If you succeed an attack challenge against an opponent with [weapon Skill], and you spend one of your criticals, the opponent immediately sustains enough hits necessary to become Injured, no matter how many there are._
This is not an exhaustive list. Es don't have to have a mechanically quantifiable rating or effectiveness level, however, and can instead have an impact on the fiction without a mechanical benefit. Work with your chorus if you're interested in taking an E that doesn't necessarily fit into one of the examples provided above.
**Scope of Enhancements:** In the midst of a nonviolent or violent encounter, a character's use of Es is limited. A character may only benefit from one E in the course of their turn, unless either they have powers or enhancements that say otherwise, or the E has an identifier that says otherwise.
**Identifiers:** Es have identifiers that help clarify, refine or limit their scope. Below are just some possible identifiers; this is not an exhaustive list.
- Background (B): Characters may begin play with one free enhancement that expresses an ethnic group, species, nationality, or some other background element that helps to elaborate on the character's origins. It should not only serve the purpose of identification in this regard, but provide a mechanical benefit as well.
- Conditional (C): When a player decides to limit, or "hamstring" an E by dictating it can only be used, for example, once in an encounter (a condition outside the fiction), or it can only be used, for example, only against those opponents who have previously committed a crime (a condition within the fiction), then the E is identified as conditional. Conditional Es can be upgraded once for free for each limiting condition imposed upon it.
- Superior (S): An E identified as a superior, is always in effect in addition other Es that must be chosen during a character's turn during a nonviolent or violent encounter. You have the option during either creation or advancement to upgrade an E to superior (explained in "advancement", below). Applying the Superior identifier to an enhancement requires investing more than one creation point or development point (see “Creation Points” and “Advancement”, respectively).
- Exceptional (X): Es identified as Exceptional are those that represent such a significant degree of investment in the enhancement they're applied to that no circumstance, fictional or otherwise, can ever deprive the identity possessing it of its benefit. Applying the Exceptional identifier to an enhancement requires investing more than one creation point or development point by default (see “Creation Points” and “Advancement”, respectively).
- Es must have the superior identifier first before they can be exceptional—a total expenditure of 3 creation or development points.
#### Powers
Commanding bolts of lightning to strike from the sky, running faster than an arrow in flight, gazing upon distant vistas through a polished mirror—all of these, and too many more to count, are what we call powers: the direct application of the supernatural. Practitioners who use powers initiate drastic changes to reality, breaking the rules of science to make the impossible possible. The maximum number of powers a character begins play with is equal to their POW, and power is the default attribute that gets added when either issuing or answering power challenges.
Depending on the character, and the character's particular supernatural practice, powers can be expressed in different ways. Regardless of those descriptive details, mechanically speaking powers work the same way (unless a game group institutes additional rules for different methods of accessing or practicing magic). Also too, while the source of supernatural aptitude might differ from character to character, there is no mechanical difference between someone who practices "psionics" versus "divine magic", just as there is nothing mechanically different between someone who taps into the supernatural innately versus someone who does it through intellectual discipline and study (unless a group institutes mechanical differences of their own devising).
While characters are capable of attempting just about any sort of action that their players can think of, there is a limitation on the kind of magical effects that can be produced. In short, a character wanting to, for example, create an illusion of a giant fire-winged demon in order to scare an opponent, must have a “Project Illusion” power in order to bring about such a result. So long the character has the power, however (namely, that the power was acquired either at Character Creation or through advancement), that power—and any others the character has—can be initiated at will, an infinite number of times in the course of an encounter (unless a restriction has been instituted by the game group), directed by the identity power's duration.
The possible applications of a character's powers are limited only by the player's imagination. powers might cause the character to double in size, grow extra limbs, make the character's voice sound more pleasing and persuasive, or might change a clear sky to a driving hailstorm. The specific effects of powers, and their mechanical applications, are agreed upon both player and chorus, and both should make sure that the effects and applications make sense in the fiction.
**Duration:** Many powers will operate for an amount of time during a scene that is agreed upon between the player and chorus. However, when a scene escalates to a nonviolent or violent encounter, and time is tracked in rounds (see Space and Time below), a power's duration—the length of time that a power lasts for—falls into one of four categories:
- Instant (I): Instant powers don't last longer than the end of a character's turn. They typically require an action to initiate—the effect takes place, and it's done. Supernatural attacks (such as effects directed at an opponent that inflict injury) are always Instant powers.
- Maintain (M): Maintain powers require the character who initiated the power to spend an action to “keep up” the power's effect for as long (in the case of a violent encounter, this means how many rounds) as the character wants the power to last for.
- Independent (T): Independent powers are the same as Maintain powers, however they remain in effect regardless of the action of the character who initiated the power—the power is brought into effect, and remains in effect until the end of the nonviolent or violent encounter.
- Special (S): Powers whose durations do not fall into one of the three above duration categories have a Special duration. A power with Special duration has its duration specifics detailed in the power's description, e.g. a power that is activated as a violent encounter begins without needing to use an action to activate it.
#### Talents
_Talents_ are similar to skills but differ in an important respect: whereas talents also represent things that a character is good at, it's through skills that the character thrives in a world of conflict. A character might be good at baking or playing the tuba, but unless you're in a baking contest, or a battle of the bands, your capability with either of these things is categorized as talent rather than skill, mechanically speaking. This doesn't mean, however, that talents have no mechanical impact on a character. On the contrary: talents either represent languages the character knows, subject areas the character has expertise in, or sources of material wealth for the character. At creation, the maximum number of talents a character begins play with is equal to their KNO.
**Languages:** The ability to speak languages is covered under the category of talents.
- Characters begin play able to speak (and write, if the language has a written form) one language of their choice that makes sense within the fiction;
- The ability to speak or write additional languages is available to characters if they are chosen as identity talents;
- This can also cover secret, fabricated, or cipher languages, depending on a given setting, genre, or style of play and consensus among the group.
**Expertise:** When a talent is identified as an expertise, once per game session a player may call on that talent to gain one(1) additional die when rolling to either issue or answer a challenge, provided that the player can reasonably justify how the talent would factor into the challenge in question. This bonus die functions as all other dice do, and can generate a critical if an unmodified 10 is rolled.
**Resources:** When a talent is identified as a resource, this means that the talent is a source of material wealth for the character.
- Every resource talent contributes to the character's resource cap, a number equal to one or greater that represents both wealth in tangible assets as well as purchasing power.
- Characters cannot purchase items whose cost rating exceeds their resource cap.
- Items whose cost rating is equal to or lesser than the character's resource cap can be purchased, but may have a chance of reducing the cap.
- The chorus should pair a range of cost ratings with a rarity heading as is appropriate to the game or setting in which the game takes place.
Cost rating 0: Common
Cost rating 1-3: Uncommon
Cost rating 4-6: Rare
Cost rating 7-9: Very Rare
Cost rating 10+: Unique
The cost ratings of items represent a combination of the value of an item as well as its availability. (An item's legality, for instance, can affect its cost category; a pack of cigarettes might be considered of common cost in one country of your game's setting, for example, but in another country, where tobacco is a religious taboo, it might be considered of rare cost). Circumstances throughout the course of a story might result in one or more characters being granted a temporary increase in their resource cap (finding a cache of jewels and coins, a boon from a king or wealthy lord, the theft of antiquities from an ancient history museum). This temporary boost should be correlated to a specific number of scenes before being expended.
#### Vitality
_Vitality_ represents the degree to which an identity is able to issue or answer challenges, to affect the direction of the story with their goals and desires. It is most immediately relevant in violent encounters, but the effects of a decrease in vitality may be experienced beyond one encounter and into others. This is dependent, as are many things, on sense within the fiction: for a character, for example, this might represent health, whereas if the identity is a locked door, and you are operating under the principle that “anything can be an identity”, the vitality of the door is how many hits it can take before being rendered no longer an obstacle.
An identity is negated—approaches inoperative status, either either temporarily or permanently—as it sustains too many hits during violent encounters, progressing through a series of four shock levels, each one more precarious than the last. By default, a character can sustain a number of hits, marking them against their vitality, equal to 1 + STA, before sustaining shock level 1. A character's vitality, shock levels, how an identity sustains hits to vitality, identity negation, and other related matters are further explained in "Violent Encounters".
# Creating Personae Characters
All characters are identities, but not all identities are characters. Characters are identical to identities from a game mechanics perspective, with the only exceptions being (1) that they are subject to the attribute order of importance, (2) how they begin play through the creation process, and (3) that they have the potential stat. Identities that are not characters may be introduced or controlled by either players or the chorus, as guided by group consensus and sense within the fiction.
### Character Concept
Before play begins, the group should decide on the cast of characters that the players will portray. This should be a dialogue where the entire group, both players and the chorus, are involved. Once this is decided, and before characters are expressed in statistical terms through creation, then each player should start by defining their main character's concept. Concept includes, but isn’t limited to, the character’s physical description, personality, morality, allegiance, motives, and background. Once this is established, it helps both the chorus and players to distill this information into a few keywords that sum up the concept: “Post Civil War Entrepreneur”, “Desert Elf Singing Warrior”, and “Merchant, Privateer, Scoundrel” are good examples of this. Once each player has decided upon their character's concept, then the characters' stats can be established for the beginning of play.
#### Creation Points
Creation points are the source of the characters' attribute values when play begins. At creation, you have a pool of creation points, determined by the party's starting potential, that you will allocate to your character's attributes in keeping with order of importance. As the story progresses, the characters' growth will be further quantified through advancement, where each player will receive development points to increase their characters' attributes with.
#### At Creation
At creation, attributes are given a value of zero (0) or greater by the allotment of creation points to each attribute. The resulting attribute value determines the maximum number of traits (vitality, powers, skills, enhancements and talents) that the character will begin play with.
| Attribute | Maximum # Of |
| ---------- | ---------------------- |
| Competence | Unlocked skills |
| Prowess | Prowess pool (PRO × 3) |
| Cunning | Enhancements |
| Power | Powers |
| Knowledge | Talents |
| Stature | Vitality (1 + STA) |
#### During Play
Once play begins, attributes are added to the result of skill rolls when a challenge must be resolved. Every skill will have a default attribute that is added, but depending on the type of skill being rolled, one attribute may be more appropriate to add to the die roll than another.
- Attributes can be increased once play begins through advancement, receiving development points;
- Development points are similar to creation points used in identity creation, only they may be spent either to increase attributes or acquire new traits. This is explained in greater detail under "advancement" below.
#### Character Creation Process
By default, PCs start with ten(10) creation points, a potential of 1 (sum of attribute values ÷ 10), and a potential threshold of 3 (potential +2).
**Potential and Creation Points:** When the group sits down to play for the first time, everyone should determine what sort of story or stories will be told with the characters that everyone will play. Will the characters just be starting out, taking their first steps into a world of adventure? Or will they be more experienced, elite participants? This discussion, and ultimate consensus, should determine how many Creation Points each player will allocate to their attributes.
For example, a group decides that their characters will begin play with thirty(30) Creation Points to allocate to their attributes at Character Creation: the characters have some more experience as adventurers, but aren't quite at the pinnacle of their capabilities. The number of Creation Points characters begin play with will determine their starting potential.
**Establish Order of Importance:** Because no one can be good at everything, players must rank their character's attributes in order of importance as it’s relevant to the character’s overall concept. Order of importance helps to shape the direction a character can choose to head with regard to future development, and at the same time ensure that no one attribute vastly outpaces any of the others.
- A character's attributes are ranked by first, second, third and hindrance priority.
- At creation, two attributes are given highest, or first priority. Two attributes are given second priority, and one attribute is given third priority. The one attribute left remaining is the character's hindrance, the one area that the character's just not very good at.
- First-priority attributes are characteristics that outshine the rest, capstones which should help guide players to better flesh out their characters' concepts.
- First-priority attributes will, as listed above, always be the highest, succeeded in decreasing order by second-priority, third-priority, and hindrance attributes.
- Players may not change their characters' attribute priorities after play begins unless there are powers or enhancements that dictate otherwise.
**Attribute Maximums:** Attribute values of priority _x_ cannot exceed attribute values of priority _x_-1 by more than the character’s Potential, e.g. a character with Potential 3 cannot have 1st-priority attributes whose value exceeds any 2nd-priority attributes by more than 3. If there’s a difference, take the least of the two.
#### Potential
A character's potential reflects a threshold for a character as it journeys through life. Potential acts both as a yardstick that measures the number of a character’s experiences against other characters and identities, as well as a bar that the character cannot surpass without further advancement. This bar represents the upper limit for some of the character’s traits, increasing as the character progresses through events in the fiction. Just like the character's attributes, potential is a whole number, only it cannot be less than one. Potential is directly proportional to the character’s attributes; it is equal to the sum of the values of their attributes divided by five, ignoring the remainder.
Potential = (sum of attribute values) ÷ 10, ignore the remainder
A potential 2 character, for example, has a sum of attribute values ranging from twenty (20) to twenty-nine (29). A character whose attribute values total thirty-seven (37) is a potential 3 character (30 / 10 = 3 remainder 7). The sum of a character's attributes cannot be less than ten, as that would result in their potential being less than 1.
The “Traits” section discusses vitality, powers, skills, enhancements, and talents in greater detail.
**Determine Maximum Number of Traits:** At creation, the maximum number of each trait that a character begins play with is equal to one of their attributes (trait maximums are explained in greater detail above). A character is not required to start play with a number of traits equal to the appropriate attribute value. Just because your CMP might be 8, for example, doesn't mean you must begin play with eight skills. The only caveat is that you not exceed your appropriate attribute's number of a given trait (no more than seven powers for a POW of 7, for example). This puts less pressure on a player to fill in every trait “slot” before play begins, and allows for the possibility, depending on player-chorus consensus, that the player might discover other traits that weren't thought of before (the group should decide whether or not it’s acceptable to define these “unspent” during a session, or if they can only be defined in-between play sessions).
**Define Traits:** Knowing how many skills, enhancements, powers and talents the character has, the player can now define these traits. traits are always defined in the player's own words, as agreed upon between the player and the chorus. They should always be described, to the best of the player’s ability, in an active, present-tense voice, as actions that the character can perform or things that the character can do:
- A skill called "Strike": “My character is particularly good at attacking foes”
- A power called "Fireball": Issue a power challenge to an opponent with your Channel skill (the opponent answers with Steel); if you succeed, the opponent sustains one hit.
By expressing traits in active voice, it helps to clarify the goal(s) of a challenge, and the trait's role in the character's success. It's not necessary, however, to establish the exact wording of how a trait works in advance: the mechanical effect of the trait should always be understood, but flexibility should be available for the player to richly describe the use of a trait in any given set of circumstances.
**Enhancements as Superior:** If you wish to improve one of your enhancements to superior, it is treated as if it were double in quantity—two enhancements instead of one—when you first take it. It still requires one creation point for every time you wish to upgrade the enhancement, unless player-chorus consensus dictates otherwise.
**Enhancements as Exceptional:** If you wish to define one of your enhancements as exceptional, you must also at the same time define it as superior.
**Using Power to Upgrade Enhancements:** Given the fiction and a character’s concept, their player might decide that it won't use powers in the course of play. However, neither player nor character should ever be penalized for staying true to the character's concept. If the player feels it's still important for their character to have a POW greater than one(1), to help adjust Steel rolls when answering power challenges, for example, or to represent an item that's exceptional by supernatural means, that concern is valid. A player may instead use creation points assigned to their character's power attribute to upgrade the character's enhancements, or to represent the powers that have been imbued into an item that's exceptional by supernatural means.
_A player whose character has a POW of 3 decides that their character will not have powers—their character grew up in a society where no one has ever known how to tap into the supernatural. The player may use the three points they would have normally used to acquire powers in creation to instead upgrade enhancements, or to decide that the character is benefiting from an item that's exceptional by supernatural means._
##### Vitality, Shock, Inoperative/Negated:
- A character can sustain a number of hits equal to their vitality (1 + STA) before sustaining shock level 1
- Each shock level imposes a penalty of _x_ dice on all challenges issued or answered, where _x_ is equal to the level
- Dice can’t ever be reduced below two(2) for challenges where a skill is involved, or one(1) when unskilled
- Upon suffering shock level 3, an identity is rendered inoperative
- Upon suffering shock level 4, an identity is **negated;** can be either temporary or permanent depending on the fiction
**Determine Starting Gear:** Characters begin play with whatever gear that their character owns, as agreed upon between player and chorus, the table consensus, and what makes sense within the fiction. Characters begin play with gear that makes sense for them to be able to use their skills.
#### Gear And Equipment
All characters have the basic tools they need on hand: Do you have a Strike skill? You have a weapon to strike with. Have a Pick Lock skill? You have lockpicks. In their adventures, characters will come across items that help even more so than their average counterparts.
For example:
- a portable hole
- a handheld spectral analyzer from an advanced civilization
- a bag that always has just the right item when you reach inside
- a ring that turns its wearer invisible
It's not just about merely possessing the item—it's the character's familiarity with the item that results in the character’s benefitting from it. The only way a character can benefit from a piece of above average gear– whether found in the course of play, acquired through purchase or trade, or created from scratch by the character–is for the player to choose one or more powers or enhancements that represent the benefit offered by the gear.
Weapons, armor, or other items that are above average are because of
- craftsmanship, a physical characteristic that sets it apart from others like it
- by supernatural means, meaning that the item has been imbued with extraordinary properties
- or both
Regardless of which of these three cases the item falls under, a character cannot simply pick up a magic sword, for example, and expect that magic to work immediately; the player must invest in traits for the PC either at creation, or through advancement, in order to mechanically benefit from an item.
CRAFT: Advanced tech, extraordinary craftsmanship. For every such property the player must assign a enhancement during creation or spend one or more development points earned from advancement to acquire the enhancement(s) that the item offers. This represents the character learning how to take advantage of the item's benefits.
SUPERNATURAL MEANS: Magical, physics-bending, unexplained. For every such property the player must assign a power during creation, upgrade an existing E, or spend one or more development points earned from advancement to unlock the powers that the item offers. This represents the character investing a portion of their capacity for the supernatural into the item in order to take advantage of its benefits.
# Playing A Personae Game
Once everyone’s made characters, it's time to begin play! Keep in mind that, along the way, although things such as attack challenges and extended challenges have specific names to identify them, more often than not once you start to get the hang of the game, the processes and terminology will be understood. It might go without saying, for example, who the actor and reactor are in a given challenge once the group has gotten a good grasp of the process for resolving a challenge.
While all roleplaying games don't involve the use of dice, this one does. Fear not, however. The only dice you'll need are ten-sided, labeled 1 to 10. Keep plenty on hand—you'll never know how many you'll need, depending on what you and your chorus decide upon, but it's the only type of dice you'll ever need at the table. Whenever dice are referred to in this system, such as the rating for a skill, “roll x dice”), the system is asking you to roll ten-sided dice (shaped like decahedrons, for those of you ).
### The Challenge
Whenever two or more identities wind up at cross purposes to each other, then it's time for one or more of them—regardless of who is controlling them—to issue a challenge. Both identities involved in a challenge
1. Roll one or more dice,
2. Add an appropriate attribute, as well as any other circumstantial modifiers, to the highest die result rolled, and
3. Compare: the identity with the higher result succeeds (successfully issues or answers the challenge).
Whether it involves getting someone to believe a far-fetched scheme or attacking an invader on the shores of your homeland with a sword, there is always conflict: actors want to succeed in challenges in keeping with their goals and desires, and reactors want to see the actors quashed for the opportunity to advance their goals and desires, even if that goal is merely survival.
In a challenge, one identity is the actor—typically the one who issued the challenge—and the other identity is the reactor, the one answering the challenge, also known as an opponent. There is no limit to the number of actors or reactors on either side of a challenge; multiple identities can issue a challenge against a single opponent, and a single actor can issue a challenge against multiple opponents.
In the case of challenges issued during nonviolent encounters—usually interaction challenges—the actor is jockeying for superiority with some sort of nonviolent skill, while the reactor is trying to keep the actor “in place”, or trying to remain firm in their position. In the case of challenges in violent encounters, namely combat, the actor is the one delivering a physical attack—an attack challenge—or harmful power—power challenge—and the reactor is generally the one who is defending against the attack or trying to resist the harmful power. There can be exceptions to these general cases, however: depending on the nature of a power being used, a power challenge can be issued during a nonviolent encounter, just as an interaction challenge can be issued during a violent encounter if an identity is trying to convince a hostile opponent to stop fighting.
Here's a more detailed process for resolving a challenge:
1. An identity (a player's character, or one of the chorus's) issues a challenge to an opponent. The actor and reactor are determined. The actor declares what skill will be rolled to issue the challenge with, and the reactor declares what skill will be rolled to react to the actor's skill in answering the challenge. Both actor and reactor roll at least one die for the declared skill, more if the skill has a higher rating, or if actor or reactor have circumstantial bonus dice, and identify the highest die result rolled.
2. Both actor and reactor add an attribute value that’s appropriate to their part in the challenge to the highest die result rolled, along with any other circumstantial modifiers to the highest die result rolled (for either actor or reactor, based on conditions at the time of the challenge agreed upon by player-chorus consensus).
3. Both actor and reactor compare their final result totals. If the actor has the greater total outcome, then the actor succeeds the challenge; if the reactor has the greater total outcome, then the reactor successfully answers the challenge (the actor fails the challenge).
4. In the event of a tie, both actor and reactor look to their next-highest die, and factor in additions as explained above the same way they did for the highest die, and compare again. If, by some chance, there is another tie, continue this process for the third-highest die, and so on. If all dice tie over the course of this process, then the one who succeeds on ties is the one who still has dice to compare, whereas the one fails is the one who has no dice left. (For example, if the actor has 3 dice in a skill, and the reactor has 2 dice in the skill they are reacting with, then the actor succeeds the challenge on ties if the result of the highest and 2nd-highest dice are a tie.)
### Critical Success
When you roll an unadjusted 10 on one die, it’s good. When you roll an unadjusted 10 on more than one die, it’s critical! Every unmodified 10 rolled beyond the first is a critical (may be abbreviated as crit for a shorthand). Criticals add up: keep track of every one you generate, because you can expend them for something special such as a bonus on a skill roll, additional injury inflicted with an attack, an automatic success, or something cool that everyone agrees on. Criticals can be given to other players or to chorus-controlled identities as it makes sense within the fiction.
The group should decide (1) how long criticals can be retained, (2) how many can be retained, (3) whether identities under players’ control apart from their main characters can generate or retain criticals.
Every unmodified 10 rolled beyond the highest earns you a critical success (crit success, or crit) You must succeed the challenge in order to earn them. By default you can only retain or “bank” criticals equal to your Potential Threshold at any given time. You can expend criticals for something special, such as
- an automatic success on an upcoming challenge (default)
- a bonus on a skill roll
- additional injury inflicted with an attack
- an effect dictated by an E or power
Criticals can be given to other PCs (or other player-controlled identities) or CCs (or other chorus-controlled identities) as it makes sense within the fiction, and the group agrees on the particulars
Additionally, it should be decided as to whether or not identities under the chorus's control can generate or retain criticals for the chorus as well. If it is decided that the chorus’s characters can generate and retain criticals, then a similar conversation should be had about how to handle criticals just as it was done for player-controlled identities. One possible avenue for chorus-controlled identity criticals is to have them all saved in a pool regardless of which identity generates them, in order to help with resource management.
#### Assisting In A Challenge
Often times, two or more identities will want to aid each other in the successful resolution of a challenge. When this is the case, first the identities who wish to assist another must be involved in the same type of challenge—the skills being employed by all identities involved must be at least similar, if not the same. The number of identities who can assist in the challenge should be agreed upon by the group, depending on the nature of the skill being rolled.
- Assisting during any challenge, whether it be violent or nonviolent, interaction, attack or power, is possible
- For attack challenges, the identities assisting do not have to be using the same weapon as the identity issuing the challenge; for a power challenge, the appropriate supernatural skill must be the same
- If the power challenge is being done in a violent encounter, then the identities assisting must declare, on their turns, that they are assisting
Once those particulars are addressed, the identity performing the primary action must first be determined; this is usually the identity with the highest rating in a skill. The primary actor must be determined before any dice are rolled. Once the primary actor has been determined, then the other identities assisting in the challenge must perform some type of action with the skill that they are assisting with. The only identity to make the actual challenge is the primary actor—those identities who are assisting each grant the primary actor a bonus of one(1) die to the primary actor's skill roll.
### Goals
No matter what the nature of a challenge, the goals—desired outcomes—of the identity issuing a challenge should always be declared and made plain, not only to the opponent but everyone involved in the encounter as well. “I'm issuing an attack challenge to the cultist: if I succeed the challenge, then I will have struck him successfully with my sword, resulting in them sustaining a hit.” It also helps to extrapolate from the goal of a single challenge and declare what your overall goal is, especially in the case of more than one challenge in a series such as combat: “If I wound him successfully, then I am going to try and talk him down by threatening to bring him to his knees with my blade! If I talk him down from fighting, then I will place him under arrest, binding him, so that I can bring him to justice for his crimes against the king!” Declaring goals and intentions along with declaring actions help to clarify the direction of one or more challenges, to keep all the players mindful of the consequences of their actions. Goals should be, at the very least, discussed before a challenge is issued, and before a scene or encounter escalates.
Another part of discussing the objectives of a challenge should take place after the outcome of a challenge is decided—the identity issuing a challenge should (a) ask whether or not the challenge is over, which in most cases will be apparent, and (b) if not, declare whether or not it wishes to extend the challenge.
# Moderating A Personae Game
In a Personae game, the chorus takes the lead at the table for making sure that the game runs smoothly, that all the players act respectfully towards each other and towards the chorus, for resolving rules disputes, for setting the scene and describing what the players' characters experience through their senses. The role of the chorus is also to work with the players to negotiate for their characters' trait details. The chorus is the final arbiter of disputes—discussion of disputes is acceptable and encouraged, but once the chorus has made a decision on a matter, then further discussion or argument should take place away from the game, so as to not slow the game down or spoil the fun for everybody.
The following are areas which the chorus will come across in the course of moderating a Personae game, which he should develop an opinion on and, if necessary, discuss with the group so as to come to an agreement on them through consensus.
### Fiction First
_This section condensed and paraphrased from, and inspired by, The Book of Hanz (found at https://bookofhanz.com/), a product of Amazing Rando Design, developed, authored, and edited by Robert Hanz, John Adamus, and Randy Oest and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)._
“Sense within the fiction” is a term that is used frequently throughout the Personae system. Personae is intended to be complete, mature and robust, but it is unable to cover every possible edge case or specific case for every group that plays a Personae game anywhere, ever. The rules are intended to be a baseline, and may have to be clarified, supplemented or expanded on an as-needed basis. However, such clarification, supplementation or expansion should be in service to the fiction. That is a matter of gameplay philosophy, but it is the predominant philosophy of Personae. Simply because the rules allow for something to happen shouldn’t mean that it breaks the internal consistency, the “verisimilitude” of the communal narrative space shared by the players and chorus.
There are lot of decisions to be made by a group in a Personae game, not only about the fiction but about how mechanical questions are addressed. It might behoove the group to come up with a “game creation” document to help keep track of decisions made by consensus.
### Talk Amongst Yourselves
[Credit to Apocalypse World and many other Powered by the Apocalypse games for inspiration by way of “the conversation”. Meguey Baker, Vincent Baker. apocalypse-world.com]
It is said that open and honest communication is the most important element to a successful relationship, no matter what kind of relationship that is—and that is just as much the case in a Personae game, let alone any roleplaying game environment for that matter. The flow of speaking, talking and conversing will shift throughout a session of Personae.
If the game is happening in a public environment, such as a bookstore, shopping mall, convention or a FLGS, “friendly local gaming store”, then people who aren’t a part of the group will invariably hold conversations with people at the table, with other people beside the able, etc. The players may talk about their favorite fictional media property while they’re waiting for everyone to show up to the session. They may even play a different game while they’re waiting for the session to begin. Once the session begins, however, it’s important that everyone be clear about what they’re trying to communicate, be respectful of the lines between what’s within the fiction and what’s outside it, about both player- and chorus-controlled identities, and about every player and chorus at the table. Everyone at the table should do their best to limit distractions and focus on what’s going on in the story.
The conversation at the table might shift from 1st person to 3rd person point of view: “I try to pick the lock”, “my character tries to pick the lock”, etc. There are a lot of variables when it comes to how talk, ideas, the flavor of the scene, and so forth are expressed at the table. Honest and open communication is crucial. The table should be a safe space, which is why safety tools and discussing lines in advance are important. Players and chorus should use not only each others’ pronouns, but the pronouns of both player- and chorus- controlled identities that are considered people.
This goes for how the game’s mechanics are triggered in order to facilitate play progression is concerned as well. One player may feel a challenge is being issued; another player may not feel issuing a challenge is necessary. The whole group should discuss, and the chorus should look to establish consensus as quickly and efficiently as possible to everyone’s satisfaction.
### The Chorus Is A Player Too
The chorus is a facilitator, and might be more knowledgeable about how Personae works than others at the table, but that doesn’t instill the chorus with any special authority that might make the other players in a group subordinate. The chorus is a player too—they simply have an extra set of responsibilities and tools at their disposal to help express and represent the world that the players are interacting with the fiction through. The chorus isn’t a “master”, isn’t an autocrat that must be blindly obeyed simply because they’re wearing the chorus hat. That kind of mentality doesn’t belong in a Personae game.
### Nothing Is Broken, Nothing Is Fixed
There are a very few things that are absolutely necessary in order to be playing a Personae game: attributes, traits, identities and challenges are very likely the “kernel” of a Personae game. That being said, chorus shouldn’t feel that this rules document is a straitjacket, but a guide. It might make sense for a player- or chorus-controlled identity to have different attributes than what is standard. It might make sense for a whole new type of trait to be introduced, and how that trait connects to an attribute.
Since anything can be an identity, it might not make sense for a very abstract identity to have the same attributes a character has. In fact, a group may decide to subdivide identities, or give them more specific descriptors such as game identities, scene identities, object identities and so on. The ultimate determination of what “the rules” are, and whether the players or chorus are “following the rules” is the players and chorus within any given group.
### Extended Conflict
Challenges typically take place between two identities, one the actor and the other the reactor. There will be times, however, where a single challenge will not adequately resolve a conflict between two opposing points of view. A point in a debate is made, but it does not convince the opponent sufficiently; a sword wounds a murderer, but the murderer refuses to back down. In cases such as these, both actor and reactor should make their objectives clear to determine whether or not the conflict must be extended—whether or not multiple challenges, resolved in succession, must be initiated in order to resolve the conflict at large. The overall conflict, discussed between players or chorus, should direct the ultimate resolution, based on what's at stake and what the ultimate goals of both actor(s) and reactor(s) are. Whether or not the “meta-resolution” is achieved, for either side of the conflict, should be reassessed periodically throughout the extended conflict, until one side achieves the kinds of results they want and the losing side backs down.
#### Nonviolent Encounters
Extended conflicts can be applied to situations where there is no fighting. A stealthy trek through a city at midnight, a lengthy debate, or a chase sequence—all of these are considered nonviolent encounters. While some groups may choose to create a system similar to a character's vitality and shock in order to handle extended nonviolent challenges, they can be resolved just as easily with a series of separate challenges, or one initial challenge followed by a series of additional challenges. Group consensus is always the best way to decide on what method of resolving nonviolent extended challenges will work best with the group.
Since anything can be an identity, it is possible for vitality and shock to be employed to help evaluate nonviolent challenges. In this case, skills that would otherwise not be expected to “inflict injury” might be used to issue challenges to identities that, when successful, inflict hits to the identity’s vitality, result in shock being incurred, and the identity being negated. The locked door identity can have a vitality and shock levels; the Pick Lock skill can be used to issue interaction challenges to the locked door identity; if the locked door identity fails to defend, it takes one or more hits to vitality, then potentially marks shock levels, then is negated.
**Subject Matter Expertise**: Every talent identified as an expertise represents a subject on which an identity is more familiar with than the average: an area of focus, concentration or specialization. If an identity doesn’t have a talent in an appropriate subject area, then they’re only able to answer basic or common questions about the subject. If an identity has a talent in that subject area, they’re considered an "expert" when it comes to questions about that subject.
When it comes to asking questions, however, in order to determine whether an identity knows a fact about a subject, this can be handled in one of two ways.
- Method 1, You Know It Or You Don’t: The first method is straightforward: if the identity has an expertise in the subject area, they know the fact—the answer to a question. If they don’t, then they don’t.
- Depending on the fiction, and how the density of the subject area impacts the fiction, this method might be considered too generous by the group. In a game that is not only fiction dense but rules dense, in accordance with the play style of the group in question, a question about Hawking radiation might be considered the realm of astrophysics rather than mere science, and such a distinction might be important not only to the fiction but to the sensibilities of the group.
- As a result, the group may decide that more talents should be invested in a narrower degree of expertise in order to satisfy the question being asked. An identity might have an expertise in science, and an additional talent invested in astrophysics for example. The expertise in science wouldn’t have the answers to a question about Hawking radiation, but the additional astrophysics talent would.
- Method 2, Subject Area as Identity: If method #1 is unsatisfactory for a group, a subject area can be modeled as an identity, since anything in a Personae game can be an identity. It doesn’t have to have the same attributes as other identities: in fact, a “science” identity can have attributes or traits related to increasingly complex or intricate concentrations, such as astronomy, medicine, etc. How the identity is crafted should be decided upon by the group, and make sense within the fiction.
###### Obstacles
Characters will not always enter into challenges with each other. A locked door is just as much of a challenge as a big, hulking ogre with a wicked looking axe. In the case of these “static” type of obstacles that wind up occasionally in the way of a character (inanimate elements that are incapable of dependent or independent action, and impede a character's progress in some way), there is a dilemma. The system of opposed rolling is not as concerned with locks, or barred doors, or walls that have to be jumped over—it is more concerned with resolving the outcome of conflicts that involve an active investment of thought and deed from two opposing sides, not just one. A barred door might stand in the way of heroes chasing down the evil wizard, but the conflict is with the wizard, not the barred door. The thirty-foot wall might surround the tyrant's fortress, but it's the tyrant that's more of a problem for the rebels, not the wall. It is the responsibility of the game group to come to a consensus on how these types of “unopposed challenges” affect the overall direction and drive of the story, and ultimately how they are resolved.
This is where a challenge's goals play a very important role—if the group can divine, through the goals of a challenge, how such a static obstacle might have an impact on the story at large, then an appropriate challenge can be devised to incorporate any issues regarding the locked door or the thirty-foot wall. If not, then the chorus is well within rights to simply narrate the resolution of coming up against an obstacle. The dice should only be rolled when the outcome is critical to the story's development. (Such a narration, however, should still stand to enrich the overall atmosphere of the play experience. “You jump over the wall”, or “you pick the lock” shouldn’t be good enough.)
Effects such as disease and extreme temperature may also deal damage or impose adverse effects on a creature. While no one sentient being is responsible for a bolt of lightning striking a creature from the sky during a thunderstorm (regardless of what mythology might say), or excessive temperature causing an identity to collapse from heat exhaustion, they still might occur. If the group and chorus decide that these sorts of hazards have the potential for threatening the party, then the group as a whole should determine how the hazards will play out—both mechanically as well as in within the fiction. One group might decide that if the party is traveling in the midst of a heavy thunderstorm, that there's a chance someone might get struck by lightning. How the group determines such chances, and figures out if anyone does in fact get struck by lightning, is entirely up to them.
The players and chorus are welcome to address this however they see fit. Below are two recommended methods: unopposed challenges, and obstacle as identity.
**Unopposed Challenges:** Sometimes in the course of a story, characters may encounter situations in which they would like to commit to actions, but where there are not any obvious characters to issue a challenge to. These are referred to as Unopposed challenges. In general, unless it is import to the scene, these challenges should be passed or failed by the chorus, based on the specific situation, e.g. if the chorus feels that is in the purview of the character as designed and developed throughout the most recent sessions, without the need for rolling dice. From time to time, though, these challenges will be important to a scene. If rolling is required, then the following steps should be taken:
- Assess the Situation: Decide if the action is appropriate to the character and the scene, and determine the necessary skill or attribute that will be used in the challenge.
- Assess the Difficulty: Determine how hard it will be to accomplish the task and assign it a difficulty based on the list below, increasing or decreasing the difficulty based on the character in question's capability and concept.
- Easy: 0 (ex., kicking in a door)
- Simple: +1 (ex., jumping out of a 1st-floor window)
- Normal +2 (ex., tracking muddy footprints)
- Challenging +3 (ex., jumping out of a 2nd floor window)
- Difficult +5 (ex., picking an average lock)
- Very Difficult +7 (ex., disabling an average trap)
- Extremely Difficult +9 (ex., tracking a target in unfamiliar terrain)
- Nearly Impossible +10 or more (ex. solving a complicated puzzle, lock, or trap)
- Roll the challenge: the chorus rolls a number of dice equal to one less than the skill being rolled by the character (to a minimum of one die), adding the modifier from step 2 to the highest die result. The player must then meet or exceed that target.
_Ex. A foppish noble wishes to jump from a 2nd story window without hurting himself. He is an athletic character with experience in city-style terrain, there are no obstacles in his path, and he has a skill appropriate to the task with a rating of three dice. As such, in this case the chorus determines that this would be a normal challenge for Dunmore and rolls 2 dice, the result of which are 3 and 7. Having achieved a highest result of 9 (7 plus the normal difficulty of 2), and advising Dunmore that this challenge will be based off of his Prowess (owing to the fact that his special acrobatic training is what is being challenged), Dunmore then attempts the challenge. Dunmore rolls three dice, resulting in 1, 5, and 6, and adds 3 for his Prowess, achieving a total 9. The chorus and Dunmore's player tie on the highest die rolled, and as a result compare their second-highest die roll results. Dunmore has an 8; the chorus has a 5. The noble succeeds the unopposed challenge._
**Obstacle as Identity:** This method is the most open-ended, albeit the most abstract. Since anything can be an identity in Personae, a chorus can introduce a locked door, for example, as an identity with any attributes and traits it wishes, as long as it has at least a vitality trait and shock levels.
This gives player-controlled identities objects to issue challenges to, so that they can be negated (rendered inoperative). This opens up the possibility of nonviolent encounters affecting vitality and shock—the vitality of a locked door might be the quality of the lock, and the burglar might inflict hits against the door’s vitality representative of bypassing its security measures. Sense within the fiction will be the primary driver of how to make the game mechanics align with the environment being simulated by identities in this case.
#### Violent Encounters
As has been mentioned above, the Personae system thrives on the belief that the rules only need to be as intricate and detailed as you need or want them to be. This especially applies to combat—conflict that involves violence, whether it be physical, mental or social, as it makes sense within the fiction. The challenge can be applied to a wide variety of situations, both combat and non-combat related. There's nothing saying that war, for example, can be a backdrop for storytelling—it has been done before—but the focus should be on using the mechanics to provide a common unit of exchange both players and chorus are happy with when it comes to resolving conflict, and doesn’t have to be not on the blow-by-blow detail of thousands of soldiers killing each other (and more importantly, resolving the entire exchange with hours upon hours of dice-rolling).
Combat is one possible example of an extended challenge, but not a special or separate one. Once swords, knives, guns, bows or spells have been brought to bear, then the identities involved have escalated the conflict to the point where they're no longer interested in resolving it with words or nonviolent actions, but instead with weapons or the supernatural. Combat is typically an extended challenge, leading to one or more of the identities involved in the conflict either backing down from violence, or “fighting to the death”. However, not all combat involves simply battering down an opponent until unconsciousness or death; spreading disease, for example, and taking control of an opponent's mind, fall into the realm of combat as well.
**The Action Order, and Actions:** Combat is chaotic, and even veteran warriors often cannot get an advantageous position in a flailing mess of swinging weapons , a hail of bullets, or the eyebrow-singing heat of fireballs. It is necessary, however, to establish an order to which, in combat, each identity who is involved will act. How the action order is determined should be decided upon by the group. This could be as simple as going in an order based on where everyone is physically sitting at the table, allowing players to invest in an Initiative skill for their characters, or having each player choose one of their character's skills that they will be using on their turn.
Regardless of the method used to set down the order of who acts when, the identity who performs the action that escalates to a nonviolent encounter, or from a nonviolent to a violent encounter, always acts first: issuing a challenge to an opponent is the trigger that escalates the scene. The challenge that was issued is then resolved, and each identity in the encounter acts, in order, thereafter. Once all identities involved in the encounter are finished acting, then the order starts again at the top—each iteration of the order is called a round. On each actor's turn, the actor can (1) move and (2) take an action. Issuing a challenge typically takes an action, unless powers or enhancements say otherwise. Movement is dependent on the consensus that the group has come to regarding space and time (see below); an identity can always use an action to move a second time, if they so desire.
- Simple turns
- Move
- Action
- 1 action → 1 challenge
- Action can always be used to move
- Compound turns
- Move + action + one or more additional actions
- _x_ # Of Actions → _X_ # Of Challenges
- Combination of follow-up and subsequent challenges
“What can you do with more actions?” Having more actions makes you more effective at accomplishing your goals, more versatile—better able to respond to shifting circumstances. Having more actions lets you affect more than one opponent, affect the same opponent multiple times, "hand out" more benefits to allies, better control the encounter space, better react to/adjust to changes to the encounter space.
"How do you get more actions?" Enhancements and Powers.
###### Follow-Up Challenges
- Rely on momentum, success stacked on success—follow-up is only possible if identity succeeds initial challenge issued
- Require less overall effort on the part of the character—should be afforded by Es or powers first before additional actions
- Issued only, by default, to the same opponent or affect the same target
- Follow-up challenge must use the same skill as the initial challenge issued
- Is in essence a duplicate of the initial challenge without an additional action being required
- Use the next-highest die result, and the next
- depending on how many dice are available
- how many follow-ups are afforded by the terms of enhancements or powers
###### Subsequent Challenges
- More taxing, require more wherewithal and coordination of effort
- Es and powers should afford follow-up challenges first before subsequent challenges, and upgrade to allow each action/subsequent challenge to involve a different skill if desired
- Can be issued either to the same opponent or different opponents, affect the same target or different/multiple targets
- Could possibly involve a different skill used to issue challenges for each action
- Requires additional actions beyond the first
- One additional action per subsequent challenge
OPTION: PARTIAL SUCCESS THROUGH FOLLOW-UP CHALLENGES. Follow-up challenges offer the opportunity for partial success, or success with cost, to be introduced and explored by the group. Much like criticals below, the framework for partial success would have to be established by the group. By default the system only acknowledges binary success or failure, but subsequent challenges opens the possibility to allow the second-highest, third-highest and lower die roll results to provide context to the success or failure of a challenge, such as allowing for success with strings attached. Conversely, if two or more die roll results from an actor issuing a challenge defeat the reactor on multiple dice, the opportunity for a superior success achievement can be explored as well. This can be paired with or used in lieu of criticals.
**Physical Combat:** Physical combat involves attacking unarmed, such as with appendages organically or artificially connected to your person (fists, feet, forearms, etc.), with hand-to-hand weapons (swords, shock batons, etc.), or with ranged weapons (bow & arrow, rifle, etc.). When an identity issues a challenge to another identity that involves attacking in this fashion, then the challenge is known as an attack challenge. The actor is known as the attacker, and the reactor is known as the defender. The attacker rolls a skill that involves either unarmed combat or some sort of weapon, and the defender rolls some sort of defense (either to dodge or block the attack). If the attacker is successful in issuing an attack challenge to an opponent, then the attacker either inflicts a hit (see “Vitality and Shock”), imposes shock, imposes some sort of special condition, or both.
- Weapons:
- Hand-to-hand weapons by default fall into one of three categories:
- small (held in one hand, such as a dagger or knife),
- one-handed (rapiers, battle-axes and longswords) and
- two-handed (two-handed weapons, such as polearms, claymores or great axes).
- Ranged weapons by default are also:
- small (hand crossbows, holdout pistols),
- one-hand (light crossbows, blaster pistols), or
- two-hand (heavy crossbows, longbows, machine guns).
- Weapons by default fall into groups, such as
- blades, axes, or bludgeons,
- projectile, energy
- laser, maser, plasma
- Unarmed attacks are always considered small bludgeon weapons
- All weapons inflict at least one hit, unless otherwise specified by powers or enhancements
- CNG is typically added to ranged attacks made in an attack challenge, and STA is added to all unarmed or hand-to-hand attacks.
- Circumstances can change the attribute that is added, and identities can take powers or enhancements that can permanently set the attribute that is added
**Power Combat:** Power challenges can be issued or answered in either nonviolent or violent encounters. In a combat scenario where powers are being used—namely, when an identity is bringing a power to bear against another identity intended to inflict a hit and impose shock—the process is similar to physical combat.
When an identity wants to deliver a harmful power upon an opponent, the actor, or attacker, rolls an appropriate supernatural skill to initiate a power. When the defender, also known as the resistor, rolls to resist the power's effects, the resistor also rolls the Steel skill, but rather than adding Cunning or Stature, the resistor’s POW must be added to the resistor's roll (this represents the resistor exerting force of will to neutralize the effect of the power) unless specified by powers or enhancements. If the attacker wins the power challenge, then the resistor suffers the effect of the power, or takes damage, according to the power's description.
If the caster's power inflicts a hit on the resistor (such as from a blast of fire, or a bolt of magical energy), then the process is identical to physical combat. It is important to note, however, that by default the resistor's POW is still added to the Steel roll; the resistor cannot dodge or block such a supernatural attack unless the resistor has a power or enhancement that says otherwise (allowing the resistor to add CNG or STA instead of POW, for example).
**Vitality and Shock:** Identities typically enter a violent encounter at full vitality, with no hits sustained (no marks against vitality). Once combat begins, however, this will most certainly change.
- All identities have a four-tiered shock track that can be reached in the course of sustaining hits: shock 1, 2, 3 and 4.
- When an identity succeeds either an attack or power challenge that inflicts one or more hits, the opponent marks vitality one or more times. The attacker inflicts a hit, the defender sustains a hit; marking a hit, sustaining a hit, taking a hit are interchangeable terms.
- When an opponent has sustained a number of hits equal to their vitality [1 + STA], plus any bonuses from powers, enhancements, or circumstances, the opponent reaches, or is in, shock 1.
- Additional hits sustained beyond shock 1 result in the opponent reaching shock 2, 3 and 4, in that order.
- By default, it takes only one successive hit beyond shock 1 to reach the next, more precarious status.
- Each status imposes a penalty, in the form of one or more dice, on all challenges until the end of a violent encounter. This penalty is not cumulative, but powers or enhancements could be acquired that cause an opponent who has reached a particular status to suffer a more severe penalty. The penalty persists with the identity until the identity recovers from the associated status:
- shock 1: roll one(1) less die
- shock 2: roll two(2) less dice
- shock 3: roll three(3) less dice
- shock 4: roll four(4) less dice
- No number of hits sustained from a successful attack or power challenge can immediately “roll over” from one status to the next. When an identity reaches shock 1, only a separate attack that follows can inflict one or more hits that result in the identity reaching shock 2, 3 or 4.
For example, an opponent can sustain 3 hits before incurring shock 1. Your successful attack or power challenge against the opponent inflicts 4 hits. The 4th hit does not result in the opponent reaching both shock 1 and 2; only hits inflicted by successful attack or power challenges that follow the first mean the opponent reaches shock 2, then 3, then 4.
- When an opponent reaches shock 4, they are rendered inoperative. Powers or enhancements can cause an opponent to be rendered inoperative without reaching shock 4. Conversely, powers or enhancements could allow an opponent to reach shock 4 and not be rendered inoperative.
- When an opponent reaches shock 4 and is rendered inoperative, it is close to being negated. If no significant measures are taken—whether mundane or supernatural—to stabilize the opponent before the end of a violent encounter, then the opponent is negated.
- Stabilizing an inoperative identity can be performed by any other identity without any special skill, enhancement or power, but doing so does require an action to declare. No rolling of dice is necessary. If the opponent is a player-controlled identity, then the details of the negated identity must be established within the fiction, such as the death of a character.
- Hits are marked as they are sustained unless a power or enhancement dictates otherwise. The penalties associated with shock are enacted immediately as combat takes place. Powers or enhancements could be utilized to delay shock, or the penalties from shock, until the end of the round, after more than one round has passed, or even until the end of the violent encounter they were sustained in.
**Naming shock levels:** While it’s not necessary, a group may wish to do this, especially if they intend to have multiple shock tracks for different types of shock. Physical shock might have status levels such as Injured, Wounded, Incapacitated and Dying, for example. If it makes sense within the fiction and the group finds it rewarding, go for it!
**Different Shock tracks:** A group may decide it’s important to have separate physical and mental shock tracks, or even physical, mental and social. The physical shock track may only have bearing within violent encounters, whereas mental and social only have bearing within nonviolent encounters. All of these possibilities are valid.
**Shock Outside of Violent Encounters:** Since anything can be an identity, identities might have vitality and shock tracks that are relevant in nonviolent encounters (again the locked door identity is referred to as in “Obstacles” above). Since the default shock track has no explicit connective tissue to the fiction, it has the flexibility to satisfy a variety of different narrative needs.
**Recovery:** Shock can be abated, either over time with rest, or with powers that allow one identity to heal another (or an identity to heal itself) through either mundane or supernatural means. Identities may have enhancements that allow for more rapid recovery.
- Recovery is a special type of challenge that can only be attempted once per scene in addition to all other actions or events that have taken place in the scene.
- An identity can attempt a recovery challenge during a violent encounter only if the identity hasn't reached beyond shock 1; otherwise, the recovery challenge can only be attempted after a violent encounter has ended.
- An identity who has sustained shock rolls one die and adds their STA to the highest die rolled,
- The chorus rolls one die and adds the total number of hits the identity sustained;
- if the identity succeeds this challenge, then depending on the shock the identity has reached, some or all of the shock the identity has sustained is removed.
- Provided an identity has not reached shock 1, all hits are removed (unmarked, erased) immediately at the end of a violent encounter. If an identity has reached shock 1, it may immediately attempt recovery at the end of the violent encounter during which it became Injured. If the Injured identity succeeds the recovery challenge, then half of their hits (rounded down) are removed. The other half are removed at the end of the following scene.
- If an identity has reached shock 2, it can attempt to recover just as if it had reached shock 1, but only at the end of the scene following the violent encounter during which it reached shock 2. An identity at shock 2 can act normally in the following scene. The chorus rolls two dice, as opposed to one, to oppose an identity's recovery attempt at shock 2. If the identity at shock 2 succeeds the recovery challenge, then the hit causing the identity to reach shock 2 is removed, and the identity’s shock abates to status 1. The identity can attempt recovery from shock 1 at the end of the following scene.
- If an identity has reached shock 3, then the only thing the identity can do in the following scene is attempt recovery—it is rendered inoperative, effectively removed from the following scene. The chorus rolls three dice, as opposed to one, to oppose an identity's recovery attempt at shock 3. If the identity succeeds, then they return to the scene and are no longer inoperative, and may act normally in the following scene with the following caveat: if they act within another violent encounter before a nonviolent encounter has been completed, they will immediately be rendered inoperative at the end of the first round in which they act. The identity can attempt recovery from shock 3 at the end of the following scene, then status 2 in the scene following that, and so on.
- If an identity has reached shock 4, and has been stabilized, then the only thing the identity can do in the following scene is attempt recovery—it is rendered inoperative, effectively removed from the following scene. The chorus rolls four dice, as opposed to one, to oppose an identity's recovery attempt from shock 4. If the identity succeeds, then they return to the scene and are no longer inoperative, but remains unable to act normally. The identity can attempt recovery from shock 4 at the end of the following scene, then status 3 in the scene following that, and so on.
Powers, skills or enhancements can be chosen by identities that involve aiding another identity in the recovery process. This can range from being able to assist in the recovery challenge, as one might assist in any other type of challenge, to replacing the identity's recovery roll with a skill roll, or some other type of effect that gets agreed upon between the character providing assistance and the chorus. Supernatural means of healing might also abate an identity's shock, remove sustained hits, or some combination of both.
_Regarding the raising of the dead:_ The group must come to a consensus as to whether or not powers or enhancements can be created that allow characters to raise, resurrect, reincarnate, or in any other way revive identities, either player- or chorus-controlled, that are living beings after they have died. The genre of the game being played, as well as the setting the game is taking place in, could have an impact on this decision—whatever makes sense within the fiction.
**Defense:** Survival is an instinct all creatures are born with. Therefore, when the threat of harm is imminent, an identity who is subject to potential harm seeks to either avoid harm outright, or intercept the incoming harm with something that will deflect the harm away from the identity. The basic instinct is to avoid first above everything else.
All identities freely unlock six skills, three of which are reactive—expressing basic defense. These three skills—Counter, Steel, and Defend—represent the instinctual reflex to avoid attacks.
- CMP is added to a defender's Counter skill for answering interaction challenges
- STA is added to a defender's Defend skill for answering attack challenges
- POW is added to a defender's Steel skill for answering power challenges
**Passive vs. Active Defense:** When Defend is used to answer attack challenges, Steel is used to answer power challenges, and Counter is used to answer interaction challenges, these are known as passive defenses, where the defender performs no special action when answering such challenges.
- An identity who has practiced how to defend with a weapon or a shield, however, or has a special power that can be used to resist a harmful power, can use a non-defense skill to avoid an attack, power or interaction challenge—this is known as active defense. Active defenses require that the defender
- is aware of an incoming attack, and
- has declared that an action will be used to anticipate an attack that will be parried, blocked, or resisted in a special way, unless the defender has a power or enhancement that allows for parrying or blocking a strike reflexively, requiring no action to be declared to anticipate an incoming attack.
- The defender uses a weapon, shield, or power-related skill to avoid actively; while the defender can use a weapon skill to parry, without having to have a separate parry skill for the same weapon, or a power skill to use a special power to resist, a separate skill must be taken to block with a shield.
- When it comes to parrying with weapons, the “like against like” rule is in effect by default: light weapons can only parry attacks made with light weapons, and heavy weapons can only parry attacks made with heavy weapons.
- Shields, on the other hand, can block weapons of any category equal to or less than the category of the weapon; heavy shields can block heavy or light weapons, but light shields can only block light weapons. The only exception to either of these situations would be an identity who has powers or enhancements that supersede this rule.
- Armor: Whether it be thick padding, a kevlar vest, or a full set of power armor, armor is another means by which an identity protects itself from injury, worn by anyone who wants an extra layer of protection between themselves and an incoming attack
- Armor functions no differently from any other piece of gear. Someone can wear an average, "off the rack" suit of armor, but in order to truly benefit from its ability to reduce the impact of an opponent's attack, the wearer must take one or more powers or enhancements that are provided by the above-average armor
- It is up to player-chorus consensus to decide on the exact mechanical benefit from armor:
- for example, one possible benefit that above-average armor might provide is to allow the wearer to ignore the results of dice that the attacker has rolled in an attack challenge (this would take place after any rerolls have been resolved)
### Advancement
Throughout play, players will earn development points, which they can use either to increase the attributes of or acquire new traits for the identities they control. These development points gained through advancement reward the players for expressing their characters' concepts in a meaningful way, accomplishing goals that are either personal or group-oriented, and for the overall progression of a good collaborative story at the end of a session.
Baseline method of earning development points: Keep a tally of the results of challenges you issue, both successes and failures. When you have accumulated a combination of both successful and failed challenges equal to your potential threshold, earn a development point
_Ex. Potential is 3, potential threshold is 5, tally 2 successful & 3 failed challenges issued, or 3 successful and 2 failed challenges issued_
One (1) development point is earned automatically every time a chorus-controlled identity, typically opponents of player-controlled identities, is negated. Development points may also be earned when the group decides it’s relevant, such as when they succeed challenges. The chorus may award development points as well. Group consensus should drive the specific details for how development points are earned.
The player invests development points into the character on a one-for-one basis: every point spent to increase an attribute increases that attribute's value by one, or every point spent to acquire a new trait results in the character acquiring one trait. The only restriction to this process involves the character's order of importance for attributes: the rules set into effect at Character Creation for how attribute priorities impact starting point allocation apply to advancement as well (second-priority attributes can't be greater than first-priorities, third-priorities can't be greater than second-priorities, and the hindrance can't be greater than the third-priority).
If you choose to acquire a new trait for your character, one point invested will allow you to
- unlock a new skill
- acquire a new enhancement, or upgrade an existing one
- acquire a new power, or upgrade an existing one
- acquire a new talent
- Increase vitality by one, allowing them to sustain one more hit in a violent encounter before suffering shock
#### Upgrades
Rather than acquire new traits, a character can upgrade a trait instead. Rather than acquire a new power, for example, the player can increase the potency or utility of one of their character's existing powers. Upgrading traits, rather than acquiring a new trait that performs a similar effect, not only cuts down on a player's bookkeeping and helps to speed up play, it helps to better focus the character rather than have the character spread thin. (Of course, there's always those characters who enjoy being a jack-of-all-trades type, so the system is capable of catering to either end of the spectrum when it comes to acquiring new traits. Always remember to stay true to your character's overall theme or concept when considering advancement).
**Enhancements as Superior:** If you wish to define one of your enhancements as superior, it’s treated as if it were double the cost—two enhancements instead of one—when you first take it. It still requires one development point for every time you wish to upgrade the enhancement, unless player-chorus consensus dictates otherwise.
**Enhancements as Exceptional:** If you wish to define one of your enhancements as exceptional, you must also at the same time define it as superior—effectively worth three creation or development points depending on when its purchased.
#### Framework Of Advancement
Players should work with the chorus in building into a power or enhancement an advancement framework, or at the very least envision what such a framework might look like even if it’s not specified as a whole from the outset. Rather than making a newly-acquired power or enhancement excessively powerful, there should be room for the power or enhancement to be upgraded with additional development points gained through advancement.
**Powers:** When powers are first acquired, they should only affect one opponent, or if they are powers that inflict injury, should only inflict one hit. Upgrades can increase the number of targets a power affects, or increase the number of hits inflicted by the power. Additionally, when a power is first acquired, it should have either an Instant or Maintain duration, then can be upgraded later to Independent or Special duration.
_Ex. advancement progression with a power: inflict one(1) with a successful power challenge → inflict two(2) hits_
enhancements: When enhancements are acquired, they should only provide a benefit of one (+1 to a skill roll, one additional die, reroll one die, force a reroll of one die). If the benefit is a reroll, then initially, the second result should be taken, and the highest die roll result cannot be affected. Upgrades can increase the benefit provided by one (+2, two additional dice), or in the case of a reroll, allow the better result to be taken, or allow the highest die roll result to be affected.
_Ex. advancement progression with a skill: Reroll (3rd die, 2nd result) → reroll (3rd die, better result) → +1 to die roll result_
**Talents:** Expertise talents could be upgraded to allow for more than one use per session, to provide more than one bonus die when a skill is rolled, or increase the character's resource cap by more than one.
### Space And Time
While the world (or universe, or multiverse) within the fiction may have very specific rules for the passage of time (which are very similar to the passage of time outside the fiction), not every moment of time outside the fiction translates to a moment within the fiction. Long sea voyages may be hand-waved: “it's three weeks later, and you arrive in port”, for example. Such concessions are often made for the sake of efficiency—not everyone wants to roleplay out every single day on such a voyage, unless it has some direct impact on the progression of the story. Just as such concessions are made for the long-term passage of time, they should also be made for smaller-scale time increments as well.
In the Personae system, mechanically speaking, time is specified in three different ways: days, scenes, and sessions.
#### Day
A day is a period of time that may or may not map directly to the fiction. Regardless of the particular way in which a day passes, a day acts not only just as a way to record the passage of time in the fiction, but acts as another unit of time "currency" the same way a scene does. The descriptive text of powers or enhancements can refer to the day as a limiting factor, such as "once per day".
#### Scene
A scene is a fraction of time that takes place during a game session, an organizational unit typically defined by time within the fiction (days, hours, etc.) and location. Just like a novel is divided into chapters, or a play into acts and scenes, a typical session in an ongoing storyline should consist of several scenes. A scene can last any amount of time, which should not be predetermined (not all scenes will last for one hour, or thirty minutes, or any other specific amount of time). The content of a scene can vary from scene to scene—sometimes it's just receiving information from a venerable sage, but can also involve a thrilling swordfight or a chase.
While the former type of scene is common and sometimes very necessary, the best scenes:
- involve some sort of conflict, and
- drive the conflict of the overall story towards one or more climactic moments.
The exact details of a scene should be agreed upon by the group, but be balanced at the same time: allow roleplay to dictate what happens in a scene, not something pre-determined or pre-written, don't cut the players short in what they want to accomplish in a scene, but at the same time don't let a scene languish—periodically ask the players what they are trying to accomplish, and what their overall objective is when beginning a scene. Most of this will happen organically as time goes on, but it's good practice to be mindful of these things as gameplay takes place.
#### Session
A session of the game can last anywhere from two hours or more, but generally encompasses all of the scenes that take place in the course of one "real-world" meeting of the game group. Traits may refer to game sessions in the explanations of their benefits to a character.
#### Encounter
An encounter is a scene that involves conflict. Goals frame the rising action of an encounter.
**Nonviolent Encounters:** Encounters typically start with words, and are referred to as nonviolent encounters because in a nonviolent encounter, there is a chance that the encounter will not come to weapon blows or offensive powers.
**Violent Encounters:** Violent encounters ensue when words begin to fail, and identities begin staking their lives by bringing harm upon others to accomplish their desires.
#### Time And Encounters
The best stories involve a tightly-structured plot, and the best plots emerge from the strongest conflicts. Without conflict, there is no plot, and without plot there is no story (at least, not one worth engaging in). It's very easy to have characters walk around the world, carrying on conversations with people they meet, and in general doing nothing in particular. It's when ideas and practices begin to clash against each other: the best form of government, belief in the gods or the supernatural, secrets about the history of the world that conflict arises, and that conflict—and its resolution—drives the best stories.
#### Escalation
When a scene becomes an encounter, the scene is said to have escalated. The order of escalation is as follows:
scene → nonviolent encounter → violent encounter
#### Resolution
As discussed above, a violent encounter is resolved as an extended challenge, where all identities involved in the challenge are put into an order of action by rolling to determine the action order. The violent encounter could be resolved in as little as two or three rounds, or as many as ten or twelve rounds. The resolution of the conflict should be kept in mind by both players and chorus as the violent encounter unfolds, and the chorus should periodically ask if the goals of the player-controlled characters have been achieved. (This might occasionally involve discussing “out-of-character”, "out-of-game", or “player” knowledge, rather than “in-character" or "in-game" knowledge, but in cases where the death of characters isn't the immediate goal, this should be made plain by all parties involved.)
#### Encounter Time Vs “Game” Time
The amount of "game" time (the way time is tracked within the fiction) that passes in the resolution of an encounter should be a consensus of both the players and the chorus, especially in the case a violent encounter. Rounds in a violent encounter are little more than a way to make sure that everyone gets a turn in combat, and that such turns aren't all taken at the same time; they are at best only an abstract way to determine the passage of time. If one game group wants to say that one round equals ten seconds, that's fine; it doesn't mean that every game group has to do this as well. In fact, if a group wants to determine the passage of “game” time after a violent encounter is resolved (“this combat took about twenty minutes”, for example), that's okay too.
### Distance And Location
The impact of space and its dimensions increases as you progress from scene, to nonviolent encounter to violent encounter. The distance covered by an arrow in flight, the range of a lightning bolt conjured by a mage, or how long it takes for the scout to scurry stealthily back to the allied camp become increasingly more important as conflict intensifies.
While it's a point that has been amply expressed across the body of these rules, it applies here as well: just as time is a matter that should be agreed upon by the game group, so should space be one as well. If one group prefers a closely-structured, tactical framework for determining distance and location (such as a large-scale grid and miniatures), then they are welcome to implement such things in their game. For groups that prefer to focus on the narrative resolution of a violent encounter, and aren't so worried about the particulars of distance and location, then the group can use relative terms such as “close”, “near”, “far” and “out of range”. The system provides an abstract way to resolve conflict in both nonviolent and violent encounters, and it's at the game group's discretion to define or not define these things to their desired level of distinction.
### Supporting Characters
All the characters that the main characters encounter throughout the course of a story, whose actions are controlled by the chorus, are referred to as supporting characters (non-player characters, or NPCs, in traditional role-playing game parlance). Most supporting characters will only require stats if they will have an impact on the progression of the story, interacting with the main characters in such a way that establishes, escalates, and resolves conflict.
#### Companions
Main characters will often have sidekicks, cohorts, familiars, and loyal followers. Companions are a special type of player-controlled identity (see below). The maximum number of companions a character is able to have should be decided upon by group-chorus consensus.
**Companion Prerequisites:** In order to have a companion, a character must:
1. Have a minimum potential of 3 (sum of attributes no less than thirty), and
2. Acquire an enhancement that represents the companion aligning their desires with that of the character.
So long as the main character achieves a potential of 3 upon taking a companion enhancement (going from an attribute sum of twenty-nine(29) to that of a thirty(30)), it is sufficient to satisfy the first requirement.
Companion Development: A companion character goes through creation the same way that the main characters do. However, all companion characters:
1. have a starting potential of 1, going through creation with ten creation points, and
2. begin play as minion allies (see below).
You must spend your own development points to increase the attributes of your companion characters. You may upgrade the companion enhancement in order to increase the companion from a minion, to a minor, to a major ally, in that order, each requiring their own development point expenditure.
#### Allies
Allies are supporting characters that aid main characters in the pursuit of their goals, controlled by the chorus unless they are companions.
#### Adversaries
Adversaries are chorus-controlled identities that have goals of their own, oftentimes running in opposition to the main characters' goals. Whether the supporting character is an ally or an adversary, each follows a three-level progression of overall "toughness", relative to the main characters:
- minion allies/adversaries only have two shock levels,
- minor allies/adversaries have four shock levels, but the first hit they sustain results in shock 1 immediately, and
- major allies/adversaries have all four shock levels, and sustain hits the same way that player-controlled characters do.
It should be decided by group-chorus consensus as to whether or not adversary characters are able to earn criticals.