The Shadow of Yesterday

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The Shadow of Yesterday

A fantasy role-playing game

written by Clinton R. Nixon,

Layouting and incorporation of errata by H. Belitz

Revised edition, Version 1.2, July, 9th, 2006


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Contents

1 Copyright Notice 4

2 Introduction 52.1 The world of Near . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.2 What do we do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.3 Credits, thanks, and influences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.3.1 RPGs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62.3.2 Books and authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3 Characters 73.1 Pools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73.2 Pool refreshment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73.3 Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83.4 Secrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3.5 Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

4 Creating a beginning character 104.1 Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104.2 Species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104.3 Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114.4 Pools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114.5 Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114.6 Secrets and Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114.7 Further Advances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114.8 Character advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

5 Resolution 12

5.1 The ability check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125.2 Bonus and penalty dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125.3 The Gift of Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135.4 Expanding the ability check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135.5 Ability check range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135.6 Intention, Initiation, Execution, and Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135.7 Types of ability checks and how they work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145.8 Using abilities together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155.9 Bringing Down the Pain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165.10 Using more than one ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175.11 Surprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

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CONTENTS 3

5.12 H arm and defeat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

5.13 An example of Bringing Down the Pain and harm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185.14 W hen to Bring Down the Pain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205.15 Multiple characters in a conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205.16 Weapons and armor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215.17 Character Transcendence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

6 Crunchy Bits 236.1 Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

6.1.1 Innate Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236.1.2 Other Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236.1.3 Artistic Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236.1.4 Craftsman Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246.1.5 Warrior Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

6.1.6 Illicit Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246.1.7 Outdoor Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246.1.8 Priestly Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256.1.9 Social Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256.1.10 Ability breadth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

6.2 Secrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256.3 Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

7 The Story Guide 307.1 Designing an adventure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

7.1.1 Know your characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307.1.2 Know your players . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307.1.3 Know thyself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307.1.4 Key Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

7.2 Designing SGCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317.2.1 Beasts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317.2.2 Punks, pogues, and peeps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

7.3 Running an adventure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327.4 Giving out experience points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327.5 The Standard Advance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

8 Tips and Tricks 338.1 For the player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338.2 For the Story Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33


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Chapter 1

Copyright Notice

The Shadow of Yesterday is copyright 2005Clinton R. Nixon. This version of the textis known as The Shadow of Yesterday 2005.This work is licensed under a Creative Com-mons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5License. To view a copy of this license,visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/.

No reference to copyrighted works in this text ismeant to challenge the owner of that copyright.

This layouted version was generated usingLATEXby Hendrik Belitz in July 2006. This text in-cluded the Errata found at http://random.average-

bear.com/TSOY/Errata.

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Chapter 2

Introduction

Welcome to The Shadow of Yesterday! This is a

fantasy role-playing game set in a world broken andreborn, a world that you, the players, get to shape.

If youre not familiar with role-playing games,theyre a form of play where you and your friendsmake up stories. The rules of the game are there togive the story structure. You could call it a storyconstruction kit.

Stories with this game will be set in a world calledNear. Before we learn how to use the kit, lets learnabout the world and the type of stories that takeplace in it.

2.1 The world of Near

One hundred years ago, Near had a terriblecalamity, an event its occupants call the Sky Fire.This was most likely a giant asteroid that struck theworld. At this time, a large part of Near was unitedin an empire called Maldor. They spoke one lan-guage and had a big multi-cultural society. Whenthe Sky Fire struck, it shattered the world. A por-tion of the planet opposite from Maldor broke awayand became a moon, something the people of Nearhad never seen before. Between the winter that

came from all the dust that clouded the sky andthe superstitions aggrevated from this new celestialbody, the empire of Maldor fell and the world wasdepopulated from hunger and cold. Near only hasten percent of the population it once did. Theiruniversal language, a magical tongue that allowedanyone who heard it to speak it, was lost.

This game is set one hundred years after the SkyFire. Society is just beginning to re-form, and yourstories will be set in this rebuilding.

The rules of this game are meant to enable a type

of fantasy where things dont necessarily make com-

mon sense, but are always full of style, a bit creepy,a bit comedic, a bit dark and violent, and definitelyromantic. Youll notice theres quite a few rules inhere that have to do with love and sex. The gamessetting is intentionally a sketch. It is there for youto fill in with your players and, hopefully, this gamegives you a good set of tools to do so. The funda-mental tenets of Near can be summed up as:

No gods.

No monsters.

Just people.

2.2 What do we do?

Youll make up characters and explore this crazyworld. Together youll fill in the setting with ideasthat jazz you and make up stories thatll make youlaugh and maybe, I dont know, move you a little.

Most of you will make up one character and playthe role of that character until his or her story isdone. One of you will have to be the Story Guide,who plays everyone else in the fictional world. The

story will be heavily tilted toward the main char-acters (player characters or PCs), so you should allhave about the same power to affect the story. TheStory Guides job is to just keep that story on track,using all the other characters in the world (StoryGuide characters or SGCs) to press on the sides ofthat hot story iron and mold it.

Your player characters in this game will beheroes, most likely heroes with problems. Like theworld of Near, your character will be full of possibil-ity, both for good and bad. Youll explore the world,

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6 CHAPTER 2. INTRODUCTION

meet interesting people, and either solve their prob-

lems or give them new ones.

2.3 Credits, thanks, and influ-

ences

All the contributors to the The Shadow of Yesterdaywiki influenced me with this revision. Fred Hicks ofEvil Hat Productions inspired me incredibly withhis melding of the original version of this gamesBringing Down the Pain with his own game Fate,which I cant say enough nice things about. James

Nostack and Brennan Taylor both contributed Keysfrom the wiki.

A big and hearty thanks to my personalplaytesters: Mischa Krilov and Judson Lester.

Andy Kitkowski is a very good man. He workedthis text like a ball of sourdough. Keith Senkowskiand Ben Lehman also provided invaluable feedback.

Vincent Baker, creator of awesome games likeDogs in the Vineyard, helped more than he knowswith his excellent weblog/discussion website calledanyway.

Lastly, as always, the good souls at The Forgeoutdid themselves with helpful suggestions and in-

sight.This game was influenced by many media, some

of which youll see below.

2.3.1 RPGs

The Riddle of Steel by Jake Norwood (DriftwoodPublishing) and Sorcerer by Ron Edwards (AdeptPress). Two of the best role-playing games outthere, they came at the idea that the players setthe goals they are rewarded for from different an-gles. Keys in this game are their progeny.

Fudge by Steffan OSullivan (Grey Ghost Press).Like you couldnt tell.

Over the Edge by Jonathan Tweet with RobinLaws (Atlas Games): The bonus and penalty dicemechanic.

Dying Earth by Robin Laws (Pelgrane Press) andShadowrunby FanPro: Attributes as resource pools(from both) and refreshment of these pools (DyingEarth).

Schism by Jared Sorensen (Memento-Mori The-atricks): The idea of character transcendence.

2.3.2 Books and authors

I was sort of a late-comer to weird fantasy, but onceI started, I couldnt put it down. The two writerswho most influenced this game are Fritz Leiber andRobert E. Howard. Both of these authors took a dif-ferent direction from the high fantasy written beforethem: dark, gritty fantasy where people, not gods,made a difference. In addition, they were much lessderivative of European myth than their predeces-sors. Leiber especially gets recognition: the way hepainted the world of Lankhmar was amazing andhas informed every session of this game that Iverun. The decline of civilizations, great empty walled

cities, and black forests of Near are all Howard.Red Nails and Beyond the Black River werethe two stories that had the most direct influenceover this game. An article in the February 2003Discover magazine, How Was the Moon Formed?was also a huge inspiration.

To see photographs of the World of Near, I rec-ommend a book called Secret Corners of the World,produced by the National Geographic Society. Theimages of places and people in this book were in-strumental in painting a picture of Near.


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Chapter 3

Characters

Characters represent all sentient beings in your

game. While not every stranger met by the playerscharacters may be fully fleshed out in terms of me-chanics, all characters that could be created in thegame should be able to be created with these rules.In order to define who a character is and what thatcharacter can do, there are four mechanical pieces:Pools, Abilities, Secrets, and Keys.

3.1 Pools

Pools are resources the player can spend during thegame in order for their character to push harder, do

more, and perform amazing feats. There are threepools: Vigor, Instinct, and Reason.

Vigor represents the characters reserves of physi-cal power, wherewithal, and mental toughness.Characters with high Vigor are often knownfor bulging muscles, scarred faces, callousedhands, the thousand-yard stare, and crush-ing strength.

Instinct represents the characters reserves ofanimal-like reactions, both physical and social.

This ranges from cat-like reflexes in combatto pheromone-like sexual attraction. Charac-ters with high Instinct are often known fortheir graceful motion, penetrating eyes, amaz-ing hearing, stunning appearance, or sexualprowess.

Reason represents the characters intelligence andmental power. This could range from bookknowledge to an uneducated, but highly prac-tical mind. Characters with high Reason areoften known for their vocabulary, ability to

identify plants and animals, skill at games of

chance, or power over others.

Pools are measured in points, and each poolranges from one to infinite points, although a poolof more than 10 points is highly unusual. Duringthe game, these points are spent to do better thannormal or perform unusual feats, but are not per-manently gone. Think of each one as a containerof reserves: these reserves can be spent, but youcan refill the container. The scores on each playerscharacter sheet represent the maximum points ineach pool - the size of the container - and players

will get a chance to refresh their characters poolsto their maximum.

3.2 Pool refreshment

Whenever a pool is not at its full level, it can be re-freshed, restoring it to its full level by the characterperforming an in-game action.

Vigor is refreshed whenever your character en-gages in an act of physical exertion (including phys-

ical abuse, such as drugs, drinking, staying out allnight) with another character, specifically for theintent of enjoying yourself.

Instinct is refreshed whenever your character en-gages in an act of social pleasure (examples: a date,going to a party, playing a game of chance) with an-other character.

Reason is refreshed whenever your character en-gages in an act of intellectual stimulation (exam-ples: a night at the opera, a philosophical debate,playing a game of skill) with another another.

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8 CHAPTER 3. CHARACTERS

3.3 Abilities

Abilities are representations of a characters skillsboth learned and innate. Some examples of abilitiesare Sailing, Tracking, Sword-fighting, and Oratory.

Abilities are always associated with a pool. Thisis shown by writing the name of the pool - or an ab-breviation - after the ability name, like this: Stealth(Instinct) or just Stealth (I). This pool is the re-source from which characters draw their strengthwith that ability. This pool can be used to increaseones chances with an ability. Some game effects ap-ply to all abilities that are associated with a specificpool.

There are three abilities common to every char-acter. These are called innate abilities. They arepurely reactive, and cannot be used to initiate ac-tion. They are only used to protect your character.They are:

Endure (Vigor) This is your characters abilityto push on and persevere though pain and fa-tigue. It is used to test the limits of a charac-ters physicality and fitness.

React (Instinct) This measures the quickness ofa characters body and mind. It is as much

how quick the character notices something ashow quick the character moves.

Resist (Reason) Resist is the strength of a char-acters will, and is used to prevent compulsionof a natural or supernatural type. This in-cludes physical compulsion: Resist would beused for a character to keep her cool under tor-ture, for example, while Endure would be usedto see how long she could stay conscious underthe same torture.

All other abilities are chosen and are actively

used by characters. Most abilities will be consid-ered open abilities, which means any character canuse them, even with no skill. Some, however, willbe closed abilities, which depend on a prerequisite.This prerequisite is usually the species a characteris or a culture the character has been exposed to.

Abilities are ranked with adjectives. An abilitycan have the following ranks: Unskilled, Competent,Adept, Master, and Grand Master. These adjec-tives do match up with a number, which is used inresolution.

The resolution system will be explained in further

detail later, but heres what you need to know:Being Unskilled in an ability, you can try to per-form tasks that fall under that ability, but youllusually fail. Youll succeed at about two out of ev-ery five tries.

When you get to be Competent, youre now readyto really use your skills. Youll succeed over half thetime; in fact, youll succeed at more than three outof every five tries.

As an Adept, youll almost always succeed - 85percent of the time, at least.

As a Master, it takes a freak chance for you tofail.

Grand Masters literally cannot ever fail.Its important to note, though, that even someone

with no ability can beat a Grand Master. The oddsare far against them, but they could give it a try.

3.4 Secrets

Secrets are special abilities a character can learnthat augment abilities. These are often preternat-ural, sometimes magical, and always better thannormal. In order to use Secrets, points from a pool

are normally spent, meaning that Secrets can beused a limited number of times before that pool isrefreshed.

Secrets can be better explained with an example:

Secret of the Hidden Pocket This character isadept at hiding objects on her person. Nomatter how carefully searched the characterhas been, she may pull an inexpensive, small(hand-sized) item off her person with a suc-cessful Stealth ability check. There is no needfor the player to have written this item on thecharacter sheet previously. Cost: 1 Instinct.

Like with abilities, there are open Secrets andclosed Secrets.

3.5 Keys

Keys are the primary method of increasing a char-acters abilities. These are goals, emotional ties, orvows a character has. By bringing these into thestory, the player gains experience points (XP) she


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3.5. KEYS 9

can use to advance the character, increasing pools

and abilities, or learning new Secrets and Keys.Again, an example will illustrate this better:

Key of Conscience Your character has a softspot for those weaker than their opponents.Gain 1 XP every time your character helpssomeone who cannot help themselves. Gain 2XP every time your character defends someonewith might who is in danger and cannot savethemselves. Gain 5 XP every time your charac-ter takes someone in an unfortunate situationand changes their life to where they can helpthemselves. Buyoff: Ignore a request for help.

The buyoff shown above is a special bit aboutKeys. Whenever a player has a character performthe action shown in one of the buyoffs, the playercan (this is not mandatory) erase the Key and gain10 XP. Once bought off, a character can never havethe same Key again.

Unlike abilities and Secrets, the number of Keysa character can have is limited. A character canhave no more than five Keys at one time.


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Chapter 4

Creating a beginning character

Making your character is the one of the most im-portant parts of playing a role-playing game. Indoing so, you not only define the person you wantto play, but you determine what that play will beabout. Through a combination of character con-cepts, species, cultures, and Keys, every player getsto contribute to the content of the story.

4.1 Concept

In order to start creating a character, a conceptneeds to be built. The character concept cannot be

generated in a vacuum, however; characters must fittogether with a certain zest that makes them click,little motors ready to feed off each other. This isntto say that all characters need to be alike, of thesame species and culture, or even from the sameplace.

Theres not a set process for how concept gener-ation works, but it should be done as a group, in arelaxed atmosphere, preferably with whatever getsyour imagination flowing, whether that be coffee,beer, music, or whatever else. Talk amongst eachother, and dont think of your idea as sacrosanct:

take suggestions from other players and give themback. Remember that in creating these characters,you create the landscape in which you will play.

At the end of generating character concepts, youshould have a few things:

An idea of where your character is from andwhat species she is.

A few sentences about who your character isand what she cares about.

A description of your characters appearance,also short.

A name. This is totally not optional. Pick aname before you go any farther.

Many role-playing game texts will tell you to havea nearly complete idea of who your character is be-fore play. I dont think thats necessary, though.You and your friends will get to know your char-acter during play. What that character did before-hand is of some interest, but even those details willemerge during play easier than before play. If youwere reading a book, would the author expect youto know the main character before-hand?

What you do need to know is this: what speciesthis character is, where shes from, what shes goodat, and what might be important to her.

4.2 Species

There are four sentient species in the world of Near.(That is, according to the published setting. Maybeyou have more in your game.) In choosing a speciesfor your character, you have the following questions

to ask yourself: What nifty abilities and Secrets can I get be-

cause of this species?

How does this species fit into the culture wereplaying in?

How does this species interact with the othercharacters species?

What does this species represent to me? Whywould I want to play this sort of character?

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4.6. SECRETS AND KEYS 11

The species to choose from, like all character de-

tails, are found in the setting section of this rule-book.

4.3 Culture

You will have to decide on a culture that your char-acter is from. You and your friends have probablydecided on an area in which the game will start be-fore play, and your characters will likely come fromthat area and its surrounding cultures. Playing astranger to the culture you begin play in can be fun,

too. Your group will have a lot more informationwith your setting.

4.4 Pools

Once past the heavy-thought areas of concept,species, and culture, the fun number action begins.First up is your characters pools.

Divide 11 points among your characters pools,with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 7 in each.

(Note: this maximum is just for character creation;your character may end up with a pool later muchhigher than 7.)

4.5 Abilities

All characters start with the three innate abilities.Set one at Adept level, one at Competent, and oneat Unskilled.

Then, choose from your setting material more

abilities that are available to your character. Youshould choose one at Adept level and three at Com-petent. This is just for a starting character, freshout in the world. If you are playing more experi-enced characters, youll get the chance to add moreabilities or increase the ones you have later.

Note that you can use any open abilities or anyclosed abilities from your home culture at Unskilled.You can feel free to write down ones you expect touse. You cannot use abilities from other culturesunless trained in them by someone else.

4.6 Secrets and Keys

Before play, players can choose one Secret and oneKey for their characters.

4.7 Further Advances

Lastly, players start with a number of advances(chances to improve) for their characters. This isdetermined by the group before play, depending onhow powerful characters are to be at the beginningof the game. The standard number is five. To figureout how to spend them, read below.

4.8 Character advancement

During the game, each player character will get ex-perience points (XP) for meeting the players goalsfor that characters story and the Story Guidesgoals for the overall story. These experience pointsare converted to advances, usually at a rate of fiveXP to one advance. Each advance that you get canbe banked toward improving your characters pools,abilities, Secrets, and Keys. The costs are found inthe table below.

Increase an ability to:Competent

1 advance

Adept 2 advancesMaster 3 advancesGrand Master 4 advances(These are cumulative costs - it costs 3to go from Unskilled to Adept, for ex-ample.)Increase a pool by one pointAdd a Secret 1 advanceAdd a Key 1 advance

Table 4.1: Advancement table

You can never increase the same thing twice in arow. That is, you cannot increase the same abilityor pool twice in a row. You need to increase some-thing else in between. In addition, you cannot buytwo Secrets or two Keys in a row.


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Chapter 5

Resolution

In role-playing games, when a player wants their

character to perform an action with an uncertainoutcome, we have to resolve that action. In TheShadow of Yesterday, almost all resolution is whatwe call conflict resolution. Its a bit of a confusingterm: dont all role-playing games have rules forresolving conflicts?

Thats true, but many resolve conflicts piece bylittle piece. If your characters fighting someone,for example, each hit might be a separate task thatgets resolved in some games. Using this game, theentire fight is resolved at once, and then we describehow it went down. Those ups and downs may still

be described, but the outcome of the entire conflictis what the system determines.

5.1 The ability check

The way we determine outcomes is called an abil-ity check. When performing an uncertain action,the player needs to state her basic intention for thecharacter and the ability they are using. (Theydont have to have this ability on their charactersheet, but, as youll see, it helps.) This is not afull description of the action, as the dice provide a

randomizer that let the player know how well thisaction happened. After stating the characters in-tention, deciding on stakes, and choosing the rele-vant ability, the ability check is made.

The ability check involves a dice roll. This rolluses special dice you can find at hobby stores oronline called Fudge dice. They were originally in-vented for a neat little role-playing game calledFudge. They are six-sided dice; two sides of themhave plus signs on them, two sides are blank, andtwo sides have minus signs. If you dont have any,

you can make your own really easily. Get a red

and a green marker and some white dice. Colortwo sides red and two sides green, and youve gotFudge dice. The plus sides are +1, the blank sidesare 0, and the minus sides are -1, in case you didntknow. An even better way to make your own Fudgedice from ordinary six-sided dice can be found inJonathan Waltons article Babys First Fudge Dicein the online magazine Fudge Factor.

After youve got weird dice, the process is prettysimple: roll three dice and add them to your charac-ters rank in the ability being used. As you probablyremember, each ability rank has a number associ-

ated with it. Thats what you use here.So, a character who is a Competent (1) in Scrap-ping that rolls two pluses and a minus on the dicehas a total of 2. Thats your success level (SL).Theres only one trick to this: you cant get lowerthan zero. Its a hard bottom number, and if youend up with -1 or something, its just zero.

Just like every ability rank has an associatednumber, each success level has an associated name.

That name is just there to help you describe theoutcome. It doesnt have a mechanical effect. AMarginal success is all that is needed to succeed atany task in the game.

5.2 Bonus and penalty dice

While a ability score determines the range of yourcharacters ability, bonus and penalty dice are a me-chanic to skew your results toward one end of thatrange. When making a ability check, bonus diceadd to the number of dice rolled, as do penalty dice.Roll three Fudge dice, plus a number of Fudge diceequal to all your bonus and penalty dice. Whenever

12


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5.4. EXPANDING THE ABILITY CHECK 13

Description Success LevelFailure 0Good 1Great 2Superb 3Amazing 4Legendary 5Penultimate 6Transcendent 7

Table 5.1: Success level table

possible, bonus and penalty dice cancel each otherout, so if you have two bonus dice and a penalty diebefore your roll, you end up with only one bonus die.

After you roll, remove a number of your dice equalto your penalty dice, starting with pluses. If yourun out of pluses, remove blanks, and then minuses.Bonus dice work the opposite way: you remove mi-nuses first, then blanks, then pluses. More simply,penalty dice take away your highest rolls. Bonusdice take away your lowest rolls.

Players can always spend one point from the abil-

itys associated pool to get one bonus die on a abil-ity check. This is limited to one bonus die per abil-ity check.

5.3 The Gift of Dice

At the beginning of each session of the game, everyplayer including the Story Guide receives a numberof gift dice equal to the number of players at the

table. At any point during the game, any of thesedice can be given to another player to be addedas bonus dice to that players current ability check.This is most often used when a players character isattempting something especially dangerous, or theplayer describes her characters intention in a coolway.

These gift dice are an important part of play andshould not be forgotten. They encourage coopera-tion among the players as much as among the char-acters.

5.4 Expanding the ability

checkThe ability check is the core of this system and allother mechanics derive from it, this injection of for-tune, that serves as resolution for both instant ac-tions and entire scenes. Here we break down theways the mechanics grow from the ability check.

5.5 Ability check range

Every ability check in this game can be describedin terms of range. The term range refers to all the

possible outcomes of an ability check. As the playerrolls three Fudge dice, results from -3 to +3 plus acharacters pertinent ability are always the range ofa check. Note that a unskilled character (0) has arange with no result better than Great (3), and acharacter with a Grand Master (4) ability cannotfail. Related to this is the idea of an average out-come, the outcome most expected with any level ofability. Since zero is the most likely outcome on anyroll of three Fudge dice, unskilled characters can beexpected to fail the majority of the time. Char-acters do not succeed on average until the have a

Competent ability (1).Range seems like a simple concept, and it is. Itsalso very important, though: notice that a characterwith even no ability always has a chance of beat-ing a character with a Grand Master, albeit small.This is entirely on purpose: with this system, yourcharacter has a limit to how good she might do ata task, but it always might be good enough to beatthe other guy.

5.6 Intention, Initiation, Exe-

cution, and EffectAlthough the ability check seems very simple,theres more involved than it seems at first glance.Every time your character takes an action, thereare four steps involved: Intention, Initiation, Exe-cution, and Effect. Heres how these break down:

Intention The player announces the intended ac-tion for the character. No movement or actionhas happened yet, though. The intention andits consequences may be discussed among the


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14 CHAPTER 5. RESOLUTION

Story Guide and players and changed. Stakes

must b e stated for the check: what stands tobe lost and gained?

Initiation The player has committed her characterto the task, and no changes can be made now.The dice hit the table.

Execution The character completes her action.The player adds the dice to the characters abil-ity to figure out the success level.

Effect The players and Story Guide decide whatthe effect of the task is, whether successfullycompleted or not.

Now, that sounds like a lot to go through ev-ery time you roll the dice. Normally, this all hap-pens without thinking too much about it, makingit quick. A player states, My characters going todo something, she rolls dice, everyone looks to seehow the character did, and a decision about whathappened occurs.

The reason I bring up the four steps is because ifyou never think about them, you can cause tensionamong the players and Story Guide.

Imagine a player, Joe, stating, Jack, my char-

acter, hits the priest right in the chest with a swordblow. Now, following the four steps, you realize thishas not happened in the game, but is just Joe statingher intention. (While his statement was technicallyincorrect, in that she stated it happened, and it wasan intention, this is a common way of stating in-tention in role-playing games.)

Carrying on with this example, though, what ifthe Story Guide is confused about the four steps?She may take this as initiation, for example, andwhen she says, The priest grabs her black mace,Joe might want her character Jack to back off. Ifthe Story Guide thinks the above statement was ini-

tiation, though, Joe cant do this, and may get angryat the Story Guide for withholding the informationthat the priest had this mace.

And in the end, what if the group is confusedabout effect? If Joes roll is successful, a confusedgroup might think that Joes stated intention forJack is exactly what happens. This is not neces-sarily so: the outcome of the dice and disposition ofthe players might determine a different effect.

The point is this: take your time to make sureeveryone is on the same page when it comes to a

character performing a task. While the first game

or two might run a bit slower than normal becausesteps are being heavily delineated, the speed willpick up as everyone gets used to following them.

5.7 Types of ability checks and

how they work

While the ability check is the core mechanic thatties this entire game together, it actually comes inseveral forms, each of which add on a layer of com-plexity.

The first and most simple type is the unopposedability check. This is used when a player wants hercharacter to try a task in which no other character isattempting any action which would stop her. Thereare three steps to the unopposed ability check, andall other types of ability checks.

First, the player states the characters intentionand the Story Guide sets the stakes.

This should be easy: Pieter is going to try toclimb that boulder is a good example. The StoryGuide could reply If you succeed, Pieters over therock, but thats pretty implicit.

Usually, the results of success are easily takenfrom the what the player said. The results of failureare determined by the Story Guide and players.

In this case, failure could mean Pieters not overthe rock or it could mean something worse. TheStory Guide has free reign here to say, Thats agiant boulder. If you fail, Pieter falls and will breaka bone.

Whats important is that these stakes are statedup front.

The second step is determining circumstances.This is where bonus and penalty dice come intoplay. Characters may often have either bonus or

penalty dice because of Secrets activated, poolsspent, harm taken, or The Gift of Dice, as shownbelow. In addition to any bonus or penalty dice out-lined elsewhere in these rules, the Story Guide mayassign one or two penalty dice to any ability check.One penalty die may be assigned if circumstancesrender a task especially difficult or if the characteris ill-equipped.

If trying to climb a wall, a character would not beassigned a penalty die if it were drizzling, or dark,or a bit chilly, but one could be assigned if there was


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5.8. USING ABILITIES TOGETHER 15

an icy wind and hard rain coming down at night. If

the climber was trying to go up a cliff face, whichnormally required some pitons and crampons andthe like, and she didnt have any, she could receivea penalty die.

Two penalty dice can be assigned in the veryworst of circumstances. A good measure of whetherto assign two penalty dice is if the description of thecircumstances elicits a stream of profanity from aplayer. Were talking about seriously nasty condi-tions here - hail coming down in the midst of an icyrain while gale-force winds tear at our poor climberin the pitch dark.

The third and final step is actually rolling thedice. The Story Guide and players should use thesuccess level to describe how the character per-formed at the stated intention.

The next type of ability check is the competitiveability check. This occurs when two or more charac-ters are attempting the same task, but each wantsto do it better or faster. All rules for the stan-dard ability check apply, and in addition, the con-ditions of victory are set before the ability check:if the check is over a foot-race, the victor went the fastest; if its composing a song, the victor madea better piece of work. This should be fairly ob-

vious, but the Story Guide and players can decidetogether what the conditions of victory are if theresany question.

All players with competing characters make abil-ity checks. After ability checks are made, any char-acter who succeeded actually completed the taskwith some proficiency and the player can use thesuccess level to compute any relevant outcomes.The character of the player with the highest totalscore, however, completed the task better or faster,and the other characters are ranked in the order oftheir players rolls. In the case of a tie, the charac-

ters feats are so close in speed and quality that awinner cannot be determined between them. Theycan either tie, or if the players and Story Guidewant to, those players can roll again to see which isthe victor.

The last type of ability check is the resisted abil-ity check. This check, most common in role-playinggames, occurs when two characters attempt tasksthat would cancel out each other. Examples in-clude:

One character swinging a sword at another

character dodging. One character trying to get information by

twisting another characters arm, who is at-tempting to suffer through the pain and keepquiet.

One character sneaking up on a character whois keeping watch.

One character offering a romp in bed to a char-acter who is trying to deny the pleasures of theflesh.

All normal ability check rules apply to resistedchecks. The two players involved make their abilitychecks and then compare their scores. The higherof the two wins: in the case of a tie, the instigatorof the action loses.

When narrating a resisted ability check, bothplayers success levels come into account. For pur-poses of computing results, the winners successlevel is used, but the losers efforts are still signifi-cant. An example:

The character Violet, played by Kim, is attempt-ing to drive the character Lore, played by Wilhelm,to his knees with a savage sword attack. Upon

rolling, Kim ends up with an Amazing (4) successlevel, and Wilhelm ends up with a Great (3) successlevel. Kims roll wins, but Lore still made a greatblock. The action is narrated as, Violet brings upher sword and makes a vicious stroke down, aim-ing for the lower leg. Lore, anticipating the swing,throws his shield in the way, but the sword crashesdown it, the force driving the shield itself back intoLores shins as he falls.

The losing player must abide by the winnersstated intention for the ability check, even if itwas I kill that sorry character. Thats not en-

tirely true, though: what sort of game would thisbe if your character could die from one roll of thedice? To see how to extract your character from anysticky situation you dont like, see Bringing Downthe Pain below.

5.8 Using abilities together

If you want your character to perform a complexaction that uses two abilities together, decide withthe Story Guide which ability is most appropriate to


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the action and which is secondary. The secondary

ability is used first and the success levels are used asbonus dice on the second ability check. The StoryGuide and player will have to decide what happensif the first ability check is failed: in some situations,the second ability check can still be attempted with-out harm; in others, the ability check can be at-tempted with a penalty die; and in others still, thesecond ability check cannot be attempted.

A character is trying to cut a thong from aguards belt and snatch his keys, using Bladeworkto chop the thong, and Stealth to grab the keyswithout being seen. While she is using Bladeworkto actually get the keys free, the Stealth part of

the action is most important. The player makes aBladework ability check. If successful, the successlevels are converted to bonus dice on the Stealthability check. If unsuccessful, however, the keys arestill on the guards belt, so the Stealth ability checkcannot be attempted.

Another character wants to approach a wild bearwithout getting attacked using Animal Ken. In or-der to help with this, shes going to attempt to re-member what bears like to eat and see if she canfind some, using Woodscraft. The Woodscraft abil-ity check is secondary, and if successful, will add

bonus dice to the Animal Ken ability check. If un-successful, there is no complication; the characterjust must approach the bear with no food gift.

5.9 Bringing Down the Pain

Simple ability checks are well and good, and makeresolution a quick and painless matter. Sometimes,though, for that dramatic punch, you need some-thing a bit more gritty and focused. In this game,that is an expanded resolution system called Bring-ing Down the Pain. Bringing Down the Pain is

a unique option for players to allow them to notonly get out of sticky situations, but focus the storywhere they want it.

Any player involved in a conflict can Bring Downthe Pain after a resisted ability check. Normally,a player has to abide by the results of this check.However, when a character belonging to a player- a player that is not the Story Guide - loses ata resisted ability check, that player does not haveto accept the outcome. Instead, she can ask thatthe Pain be Brought Down. On the flip side, a

player can demand this even when she succeeds at

a resisted ability check. This not only allows her tozoom in the imagined camera on this conflict, butis the only way to permanently injure or get rid ofa major named character controlled by the StoryGuide.

The Story Guide cannot Bring Down the Pain.She can request it, but another player involved inthe conflict must actually declare it.

When a player declares they are Bringing Downthe Pain, action breaks down into a blow-by-blow,gritty basis instead of overall conflict resolution.This can be called task resolution. Both sides ofthe conflict must make certain their intention - their

goal - is clarified and well-stated, for it is very im-portant here. This intention must be clear, but canallow room for differing actions to achieve the goal:drive away these opponents in battle, embarrassthe noble in front of his peers, or out-perform thisguy on the guitar are all fine intentions.

After intentions are stated, everyone who has acharacter involved in the conflict should state whattheir one action for this volley will be. Actionscan be changed during this stage, where everything,even actions hidden to the characters, is discussed inthe open. (In Ron Edwards Trollbabe, this is called

the free-and-clear stage and Ill use that term here.)Whose actions affect who is important to establishhere. Actions can be visualized as perpendicular orparallel actions. What I mean this is:

Perpendicular actions get in the way of eachother. If Violets action is to stab Lore with a spearand Lores action is to kick out Violets legs fromunder her, these actions are perpendicular. Theyrefighting each other, and part of that is keeping ad-vantage.

Parallel actions do not necessarily get in the wayof each other. Lets say Violet is trying to convinceLore to join her ragtag group of misfits. Lore would

rather her shut up and is cooking her dinner, hop-ing the smell of his righteous cooking distracts her.Both of these people can do this at the same time,and the winner will definitely have an effect on theloser, but as far as actions go, they dont get in theway of each other.

There is one other type of action, the defensiveaction. You can use a relevant innate ability (En-dure, React, Resist) to resist whats happening toyour character. You cannot deal harm this way, butotherwise it counts as a perpendicular action.


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5.10. USING MORE THAN ONE ABILITY 17

It is highly important to distinguish whether ac-

tions are perpendicular or parallel ahead of timeand be very clear about it. The first time youuse Bringing Down the Pain, it could be confus-ing. You see, with a normal ability check, you re-ally can resist someone attacking your character bytalking them out of it. Thats because the entireconflict is at stake. In Bringing Down the Pain, theonly things that can resist someone attacking yourcharacter are attacking them back or blocking theirblow. Thats because that rolls stakes are that onetask.

If the two sides of a conflict cannot decide on ac-tions - if one keeps changing theirs depending on the

other - it is up to the Story Guide to resolve this.Hopefully, it can be resolved through player nego-tiation. If not, the side who wants a perpendicularaction must take a defensive action.

After the free-and-clear stage, everyone rolls abil-ity checks for their action. If this is the first actionin Bringing Down the Pain, the winner at the rollthat initiated Bringing Down the Pain gets bonusdice to her first action equal to the difference be-tween her and her opponents success levels. If twocharacters are taking action against each other (per-pendicular actions), the check is a resisted ability

check. The loser at this check takes harm equal tothe difference between the success levels, possiblymodified by Secrets and weapons. If the actionsare parallel, both sides take harm equal to their at-tackers success level. If one action is defensive, andthat player wins, she gets bonus dice to her nextaction equal to the difference between the successlevels.

When all rolls are resolved, another free-and-clearstage begins. This continues until one side of theconflict gives up, at which time the winners inten-tions happen. The trick to Bringing Down the Painlies in this rule: in any free-and-clear stage, a player

can announce that she is changing his characters in-tention completely. This could change from sneakup on my enemy to kill my enemy, best thequeen in a war of words to seduce the queen,or even out-play this guy on the guitar to mag-ically put this guy to sleep. She does not have tostate the new intention until the next free-and-clearstage. During this volley of rolls, she may only makea defensive action.

There is one exception to the idea that it takesa round to change your intention. If you and an

opponent find yourself at a stalemate - you have

perpendicular actions and roll the same success level- you can both immediately change intentions.

5.10 Using more than one

ability

Each use of an ability in Bringing Down the Pain isan action. To use one to get bonus dice for another,it cannot deal any harm or absorb any harm; it is aperpendicular action with no effect. This is exceed-ingly dangerous to try unless you have someone tocover your back.

This in no way supersedes using a defensive ac-tion to get bonus dice for your next action.

5.11 Surprise

Surprise is not part of the Bringing Down the Painsystem. Instead, it takes place before-hand. If acharacter acts against another, and the latter has noclue whats going on, the player will not be able tomake an ability check to resist. This still counts as aresisted ability check, and the player can announce

that hed like to Bring Down the Pain.As stated before, the winner at the check thatinitiated Bringing Down the Pain gets bonus diceto her first action equal to the difference betweenher and her opponents success levels. This is anindicator of her opening advantage.

5.12 Harm and defeat

Harm in this game does not necessarily refer tophysical, blood-and-guts rending of flesh and bone.Instead, it is a quality of both the character in the

context of the game world and the character in con-text of the real world. Harm is a count-down ofwhen a player loses control over his character, andcan be expressed as any of these things in-game:

Cuts and bruises

Fatigue and weariness

Embarrassment and crushed esteem

Loss of concentration and will


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Whenever a successful ability check is made

against a character while Bringing Down the Pain,that character takes harm. The base harm dependson whether the actions were opposed or parallel. Ifopposed, base harm is the difference in success lev-els. If parallel, base harm equals the success level.Again, the type of action being done against thecharacter does not matter - you can take harm fromseduction as easily as you can from a sword.

Take that success level and check off the corre-sponding box on the harm tracker on your charactersheet. If that checkbox is already filled, check thenext highest unchecked one. Write down beside thecheckbox either Vigor, Instinct, or Reason,

depending on the type of harm you took. This isusually determined by the associated pool from theability used to harm you, but might be different ifeveryone involved agrees.

Youll see that one to three harm is bruised. Thismeans on your very next ability check, youll have apenalty die. These add up - if you get bruised twicein a round of Bringing Down the Pain, youll havetwo penalty dice.

Level four and five harm means your character isbloodied. All your abilities that are associated withthe pool that you took the harm from now take a

penalty die. If you are bloodied twice in the samepool, you still only take one penalty die. These donot stack.

Level six harm means your character is broken. Ifbroken, in order for your character to perform anyaction, even defense, you must spend a point fromthe abilitys associated pool, and you still receiveone penalty die to this action.

Harm past broken results in the attackers inten-tion immediately happening.

At any point during Bringing Down the Pain, aplayer may decide that the harm taken is enoughfor this conflict and give up. Before a free-and-

clear stage, the player gives up the conflict, and hisopponents intention occurs. It is often a good ideato give up before your opponent changes to a moredeadly intention.

After Bringing Down the Pain, harm shakes out.That means that all damage collapses into the lowend of the harm tracker. As an example, if you hadchecks at 2, 3, and 6 on the harm tracker, theydcollapse to 1, 2, and 3 after Bringing Down thePain. This applies even to harm from before Bring-ing Down the Pain, so feel free to get in a nasty

scrape if youre hurt.

Healing works exactly opposite of harm: if some-one rolls an ability check to get rid of your harm(First Aid and Counsel could do this, for example),it removes the harm you have corresponding to theirsuccess level, or the highest harm you have if theirsuccess level is higher. If all your harm is of a higherlevel than their success level, nothing is healed. Theharm does not shake out afterwards and one char-acter can only attempt to heal your character oncein a scene.

There is another method to heal your charac-ter: self-healing. By spending a number of poolpoints equal to the level of a harm your character

has taken, you can remove that harm from the char-acter. The points must be spent from the pool asso-ciated with that particular harm. If the harm levelis higher than your maximum pool, you can spendsome points, refresh your pool, and then spend morelater.

5.13 An example of Bringing

Down the Pain and harm

In this example, there are two players, Matt andEmily. The pertinent parts of their two charactersare:

Emilys character: Tela, a Zaru assassin. Herpools are currently at Vigor 2, Instinct 3, and Rea-son 1. Her pertinent abilities are React: Mas-ter, Sneak: Master, Deceit: Competent, and KnifeFighting: Adept.

Matts character: Gael, a noble from Ammeni.His pools are currently at Vigor 5, Instinct 2,and Reason 3. His pertinent abilities are React:Adept, Sense Danger: Adept, Dash: Competent,and Viper-Blade: Grand Master.

Gael is traveling down an alley-way when Telasights him, and slides into the shadows to followhim. Emily states, I want Tela to sneak up on thisguy. She makes a resisted ability check of Sneakversus Gaels Sense Danger and rolls a -1 versus his0, for a total of SL 2 versus SL 2. Screw that, shesays, and spends a point of Instinct to roll a bonusdie. Matt has the same opportunity, but wants toconserve his Instinct pool, since its low. She endsup with a roll of 0, for a total of SL 3 - a Greatsuccess!


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5.13. AN EXAMPLE OF BRINGING DOWN THE PAIN AND HARM 19

Up until this point, the action has been taken care

of by a simple ability check. According to the check,Emily wins, and Tela will sneak up on Gael, givingEmily three bonus dice to perform an action thatuses that advantage. Matts not having it, though:he wants his character out of here, and away fromTela. He says, No way. Im not accepting that out-come. Its time to Bring Down the Pain. My goalis for Gael to notice Tela, and get away from her.Emily decides to keep her intention of sneaking upon Gael.

During the free-and-clear phase, Matt says, Ok,Gael stops for a moment and scans the area as thehair on the back of his neck stands up. Notice that

Gael knows somethings wrong: thats because Mattrefused the outcome of the simple ability check. Alsonotice that Matt can narrate whatever he wants forGaels action, as long as it stays within his over-all intention. Emily, confident in her charactersabilities, says Im going to creep along the wallslowly towards him, staying in the shadows. An-other roll is made of Gaels Sense Danger versusTelas Sneak, and Matt wins this check, with SL 3(Great) versus SL 2 (Good). Tela takes a harm atlevel 1 - shes bruised.

Matt says, A-ha! Gael sees a glimmer in the

shadows behind him, and starts to move quicklyaway from it. Emily asks the Story Guide, IfI throw some rocks to make noise ahead of Gael,can I count them as a weapon, +1 harm to deceivehim about my location? The Guide agrees that theideas sound, and Emily says, Tela scoops up somepebbles and throws them ahead of Gael, trying toconfuse him as to her location. Her Deceits prettylow, so she spends her one point of Reason for abonus die, canceling out her penalty die from beingbruised, and nails it, beating Matts Sense Dangerability check, scoring SL 4 (Amazing) versus his SL2 (Good). With the +1 weapon, thats harm level 3

to Gael.Matts in trouble now. He says, As Gael takes

off forward, a sound rattles him, and he spins, look-ing confused, but shakes it off. Emily says gleefully,Seeing the Ammenites confusion, Tela dives androlls across the alley to get behind him. Matts wor-ried, but thinks the dice have got to go his way. Hesays, Gael spins around, scanning the area for theunseen intruder. Just to be careful, he spends apoint from his Instinct pool for a bonus die. Theyroll, and he gets a SL 3 (Good). Unfortunately, the

dice are hot for Emily, and she rolls +3; shes got

a grand total of SL 6 - an Ultimate success! Thatsharm level 3 for Gael, but hes already taken harmlevel 3, so thats level 4. Gael is now bloodied in In-stinct, and has a penalty die to all actions that useit, including Sense Danger. Crap, he mutters.Im changing my intention. Gaels just going tohigh-tail it, trying to avoid danger.

Using Dash is an error. In a round in

which a character is changing intentions, he

is only allowed to use a Defensive Action.

Emilys grinning from ear to ear. As Gael runs,Telas going to flit from shadow to shadow, stay-ing right behind him. They roll, his Dash now ver-

sus her Sneak. Dash uses Vigor for its pool, soMatt doesnt have a penalty die from being blood-ied in Instinct. Again, Emily wins: her roll comesup as a Good success versus his Marginal and Gaeltakes harm level 1. Emily narrates, Tela movesso quickly, she gets in front of Gael before he cannotice. As he runs, he comes face to face with theassassin.

Its Matts turn, but Gaels got a penalty die. Ifhe gives up, though, Tela will have cornered him,which he doesnt want, especially not this damaged.He glowers, Gaels running as fast as he can.

Emily smiles, Im changing intention if hes goingto run. Matt figures that he can beat her in a foot-race, so he goes ahead and rolls Dash, with a penaltydie, versus Telas React: she could not sneak, butonly defend this turn. With a low roll from Emily,he wins, scoring a mere Good success level versusher Marginal. She takes harm level 1, but thatsalready happened, so harm level 2 - a bruise.

In the next free-and-clear phase, Emily says,Screw this. Want to know my intention? Imkilling this Ammenite.

Matts in a real sticky situation now. Hes gota plan, though: he can change his intention, and

spend his last point of Instinct to defend when Telaattacks Gael this turn, which he knows she will. HisViper-Blade is awesome, and his weapons +2 ver-sus Zaru. Its risky, but if he gives up this turn,Gaels dead, and he thinks he can scare Emily bydealing some serious damage next turn. He says,Gael falls back, baffled and frightened by the sud-den raise of a dagger. Im changing intention.Emily says, I spend a Vigor point. Tela bringsthe dagger in, stabbing at Gael. The roll is tense,SL 5 to SL 1, with Matt losing. That would be harm


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level 4, but thats already taken, so harm level 5 to

Gael. Hes now bloodied in both Instinct and Vigor,and is going to have a hard time getting out of thisone.

Short of breath, Matt says, My intention: teacha slave girl her place. Emily and the Story Guidelook at each other as if to say, Whats up with allthe repression? Matt says, What? Whats Telaup to? Emily grins, Time to die. Matts out ofInstinct points and thats what he needs for Viper-Blade. He hopes against hope and they throw downthe dice. Even with a penalty die for being bloodied,Matt rolls +2 for a total of Ultimate (6). Emilyrolls a 0 and gets a Good (2) success. That would

be harm level 4, but Matts weapon is +2 versusZaru: harm level 6, and Telas broken.

Without hesitation, Emily says, I give. Idrather have this jerk teach me a lesson rather thandie.

5.14 When to Bring Down the

Pain

Every time something doesnt go your way, youmight be tempted to Bring Down the Pain. Itsnot necessarily a good idea to do so. You reallyhave to examine the conflict and your strategy forit.

If someone beat you in an ability check eventhough the odds were against them, then go for it.Over many rolls, their luck will run out. The samething applies if they got in a good roll because ofseveral bonus dice: they wont have those dice inBringing Down the Pain.

If someone beat you by using an ability very dif-ferent from yours, Bringing Down the Pain mightbe a good idea. If they keep that up in Bringing

Down the Pain, itll be a parallel action, and youllboth take damage. If you can deal it out faster thanthey can, Bringing Down the Pains a good idea.

Taking on someone in Bringing Down the Painthats just plain better than you in the ability youplan to use is a bad idea. A Master in Sway willcrush a Adept in Sway in an argument drawn outinto Bringing Down the Pain.

If it appears that you have the advantage inBringing Down the Pain, go for perpendicular ac-tions. Youll hurt your opponent and stay un-

harmed yourself. Likewise, if its unclear, parallel

actions guarantee that your opponent will suffer andperhaps give.

And while were on this topic, if you get intoBringing Down the Pain and its obvious youll loseover the long run, quit. Give up. Some playerswant to keep going until their characters taken allthe harm they can, but you set yourself up to bequite weakened in the next scene, where youll wantyour character to get her revenge or make her greatescape. Dont fall into this trap.

5.15 Multiple characters in a

conflict

For simple ability checks, having multiple charac-ters involved is easy to handle. If the charactersare using varying abilities, each building to helpanother one, its handled like one character usingabilities together. Decide the order the checks haveto be performed in, and have each player roll, withsuccess levels being added as bonus dice to thenext players roll. As with one character, failureat an ability check may mean that the overall ac-tion cannot continue, that the next player must roll

a penalty die on her ability check, or that the checksmay continue, with no penalty dice.

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

Failure always means the next player adds apenalty die to her roll.

Always roll from the character with the highestability to the character with the least ability.

If a penalty die is given from the Story Guidebecause of difficulty, it applies to all rolls.

This does mean that having a character helping

who is weak with the ability may hinder the task.Mike, Wil, and Susan are going to have their

characters Miska, Wolf-Snarl, and Skala try to opena stuck door together. All of them are using Athlet-ics to do this, pushing against the door with theirshoulders. Their scores are Wolf-Snarl, Adept;Skala, Competent; Miska, Unskilled.

Wil rolls success level 2. With two bonus dice,Susan rolls success level 3. Finally, with three bonusdice, Mike rolls a 0, with a 0 for Miskas lack ofAthletics, for success level 0 - a Failure.


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5.16. WEAPONS AND ARMOR 21

Wil has Wolf-Snarl growl, Out of my way, weak-

ling, and grab the door alone. Even with a roll of-1, Wolf-Snarl scores success level 1 and yanks thedoor open.

If Bringing Down the Pain is the ultimate way totest two differing wills, how do you manage it whenmore people want to get in on the fun? The stan-dard way is easy: whenever one player declares thatshe wants to Bring Down the Pain, any characteraround can get involved. Part of the declarationof intention is who youre planning to affect: yourcharacter can only harm that character until youchange intention. The Bringing Down of the Paindoes not end until only one character is left stand-

ing, or all the other players have given up.The gestalt method of group Pain-Bringing may

be an easier and more fun way to arbitrate thesesituations. If everyone on one side of a conflict hasa similar intention towards the other side, you canuse the above rules for a group ability check wheneveryone is using similar abilities. In the gestaltmode, anyone can spend from their pools to helpanyone else,. Harm taken is distributed by the win-ning side to one or more of the losers. (A singu-lar harm can be split up; for example, level 4 harmcould be level 2 to one loser and level 1 to two other

losers.) Whenever a character is broken, her playerfalls out of the group Pain-Bringing.

5.16 Weapons and armor

Ah, weapons and armor - the love of any player,and an oft-fetishized part of any role-playing game.In this game, harm is, as shown above, an erosionof a characters ability to get her way, instead ofalways being physical pain and suffering. Therefore,weapons arent just swords, knifes, clubs, and thelike, and armor isnt just padding a character wears

on her body. Anything can be a weapon - but onlyin certain situations.

When using a weapon, if your character is suc-cessful in an action, you can add the weapons rat-ing to your success level. If you are unsuccessful,the weapon does nothing. Your success level can-not go above Ultimate (6) because of a weapon.Armor subtracts from the success level of actionstaken against you. Armor cannot lower a successlevel past Marginal (1). In both cases, the itemscan have +1, +2, or +3 ratings. The level of the

rating is determined by the specificity of the harm

or protection.Weapons and armor with a +1 rating work inspecific situations determined by action taken, andoften ability used. Examples include:

A sword that gives +1 harm in combat.

A royal crest that provides +1 protection wheninvolved in diplomacy.

A lute that deals +1 harm in attempts to wina crowd while playing it.

Weapons and armor with a +2 rating work in sit-uations with a specific type of people, environment,or other restrictions. Examples include:

A mace that gives +2 harm against hard ar-mors, like plate or chain.

The Seal of Maldor, which provides +2 protec-tion against the law in Maldor.

A set of snowshoes, which deal +2 harm inattempts to race across snowy areas.

Weapons and armor with a +3 rating work in raresituations or against particular persons. Examplesinclude:

A dagger forged to kill the Potenate of Am-meni, which deals +3 harm in attempts to killher.

A writ of birthday immunity, which gives +3protection against any attempt to prosecute aperson for crimes committed on their birthday.

A set of goggles which give +3 harm while try-ing to see motion during an eclipse.

An item can have more than one rating - it canhave up to three +1, two +2, and one +3 ratings.

Weapons and armor can occur in the game in twoways. The Story Guide can declare any item in thegame to give +1 harm or protection in a particularsituation. For example, someone using a sword tofight an unarmed person could be given +1 harmto all her attacks, or someone with a sack of goldcould be given +1 harm to influence someone else.Alternatively, any player can declare her charactersequipment to have a bonus with the Secret of Im-buement. This purchase is subject to Story Guideapproval.


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5.17 Character Transcendence

Transcendence is the result of a Transcendent (7)success level on an ability check. It signals theend of a characters story, and is a special occa-sion for that characters player. With this result,the player should feel free to narrate the outcomeof her roll herself, with any help she likes from theother players and Story Guide. If the roll comesduring Bringing Down the Pain, that ends immedi-ately. If the scene is taking place during the day,the sun is eclipsed by the moon within the hour; ifduring the night, the moon is eclipsed by the sun.

The story should immediately focus upon the

transcendent character. She has just accomplisheda feat that will be spoke of by her companions for-ever, and the day is her. Within 24 game-hoursof the moment she became transcendent, her storywill be over. The character may die; she may retirefor a quiet life; she may disappear over the hills; orshe may become something else entirely. Her storywill end and she will be retired from play.

This does not mean the campaign is over. Theplayer may bring a new character into play after hercurrent character leaves. This character may wellbe established during the day of transcendence, and

carry on the legends of a character who has just hadher most glorious moment.


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Chapter 6

Crunchy Bits

6.1 Abilities

Each ability in The Shadow of Yesterday has anassociated pool, a pool which can be drawn on inorder to give a bonus die to use of the ability. This isnoted when naming abilities like this: Ability Name(Pool).

6.1.1 Innate Abilities

Every character in this game has three innate abil-ities: natural reactions and quantifications of thecharacters physical and mental stability.

Endure (Vigor) This is your characters abilityto push on and persevere though pain and fa-tigue. It is used to test the limits of a charac-ters physicality and fitness.

React (Instinct) This measures the quickness ofa characters body and mind. It is as muchhow quick the character notices somethingas how quick the character moves.

Resist (Reason) Resist is the strength of a char-acters will, and is used to prevent compulsionof a natural or supernatural type. This in-cludes physical compulsion: Resist would beused for a character to keep her cool under tor-ture, for example, while Endure would be usedto see how long she could stay conscious underthe same torture.

6.1.2 Other Abilities

While The Shadow of Yesterday has a full setting,and plenty of pre-made abilities and rules that gowith that, you should never forget that its your

setting. Story Guides and players are encouragedto make up their own abilities, Secrets, and Keys.

Open abilities follow a few guidelines:

They are either innate abilities to a person (Ath-letics) or things that can be easily learned. Usually,theyre both, as in the aforementioned case of Ath-letics, or Scrapping.

They are rather wide in scope, encompassing afield of actions, without being overly broad. Move-ment is too broad; Climbing Fences is too narrow.Fighting is too broad; Broad-sword Usage is toonarrow.

They are not specialized knowledge that applies

only to a certain people or culture. These arethe Species and Cultural Abilities, which are muchmore narrow in scope.

They often overlap with other abilities, which isgreat. Two abilities may describe different styles ofperforming similar tasks.

The pre-made open abilities are below. Examinethem to get ideas for your own. Theyve been orga-nized by category. Any character can take abilitiesfrom any category, but it may be easier to choose acategory or two that define your character and takemost of the abilities from them.

6.1.3 Artistic Abilities

Freeload (Instinct) Freeload is used to get freemeals and shelter. Your character cant reallyget wealthy using Freeload, but you can man-age to survive even if broke, which isnt bad.

Create (Instinct) Create is used for painting,sculpting, and other arts where a concrete itemis created.

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24 CHAPTER 6. CRUNCHY BITS

Story-tell (Reason) Story-tell is used for creat-

ing or telling stories, including ballads.Music (Instinct) Music is used for singing and

playing instruments, and represents musicaltalent, not lyrical talent. Music and Story-tellare often used together to make an effectivesong.

6.1.4 Craftsman Abilities

Haggling (Instinct) Haggling is used to get thebest price for goods. In the world of Near,coinage doesnt really exist, and this is used to

make sure you get a fair trade in barter, whichmeans it can be used to evaluate the qualityand worth of goods as well.

Fine Crafts (Reason) Fine Crafts is used forleatherworking, woodworking, and other craftsthat require fine manipulation.

Rough Crafts (Vigor) Rough Crafts is used forstonecutting, forging, and other crafts that re-quire a great deal of strength.

Complex Crafts (Reason) Complex Crafts is

used for any task that requires a great deal ofsteps or mixing of different materials, rangingfrom building clocks and locks to cooking.

6.1.5 Warrior Abilities

First Aid (Reason) First Aid is simple medicine:bandaging cuts, binding broken bones, andwashing out wounds. If someones been physi-cally hurt, this can be used to heal them.

Scrapping (Vigor) Untrained fighting is the cen-ter of this ability. Fists, feet, daggers, kitchen

knifes, table legs, and all sorts of clubbery areusually used in Scrapping.

Sense Danger (Instinct) This ability is used toperceive anything that might physically harmyour character. It is not a sixth sense: thedanger must be somehow perceivable, if onlybarely. Heres where you get those cat-like re-flexes.

Battle (Reason) Battle is the basic skills and tac-tics known by any military commander. It is

used for giving orders in combat and planning

attacks, including ambushes.

6.1.6 Illicit Abilities

Stealth (Instinct) Stealth is used to sneak up onpeople, hide from other characters, and concealobjects on your characters body.

Theft (Instinct) Theft is used for picking pock-ets, cutting purses, lockpicking, breaking andentering without being noticed, and safecrack-ing, as well as any other theft-related activity.

Deceit (Reason) Deceit is used to fool othercharacters, including pretending to be some-one else, forge a document, or straight-out liewell.

Streetwise (Reason) Streetwise is used to knowinformation about the illegal underground, in-cluding where to buy illegal things, sell stolengoods, or know who controls organized crime.

6.1.7 Outdoor AbilitiesAthletics (Vigor) This is a measure of raw phys-

icality and fitness. It is used for running, jumping, swimming, climbing, or any otherstrength-based task not listed as a separateability.

Aim (Vigor) Aim is used for shooting bows andcrossbows and throwing objects.

Woodscraft (Reason) Woodscraft is used totrack people or animals, know what sorts of

plants and animals are present in an area andtheir properties, as well as set traps.

Animal Ken (Instinct) Animal Ken is the socialskill for dealing with animals, and is used todeal with domesticated animals or wild ones.Domesticated animals are much easier to con-trol, of course, and this may be used to givethem commands. For wild animals, on theother hand, this works about as far as scaringthem off, or convincing them not to eat you.


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6.2. SECRETS 25

6.1.8 Priestly Abilities

Pray (Vigor) Pray is used for meditation, bless-ing actions, and performing religious rituals. Itinvolves the characters belief that she is con-nected to something better than her.

Counsel (Reason) Counsel is used to bring peaceto someone via private conversation, not unlikemental health counseling. It is the spiritualequivalent of First Aid.

Discern Truth (Instinct) Discern Truth is usedto tell if someone is being honest, or read apersons intentions.

Orate (Reason) Orate is used to sway opinionwith speech or demagoguery, and is generallyused with crowds.

6.1.9 Social Abilities

Sway (Instinct) Sway is used to affect individu-als through conversation. Unlike Orate, thisworks better one-on-one, and the character be-ing swayed may not even realize your charac-ters intentions.

Savoir-Faire (Instinct) Savoir-Faire is used toact smooth, dance, get a kiss from a lady,and get another character into your charactersbedchambers.

Etiquette (Reason) Etiquette is used to knowyour way around a society, including knowingwho is important and where to get favors. It isthe non-illegal society equivalent of Streetwise.

Dueling (Vigor) Dueling is the art of honorableone-on-one battle. Almost every culture has itsrituals for physically solving problems, which

usually involve a sword.

6.1.10 Ability breadth

If youve ever played another RPG, you might lookat Complex Crafts and think, Why can my masterchef character fix clocks? Its a good question, butthe answer is simple: She cant unless you decideshe can. You decide what your character is goodat with craft and artistic skills, and if she pickssomething up later, thats great. You dont have to

quantify this: you dont have to write down cook-

ing when you take Complex Crafts. Just play yourcharacter as you envision her, and if its themat-ically interesting for your chef character to fix aclock, go for it.

6.2 Secrets

Secrets are special qualities your character has thatlet her do extraordinary things. They generallywork in the following ways:

Permanently get a bonus die to a specific use

of an ability. Permanently get +1 damage or protection with

an ability.

Permanently get a minor unusual ability. Thisability may require a skill use.

Spend one die from a pool to use an ability inan unusual way.

Spend two or three dice from a pool to use anability in a supernatural or powerful unusualway.

Spend as many dice from a pool for a scalableeffect. If this effect is especially powerful orunusual, it may carry a cost of extra dice.

Most of the Secrets pre-made for The Shadow ofYesterday follow the above guidelines, but not all.Look at the ones below, and examine them for ideasfor your own.

Secret of Animal Speech Your character canspeak to an animal and understand its signals.In order to get the animal to cooperate or not

try to eat you, you might need a successful An-imal Ken ability check. Even if you fail thischeck, youll understand that it wants to eatyou loud and clear. Cost: 2 Instinct.

Secret of Blessing With a successful Pray abilitycheck, your character may bless the actions ofa group. You must state a specific goal forthem to accomplish. Your success level withthis ability check is a pool of bonus dice anymember of this group can use in accomplishingthis task. Cost: 1 Vigor.


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26 CHAPTER 6. CRUNCHY BITS

Secret of the Bodhisavatta You must have at

least one ability ranked at Grand Master totake this Secret. When you roll a Transcen-dent success level, you do not have to have yourcharacter transcend. Your character can denyherself of perfection and will stay chained tothis life. Roll a penalty die immediately. Youcan keep rolling penalty dice until you are nolonger Transcendent. Cost: Take a level oneharm associated with the ability per penalty die.

Secret of Contacts Your character knows allsorts of people in all sorts of places. You canuse this Secret for your character to automat-

ically have a past relationship with any StoryGuide character in the adventure. You may de-scribe the relationship in a short phrase, suchas old enemy, wartime buddy, ex-lover,but the Story Guide gets to decide the his-tory and current disposition of the relationship.Cost: 3 points from a pool determined by theStory Guide. Vigor would fit for a wartimebuddy, Instinct for an ex-lover, and Reason fora former colleague in your characters field ofstudy.

Secret of Disarm Your character can disarm anopponent, without changing intentions, witha successful ability check using a weapon inBringing Down the Pain. Because weapons canbe all sorts of things in this game, disarm just means that the weapons been renderedineffective for the duration of Bringing Downthe Pain. Cost: 1 Vigor.

Secret of Enhancement (Ability) You mustselect an ability when you take this Secret.You may spend as many points out of theassociated pool to give bonus dice to the

ability as you like.

Secret of Evaluate Your characters battle expe-rience has given her the ability to read an oppo-nent well. Evaluate your characters opponentnot in descriptive terms, but in game mechan-ics, on a successful Battle ability check. Youcan ask for any of the following information,one bit per success level: Vigor score, Instinctscore, best combat ability and score, specificability score. Cost: 1 Reason.

Secret of Flying Leap Your character can make

amazing leaps. Using this Secret, she can jumpmuch further or higher than normal. For eachVigor point you spend, up to three, you canjump another multiple of normal human abilityfor one leap.

Secret of Herbal Health Your character can al-ways find an herb that is an effective heal-ing agent with a successful Woodscraft abilitycheck in the outdoors. The herb lets you useyour Woodscraft Ability to act like First Aidand heal others. Cost: 1 Reason.

Secret of the Hidden Pocket Your character isadept at hiding objects on her person. Nomatter how carefully searched the characterhas been, she may pull an inexpensive, small(hand-sized) item off her person with a suc-cessful Stealth ability check. Cost: 2 Instinct.

Secret of Imbuement Turn an item into aweapon or armor, using the rules found in theResolution chapter. You can add one weaponor armor rating to the item each time you takethis Secret. In addition, you can use this Secretto imbue the item with the power of another

Secret. That Secret will have its costs loweredby one pool point. The item can be taken awayfrom you, but you must be given a chance toget it back, or you can roll your advances spenton this Secret into a new item. You can takeaway someone elses Imbued item, but youllhave to pay the original cost to keep it.

Secret of Inner Meaning Your characters artcarries a meaning beyond the surface. Useany non-physical Instinct-based ability at a dis-tance via a piece of your characters art. Cost:

2 Reason.

Secret of Knock-back Your characters blowssend people flying. Knock back a stricken char-acter one yard per success level. This immedi-ately ends Bringing Down the Pain if youreinvolved in that, with no resolution as to in-tentions. Cost: 2 Vigor.

Secret of Languages (Specific language)Your character knows a language outside herhomelands.


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6.3. KEYS 27

Secret of Mighty Blow Your character can

strike with extreme might. Spend as manydice of Vigor as you like to increase the harmof a successful blow in combat.

Secret of Quality Construction (Craft Ability)You must choose a specific Craft Ability whenyou take this Secret. Your character can craftitems of excellent quality. Any item yourcharacter creates using this Secret gives onebonus die to a particular ability when usingthe item, permanently. Cost: 5 Reason.

Secret of Scribing Your character can read and

write any language she knows.

Secret of Shattering The weight of your weaponcan be used to destroy other weapons andarmor in combat. With a successful attack,your success level (not including any damagebonuses) is removed from the damage bonusesof weapons or damage reductions of armor. Ifreduced to 0, the item is destroyed. Cost: 2Vigor. (Note: if used against player charactersweapons or armor bought with the Secret ofImbuement, they may repair the item or haveit become something new after the scene.)

Secret of the Signature Weapon Your charac-ter has one weapon with which she is bonded.You gain a bonus die to any acti

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