Personae v4 SRD, Piece by Piece: a Series (entry the Fourth)

VI. PLAYING A PERSONAE GAME

Once everyone’s made characters, it's time to begin play! Keep in mind that, along the way, although concepts such as attack challenges have specific terminology associated with them, more often than not once you start to get the hang of the game, the processes and jargon will become easier to understand. 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 familiar with your three-dimensional (albeit non-platonic) solids.

THE CHALLENGE

Whenever two or more identities wind up at cross purposes to each other, then it's time for (at least) one of them to challenge, and another, whoever's on the receiving end of the challenge, to respond. Both identities involved

1. Roll one or more dice,

2. Add an appropriate attribute, as well as any other circumstantial modifiers, to the highest die result rolled after arranging the die roll results in descending order, and

3. Compare: the identity with the higher result succeeds (successfully challenges or responds).

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 frequently 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 such a transaction, one identity is an actor—typically the one who challenges—and another identity is a reactor, the one responding, also known as an opponent. There is no limit to the number of actors or reactors on either side of of this face-off; multiple identities can challenge a single opponent, or a single actor can challenge multiple opponents.

In the case of challenges during nonviolent encounters, typically interaction challenges, or hostile encounters, typically power challenges, the actor is jockeying for superiority with a 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 that involve combat, typically violent encounters, the actor is the one delivering an attack, attack challenging whether the attack is from a physical source or preternae—and the reactor is generally the one who is defending against or resisting the attack. There can be exceptions to these general cases, however: depending on the nature of the power challenge being issued it can happen 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. Encounters can be escalated or de-escalated as it makes sense in the fiction.

Here's a more detailed process for resolving a challenge:

1. An identity (a player's character, or one of the chorus's) challenges an opponent. The actor and reactor are determined. The actor declares what skill will be rolled to challenge with, and the reactor declares what skill will be rolled to respond, to react to the actor's skill. 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 by arranging the die roll results in descending order. The die roll results are arranged in descending order.

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 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's challenge succeeds; if the reactor has the greater total outcome, then the reactor successfully responds (the actor fails).

4. In the event of a tie, both actor and reactor yield: they look at their next-highest die, and incorporate modifiers 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.

   If an actor has 3 dice in a skill when they challenge, for example, but the reactor only has 2 dice in the skill they respond with, then the actor succeeds if they can yield but their opponent cannot (if the result of the highest and 2nd-highest dice are a tie).

CLEAR SUCCESS, GLANCING SUCCESS, AND STEERING

When an actor succeeds without yielding, or needing to break a tie, the actor succeeds clearly—they've achieved a clear success. The player gets what they wanted without any strings attached, consequences, or possible "bad (or not so great) stuff" happening in the aftermath. When an actor succeeds, but only does so by yielding, then the actor succeeds at a glance—they've achieved a glancing success. The player gets what they wanted however there is a cost involved. This might be material, physical or concrete, e.g. they lose an item in their possession, a weapon breaks, a quiver is found to be empty or an ammunition clip jams, or they lose their footing while making a precarious leap from one platform to another. The cost or consequence could be the loss of a physical item or possession, or it can be something more abstract. If the challenge outcome is a glancing success, and the challenge involved inflicting injury, then one possible consequence might the delivery of injury simultaneously by both actor and opponent. By default, characters may only mark clear successes when tracking successes and failures towards the achievement of development points. Enhancements, preternae and assisting in a challenge (see below) indicate how circumstances can result in steering a result from failure to glancing success, or from glancing success to clear success. Used in this way, benefits that steer results mean that you're able to achieve glancing success instead of failure, or clear success instead of glancing success.

As a best practice for making glancing success a worthwhile tool for shaping the flow and direction of the story as it unfolds through gameplay, make sure everyone is aware of the situation the challenge is involved in, the objective(s) of the actor and the stakes of success or failure in order to frame glancing success for the fulfillment of everyone at the table.

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.

Rolling natural or unmodified 10s (“nat-10s”) guarantees success—and opens up the chance to bank criticals!

Challenge (issue a challenge):

• When you roll a nat-10 and your total result exceeds your opponent’s, your action succeeds superbly: you bank at least one(1) critical

• If your total result ties your opponent’s and you break the tie in your favor, you succeed the challenge but do not bank a critical

• For every nat-10 rolled beyond the first, you bank one(1) additional critical, to a maximum amount equal to your Potential Threshold

• If your total result ties your opponent’s but you don’t break the tie in your favor, you achieve a glancing success

Respond (answer a challenge):

• If you roll a nat-10, your opponent fails even if your total result ties your opponent

• If your total result exceeds your opponent’s, your opponent fails as with the core mechanic

• If your total result ties your opponent’s, you resolve the same way you would with the core mechanic

• You don’t bank criticals when you respond

You can spend criticals to do something awesome!

• Steer towards success (default): spend a critical to

  • Before knowing the result: your action succeeds

  • After knowing the result, after breaking ties: you can steer failure towards a glancing success

• Activate trait features: where a trait says “you may spend a critical to”

• Provide a benefit agreed upon by the group

Criticals can be given to other PCs or player-controlled identities) or chorus-controlled identities as it makes sense within the fiction, and the group agrees.

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 should 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 skill should 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. This action is in addition to the actions a character has on their turn during an encounter; a character's turn is not "skipped" or lost when they make the decision to assist. The only caveat to this is if the character, on their turn, performs an action that is inconsistent with their intent to assist their friend or ally. The only identity to make the actual challenge is the primary actor—those identities who are assisting each grant the primary actor the benefit of steering a failure towards a glancing success, or a glancing success towards a clear success.

CONCERTED EFFORT

Once per scene or encounter, two or more player-controlled characters may challenge by working together instead of challenging individually.

In this instance, the concerted effort is less about the skill and more about a common attribute shared by the type of effort being concerted.

One player-controlled character acts as the coordinator, rolling their skill and acting as the leader of the concerted effort. The other characters that contribute combine their rating in the skill with the coordinator’s, however this can’t take the total # of dice they roll beyond two(2) more than their average potential threshold. This applies even if the contributing characters don’t have a skill unlocked so long as the modifying attribute is the same. The coordinator adds their modifying attribute as usual, as if they were challenging individually.

Once the total # of dice is determined, then the challenge is issued the same way individual challenges are issued.

If the challenge inflicts injury successfully, then it delivers a number of hits equal to the total number of characters involved in the concerted effort.

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.

For example: “I'm challenging the cultist: if I succeed, then I'll have struck him successfully with my sword, resulting in them sustaining injury (one of more hits).”

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.

Above example, continued: “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.