This post might not make complete sense until the coming posts on Threat and and Traits.
This game is based more on movie and narrative logic, and that extends to the damage system. Look at the typical movie – do the heroes take hit point damage till they drop?
When you suffer Harm, mark a Condition. You suffer Harm when the GM says you do – usually when attempting a Harmful roll and not getting a Strong Success. You might attack someone, get a normal success and take them out, but get hit before you take them out or as they fall.
Successful Rolls and Condition
When you miss a Harmful roll you suffer a Condition and are removed from the conflict.
When making a Harmful roll and getting an Ordinary or Conflicted Hit, you inflict Stress (removing the obstacle) and suffer Stress. But this condition does not remove you from the conflict – that’s for Decisive Misses.
When making a Harmful roll and getting a Strong Hit, you inflict a Condition (removing the obstacle), and suffer no Condition.
The Conditions
When you suffer Harm mark any one of these Conditions and suffer the effect. You choose which, but you must choose one which fits the situation. If engaged in a tense negotiation, you probably can’t mark Hurt. They refresh at the start of a new Chapter, so many Conditions will persist for a while.
- Hurt: You are wounded, but this is entirely descriptive. Describe an injury that would limit your actions, like a broken arm, concussion, or whatever, and then roleplay those effects for the rest of the adventure.
- Maimed: You are hurt, perhaps by an enemy attack. For the rest of this adventure, you suffer -1 on all rolls. This does stack with Scars.
- Sacrifice: You or the GM chooses a person or a favoured and important object – a person is killed, an object is broken (it might be repaired in a later adventure). A Sacrifice should meet the GMs approval, and it should hurt. The player and GM might have to work together and choose the subject. But remember, the important thing is the Condition, marking you closer to Doomed.
- Concession: Something happens in the situation that makes it impossible for you to continue. You are removed from the Conflict. It’s a get out of jail free card, but also means you categorically lose whatever’s at stake in that conflict. This is not chosen by your character, but by the player. For instance you are fighting an enemy on battlements, and declare that you stumble off to land in a hay cart and its mule is startled, which running off. By the time you get control of the donkey, that conflict is over and you aren’t able to take part – but you also cant be hurt any more. You are removed from the conflict. This is something your character might not choose, but as player you can easily make this choice.
- Exile: You are banished from this region, and considered a criminal for staying. This is a reputation or social effect, and won’t be suitable for many conflicts. If you are required to mark a condition and this is the only one available, the GM gets an extra Threat and you are removed from the conflict. The ongoing effect of this condition: The GM gets one extra Threat to use against you in every scene. This cannot be saved – use it or lose it.
- Intervention (aka Third Party): Sometimes another party or group interferes in whatever you are doing, in a way that messes up things for both you and your direct opponent and might complicate or change the current situation. If you have an Intervention, the third party must represent that party (since the GM knows how it is implemented, they may need to define how this happens). Otherwise it can be any other group that has been mentioned this adventure, and would fit this situation. The cost for using this is minimal: take 1 Threat from the GM’s pool and add it to this scene,and describe the Threat. The Third Party is always negatively disposed to you from this point on, so try to work that in – they get hurt somehow, and blame you for it.
One of the big advantages of the 3rd Party Condition, is that if you have an Intervention you can call it in immediately, and the justification is right there. In adventures where you don’t have an Intervention, it might be harder to use this but, if desperate, you can turn an ally into an enemy.
Concessions are a great way to introduce new NPCs or reintroduce an older one – you could be in their care, temporarily.
The Doomed Status
If you are suffering 5 Conditions you are Doomed. You cannot mark the 6th Condition. So in any given adventure, there can be some variety. Doomed has the following effects:
- On your next Condition, you die.
- You gain a +2 modifier on all rolls, perhaps out of adrenaline. (Since you are probably Maimed, this might only be +1.)
- At the start of the next Scene, clear one Condition (usually Startled).
Optionally, if you can’t mark a condition, mark Doomed instead.
At the end of a scene, you recover one of the Conditions – pick the one that makes most sense, and work with the GM.
Death, Scars and Permanent Damage
Option for longer lived characters.
Whenever you ‘die’, you can instead choose to Scar one of your 6 Core Skills. This has the following immediate effects:
- If this happens while you are in a conflict, you are defeated and can take no further part in that conflict. Treat it like a Concession where the GM chooses all the details.
- Pick one Core Skill that is not yet marked, On all future rolls of that skill, you suffer a -1 penalty. Every single roll. In any situation where it matters, treat it as one rank lower.
- During that Concession, you refresh everything you can as if a Chapter had passed.
If all Core skills have been scarred, or you choose not to scar a skill, you do die. Marked Skills, aka Scars, never, ever heal.
Optional Stress
The GM and players have the option of using Stress. Maybe this is used in place of Scars, or more maximum player survival, as well as it.
You can take1 Stress per rank in Audacity (Terrible = 1, Poor =2, Fair = 3, and so on). You suffer Stress instead of Conditions on a Weak Hit – Misses and Strong Hits aren’t affected.
Being hit with fists or non-lethal weapons, costs 1 Stress. One-handed lethal weapons, like swords and pistols, do two stress. Two-handed weapons (which probably include rifles) inflict 3 Stress. The GM should decide if some weapons do more than that.
You can also create armour, which typically stops 1 point, or might stop more, and can have a range of special effects (some weapons might be armour piercing). Typical armour, like leather and padding, might be assumed and make no diffr4ence, and the GM might add 1 or 2 Stress if the victim is considered vulnerable. You might even increase the damage done (say by 1 point) to account for armour, and could distinguish between lethal and non-lethal damage (lots more book-keepIng here, so not recommended).
You might even use a dice roll, for example d6, with 1-3 armour being fairly common.
Remember, Decisive Hits and Misses bypass this system (and will be reasonably common), and if a character takes more Stress than their limit, the overflow becomes the new Stress total (less 1, it can be zero) and the character suffers a Condition. Characters can take two conditions at once, but it won’t be common or likely.
NPCs might be able to take Stress (and might be rated for it instead of using their Audacity – for example, typical NPCs might have 2 Stress, and elite or dangerous NPCs might have 5 or 6), or they might jump straight to Conditions and be treated differently to play characters. If NPCs are treated differently to PCs, this has the potential to mess up the balance of character progression, but advancement already does that. The book-keeping might be more of a problem.
Stress: Overflow and Strong Hits
A Conflicted Hit should never be better than a Decisive Hit, obviously. But sometimes it is, if overflow or high stress can cause a second Condition.
Perhaps a Decisive Hit always gains a secondary effect, like a +1 on follow-up attacks. Or maybe attacks inflicting Stress cannot inflict a second Condition, and stress stops when its bar fills in the second time.
Stress Recovery
Stress generally recovers the instant you have any rest. maybe its 1 point per hour of rest, or full Audacity score when you have a rest opportunity. It’s meant to be a much quicker recovery than Conditions.
Narrating Stress
Describe the “hit” however feels appropriate for the genre and system. It might be a near-miss that causes stress or a glancing blow, for example.
