Once and Future (WormxFate)

[Aldsan]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ryJ2PzNyodw0DMPd-yAeFIndkYEkyTVO4W7u59GIS84/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Aldsan]

Hello, and welcome to Once and Future. This will be using a variant of the Pendragon tabletop ruleset.

Your main goal is to accumulate Renown as a Parahuman. Note, that Renown is separate from Reputation. Reputation is simply a measure of how the world sees you, whether as a Hero or Villain, and can fluctuate based on your actions. Renown is the fame that you gather for doing great deeds, and doubles as your experience, gaining new perks as you become more famous.

Dice rolls are resolved much like blackjack. You want to score as close to your target threshold as you can without going over it. This means that if you have a score of 10 in Academics and need to take a test, then a dice roll of 1-9 is considered a success, 10 is a critical success, 11-19 is a failure, and 20 is a fumble. By increasing your score, you can increase your chances of success.

Time spent is divided into two phases. An activity phase, where you attempt to influence the world in some fashion, and a rest phase, where you take the experience of your actions and attempt to learn from them. Note, that as skills increase, it becomes increasingly difficult to increase them further.

 

[Aldsan]

Your abilities in this quest are governed by a number of traits and characteristics. Five Characteristics quantify every character's physical qualities.

Spoiler: Characteristics

Size: Measures a character's relative height and weight compared to others. Governs health and how hard you are to knock down.
Dexterity: Measures a character's agility and nimbleness. DEX keeps a character upright or mounted when there is a possibility of knockdown in combat.
Strength: Measures a character's physical power and their ability to exert force or pressure on an object.
Constitution: Measures health and vitality.
Appeal: Measures the character's natural charm, presence, and physical attractiveness.

The Derived Characteristics are: Knockdown (SIZ), Major Wound (CON), Weapon Damage (STR + SIZ/6), Brawling Damage (STR + SIZ/6), Healing Rate (CON/5), Movement Rate ([STR + SIZ/2] + 5), Total Hit Points (SIZ + CON), and Unconscious (Total HP/4).


Traits represent a character's personality. They define a character's feelings and govern behavior. The combined total for a trait pair is always equal to twenty. An increase to Energetic, for example, will cause an equal decrease to Lazy and vice versa.

Spoiler: Traits

Chaste/Lustful: This Trait pair measures a range of attitudes concerning carnal pleasure and romantic fidelity. It is important to note that failure at a Chaste roll or success at a Lustful roll does not denote an action but a feeling.
Energetic/Lazy: This Trait pair measures a range of feelings and behaviors related to activity and inactivity.
Forgiving/Vengeful: Some parahumans consider Revenge the accepted pathway to justice. Forgiving/Vengeful measures the range of these powerful emotions.
Generous/Selfish: This Trait pair measures willingness to share or not share with others.
Honest/Deceitful: This Trait pair measures a person's subjective view of the truth and how much they are willing to bend it towards their own needs.
Just/Arbitrary: This Trait pair measures a character's subjective view of fairness.
Merciful/Cruel: This Trait pair measures a character's innate sense (or lack) of regard for their fellows.
Modest/Proud: This Trait pair measures how much a person thinks of themselves in comparison with everyone else.
Prudent/Reckless: This Trait pair measures how much a person thinks before acting.
Spiritual/Worldly: This Trait pair measures a character's attitude toward and faith in the unseen world. Worldly should not be conflated with Indulgent. A Worldly character need not seek excessive pleasures, instead taking a more moderate approach to life.
Temperate/Indulgent: This Trait pair measures a character's appetite for good food, drink, and other vices.
Trusting/Suspicious: This Trait pair measures the level of faith a person places in the motivations and intentions of others.
Valorous/Cowardly: This Trait pair measures how brave and audacious a character may be during times of extreme duress.

Passions are strongly held values and beliefs. These can range from Loyalty to one's companions, to a Love for one's family. In a situation where it is appropriate, (for example, the Love for your family can be invoked if they are directly threatened), the character may invoke a passion to attempt to gain a bonus to their rolls. You can have a maximum of 40 points spread across various passions in each passion category.

Spoiler: Passion Categories

Reputation: A category unto itself, you desire to protect your reputation when it is on the line.
Fidelity: Whether allegiance to friends, allies, or organizations, this passion represents personal loyalty.
Fervor: Whether Love or Hate, this passion is an expression of intense feeling.
Adoration: This represents extreme devotion to a person or religion. This goes beyond simple love or fealty into something more akin to awe.
Civility: A respect for the laws of the land, the belief that certain rules should be upheld. This could speak to a respect for Heroism, or simply the enforcement of the Unwritten Rules.

Skills are a way of measuring actions that the character can attempt to do in the quest.

Spoiler: Skills

Social Skills
Awareness: The general sense of things around you. Used to spot something hidden or notice something out of the ordinary.
Intrigue: Intrigue is the Skill of learning secrets, whether by gossip or eavesdropping. It is the Skill of learning a secret by knowing whom, when, what, and how to ask. It is the Skill of sifting truth from lies.
Etiquette: Courtesy is knowledge of the culture, laws, and customs. This includes things involved in cape culture.
First Aid: First Aid is immediate medical assistance.
Leadership: Your ability to lead a team. This includes general team direction, as well as resolving interpersonal team conflict.
Orate: Orate is the verbal Skill that can influence another person or group, stir emotions, or change minds. It may be argumentative, persuasive, coaxing, or cajoling, depending upon the need.
Recognize: The Recognize Skill represents the ability to single out other capes. It is a relatively small group of people. You can use the Recognize Skill to remember a cape's identity to recall the details of their reputations.
Hunting: The Hunting skill can serve for tracking enemies or setting up traps.
Stealth: A skill that measures your ability to remain unseen, or simply unnoticed.
Flirting: Flirting is a Skill that uses a combination of words, tones, expressions, movements, gestures, and attitudes to communicate charm. Its main use is to gain someone's interest, though it may also be a source of flattery.
Fashion: A skill governing your ability to put together an outfit. Costumes are important to capes, an important first step in gathering Renown.
Academics: Your general ability with schoolwork and other studies.
Finance: Ability to handle finances and business.
Politics: Knowledge of current politics and laws. Can be applied to knowledge of things such as NEPEA-5, as well as local gang territories.
Science: Science is the knowledge of higher tier science, whether physics, biology, or chemistry.
Technology: Technology governs skill with computers and other machinery.
Religion: This Skill quantifies how much a character knows about the beliefs, rites, sacred calendar, and practices of a particular religion. The Religion Skill does not represent faith.
Parahuman Studies: A measure of the current knowledge of Parahuman Science. Includes things such as power classifications, cluster triggers, and how certain trigger events can shape powers.


Combat Skills
Strategy: Strategy is the knowledge and ability to lead others in and, if alone, survive a large-scale conflict, as well as knowledge of combat in general. It will help you pick out targets weaker than you, and avoid combatants that are stronger than you.
Brawling: Punching, grappling, and knifing someone in the ribs.
Melee: Swords, spears, bats, and other melee combat weapons.
Firearms: Guns, bows, crossbows, and other ranged weapons.
Parahuman Power: A measure of control and inventiveness with your Parahuman power.
Drive: Used to control a vehicle, particularly in combat. You gain a bonus to rolls if you are mounted, attacking an unmounted combatant, but any rolls you make are limited to the maximum allowed by your Drive skill.
Charge: Used when mounted to deliver a vicious charging melee attack.

 

[Aldsan]

Sometimes, during the course of the quest you will receive a "Check" to a Trait, Passion, or Skill. This represents the potential to learn more and grow. These can come about either through direct action (you go out clothes shopping and gain a check to Fashion) or through Fumbling a roll (you critically fail, but gain a check as you learn from your failure).

These checks won't do anything until you hit your next Rest period, at which point you have the opportunity to grow. If you roll higher than your current threshold, you learn from the experience. If you roll below your threshold, it is too similar to experiences you have already had.

For example, if you gain a check to Just and your current score in Just is 16, then you would need to roll a 17 or higher to increase Just in this manner.

Note, that these are essentially free points. You gain these potential Skill and Trait increases independently of the points that you are able to spend each rest period. So try to look for opportunities to gain checkmarks in useful Skills and Traits.

 

[Aldsan]

I'm sure there's nothing wrong with this kind of QM interference - if you see us making weird choices, you can alert us if you think it's appropriate. Especially regarding a system that many of us are probably unfamiliar with.

For example, what specific skills will be used if we decide to fight?

Click to shrink...

Okay, so probably best to make a quick informational regarding combat.

Let's start with skills. I've simplified things compared to the actual Pendragon system.

Brawling
Used for unarmed combat / grappling / some close ranged weapons such as daggers (or a telescopic baton).

Note that Unarmed Combat will always deal minimum damage. (i.e. if your Melee Damage is 4d6, you will deal a flat 4 damage on every attack). Most other small weapons will deal 1d6 less damage (i.e. 3d6 instead of 4d6).

Melee
Swords / Spears / Axes / Maces. Each of these have special properties as noted in the Shop, but in short:
>Swords grant a Parry protection value when used in two-hands and cannot be broken.
>Spears grant a Reach advantage against shorter weapons and negates the advantage a Mounted combatant would have against you if you're on foot.
>Axes bypasses armor granted by Shields.
>Maces deal extra damage to Armor.

Ranged
Formerly Firearms, I decided to rename it as it also applies to Bows, Crossbows, and Thrown weapons.
>Bows deal 1d6 less damage at range. Crossbows and other Firearms deal fixed damage that don't scale to your stats.

Charge
Can only be done while mounted. It is the only way to both Move and Attack in the same round, and is typically how a knight will open combat in Pendragon. Instead of dealing your own damage, you deal your Mount's damage. (A typical Charger that you start the game with does 6d6 damage). It's very possible to knock an enemy knight out of the fight turn 1 with Charge if you roll well on damage.

Drive
Horsemanship in Pendragon. This is to control your mount, particularly in combat. While mounted, your combat skills are limited to your Drive. (i.e. if you have a 10 in Melee, but only a 6 in Drive, then your Melee is limited to 6).

Strategy
Used primarily between combat rounds in battle. You can identify opponents and choose opponents in a pitched fight instead of getting randomly assigned. This is how you choose to go after Victor instead of randomly getting Hookwolf.

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Knockdown
Any time you take damage over your knockdown threshold (before Armor Reduction) you must make a Dexterity check to remain on your feet or mounted. If knocked down, it takes two rounds to get to your feet, and you take a penalty to your fighting skill while knocked down.

Major Wound
If you take more than your Major Wound threshold in a single attack (after Armor Reduction) you take a Major Wound and are knocked out of combat. You permanently lose one point in a random Characteristic (Dex, Str, etc) and are Debilitated until you are healed above half your hit point.

Unconscious
If you take a lot of small hits that bleed you over time, you will be knocked unconscious when you hit your unconscious threshold.

Mortal Wound
If you hit 0 Hit Points, you will be knocked out of combat. You permanently lose three points across random Characteristics (Dex, Str, etc) and will die unless healed above 0 hit points.

Healing Rate
Your healing rate determines how effectively First Aid can treat you. Each successful First Aid treatment heals you for your Healing Rate. Each wound can only be treated once, whether the First Aid check succeeds or fails. (i.e., you take three wounds for 7, 8, and 3 damage and retreat for healing. Two of the First Aid checks succeed, but one fails. Your Healing Rate of 5 means you heal for a total of 10 damage, meaning you're still missing 8 HP that can't be healed during the battle and must wait for time to heal).

Armor
Armor acts as damage reduction. If you are hit, the damage of the hit is reduced by the amount of armor that you have. This does mean that attacks can be reduced to 0 damage if you have enough armor to absorb the blow.



In short, your Major Wound threshold is currently 14. That means that if you take more than 14 damage in a hit, you will be knocked out of the fight and lose a stat. This isn't hard to accomplish when you aren't wearing armor.

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[Aldsan]

Hello everyone, I'm here today to discuss another part of the Pendragon ruleset: Feasts!

Now, in actual tabletop Pendragon, Feasts act as a sort of competition between players to accrue Geniality (aka, how much everyone at the party likes you). There's a lot of opportunities to accrue checks in various traits and skills in the process and the player with the highest Geniality at the end of the night gains a bonus Glory reward.

Obviously, that doesn't work here, we're playing as a single character. So, instead, I'll be pulling various feast cards for the events of the feast and giving out a reward depending on what your Geniality is at the end. This will be mostly automated on the quest master side of things, so the main choice you'll have is what to fill your time with between events.

Gossiping, Flirting, Indulging, or Gaming.

Gossiping uses Intrigue to find out the latest news about the city. A successful roll will give you a check to Intrigue and some news about the city that may or may not be useful. If you choose Gossiping, you may write-in if you are looking to find out specific information – though, there is no guarantee that the people you talk to you will know or want to share that specific information with you.

Flirting uses the Flirting skill to engage in conversation with a character, with a successful roll giving a check to Flirting. This isn't necessarily initiated by Elaine, it could simply be entertaining someone else who is interested in her instead. If choosing this option, you may write-in if you're interested in flirting with a specific character.

Indulging rolls Temperate, gaining a check on a success, or gaining a check to Indulgent on a failure. In some parties, alcohol may become available, at which point the possibility of becoming drunk also arises.

Gaming rolls your Strategy, gaining a check on a success. This will not be available at every party.

 

[Aldsan]

Spoiler: Map of Brockton Bay

https://i.imgur.com/AYDbe8H.jpg