Strange-blooded: you have weird spirit-influenced line of descent and get a weird power and/or better second sight or something. Maybe it's just the edge that gives you bonuses with Intuition.
The Hierarchs have a secret forbidden library where they store all of the books that the Archivists can't be trusted with. It contains sorcery texts, banned books (usually ones that support treasonous causes) and historical documents that are considered troublesome for one reason or another.
Oakendale has an annual Wine Race. Each contestant carries a cup in each hand. The judges fill the cups with the deep, red wine that the area is famous for (the cheap kind, of course, since most of it gets wasted) then the runners have to circle the city twice.
When you make it across the finish line, you have to pour both of your cups into a single cup held by a judge... if you overflow it, you're considered to have finished the race, otherwise you're disqualified for spilling too much. The winner of the race is considered the champion of the day and gets to host a big drunken feast. It's a big festival day. Note that you can't scurry without spilling all of your wine, which forces folks to say on their hind feet for the whole run.
The "Devout" Edge: grants doubled bonus dice from hero points if you think the gods approve of your action and you've made the proper prayers and sacrifices before hand. Also helps with tests where religious devotion would help.
"Honeycomb": a chess-like board game. Two sides control a honeycomb-shaped board with hexagons on it. The object being to capture your opponent's queen by moving the worker bees around. The rules for worker movement are complicated, with the typical move being to move three hexes in a circular pattern. Opponents can spend their turn calling a challenge on a particular piece... the opponent either has to make a legal move for that piece right now, or eliminate it. Popular among the upper classes.
Lodestones: a little sliver of metal, generally imported from Fashor. These objects cling to certain metals and each other. If held away from any other attractive forces, however, it always tries to turn itself to point north-south. Very useful for navigation.
Separate Resolve into Endurance (DRV) and Magic Resistance (MAGIC or DRV/MAGIC). Endurance covers all sorts of physical endurance stuff like holding your breath, withstanding torture, etc. Magic Resistance covers intrusive mental stuff like resisting mind control and influence spells.
Two potential ways to encourage cinematic stuff:
1. Stunting bonuses. Give 1 or 2 bonus dice for good descriptions, so that well-described actions tend to roll better. Edges that double bonus dice from Hero Points don't affect this.
As an alternative, give a +1 or +2 bonus for good descriptions, so that a good description raises your final result a little, but doesn't really change the likelihood of a high roll. This does mean that a good description could be the difference between having a small chance of success and success being impossible.
2. The River. Whenever you roll 2 or more dice, if your river is empty you have the option of taking a single die that ISN'T the highest die and putting it in your river instead of applying it to the current test.
During an action, if your river has a die in it, you can roll and then decide whether or not to put the river die into your pool.
This gives a "Weapons of the Gods" feel to things, although I'm not sure how well it'll work in practice. Being able to put a 10 into storage (only possible if you roll 2+ 10s, of course) would be a big advantage, but it wouldn't happen very often.
3. Just give more Hero Points.
4. Allow for Complications. Whenever a character fails a roll, they can suggest a Complication of severity appropriate to the amount that they failed by. If the GM accepts the offer, they receive enough of a bonus to make their roll but the Complication takes place.
For example, a character who failed to pick a lock might suggest that he succeeds but breaks his lockpicks or that the noise alerts someone on the other side.
Naturally, this requires a lot of trust between the GM and their players.
Posted by Kiz at January 30, 2006 05:49 AMCommentsPost a comment