Characters

Characters are usually the player avatars, the protagonists of the story.

Level

Characters begin at level 1. They will increase in Levels as they gain more Experience.

Resistance and HP

Characters have a number of Heart Points (HP) equal to 10 + Level. Receiving “damage” reduces that amount of HP. When their HP reaches 0 or less, they are defeated.

What does HP represent?

The Heart Points of a character are an abstract measure of their resistance, willpower, durability, or ability to stay in play with agency to alter the world around them. When HP reaches 0 or less, that character loses that ability. Narratively it could mean different things: being taken out, physically drained, socially depleted, unconscious, or even dead, depending on the context of the current scene.

The GM usually telegraphs the outcome of an action in case of failure. When “death” is on the table, the GM should warn it clearly so that the player can correct course or risk their chances knowingly.

Damage and Conditions

art © Marco Checchetto

When a character is the target of a Negative Effect, their player can choose between losing Heart Points (HP) or taking a Condition:

• Effect 5 or less: lose that amount of HP, or receive a Mild (-1) Condition.

• Effect between 6 and 10: lose that amount of HP, or receive a Moderate (-3) Condition.

• Effect 11 or more: lose that amount of HP, or receive a Severe (-5) Condition.

Recovery

characters recover HP at a rate of 1 per hour, or 2 per hour if resting properly (a good night’s sleep, a safe place, etc).

Conditions recover diegetically, meaning that the character needs to take action to “heal” that condition in a proper way… and it takes time, defined by the GM depending on the nature and the severity of the Condition: Mild ones could be removed after treatment and a single scene; Severe ones could take months of in-game time. Some Conditions could be super-transient, for example, a Grappled (Moderate, -3) Condition could be easily removed if the character takes action to stop being held by an enemy.

Experience

Each adventure or mission successfully completed gives the characters 1 Experience Point (XP). When a character reaches XP equal to their current Level, they Level Up and set their XP back to 0.

Level Up

When you level up, you gain a new Bonus, provided you can justify its acquisition in the fiction, or Improve an existing Bonus (Minor -> Moderate -> Major), as long as it makes sense and you can explain how that happens. Also remember that since your max HP is 10 + Level, it increases by 1.

Which Bonuses to Improve

Some Bonuses are good candidates to be improved to the next rank―for instance, a player could easily explain that their character trains a skill in their free time, raising it from Adept (+1) to Expert (+3). Other Bonuses wouldn’t make much sense to be improved; for instance, if a character has a Mundane Sword (+1), how would they explain evolving it to Masterwork Sword (+3)? Maybe they can find an excuse (a blacksmith improves the quality, or they discover that the sword is actually an important heirloom) but this has to have some semblance of logic, and the GM has final word on what is acceptable or what’s too much of a stretch.

Sample Characters

Nanoc the barbarian Level 1 - HP 11 Adept Swordmaster (+1) Masterwork Longsword (+3) Adept Survivalist (+1)

Greyhound the thief Level 1 - HP 11 Lockpicking Expert (+3) Mundane Dagger (+1) Pickpocket Adept (+1)