The Shadow of Yesterday

Get rid of the rules review.

Pools

Instead of traditional stats or attributes TSoY uses resource pools, simply called Pools, to show a character competence in certain areas. This is an actual gaming resource that you spend points from in-game to increase your characters chances of success. The three Pools are: Vigor, Instinct, and Reason.

Vigor is a character's reserves of both mental toughness and physical power. Instinct is animal-like reactions, both physical and social. Reason is intelligence and mental power.

Pool Refreshment

The best part of the Pools mechanic is that you refresh them by having your character perform certain in-game actions. All these actions must include your character engaging with another character, which could be a Story Guide Character (SGC, i.e. NPC).

To refresh Vigor you must engage in acts of physical exertion with the sole intent enjoying yourself. This includes drinking, abusing drugs, bar room brawling, etc. Instinct refreshes when you engage in social pleasantries, such as dating, partying, gambling, etc. Lastly Reason is refreshed when you engage in intellectual stimulation, perhaps philosphical debates, playing chess, going to a play, etc.

The important thing is that the refreshment scene must involve another character. This creates great little flavorful, almost cut-scene like, events in-game. Scenes where no resolution mechanics are used, but that still adds tons of color to your game and link the important characters in the game to each other.

Abilities

In short, Abilities are TSoY's take on skills in traditional roleplaying games. All Abilities are directly associated with a Pool. There are also three Abilities that every character has: Endure (Vigor), React (Instinct) and Resist (Reason). They are comparable to d20's Saving Throws, and are called Innate Abilities.

As in FUDGE, TSoY Abilities are ranked with Adjectives. The following ranks are used: Unskilled (0), Competent (1), Adept (2), Master (3), and Grand Master (4). The number in parenthesis is used in resolution.

Secrets

Secrets are TSoY's take on d20's Feats. Special talents a character can learn that augment his Abilities. These can be magical, mundane, supernatural, learned expertise or anything in between. Some Secrets require Pool points to be spent, while others are always functional.

Keys

Keys give the player control over his character's advancement by specifying what in-game actions will earn him Experience Points (XP). There are two kinds, Motivation Keys and Dramatic Keys. If you fulfill your motivation in play you gain an XP, if you do it against heavy odds you gain 3 XP. When Dramatic Keys come up in play you gain an XP, when it presents a minor problem you gain 2 XP, and you get 5 XP for major problems.

All keys also come with a Buyoff option. This is an in-game action or event that the character can perform to earn 10 XP, but it will never again let the character have that specific Key. Buying off Keys are huge character changing events, and usually turn out to be campaign highlights.

A character can have no more than five Keys.

Creating a Character

Creating characters in TSoY is a lot of fun, and is very quick and easy. First come up with a Concept, a few sentences on who the character is and what he cares about. Including and idea of where he's from, his species and appearance. TSoY is also very particular about the importance of names. You must come up with a cool name before writing down any numbers on your character sheet.

Next you split eleven dice between the three Pools, with a minimum of one point and a maximum of seven points per pool. Take your three Innate Abilities (Endure, React, and Resist) and set one at Adept, one at Competent, and one at Unskilled. Next you chose Abilities from the your cultural list, three at Competent and one at Adept. All other abilities default to Unskilled. Chose a Secret and one Key.

Lastly you're given 5 Advances, which can be spent on increasing your Pools, buying more Secrets and Keys, or improving the levels of your Abilities. This is not a hard number, and can be adjusted up or down for your particular game.

Resolution

To determine outcomes of uncertain in-game actions you perform an Ability Check. A player states his character's basic Intent and what Ability he's using. If the character doesn't have the Ability it is treated as Unskilled. Now the SG sets the Stakes of the action, and then the dice hit the table.

You modify your Ability rank by a roll of three FUDGE dice (six-siders with two plusses, two minuses, and two blanks). If you're Competent (1) at your Ability and roll two plusses and a minus, your total Success Level (SL) is 2 (1 + the two plusses - the one minus). You can't get a lower SL than 0.

All the SLs have both an associated number and name. The name is there to help you narrate the outcome of the Ability Check.

Bonus, Penalty, and Gift Dice

You can earn Bonus Dice for activated Secrets and Pool points spent, while you get Penalty Dice for Harm (damage) taken, and the SG can also hand out an additional one or two Penalty Dice based on the circumstances of the Ability Check.

Everyone at the table gets an amount of Gift Dice equal to the number of players, including the SG. These dice can be given to your fellow players as Bonus Dice. They really encourage cooperation between the players, and is a very cool addition to the system.

Now total up all your dice, Bonus and Penalty Dice cancel each other out on a one-for-one basis. If you have Bonus Dice left over you use the result of the three highest dice rolled, while the reverse is true if you are stuck with Penalty Dice and you must use the three lowest dice.

Since you only ever use three dice, the results range from -3 to +3. This means that an Unskilled (0) character could defeat a Grandmaster (4), although the odds are slim. The most likely outcome of a roll of three FUDGE dice is zero, which means that Unskilled characters fail most of the time (three out of five to be more exact). In all instances, one Ability Check resolves the entire conflict at hand.

One very cool thing is that Gift Dice and Pool Dice can be spent after the roll. Simply roll another FUDGE die and take away the lowest of this one and the original three dice for your new total.

Types of Ability Checks

There are rules for Unopposed, Competitive, and Resisted Ability Checks. You succeed at Unopposed Ability Checks, a conflict between a character and a static obstacle, if you score a SL of Marginal (1) or better. A Competitive check is two or more characters trying to outdo each other at the same task, deduct the lower SL from the higher to see how well the winner won the conflict. Ties are a draw or re-rolled for Competitive checks. Resisted checks are two characters trying to cancel out each others actions, and work like Competitive checks, except for ties which go to the defender.

There are also rules for using two or more Abilities together in complex actions, and characters working together. Basically one Ability Check will provide a Bonus Die to a follow-up check if successful, or a Penalty Die if unsuccessful.

Bringing Down the Pain

There is a mechanic in the game called Bringing Down the Pain, or BDtP for short. It is a method for players to disregard the outcome of a Resisted Ability Check and demand that the resolution moves to a Task Resolution level, with the involved taking "volleys" of actions, going back and forth to determine a final winner. This works much like combat in most traditional roleplaying games, where you take turns taking one action per round, but it works for all conflicts, not just combats.

The cool thing is that only players can call for BDtP, not the SG. It gives them the chance to highlight conflicts they find especially interesting. BDtP is the only way to permanently eliminate named SGCs.

In BDtP each successful Ability Check results in your opponent taking Harm, and it is noted if it is Vigor, Instinct, or Reason Harm (based on the Ability that defeated you). Weapons and Armor modify Harm. You can take six levels of Harm, once Harm past level six is taken that character immediately loses and his opponent wins his Intent.

The first three levels of Harm give you a Penalty Die on your next action, level 4 and 5 give you a Penalty Die on any action using an Ability linked to the same Pool, while a level 6 Harm means the character is Broken and must spend a Pool point to use Abilities related to that Pool.

Harm is not just physical wounds, but can be. It also represents fatigue and weariness, embarrassment and crushed esteem, and loss of concentration and will.

You always have the option of giving during BDtP. If you Give, then your opponent wins his Stakes. Therefore it is sometimes better to Give while your opponent's Intent isn't so deadly, because the rules allow you to change your Intent during the conflict. Changing Intent can be done following taking a defensive action, using one of your Innate Abilities, or by scoring a tie in a volley.

Recovering

Harm trickles down after the end of BDtP. That is, it collapses into the low end of the Harm tracker. Healing works by rolling an Unopposed check and comparing the SL to the level of Harm. It removes a Harm of the same level, or lower, to the SL of the healing check. Just one healing attempt per scene is allowed.

You can also do self-healing by spending a number of Pool points equal to the level of Harm you want to heal. You can spend a few points, have a Pool Refreshment scene, and then spend the remaining points to heal your harm level.

Character Transcendence

An Ability Check with a SL of Transcendent (7) brings on the end of a character's story. This should be a powerful point in the game. The player earns full narration rights and if it happened during BDtP, the Transcendent check ends it. In-game this is always followed by a solar or lunar eclipse within the hour.

Now we focus the story on the transcendent character. Within 24 in-game hours the character's story will be over. This could be death, retirement, or traveling into the West. The transcendent action will be talked about for years to come.

The player may bring a new character into play, perhaps introducing it during the 24 hours of transcendence and allowing it to carry on the legends of the exiting character at his finest moment.