Tam Lin, post: 5624045, member: 3600 Wrote:Not familiar with White Wolf.

Okay, I know this is probably taking the joke too far, but it's been bouncing around in my head ever since you posted this so let's keep going and see what happens!

For reference, I'm looking at Genius: The Transgression and Scion as low and high powered versions and walking a line somewhere in between.

Edgelord: The Sarcastic

Just fill in the usual "what is an RPG" boilerplate yourself, I can't be buggered. An opening chapter full of pretentious fiction; second verse same as the first.

So. First off, you'll need some stats to quantify your base abilities. These are divided into Physical, Mental, and Social categories, with the exact stats varying from game to game slightly. There is usually one in each that roughly corresponds to power, accuracy, and resistance, though.

Physical: Strength, Dexterity, Stamina (also determines damage capacity)
Mental: Intelligence, Perception, Wits (also determines initiative)
Social: What? SV cannot into.
I said, Social: Presence, Manipulation, Composure

They're rated in Dots, starting at one and going up to ten, though anything higher than five requires having at least that much Powerlevel first. Using Strength as an example, one is your average gamer feeb, two is for the jocks who push him around, and five is for your setting's equivalent of Son Goku, ie. the maximum possible for starting PCs. More on this when I get to Powerlevel. Each Dot represents 1d10 in the base dice pool when making a check, with success counted on 5, 6, or 7 and below depending on which game you're playing and how awesome people are in general. You could do some math and figure out the probability of results with a certain minimum, average, and maximum number of dice, or you could be a lazy ass like me and just pick six as the middle of the road. More successes is obviously better, and more difficult things will need more of them. Rolling a one subtracts one success from the results, and if that leaves you with a negative number it's a Botch. Avoid those.

To generate a starting character, start with one dot in everything, then decide which category will be your Key, Average, or Dump stats, one each obviously. The Key category gets five additional dots to spread between its three stats, Average gets four, and Dump gets three. I suppose you could split the stat organization the other way (Power, Accuracy, Resistance) to assign these, but it's a bit of a logical stretch. Stats (and everything else) can still be raised later with XP or the discretionary dots handed out to finish off character generation.

Skills: These are usually broad categories like "ranged combat," "ride/drive," or "craft metal," rather than "shoot handguns," "ride horses," or "craft bladed weapons." Those would be valid Specialties for a Skill, however. Skills can be 1-3 for starting characters and up to 1/2 their Powerlevel for more powerful characters, while Specializations may be 1-2 for starting characters and again up to 1/2 Powerlevel later. Skills are each associated with Physical, Mental, or Social groups, and are also divided into Key, Average, and Dump categories depending on which stat group they align with for character generation, but these do NOT have to be the same as the K/A/D picked for stats. Key skills get 11 dots to spread between them and Specializations based on them, Average get 7, Dump get 4. Three additional Specializations come free.

A skill list really ought to be made up in detail, but again, lazy ass. Maybe later.

Triggers: The pillars of your character's personality, rated 1-5. They're called Virtues (or Vices for designated villains) in most of the games, but this is Edgelord and Our Hangups Are Different. Well, not really, but claiming they are makes it more unique and underground. These can be either positive or negative traits, actually, but generally they're something you have to FAIL a check to not act in accordance with, thereby gaining Edge, while intentionally doing things that align with them (and spending a Willpower point) gives you bonus dice for the action equal to the Trigger rating. The classical seven sins of Christianity and their corresponding virtues are probably the most recogniseable examples of Triggers. Yes, a character with Powerlevel 10 and a Trigger at 5 might be rolling 25 dice at once, that's what it means to have a Powerlevel that's... OVER NINE!!!1!

Willpower: This has both a permanent and temporary value, like Hit Points in games that use them instead of Wound Levels. A starting character's Permanent Willpower is equal to the sum of their two highest Triggers, but is bought up separately from there, raising a Trigger value won't give you more Willpower. There's a bunch of things to spend temporary WP on, and particularly mentally stressful special abilities may require spending temporary Willpower to use. Some more include:
* Automatic Success: The player may spend one temporary Willpower point to receive one automatic success when performing an action. This is in addition to any successes generated by the player’s dice roll and counts toward the total number of successes rolled to perform the action. Further, the dice roll cannot result in a botch. In tabletop games the player usually has to declare they're spending a Willpower point for an automatic success before making the roll, but that's a pain to get players to agree on in a forum game. Even spending one to negate a botch after the fact will usually require debate and a vote.
* Channel a Trigger: As noted above, the player may spend a temporary Willpower point to gain a number of bonus dice for the action equal to the Trigger’s rating, as long as the action is in keeping with the Trigger in question.
* Resist a Trigger: The player may spend a temporary Willpower point to take an action that opposes one of the four chosen Triggers without requiring a Trigger roll.
* Resist mind-influencing powers: The player may spend a temporary Willpower point to automatically resist the effects of powers that attempt to influence their mind or emotions.

Powerlevel: These generally (obviously) rate your power level and determine how much ki or mana or whatever the power source for KAWAII NEKO DESU BEEAAMU!! is called this time. They're rated the same as stat dots, with six to eight behind a plot gate like learning to go Super Saiyajin, and nine and ten beyond a second plot gate like SSJ4. Starting characters may have a maximum of three. Powerlevel may go up to twelve for exceptionally high-powered characters, multi-millenial elder Exalts being an example from official WW material.

Shiny: Exactly how much Shiny a character gets from a particular Powerlevel varies depending on the game, but it can be 1:1, 2:1, PL squared, PL*5 internal + (PL*5)*3 external, or whatever else the GM decides to use depending on how much Blassty Lazors and other supernatural powers are supposed to play a part in things, and how much Shiny it costs to use them. This can be called Essence, Legend, Blood, etc. depending on the setting fluff, but it's your generic do-something-special energy.

Edge: When you run out of temporary Willpower, get Triggered, or the GM feels like being a dick, you gain one or more dots in Edge. When you hit ten, the character flies into a berserker rage and kills anything that moves without immediately submitting to them, retreats to a dark corner and sulks while writing bad poetry about cats in the rain, or any psychotic break in between. Duration and level of player control are generally inversely linked, ranging from a day to a week and "give suggestions that the temporary NPC may or may not follow" to "have an annoying and possibly dangerous character flaw rigidly enforced."

Funky gadgets and examples of special powers are too damn complicated to deal with right now. Maybe later, or someone else can pick up the slack. Or look at that wiki I don't know the address of that has a bunch of charms for Exalted, or that site with a rebuild of Scion's Boons.


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