Bay 12 Games Forum

• The beginning of the game starts with you, as one of the 6 people who have not only "Awakened" enough to consciously realize that the Veil exists and the effects it has on the mind, but also learned how they can turn the reality-warping and memory-leeching effects of the Veil to their advantage in order to gain powerful supernatural abilities. Thus, from the start, each player may pick precisely 1 primary power they wish:  e.g, at will-creation of flames, hardening water to ice, intuiting the contents of a container or what lies behind a door based on residual memories of its previous users, imbuing books to fly and giving them vampire fangs, or even directly manipulating the Veil to induce suggestions in others. I will make a d6 roll to decide how well you have grasped this power; for example, a 6 (Overshot) on the ability to Heal will give you a solid understanding of how to use your energies to help your allies, but could give you pacifistic tendencies that make you a liability in combat. I'll accept most ideas for powers, so be imaginative!
• Each turn, you may attempt to glean new memories from the Veil and add them to your repertoire of abilities or knowledge about the world. Doing this requires active concentration, however, and attempting it while heavily distracted can inflict penalties on your rolls. Failing your Veil rolls can result in many different things, ranging from you briefly losing control of your powers and starting a wildfire, to being faced with the crippling fears of a dozen people at once and shaking your character's willpower.
• As the Veil is wholly responsible for these supernatural effects, for good or ill, being in areas with high amounts of it can 'supercharge' some of your abilities -- or make them dangerously unpredictable. Read more about the effects of the Veil below.

• The blue fog known as the Veil has almost completely covered the outskirts of Harker's Ford at the time this game starts, but mysteriously, it doesn't seem to have progressed very far -- if at all -- into the town itself as of yet. This doesn't stop Awakened individuals from using it for their supernatural powers, but this does mean that you have to telepathically 'reach' into the Veil from afar if you want to glean any new abilities or information from it, or use it to create one of your own. This is reflected as 2 rolls -- 1 roll to 'reach out', and another roll to properly process and add the knowledge to your repertoire without screwing it up in transit. Failing the first roll has no negative consequences, but failing the second... well, you get the idea. Also, having to reach out like this is taxing, to the point where you will lose any bonuses you would normally receive from familiarity with the subject you're looking for, or from other sources.
• If, however, you are actually standing in the midst of an area of high Veil exposure (anywhere you can see the blue fog), you do not need to make this additional 'reach out' roll, as you are immersed amongst a lake of swirling thoughts and ideas and emotions and can cherry-pick from it as you wish. This might also carry additional bonuses if you already have clues about whatever it is you're trying to learn. This carries serious risks, however -- the concentration involved in sorting out so many ideas at once in the middle of the Veil means that some precious short-term memories of yours, like your sense of direction to get back to town, can be temporarily locked away or outright lost in the process. Try to balance risk vs. reward.
• The Veil around the town is particularly thick with mental energy and the echoes of memories both recent and distant. Being one of the few lucid enough to consciously interact with it, you can sometimes sense fluctuations in the pattern, such as when certain beings are closeby, and usually detect whether something or someone is real or merely a manifestation. You must make a roll to disbelieve such an illusion if it relates to you, however, unless someone else is there to snap you out of it.

• The more your character 'Awakens' -- i.e, the more they remember themselves, gain new abilities and uncover the story -- the greater their power will grow, as well as their ability to consciously manipulate the Veil.
• However, the greater your power, the more attention you will attract. The Veil has affected more than just the Awakened, and not all of those under its spell are content to sit in their homes in bliss, living out good memories in a recursive loop. You must beware of others like you. You will face not only those who possess powers of the same nature that you do, but also potentially deal with runaway manifestations that cause chaos in the town, or panicked civilians or wild beasts lashing out in anger and fear.
• Your primary goal in this game is to gain enough power and knowledge to figure out what is truly happening with the Veil. How you go about that is your business -- I will allow it if you choose to take a darker path, or prefer to work alone instead of with allies. I will treat such choices accordingly.

Simply post an action and I will roll for it, based on a scale of 1-6 in terms of success.
[1]: Critical failure. Your efforts only worsened your situation. Attempting to shoot at a target only to have the shot ricochet and strike an ally falls under this category.
[2]: Failure. You failed to achieve whatever action you attempted, though you may not have made things worse in the process.
[3]: Meager success. You may have progressed a little or saw something new, but usually nothing close to what you were hoping.
[4]: Success. You achieved your goal more or less in line with average expectations.
[5]: Epic success. You went above and beyond achieving your goal, and usually got very lucky, as well.
[6]: Overshot. You achieved your goal, but your efforts were so much that collateral damage or the creation of additional problems is likely; i.e, "You leap to attack the creature on the cliff ... sending you both flying off the edge!"

If at any time something threatens a player (i.e. being attacked), that player may make a roll to avoid the threat. Damage incurred or inflicted is also calculated by dice, though the rolls are reversed (lower rolls = higher damage). Certain abilities, items, and effects can influence the roll positively or negatively.

When you attack an enemy, you make an Attack roll to determine accuracy; the higher this roll, the better. If your attack lands, then the enemy makes a roll to determine how much damage it takes; the lower this roll, the more damage is taken. So having + bonuses to your damage rolls means that the enemy takes a penalty when they roll for damage; i.e, a +1 to damage from a weapon results in a -1 penalty on damage rolls for your target. Having + bonuses or - penalties to damage resistance affects a creature or object's rolls accordingly.

For each action, any number of rolls may be made, as determined by the GM.
Primary causes for multiple rolls include, but are not limited to:

• Actions explicitly composed of multiple actions
• Actions that imply other actions that are not declared free

For every dodge roll, any number of additional rolls may be made, as determined by the circumstances, and any skills or special effects applied to the player.

If you post two turns worth of actions, they will be done in order:  The first happens on that given turn, and the second action will be carried out the following turn (assuming it still can be, or nothing changes to make it impossible). Players can use this to post directives for their character to follow automatically if they cannot be present to post an action for their next turn.

Each successive dodge roll during a turn, unless it is a dodge against the same object or character, will get a cumulative -1 penalty.

If you are Stunned, Dazed, or otherwise receive a temporary penalty to overall or individual rolls, this penalty lasts until your next action is resolved, and not through the whole turn (unless otherwise noted).
If you receive a long-term effect that has the potential to alter itself, you get an Effect Resistance roll immediately after your action is resolved to determine the spread and consequences of the effect.
If you are Unconscious, whatever penalty you receive will be under Failguard -- it cannot reduce your roll score below 2, unless stated otherwise.
If you receive a mortal wound but are not killed outright, you need to pass a roll to dodge Death at the end of every turn. Only bad rolls here will provide penalties to survival rolls.

You can spend your turn to help another player achieve his goal. If your roll is higher, it is taken as the success roll for the action.
You can also spend your turn to botch another player's action. If your roll is higher, its opposite is taken as the success roll for the action.
In both cases, individual player rolls determine what happens to the players in the course of the action.