I've noticed a few topics about SA's lately and i thought we could start one with example SA's in it to help new and old players alike in getting new ideas.
Maybe post SA's that you use or have used that you found worked really well or maybe ones that your players have used that were a little different.

My character in the game i'm playing in has the following SA's.

he is the rightful heir of a royal house (set in the midnight campaign setting) his family have been on the run for generations. He is fighting against the occupying Orcs.

Passion: Loyalty to one of the other players who is a childhood friend
Drive: To free the people of Dorn (his racial people)
Destiny: To avenge the death of his father and retake the throne
Conscience:
Luck:

hey..

I'm the GM in this particular game. Its the first time I've really enjoyed a two-player game and its all because of the SAs. The two characters have an interlinked background (childhood friend - protector) and the SAs reflect this. I think maybe bigkev will post his sometime soon so I'll leave that up to him, but I also just wanted to say how nicely they flesh out the different positions that the characters come from. Edge's character has Loyaly/friendship of bigkev's character, he's a deposed prince. bigkev's character is the last in a long line of hereditary men-at-arms fated to protect the royal line at all costs. His SAs come from the position of one who serves to protect. While they're both in the vein of "loyal to ..." they describe a relationship that isn't as simple as that. I find this really cool and as we saw in Saturday's quick game it can make for a really heroic session should one or both characters be threatened at any stage. Having PCs with linked loyalties is one of the best uses of SAs I can think of...

cheers

Jason K.

Oh I should also mention *the* biggest roll I've seen thus far in a game using SAs... bigkev, coming to the rescue of Edge's character, helping freeing the slaves, acting on his conscience and with a bit of luck had four of his five SAs firing and rolled a total of 24 dice (if i remember correctly) against an Oruk Warleader (I used some modified Gorem stats for the Oruk)...It only last two rounds..bigkev thrusting to the throat and scoring a massive kill in a red-red situation. truly heroic...

Jason K.

Yes that was a very good fight :)
and don't forget the last scene of the session has bigkev's character trying to climb over a wall while just in front of an advancing Orc horde.
He fails his climb roll and falls into the orc masses. My character trys to pull him up with him holding onto a rope. I try a strength roll and it is really only with the loyalty SA that i manage to pull him up and we escape

gday all, big kev here of 24dice attack fame. My SA's

1)drive: freedom, myself and others. (we're a suppressed people)
2)drive: find fathers killer. kill fathers killer. (edge pa killed same time)
3)passion: protect edge
4)con
5)luck



makes for a pretty good game so far.

Hey well i'm guessing people don't want to share their SA's but hey i'm going to keep it alive anyway :)

I'm running a game as well as playing in Malechi's and in that game the 3 players are loyal to a Duke of Gelure. We are playing at the beginning of the Gelure invasion. 2 players are men at arms and the other is the Duke's steward.

The 3 of them all grew up in the same town and are of very similar ages.

This particular Duke on the eve of the invasion decides not to follow the kings orders and defects to fight on the side of Cyrinthmeir. This turns into a sort of Robin Hood sort of game with the men loyal to the Duke hiding out in the forest, while harrassing the troops loyal to the king.

Player 1
Passion: Loyalty to the Duke
Passion: Love (non boning as he puts it) of Player 2
Drive: To discover the identity of and hunt down the killer of his father (i know this is very cliche' but it fits really well into the story)
Con:
Luck:


Player 2
Passion: To defend the innocent
Passion: protect The Duke ( in game play this differs greatly from Player 1's loyalty to the Duke
Drive: To punish evil doers
Con:
Luck:

These SA's bind the group together and give a common goal for the players as well as offering a seperate more personal goal.
The sessions don't seem like they are there just to fulfill SA's as the SA's were chosen with this type of game in mind.

coming to the rescue of Edge's character, helping freeing the slaves, acting on his conscience and with a bit of luck had four of his five SAs firing and rolled a total of 24 dice

thats ok vlad, i was using 2 luck dice to boost my roll for the big kill. . it was epic.

...and apologies for 'vlad'. Cheers Val.

Valamir wrote:
Not sure if you were just being brief in your description. But one thing that did catch my eye was the inclusion of Luck in the above.

Luck doesn't work like the other SAs. You never just add your luck dice to the combat pool that way you do with drives and passions.

Luck permits you to reroll dice (1 per session per point), or convert a failed die to a success guarenteed by burning it permanently.

Just an FYI in case you were treating it like a regular SA. Couldn't tell from the post, but I thought I'd bring it up just in case.

No, you are BOTH wrong!
All kidding aside...

Page 10:
'.... These dice may be added to any of your rolls--all at once or bit by bit--during the course of one game session. When used up they're gone until next session, although generous Seneschals may allow refills during longer sessions. A point may be spent permanently to afford an instant success in any matter normally out of your hands--like a hay cart at the bottom of the castle tower you just fell out of(no matter what the TN!)'

*Ahem*... I am correct. You both are wrong, in certain regards..
:-D
Granted, we run 11 hour sessions sometimes.. and our seneschal isnt generous enough to grant us with a refresh.. though as players we use our luck point sparingly, due to not having a refresh.. and hence a limited supply. Thus it is a paradox that must be solved eventually.. either by us players growing some balls and using the SA.. or by the seneschal finally saying 'ok'.

Though this does bring up the question.. in using luck dice during combat.. are they just applied to a single exhange, or a single round...?Methinks a single exchange from the wording of the text on page 10..

*shrug*
I'm still correct. :-P
-Ingenious

Where was I wrong? I didn't mention every detail, but what I said was correct.

One of my favorite characters ever was a fisherman (fishing skill of 3! Go me!) who had gotten sucked into serfhood to pay for his head-in-the-clouds father's gambling debts.

Faith: Things my Da Tole Me
Drive: Restore the Family Honor
Passion: The Sea
Passion: Ayleen (my boat)
Conscience

Care to tell us how they affected play? Especially those two look unusual but very interesting:

Ben Lehman wrote:
Faith: Things my Da Tole Me
...
Passion: The Sea

Mayhem1979 wrote:


This is incorrect sir.

Luck DOES work like every other SA in that it can be used to add die to a roll. It does not allow you to re-roll die (though in all honesty, it'd work about the same either way unless you rolled perfect or close initially).

The difference between Luck and the other SA's is that you can only roll your luck points once per session... that and you can permanently burn luck points for instant successes.

Or at least that's how Jake presented it when I went to a game demo he ran. :)

the luck/SA discussion should be moved to a new thread...

Anyway, my SA's:

Our GM has so far given us some 'predetermined' SA's, but let us make the characters more or less how we want to. Works fine.

The last party ('historic' one-shot) was on a ship voyage. PC's were

*a big Maltese knight with SA: faith:protector of christianity, con, drive:fullfill oath, loyalty:knightly order, destiny:die honorably. The oath was linked to his heirloom greatsword; his grandfather had once chopped the head off three infidels in one stroke, and the knight had sworn to do the same. (fired in combat when he declined a terrain check against three opponents...).
*merchant who was oversseing the valuable cargo, as well as his younger sister. SA: loyalty:boss, passion:sister, con, drive:get rich honorably
*bodyguard, former disgraced (for cowardice) soldier. SA: loyalty:merchant, drive:restore selfesteem (never be a coward again), passion:hate:turks...
*junior ship officer, opportunist SA: drive:become captain, loyalty:ship's captain, luck, passion:merchant's sister (at 0), passion:other chick.

swarmed by pirates; the "combat monsters" died honorably - one lost his hand when taking on three at a time, the other actually killed the (turkish) pirate captain before being torn to pieces by the crew. The merchant and the sailor, killed the traitor on their own ship, rescued the damsel and managed to swim ashore with her, wowing to get the ship back from the pirates. (i.e. decided to change their drive and passion).

So next session (if we keep the same characters), the SA's will have changed.

well. . . .
I don't really have any good examples of exceptionally good SAs, but I have an example of what you shouldn't do. At one time, there were tow players in my party that had some SA's that didn't work out too well.

For one guy: Drive: protect Magical beings
The other dude: Drive: Kill all magical beings.

Yeah, it didn't work out too well . . .
We try to get our SA's to work together a bit more now. . .

good o this is what i was hoping for... some good SA's here. It's just good to see what sort of SA's people come up with. and how they play out.

Ben... how does passion: the sea, work in play
plus nsruf wanted to know about faith : things my da tole me

This is really an excuse to mention the thread over on rpg.net which asks people to talk through how various games might model the fight wherein D'Artagnan introduces himself to the Three Musketeers (you know the one where the Cardinal's Guards interrupt our hero just as he's about to fight the first of his three duels - against Athos).

I mention it because the thread-starter specifically mentioned he'd like to see TRoS write-ups (and Heroquest also) and so far I haven't seen any prominent Forge-ites chipping in.

Anyway here's the thread url:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=109299

And here are the SAs I gave D'Artagnan for the early chapters of The Three Musketeers:

Destined To Join the King's Musketeers - 2 dice
Driven To Become A Renowned Swordsman By Fighting Many Duels - 1 die
Hate The Scarred Man of Meung - 1 die
Conscience - 1 die
Luck - 2 dice

Regards
Luke
--
Edit: Ignore these tags. Move along... nothing to see...
--

Definitely. I'm too lazy to right now, but someone should. TROS would hands down own on that thread.

nsruf wrote: Care to tell us how they affected play? Especially those two look unusual but very interesting:

Ben Lehman wrote:
Faith: Things my Da Tole Me
...
Passion: The Sea

some cool examples...

I was wondering a little about Seneschals opinions on "legit" SAs. Some background: I've been putting the nix on certain SA headers with descriptions I didn't think fell within the boundaries of the definition in the book. But the more I read here it seems people are a lot more lax with them. A lot of the time I'm seeing players create passions that really are more closely aligned with Drives. People seem to confuse Passion the most in the games i'm running. I'll have to dig up some examples but I've always assumed Passions were "Love, loyalty, hatred of a single person or entity"... now the person bit I can get, but entity? I noticed Jake mention Passion: Swordsmanship as his own personal "SA". Funnily enough, I would have knocked it on the head if he (well... probably not Jake personally) was playing in my game and had put that down on paper. Straight away I would have told them it'd be a closer fit as a Drive.

Any comments? Am I being too strict? Should I take a more liberal line on it? Or does it really matter that much whether its a Drive or a Passion?

let me know :)

cheers

Jason K.

First let me say the thoughts contained here-in are made from the viewpoint of a player.

I think limiting SA's is a bad idea.. or making them specifically fit one type or another. Aside from passions, drives, destinies, luck, conscience etc.. there are also many other forms of SA's. Though I am too lazy to explain this in any detail..

I like to roleplay my flaws, and link them to SA's as well.. which is an immensely satisfying incentive for roleplaying IMO. Again, I think that the additional scrutiny you are placing on your players Mal.. is not a good thing. That's just the way I see it.. instead of being so concerned about how your characters write their SA's or what they are.. look at how they want them to impact the storyline and how they would be used in the first place.. instead of saying 'is this a passion or a drive?' It doesnt matter.
And if you go solely with what the book says, you can only have one drive at a time.. but you can have 3 passions. In the real world it isnt completely uncommon for one to be associated with several 'drives' at once.. so why limit that eh? If a character comes up with an SA that is more like a drive than a passion, and they already have a drive.. whooooooo cares? Let them have it.

Example: Me.(not to be egotistical or anything...)
At one point in time during my life I was busy occupied with volunteering at a homeless shelter.. several youth groups.. a church group.. some mentoring.. an explorer scout group.. etc etc. These were all 'drives' that involved working in the community for a higher purpose than myself..
and some of them could be considered passions as well. Why tie your players down with your limited view of the way SA's are 'supposed' to work, or how they're 'supposed' to be defined?


YMMV. And if none of this is coherent... blame it on the beer.
-Ingenious

Malechi wrote: some cool examples...

I was wondering a little about Seneschals opinions on "legit" SAs. Some background: I've been putting the nix on certain SA headers with descriptions I didn't think fell within the boundaries of the definition in the book.

Ingenious wrote: Example: Me.(not to be egotistical or anything...)
At one point in time during my life I was busy occupied with volunteering at a homeless shelter.. several youth groups.. a church group.. some mentoring.. an explorer scout group.. etc etc. These were all 'drives' that involved working in the community for a higher purpose than myself..
and some of them could be considered passions as well.

silburnl wrote: And here are the SAs I gave D'Artagnan for the early chapters of The Three Musketeers:

Destined To Join the King's Musketeers - 2 dice
Driven To Become A Renowned Swordsman By Fighting Many Duels - 1 die
Hate The Scarred Man of Meung - 1 die
Conscience - 1 die
Luck - 2 dice
--

bottleneck wrote:
As for 'renowned swordsman' and all the duels: major flaw: OVERCONFIDENT.

hey guys, can we try to keep the thread on topic a bit more eh? ;)

D'Artagwhatever is cool ..yes... example SAs are cooler though ;)

jk..

As I mentioned in my thread about first game I’m starting a game for a friend we will be playing online and one on one. Neither of us has played TRoS before I just got the rules a few months back and he’d never heard of it until I asked him if he wanted a game (he hasn’t played any game in decades).

He took to the game pretty much straight away. We decide we wanted a campaign with a darkage feel so he is a Savaxen and the game will be centred around Savaxen, Picti and Angharad, with only the appropriate tech and weapons available.

For his philosophy he decided on ‘It is Kill or be killed, and that’s the way Woden One eye likes it.’

His personality was decided on as sarcastic and aggressive, but basically reliable and trustworthy.

He next decided that his father died in a raid, his sister was not yet of marriageable age and lives with him and their mother in what was his fathers but is now his Longhouse.

I asked him which of the neighbouring nations (or rival Savaxen clans) killed his father in the raid and he picked The Cymri.

Before he picked them, I explained what all the different SA’s meant after consideration these are the SA’s He came up with.

Destiny (1) Destroy the Cymri
Drive (1) Protect his family
Passion (2) Hate the Cymri
Luck (2) Woden will love him for the blood and mayhem he will bring to the world
Conscience (1) He will always try and do what is right for his clan and family.

His destiny took me by surprise, I was expecting avenge farther, but that it seems is not enough for Varghoss Redbeard. He won’t be happy until he is wading in Cymri dead.

It sounds hackfestish but it won’t be I’m hoping his conscience and destiny will conflict for some interesting role-playing. There will be lots of inter-clan manoeuvrings and I may even have his Clan leader make peace with the Cymri just to make things more complicated for him.

I love this game, and so does my player he’s just ordered The Rules and OBaM on the strength of one go at chargen and a few mins on the combat simulator software. (When I signed off, he was thrilled to have got a strike on a giant’s knee after endless turns of full evaded avoiding being squashed).

I have only one player in my campaign but some recurring NPCs that join him in different situations.

The PC is an orphaned child of a trading guild who was raised as an apprentice to another merchant in the guild. He is very intelligent (MA 5, Wit 6) and extremely charming (Soc 7) so he has a bright future ahead of him. He is very restless, though; he doesnt know what the gods have in tow for him:
-Destiny (to bring down a lineage) 3
-Drive (to start a big trading organization) 3
-Luck 1
-Passion (not selected) 0
-Faith (not selected) 0

One of the NPCs started out as an experiment from my side but I liked it so much that I kept him as a NPC. This person is a farmers boy who grew up in a family of worshippers of the goddess of peace. Due to a rebellion in another district the worshippers of said deity was exposed to a purge from the king. The NPCs family was killed by soldiers. The last words of the NPCs father was: "Son, never take a weapon in your hands ". The NPC was consumed by lust for vengeance but still felt that he had to honour his father's oath. He went around the land living as a professional fistfighter/wrestler and is still hellbent on avenging his family even if he has to do it without weapons. With a Combat Pool of 13 he is able to take down pretty tough armed opponents unarmed (but damned, do pugilism stink vs weapons ^^)
His SAs is as follows:
-Drive (to hurt the king) 3
-Conscience (protect the weak) 2
-Luck 1
-Faith (in peace goddess, but on hold) 0
-Passion (in his family; more specifically his oath to his father) 1

[MKF]Kapten wrote:
The PC is an orphaned child of a trading guild who was raised as an apprentice to another merchant in the guild. He is very intelligent (MA 5, Wit 6) and extremely charming (Soc 7) so he has a bright future ahead of him. He is very restless, though; he doesnt know what the gods have in tow for him:
-Destiny (to bring down a lineage) 3
-Drive (to start a big trading organization) 3
-Luck 1
-Passion (not selected) 0
-Faith (not selected) 0

silburnl wrote:

[MKF]Kapten wrote:
The PC is an orphaned child of a trading guild who was raised as an apprentice to another merchant in the guild. He is very intelligent (MA 5, Wit 6) and extremely charming (Soc 7) so he has a bright future ahead of him. He is very restless, though; he doesnt know what the gods have in tow for him:
-Destiny (to bring down a lineage) 3
-Drive (to start a big trading organization) 3
-Luck 1
-Passion (not selected) 0
-Faith (not selected) 0

Your PC is 'Claes van der Poel and I claim my five pounds!

Are you familiar with the Niccolo Chronicles or is this something your player has brought to the game?

Regards
Luke

Malechi wrote: I noticed Jake mention Passion: Swordsmanship as his own personal "SA". Funnily enough, I would have knocked it on the head if he (well... probably not Jake personally) was playing in my game and had put that down on paper. Straight away I would have told them it'd be a closer fit as a Drive.