· 6 years ago · Jan 06, 2020, 02:16 AM
1==Dramatic Actions==
2Because of the way heroic narratives work, the only thing that truly separates a character from achieving her goals is the time and effort needed to pursue it. Dramatic actions are intended to illustrate this process, particularly given the incredible feats which mortal and Exalt alike can achieve with mere skill alone. Actions which use dramatic timing are foremost an event or undertaking which would take considerably longer to implement than any individual task normally would, such as investigating a crime scene, and often composed of several interconnected skills and rarely isolated to a particular Ability. Generally speaking, its assumed that a character will already have obtained the materials, manpower and opportunity to put a Dramatic Action into motion, so preparing for such an ordeal can serve as a hook into other adventures.
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4First of all, noteworthy but time-consuming tasks are usually the significant keystones of a scene, such as fixing the rigging on a storm-blown ship, or bracing the support beams of a crumbling building as the occupants escape amidst the chaos. But while action sequences put an emphasis on urgency this way, Dramatic actions can also be low-risk affairs. The lack of overt danger can be replaced by suffering under the grueling passage of weeks and tested patience on a looming deadline, like counting how many days must be taken to build a large wooden bridge despite running short on supplies, or sweating the several hours necessary to commit an elaborate sonata to memory with no prior rehearsals. Putting the task together begins with the character herself, and the depth of experience and competence she will be bringing along with her.
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6 Ability Dots Aptitude Standard Narrative Infrastructure
7 0 Unskilled One Season One Arc One Age
8 1 Novice One Month One Story One Millennium
9 2 Practiced One Week One Scene One Century
10 3 Competent One Day One Action One Decade
11 4 Expert One Hour One Tick One Year
12 5 Master One Minute One Instant One Season
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14A Dramatic action uses a character's relevant Ability ratings to determine the base Time Interval she will be operating across, appending additional Intervals as her work repeatedly comes up short of her goals. Standard Intervals are simply that, an objective amount of time which encompasses all the associated planning, gathering tools, testing theories, trial and error, consulting assistants and reputable experts. Granular preparation is abstracted away as a matter of course, but will undoubtedly occupy the majority of a character's time compared against the vastly more simple matter of putting it all into practice.
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16Narrative Intervals fall under a less objective lens, as these Dramatic actions deal with chunks of relative time, like organizations moving between proposals rather than seasons, and metaphysical workings like the span of one lunar eclipse to another, and not crude, back-breaking labors measured in hours or days. Reading or modifying changes in astrological patterns, managing morale or performing routine maintenance between one war and the next, conducting business and politics, or dealing with otherworldly entities like the fey and demons who operate by cues of context and significance with only a tenuous grasp on linear time. Increasing her skill in these areas may even allow a character to make Dramatic gestures during granular time-scales like Combat as a Miscellaneous action.
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18Suitable scale for an Infrastructure Interval is any massive work of engineering, rhetoric and social change which would far outstrip the practical constraints of a single character's actions to control. Operating alone, her efforts could be likened to leveling a mountain down to flattened earth one stone at a time, but once she sets a greater plan in motion, the effects will be felt long after her departure. Beyond the considerable time required, the primary drawback to conducting actions on this scale is that at some point, possibly far in the future, it will escape her grasp, mutating into new forms, spiraling off into schisms and opposed factions if it did not create its own to begin with.
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22Sidebar: Dramatic or No?
23Broad-reaching actions which don't operate according to moment-by-moment gameplay are notoriously hard to manage, when it splits the difference between including too many variables for the Storyteller to accurately gauge an overall "Difficulty" involved, but also unlike trivial affairs which can be set aside to take place in the backdrop, these tend to have some legitimate and actionable consequences as well. Neither dwelling excessively on the minutiae of the act nor resolving it with a single roll can feel particularly appropriate here, and trying can usually end up as an underwhelming distraction from important elements of the ongoing plot, or a sidebar so complex the resulting tangle of planning and rules discussion becomes functionally noninteractive for half the players to engage with meaningfully.
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25Dramatic actions are an attempt to bridge that gap, while retaining a sense of consistency and decision-making in the outcome. On the whole, this system exists to capture as many significant player moments as possible and allow it to take center-stage despite the majority of traditional play revolving around the extremely personal, zoomed-in nature of tick-based combat and granular action rolls. To that end, the three different time-scales presented here allow a Storyteller to mix and match the approach entirely depending on the needs of her campaign.
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29A Dramatic action initially begins one of two ways, when the players either Request Direction or Declare Intent. Upon a request, it is often because the player who initiates the Dramatic action is asking if a goal is even possible at all, to which the Storyteller judges if it would or would not require a Dramatic action taking place to achieve it. As the players become more comfortable with using Dramatic actions to resolve larger tasks, the Storyteller can relax the need for a leading question and simply allow it to be declared as something which already is or will be happening. A player who declares her intent to start a Dramatic action, including her means or traits available for doing so, is already working with a plan towards a goal and does not need to be guided further.
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31Having established the basis for performing the action, the Storyteller sets out the starting Interval, conditions for the task and chooses an appropriate (Attribute + Ability) pool which will serve for its initial Static Value, along with any relevant modifiers, assuming the player has not already presented one. One of these conditions is the Rank of the action, which helps determine the amount of investment demanded to achieve its Conclusion, a total number of required successes beginning from a base of 5, and increasing by 10 for each Rank above that.
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33This first Interval is an open call to contribute, allowing any characters who can engage with the action to decide individually whether to help assist this feat under the direction of the leader or to refrain and act elsewhere. If the number of successes applied by the Static Value is not enough to reach the Conclusion, the leading character has exhausted that specific (Attribute + Ability) pool for the time being, and extends the action by another Interval to repeat the process again. From that point forward, each new Interval must assign a different static value using an alternate (Attribute + Ability) pairing, though she may still use those exhausted traits in different, newer combinations.
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35For Example: A Dramatic action for making her way through an obstacle course might begin with a character's (Dexterity + Athletics), meaning the following Interval might use (Stamina + Athletics) or (Dexterity + Resistance), if she wants to retain a level of physical consistency in her attempts. But provided she can justify the new direction as part of her stunt, her player may even choose neither starting trait and veer on a tangent towards (Insight + Survival), though this obviously requires a broader base competency to reap the greatest benefits from.
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37Additionally the Abilities that she brings to bear are an important factor in the process, because as she exhausts new Abilities on the task, it is the one with the lowest rating of all which sets the duration of each interval for that Dramatic action. A series of Intervals which only used Abilities rated 2 (One Week) would drop each Interval to (One Month) upon assigning any Ability score of 1 thereafter, meaning her choices must be made with an eye towards maximizing efficiency and not simply applying her highest Static Value at all times.
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39For Example: Across a Dramatic Action lasting three Intervals, a character uses Resistance 5 (One Minute), Athletics 3 (One Day) and Melee 4 (One Hour), in that order. Because 3 is the lowest, each Interval becomes (One Day) regardless of other competing factors involved, stretching the entire undertaking across three days no matter how successes she gained while doing so.
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41This unwanted extra drudgery abstracts out the otherwise unspoken complications and makeshift workarounds which crop up as the character runs out of easy fixes and shortcuts, various Charms and experiments being performed to little lasting effect. She has been pushed out of her element and towards a nonstandard approach to the situation, rebuilding her process from first principles or perhaps inventing some particularly creative or unorthodox solutions now that her most reliable tool are off the table. This could include calling in institutional favors with (Charisma + Bureaucracy) as part of what was formerly an (Insight + Investigation) task, or using (Strength + Melee) to apply a sharp kick to an otherwise unresponsive (Dexterity + Craft) attempt.
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44 Rank Successes Needed
45 1 5
46Prepared: Dig a trench, compose formal documents, crack a deadbolt lock, take a ship into evasive maneuvers.
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48 2 15
49Trained: Reconstruct or map an ancient songline, secure an unwieldy caravan load, scale a sheer cliff.
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51 3 25
52Skilled: Learn a dead language, memorize a performance piece, chase a prey animal til it collapses from exhaustion.
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54 4 35
55Masterful: Recall enough vital details for a freehand forgery, play a song having heard it only once, tame a tyrant lizard.
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57 5 45
58Gifted: Learn a living language by speaking it, pen a symphony using foreign instruments, shrug aside a mortal blow or illness, script a god-binding treaty.
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61The character continues to set static values and add Intervals to the duration until one of three end-states occurs:
62 - She finally completes the goal and reaches the Conclusion,
63 - She becomes interrupted by unrelated events and halts progress, or
64 - She willingly quits and refuses to engage with the project any longer.
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66This can last as little as one Interval or over as many as it takes to succeed, but while investing multiple hours, if not days, into these pursuits may give her goals a sense of unstoppable inevitability, the hard underlying truth is there are two very common reasons that one must abandon a Dramatic action in progress. The first is when the character taps out the sum of her relevant knowledge and has to scrape by, shown as not having high enough static values remaining to keep steadily advancing with the amount of successes she desires, or secondly the threat of ratcheting up the time-length of her Intervals by using poor Ability scores, causing her plans to escape her grasp as she becomes more preoccupied with wasteful diversions and damage control.
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68But despite the potential pitfalls, a player still has avenues to avoid being left entirely at the mercy of her character's traits. When presented with an unwinnable scenario, she can opt to pay 1 Willpower per option at the start of an Interval to enable additional methods beyond assigning a new static value. Before Charms these include:
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70 Fortitude - Brute-forcing her way past the mounting frustration and mental fatigue, she may use a previously-exhausted (Attribute + Ability) pairing for her static value once again. Though this increases her consistency for pursuing the Conclusion immensely, the costs involved over multiple Intervals can rapidly become prohibitive at higher Ranks.
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72 Hurry - She may attempt to speed her progress along, and roll her chosen (Attribute + Ability) pair as a die pool, which can receive the benefits of Instant duration Charms as it resolves. If this roll exceeds the number of successes she would have applied from her static value regardless, that Interval is marked off as Instant Speed and does not count towards her total elapsed time. This can be especially useful for utilizing low-rated Abilities in a pinch.
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74However, all the effort taken to gain the most successes across the fewest number of Intervals is contingent on actually having the appropriate amount of time available to execute her plans, something which can be vanishingly rare during tense moments and looming deadlines. If a sudden upset or interruption would cut an Interval short, such as a terrible storm three days into a week-long sea voyage, she does not receive her successes automatically and must roll that (Attribute + Ability) pool as outlined above for hurrying her action. Thankfully she does not need to pay the standard Willpower to do so, and still receives the use of relevant Charms.
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76Until the interruption is dealt with, the Dramatic Action is either suspended or ended outright depending on the circumstances and decision of the Storyteller. Some actions like scholarly research are easy enough to return too, simple as picking up a book from where she had left off and resuming her study from there, while others can be altered irreparably and grant only as much of a benefit as successes she achieved, like unseasonable rains ushered in by the winds of rival weather-workers ruining her carefully-painted geomantic sigils.
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78If the context behind the Dramatic action faces such an upheaval that it becomes a genuine danger to the character and preservation of her work, this may provoke a Dramatic Challenge (see below). Although the stakes are much higher than before, she still carries over all her accumulated successes for the task, and gains the chance to reassert control over the events conspiring to halt her progress.
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81Example: ''Seeking out a secret compartment as part of a Rank 2 extrajudicial search in a ruined manor basement, Scarlet Wind chooses to take a Dramatic action with her static (Perception + Investigation) value of 4. However 4 successes is not quite enough to overcome the 15 she needs, and the cache location evades her scrutiny amidst the fallen support beams and moldering rubble. As a competent magistrate with a score of 3 for Investigation, her Interval length is One Day, meaning what began as a casual inspection of the grounds in the dim morning hours has already stretched long into the evening, wasting precious daylight on what was already an unauthorized breach of private property.
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83Masquerading as an apprentice geomancer with (Manipulation + Bureaucracy) to fool the property owners and gain access to the old manor blueprints would improve the depth of Scarlet's inquiry immensely, but her lack of extensive training in such matters bars her way with a middling Bureaucracy 2. She does not have the freedom to waste the two Week-long Intervals resulting from her inexperience, especially not cross-referencing papers and faking architectural credentials for the sake of being thorough. Whatever plan she has in mind for this case, she needs to wrap it up as quickly as possible.
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85In the end Scarlet Wind permits herself only a final, brief scan through the debris before departing, paying one willpower to Hurry her action and roll (Perception + Awareness) for her second Interval, banking on reducing it to Instant because she is quite uninterested in discovering whatever lingering inhabitants may lurk nearby to catch would-be intruders in the dead of night. Should this roll somehow fail entirely, she will have to abandon her attempt simply to avoid being caught up in another One Day Interval, returning to the scene of the crime and increasing her chances of being caught. Optimistically if she passes at Instant and decides to take up a third Interval despite the risk, Scarlet Wind hopes her prior trespass has gone unnoticed and she can resume where everything left off, assuming no evidence was disturbed during her absence.''
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88===Sidebar: Eyeballing It===
89Generally speaking, a character who opts to push through Dramatic actions with Fortitude alone has a quite considerable chance to succeed if she wishes to spend the Willpower necessary to pass. So a Storyteller should ask the player both what she wants to do, and if she wishes to pass up any opportunity for a dynamic resolution to her problems. Sometimes it is enough that a large accomplishment simply get done at all, while other players might instead want an elaborate interplay of systems and to see where the pieces fall into place more randomly, explore a less structured resolution, or carefully weigh the decision between reaching a safer or more effective Conclusion to her schemes.
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91In the event that some form of shorthand is desired, low Willpower (4 or more) can passively brute force through Dramatic actions of any Rank provided her average amount of successes per Interval is:
92 1 for Rank 1,
93 3 for Rank 2,
94 5 for Rank 3,
95 7 for Rank 4, and
96 9 for Rank 5.
97All of these actions will take a total of 5 Intervals to resolve, barring other complications which come into play.
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99If the player wishes to spend no more than more than 2 Willpower on Fortitude or permit the action last longer than 3 Intervals, another break point exists at:
100 2 for Rank 1,
101 6 for Rank 2,
102 10 for Rank 3,
103 14 for Rank 4, and
104 18 successes for Rank 5.
105Though obviously the higher end of the scale requires a prohibitive amount of investment.
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107Lastly, of the thresholds attainable within the limits of Static values, the final major break point is:
108 3 for Rank 1,
109 8 for Rank 2,
110 13 for Rank 3, and
111 18 for Rank 4.
112None of these Dramatic actions will span longer than 2 Intervals, or 1 Willpower spent on Fortitude. Rank 5 naturally exceeds the standard die-cap completely, so for Why that is and the full breakdown of how these averaged successes were calculated across Intervals, see the Appendix: Dramatic Actions and Challenges.
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114Deciding to Fortitude through an action and artificially inflate her average successes becomes quite expensive in Willpower costs the further she falls short of having that consistent number of successes per Interval. Which creates a sense of tension especially at the higher success thresholds, pushing the player towards making hard decisions and throwing dice on what might be a windfall which instantly cuts short her time and expenses. Consistency and luck are both paramount to avoid slogging through lengthy derails and what helps prevent her plans from spiraling out of control. That said, beyond these preferred ranges and negotiating the treacherous straits between steady progress and unexpected good fortune, there are also some additional factors worth noting for Storytellers introducing Dramatic actions into a game.
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116For unenhanced characters with Static values in the mortal 1-5 range, the most time-consuming and expensive tasks are those which have a Rank equal to the character's average number of successes. Ranks higher than that will be next to impossible to achieve without making chancey rolls, leaning on Charms, artifacts or other equipment to do so. Dramatic actions far outstripping the character's means to engage with it should either be used sparingly, with the acknowledgement that any increase to her average successes will be a massive benefit, or only after her player is made well aware of how easily these efforts could be all for naught on a bad roll.
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118Furthermore, maintaining a consistent average of 5 successes per Interval marks a turning point in the way characters will approach Dramatic actions. Because of how these actions are balanced around an initial measurement at 5 successes, Rank 1 actions are or will become trivial affairs for a character with an adequate amount of investment into her primary traits, and happens again for characters capable of generating 15 successes at the first Interval for Rank 2 tasks. This is obsolescence by design, as any character with such a massive amount of specialization in one area rightfully should be able to ignore minor hurdles as she directs her energies towards greater and more complex efforts. Trivializing Ranks 3-5 this way exists so far beyond the success threshold characters can create with Static values that it can only be achieved with a roll, so Storytellers are encouraged to treat such an unlikely occurrence accordingly, if not waive the details altogether and give her exactly what she desires.