Veteran Traits

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Latest revision as of 19:13, 23 February 2012

This article deals with the purchase of Veteran Traits, and their later usage.

Veteran Traits are purchased with Veteran Points, which has its own article. Eventually rules must be created for how characters can acquire Veteran Traits in play; this will - eventually - be dealt with in the article Veteran Trait Acquisition.

Veteran Trait purchase

Veteran Traits cannot apply to Spellcasting Realm Skills (Necromancy, Fire Magic, Curses), nor to direct combat Skills, armed or unarmed, nor to Dodge or Shield skills, but they can apply to Skills like Leadership, Strategy and Tactics. They cannot apply to non-rolled Skills such as Language or Command, nor to Lores. Normally the Veteran Bonus is +2 dice. Veteran Traits can be used for individual rolls on a Task, each roll counting as one usage. Veteran Traits can never be used on Omniskill rolls, and normally they cannot be applied to Professions.

How to use Veteran Traits

Some Veteran Traits affect how the Veteran Bonus can be used, e.g. allowing it to be used on entire Tasks or on Profession Rolls, or incrasing the Bonus. Normally the Veteran Bonus is +2 dice.

The bread and butter of Veteran Traits are the ones that give usages, either Moonly or Weekly usages. Each such trait applies to a certain breadth of Skill.

To use the trait, either the player speaking out-of-character to the other participants at the table, or the character speaking in-character to at least one other character (PC or NPC, and it can be an unintelligent pet, or if the character is slightly crazy, a nonliving pet object), must make a reference to a past event that the character was actively involved in, which is somehow similar to the current situation. This serves to create a sense that the character has done this before, that the character is experienced.

The reference must not contradict the character's known backstory, and may not add substantially to it, e.g. by referencing a culture or nation that the character's backstory never even gets close to. Because of this, the more Veteran Traits a player desires to give his character, the more elaborate his backstory ought to be.

The reference must also not be too outlandish relative to the tone of the world, and must of course not contradict the absolutes of the world. If all of these criteria are met, the Veteran Trait usage is valid, and is subtracted from the character's usage total, and the character gets the bonus on the Skill roll, usually a +2 dice bonus, but sometimes +3.

If one of the criteria above are failed, it is the GM's duty to reject the Veteran Trait usage, and the usage then remains unspent.

Examples

Purchase

Bente is making a veteran warrior, a swordsman who has been around (thus she takes one or more levels of the Well-Travelled trait), and done and seen a lot of different things. She pays 2 Goodie Points to purchase 19 Veteran Points. She spends 18 VPs to purchase six instances of the general-purpose Veteran Trait, which she can now use 6 times per Moon. She does not want to purchase a narrow-category Veteran Trait, and therefore converts the last unspent VP to a Perk Point. Simple, blunt and efficient.

Johannes is making a thief, a career rogue who has lived in the shadows since early childhood. Johannes determines that he needs five instances of the broad-category Veteran Trait, for he category he defines as thief/spy/con Skills (he checks with the GM, who approves of this category being defined as broad), costing 10 VP, and Johannes would also like the Trait that increases the Veteran Bonus from +2 dice to +3 dice, costing 8 VP, for a total of 18 VP. 2 Goodie Points buys 19 VPs. Johannes ponders converting the last VP to a PP, but instead opts to take one instance of the narrow-category Veteran Trait, for the narrow category of assassinations and knockouts. The GM tentatively approves of this category definition, but points out that it does not include ranged attacks such as sniping, nor character assassinations and other smear campaigns, and also reminds Johannes that Veteran Traits cannot be used for combt Skill rolls under any circumstaces. Johannes reconsiders, and decides to define the narrow category as bluffs and con artistry instead (a subset of the broader category of his other Traits). The GM approves this.

Later, Bente is making a Cool Old Woman(tm), 70+ Years old and while she has spent her entire life in a small community of villages, she has worked in many trades and been in a lot of interesting situations. 4 GP buys her 34 Veteran Points. 6/Moon of broad category Medical & Veterinary costs 12 VP, 7/Moon of broad category Social costs 14 VP, leaving 8 VP unspent so far. Johannes directs Bente's attention to the Trait that increases the Veteran Bonus, and Bente decides to go for it.

Usage

No examples so far.

Advice

Include any and all pertinent advice here. The goal is to increase the chance of each player having fun, by giving advice helping the player to decide whether to buy the ability or not (if the article is about one or more abilities) or use the option (if the article is about something that characters can choose to do), and later on how to make use of the ability (e.g. to avoid any pitfalls that aren't extremely obvious).

Please note

All usages of Veteran Traits must of course be declared before the roll is made, but after the RD is known (except in cases where the RD is unknown to the character).

If a player purchases both the P and T enhancers during character creation, then the enhancers should be written after the bonus (of +2 or +3) in alphabetical order, i.e. as +2PT or as +3PT.

"All Professions" may be regarded as a "Broad Skill Category", for the purpose of Veteran Trait purchase (and still do not include Omniskill). "All Tasks", however, is slightly too broad for "broad category", since it excludes only singular non-Task rolls, but if desired (because the character is so experienced that he always goes about Tasks "in a calm, organized and methodical fashion"), then each 2/Moon usages of a bonus only to Tasks should cost 5 Veteran Points.

The only case in which it is legal to "stack" to Veteran Trait uages on the same roll, is if the character has the T Enhancer. Then he can use one Veteran Trait usage on the TAsk as a whole, boosting every Skill Roll by +1 dice, and he can also boost individual Skill Rolls by a further +2 or +3 dice at the cost of one Veteran Trait each. This is powerful, but of course also very expensive in trait usage..

It would be a very bad idea to allow an Enhancer that permits the use of Veteran Traits on Omniskill rolls, but a distinct Veteran Trait applicable only to Omniskill Rolls might be reasonable. It should be expensive relative to how many usages is given, however. Perhaps 1/6 Moons usages (Omniskill Only) for 2 Veteran Points.

Character Advancement

There are currently no rules for how Veteran Trait can be gained in play. It would be nice to have such rules, but the fact is that Veteran Traits are gained over huge spans of times, taking Years of dedicated work in some trade (which could be adventuring-related), and so there is no pressing need to have rules for the gaining of such Traits, to put it mildly.

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The world

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World impact

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The Ärth setting

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See also

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