The last week or so has been spent writing (and rewriting, and rewriting) what was arguably the hardest chunk of the book for me so far. Friday, I managed to get the draft done. Yesterday, I managed an editing pass, today I present to you: Passions.
Passions are a combination of your out-of-character priorities as a player and a reflection of the character you’ve created to play. They form the primary reward and advancement mechanic of the game. As you pursue your passions, they grow in power and potency, giving you bonuses dice for conflicts based thereon. As their value increases, you can spend them back down to purchase permanent improvements to your character.
This forms a closed loop of play that benefits player and GM alike. In declaring your passions, you tell the GM what is important to you, where and how you want to be challenged. For the GM, this not only makes creating scenarios easier (having raw materials, rather than starting from scratch) but they can do so knowing that the result will be one the players will be invested in and eager to pursue. Finally, in engaging with your passions, your character becomes stronger and more capable, giving you further incentive to pursue the stories that you yourself set in motion.
Passions replace the system of drives and drama used in previous iterations of the game. This decision was made for a handful of reasons:
- It provides a stronger, more direct focus for play in a way that could sometimes get scattered or diffused under the old system.
- It is creates a much smoother transition from session zero and character creation into actually creating the campaign, avoiding much of the weird order-of-operations problems some playtesters experienced.
- The main benefit is free and automatic, avoiding the “potion hoarding” problem that drama could have, wherein players would be reluctant to actually spend their points lest they need them for some unforeseen emergency.
- It simplifies the actual uses for passion in a way that will be a relief for players who could could never remember upon what their drama points could actually be spent.
You’ll find a pdf linked below with the current draft of the chapter. As always, feel free to chime with feedback here or on discord (now linked in the footer!) particularly in regards to questions you might have or typos you might catch. Lord knows I need a proper editor.
Finally, if you like what I do and where this is going consider supporting the project on patreon. Every little bit helps more than you could know.
