Quintessence is a simple gaming system. It focuses on flexibility, strong role-playing, and a totally manic resolution mechanic. It is designed for settings and games where all the players are of comparable power. They may certainly be a great deal more powerful than the rest of the cast, however!
The game is designed for people who have played a pen-and-paper game before, and it assumes you know what dice are, and the difference between players and characters, and what GM stands for and such.
Your character's appearance, demeanor, name, and history are all up to you. The GM has final say over what is appropriate for the setting.
The GM gives out a certain number of character points (CP) to build a character with initially. During play, you also gain CP by serving your connections. The GM may pass out the occasional bonus CP or two as a reward for excellent roleplaying, tactics, or originality.
You spend CP to increase traits or quintessence, or to buy more connections or treasures. Whatever you spend them on, you have to do it all at once; you can't buy on an installment plan. You can spend CP as soon as you acquire them, assuming you have something to spend them on, or save them for later.
Quintessence measures a character's ability to succeed and perform incredible acts. Quintessence represents ki, or magic, or luck, or willpower, or training, or whatever the setting dictates. It is the thing that your character draws on in times of need and the thing that defines him; the core of his being, and the source of his abilities.
How much quintessence you get is set by the GM, as is how fast it refreshes. You can increase your current and maximum quintessence by 1 by spending 5 CP.
Each point of quintessence is represented by a single 6-sided die.
Traits simply determine how good you are at what you do. These should be kept very broad, like "sneaking" or "business" or "fire magic". They can even be personality traits, like "stubborn" or "innocent". The breadth of traits is also affected by the setting. Some traits are disallowed depending on what style of game the GM wants to run. No ice magic in a police drama, for example, unless you're into that.
| Trait Bonus | CP | Trait Bonus | CP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 6 | 21 |
| 2 | 3 | 7 | 28 |
| 3 | 6 | 8 | 36 |
| 4 | 10 | 9 | 45 |
| 5 | 15 | 10 | 55 |
You can have any basic equipment or gear you want appropriate to the situation. You're assumed to have anything you need to use your talents effectively. However, some items actually enhance your abilities, and these are called treasures. A treasure might be a top-of-the-line laptop, a magic sword, a holy relic, or a unique armor polymer.
A treasure gives a bonus to checks, just like a trait does, but is usually more narrowly focused than a trait. Also, any bonus given by a treasure does not increase the amount of quintessence that can be used in an action. Treasures that give a bonus above 6 are extremely rare, and cannot be purchased with CP.
| Bonus | CP | Bonus | CP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 4 | 20 |
| 2 | 6 | 5 | 30 |
| 3 | 12 | 6 | 42 |
A character also starts with three connections. These are people, ideals, places, or things that the character wants to protect, destroy, promote, study, perfect, and so on. Every time you do something significant (as ruled by the GM) that serves your connection, you get 1 CP.
You can gain another connection by spending 3 times your current number of connections in CP.
Dramatic situations arise whenever time becomes important, characters face opposition, or there are consequences for failure. The most common dramatic event in most games is combat, but races, debates, escapes, and so on are all also dramatic.
Parties are the basic unit of a dramatic situation. In most settings, each player's character will be a party unto themselves. Plot-crucial or challenging individuals will also be a party in most cases. Groups of lesser characters may compose a party collectively, such as a jury, goblin warband, or a stampede.
An action is built up of two main components: The thing you intend to do and the party you intend to do it to. The intent must be clear. An action can only affect one party.
In a dramatic situation, every round each party gets to take one aggressive action on their turn. There is no limit to the number of defensive actions a party can take.
Choose one applicable trait and one applicable treasure and add their values together to get the action's value. If you have no applicable traits or treasures, your action has a value of 0. Also, the GM may assign bonuses or penalties based on the situation and how far you're stretching the application of your trait.
If an action's value beats a target the GM has set or another party's value, you succeed. Ties go to the party who describes their action best, as determined by a vote of all players, with the GM breaking ties.
| Target | Difficulty | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Trivial | Tie yer shoes |
| 1 | Easy | A day at the office |
| 3 | Moderate | Climb a tall fence |
| 6 | Challenging | Obscure knowledge |
| 9 | Difficult | Open-heart surgery |
| 12 | Heroic | Tip over a truck |
| 15 | Super-human | Throw a truck |
| 18 | Legendary | Shoot an arrow through twelve axe heads |
You can use quintessence to help an action; just roll a quintessence die and add it to the action's value. You can only use quintessence up to the level of the trait you are using for the action (modified by any bonuses or penalties the GM has assigned). If you are not using any trait, you can still opt to use 1 quintessence to add a die.
You can also spend quintessence to add qualifiers or more targets to your action. Every quintessence you spend goes to your damage pool (more on this below). A qualifier lets you specify extra things you do or do not want to happen as a result of your action ("...but I don't want the fireball to catch the tapestries on fire"). Extra targets simply mean that your action affects another party ("...and I also want the fireball to hit Overlord Bastrastras").
In an opposed situation, the loser loses 1 quintessence, plus 1 quintessence for each of the winner's high dice. Everyone loses quintessence equal to all the ones they rolled.
If you lose against a target set by the GM, you only lose whatever ones you rolled.
Any quintessence you lose should be moved to the damage pool (more on this below).
If you run out of quintessence, you're in trouble. Of course, you can't add dice to any actions, using only your trait and treasure (if any). Then, as soon as you fail at something, you've been defeated at whatever you were trying to do. Exactly what defeat entails depends on the situation, but it's seldom good.
If you win an action by double or more what you needed (for instance, you needed a 7 and you got 14 or more), you have a couple of special options. You can get roll any quintessence you have lost this round and instead loose only the 1's from that roll. Or, you can dictate the result of your action. The second choice doesn't allow you to break the numeric rules of the game (you cannot declare "I win!" if you haven't), but it can allow you to introduce new plot elements or put you or your companions into a more advantageous situation.
Any quintessence you have lost or spent sits in the damage pool and is unusable.
You get to pick a recovery action for your character. The setting will dictate how often you can take this action. When you take this action, roll your damage pool. Sixes and the highest die (or dice) below six come back to your quintessence. If you have any talents or treasures that you can convince your GM are applicable to this recovery, you may re-roll one die per point of bonus. Another character with proper traits or treasures may give you their bonus for this check.
You can't take your recovery action normally in the middle of a dramatic situation. You probably need a relatively calm time equal to about 10 rounds, at least. If you want to try to recover in the middle of drama, you can, but it's hard. Make the recovery check normally, using up your action for the round. Then take any dice that would be moving back to your quintessence and make another recovery check with them. Talents and treasures can be used for both of these rolls. If another character wants to use traits or treasures to help this roll, it costs an action for them, too. The rushed recovery counts against your recovery time and your action limit normally.
In most settings, a day or two of rest will fully restore your quintessence without any rolls.
If the order in which participants act is important, everyone involved should roll a die. The highest result goes first, moving down through the results until the lowest result is reached. Then the character with the highest result goes again, and the cycle continues.
How long each cycle last depends on the situation and setting. A good measure of standard combat round would be about 6 seconds. Scenarios involving large, cumbersome things like armies or giant robots may have minute-long rounds. Political maneuvering may have rounds that last hours or days. Extremely fast-paced action may use second-long rounds.
An applicable trait and an applicable treasure may be used to modify this die roll.
Sometimes an action will involve more than one party on a side, either the aggressors (three players working together to decipher an ancient text) or the defenders (a couple of thugs trying to avoid a roundhouse kick). In these cases, every party on a side chooses their action normally and combines the results. The only special limitation is that only one party's trait applies to the action's value (everyone gets the value of their treasures). If it is an opposed action, the winner decides how to distribute the damage to quintessence.
If it's a dramatic situation where initiative has been rolled, a party that wants to take an action with another party has to wait for the other party's initiative to come up.
These are just some sample ideas. It should be easy to make up your own setting, but more ideas will be added here over time!
The character are cops, lawyers, or criminals. The game focuses on the justice system and hard city life, but there are sure to be a few car chases and shootouts.
Tell me I don't have to explain this one.
In this kind of setting, the characters are everyday people suddenly faced with some kind of horrific catastrophe. It could be a viral outbreak, the dead rising from their graves, or a demon or other monster suddenly unleashed. The characters are weak compared to the threat, and must try to survive long enough to find it's weakness, or simply escape far enough away.
Being undead is super sad :(.
Characters meet in a inn, venture to a locale (such as a dungeon) in search of treasure, and battle mosters (possibly dragons!) along the way.
Development notes and tagged forum topics hang out here.
Yesterday I was thinking of a "new" rules system. I think it would be fun for games where the characters were basically similar to each other and the opponents; see anime, all-wizard D&D parties, Vampire etc. Here we go.
You get some points to buy trait bonuses. These should be kept very broad, like "sneaking" or "business" or "fire magic". Perhaps allow for specialization. The cost scales up; it costs maybe 1 to buy +1, 3 to buy +2, 6 to buy +3, etc. Whatever. How many points you get depends on how high-powered the GM wants the game to be. Also, some things would be disallowed depending on what the GM wants to run. No ice magic in a police drama, unless you're into that.
The game is based on d6's. If you want to do something, you roll a d6 against a target the GM has set (0 is super-easy, and 6 is challenging, 12 is heroic, blah blah blah), or against someone else's roll if you're opposing. Match or higher wins against straight targets. Higher wins for opposed rolls, with ties going to the character who described their action best. If what you're trying to do falls reasonably within your traits, you get that bonus. Perhaps equipment could also provide a bonus.
You get a pool of dice points, too. These represent ki, or magic, or luck, or willpower, or the Force or something. Whatever the setting dictates. When you do something, you can spend points to add more d6's to your roll and take the total. You only get whatever plus you have once, though. The cost scales up like buying things you're good at, so 1 die for 1 point, 2 dice for 3 points, 3 dice for 6 points, etc. As you can see, for a system where a 12 is heroic, this will scale up pretty fast. Basically, you can drop a point or two to probably outperform any normal human, or drop a few to fly across a chasm, blow up a building with your mind, etc etc. However, if what you're trying to do doesn't fall in the realm of one of your traits, you can only spend 1 die on it, and you can't spend more than double your trait score in dice on an action. This to stop people with high dice points from being good at absolutely anything. How many points you get is set by the GM, as is how fast they regenerate (every second, minute, hour, day... whatever).
A character also starts with three connections. These are people, ideals, places, things... nouns, that the character wants to protect, destroy, study, perfect... up to you. Everytime you do something that serves your connection, you get an experience point. Go you. You can spend XP to improve your traits or buy new ones, expand your dice point pool, or buy more connections.
I do not currently have an idea for a health system.
I am hoping that all the stats for a character in this system could fit comfortably on one side of a 3x5 index card.
This is the beginning of the system. As you can see, I'm playing it fast and loose, in start contrast to most other mechanics I come up with! I think it would work well, as I mentioned, for pretty high-heroics games, where everyone is flying around blasting the crap out of each other with huge guns and laser beams from their necks and such. Or ninjas/samurai. Or Both!