The contents of this book are arranged chronologically and geographically, facilitating comparison between the different cultures. Within this framework, the cultures of the Aegean Bronze Age are assessed thematically and combine both material culture and social history. It is about a father who wants to redeem what he lost when he was his sons age, a drifters search for home, a mans wandering around a mirage, a schoolteachers desire to open a school where knowledge is not a burden.
It is about family budget that struggles to meet the demands of want and need. It is about a booklover and a bookseller who never understood the difference between book reading and selling.
It is about searching something that is found within. It is about a man who simply trusted, never argued nor defended or complained. It is about a grandsons eagerness to connect with his grandparents. The Rising Sun is Purnendu Ghoshs first published collection of stories. It demonstrates how other religions had a lasting impact on early modern Catholic institutions in Rome.
Author : Christopher M. Nichols,Nancy C. Characters with that background might be able to perform an exploration stunt for 2 SP rather than the usual 3 when operating in the type of terrain the character lives in. These abilities tend to be always available, rather than reliant upon stunts, but also quite minor in nature. Custom Benefits Table When creating a new background, the last step is to build a custom benefits table for the background.
These should also be different from the choice of two focuses that are a standard part of the background. The default is to assign a roughly equal chance of getting any given background, but you can weigh the chances differently if you want certain backgrounds to be more common than others. Note that this means those backgrounds are more common for Player Characters, not necessarily more common in the setting overall. Chapter 1 - Characters While character creation tables take the setting into account, their intended results are to produce suitable protagonists, who are, by definition, exceptional people.
Custom Professions As detailed in Modern AGE, profession defines what a character does, or at least did before the start of the campaign. Unlike backgrounds, professions tend to be things characters choose, although some find their way into their professions due to circumstance. Access to certain professions is also associated with character background, particularly social class. Physical vs. Game Masters adopting a more free-form style of character creation see Free-Form Character Creation on the previous page might want to change the modifiers for physical professions to simply the choice of a trade-off between improvements, allowing players to decide whether to take the bonus Health in exchange for reduced Resources or not.
Option: Professions above Your Class Modern AGE discusses the notion of taking a profession that is below your social class, but what about working your way into a profession that is above your class?
Certainly, there are settings and characters where a rags-to-riches story is appropriate. If the Game Master wishes, players can avail themselves of the following option. You can choose a profession from a list that is above your social class, but your starting Resources are reduced by 1 for each difference in class. This reflects Resources the character had to spend to climb the social ladder, from student loans to expenditures of personal capital.
The Game Master may also want to limit the number of social classes a character can advance in this way to only one or two, so an outsider cannot make the leap all the way to the upper class, at least not during character creation. For example, upper class interests may conspire against a politician with a lower class background.
Custom Profession Tables As with backgrounds, the Game Master may want to customize the profession tables for their campaign setting, eliminating inappropriate professions, adding new professions, or both, to better reflect the nature of the setting. For example, in the Brass Lightning campaign, the GM sees little use for the Pilot profession, aircraft being relatively rare, and suggests that the Politician profession is not particularly suitable for the campaign, asking players to re-roll or choose other middle class options for profession.
While the game has a broad selection of drives, players might want to invent new ones for their characters. Game Masters can expand upon the drive list or allow for player-created drives so long as they fulfill the same criteria as the existing ones: providing both a quality and a downfall for roleplaying and interaction with the optional Conviction system from Modern AGE and a choice of one of two specific talents, along with the standard choice of an improvement.
Drives are different from goals, however, which are defined separately as described in the Goals section of Chapter 1 of Modern AGE. Likewise, an Explorer drive might offer curiosity as its quality, but foolhardiness a tendency to underestimate risk as its downfall, like the Ecstatic or Protector drives in some ways.
An Acquisitive drive is not going to provide a character with talents like Dual Weapon Style or Overwhelm, but Affluent or Burglary are certainly possibilities. An Explorer drive might offer talents like Improvisation, Observation, or Scouting, but probably would not offer Maker, Misdirection, or Tactical Awareness. While the drives in Modern AGE offer a choice of one of two talents, it is up to the GM to decide if players need to define two options for a custom drive, since they are only going to choose one for their character.
Improvements Lastly, drives in Modern AGE offer a choice of one of three improvements from the master list of five given in the Drive Benefits list. As with talents, the improvements offered by the drive should make sense, given its style. Players should work with the GM to ensure their choice of improvements is suitable.
The existing focuses in the game have been designed to differentiate characters from one another, making them competent in their chosen fields without being overly specialized, and new ability focuses should reflect these general design goals.
When considering adding a new focus to your Modern AGE game, take the following questions into account. Does an existing focus fill the need?
Does one or more of them do what you intend the new focus to do? If so, you should be able to make use of the existing focus. If your concept for the new focus does what multiple existing focuses do, then it may be too broad of a concept. It sounds like that focus is better considered a profession, with a choice of some of those focuses or possibly a talent that provides bonuses to those focuses, along with other abilities.
Likewise, an Athletics focus that applied a bonus to tests involving running, jumping, swimming, and so forth would subsume several different Constitution and Strength focuses and would be better handled as a background or profession. Is there a similar focus to use as a model? If none of the existing focuses fit the need, is there one that is similar to the new focus you have in mind that you can use as a model off of which to base the new focus?
There is no Arcana focus for Intelligence, but other knowledge focuses, particularly Occultism, are similar. A focus provides a bonus on ability tests related to that focus. Is there such a test? Otherwise, memory and recalling information tend to be the purview of knowledge focuses. Of course, in a campaign involving exploration of the dream world, where the ability to achieve different levels of sleep is vitally important and the subject of ability tests, this could be a viable focus.
Does the focus do anything other than provide a test bonus? If your conception of the new focus does anything other than give the character the usual focus bonus with ability tests related to that focus, you may be thinking of a new talent or specialization rather than a focus.
When is the focus available to characters? Some new focuses are common enough in a setting for new characters to start with that focus at character creation. In this case, you may want to look at the Custom Character Creation section of this book for ideas on modifying the existing backgrounds, professions, and such to account for the existence of new focuses.
If the new focus is relatively rare or secretive, however, it may only be available after 1st level and possibly only to characters who find instructions Chapter 1 - Characters or someone to teach the focus. This is particularly the case for secretive knowledge focuses or ones associated with certain extraordinary powers in certain settings. Common Types of New Focuses The most common types of new focuses that crop up for Modern AGE games are new or specialized areas of knowledge, various hobbies or trivia not covered by the existing focus list, and focuses related to special or extraordinary equipment or abilities.
Knowledge New knowledge focuses tend to deal with bodies or areas of knowledge not specifically covered in the Modern AGE focus list.
Before allowing a new knowledge focus, double-check to make sure the information is not already covered by an existing focus, as the knowledge focuses in AGE tend to be broad.
For example, meteorology the science of weather falls under the Earth Sciences focus, as do climatology, geology, hydrology, and oceanography. Geography, on the other hand, falls under the Cartography focus, dealing with maps.
While knowledge of political activities falls under Current Events, political science is a potential new focus; the same can be said for some of the other social sciences, like economics or sociology. Hobbies and Trivia Hobbies and trivia encompass knowledge of esoteric subjects, ranging from comic books and science fiction to Civil War reenactments, as well as active hobbyist skills like knitting, cooking, beer making, and so forth.
As with knowledge focuses, many hobbies are already covered by existing focuses, particularly Art and Crafting. Likewise, while many trained sword wielders in the modern world are hobbyists, they still use the Light Blades and Heavy Blades focuses.
The same is true of both amateur and professional athletes, who may have the appropriate Constitution or Strength focuses associated with their sport. Special Abilities or Equipment Lastly, new focuses often relate to unusual abilities or technologies available in the setting that do not appear elsewhere and thus are not considered in the Modern AGE focus lists. The Extraordinary Abilities chapter of Modern AGE already accounts for some of these, noting there is a separate focus for each extraordinary ability talent.
Likewise, if your setting features directed energy weapons, there might be an Accuracy Blasters focus, perhaps even in Light and Heavy 9 forms, drawing the same distinctions as melee weapons and firearms. There might also be an Accuracy Weird Science or Gadgets focus in a setting where such things are common or a general Accuracy Arcane focus for things like directed magical attacks, magic wands, and so forth.
Using Focuses with Different Abilities One way of making greater use of existing focuses is occasionally allowing a focus to apply to appropriate tests with a different ability, extending its usefulness and covering some minor gaps in the focus lists. A common example is applying non-Intelligence focuses to Intelligence tests where knowledge or experience with the focus would make sense.
For example, a character with a firearms focus like Longarms or Pistols could apply the focus bonus to an Intelligence test to know something about firearms, since the character clearly has training and experience. Likewise, a character with the Dexterity Sailing focus might well apply the bonus to an Intelligence test to know things about boats, sailing, or even obscure bits of nautical lore. The general guideline with this approach to focuses is that applying a focus to a different ability should generally not replace the function of another focus.
So, for example, while a character with Dexterity Driving might know things about the make, model, and history of cars, which would be helpful for an Intelligence Driving test, a bonus for fixing cars is covered by the Intelligence Tinkering focus, Fantastical Backgrounds 1d6 Roll Social Class 1 Outsider 2—3 Lower Class 4—5 Middle Class 6 Upper Class Outsider 1d6 Background 1d6 Background 1 Anomaly 1 Academic 2 Bohemian 2 Paranormal 3 Exile 3 Suburban 4 Outlander 4 Tagalong 5 Outcast 5 Trade 6 Roll again 6 Roll again Lower Class 10 Middle Class Upper Class and designing and building cars are part of Intelligence Engineering , so the character with the Driving focus does not necessarily have a bonus in those areas.
Fantastical Backgrounds In Modern AGE, the default backgrounds are broad types of character origins, separated into four social class categories. This section presents additional options for backgrounds, narrowing the focus to fit games with fantasy, paranormal, or science fiction elements.
Origin Backgrounds For convenience, this section includes the Social Class table and updated versions of the derivative background tables from Modern AGE, with the new origin backgrounds added.
You can mix and match the social class—based background tables from this book and the core book as necessary to include only the setting elements that work for your game. You can also replace a default background with a new one instead, if you like.
If so, you can simply replace the Aristocratic background with the Legacy one and roll as normal. For example, a protagonist with the Thrall background might have been possessed by a malevolent spirit.
What did the spirit want, and why did it choose your character as its vessel? How did the protagonist escape its clutches? Is it still out there, waiting for an opportunity for revenge, or did your character destroy it? Extraordinary Origins 1d6 Background 1d6 Background 1 Laborer 1 Aristocratic 2 Military 2 Corporate 3 Scavenger 3 Cosmopolitan Some of the backgrounds included here suggest potential access to extraordinary abilities, such as psychic powers for someone with the Paranormal background.
Where applicable, the background descriptions include optional extraordinary talents a player can choose from if the GM allows it. You have alien blood or a mysterious destiny. You Chapter 1 - Characters were exposed to strange radiation or ancient magic as a child, and it changed you. Everyone wants a piece of you, and you deal with constant attention whether you want it or not.
Maybe your parents were cyberwarrior freedom fighters, or you fell in early with a hacker collective and learned all the tricks. Using your abilities for personal gain, you want for nothing now. Knowing how the system works, you consider yourself above the law.
Fantastical magic, a creepy mystical inheritance, or the latest cutting-edge technologies defined your early life. You might have a backup clone in cryonic stasis for uploading your brain into when you die or an amulet that commands demons as a family heirloom. The default upper class grouping assumes a classic version of this background, with its Gothic mansions and other sanctums, but your campaign may assign characters a different default class instead.
Ghosts, spirits, psychics, and the otherworldly were fixtures in your early life, whether because your parents were mediums, you could see things no one else could, or your childhood home was haunted. Maybe you lived on a derelict undersea power station, just trying to keep life support running, or a backwater island where scrap went to die, and nobody cared what happened to you.
Maybe a bandit lord or luckless mechanic raised you, filching bits of salvage for coin. You consider yourself worldly, but you also know how to improvise and rough it when you must. This background represents being in the service of such a power, not a mundane person or organization.
You might have received subconscious commands in your dreams, been part of a hive mind, or labored under a curse. Choosing a people background instead of an origin background for your character grants the same kinds of bonuses and abilities, but they mean slightly different things. Culture can differ wildly based on region, social class, and other factors, but for purposes of character creation, we distill these differences into a set of basic commonalities.
If you decide to give your character a people background instead of an origin—provided your GM allows that—simply choose the background you want rather than rolling on a table.
You can use these peoples as examples to create your own, with GM permission, if the setting allows it. For instance, the AI presented here is somewhat generic because by default, to avoid making too many assumptions about them in your campaign. However, in a setting where various android models exist, you may wish to make them available as separate peoples.
The peoples presented here are appropriate for a mix of science fiction, modern fantasy, and paranormal settings. However, nothing stops a GM from including all seven in the same game or adapting a science fiction background to a fantasy setting, or vice versa, by simply tweaking some details.
For instance, the Artificial Intelligence background could just as easily represent a clockwork person or other animated creation; just modify the necessary story elements and replace focuses like Intelligence Computers with more appropriate ones. Since you might have to customize these backgrounds for your campaign, you should be aware that descriptions of prevalent cultural norms and attitudes are as subject to change as anything else.
Descriptions are starting points, not restrictions. Artificial Intelligence An artificial intelligence, or AI, is a fully sapient technological person with a physical body, whom organic hands built or created.
An AI hero might be an android, a clockwork person, a cyborg, a solid hologram, a humanoid collection of nanomachines, or some other wondrous feat of engineering.
An AI hero typically has a 13 strong relationship with their primary creator, even if a corporation built them as part of an assembly line. Some AIs were once organic but had their consciousness or brains transferred to mechanical bodies.
Others were built from scratch; they achieved sapience through their own efforts or were designed that way. Organic people also sometimes view AIs with distrust, ascribing all manner of sinister plans to them, but this is purely a knee-jerk reaction born from fear. An artificial intelligence has the same free will as anyone else. An AI is sturdy, fast, and strong and can process information at dizzying speeds. Some cyborg communities thrive in wealthy cities or isolated communes, and these emphasize self-improvement and philosophical debate.
They make steadfast allies and daunting enemies. They organize in familial clans, making inheritance a primary concern for their cultures, and they prize skills that lend themselves to stability and permanence. Many schools with dwarven founders teach constructive trades like engineering, manufacturing, mechanics, and architecture; more scholarly or civically minded dwarves often become historians, archivists, museum curators, lawyers, or journalists.
Many dwarves join the military as well, finding disciplined outlets for their bravery. Dwarves hold grudges for a long time, partially because their memories are superb and partially because clan feuds are a time-honored tradition that spills over into daily life.
They excel at fields that require years to perfect, but sometimes prefer tried and true methods to the latest technology. In classic fantasy manifestations, dwarves stand between four and five feet tall, with sturdy, brawny builds. Note, however, that medical dwarfism is related to these fantasy people only by virtue of etymology.
In older Norse sources, dwarves are not said to be any particular height. Dwarves are well-known for their beards. Dwarves have a penchant for vehicles, machinery, and ordnance. They make the best enchanted guns and the sturdiest airships. Dwarves value well-made things, and display wealth in the form of the finest works of artisanship—better a perfectly-cut crystal than a dozen average rubies. Be aware that this represents a slight increase in power for starting characters from the usual Modern AGE experience, on top of the small advantages peoples already gain.
Urban areas are famous for their dwarven biker gangs— some are criminal gangs, but others ride for charity, vigilante justice, or just to show off their sweet custom mods.
You can speak and read Dwarven and a common local language. Elves eschewed urban living for centuries, preferring stone to streets and trees to trains.
The elves embraced the city, with its glitz and glitter, and their affinity for creative works spawned an artistic revolution once they did. They gravitate toward industries like fashion, beauty, and entertainment among the upper classes, while others become renowned street artists, mystics for Chapter 1 - Characters hire, subversive authors, counterculture icons, or world-class chefs.
Elves live longer than many peoples. In classic fantasy campaigns, they stand between five and six feet tall, with slim and wiry builds. In source mythology, elves often have traits tale-tellers associate with beauty, nobility, and magic, though this may be a function of their signature charisma, not physical reality, as elves vary in appearances as much as mundane humans. Their cultures value elders for their wisdom and accumulated years of skills and knowledge.
Teachers and mentors occupy a revered place in elven society, as do explorers and scholars in fields such as anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, and astronomy. Elves believe in self-development. The product of a skill is less important than the skill itself, and how it transforms the one who masters it.
Thus, many elves cultivate physical disciplines such as dance and martial arts. Despite their reputation for being diplomats and socialites, skilled elven fighters are a force of daring and prowess. Their sharp eyes and quick reflexes lend themselves well to precision weapons, such as bows or pistols, and hand-to-hand combat. You can speak and read Elven and any common language.
In a setting where other peoples are common, use it for human characters to contrast the others. Humans are the most far-flung people and thrive as underdogs better than anyone. Elves like to visit remote corners of the world, but only humans are brave and foolhardy enough to live there.
Because of this adaptability, humans are prone to letting problems persist, including war. Humans vary in physical size and build, ranging from five to six feet tall, with some outliers in both directions.
Their life spans are comparatively short, but their willingness to face down peril and misery to forge something better makes them a force to reckon with.
Humanity is capable of radical heights of compassion and depths of cruelty, sometimes in the same individual. Humans learn more quickly and can change their stripes more readily than most, making diplomacy with them unpredictable but never impossible. However, a human with strong opinions can defend them as solidly as any dwarf. You can speak and read any two common local languages. Most grew up under a leader who 16 proved themselves capable by defeating all rivals in a fight, a battle of wits, a mystical challenge, a game, or a sports competition, or who simply used a campaign to win the hearts of the people through heroic deeds.
A community that fails deserves whatever befalls it. Those who forsake their people are left to hack it alone. Many orc societies run athletic clubs, schools, or mercenary companies, though others are less cohesive and may simply get together for a party once a week. Loyalty, dignity, and pride are paramount in orc cultures. They take a dim view of traitors, deceivers, and career politicians. In battle, enemies show their true motives and abilities. Orcs are blunt and straightforward, eschewing social niceties as meaningless platitudes meant to soothe egos.
In classic fantasy sources, orcs are sturdy and muscular, ranging from five to seven feet tall with broad builds, robust features, and sharp teeth. Orcs are mostly a contemporary fantasy phenomenon, but draw inspiration from earlier legends of hidden, monstrous folk.
To demonstrate their strength and bravery, many orcs join the military, law enforcement, sports teams, and other professions. Less athletically inclined orcs make good tacticians, detectives, and project managers—they do well at any job that rewards straightforwardness and determination. You can speak and read Orcish and a common local language.
Some shifters only have two forms, a humanoid one and something else. Others are more fluid and can take any shape, and still others are always humanoid but can rearrange their features. Shapeshifter cultures are insular and reactive, defaulting to espionage, Chapter 1 - Characters Playing a Shapeshifter The Shapeshifter background encompasses several different potential kinds of character concepts, from the lycanthrope to the alien who can perfectly infiltrate other worlds to the sapient blob that can assume any form.
If the GM wants a less obviously fantastical setting, they can default to the subtler side of the Shapeshifter talent, which represents smaller changes to individual features to simply aid disguise. Otherwise, the player may choose either the subtle or extra form benefit at each degree of the talent. If a shapeshifter character does have access to additional shapes, the GM should treat them like any other character whose background allows some narrative edge in specific circumstances or provides justification to take arcane or psychic talents.
This is partially because of their innate ability to blend in and partially a survival mechanism against the mistrust they garner from others, deserved or not.
Shapeshifters explore questions of identity and juggle complicated relationships; they have a knack for knowing what makes people tick.
They play roles ranging from secret police to peerless actors and performers to guerilla combatants. Shifter mercenaries, spies, and assassins are common. When they go to war as a people, they wage shadow battles of paranoia and infiltration, trying to take down the enemy from within before it learns their vulnerabilities.
Some shapeshifters eschew conflict and intrigue, though, preferring to study living things and their environments. They often become scientists, counselors, anthropologists, and physicians. Talent: Shapeshifting Requirement: Shapeshifter background You can change your physical form, either drastically or subtly. This talent has Subtle and Extra Form paths. You progress in each separately, with the previous degree required to get the next one in the same path.
The Game Master determines whether you can take one or both paths. Novice, Subtle: You can shift your features to more closely resemble someone else. If you do, that character loses access to those benefits for the rest of the game session. Novice, Extra Form: You have one additional form besides your default one. The GM is the final arbiter of which stunts are which. Expert, Extra Form: This has the same guidelines as Novice, Extra Form, but you now have one more additional form than you had already.
Master, Extra Form: This has the same guidelines as Expert, Extra Form, but you now have one more additional form than you had already.
You can speak and read Shiftertongue and any one additional language. A spirit-blood is anyone who is half-spirit. Perhaps one of their parents was one, they were infused with unearthly essence or stolen away to another realm as an infant, they suffered a botched possession that changed them, or they experienced a unique transformation.
Some live in defiance of any culture that would have them; others desperately try to fit in, a herculean task for those who stand out so easily. Many hire themselves out as fortune-tellers or ghost hunters, and rarely does a spirit-blood lead a quiet life. Adventure finds them, whether they seek it or not. Perhaps their unearthly parent returns to pass on some bizarre bequest, task them with solving a mysterious puzzle, or reclaim them and take them away. Perhaps they manifest uncontrollable gifts and must find a teacher before disaster strikes.
Spirit-bloods learn that making lots of friends helps them survive. They gather bands of misfits and unlikely companions, connecting easily across aisles of hostility and planes of existence. Those who embrace the spotlight make waves as daring ship captains, flashy rock stars, and other bombastic public figures who trail admirers, paparazzi, and resentful rivals.
Those who try to lead more subtle lives attract the fascination and suspicion of government agencies, mystical investigators, and the power hungry. You can speak and read one occult or otherworldly language, plus one common local language. A character could be of mixed heritage, such as half-elf and half-human. To facilitate cases like these, the GM may allow players to choose multiple backgrounds: one people and one origin, two peoples, or even two peoples and one origin.
In situations like this, you can combine background benefits as follows. To play a character with a mixed background, take the inherited benefits of one people and roll on the Cultural Benefits table of another people the character draws their ancestry from. With GM permission, they may even create a new table by combining some lines from one and some from the other, and roll on that instead. Still, players may wish to portray characters who face challenges arising from exceptional physical, psychological, or cognitive factors or challenges imposed by discrimination and other social factors.
For instance, one of your players may wish to play a version of themselves swept into a fantastic conspiracy and decide the version of themselves on paper is legally blind, just as they are.
The following section describes these conditions and challenges and how to represent them in the game. The personal and social conditions below barely scratch the surface of these possibilities. The following section also discusses possible challenges and other factors that might arise during the campaign. Characters may possess multiple conditions or conditions that cross over into multiple areas. Physical Conditions Characters may possess differences in their physical capabilities beyond those defined by ability scores.
These might affect mobility, some subset of the coordination defined by ability scores like Dexterity, or a perceptual capability such as vision or hearing. Some conditions such as chronic pain, which ebbs and flows, may not always be present.
Instead of imposing a set of strict modifiers based on a vast range of conditions, players should define the condition in ordinary language and suggest TN modifiers and other game effects when the situation arises. The player, not the GM, decides these, but consults with the GM when necessary. A character might find loud noises and bright lights disturbing due to sensory processing differences or might have moderate to profound difficulty verbally communicating due to neurological differences.
These factors might constantly manifest themselves or may rise and fall in intensity depending on the situation. They form communities and develop special forms of knowledge.
For example, characters with chronic illnesses may keep abreast of the latest research about them and develop a network of contacts among other people with the same illness, medical professionals, and activists. Marginalized groups gather to celebrate what they have in common and deal with issues that particularly concern them. Note, however, that everyone has a distinct, individual relationship with such things. For example, not everyone who identifies as having a given disability participates in the same communities or learns the same things.
Different individuals also use different terms to define themselves and their circumstances. Psychological Conditions Psychological conditions include differences in how characters feel and behave and what they might believe. They may respond to medication and the immediate situation in dramatic ways. For example, a character who deals with depression may swing through symptomatic periods, affecting their mood and ability to get things done, and times of great enthusiasm and productivity.
Some characters might be affected by very specific situations due to a phobia or past trauma, for instance. Again, note these in ordinary language. Social Conditions Social conditions involve characters who contend with prejudice beyond the effects of their background which defines social class , their ties and relationships, and their ability scores.
All conditions have social factors, but some conditions provoke challenges solely due to prevailing biases. Gender and its expression, sexuality, ethnicity, age, religion, and cultural affiliations are all social conditions.
While some are inherent and others a matter of choice or upbringing, their primary effects are usually social. These should be considered choices the player makes and should not be arbitrarily imposed by the GM, even for purposes of realism.
The player should be informed and considerate. Beyond this, the player can always portray their conditions without having to invoke particular game systems. If they are used in the game, they may be represented with shifts in attitude, as defined under Impressions and Attitudes in Chapter 2 of Modern AGE.
Instant Awards for Exceptional Challenges If these conditions lead to intensified and new challenges that are notable enough to require representation outside the usual scope of the game, apply the rules for Instant Awards and Exceptional Challenges in Chapter 10 of Modern AGE. Characters with personal exceptionalities or who experience social disadvantages may encounter challenges other characters do not. If so, the player should receive an instant experience award in recognition of the effort, with the award based on both the difficulty of the challenge and how well the player rose to meet it.
While it is possible to restrict instant rewards to characters with exceptional challenges and use session-based XP awards for the rest, the most integrated approach applies instant XP awards to all characters.
This defines challenges by the tension, emotional resonance, and risk they bring, not who is facing them. Exceptional challenges are simply those available to specific characters by virtue of their specific conditions.
In most cases, the player requests the challenge when a relevant situation comes up. The player and GM discuss the appropriate challenge and reward see Challenges and Reward Levels and run things accordingly.
In a game session filled with physical action, a character in a wheelchair may encounter more challenges, worth greater instant rewards, than a character who uses a cane.
An additional Hard or more challenging test might be required, or preparation which is costly in time or Resources. Example Sean is a character in a time-travel campaign, where portals to different eras are hidden across the world. Seeking supplies to sustain them on their trip to the next portal, they and their companions enter a theocratic town that strictly divides resources based on binary genders.
Only men can buy guns, and only women can buy food—and they charge high prices for both. Sean is genderqueer and the best negotiator among the protagonists. Sean refuses to compromise their identity by pretending to be a man or woman and, with signature wit, suggests to the merchants that the whole arrangement is a scam designed to keep the people from uniting against the government.
If the game uses instant awards for everyone, this is in addition to any other awards characters might receive during the session. A Specialization fuses a talent to a social role or category of expertise that has weight in the campaign. Talents Talents arise from a combination of natural ability, specific training, and experience.
The exact mixture of these elements varies from one character to the next. Talents never develop in a vacuum, however.
They evolve in response to social conditions and personal challenges. This means a character who has developed a talent to a high degree has a social role in the campaign. They may attract students hoping to learn from a bona fide expert.
They might be forced to hide the true extent of their abilities in case others see them as characteristics of a troublemaker, or something to exploit through blackmail and other forms of extortion. These new heights are the fourth and fifth degrees in talent progression: Grandmaster and Apex. The character may also change the world by introducing new knowledge into academic circles, devising a new combat paradigm, or developing a new, hyperefficient programming language.
None are as skilled as Apex practitioners. Unless they take measures to hide their identities and exploits, Apex-degree characters become the talk of their professional circles, and others begin to use them as benchmarks for skill and quality.
Only one or two people in the world possess the Apex degree in a talent at any time. Characters with Grandmaster and Apex talents are in great demand as teachers and problem solvers.
Public figures with such talents get requests for their services from the unlikeliest sources. Get the newsletter. Subscribe to get the free product of the week! One-click unsubscribe later if you don't enjoy the newsletter. Log In with Facebook. Log In I am new here. Remember me. Error: No match for email address or password. Password forgotten? Click here. Advanced Search. Modern AGE Companion. From Green Ronin Publishing.
Watermarked PDF. Average Rating 12 ratings. Make Modern AGE your own! Customers Who Bought this Title also Purchased. Reviews 1. Please log in to add or reply to comments. Ditto to request for contents and preview. And a page count would help. Using the link that Scott B provided below There is an option to preorder the print copy, and clicking on that link revealed that the hard copy is pages.
Alexandre M. This is also the first time I write any kind of review - I thought I should contribute for once. If you want the executive summary: In my view, its a good resource, especiall [ See All Ratings and Reviews. Browse Categories. Wolfenoot Sale. Rule System. Apocalypse World Engine.
BRP Basic Roleplaying. Modiphius 2d
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