Essence SRD

Every player has a say in the construction of the world. Ultimately, and if there is one, the GM provides the arbitration on all matters of the world.

The world first needs to have setting. Questions needing answering are:

• Who is in charge of the world?
• What is specific to the world?
• Where does it take place?
• When does it take place?
• Why should players be concerned?

Once all these questions are answered, say in Session Zero, there should be a great start. Next, find some starting locations. These are where characters will start. For example, if a metropolis of sufficient size, come up with the name of it and 3 suburbs. As the game progresses, more locations will be added, as well as points of interest within the locations. After locations are established, determine a number of important favorable non-player characters. These NPCs will provide invaluable interactions and activities with player characters. In addition to favorable NPCs, determine templates used for creatures, monsters, and hostile NPCs. Around four should suffice, depending upon the size and duration of the adventure.

One final touch to world building are factions. Try to develop around three factions, including their goals, dreams, and organizational structure. Wrapping all of this together and working how each piece interacts is up to either the GM or the players as a whole. A final note on world building: always be willing to evolve it. This means just because the world starts in one way doesn’t mean it will always be the same way as the start because all stories change as they go along, including available PCs, NPCs, locations, points of interest, and factions.

Characters in your setting should “fit in” in a way. By fitting in, we don’t mean popular. Instead, they should be an integral part of the story the setting takes place in. For example, every small town has the “one person” nobody talks to and the “one person” everyone wants to be. The person nobody talks to could have all sorts of strengths unconsidered. Alternatively, the person everyone wants to be could have deep, hidden, and embarrassing flaws. Characters are established through determining the name, a brief description, setting the aspects, setting the attributes, and establishing their motivation.

Every character has aspects. They are strong and flawed associated with aspects. In Essence, players establish two, no more than three, of both character aspects. The player must choose something relevant to the setting and story. For example, in an English Renaissance setting, two good strengths are masculine and poetry composition, and two good flaws are conceit and “too free with money”. Conversely, in a modern setting, masculine and poetry composition might be considered flaws, depending upon the society.

Every character has attributes. In Essence, these are assigned one of the following dice: d20, d12, d8, d6, and d4. The strongest attribute is assigned the d20, the average is assigned the d8, and the weakest is assigned the d4. The attributes are:

Brawn (Br): Brawn establishes the character’s ability to accomplish physical tasks, be it labor or fighting, for example.

Charisma (Ch): Charisma is the character’s ability to “read the room” and to use more charming parts of their personality, such as looks or speech.

Knowledge (Kn): Knowledge is the character’s ability to acquire knowledge.

Resolve (Re): Resolve is the character’s ability to withstand emotional or mental attacks.

Understanding (Un): Understanding is the ability for a character to apply knowledge in demonstrable way showing they know the material.

For example, the jock might have a Brawn of d20 and an Understanding of d4. Additionally, the computer nerd might have a Knowledge of d20 and a Brawn of d4. Both of these are based on character types and not always based in reality.

The final touch on character creation is around motivation. Motivation should focus on how this character should relate to their setting, world, and surroundings. It does not mean the character will actively engage in their motivation. It merely serves as a tool for understanding the character. For example, a computer hacker might find themselves motivated to resist all forms of authority by committing “breaking and entering” of data systems. This establishes the computer hacker as an anti-authoritarian personality and might, when faced with similarly perceived characters, resist.

One final set of notes on character creation is around how much time should be spent in character development. There is no magic formula, just it shouldn’t take too long. One good breakdown is two minutes on name and description, three minutes on aspects, three on attributes, and two on motivation. The rationale for not spending too much time on it is, at this point, everyone should have a familiarity of the demands for the setting and scenario. While developing the scenario, players might be already thinking of what they want to play, too. If players need more time in any of the character establishment areas, the players may grant them more time within reason.

Playing a character is quite straight-forward. Just do whatever you want within the confines of the setting, scenario, and fellow players. What’s important here is not accomplishing the goal. Rather, what is important is the story and where it goes. Every player is a part of the more grand story and needs to be a participant. This is where role-playing is a factor. Players need to be willing to play the role their character established in a relevant way. Deviating from the established character should not have consequences other than a gentle reminder from the GM.

With this in mind, we need to consider how characters use their attributes. All characters may use one, or more if the need arises, attributes. To use an attribute, the GM determines the difficulty number and the player performs an attribute check by rolling the dice assigned to each relevant attribute used. If the player rolls the target number or greater, it is successful. If not, the check fails. Long-running games would potentially have modifiers to each of the attributes. When this happens, the modifiers are applied to the attribute check after the roll. For example, the librarian needs to read and report to a patron a book recommendation on a topic. The attributes used are Knowledge and Understanding. The player would roll both dice to find out their chance.

Determining the difficulty number needs to be slightly rigid. The only real guideline is “what would a skilled person have as a difficulty?” For example, a very skilled person would need to roll the highest possible result, which is a 20, whereas an unskilled person would need to roll the lowest possible result, which is a one.

1 or 2: Unskilled people have a good chance at doing this.

3 through 5: Skilled people will have a high chance at succeeding. Unskilled people will have a low chance.

6 through 8: Skilled people have a low chance. Very skilled people have a high chance.

9 through 12: Very skilled people can accomplish this impressive task only.

13 through 16: A very impressive task skilled people can accomplished.

17 through 19: An extraordinarily impressive task only accomplishable by the highly skilled. If successful, earn one essence.

20: A nearly impossible task even for the highly skilled. If successful, earn three essences.

Over time, characters change or evolve. Whenever a character evolves, and after the session, the player may exchange essences earned for character improvement. The player may spend two essences to swap two dice assignments to attributes. the player may spend three essences to change an aspect. Finally, the player may spend five essences to change a motivation. If a player does not spend essences at the end of the session, they are kept for the next session.

Due to the inherent cinematic nature of the system, characters can’t die, much like in cartoons. If either the player or the GM chooses so, the character can die between sessions. Furthermore, the character can die under some obviously impossible to avoid situation and the GM feels the character couldn’t have survived.