Sheets, tracks and conditions

Under a rule system every character has a sheet: the numbers the rules read and change. Players see it in the story view's ledger; the storyteller sees it each turn; code is the only thing that changes it. Engine

Stats

Numbers the rolls read: abilities, traits, action ratings, percentile skills.

Tracks

Things that go up and down: health, Stress, Inspiration, Hope, spell slots, armour.

Tags

Words on lists: conditions (Poisoned, Blessed), harm, traits, features, Bonds. A condition is a tag the rules know how to count. See Lists like Bonds.

Derived values

Numbers worked out from the others, never typed: proficiency bonus, Evasion, a passive Perception.

Clocks

Segmented progress a rule card ticks: Renown 3 of 4, Death saves 1 of 3, Heat 5 of 8.

Things

What a character owns that has its own sheet: a ship with hull and crew, a horse, a band of followers.

Abilities

The spells, features and techniques they know, what each costs and the uses left, and the picks they can spend on new ones. See Spells and abilities.

The table's pools

Points the storyteller holds, kept per table: Fear, Doom.

In the Studio, the Rules tab's Sheet part edits stats, skills and tracks as sentences, and has parts for Lists on the sheet, New characters and Money. Conditions are defined with Hob or in Advanced; pools and kinds of things have a part of their own.

A stat has a name, a line saying what it covers, a range, a starting value, and how it shows: a number, dots, or a percentage. Some stats add a modifier to rolls instead of their value: Classic d20's Strength 16 adds floor((16 - 10) / 2) = +3.

What it covers is not decoration. It is the rules judge's only guide to which stat an action uses, and it's read every turn. Write it as the actions it covers: “Climbing, jumping, swimming, grappling, forcing your way through by strength” beats “Physical prowess”. Storyteller

A track has a maximum (a number, or a formula that grows with the sheet), a starting point and a role:

Refills

On a rest, each scene, each level, or never.

When it empties or fills

A track can carry effects of its own for when it runs out or fills. Forged's Stress: full, and they take a Trauma and the Stress is set to 0. For anything more involved, use a rule card on the track (“When Stress fills up → …”).

Damage thresholds

A health track can mark boxes by how hard a hit lands instead of by its number. Hope and Fear: 6 Hit Points; any hit marks 1, a hit of at least @major (6 + level) marks 2, at least @severe marks 3. An armour slot, spent automatically when it helps, takes a hit one step lighter. Engine

A condition is a tag on a list that the rules know how to count. It can have levels (Frightened 1 to 4), a timer, and an effect on rolls that code applies without anyone remembering to. Engine

Conditions that move a stat

In Lists on the sheet, each condition can say it moves a stat by steps. While it holds, the stat moves that many steps for each level of the condition. A stat shown as a die moves one die size a step (d10 to d8); any other stat moves one point a step. It never goes below the stat's lowest or past its highest: a d6 stays a d6. Engine

Every read of the stat feels it: rolls with it, derived values and track maxima built on it, a fight's blows. The sheet shows the stat as it is now, with the reason (“Dazed −1 step”). In a step-dice game, a Dazed hero rolling Insight and Dexterity throws a d8 and a d10 instead of two d10s.

{ "id": "dazed", "name": "Dazed", "description": "Insight a die smaller.",
  "shifts": { "insight": -1 }, "ticks": "rest" }
{ "id": "poisoned", "name": "Poisoned", "description": "Might and Willpower a die smaller.",
  "shifts": { "might": -1, "willpower": -1 }, "ticks": "rest" }

Several conditions at once add up, and the roll chip names each one that touched a roll (“Poisoned: disadvantage”). Any number of disadvantages and advantages cancel down to one either way, as in fifth-edition play. A condition put on with a duration (“Blessed for 3 turns”) lasts the turn after it lands, then counts down.

{ "id": "frightened", "name": "Frightened",
  "description": "Disadvantage while the source of their fear is in sight.",
  "max": 4, "ticks": "turn", "fade": 1, "edge": "-1", "checks": ["ability"] }

Rule cards read conditions as @cond.frightened (its level, 0 when absent) and @cond.frightened.left (ticks left), and in sentences as “while Frightened” and “unless Stable”. See Only while.

Not every list holds conditions. A list can hold relationships, traits or anything the story writes down, and each entry can carry a strength and a few words. In Lists on the sheet, a list can say: Engine

Holds at most

The most entries it holds at once. A full list refuses a new one until one goes.

Each entry has a strength, up to N

For a list whose entries carry a strength: the highest it can reach. Raising past it stops there.

Words with an entry

Each entry can keep a few words beside its name and strength, shown on the sheet.

That is how Bonds work in a JRPG-style game: up to six, each a name (who or what it is toward), the feelings in its words, and its strength as its value, up to 3. On the sheet: “Captain Iris 2 (admiration, loyalty)”.

{ "id": "bonds", "name": "Bonds", "valued": true, "max": 6, "maxValue": 3,
  "description": "Who you are bound to, and what you feel toward them, in a few words." }

Who writes on them

• The storyteller, when a scene has actually formed, deepened or broken one: its mark_sheet tool adds an entry (with its words and a starting strength), raises or lowers its strength by one, or strikes it off. Code keeps the list's limits: a full list refuses a new entry, a strength never passes the top. It can't touch conditions, which stay code's. Storyteller
• Rule cards and abilities, with the same tag effects as conditions, under the same limits. See Effects.
• The table-talk GM, when the player and it agree: it can add or remove an entry, and set its words (a Bond's feelings).

A pool is a number the storyteller holds, kept per table: Hope and Fear's Fear, or a Doom you invent. Rule cards and outcomes add to it and spend from it. A pool can gate hard moves: then the storyteller may only spring a hard move the roll didn't hand it (an ambush out of nowhere, a betrayal, a twist of the knife) by spending a point. After each scene, code asks whether such a move was made and takes the point; with none left, it's logged. Engine

A clock is a ring of segments: Renown 3 of 4. A rule card ticks it (“tick Renown 1”), and the first tick creates it with the size the card gives (4 if none). When it fills, cards watching for it fire. Clocks show on the sheet and in the roll chip's list of what changed (“Renown 3/4”). Engine

A kind of thing is anything that needs its own numbers: a ship (hull, crew), a mount (stamina), a company of followers (morale, numbers). Define the kind once; each character can own things of that kind, each with its own sheet. Formulas read the character's first one as @thing.ship.hull, and a track effect can mark a thing instead of the character (“Hull −2” on the ship). Engine

{ "id": "ship", "name": "Ship",
  "stats":  [ { "id": "speed", "name": "Speed", "min": 1, "max": 5, "default": 2 } ],
  "tracks": [ { "id": "hull", "name": "Hull", "max": 10 }, { "id": "crew", "name": "Crew", "max": 20 } ] }

The easiest way to make one is to tell Hob what it is: “Ships have hull and crew; ramming costs hull on both sides.” Hob writes the kind and the rule card together.

A derived value is a named formula over the sheet, shown with a line saying where it comes from. Classic d20's Proficiency bonus is 2 + floor((@level - 1) / 4), “+2 at level 1, one more every four levels”. Hope and Fear's Evasion is 10 + @agility, “what a blow must beat”. Any formula can read a derived value by its id, like any stat. Edit them in the Advanced tab.

Then optional picks: train some skills of another kind (Classic d20: four skills at proficiency). Character creation suggests values from the backstory under any method, and the player can change them within it.

New characters

Rules › Sheet › New characters holds the rest of how a character starts: Engine

Stat arrays

Several named arrays to choose from, each with a line about it. The player picks one, then places its values: “Even: d8, d8, d8, d8”, “Leaning: d10, d8, d8, d6”, “Focused: d10, d10, d6, d6”. A mix of two arrays is refused.

Start at level

New characters start at this level, with the xp and the hit points of it (1 when blank).

Classes to start in

With several classes: how many classes the starting levels are spread over (from 1, at most the starting level). Every starting level must be placed. See Starting in several.

Questions at creation

Free-text questions the system asks (Identity, Theme, Origin), each with a hint under the box. Every preset asks some: see what each comes with. A question can be required, and can change never, when they gain a level (the default), or any time.

The answers are kept on the sheet, and the storyteller reads them every turn as who the character is, in the player's own words (“Identity: Idealistic knight-errant · Theme: Duty”). Storyteller A question that changes on a level can be rewritten on the sheet once a level has come since the last change; one that never changes is fixed once answered.

Growth is levels (with a +1, or two, to put into stats at chosen levels), advances bought with xp (a new dot every 8 xp), or improvement rolls (a skill used well is marked, and later rolls to improve). Levels can come from Worldtable's own levelling, which fights, quests and story arcs pay, or from xp on the sheet that rule cards and outcomes award.

A system can name the world's money under its rules, in Rules › Sheet › Money: its name (“Zenit”), a short form (“z”), and A new character starts with, a number or dice (500, 10 * d6), rolled once when the character is made. Engine

The amount is counted in the world's coin of that name (Studio › Economy): 500 Zenit is 500 of the world's Zenit coins. When the world has no coin of that name, it is counted in its smallest coin, so name the money as the economy does.