I mentioned at our initial session that I had some house rules in mind for how Relationships and Passions (in the PENDRAGON style) will function in the campaign. These are based on some wonderful rules written by Paul Kidd for LACE & STEEL and ALBEDO. Central to the psychology and relationship rules are the concepts of personal dispositions, and of interpersonal ties and antipathies. These traits govern a character's personality and form a basis on which to roleplay the character.
The nature and strength of these various traits determine the degree to which self-image may be altered. The self-image score in LACE & STEEL and ALBEDO itself quantifies the relative level of self-esteem as a numerical value. This numerical value is used as a modifier to certain types of skill checks and in certain situations. In HERO WARS terms, this functions as an enhancement, either positive or negative, *exactly* as the rules currently describe them. Why the change, then? To better quantify the effect of the heroes' strongest emotions within the HERO WARS rules. My PENDRAGON influences are probably evident.
Ties are feelings of tenderness, friendship, loyalty, respect, and/or duty toward a person, nation, group, or idea. Antipathies are feelings of distaste, disgust, disrespect, hatred or aversion toward one of the above. Ties and antipathies allow self-image modifiers in LACE & STEEL and ALBEDO much the same as Personality and Relationship abilities allow enhancement. Rescuing someone you have a tie with or undermining a political party you have an antipathy toward will tend to give a positive enhancement, while being the subject of hurtful rumors spread by someone you have a tie with or seeing a professional rival with whom you have an antipathy promoted before you will tend to give a negative enhancement.
Acting in a way consistent with your dispositions (Personality abilities) generally promotes self-image, while acting contrary to your dispositions generally does the opposite. Thus, if you are an independent person, your self-image will tend to be boosted when you succeed in a task without outside assistance but might decrease if you rely too much on others. If a self-important person, your self-image will tend to rise when you show yourself to be better than those around you but will fall if you publically embarass yourself.
Self-image enhancements generally last longer than those provided by other abilities, so they typically will only return to normal (i.e., zero) slowly, over the space of several hours or even days. As example, take the Battle Fury of an Uroxi: unless intentionally calmed down by another party (a dangerous proposition for anyone save a Chalanan, a Barntari or an Uraldan) the fury will usually persist until the berserker exhausts himself and/or kills or destroys anything perceived, in his altered (most would say deranged) mental state, as a threat. Am I clear enough as to how these work? The mechanics are unchanged, really; I have merely changed the categorization.
All this becomes important with the rather simple change I proposed to enhancement, which is that one mundane ability from *each category*... Physical, Mental, Personality, Antipathy or Tie... can be used, rather than just one, period. There may even be special cases wherein I allow more than one ability from a category to be used, if appropriate to the story. At the moment I am uncertain whether I will change how enhancements from Magic are handled, but the basic idea is that an Affinity can only be used to provide one of each *type* of enhancement (and only if the feats are appropriate).
The control factor here is *expedience*. If your hero is in a rush, he or she cannot perform as many enhancements and thus will receive a lower overall bonus/edge.
-- Michael Richard Schwartz | Language is my playground, mschwartz_at_... | and words, its slides and Ann Arbor, Michigan USA | swingsets. -- yours truly
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