Saga system

From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_...>
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 21:05:27 -0000

> >That's one thing that's always confused me. "Progress"
> >during "down-time". Your "take a keyword level" sounds good. But the
> >actual rules on the subject don't seem to allow for any of this.
>
> Sure they do. Saga System. Page...173? In a box near the bottom? IIRC.

Page 173 seems to be about atttuning essences.

And the index entry for "saga system".... is hiding.

Maybe I need to just read through the core rules? Nope....

Narrating section is way off at the end... Aha! P179.

> They suggest a one level per year rate. I'm just a tad more
> liberal depending on what's going on during that downtime.

Yes, 1 keyword level per year does seem a bit feeble. In fact, a lot feeble. I suppose it depends on how "active" they are, what challenges they face.

Let's see, if Fred the NPC is 20 and has his keywords at 17. By the time he's 40 one keyword will be at 17W. At 60, he'll have got up to 7W2. But only in one keyword.
That sounds too low to me. Where did all those clan chiefs and so on with their W3 abilities come from?

Suppose we said 1 point per season? Five times the rate, but then he's got three keywords to increase if he wants. So his main one gets about 2.5 points a year, say...

20 years - up 50 points. 50+17=67 - that's 7W3 by the time he's 40. As a farmer, warrior, leader, whatever. To my mind, that's not unreasonable. Anyone else?

> Again, it's keyword levels, so I don't think this applies.
> Moreover, if the player says to me, "I was farming" that
> counts to me as play for this purpose. I only apply the
> double cost if the player is basically saying, "I had it all
> along."

Right, that makes sense. Unless, I suppose, they write some good back-story? Sometimes abilities can have been there all along, but have only just become relevant enough to be listed on a character sheet. "Was at school with Fred" won't get listed until you suddenly realise that Fred is now the clan champion of the place you've just walked into. Once you do know, you can describe all the things you used to get up to, the shared pranks, the way you nicked his first girlfriend - oops!

> Sure, but it's more a player preference thing. That is, I
> could play the most heroic character in the world using this
> method. "Downtime" could be, "And then the hero went and slew
> 2000 of his enemies rampaging across their land in the
> following season.

And his warrior keyword went up by 1/5 of a point as a result :)