BASIC, Bit by Bit: Issue 3- Otherlore: Statistics

It's the new year, and that means it's time to get back into the swing of things. I took time to put my head down and do some big work on Otherlore over the holidays that you'll be seeing in this spot soon enough. Thank you all again for your continuing support. 2018 is going to be a good year for BASIC and Otherlore!

The Contents So Far:

• 1: The Very BASICs, Attributes and Action Checks
• 2: Otherlore: Skills

5. Statistics

Check your pulse. Take note of how you're breathing and how rested you feel. Consider for a few seconds how quickly you believe you could cover 100 meters.

There, you've just taken a glance at some of your statistics.

Statistics in BASIC can be described as a whole entity as an attempt to codify, in numbers, "how ya feelin?" Your stats are your ability to soak up or ignore physical punishment, cover distance at a running pace, blend into your surroundings, carry equipment and apparel on your person and more. If you've played any sort of RPG before, analogue or digital, these will seem familiar, and all you'll need to do is pick up on how BASIC handles how they work. If you're not, well, they aren't too hard to get to begin with. Onward!

A Quick Note on the Malleable Nature of Statistics: Stats are fiddly and prone to change from moment to moment, sometimes in ways very similar to real life- generally people wouldn't claim they feel more healthy after they fall off a roof, even if real people don't have Hit Points. Its for this reason that keeping a scratch pad to track moment to moment changes might be a good idea, if only so you don't condemn a character sheet to a slow death by eraser.

Health

Hit Points. How much damage a character can take before they drop and potentially die.

A generalized measure of how much endurance, threshold for pain and physical sturdiness a character has. When you take damage, it hits the first available layer of your Health, subtracting from its total value. It's a pretty important stat, all in all, because when you run out of it, you become incapacitated, and eventually die. This is a big problem, because the Known World is not a place where people can be brought back when they die- some have ways of coming back on their own, from a death not suitable enough to kill them, but a true death? That's inescapable. And highly inconvenient.

In other words, watch out for your Health.

Your Health is your most involved stat, as it's divided up into a number of factors, each with their own role to play in how you take and absorb damages from different sources.

Defense and Vitality

A character's health is made up of two layers, Defense and Vitality. The first layer, Defense, protects the second layer, Vitality. You can have as much Defense as you have Vitality at a given moment, and you can have as much Vitality as you have Health- your Health is the hard maximum. 

• Defense is your first layer, and by far the most ablative and of least consequence. Think of it as Action Hero Health- a hit you take to it is something that would cause a bruise or a split eyebrow, or maybe just mess up a character's hair or makeup. In any case, the only thing that happens when you take damage to your Defense layer is, you lose Defense. You regain all Defense up to a limit capped by your current Vitality after taking a Breather, a short rest. So in other words, if you took a hit or two but were not seriously hurt, all you need to do to heal your Defense is take a deep breath and recover for a minute or so. That said, when your Defense is depleted, two things happen: 1. You take a Wound, an injury that persists even after you recover your Defense, causing negative modifiers. We'll get into what Wounds do in a later date- we've got more to do before we get into them. For now, we'll just say, being wounded isn't a good way to be. Like you couldn't tell. 2. Whatever damage left in the hit that depleted your Defense goes to your Vitality layer. This is called Foldover Damage and you'll be seeing a fair bit of it in the rules, so keep it in mind- damage folds over to the next layer.
• Vitality is the second layer of your Health, and one with quite a bit more consequence attached. Vitality can be considered real flesh and blood health- when you take a hit to it, that hit found flesh and bone, and it actually hurt beyond just simple pain and shock. Healing damage to your Vitality is more involved, because of this. Your body can naturally recover over time, but that's slow- days or weeks according to Natural Healing Rate (again, we'll go into that later). The Apothecary skill, medicines and restorative magic is faster, but has its own requirements- you know, like actually having those things on hand. This can be a problem, because remember, your maximum Defense is determined by your current Vitality, so getting beat up has a way of causing diminishing returns on your combat effectiveness. When you run out of Vitality, you become Incapacitated. When you're Incapacitated, you fall into the Flattened state and the number and sort of actions you can take will be limited, namely because in such a condition you're battered ragged, having difficulty staying awake and having the sort of mobility issues that come from having your limbs and torso wailed on. You also take a Mortal Wound, a variation on the Wounds you take when you run out of Defense that is, like you'd guess, much, much worse, which have their way of making your life harder. Bleeding out has a way of making things more complicated.

Note that a player character will only be considered dead if their Vitality drops to a value equal to their Health, expressed as a negative- A character with 10 Health is dead forever when they hit -10 Vitality.

Resistances

Representing either uncommon hardiness or the protections of armour and other relics, a character's Resistances reduce the amount of damage a layer of Health takes. There are two forms of Resistances, Damage Resistance and Property Resistance, and they can be applied either to the Defense or the Vitality layer, depending on what's providing it- lighter armour and lesser forms of supernatural protection generally only protects the Defense, while heavier, harder suits of armour and more focused charms and spells can also protect the Vitality.

•  Damage Resistance is a flat numeric reduction to one, two or all of Otherlore's three damage types. These damage types are: Physical, representing slashing, bashing, piercing, shooting and shredding sorts of damage; Elemental, the kind of damage you take when you're exposed to energetic extremes, like flames, electric shock, caustic compounds and extreme cold; and Spirit, a less tangible form of attack that hits neither body nor mind, but the soul itself, fraying and ripping it apart, potentially leaving the body an untouched but dead shell. Damage Resistance is expressed by its type, with both a number and letter, denoting what type of damage it reduces, by how much and on what layers. For example, a gambeson with Physical Resistance 2D will reduce all Physical Damage hits to the Defense layer by 2. Meanwhile, a suit of plate and chain armour with Physical Resistance 4DV will reduce all Physical Damage taken by 4 to both the Defense and Vitality layers.
• Property Resistance provides a further reduction in damage to sources of a certain Property, either by a set numeric value, or by measures of Half or Full. The property can be a mechanic of harm-
  Flame Resistance would provide protection against any sort of fiery attack, while Stabbing Resistance would blunt any sharply-pointed thrusting attacks. Property Resistances are rare, typically only linked to particularly good armour or specialized armour, or magical effects. For that reason, wherever you see it, it affects both Defense and Vitality- it's meant to be good, so might as well make it good. So for example, if you were wearing a buff coat with Ballistic Resistance 1, all mundane and physical ranged attacks like arrows, stones and gun shot would be reduced by 1 damage; if you had a robe with Cold Resistance Full, you would be literally immune to any sort of death via cold temperature alone- you could freeze solid, and when you thawed, you'd be fine.

How Do You Work Out Your Health?

Each People within the Known World has their own set value of Health, which is further increased by each level of Body they have above 1. Additional Health can be gained from certain abilities within the Songs, the heroic destinies a character pursues instead of a set class. Finally, a character's armour and other worn gear can not only add Resistances to one or either layer of Health, they can also add bonus Defense as well, allowing the wearer to go a few points over their Vitality capacity, representing the way armour tends to thicken a hide, rather than just toughening it.

Morale

A character's state of mind, from which can come both bonuses and penalties.

The mood of a character, how clear-headed they are, how burdened by the heavier feelings in life that make things harder for everyone. Morale determines whether or not a character is on their game, on a scale of 1 to 10. Morale fluctuates both according to events in the story, as denoted by the Narrator, and by certain abilities we'll be laying out here eventually. For now, all that's important to know is that Morale can only go up or down by 1 by one single event. That doesn't mean Morale can't make big slides one way or another, it just means that events have to compound on one another for that to happen: the satisfaction of a job well done could cause +1 Morale, but seeing the gratitude and happiness in others from you doing that job could be worth another +1. On the other hand, losing your ship to a reef you couldn't see would definitely be a -1 Morale hit. Then realizing that both the chest of coins you just got paid with AND the wine casks you pilfered from the job itself sank with it would be both their own, individual -1 Morale hits, for a total of -3. You know, provided you do drink and appreciate good wine.

Morale is broken into several levels across that 10 point scale, with each coming with their own specific bonuses and penalties. They are:

• Exultant (10): Feelings of invulnerability and hyper-capability accompany the character after a string of victories and personal triumphs. They have +2 to all checks and gain their Song's Exultant Bonuses. When we go over the Songs and all of their features, you'll see what this gets you.
• Confident (7-9): There is no glass that is half empty to this character, even if they normally would be the sort to describe things as so- things aren't perfect, but the winds are at their back. They have +1 to all checks.
• Normal (4-6): Life goes on as it usually does, with mood being a matter of moment to moment up and downs that blend into an overall feeling of "can't complain." This means no bonuses, but no penalties, either. All characters that aren't consistently on a morale up or downslope will eventually wind up here- good and bad moods don't last forever if they aren't enforced, and so characters that were riding high but ran out of momentum will find themselves at a 6, while folks that were down in the dumps but seem to have broken their bad luck streak will climb back up to 4.
• Shaken (2-3): Brought low by a bad turn or driven to the edge by an experience with one's own mortality has a way of making even getting out of bed seem like a risk, at least for a time. Shaken characters have -1 to all checks.
• Crushed (1): All is lost. Even if it isn't, it is to a character that has hit this low. Everything is terrible. Forever. Even if it isn't, it might as well be once you hit this boundary. Crushed characters have -2 to all checks and gain a Morbidity, which is similar to a Wound, but for the psyche. These are bad; sometimes, they don't get better, but they all can be treated and lived with. We'll get more into Morbidity later. It's a subject I'm well versed in, trust me.

How Do Your Work Out Your Morale?

Simple, everyone's got the capacity to be between a 1 and a 10, and that will change naturally over the course of a game. When you begin a new character, you'll typically start them at any point of Normal Morale, though if you can make your case to the Narrator, you could start things off higher or lower if you wanted to.

Focus

A character's x-factor, their ability to rise to an occasion and achieve greater than their normal. Spent to empower or trigger a number of actions and abilities.

The spark that lives in all of us, that can strike at a crucial moment through our own actions, allowing us to take control and take over a situation. Focus is the fuel for heroics, allowing a character to do more than they normally would. Focus is spent 1 point at a time to empower actions to be greater, more effective and more spectacular. A player could use a point of Focus to make their case that a successful check was something much more than "they did the thing". They could also use a point of Focus to ask for a reroll on a check that went worse than they were hoping. Lastly, certain abilities we'll get into later in both Otherlore and the BASIC system as a whole use a point of Focus to activate.

How Do You Work Out Your Focus?

Each living being has 1 point of Focus. Each living being with a Song, a heroic destiny, gains +1 Focus from that, for a baseline of 2 Focus for each player character in Otherlore. In addition, each Song has additional points of Focus that are gained at specific levels- we'll be getting into the Songs and all the things they do later. 

Mobility

How quickly a character can move, both in terms of overall distance on the tabletop, as well as in relation to others.

Both an exact and a rough measure of foot speed, Mobility is how far and how fast a character can move. When on the tabletop, under the more rules-heavy conditions of the Tactical Space, a character's Mobility is the number of inches they can move with a single Run action on the tabletop. When working under the more rules-relaxed conditions of the Roleplaying Space, a character's Mobility is instead how they measure up against other beings in terms of their Mobility. In other terms, if something more story-based requires a match of speed, compare Mobility values to see who's the one playing catch up.

How Do You Work Out Your Mobility?

Each of the Peoples in the Known World has their own baseline Mobility values, which are further enhanced by each level of Agility they have above 1.

Evade

How hard a character is to spot, and how hard they are to hit because of that.

Your ability to blend into a crowd, your surroundings or the blurring of movement in combat, in order to avoid the eyes and arms of those that would do you harm. The higher your Evade, the harder you are to spot or target. When shot at over range, or when swung at in a melee and you don't (or can't) actively Parry it, your Evade serves as the penalty modifier to that check. Similarly, Evade determines how easily you're noticed in given setting- if your Evade exceeds either the passive Awareness value of someone else in a scene, or the Margin of Success for any attempts to look for you, you won't be found. Obviously, this has its limitations, and is more meant for bigger, open scenes- Evade can't help you blend into a scene where it's only you, a room and the few other people with you in that room, just for starters.

How Do You Work Out Your Evade?

Each of the Peoples in the Known World has their own baseline Evade values. Agility can enhance this, though not at different rates. In addition, lighter forms of armour can also enhance a character's Evade.

Awareness

How perceptive a character is of their surroundings on a passive level- how much they can work out without actively going looking.

Representing your ability to discern detail out of every bit of sensory stimuli you're being confronted with, Awareness is your passive perception, your ability to see without looking, hear without listening, feel without touching. It does two big things for you, and other characters in the story. First, any person or object with an Evade value lower than your Awareness, you will pick up on. You know, provided the Narrator deems it important to your goals, be it a glimpse of a particular person you might be looking for, a whiff of the poison gas slowly seeping into the room, or an intangible but definite feeling of wrong when there is, in fact, fangs and claws waiting for you and your party in the nearby bushes. The other is that when you make your check to Enter the Tactical Space, either by joining combat or entering a tense, potentially dangerous and/or time sensitive situation, you add your Awareness to a 3d6, drop highest roll to see which where your Turn comes in the Round Sequence. The higher your Awareness, the more ready you are to act in relation to everyone else in the Tactical Space.

How Do You Work Out Your Awareness?

Each of the Peoples in the Known World has their own baseline Awareness values, which are further increased by their Senses level at varying rates.

Load

How much stuff a character can wear on their person and carry in their pack.

A rough abstraction of mass, size and the burden that comes from awkward amounts of both, Load is a point value for how many and what sort of items a you can hold on your body, however you happen to be carrying it. The more Load you have, the more, heavier and bigger stuff you can carry on your person. Load is measured in abstracted points, rather than any sort of unit of measuring weight. This is for two very similar reasons: 1. Keeping track of exact inventory weight on a character sheet sucks. 2. Actually looking up how much objects and quantities weigh sucks even more.

Load has a simple division of its points:

• The first quarter of your Load points is your At Hand inventory, items which your character would never want to be without, and is thus not considered to be without them unless specifically relieved of them by circumstances.
• The other three quarters of your Load points is your Adventuring inventory, the brunt of the stuff you'd carry with you when you need to be ready for anything- in other words, on an adventure -but not when you'd be at rest or otherwise engaged. You don't bring your armour and pack to a fancy dress party. Well, unless you're pillaging it.

When you go over your Load maximum, you gain 1 level of Restriction, representing that you’re being weighed down. For each quarter of your maximum Load you go over limit, you gain 1 Restriction, up to a max of 4. Each level of Restriction gives -1 to all Checks and -1 Mobility. You can go past Restriction 4, but you’ll more or less be counted as Downed, due to being crushed under the armoire full of armour you must be trying to carry around with you. 

How Do You Work Out Your Load?

For each People in the Known World, there's a baseline Load value that makes up the brunt of the stuff they can carry. In addition, each level of Body a character has above 1 will give them additional points, the amount of which again varies by the People the character belongs to.

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Next Issue: We go into some extra fancy Stats that not everyone's going to have at all times (or at all), and then.

Then.

We start getting into the Peoples of the Known World. This is a real big step, because it's the first part where the rules and the setting are really going to start to marry together, and I'm super exited to show you all what comes next! See you then!