Spirit of the Century
After two false starts, and a couple of months, I finally finished reading the Spirit of the Century rpg this weekend. I don’t know why it took me so long - the game is interesting and well-written - but it seemed to take forever to get through. Granted, it’s over 400 pages, but I think partly it’s because the game is almost all rules, with only minimal setting information, and rules are generally tedious to plow through. Also, although the core mechanic is very simple, I found myself having to re-read certain sections a couple of times. I actually really like the system, but it’s not as simple as it first appears.
Spirit of the Century is a pulp-era rpg that uses a variant of the FUDGE rules: to do something, a player roles four six-sided dice that are blank on two sides and have a plus or a minus on the other four. Pluses add to the skill being used, minuses subtract from it, and the total is compared to the difficulty rating of the action being attempted. There are no “attributes” in the game; instead, players pick 15 skills from a list of about 30 choices (e.g. “Might,” “Empathy,” “Investigation,” “Fists”), with one rated at “Superb” (essentially +5), two at Great, three at Good, four at Fair, and five at Average. Players also get to pick five stunts, which represent special abilities, cool powers, and gadgets, and they also begin with a pool of Fate Points, which can be spent to do a variety of things, including powering certain stunts and making declarations, which allow players to change things in the game itself.
Fate points can also be used to invoke aspects, which is one of the things that really makes this game shine. Each player begins with up to 10 aspects, which are words or short phrases which collectively describe the character and make it unique. Examples include “Black Sheep,” “I Know a Guy,” “Amazing Jet Pack!,” and “The Mark of Khan.” During the game, if you’re in a situation where one of your aspects could come into play, you can spend a fate point to “invoke” it and gain a bonus. So, for instance, a player with the aspect “bookworm” might invoke it for a bonus when trying to gain information by doing research in a library. Players have a lot of leeway in making up aspects, and I like them because they really let you personalize a character in a very flexible way that you just can’t achieve with lists of powers and advantages and flaws and so on. They’re also great because GM’s can “compel” character’s aspects to introduce complications into the plot. For example, if a character had the aspect “An Eye for the Ladies,” the GM could compel that aspect to have the character be distracted by that beautiful blonde in the blue dress that just showed up at the party, allowing her confederates to steal the “Eye of Ra” from the safe upstairs. Players get fate points for this, so it’s actually to their advantage to take aspects like this (or even ones that are obviously bad, like “Drunkard” or “Haunted.”
Although aspects are one of the coolest features of the game, I had to re-read the rules for them several times. That’s because there’s a lot more to aspects than what I just described. NPCs and locations have aspects, and in some situations, players can invoke them as well (called tagging). Players can “invoke for effect,” which is sort of like a declaration, only stronger. And then there’s tagging for effect, in which a player compels an aspect on an NPC. There are also rules on guessing aspects and negotiating compels. And on a related note, there’s also using skills to make assessments, which lets a player discover an aspect on something and get an immediate, free tag, and using skills to make declarations, which is like using a fate point to do the same, except that it doesn’t cost a fate point. Or maybe it does. Truth is, I’m not sure that it’s any different at all. While all these rules offer a lot of possibilities, I found them tricky to understand.
The game also takes an interesting approach to conflict resolution: physical, mental, and social conflicts are all handled the same way, and they all involve characters rolling opposing skills (e.g. Fists vs. Fists for a brawl, Deciet vs. Resolve or Empathy when one character tries to decieve another), with the loser first taking “stress” and then “consequences,” which vary in severity. The losing character, however, can attempt to offer a concession, which involves the player and the GM negotiate how one side or another will surrender, metaphorically speaking. For example, the rules give an example of a doorman who won’t let a character pass. When the doorman starts losing the contest of wills, his concession is to grunt and shift his posture slightly, letting the character know he can pass without actually saying it. As with declarations and compels, concessions very much emphasize that this is a storytelling game, in which both the players and the GM work together to create an entertaining story. Although conflicts themselves are fairly straightforward, there are a lot of other supplemental rules - mostly pertaining to combat - which I suspect might be difficult to remember at first. In fact, I suspect that if I run this, early on I’ll be flipping through the book a lot, particularly when it comes to adjudicating skill use. Finally, it’s also worth mentioning that the game has a GM’s section that’s one of the most thorough and extensive that I’ve ever seen, with advice on running games that’s applicable to pretty much any rpg.
I actually got to play the game briefly, though it was over a year ago, and it was only one session. I decided to play “The Nemesis,” a masked crimefight inspired by The Shadow that I created for the Shadowfist ccg. I’d never really fleshed out the character, so I only had a rough idea of who he was and what he could do. The first thing I discovered is that you really can’t create a Shadow-level character to start with, even though the rules imply that you can. You simply don’t start with enough skills and stunts to do so. What’s more, the game forces you to allocate your starting skill levels in what I found to be a fairly forced and artificial way (i.e. one at superb, two at great, etc…). Obviously, there are practical reasons for this, but if I were running this, I’d probably give my players more points to start with, and let them take more than just 15 skills, and I’d give them more leeway as to how they distribute them. On the other hand, coming up with aspects was a lot of fun. I chose ones like “Mysteries of the East,” “Man About Town,” “Secret Identity,” and “Scourge of the Underworld.” The only downside was that I found myself obsessing a bit too much on them. However, the game has rules for creating some aspects during the course of the game, rather than all at character creation. Picking stunts was fun too, although with only five to chose from, I also spent maybe a bit too long obsessing on which ones to choose. Even with my loosely sketched-out character, there were probably nearly twice as many that fit the concept than I was allowed.
I would like to try running this game myself. I just need a concept to run with. I have one idea, but it would probably require pre-generated characters, and I think this game works better and is more fun if players create their own. I do have another idea, but it’s a bit ambitious, and maybe too big to start with.
Spirit of the Century is a pulp-era rpg that uses a variant of the FUDGE rules: to do something, a player roles four six-sided dice that are blank on two sides and have a plus or a minus on the other four. Pluses add to the skill being used, minuses subtract from it, and the total is compared to the difficulty rating of the action being attempted. There are no “attributes” in the game; instead, players pick 15 skills from a list of about 30 choices (e.g. “Might,” “Empathy,” “Investigation,” “Fists”), with one rated at “Superb” (essentially +5), two at Great, three at Good, four at Fair, and five at Average. Players also get to pick five stunts, which represent special abilities, cool powers, and gadgets, and they also begin with a pool of Fate Points, which can be spent to do a variety of things, including powering certain stunts and making declarations, which allow players to change things in the game itself.
Fate points can also be used to invoke aspects, which is one of the things that really makes this game shine. Each player begins with up to 10 aspects, which are words or short phrases which collectively describe the character and make it unique. Examples include “Black Sheep,” “I Know a Guy,” “Amazing Jet Pack!,” and “The Mark of Khan.” During the game, if you’re in a situation where one of your aspects could come into play, you can spend a fate point to “invoke” it and gain a bonus. So, for instance, a player with the aspect “bookworm” might invoke it for a bonus when trying to gain information by doing research in a library. Players have a lot of leeway in making up aspects, and I like them because they really let you personalize a character in a very flexible way that you just can’t achieve with lists of powers and advantages and flaws and so on. They’re also great because GM’s can “compel” character’s aspects to introduce complications into the plot. For example, if a character had the aspect “An Eye for the Ladies,” the GM could compel that aspect to have the character be distracted by that beautiful blonde in the blue dress that just showed up at the party, allowing her confederates to steal the “Eye of Ra” from the safe upstairs. Players get fate points for this, so it’s actually to their advantage to take aspects like this (or even ones that are obviously bad, like “Drunkard” or “Haunted.”
Although aspects are one of the coolest features of the game, I had to re-read the rules for them several times. That’s because there’s a lot more to aspects than what I just described. NPCs and locations have aspects, and in some situations, players can invoke them as well (called tagging). Players can “invoke for effect,” which is sort of like a declaration, only stronger. And then there’s tagging for effect, in which a player compels an aspect on an NPC. There are also rules on guessing aspects and negotiating compels. And on a related note, there’s also using skills to make assessments, which lets a player discover an aspect on something and get an immediate, free tag, and using skills to make declarations, which is like using a fate point to do the same, except that it doesn’t cost a fate point. Or maybe it does. Truth is, I’m not sure that it’s any different at all. While all these rules offer a lot of possibilities, I found them tricky to understand.
The game also takes an interesting approach to conflict resolution: physical, mental, and social conflicts are all handled the same way, and they all involve characters rolling opposing skills (e.g. Fists vs. Fists for a brawl, Deciet vs. Resolve or Empathy when one character tries to decieve another), with the loser first taking “stress” and then “consequences,” which vary in severity. The losing character, however, can attempt to offer a concession, which involves the player and the GM negotiate how one side or another will surrender, metaphorically speaking. For example, the rules give an example of a doorman who won’t let a character pass. When the doorman starts losing the contest of wills, his concession is to grunt and shift his posture slightly, letting the character know he can pass without actually saying it. As with declarations and compels, concessions very much emphasize that this is a storytelling game, in which both the players and the GM work together to create an entertaining story. Although conflicts themselves are fairly straightforward, there are a lot of other supplemental rules - mostly pertaining to combat - which I suspect might be difficult to remember at first. In fact, I suspect that if I run this, early on I’ll be flipping through the book a lot, particularly when it comes to adjudicating skill use. Finally, it’s also worth mentioning that the game has a GM’s section that’s one of the most thorough and extensive that I’ve ever seen, with advice on running games that’s applicable to pretty much any rpg.
I actually got to play the game briefly, though it was over a year ago, and it was only one session. I decided to play “The Nemesis,” a masked crimefight inspired by The Shadow that I created for the Shadowfist ccg. I’d never really fleshed out the character, so I only had a rough idea of who he was and what he could do. The first thing I discovered is that you really can’t create a Shadow-level character to start with, even though the rules imply that you can. You simply don’t start with enough skills and stunts to do so. What’s more, the game forces you to allocate your starting skill levels in what I found to be a fairly forced and artificial way (i.e. one at superb, two at great, etc…). Obviously, there are practical reasons for this, but if I were running this, I’d probably give my players more points to start with, and let them take more than just 15 skills, and I’d give them more leeway as to how they distribute them. On the other hand, coming up with aspects was a lot of fun. I chose ones like “Mysteries of the East,” “Man About Town,” “Secret Identity,” and “Scourge of the Underworld.” The only downside was that I found myself obsessing a bit too much on them. However, the game has rules for creating some aspects during the course of the game, rather than all at character creation. Picking stunts was fun too, although with only five to chose from, I also spent maybe a bit too long obsessing on which ones to choose. Even with my loosely sketched-out character, there were probably nearly twice as many that fit the concept than I was allowed.
I would like to try running this game myself. I just need a concept to run with. I have one idea, but it would probably require pre-generated characters, and I think this game works better and is more fun if players create their own. I do have another idea, but it’s a bit ambitious, and maybe too big to start with.