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Optional Aspects
Ok, time to make my debut posting on this group... *crosses fingers*
Hello, everyone! My name is Esko Halttunen, but I tend to use the handle
Edi on the net. Some of you might remember me from my infrequent posts
on the townhall forum before it got nuked, but if you don't, don't
worry. I wasn't exactly high-profile, more of a lurker, and it was
difficult to say anything worthwhile before the more experienced crowd
took care of it. *grin*
I've played DQ on and off for the past several years after I bought the
3rd Editon *shudder* on impulse. Thanks to John Davis who went to the
trouble of procuring an extra 2nd Edition and shipping it off to
Finland for me. It's due to him that I have been able to play the real
DQ instead of he watered down T$R version.
In any case, now that the introductions are done, down to business:
There is now a bunch of new, optional aspects available, courtesy of
yours truly. I've uploaded the new Aspects to the files>documents
section of the group, in a file DQ-Aspects.zip, which contains the new
Aspect tables in MS Word, Open Office and plain text format. There is
also a plain text notes file, the text of which is pasted below. Take a
look and tell me what you think, ask questions and discuss them. Input
is always valuable for improvement ideas. I hope they will provide
enjoyment and entertainment for all. :-)
Edi
*****
I have always considered the Aspects to be an intriguing but sadly
under-developed facet of DQ.
After a long time of quietly steaming and seething over this, I decided
to do something about
it, not least because of the needs of my own campaign world. Hence were
born these optional
rules for Aspects.
I divided the Aspects into three categories, the Aspects of Action, the
Aspects of Form and the
Aspects of Magic, which together constitute the tripartite Aspect of any
single character.
The Aspects of Action influence actions taken by characters and are the
Aspects as they
originally appear in the published DQ editions. There have been no
changes whatsoever.
The Aspects of Form are related to the physical nature of the character
and grant bonuses and
penalties to statistics and skills and sometimes have other effects as
well (such as giving
enhanced night vision).
The Aspects of Magic influence how the character's magic works. Each
Aspect of Magic is closely
related to one (or more) of the Colleges of Magic and grant a minor
bonus to base chances for
an Adept who is a member of the affected College. The primary effects of
the Aspects, however,
are independent of the character's College and affect how his magic
functions in relation to
the rest of the world (e.g. the spells of a Wind-aspected Adept have
increased range when
applicable, regardless of his College). The Aspects of Magic are not
automatically gained,
the chance to have a magical affinity is dependent upon the character's
Magical Aptitude.
*****
Now that a basic breakdown of what the optional Aspects has been dealt
with, a few comments
about their design philosophy might be in order.
At a brief glance, the optional Aspects seem to be just a collection of
various bonuses,
with little or nothing to counterbalance them. This is, to an extent,
true. There are
relatively few penalties and offsets for the bonuses, but my main
consideration was that
the use of the Aspects would be a powerful device as a springing point
for plot hooks and
as storytelling tools as well as giving each character a unique spin.
The latter naturally
requires cooperation from players so that they play along and at least
make an attempt at
taking the aspects into account when building the character's personality.
Conversely, if the player has already settled on a character type he or
she wants to play,
the GM should ideally cooperate by allowing an aspect that would
complement the personality
of the character (e.g. the Aspect of the Bear may not be the best suited
for a rogue-type
character who relies on stealth, speed and a quick tongue to get things
done, while the
Aspects of the Cat or Fox would be more appropriate).
The Aspects of Magic are in some ways a trickier issue than the Aspects
of Form, and in some
ways a lot easier. Each one gives a benefit of one sort or another, in
addition to providing
a bonus to some specific College's cast chances, and the only ones that
incur penalties are
Ice (for fire mages, but if you get an Aspect of Ice, would you make a
fire mage? I wouldn't!
Or if the player really wanted a fire mage, I'd let them reroll), Light
and Darkness (reaction
penalties to servants of the opposite). The Aspects of Magic are
supposed to give the same
diversity to magic as the Aspects of Form give generally, and frankly,
they are also *meant*
to be a power boost with the unstated stipulation that it should serve
plot purposes. The
evil necromancer or greater summoner who is the main villain gets an
altogether different
flavor if they happen to have an Aspect of corresponding to their magic
(Death or Gate, in
this case). Or what happens when you need to take on someone who has an
Aspect of Craft?
Dealing with their magic just became a lot harder than was originally
expected. These Aspects
add more spice, and to a certain degree more unpredictability, and they
also provide an
endless variety of story hooks and more depth for the GM to exploit,
should he choose to use
them.
The grouping of the Aspects of Magic is intentionally thematic. First
there are the
abstract Aspects, (Faerie, Thought, Knowledge, Craft, Gate, Void),
followed by the Elemental
Aspects, which in turn lead the way to what in my campaign world are the
Aspects representative
of Light, Twilight and Darkness and which also have a secondary tie to
the elements. There is
a specific reason why the Aspect of Life overlaps those of Light and Sun
and Death overlaps
Shadow and Darkness. Those 1 in 100 occurrences of two Aspects of Magic
are supposed to be
reserved for pivotal characters in the struggle of good and evil, Light
and Darkness, and
flip-flopping Light and Darkness according to the actual choices and
actions of a PC or an
NPC can yield *very* interesting results if played correctly.
The elements have a slightly higher chance of occurring than the others,
6% vs 5% for a
specific aspect, and Shadow, Sun, Light and Darkness also have 6%, one
of which is overlap
with either Death or Life.
I must admit that these Aspect tables, especially the Aspects of Magic,
have been drawn up
to specifically suit my campaign world and its attendant arrangement of
powers, but I also
think that the arrangement is general enough in nature to be adopted as
is or with little
modification for most campaign worlds. I explicitly ignored balance
(other than in general
terms) as a consideration, meaning that I did not want a zero-sum game
where every benefit
would be countered by an equal negative in some respect. That might have
something to do with
my world being a relatively high magic one, as in that magic is not very
common, but it is a
powerful force, though subtle, and pivotal in many respects. The
Aspects enhance and underline
this, as well as add to the mystery. Characters with certain aspects
also tend to be moticed
much more easily by the Powers than J. Random Villager. Death tends to
draw the Powers of
Darkness and Life the Powers of Light, for example.
Ideally the Aspect of the character should reflect the character's
personality or vice versa.
They are meant to be a tool to enrich play and diversify the range of
available options and
to provide additional flavor to characters and campaign worlds. This was
the sole motivation
behind the (admittedly not all that strenuous) effort put into the
optional Aspects.
It should be noted that not every single person in the world has (or is
meant to have) the
Aspects of Form and Magic. Extraordinary people (such as player
characters, important NPCs
and possibly others, as determined by the GM) possess them, but not
every last beggar, peasant
and goblin. GMs are encouraged to use their discretion.
I avoided putting in too many restrictions or hard and fast rules into
how these optional
Aspects should be handled, as I feel that it should be left for
individual GMs to decide how
and to what extent (if any) to implement this possibility. Each one has
his own campaigns,
with different worlds, different approaches to magic, different
requirements and different
players, and they will damn well know what works best for their specific
games, far better
than I could ever make this on the basis of guesswork and putting in a
ton of rules and page
upon page of explanation for every possible twist and combination. If
you find a use for these
optional Aspects in your games, feel free to take whatever you need and
modify the rest to
your heart's content until the whole matches your preferences.
And now that I've finally managed to put everyone to sleep by being a
long-winded windbag,
some credits are in order. I didn't manage all of it quite by myself,
after all. A big
portion of the credit goes to my good friend Kalle Ojala who took the
rough first draft and
significantly improved it. Without his input, my ideas would have ended
up with a far inferior,
more limited and totally unsatisfactory final form. I also owe Rodger
Thorm thanks for his
valuable comments on the unfinished work. Most of the text above is the
result of answering
the questions he had to ask, and hopefully that will save you the
trouble of asking them again.
Of course, if there is something more you wish to know, I'll be more
than happy to answer any
questions that you may have to ask. Post them on the DQ-rules group or
email them to me
(address: esko.halttunen@luukku.com).
Esko Halttunen aka Edi