Revised Storyteller System
From the White Wolf Wiki, the most complete White Wolf reference
The Revised Storyteller System is a ruleset published by White Wolf for use in the Trinity Universe series of games as well as the Exalted universe. Key characteristics are the nine cardinal Attributes, three categories of Abilities, seven Health Levels, a Willpower score, and the use of only d10s in order to resolve conflicts.
Contents |
[edit] History
Springing from the Storyteller System, the Revised Storyteller System first saw the light in 1997 with the publication of Trinity. It was fine-tuned for Aberrant in 1999 and again for Adventure! in 2001. Of these, the Adventure! incarnation is arguably the most popular, largely because of its Dramatic Editing mechanic.
Exalted was also released in 2001, and used its own particular variant of the Revised Storyteller System. This was overhauled again, including a major rewrite of the combat rules, for a Second Edition in 2006.
Many of the innovations of the Revised Storyteller System, most notably the updated damage and botching rules, were incorporated back into the original Storyteller System with the appropriately-named Revised Edition.
Many of the best elements of both the base Storyteller System and the Revised Storyteller System were mixed together to create the Storytelling System used for the new World of Darkness. Elements of that system were combined with the Exalted Second Edition Revised Storyteller System for Scion.
[edit] Basic mechanics
As in its predecessor, actions are resolved in the Revised Storyteller System by rolling a pool of ten-sided dice, with the number of dice determined by one or more of a character's traits. Any dice which come up as the target number (7 for most games) or higher are counted as successes, while any dice showing a result of 1 subtracts a success. The more successes, the more favourable the result. One success is sufficient for basic tasks, while more successes may be required for difficult tasks or tasks performed in trying conditions. Additional optional rules exist for actions which are more complicated, including contests between two or more characters, tasks that may require an extended period of time, and botches, failures with disastrous consequences.
Beyond basic action resolution, another basic mechanic concerns the expenditure of points. Some traits, like Willpower, have temporary "points" as well as a permanent rating. These points may be spent to gain various benefits, for example enabling particular actions, healing wounds, or augmenting normal actions. Character types capable of paranormal ability have a trait which represents their source of supernatural power, for example blood for vampires, Quantum for Aberrants or Essence for Exalts. Such points may be regained in different ways.
A character's health is tracked via health levels. When a character suffers wounds, these are marked in the health level boxes in sequential order. The first few health levels represent minor damage, while the later ones indicate serious injury which debilitates, incapacitates or even kills the character. In addition, there are three different types of damage, which determine how long a wound takes to heal and the effect a final wound has on a character (i.e. unconsciousness, torpor, death etc.). Most character types have seven health levels, though Aberrants and Exalts may have more.
[edit] Differences from Storyteller System
Significant variations from the original Storyteller System include:
- the differentiation of damage into different types: Bashing, Lethal and Aggravated
- improved rules for botches, making them less likely for higher skilled characters
- a fixed target number for all die rolls
- difficulties represented by the number of required successes, rather than a varying target number
- the removal of the Ability categories: Talents, Skills and Knowledges (though Exalted uses Caste (or equivalent) categories for Abilities instead)
- default pairing of Abilities with Attributes
[edit] Other Variations
- The Storyteller System, as seen in the World of Darkness and Street Fighter
- The Storytelling System, as seen in the new World of Darkness
