Book:The Story

Elements of Story

Elysium is a game which strives to break down the barriers between genres so characters can straddle different realms of story and style. However, each campaign, adventure or storyline will undoubtedly take on a certain feel. Below are some different elements of story, which could be used as central themes around which whole campaigns are built, or as just one of many ingredients in the mix.

• Mystery - Mysteries often involve some tragedy or heinous act which serves as a catalyst for the PCs to step in and try to piece together what happened and why. Mysteries focus a lot on the Mental and Social Attributes as characters interview witnesses, experts, and suspects.

• Horror - Mystery often works well with horror. Horror revolves around something disturbing. This could be something as simple as a rampaging mutant beast who tears through the countryside, brutally murdering the townsfolk, or as devious as a human being who has sunk to the lowest depths of depravity and psychosis. Horror stories should instill fear and paranoia, and as such deal greatly with Spirit Attributes.

• Action - These stories are fast paced, and all about characters who hack and slash their way into the dungeon, rescue the damsels, stick it to the bad guy, and make off with the loot. They require less thought about character personality than other types and raise less questions for the players to consider besides "how do we kill this monster?" Action stories are heavily oriented with combat.

• Intrigue - Intrigue is all about social maneuvering, political treachery, and false-facing. Here, the characters deal withe lineages, alliances and grudges, and imperialism.

Scope

• Epic
• Simple
• Something in between

The Delve

A delve is any part of an adventure in which the characters enter into a closed, dangerous area with the intent of investigating and searching. Often, the characters will have a specific notion of what they are looking for, but sometimes delves happen by accident or with little foreknowledge. Characters can delve into dungeons, caves, cemeteries, ruins, dense woods, cities, homes, or highly guarded palaces.

Point A to Point B

If the players aren't given at least the possibility of traveling to new places, meeting new NPCs, and exploring new mysteries, they will feel trapped. Players who feel trapped will give their GM hell and may lose interest in the game. So give your players options.

But how to get them there? Ah, well, if you have a map of your world handy, you can give your players an idea of the expanse of the world around the characters. If you have a map of the city or town where the PCs usually hang out, they will have a good idea of the environs.

Character Progression

Over the course of a campaign, your character will evolve dramatically. Each session, you will earn Expoints, which you can spend or save as you see fit. Chances are, however, that after a while, you may end up with quite a different character than you started with.

Expoints

As long as you show up and play the game, you get an Expoint to spend on your character, maybe more. Over time, you'll amass a great deal of these. Spend them wisely. Once spent, they can't be unspent.

Personality

Character personality can change drastically or not at all over a campaign, depending on how he or she reacts to the events of the story. When Cyrilla sees her own sister in the service of Aelfin, the evil sorceror, she may become cynical, or slothful, or unhinged. Meanwhile if Akare, who has never before known the joy of doing a good deed, saves an entire town from peril and is hoisted on their shoulders as a hero, well, his personality might shift from selfish and callous to helpful and proud. He might still be a grinning, arrogant trickster, but he has discovered a love of swashbuckling heroism. It's about evolution. It has been said that a character's actions are not nearly as telling as a character's reactions. How a character reacts is largely up to you. So think about this as you play. Personality is a roleplaying tool, and a guide, but not a rule.

Faults

While Faults are typically something most players opt for at character creation, there is nothing to say that a player can't come up with a good reason as to why his or her character might develop a new one on the road to adventure. There is one prerequisite for the selection of a mid-adventure Fault, however: that aforementioned good reason. According to common sense, here are some rules which are best followed.

• Players cannot choose Faults for which they already suffer the effects. This means that if Nox loses his arm in a climactic battle with the story's main villain, Dusty cannot give Nox the One Arm Fault. The loss of the arm happened during the course of gaming, not character building, and so, Nox has to tough out having one arm without receiving any Expoints for it. Faults are essentially chances for the player to challenge him or herself in the playing of a complex character. The things that happen during the game are challenges the GM levels at you. There is a difference in how they are handled.

• Players must gain a GM's permission before applying a Trump or Fault to their character. Sometimes players will want to give a character a ridiculously inappropriate power or trait in the the middle of a story. Jon can't choose to give Akare the Obese Fault while the characters are preparing for a raid on Aelfin's hideout. Akare can't just spontaneously become morbidly obese without a reason. Nor could Tim give his character Drinnin the Mounted Smite Trump if Drinnin has never ridden a horse. These kinds of things put a strain on the flow of the story and can sometimes bring it to a halt altogether. The idea behind the game is to create a story. So the golden rule is this: "First, ask the GM."

• If, over the course of an adventure, you find that one or more of the Faults chosen earlier are severely impeding the story or your enjoyment of the game, talk to your GM. A good rule to use is that if a player tires of the impairment of a certain Fault, if he or she spends as many Expoints as the Fault is worth on eliminating the Fault, the conditions of it will no longer apply. For instance, if Brian decides that his character Phineas' Peacemaker Fault is severely holding his fellow characters back and placing them in jeopardy, Brian can approach the GM with the idea of buying it back. He might give as a reason that the near death of Deidre's character Cyrilla during the party's last encounter with a fearsome Ice-worm made Phineas rethink his pacifistic ways. Brian should roleplay this inner conflict out in character and it might take a few more encounters like this to shake his non-confrontational ways, but in an instance like this, the GM might allow Brian to spend 6 Expoints to negate the Fault. There are also situations where this is totally inappropriate. If Dusty's character Nox has vowed never to harm a woman as part of his knightly code, but he knows the next mission is to sneak into the temple of a band of ultra-violent, man-hating amazons, he can't just use Expoints to abandon his Code Fault. The Code is part and parcel to his character concept and Dusty shouldn't be able to just drop it because it is inconvenient for the mission. In Brian's example, he is approaching his problem with regards to his fellow players and is roleplaying the issue out through Phineas' eyes. In Dusty's example, Nox has no good reason to abandon his sacred vows, it is simply something Dusty wants in order to kick some butt. Well, tough cookies man. Looks like Nox will have to play a different role than combat brute in the mission. Good GMs will know when it is appropriate to let a character backtrack on their character's progression. If in doubt, refer to the golden rule.

Keeping these in mind, it is still a good idea to think about Trumps and Faults as your character progresses.