The Laws of Mastery: in-fiction skill modifiers + a character class generator + 6 modern fantasy classes (& you can have it all!)

thee Dave Mckean

had this rolling around in my brain. let it slip out, now it's sliding around here. been thinking about tools to generate game settings; this one's a way to create character classes/societal roles

the skills are fairly setting agnostic but you could make your own list entirely. the "learn a skill" list contains the weapon skills too but i made a dedicated weapon skill button in case your games lean more fight-y. if a character has a skill, it's assumed that they're extremely good at it. if you get it twice, reroll it! no incremental modifiers!

the boons improve a skill as follows

Unmatched - Anything theoretically accomplishable with a traditional use of this skill can be done by the user

Uncanny - The user can ignore 1 chosen requirement of performing this skill (gunshots could make no sound, a sword could cut without being drawn, a lock could be picked without picks).

Unstoppable - This skill can always be performed, regardless of the condition of the user

Conjuration - This skill can be used to mystically create 1 chosen thing

Manipulation - This skill can be used to mystically shape/move 1 chosen thing

Divination - This skill can be used to mystically reveal an answer to questions about 1 chosen thing

Transmutation - This skill can be used to mystically change 1 chosen thing to 1 other chosen thing

Impossible - This skill can be used on 1 chosen impossible target (wind can be cut, hearts lockpicked)**

*all choices about Boons are made when the Boon is received. If it is received again, another choice can be added. 

**EDIT (4/28/23): I'm removing Impossible from the generator; in my experience it's led to the most mental block and overlaps too much with Uncanny, Conjuration and Manipulation. Feel free to still use it if you'd like!

a skill must have an equal number of boons and banes

the banes modify a skill as follows: 

Demanding - requires focus which can be easily broken
Situational- can only be used in certain environments or situations
Temperamental - can only be used while the user is experiencing certain emotional conditions
Conditional - can only be used while the user is experiencing certain physical conditions
Dependent - requires the aid of another
Unmistakable - user has some physical mark that is very difficult to hide and strongly hints at the nature of the skill
Unique Instrument - requires a specific, unique instrument or tool
Slow -  takes significant time to complete; if this is antithetical to the skill, the slowness takes the form of a mandatory "charge up" period
Limited - requires the use of a rare resource
High Maintenance - requires frequent repair or upkeep after use
Obsessive - user must suffer significant mental/physical harm* or repeat this skill once it resolves
Compulsive - user must use this skill twice a day or suffer significant mental/physical harm
Horrifying - the skill causes significant collateral mental harm
Destructive - the skill causes significant collateral physical collateral harm
Painful - causes significant physical harm to the user before it resolves
Wearying - causes significant physical harm to the user while it is resolving
Debilitating - causes significant physical harm to the user after it resolves
Stressful - causes significant mental harm to the doer before it resolves
Draining - causes significant mental harm to the doer while it is resolving
Disturbing - causes significant mental harm to the user after it resolves

 

* The harm done by ALL Banes causing harm requires recovery / treatment to remove. If ignored, it should become a permanent debilitation.

ALESSANDRO SICIOLDR

made a couple proof of concept classes; each class has 4 Skills: 2 unmodified, one with 1 boon/bane, one with 2. 

Snake-Eyed Lover

haunt dice halls and bars, adorning themselves with their winnings. impossible bodies sway and glide away from blows. flesh ephemeral but wonderfully real.  seductive when painted and perfumed. do not fright them; in panic, they rend at themselves, shredding their perfect skin, sending all who witness into mortal panic before fleeing impossibly quickly

Winning Games of Chance

Avoiding Strikes

Seducing Others (Unstoppable + High Maintenance)

Distance Running (Unstoppable + Conjuration (terror) + Debilitating + Temperamental (afraid))

Barstool Devil

talking to them is a trap; conversation flows more easily than with your loved ones. they'll give you their drugs, their booze. impossible to outdrink, out-smoke, snort, shoot them. leave before they offer their private stash. under its influence, you'll abandon your religion, your agenda, your values. even if they aren't present, their drugs carry their voice inside them; you hear it in your head, impossible to drown out. violence is worse, more perplexing. they cannot stand to have one stand earnestly against them; your blows are turned aside by endless gifts, materializing in their hands again and again as they beg with you to reconsider. It is not an easy thing for them; their bodies tremble with the weight of their good will, and even after you have gone they will remain, offering gifts to the empty air. 

Interrogating Others

Consuming Drugs

Indoctrinating Others (Impossible (narcotics) + Limited)

Deflecting Strikes (Unstoppable + Conjuration (rich gifts) + Obsessive + Wearying)

Gutter Gardener

tough, charismatic. the kind to smile through broken teeth and offer a hand to one who would as soon cut it off. charm extends to plants, though their language is a strain to speak: always want something. more sunlight, more water. more space to grow. they carry rare seeds of their own. plant them in the mouths of the filthy and forgotten dead. the addicts, the houseless who died while hundreds watched, wishing the wretch would find some hole to hide themselves in. turn those bodies into huge, vibrant gardens that uproot architecture, distort the city to make space for themselves. it's a calling, a compulsion. 

Absorbing Strikes

Inspiring Others

Bargaining With Others (Manipulation (Plants)  + Draining)

Growing Plants (Transmutation (corpses into plants) + Manipulation (architecture) + Limited + Compulsive)

Kitchen Ghoul

expert in appraisal; able to determine the quality and history of items by smell and taste alone. freakishly flexible, joints on a swivel, spring loaded sinews. their tongues are horrific; taste buds bulging like pustules. if they learn your taste they learn your qualities; their palate is attuned to good and evil as much as sweet and sour. when they cook, they use their own flesh. it hurts them, but they bear it. bind their wounds when the cutting is done. the meals they make are intoxicating, blissful. so long as their meat remains in your belly, you are theirs to puppet.

Identifying Items

Acrobatics

Determining Character (Unstoppable + Horrifying)

Making Food (Conjuration (bliss) + Manipulation (those who have eaten their cooking) + Painful + High Maintenance)

Crawlspace Chemist

Peerless and covert chemist, with eyes trained to determine the slightest discrepancy that might reveal tampering, counterfeit, false dealing, ambush. With effort, those eyes reveal more, laying bare structural imperfections, secret pits and cavities in the cities skeleton as blood-vessels spasm and burst. It is from those places that they were born, and always, always, they are called back. Floor and walls tremble and quiver near them, straining to split open and swallow them whole. Should they wish, they can give in to this call, allowing themselves to vanish into the vast interior spaces of the city, the eagerness of the embrace leaving ruin in their wake.

Making Drugs

Noticing Hidden Things

Spotting Weaknesses in Structures (Divination (Hiding Places) + Wearying)

Hiding in Place (Unstoppable + Manipulation (Structures) + Unmistakable + Destructive)

Grief Collector

Freaky fuckin sicko. kills people with a club made from the femur of some other person they killed, just to play bone flute at the funeral and craft jewelry from the grief of the mourners. Can trance out to leave their body and run in spirit form death-quick through walls. Need someone near their body though; someone to call them back so they aren't trapped forever in the cold, lonely hell they've damned their victims to. 

Wielding a Bludgeon

Playing Music

Crafting Jewelry (Impossible (grief) + Disturbing)

Freerunning (Unstoppable + Impossible (through walls) + Slow + Dependent)

Tomer Hanuka I do bee leave

in terms of classes made with this method in a setting, i think it'd be best to characterize your class options (the ones above, for example) as particular people, rather than representative of all characters of this trade. to mechanically support this, select different choices for the Boons of different characters of the same class. note that this is not "choose different boons" but rather, if one Gutter Gardener has "Growing Plants (Transmutation (Corpses into Plants)," let the other one have "(Transmutation (Concrete into Mud)" or something.  The Culinary Ghoul as presented to your players can use their cooking to manipulate those who eat it, but the Ghoul the players have just met is able to conjure and manipulate flame while cooking...  so long as they let themselves be burnt by it (Painful, remember?). You could also mess around with new Banes, or fuck it, new Boons entirely, though those tend to be more central to the conceit of the class. 

providing this (limited) freedom of choice to the players is obviously also a good way to allow multiple people to play Crawlspace Chemists or whatever without being mechanically identical. 

 i think this should be mandatory for more specific or playbook-y type character design; far too often, playbooks create a weird pseudo-superhero team-up feeling to the game that really bugs me and takes me out of imagining the game world as a place with real (fictional) weight (Spire, Heart, but I digress). 

not that those games don't allow for choice within the playbook; they definitely do, but the significant and weighty decisions are often gated until later stages of play, while the starting choices are often "choose 1 move from a list that all support an extremely similar archetype/concept" rather than "differentiate your character in a significant and unmistakable way that nevertheless still feels true to the thematic core of the concept" which is i guess what I hoped to do here. 

anyway, it seems like these classes are for some kind of urban fantasy thing? you can have it all if you want