If you choose to follow this Idiom, you will portray your character with an eye toward his eventual, inevitable demise. Your character’s primary virtue is courage and steadfastness in the face of great adversity. His greatest hope is to meet a fitting end that will do honor to his heritage. As such, he admires those who stand in battle and continue the struggle even after all hope appears lost.
Your tragic character will start his career with the inheritance of an ancestral weapon whose form you will choose to fit your character concept. If you decide it is magical or made of unusual or exceptional materials then it will always start out broken, being handed down from some great hero in your lineage. You can have the weapon re-forged as soon as you find someone capable of restoring it to its original glory and are yourself able to afford the required fee. Alternately, you and your Game Master may decide to have your ancestral weapon be lost or stolen, ripe for re-acquisition when your character attains sufficient power to seek it. The important restriction here is that your character does not possess a weapon with capabilities far beyond his ability to master or retain. The ancestral weapon is not an endowment meant to elevate your character’s power far above the norm, but rather an interesting accessory intended to embellish your character’s persona.
Actions Affecting your Character’s Fate
A tragic hero will stand and fight no matter what the odds and will always revere his heritage. As such the following actions entitle a tragic hero to a roll to determine if his Fate increases by one point:
1) Battling courageously until his Hit Points fall to zero.
2) Doing some great honor to his ancestors, such as refusing to take permanent possession of a weapon of greater material worth than his ancestral one.
Role-Playing Patterns (Idiom) 139
Similarly, the following actions will force a tragic hero to make a roll to determine if his Fate decreases by one point:
1) Retreating from battle no matter what the reason. (This includes “backing up” after having been directly assaulted so that the character can shoot his bow from the “back line.” Tragic heroes handle their own melee affairs, thank you very much. Giving ground to draw an assailant along in order to gain some combat advantage is another thing entirely. Such actions incur no penalty.)
2) Dishonoring his ancestors in any way, such as failing to avenge any insult to his parentage or haggling too much over the price of re-forging his ancestral weapon.
When Fate Applies
If a tragic hero’s Fate is positive, it applies to the following:
1) All Attack Rolls when wielding his ancestral weapon.
2) All Attack and Defense rolls in any battle where he continues fighting after his Hit Points have fallen below ½ maximum or where a comrade has fallen at his side due to injuries.
If his Fate is negative, it applies to all the following:
1) All Attack Rolls when wielding a weapon other than a family heirloom.
2) Rolls where he is not in a desperate circumstance. That is, when his Hit Points are above ½ maximum and no comrade has fallen at his side due to injuries. Even so, a negative Fate will never apply to a character’s Attack rolls when wielding his ancestral weapon.
Known Uses
My Life with Master is a game where players portray deformed and unappreciated minions of Evil Masters. All characters have a “Love” attribute which players can raise by having their characters seek out and interact with their in-town “Connections” to demonstrate their inner humanity. The Idiom is crucial to the successful completion of the game, because accumulating enough Love is the only way a minion can disobey and overthrow his Master. The game ensures that every player has an equal number of opportunities to interact with Connections by keeping a fairly tight control over the sequence of scenes (see the Structured Story pattern), so all players have equal opportunities to raise their Love.
The Riddle of Steel has six “Spiritual Attributes” that follow the Idiom Trait pattern.
(See the description of The Riddle of Steel in the Game Summaries section for why these are traits rather than attributes according to the definitions in this book.) These traits are “Conscience”, “Destiny,” “Drive,” “Faith,” “Luck,” and “Passion.” Each of these has specific rules describing when the trait ranks are raised and lowered and for when and how the trait values are applied. Players have some control over the
applicability of Drive, Faith, and Passion. Destiny might also fall under player control, depending on the flexibility of the “Seneschal” (Game Master). In any case, Drive applies when seeking some player defined “higher purpose.” Faith deals with the character’s religious beliefs, which are detailed by the player. Passion describes some great personal love or hatred toward a specific person or entity that the player elects.
Passion applies when performing actions related to the beloved or despised subject.
Players draw from all six Spiritual Attributes to improve their abilities (see the Resource pattern). This all-important characteristic makes Spiritual Attributes even more of a central focus of the game. The only way to raise Spiritual Attribute values is to demonstrate them through role-play.
Sorcerer characters are powerful humans that summon and bind demons to their will.
The game gives each character a “Humanity” attribute that loosely follows the Idiom pattern. Exactly what Humanity represents is up to the gaming group, so players can explore various moral issues of their choosing. Humanity represents the very core of the game. “What are you willing to give up to get what you want?” Mechanically, Humanity is risked whenever demons are contacted, summoned, or bound and can be lost by inhumane acts (whatever the group decides constitutes inhumanity). If
Humanity drops to zero, the player loses control of the character. The attribute can be raised by banishing sufficiently powerful demons and by acting humane (again,
depending on the group’s definition of what constitutes humanity). But, the analysis of Humanity is complicated by the fact that it is also conflicted. High values are good sometimes, but low values are good at others. So, it is somewhat inaccurate to describe a bonus to Humanity as a reward, making any classification of it as an Idiom
problematic. Note that Humanity may also satisfy the Resource pattern, since it is gambled anytime a character contacts, summons, or binds a demon and gambling can be interpreted as a form of “spending.” But, that is also debatable since it can be argued that performing any of these acts is inhumane and therefore these kinds of gambles fall squarely under the Idiom pattern already.
Story Patterns (Endgame) 141