Pace And Other Systems….. - Evil Hat Productions

ContentsPACE1: Introduction ...................................... 2What I Have In Mind ...................................2Influences....................................................2Thanks ........................................................22: Creating Characters .......................... 3Choosing Descriptors ...................................3Example: Descriptor Pairs ................................3Rounding It Out...........................................4Looking At What You’ve Got ........................43: Characters in Action.......................... 5You’re Good At What You Do.......................5Example: Basic Success Mechanics...................5Example: No Descriptor Applies .......................5What a Success Means ................................5Example: Awning Acrobatics............................5Character Against Character ........................6Example: Roderigo vs. Draco ...........................6Combining Efforts........................................7Margins of Success ......................................7Losing .........................................................8Example: Dracos Wound ................................8Blots .........................................................11Example: Roderigos Consequences ................12Timing and Contests ..................................12Example: Roderigo & the Counts Men, Take 2 .12The Ebb and Flow of Pips...........................13Example: Now Youve Made Me Mad ............135: Concerns for the GM ....................... 14Players and Their Pips ...............................14Notions of Advancement............................14Non-Player Characters...............................14To Fiat or Not To Fiat..................................16Example: The Cliffhanger...............................16Sizing Your Adventure ...............................16Example: Setting Up the Count .......................17Appendix: Pace and Other Systems ..... 18Dice Pools .................................................18Fudge .......................................................18Additive Systems .......................................18Roll Under Systems ....................................184: Pips .................................................. 9Physical Representation ...............................9Spending Pips .............................................9Getting Pips ................................................9Example: Roderigos Embarrassment .................9Failure Cards.............................................10Example: Roderigos Embarrassment (Continued) .10Using Negative Descriptors ........................10Example: BTR-FNGRZ-3 .................................11Deficit Spending ........................................11Example: Roderigos Predicament ...................11This document, entitled “Pace”, is © 2003 by Fred Hicks and Evil Hat ProductionsImages provided by ClipArt.Com and IStockPhoto.Com1

1: IntroductionPace is a 24 Hour Game, which means it wasstarted with the intention of writing a 24 pageRPG inside of 24 contiguous hours. In this, it hasa strong relationship to the National Novel WritingMonth (NaNoWriMo), in that the intention isto crank out a work without looking back at anypoint, without pausing and wondering if youredoing it right. The point is to get the ideas outof your head and onto the page. This game willdoubtless reflect the warts of such an approach;one hopes it also has a shot at reflecting thebeauty.If youre interested in learning more about the24 Hour Game concept, it was kicked off in thisthread on the Forge:http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=5951This is a revised version of what was originallyproduced in that 24-hour experiment.What I Have In MindPace will be a diceless game of resource allocation,where the choices a player or GM makes toresolve a situation involve spending pips to geta result rather than rolling dice.It will also focus on very, very lightweight charactersheets. Ive named the game Pace becauseIm particularly concerned with the game runningquickly when played, despite there being a touchof bookkeeping to it in the form of the pips. Thecomplexity of spending the pips, too, should bekept as basic as possible.Ultimately, this means I intend Pace to be a gamethat gets out of the way of the story. This placessome burden back on the players and the GM,though, to cooperate, to trust one another, and toexercise a certain amount of get-on-with-it impatiencein a context of keeping things fun. If adetail in the system is a hang-up for you, ignore it.If an actions cost doesnt look right or isnt, dare Isay the dread word, balanced, change it.PACE2At any rate, this is probably the last time Ill saysuch things, so there they are, take em or leaveem.On with the show.InfluencesAlways worth mentioning. They are: Risus Over the Edge Amber Diceless Fudge What little I know about Nobilis, the newMarvel Supers game, Theatrix, and a bunch ofothers.The degree to which these fellows show up in thetext is entirely by chance, however. They just happento be the game systems I most fancy today.ThanksMuch thanks for this goes to my usual partner incrime, Rob Donoghue, who helped to plant thevestiges of the seed that grew into this game.Additional thanks doubtless go to the indierpgs.comcommunity, without whom I would probablystill be procrastinating on getting this puppydone.

2: Creating CharactersChoosing DescriptorsCharacters are built simply, using a pair ofdescriptors. One of them should be a noun, butthe other can be whatever seems to pair up well.Sometimes a single descriptor may be made ofmultiple words, but this should be avoided if possible.If it does happen, though, hyphenate thedescriptor to make it clear. Alliteration can befun, but is not required.Example: Descriptor Pairs Dashing Duellist Swashbuckling Pirate Dwarven Drummer Wisecracking Space-Pilot Warrior Poet Butterfingers Robot Zen Bounty-HunterNegative descriptors (such as butterfingers) maybe allowed or disallowed as suits the sensibilitiesof the game. Their use is covered specifically inchapter 4.Descriptors are then rated with numbers. The GMshould determine what the characters total levelshould be in this regard (picking an odd numberis best). Truly, it can be anything, but seven is anice, solid number, and its what well be usinghere.The higher a descriptor is rated, the more potent itis. No descriptor may be rated at zero. For example,our Dashing Duellist could be Dashing[1]Duellist[6], all the way through Dashing[6] Duellist[1].The former is only a little dashing but ishell on toast with a sword. The latter knows howto use a sword, but really shines when it comes toturning on the charm and looking heroic.GMs may wish to offer a broadly talentedcharacter option where someone gets to use threePACE3descriptors instead of two (Cowboy Ninja Diplomat).Also, under such an option, the samenumber of points will be available for distributionamong the descriptors, so these broad characterswill also tend to have lower ratings in eachindividual descriptor:Cowboy[2] Ninja[3] Diplomat[2]

Rounding It OutThe usual character gimmicks of equipment,wealth, contacts, and so on are really relegatedto color or otherwise subsumed by the chosendescriptors for the character. If it makes sensefor a Dashing Duellist to have a sword, he has asword. When these sorts of judgement calls aremade during game time, you may wish to writethem down so the decision remains consistent asthings progress.Looking At What You’ve GotUltimately, the ratings in the descriptors are thetools with which the character assails the gameworld. The specific mechanics will be coveredmore in later chapters. However, it is useful tokeep, at the least, the following in mind:1. Youll probably get more mileage out of amore balanced pair (3 and 4) than a spikedpair (1 and 6). This is to some extent commonPACEsense, as its a form of the all eggs, one basketprinciple. All the same, the potency gainedby having a 2-and-5 character can really payoff when the chips are down.2. Youll probably want to define your descriptorsbroadly enough that youll be able to covera number of actions with them, but narrowlyenough that you dont end up stepping on thetoes of other players schticks. Regardless,enough focus should be there that the term chosenhas some amount of evocativeness to it andeasily implies its scope of action.3. If youre called upon to do something that isnot clearly covered by one of your descriptors,youll end up limited by whatever your lowestrating is. See what I meant about eggs andbaskets?4

3: Characters in ActionYou’re Good At What You DoIts an important thing to remember. Your characteris good at what he does. What he doesis indicated by his descriptors. So it would followthat, all things being equal, if your characteris doing something covered by a descriptor, heshould succeed, right?In Pace, he does.Heres how it works. Your character is calledupon to do something, or you say you want to trysomething and the GM gives you the go-ahead.You pick a descriptor, and explain how it applies.If that makes sense to the folks involved (usuallyyou and the GM), then its what we call theactive descriptor for the moment.And then, you succeed using your active descriptor.Its a pretty basic success, and is basically a1 in terms of giving it a number (one success).You can increase that number, and thus the degreeto which you succeed, by up to the rating ofyour descriptor (if you have a 3 rating, you canincrease your success by 3 to a total of 4). Thiscosts you one pip per point (well talk moreabout pips later on).Example: Basic Success MechanicsRoderigo, our Dashing[3] Duellist[4], is ona balcony and fighting for his life. Hes outnumbered,and decides it is time to make anescape. He says he wants to leap over the balconyand land on the awning of a shop below,and that this is the sort of thing a Dashing fellowlike himself would do. The GM agrees.PACE5Roderigo wants his landing to go as smoothlyas possible, so he decides to spend somepips on his success. Hes already got a basicsuccess of 1, since his descriptor of Dashingapplies. He can spend up to three pips to takethat up to a 4, which is his limit since thats hisDashing rating. He spends the two, and executesthe maneuver with a Dashing display ofdynamic derring-do.If no descriptor applies, then the character fails(a zero). This can still be bought up to a success,however, but it cannot be bought up any higherthan the lowest rated descriptor your characterhas.Example: No Descriptor AppliesRoderigos companion, Emile, has sprainedher ankle during an ill-advised attempt to duplicateRoderigos awning acrobatics. Roderigowants to set Emiles ankle so she doesnt makeit worse, and so they can keep on the move.He tries to make the case that as a Duellist heknows some first aid, but the GM isnt buying it.No descriptor applies, so at the get-go,Roderigo fails. He still has a few pips he canspend, however, but can only spare one for thistask. He buys his zero up to a one for a basicsuccess, and binds Emiles ankle enough for herto stand, but not enough for her to walk all thatquickly.What a Success MeansDegrees of success should be handled fluidly andquickly. As such, I am not providing a table thattells you what each level of success translates to.Suffice it to say, a single success (a 1) is justa basic, no-frills success. Each step beyond thatadds a bit more flair. Around 2 or 3 youre lookingat someone whos expert. Beyond that, youregetting into the realm of heroic action.Example: Awning AcrobaticsLets go back to the moment of Roderigos leapfor his life.If Roderigo had left things at a 1, hed haveleapt and landed on the awning, but withoutmuch grace, and hed have to spend some timerecovering and getting down off of the awning,and so on.

PACETaking it up to a 3, hes more liable to land aftera perfect somersault, and be able to dismountwithout much difficulty thereafter.Since hes gone that extra distance, to a 4, orif hed been able to take his successes evenhigher, he can land as described, then bounceoff the awning and down onto his feet on theground without so much as a mussed hair on hiswell-coiffed head.Character Against CharacterInevitably, you will have two characters competingdirectly against one another maybe theyrefencing, or in a race, or trying to track the samequarry. This is referred to as a contest, andboth sides are able to spend pips on their actions.In a contest, it is good and proper to compare thesuccess each character has bought, and declarethe one who has a greater success to be the winner.Naturally, if neither character has spent any pips,its going to be a tie, so deadlocks and draws willhappen. Then again, if neither is spending pips,neither character is really trying to beat the otherguy, at least not yet.Generally, it is up to the person with the higherrating to declare how many pips theyre investingfirst. But, if people can do it quickly and without6slowing down the pace of the game, a back-andforthexpenditure of one or more pips at a time (upto each characters maximum total) can heightenthe sense of tension about a contest. In such acase, the current loser can always call the conteston his turn, after spending pips (but he must stillbe the loser to do so).Example: Roderigo vs. DracoRoderigo is facing Draco in a duel. Roderigosusing his Duellist[4] descriptor, and Dracosplaying it Vicious[3]. Roderigo starts out by testinghis opponent, declaring he will invest threepips, giving him a total success of 4.This is Dracos maximum, and he knows it. Hecould take it to 4 as well, and force Roderigoto spend a final one, or he could save himself(and, unfortunately, Roderigo) a couple pipsand spend 2 and then call the contest at 4 vs 3.Still, its possible Roderigo wont want to spendthat final pip. A draw would certainly be favorableto a loss, even a minor one, so Dracodecides to gamble with it, and spends threepips to take his success up to its maximum of 4(1 + Vicious [3]).Roderigo really wants to teach Draco a lessonhere, though, so he responds by spending afinal pip, getting a 5 vs Dracos 4. Both contestantsare at their maximum, so the contest iscalled and resolved on this result.

Contests should not be taken lightly. Each testamong characters should be regarded as a significantmoment in the playing of the story. Conteststhat represent combat should not break downinto blow-by-blow action; they may, at the most,occupy three or four contests, and then be done.Much the same is true of things outside of combatas well, but in such cases, this mode of playis more normal, vis á vis how it is handled inother RPGs. So mainly what Im saying here isthat combat isnt any different, in Pace, than thingswhich are not combat.Combining EffortsSometimes PCs or NPCs will want to combine theirefforts in order to overcome an obstacle. Thereare several options for how to do this.The first method is going by simple numbers (outnumberingor mobbing the opponent). Eachcharacter, if acting in the scope of a descriptor,may contribute the single automatic success to acommon result pool, but may not spend pips. Ineffect, you count the number of people involved,and thats how many successes are gained. Thisis a popular minion tactic throw four guardsmenat the hero, and theyre combining for foursuccesses.The other tactic involves watching each othersbacks and compensating for weaknesses whileaccenting the greatest strength (using teamwork).One character is selected as the leadand chooses the descriptor that applies. The restare acting in a support role. If you are in a supportrole and may do any of the following, providingyou can describe the actions and events thatare taking place to make it possible: Spend pips to remove blots (see the next chapter),one pip per blot, on any character involvedin the teamwork effort, other than yourself. Spend pips to remove failure cards (see thenext chapter), paying a number of pips equalto the number on the card, on any characterPACE7involved in the teamwork effort, other than yourself. Spend a pip to give the lead access to one ofyour descriptors.Support characters cannot spend pips to buysuccesses for the lead, however. Thats the leadsjob.All this said, there is a downside everyonesblots and failure cards may apply to the leadsefforts.The mutual buy-offs aspect of a teamwork tacticis there to counter that. Thus, when characterscome together as a team, it has a tendency towipe the slate clean at a cost. Such momentsare the only way that players can effectivelyshare their pips.Margins of SuccessWhen doing a contest that doesnt end in a tie,youll be able to gauge how much the winner wonby. This is a margin of success, and can easilybe converted into a narrative result by viewing themargin as a success-result of its own.That is to say, if you beat someone else by one,then the margin is basic, and the consequenceinflicted upon the loser is minor but palpable. Amargin of two or three indicates something majoris afoot, and beyond that the losers predicamentis dire indeed.Again, no hard and fast guidelines are going tobe provided here, because how this plays out isvery much something which should be done to thetaste of your play-group. If youre playing a gameof armed conflict where life is cheap, then peopleprobably start dying around a margin of three. Ifyoure a bunch of martial arts action heroes outof an anime epic, ultimate defeat may come ata much higher margin, or may require multiplelosses.Such notions should be spelled out as clearly aspossible near to the start of a game.

LosingPACEIf a character loses, it is incumbent upon thecharacters player (or the GM in the case of anNPC) to describe the loss in keeping with themargin by which he was beaten, and to the satisfactionof the winning party. A third party shouldbe brought in if the winning party is implacable,but really, nobody likes a sore winner, so victorsare encouraged to play along in the spirit of thegame.Example: Draco’s WoundRoderigo has beaten Draco by a margin of one,which, luckily for Draco, indicates only a minorconsequence. Since this is not a duel to thedeath, Draco declares that Roderigo scores afirst blood hit to his shoulder.Roderigo counters that he was trying to teachDraco a lesson, and wanted to give him a scaron his cheek for his trouble.Draco protests that Roderigos success wasonly a basic one, and that something like ascar would be a more drastic consequence, asreputation and appearance play important rolesin the story.Roderigo considers and ultimately agrees,accepting Dracos shoulder wound as a fairresult.The effects of a loss are not represented mechanically(unless player-elected and severe see thenext chapter), but if it suits the tastes of the playgroupinvolved, some house rules may be introducedto track wounds or whatever suits you.When cooking up such house rules, be carefulabout applying too much in the form of penalties.Pips should not be stripped from a playeras a consequence of loss, either if they lostbecause they elected not to spend pips and savethem instead, those savings shouldnt be challenged.You may wish to instead consider reducingthe rating of a descriptor by one when awound is inflicted, or potentially more potently,reduce the zero cost success level for a characterby one for each major wound received (where8one wound would lead to starting at -1 for a nodescriptorsituation, and 0 for descriptors).Remember, though, that these are options, notcore rules. If youd rather handle your consequencesin a purely narrative fashion, you should!Its the default.Players may choose to lose and, in fact, maychoose to lose more drastically than usual, inexchange for pips. But thats covered in the nextchapter.

4: PipsPhysical RepresentationEvery player and the GM has their own pool ofpips (which may be empty at the start, or not,depending on how things are set up). This poolshould be reasonably visible to the other playersand to the GM, so a physical representation of thepools is in order.Assuming youre gaming around a table, thereshould be a bowl on the table that unallocatedpips go into. Players should be seated in sucha way that their pool is clearly visible in front ofthem.What you choose to represent a pip is really upto you, past that point. Glass beads are certainlyfacile, and since theyre difficult to stack its a littleeasier to tell at a glance how many there are. Ifthe stacking thing doesnt bother you, coins area good option something to do with all thosepennies you have lying around. Or you could usepoker chips. Foodstuffs such as candies are reallynot recommended, since some players will tend toeat their pips rather than spend them on the game.You could also use dice, if you wanted, since youwont be using them otherwise in this game.Spending PipsThis has already been covered to a great extent inthe prior chapter.In summary, pips are spent to increase the levelof success from its starting point. If an action iscovered by a descriptor, it starts at 1, and if not, itstarts at zero. 1 and above are considered successful.Some GMs may wish to allow the expenditure ofpips for non-descriptor-focused effects, like arrangingfor minor coincidences to occur in the storyline,or to invent new facts (Yeah, I know a guyin that part of town, let me see if I can track himdown and ask him about the headless ghost wevePACE9been hearing about.) so long as the facts dontstep on toes or run afoul of something already inmotion.Further, if your game has characters with specialpowers, you may want to assess a starting pipcost to use the more potent abilities of those powers.A Pyromancer might be able to light campfiresjust fine, but to throw a fireball it will probablycost a pip just to get started.Using the physical set-up we talked about above,spent pips go into the bowl in the middle of thetable.Getting PipsPlayers can acquire pips in a few ways.The primary means is by choosing to fail that isto say, by selling off their successes. You can sellyour level of success down as far as -3, gainingone pip for every level you drop. Negative-resultfailures carry consequences with them, though, inthe form of failure cards (see below).This operates more or less like successes inreverse. Things start with zero as a basic failure,and progress naturally towards -3 as a catastrophicfailure. -3 is the practical limit, granting4 pips where a descriptor applies, and 3 whereno descriptor applies.Example: Roderigo’s EmbarrassmentRoderigo is Dashing[3], and is trying to impressa lady hes been following around town. Hedecides he could use some pips, as his supply isrunning low, so he goes for a backfire, decidingthat his usual success of 1 should instead be asignificant failure a -1. He and the GM workout the details, and Roderigo walks away with2 pips and a handprint reddening the side ofhis face.This should not be allowed to be done haphazardly.It has to be proper for a determination to

e made; if the GM wouldnt be calling on you topick a descriptor to resolve an action in the circumstance,you are not allowed to simply decideits time to get your pips all the same. That said,this is usually not a problem in playgroups whererules are not targetted for abuse.PACEphrase) and hands it back to the player, who mustdisplay the card prominently in front of him.As the game progresses, the failure cards numberreduces the number of successes produced wheneverit seems appropriate for it to apply.Similarly, the player is not allowed to createan internal conflict where two or more of hisdescriptors are driving him in different directions,and are thus in contest against one another, allowingone of the descriptorsto be sold down to failagainst the other. Thatsan abuse.Another means of acquiringpips is as simplereward from the GM either to representgood play, an award forachieving a particulargoal, or just for makingfolks laugh.As a rule, players cannotgive pips to one anotherand, furthermore, lameplayer-to-player conflictfor the simple purpose ofdriving up their mutual pippools is frowned upon.Good player-to-playerconflict may be valid,however, so long as itsgiven the same kind ofattention and tension asany conflict with an NPC.Failure CardsSelling your successes down to a negative numberalways has some lingering consequences, manifestingas failure cards. Whenever a playertakes a negative-number failure, he writes thenumber on an index card and hands it to the GM.The GM, in turn, writes a description (descriptor-like,it should be a single word or hyphenatedIf the GM and player agree the consequencerepresented by the card has played itself out, thecard may be removed. Other possibilities includedeciding that failure cards only remain in play fora given number of scenesor invocations, andsome GMs may allowplayers to buy a failurecard off by spending anumber of pips equal tothe failure number lateron.DescriptorsExample: Roderigo’sEmbarrassment (Continued)In the previous example,Roderigo took a significantfailure of -1. Hisplayer hands the GM acard with a -1 on it. TheGM writes Bad-Reputationon it and hands itback. For the rest of theday, the ladys friends seeto it that Roderigos effortsto be Dashing[3] with theladies are reduced by onesuccess.Using NegativeIn some cases, a character may have a negativedescriptor attached to them (not the same as afailure card!). This is the case with our ButterfingersRobot from the second chapter. Such descriptorscan be looked at as pip generators, if the GMallows them in her game.10

Negative descriptors default to producing a simplefailure, a zero result. If the descriptor is chosen asthe active descriptor, then, it automatically grantsa number of pips equal to its rating, and can besold down from there.Example: BTR-FNGRZ-3Our Butterfingers[3] Robot[4] is running froma troop of imperial marines. He has managedto pick up a gun but is more than a little scaredof using it. But hes been pinned down, and itstime to try.His player doesnt see him getting a successfulshot off, and decides that for humor value,things should go really spectacularly badly.He sells down to a -3 result, and gets a totalof 6 pips for his trouble. In the narration thatfollows, our poor robot manages to shoot hisown leg off (justifying a Failure Card that readsOne-Legged: -3).Oh heavens! he exclaims, Were doomed!On rare occasions, a negative descriptor maybe used for the expenditure of pips if the ultimateeffect is a positive one. In the case of our Butterfingersfella, he might bumble in such a way thatknocks a set of controls that drops a crate on thebad guy. This is entirely appropriate, but the successeswill have to be bought starting from zero,not one.Deficit SpendingBoth the players and the GM may go into deficitspending when using pips. Thats right youarent limited by the number of pips you have inyour pool.As a player, if you have no pips left and you needto spend a few more, you can put a pip from thebowl into the GMs pool for each pip you need.Example: Roderigo’s PredicamentRoderigo is outnumbered and low on pips. TheCounts men are advancing, and Roderigoneeds to draw on all of his knowledge as aDuellist[4] to face them down. He has one pip,PACE11and he spends it to bring himself to a successof 2. Each of the three men will be getting onesuccess apiece and will probably be workingtogether in a simple outnumbering move, for atotal of three, so he knows it wont be enough.He needs at least another two!Wincing at whats in store for the future,Roderigo puts two pips from the bowl into theGMs pool. That adds another two spent pipsto his result, for a total success of four.Its enough for him to beat the Counts men back for now.Similarly, if the GM is out of pips, he can put pipsinto the players pools. Usually which player thepips should go to is obvious its the one whois directly involved in the circumstance where thepips are being spent. If theres more than oneplayer involved, though, then in general, the pipsshould go to the one with the lowest total. If tied,the pips should be split as evenly as possible.In player against player contests, the pips goto the other player, rather than to the GM. Thisshould not be done in an abusive fashion, wherethe players get into contests against one anothersolely to generate pips for later use against theGM.If this is occurring, the GM is free to rule that thepips gained in such a fashion may only be spentin player against player conflict!BlotsEvery time (per contest or other exchange) youdeficit spend regardless of how many pips youacquire you also acquire a blot.Blots should be represented by something obviousand different from the pip counters finger puppetmonsters, for example.When you take on a blot, you put it on the tablein front of you, next to your pool of pips. You mayhave more than one blot at a time.

Whenever you get into a contest and you haveblots on your character, the opposition may opt toremove blots from you, forcing you to fail (withoutcompensation in pips). Each blot removed makesyour failure worse by one (the first one gives youa -1 failure). Since the maximum failure is -3, onlythree blots may be removed at a time.Example: Roderigo’s ConsequencesRoderigo has had one incident of deficit spendingso far, and as such has acquired one blot.Ahead, the Counts men are barring a door.Roderigo declares hes racing for the door tostop them. The GM looks at the blot sitting inPACEfront of Roderigo and shakes her head. Yourejust too winded from taking on those four men.She removes the blot from in front of Roderigo.You get a -1 failure, she concludes, and giveshim a failure card that reads Winded: -1.Roderigo has paid a palpable price for his earlieractions but on the other hand, hes still onhis feet, and those four men arent.Timing and ContestsSpending pips in a contest isnt too much of aproblem when both participants have availablepips and arent going into deficit spending tocover the circumstances.But what happens when, for example, a playersPC and a GMs NPC go head-to-head, and somedeficit spending occurs? Isnt one person fundingthe others opposition of him?This is a very real concern. The solution is toput the pips generated by the deficit spending inescrow until the contest is resolved (or until thescene is resolved, if multiple contests are in storeand that suits all involved). By this, I mean that thepips that are to be owed to the players or the GMare set aside into a fund which is then passed onto the appropriate party once the contest has beenresolved.Example: Roderigo & the Count’s Men, Take 2Roderigo is facing the Counts men, as before,and has gone 2 into deficit spending in order tocover his success of 4. The GM does not haveany pips left either, but doesnt wish to buy upthe Counts lackeys successes anyway.Roderigo holds the two pips for the GM inescrow until the contest is resolved, whichcomes down to his success of 4 vs theirs of 3,and beats them enough to make his retreat.He then passes the 2 pips for the GM into theGMs pool. Roderigo still has no pips, and theGM now has 2.12

The Ebb and Flow of PipsPACEDeficit spending introduces an interesting sort oftidal force to the flow of pips over the course of agame.If both players and GM start out with few or nopips, then one or both are liable to take actionsearly on that end up in failure, in order to boostthose pips for themselves, or will come out strongwith a lot of deficit spending, only to find that theopposition has gotten piled deep in pips and isnow turning the tables.This is entirely intentional, and when its workingright, it should echo some of the familiar plotlinesof popular fiction.Example: Now You’ve Made Me MadRoderigo starts an adventure without any pips.Early on, he runs afoul of the Count and hismen, and allows for a number of failures inorder to build up his supply of pips.The Count and his men continue to houndRoderigo through several scenes, and Roderigoconserves the pips he gains where he can.Finally, Roderigo reaches his breaking pointand expresses his displeasure with the Countsmen at the tip of his sword, spending the pipshe has accumulated over the course of theadventure. Hes gunning for his nemesis hard,and goes into deficit spending to drive towardshis goal.Ultimately, however, the deficit spending puts afew pips into the GMs coffers, who uses themto give the Count a successful getaway in the11th hour.Roderigo has defeated his enemy, and isspent in several senses of the word. Hisenemy, his resources depleted, has vanished toreturn another day.13

5: Concerns for the GMPlayers and Their PipsPips are a pretty powerful resource, and the playersusually have the means to provide themselveswith them as needed.Encourage deficit spending; sure, any healthilyparanoid player will look at you with suspicion,but they should also know that youll make a goodstory for them with those pips in your hands.Dont be afraid to do deficit spending yourself.The mechanic is there so your villains can succeedwhere they need to, even if it ends up leavingthe heroes in a stronger position. Do beafraid to overdo it, though; if you deficit spendoften enough to consistently undercut the playersexpenditures of real pips, youll probably endup generating some resentment.PACEIn the meantime, if youre looking for something toreward your players with from session to session,pips are your answer. Keep the awards small allthe same; a few extra pips in the hand can makea big psychological difference in terms of whethera player decides to spend or conserve.Non-Player CharactersThere are three fuzzy categories of NPCs outthere, mainly in terms relative to the PCs.Lackeys and mooks will tend to have descriptorratings that are at least one or two shy of the bestof the PCs. At the least, this guarantees that thePCs can fairly easily outclass them with minorexpenditures of pips. These NPCs may also oftenbe thinly characterized, with only a single descriptorto their name (City-Guard[2]).If youre giving players pips outside of a deficitscenario, be sure you know exactly why maybeyoure planning on this adventure being tougherthan usual (some guidelines on that below), ormaybe they overcame a challenge particularlyhandily and should be getting rewarded for that.My main point being, dont do it willy-nilly. Pipsare story power, and are best and most valued when earned.Notions of AdvancementAdmittedly, Pace is not a game rife with possibilitiesof advancement. The system is simple, thin,and has certain issues of granularity that couldmake for problems when trying to give out experience.Characters should gain potency in their descriptorsonly very slowly. If youre the kind of GM thatdivides her adventures up into story arcs spanningmultiple sessions, then its at the conclusion ofthose arcs that PCs should have the possibility ofgaining a single point of potency.Generally they will come into a scene for a specificpurpose, and if they are called on to dosomething outside of that purpose, theyll likely failat it, since its unlikely their descriptor will coverit, and spending pips on them is a dubious investmentat best.The next category is made of those who are PCcompetitive, often referred to as named characters.Their total descriptor potency is about onpar with the PCs.To ensure that some differences of potential arepossible when these NPCs come into contests withyour PCs, you may wish to deliberately seek outa different distribution of potency in their descriptors.If you have a lot of spiked PCs (6 and 1, 5and 2), going for a balanced NPC (3 and 4)could be a good idea. The opposite is true aswell. If your PCs are a mix, thats fine thinkabout which PCs your NPC is liable to come intostrongest conflict with, and make his descriptors aresponse to the PCs.14

PACEThen the final category are those who are PCsuperior. These are the Big Bads of the adventure,the Boss Monsters at the end of the level.Theyll cost a lot of pips for the GM to fuel intothose truly titanic terrors, but theyll also take a lotof pips out of the PCs in their efforts to take emon.Theyre liable to get ganged up on fast so thePCs can combine their successes, so when youregiving them descriptors (feel free to go for three),make sure theyre competitive with the combinedpotency of any two or three of your PCs (dependingon the size of the group).For more on how to size your NPCs, read theSizing Your Adventure section in this chapter.15

To Fiat or Not To FiatOne of the essential dilemmas for a diceless GM(or a rules-light GM) is balancing the player-heldsense of fair play and decisionmaking against theneed or desire to declare (or mandate) a storyevent or circumstance.This is another place where the pip mechaniccan be your friend. Combine it with the overallconcept of the degree of success, and youve gota pretty good sense of how much it should costyou as a GM to declare so mote it be. And ifyoure going into a deficit to do it, all the better your players then get to walk away gettingpaid for the trouble youre causing them.As a rule, in the interests of fairness, its entirelyappropriate to decide that the GM should alwayspay pips in order to make anything of significancehappen. Or more simply: When in doubt, buy it.Minor stuff is much like a basic success, costingone or perhaps two pips. Major circumstancesshould hover around four. Global ones start atsix.Example: The CliffhangerThe group is about approaching their time limiton gaming for the evening, and the GM still hasa pile of ten pips on the table in front of himdue to a round of runaway deficit spending inthe eleventh hour. He decides to spend themin order to set up the circumstances for the nextsession.You are summoned before the king, he says,and drops two pips into the bowl to allow forthis particular fiat. He demands an explanationfor why you attacked the Count.The players make their explanations, but theGM responds with, The King is having none ofit, and drops another two pips into the bowl, tocover his determination of the Kings reaction.He declares you criminals and has youstripped of your weapons. The curtain closeswith you all being led off to the dungeon inchains pending trial. This last bit is huge, andPACE16changes a lot about the story thats to be told.It affects everyone fairly completely its aglobal circumstance in that regard, and thusthe final six pips the ones the players gavehim over the course of the big fight against thecount go into the bowl.Sizing Your AdventureConstructing an adventure peopled with appropriatelysized threats and challenges should be afairly easy exercise in Pace, since you can probablyfit everyones character sheets on a singleindex card (a practice I would recommend forgeneral GMing convenience).You should start out by doing some simple math.Whats the total potency of the party? Whatsthe average potency of their descriptors? Whatseach characters highest-rated descriptor?The numbers that come out of this can be used asguidelines for creating your NPCs (above). Further,the thinking that is described in To Fiat orNot To Fiat translates pretty well into a rubric forconstructing an adventure.As a general rule, an adventure built out of asmany pips as the players have potency will bepretty competitive. Consider each mook tobe a minor circumstance (costing 1 or 2), eachnamed character to be a major circumstance(costing 4), and the big bad to represent a good 6to 10 of the pips by himself.If there are some non-NPC obstacles in the way,those should be rated as well. If the PCs have tostage an assault on a protected mountain fortress,thats a pretty major circumstance, and should costyou four.If you find you havent spent all your pips to constructthe adventure, fine; thats your starting poolas a GM. Similarly, if youve overspent, youvedone some deficit spending that should go into thepools of the players theyll need it.You may also wish to defer some of your deficitspending until certain elements come into play.

Say youve set up a final showdown at the endof the adventure. At that point, some additionalmooks come into play (4 for 4), as well as anamed sniper thats going to be hidden in thebalcony (4 for 1 named character), all boughton deficit as the rest of the adventure used up theusual allocation of pips. When that scene starts,you would hand out the 8 pips in deficit to theplayers, to bring your mooks and sniper into play.You can even take this a step further and simplyrate your scenes individually, rather than on awhole-adventure scale, and simply pay out of yourpool (or go into deficit) whenever a particularscene gets activated.Example: Setting Up the CountThe Count is a villain set up to oppose a partyof three brothersin-arms,Roderigo,Halifax, and Ulysses.They each have apotency of 7, for atotal of 21, so the GMtakes those 21 to doher design.He decides to takethe Count right off thetop, detailing him asa Well-Connected[5]Devious[6] Brute[4],a potency of 15 andwell-equipped totake on any two ofthe three brothers ina number of realms.The GM chargesherself 8 pips for theCount due to his widespreadcapacity formayhem. This leaves13 pips left to spend.She creates twonamed henchmen,Rogo and Togo, whoare each about on parwith one of the PCs.PACE17These cost her four apiece, taking her down to5 remaining pips.3 of those pips go into adding a few lackeysto the mix to send out with Rogo and/or Togowhen they go harrassing the brothers, and theremaining 2 are invested in representing thenotion that the Count has a clever plan in theworks that has already gotten past the first fewstages, putting our heroes on the clock.Looking at this, the GM decides to reservespending into deficit just yet, with the idea thatif it looks like more firepowers going to beneeded for the Count, she can cook up a fewmore mooks on the spot as play progresses.

PACEAppendix: Pace and Other SystemsSome of the concepts in Pace can be adaptedpretty easily to other game systems, bringingdicelessness where theres dicefulness. Here, Imgoing to talk about types most of the time, ratherthan specific systems. I figure youre talentedenough to walk the rest of the distance.Dice PoolsIn essence, this is what Pace really is, in disguise.If folks were rolling dice equal to the potency ofeach descriptor and counting up the successesfound, youd get something pretty close to howthings can function dicelessly (though with a somewhatsmaller assurance of getting single successresults).As such, itd be pretty easy to adopt the pipsnotion to another system that uses dice pools, simplyusing the pips to buy successes.One issue you may encounter mechanically isthat in Pace, your successes dont taper off infrequency towards the top if someones willingto spend the pips to go there, they go there. Ifyoure doing a die pool, however, the chances ofmany multiple successes on the same roll diminishas the probabilities aggregate.If youre going for a pips style dicelessness, then,you may want to either charge more for each successivesuccess bought, or blunt the effectivenessof higher margins of success relative to how theadapted system currently works.FudgeFudge is an interesting beast in the light of Pace, ifonly because its already dirt-simple to run it dicelessly you just dont roll the dice, and youvegot everything already operating at its centerweightedpoint.Here, you turn pips into Fudge Points (or viceversa,depending on your perspective), and whatyou are buying is not something based on the18trait, but based on how the dice usually function.That is to say, for spending no pips, you rolleda zero. On a single given roll, you can buy adie result right up to +4, or gain pips by selling itdown.This means highly skilled people will be able togain pips while still succeeding by consistentlylowballing their results, but thats not as much of aproblem as it might sound to be.Additive SystemsThese are pretty popular these days, thanks toa certain feat of licensing and marketing. Andtheyre very easy to adapt, especially using ourFudge-based guideline from above.Pick a midpoint on the die roll. Say, a 10 on ad20. Thats what you get for no pips. From there,you can buy results in steps of 2 (in a d20 basedsystem, bonuses tend to operate in increments of2 best other die types will have other, hopefullyobvious, breakpoints). You are limited to onlybeing able to buy or sell your result to what couldshow on the die.It does mean in some cases youll be spending farmore pips than you would in the baseline Pacesystem, but once the ratio there becomes apparent,it should be pretty easy to adapt the concepts.Roll Under SystemsVery similar to additive systems, roll under systemsinvolve your zero-cost being the midpoint of thedice (say, 11 on 3d6), and you buying your rolldown from that point (again, increments of 2 maywork well here).This means some skills are at the automaticsuccess point (those rated 11+), and others willrequire an expenditure to succeed at. This syncswith the idea of some of them being descriptortied skills and some of them not, just on a level ofgreater detail.