Pace And Other Systems….. - Evil Hat Productions

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