Destiny Play By Mail Gaming System

Character generation revolves around a life path. A rapid summary of character generation is given below, however this is only and over view and new players may find it confusing. If in doubt follow the links, they may not help but at least you will feel as if you are getting somewhere.

Important note: The term god in this text referes to the person controling the game, commenly called G.M. or Ref. I think the term god is more accurate!
For those of a nervously religious disposition G.O.D. stands for Great Ordainer of the Design.

The premise of the D.G.S. Character generation is this; All people are a product of their backgrounds. The events that effect your character, some of which may have actually happened before the character was born, all sum up to create the character you will play. Also there will be events in your characters future that will also infulence them and allow them to change.
In most game systems these two parts are separated into character generation and experinece. In D.G.S. they are essentially the same.
During character generation the player will define a number of incidents consisting of Events (Things that happened) and Changes (The result it had on the character.)
Some of these invidents will be defined as happening in the future. Such incidents do not have to be discribed in detail, but these incidents, which the god will weave into the adventure plot line, act as experience gained during the game. Via this mechanic the players may define as much as the plot as God, and players can be confident that their characters will have a influence on the world they are in.

It is important to note that when god reviews the character at the end of character creation he may suggest certain changes be made to bring the character into line with any plot line he has in mind, or to creat a common incident in the characters past so that the characters can all act as an established group. Such changes are open to negotiation, but players are asked to be open minded.

After all god does have a lot to do.

It is also suggested that after the first 'introductory' session the players and god review the character, and make any alterations that they think may be nessessary or helpful.

For example during roleplay two players, Sally and Frank, suggest that their characters were once lovers. During the post introduction review, suitable incidents can be tweeked to support this claim and show how characters influence each other in the past. Frank changes a college friend  to represent Sally's character, (an easy change to make as they are both 'encounter' changes) But Sally has not similar event. She could claim that instead of reciveing her 4x4 jeep as a 21st birthday gift (a rite of passage/ possession incident) she met Frank at her birthday party, or she can simply say that the affair didn't mean that much to the character, and leave franks character feeling lonely and rejected.
Such changes should be encouraged, but the tweeks should not effect incidents that have been refered to durring play.
From the example above, if Sally had given the party a lift in the 4x4 durring the game it could not mysteriously vanish, thus the poor sad Frank option is the only one left.
 
 

If after playing one adventure the god wishes to continue the campaign he should give the players a small extra number of incidents to buy (and possibly a new points total). The players then split these incidents as before, only some will represent events that took place in down time (i.e. between adventures) and some will became the basis of the next part of the campaign.

Life path

How this works...
 
• Your god will tell you how many incidents you can have; and incident is defined as an event and the changes it causes in the character. Default of ten gives workable characters.
• God will also tell you final points total you should aim for. Default of 50 seems Ok.
• Pick an event.
• Pick (a) relevent change(s) it could produce.
• Work out the combined cost of that incident.
• Pick the next event and replete above.
• Keep track of the total cost of the character.
• Once you have all the events you want/can have, check to total cost of the character. This equals the final cost god has given you  to aim for. If it isn't then you chould rework some of the events. Alternativly you can hand an unbalanced character to god and throw yourselves on their mercy(?)
• Distribute the incidents into future and past. For future incidents one of the event/out comes can be left vague, whilst for Past incidents all details must be defined.
• Hand the character to the god for approval. God can alter an unbalanced character. If he does this he should return the character to you with "Mystery Event = (enough points to balance)" added to it. Note god may choose to put more than one mystery event to balance the character. Also should he want to he may give the player some clue to the event. e.g. Mystery travel Event or Mystery Formative change .

Events

Events are the thing that happend to change the character. The list below is not exhaustive, and players are encouraged to come up the new and interesting events and titles for them. Any really juicy ones yould be appreciated!
Send to: Hey I've got a good one@wilsonclan.prestel.co.uk.

• Events that happen before birth
• Seeing the world events
• Formal learning events
• Rites of Passage events
• Occupation events
• Medical/ scientific events
• Criminal events
• War and conflict events

 
For an expansion on the above list. Go here.

Changes

Changes are the effects the events have on the character.
The list below is not exhaustive, and players are encouraged to come up the new and interesting events and titles for them. Any really juicy ones yould be appreciated!
Send to: Hey I've got a good one@wilsonclan.prestel.co.uk.
 
• Formative changes: change the characters Stats & add tags which help to define the character and modify the stats.
• Learning changes: give/ change/ improve the skills the character has.
• Encounter changes: gain/ loose NPC contacts / enemies
• Possession changes: gain/ loose possessions.
• Experiences: These events are included to 'balance' the points and pad out the characters life. More detailed examples of Events and Changes can be found later.

 
For an expansion on the above list. Go here.

Working out the points cost for each incident.

Each event is usually either a good thing or a bad thing.
Good things cost points.
Bad things give points back

Generally each event has a value of 1. Some very rare events have a value of 2. If you take a rare event you should check it with your god.
 

Each change is a good thing a bad thing or a neutral thing.
Good things cost points.
Bad things give points back
neutral things have an automatic zero cost.

Generally for each plus one to a stat, skill etc costs one point. Remember all but the most unusual skills the character automatically has one point. Thus usually you are buying to two when you first take a skill. You can loosed these one points skills to get points back BUT DONT PUSH IT. God may choose to increase the cost of unusual or very potent powers.
Friends enemies and rivals are also rated on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 is a stranger or some one whose face you vagely know. 10 is some one who would lay down thier life for you, or in the case of an enemy, lay down your life for them. If you come to a friend for aid roll a d10 mif it is less than the roll then they will help you. The god may modify this if you are asking for something really bad. For enemies it is the same idea but the other way round (Roll below to hinder).
Each possession, unless it is something really unique and useful, is worth 1 point.
Other changes should be disgussed with god. He will tell you how much they cost or are worth. Generally the more of a hinderance/help they will be to the character the manre they should const.
 

Take these two values (one for the event, one for the change) and add them together.
This means if you gain a good change form a good event it costs more than gaining a good thing from a bad event.
Also if you gain a bad thing from a bad event you will gain more points back than gaining a bad thing from a good event.
Ok I know this will probably lead to Characters with really shitty lives, but this system was designed for Shattered realities, and that is not ment to be a nice place to live!

The Stats

DGS has 10 stats, but they are arranged as three groups of three, plus one.
 

D.G.S. Stat table,

	Physical	Mental	Social
Raw power	Strength	Willpower	Apperance
Fine control	Dexterity	intelligence	Charisma
Resistance	Constitution	Stuborness	Confidence

 
 
Generally characters can 'attack' with either the Raw power or fine control stat. They 'defend' with the resistance stat. Usually the same type of attack is countered by the same type of defence, but gods should allow clever roleplaying to change this rule. Players may alter the name of the state to fit in better with thier character, but the broad ideas's should be maintained.

The 10th stat is Tenet....
Tenet is how well the character can control reality around them. It can represent magical, psionic or similas abilities, but in Tenet it is much more than that. Only certain people have Tenet, (PC's and major N.P.C.'s) they are known as Mercari. Having Tenet is not always a good thing.

For a start Tenet increases can only be gained from bad events.
Tenet is the energy daemons need to survive in the realities. Hense people with tenet are often hunted down by them.
All stats. excluding Tenet, start at 5. Tenet starts at 1, or what ever god states to be the world universal tenet stat. (Some worlds are richer in tenet that others, but the tend not to be a nice place to be.)

Important note. If you are using DGS as a system in a game where the characters are not going to move around worlds. Ie in a game like Gothic rather than in the wider shattered Realities, this stat is largely irrelivent.
Unless you character can do something weird that 'normal' people on your world would not cope with (e.g. magic or highly advanced technology) or the character has a very strong personal belief (e.g. a beilef in god so powerful that the character can perform miracles, repell vampires etc) save your points and stick at the basic Tenet of the world.

Damage stats.
In addition to the stats there are three 'damage stats with go down (and hopefully up) durring play.They reperesent how wounded the character is in these three areas
They are;

• Physical damage or Body,  (How many actual wounds are currently effecting the character)
• Mental damage or Psyche,  (How emotionally or physcologically scarred the character is)
• Social damage or Status, (The characters current standing in thier soiciety or social group.)
• Tenet damage or Reality, (The strength of the characters personal relality) Tenet works by its own rules so the following does not apply.
The inital starting value for damage stats is given by the square of the resistance stat, plus the Raw power and Fine control Stats. Giving a usual value between 3 and 120!
Damage to these states is healed natural at the rate of the average of the raw power and the resistance stat a day.
Appropriate actions/ medical procedure/ councilling/ grovelling can increase this rate.
 

Skills.

In DGS anything can be a skill and players are encouraged to be inventive. Skills which may have to wide a ranging power (e.g. omnisentience) should be limited by god, either by making the player state specific circumstances under which it can be used, or by defining more specifically what the skill can do, or by increasing the points value.

Do you really need a skill list....? Ok go here!

In additiong to the obvious skills players can also take skill tags, which act as a bonus to a nuber of specific skills, or abilities which are simpley things that either can or can not be done, e.g. speaking forgien languages.

Doing stuff.

Details in the game mechanic page but....
Value of relevent Stat modified by any applicable tags x Value of relevent Skill modified by any applicable tags
Roll equal to or less on a d10, d20, (d10xd10) or d100 depending on the type of test involved. (Routine/Easy/Normal/Stress)
God should reflect how well you past/ falied in the responce.

The skill value indicated the how the rest of reality persives the characters ability with the skill.
If less than 10 (A hobby skill)the skills is just a hobby or passing interest. It is unlikley an NPC will ask the character to carry something out with the hobby, or expect the character to know that information.
If a characters value is greater than 40 then they should be considered a professional in that area and acorded the repropriate respect (or other wise). (Ehh sonny, we know some one did over the bank and it looks like your M.O. Your commin' with me!)
If the value is greater than 60 then they are probably famous in some small way. (But Doctor Kildare... You can do anything..!)
 

Table of value for the hard of thinking.

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
2	4	6	8	10	12	14	16	18	20
3	6	9	12	15	18	21	24	27	30
4	8	12	16	20	24	28	32	36	40
5	10	15	20	25	30	35	40	45	50
6	12	18	24	30	36	42	48	54	60
7	14	21	28	35	42	49	56	63	70
8	16	24	32	40	48	56	64	72	80
9	18	27	36	45	54	63	72	81	90
10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100

 

For combat. damage done is simply calucuated by subtracting the die rolled from the chance to 'hit'
This amount is then take off the appropriate damage state. Any one take more than half its currentl value to a damage stat is stunned.
Remember this is only a summary, the details are on the mechanic page.

Assigning and distributing events

This is where this system differs from most others. You now split these incidents into two groups; Past and future.
 

Past incidents

make up the characters history (ie. things than happened before play begins) This is fairly straight forwards and used by many games. You state the event and what result it had (E.g. parents are both olympic athletes there for the character has an athletic build, mastered in languages at college and thus is a polyglot)

 

Future incidents

are things that will happen during the campaign, god then takes these events and plans the game/world that the characters will encounter. This allows the players to have a great deal of influence over the world/campaign they are playing in. Also it represents the characters experience and how the character will develop as the game progresses.

 

PLEASE NOTE:

Changes of future incidents can not be used until that incident has occurred. The player can turn round after any appropriate event and declare that to be the event referred to in their future. They then apply the change it results in to the character and use that skill/ contact/ whatever from then on. Knowing the vagueries of players it is possible that they will use an experince other than the one god planned round that incident. Expect this and live with it .

 

However it is not necessary to attach descriptive terms to future incidents until after they happen. Thus you can say the character will have a learning change involving a travelling event in the future but not define which skill they will gain until after a suitable 'travelling' event has occurred. Thus the skill may refer directly to the travel (Ride horse) or to some experience had during travelling (history- gained from talking to that interesting old man)

Because of this future events are more flexible than past events.

 

It is possible to have a character with no/few future events. In which case he will simply be a leaf floating on the flow of the destinies of those around him. Such a character will probably be more powerful initially than the other characters, but will not be able to improve much as events progress. (Obiwan Kenobi)

It is equally possible to have a character with no/few past events. These would be innocents suddenly swept up into the flow of their destinies and reshaped by them as the game progresses. (Luke Skywalker)

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Notes on Game balance

As each player gets the same number of events to pick. The number of events the characters can take determines the power level of the Game. But by choosing to put more or less in the past section the player can choose to have more or less powerful starting characters. However as the more powerful ones will have less chance for improvements as time goes on, this should bablance out.

NPC's should be generated by the same rules as PC. For really powerful bad guys these rules may be bent, but his followers/ assistants should be correspondingly week. (Now you know why all those brilliant villains have such dumb henchmen)

Broadly speaking there should be one negative event for every positive event. Some events 'are more equal than others' as such they are marked as 'costing' double events.
God gets to 'alter' any unbalanced character by introducing mystery (probably bad) events to occur during the game.

Destiny Play By Mail Gaming System