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

 
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 fact 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 they tend to be not particulally nice place, see point 1 above.)

In addition to the stats there are 3+1 '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 strenght of the characters personal reality.) This follows its own rules so the following does not apply to Tenet.
The inital starting value is given by the square of the resistance stat, plue 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 proccedure can increase this rate.

god will use these values as a modifier to the characters chance of performing an action as they see fit. This modification may be a simple deduction, (e.g. you have lost 30 points of social so all social skills are at -30) or may be a percentage deduction (e.g. you have only half your social damage left so all your social sillks are halved) depending on how crippling the damage is.

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 value skills used in tests characters can also have;

skill tags,

which act as a +1 bonus to a number of specific skills,

abilities

which are simply things that either can or can not be done and for which skill tests are usually not required., e.g. speaking forgien languages, driving a car, reading, They are not used to modify tests, but may be required before a character can take a particular skill.

Use and abuse of Tenet

Tenet is a law unto itself.
It is the wyrds gift to help mortals stand against the Daemonics.
It is the most potent and yet most dangerous thing in the multiverse.

None of the above will make any sences unless you have read Shattered Realities.

Ok
Tenet is used to do all the things a reality does not normally allow. Some realities do not ususally have Magic in them, thus the use of any magical ability requires a reality check to persuade reality to allow it before the magic test itself.
In others where as magic may be available, technology and the laws of quantum physics are not, thus the character would have to make a reality check before thier quantum bolt plasma cannon will work.
The above is not meant to indicate Technology and magic are exclusive. There are high tech, high magic, and low tech low magic realities out there.

As it is used to tell the universe what to do, thus except in very rare circumstrances of Tenet battles, the roll will be uncontested. However any back lash, i.e. the negative amount of any failure automatically effects the character. No resistance is allowed.

Tenet is its own raw power, fine control and resistance state. Thus Tenet damage is (Tenet x Tenet)+(Tenet+Tenet).
Things (including P.C.'s) regenerate reality at 1 each (tenet value) minutes.

Yes that is right. Characters with high tenet take longer to recover than those with low tenet. That is beacuse when you are confident in what is your reality and it is kicked over by something it is upsetting. Ok!

Usually there is no skill that relates to tenet. (Although bloody good roleplaying/ bribery of god may change this rule) Some very high level N.P.C. (solos) have tenet realted skills. These are not available to beginning player characters, (probably not to any non solo's)
However the character uses the 'non standard' skill he wishes to use if the test works as the 'skill' for any reality check, Thus the more the character understands the 'non standard' skill, the more likely reality is to say, "oh go on then, you've convinced me."

A successful check lasts for as long as it takes reality to regenerate the damage done to it. Durring this time the character can uses the non standard skill as often as they like. However they must make a separate roll for any other non standard skill. God may allow modifiers if the skills are very similar.

Should a check fail the character can not try it again until they have regenerated the damage done to them by the back lash, although they may try other Tenet tests for other things.

Should the back lash be so sever that they loose all their Reality the character looses the knowledge assoicated with the test they were trying to do until they regenerate back all lost tenet damage (not just the bit they lost when attempting the test). This means the character can not use that skill or anything associated with it. If asked about the ability, associated equipment or anything like that the character will just look blank and confused.
God can declare that they have lost the knowledge of every test they were recoveing damage from if they are sufficiently related enough.

If whilst making a reality check a character buggers it completely and takes damage greater than thier normal reality total they loose a tenet point.
They instantly recaluculate their new reality and it is recharged.
However they still can't use the nonstandard test until sufficiant time has passed for them to 'regenerate' the damage. In fact the loss of  tenet is a major threat to the way a character views themself and the multiverse arround them. Basically the reality they are in has just told them what they should believe.This will have a knock on effect on the phyche of the character that players are encouraged to incorperate into play.

Because if they don't god will.
If your character loses tenet you should briefly discuss what effect it will have on the character. Remember the character will be very confused, so just run with it and discuss the details after the session (or during the next meal brake) Though a significant part of the game, such things should not interrupt the flow of play for every one else. If in doubt have the character fall unconsious until you have time to disscuss it.

Tenet can only be (re)gained in the same way it was originally got, by really nasty experiences and through background events. Players are encouraged to note this and leave suitable experiences in their characters futures to regain any lost tenet.
Nice gods may award characters tenet for surviving nasy experiences in a way that reinforces thier belief in themselves/ their reality.
 
Should a character drop to 0 tenet they are no longer mercari, and can never perform any non standard tests again. (Unless they can gain another tenet point from thier adventuring, of act of god.)
Whilst this is not a problem in thier native universe (or one very similar to it) should they find themselves in another reality they will be in real trouble.

Non mercari PC in shattered realities are usually retired (or dead). 

---

I feel an example is in order;

David the cyborg is stook on a modern day limited technology world.
He decideds to use his 'phase plasma rifle in the 40W range'.
Reality says, 'just what you see on the shelf pal'. forcing him into a reality check to use the weapon.
Dave has a tenet of 6. He's been around a bit. This gives him a reality of 48 (6x6+12)
He also has a phase plasma rifle skill of 5, giving him a value of 40.
The reality has a tenet of 2. Not significant except for working out how long it takes to recover.
Daves player rolls the dice. As this is Shattered Realities we will now look at what happend in a number of different universes.

 
1. The dice come up 18: Dave has passed his check by 22 points and the world's reality take 44 point of damage. This world recovers 1 reality every 2 minutes. So Dave has three quaters of an hour before reality turns round and says 'ear I said you couln't use that" and he has to make the check again. By then he will probably be out of batteries.

Dave's god quietly whimpres in the corner as he thinks what damage an fully armed cyborg can do to his nice little middle ammerica comunity.
But I suspect you've seen the film.
 
2. This dice role come us 66. Dave has failed by 26 points. With a Tenet of 6 Dave recovers 1 reality every 6 minutes, 156 minutes, call it 2 and a half hours before Dave can even think of using the weapon again.

Still it could be worse.....
 
3. The dice roll 70. A failure of 30 point. Unfortunatly in this universe Dave tired to use in sensor unit a few moments ago and failed by 15 points. This new damage takes Dave down to -5 reality. Opse.

Dave has just forgotten what weapon technology is. Not a good thing for a cyborg. He looks down at the Plasma rilfe in total confusion. A small box beeps quietly at him, but he has no idea what it is.
Hopefully one of the other P.C.'s will remember to throw the grenade. It will be 240 minutes before Dave remembers what it is, and it only has a 3 minute fuse.
Believe it or not things could be worse....
 
4. The dice come up 99. That is a failure of 59 points. Dave's realility vanishes in a puff of logic. Vanishing with it is one whole point of tenet, (leaving him on 5). And a significant chunk of his personal belief system.

On the plus side his new reality is 35, which he has all of them to play with..
However god rules that with such an incredible failure the world has just told Dave that advanced technology does not exist. In fact as cyborgs don't exist in this world; Dave has forgotten he is a cyborg. It is going to take him 295 minutes to even begin to remember
It is going to come as a real shock when he looks in the mirror.
Oh... and the grenade is still beeping at him

---


 

A battle of beliefs: Tenet battles

Tenet battles are litereally throwing one personal belief system against another. Such a thing is messy and usually both parties are altered by the conflict.They are carried out like normal contests. However all attacks are resisted, whether the character is initally aware of them or not. This is because at some intrinsic level all people are aware of invasions into thier personal reality. You can not sneak reality attack!

Tenet battles can be broken of from by either party at any time, after the initial attack. However damage and tenet loss by either/ both parites are retained and must be rehealed before another attack can be initiatied or ANY  reality check attempted.  This means the mercari can not use any non standard skills until he has recovered, explaining why Tenet battles are so rare.

Should attacks cause reality to drop below 0, 1 point of tenet is lost, and reality recalculated and  recharged, just as in the messed up Reality Check.....
However as this is a conflict of personal realities; rather than the world saying this is what should be happening the other party in the contest states his beliefs. Thus even if the damage is self inflicted (as would happen with a botched attack) the other player, in consultation with god, can define the change the loss of tenet makes to the characters beliefes. In doing this they should bear in mind the characters own belief system and incorperate it in some way. God, as always has the final yes no and they should bear in mind that the other player may still want to play the character after, so no radical changes should be allowed. Unless the player agrees....

Interesting side note for those of you who know Shattered realities. This is how the Corten/ A "but you cant do magic" thing works.
Every now and then A goes up to Corten and 'reminds' him that he can't do magic.
So Corten doesn't.
Honest.
Even though he does every day in just surviving.
No don't tell him!
Driving another character to 0 tenet in this way is considered blatenly evil and is the sort of things daemons do. (Only they absorb the tenet they release.) It will not make you popular, and may make you very dead in a passing solo thinks you are daemonic.  Tip: NEVER CHALLENGE A SOLO TO A TENET BATTLE. Unless you want to spend 30 years thinking you are a yellow plastic bath duck. Yes they can. They are every version of them anywhere, at least one of them was bound to be a yellow plastic bath duck.