Smallville rpg pdf download

Smallville rpg pdf download

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Smallville blogger.com - Free ebook download as PDF File .pdf), Text File .txt) or read book online for free. Scribd is the world's largest social reading and publishing site. Open navigation menu Pathways is the system we use for creating new Leads in the Smallville RPG. This system calls for all the players to sit down and work together to create an all-new cast of characters, Smallville RPG - High School blogger.com - Free download as PDF File .pdf), Text File .txt) or read online for free. Scribd is the world's largest social reading and publishing site. Open Download Smallville Rpg - Corebook Type: PDF Date: November Size: MB This document was uploaded by user and they confirmed that they have the permission to share it. Smallville RPG 1 50 - Free download as PDF File .pdf), Text File .txt) or read online for free. hq ... read more

Sound familiar? Watchtower controls the bad guys, sure; but she uses those characters as tools to provide the Leads with opportunities to tell a good story. Players also decide when what their Leads are doing is important enough to roll dice, not to mention when and how the Leads grow, change, and develop as characters and as people. Traits The character sheets that describe Leads and Features are mostly lists of Traits. The three big categories of Traits are Drives, Assets, and Resources. This book calls out most specific Traits by using small caps, like this. Each Trait has a die rating. Most Traits also have a couple other notes listed underneath the die rating. These give you tricks to keep up your sleeve and to push the story in interesting directions. Each one has a statement in italics and a die rating. The statement describes his impression of each person or value. The rating scores how much he cares about that Drive. When you call Clark frantic for help, you can challenge that Value.

When you challenge a Drive, you get to triple its die— instead of rolling one d8, you throw three. You also note the die size in your Growth pool on your Lead sheet, which is really important. Whose Story Is It? What she does is create opportunities for the players to make their stories more interesting. She sets out challenges and obstacles, provoking the players into making choices both big and small—but always significant. Each Asset has a die rating and one or more notes underneath it. The die rating shows how powerful that Asset can be. The notes beneath give you access to nice little bonuses. There are three kinds of Assets: Distinctions, Abilities, and Gear. If you stripped away all the super stuff, what would be left? Those are your Distinctions. Each Distinction has three triggers—special things you can do in the game—that unlock as your rating in the Distinction increases.

You get the first trigger at d4, the second at d8, and the third at d Each trigger gives you a benefit and exacts a cost, and most of them allow you to add to the story in interesting and often unexpected ways. Abilities are things that you can do beyond normal human effort. Not everybody has Abilities. Abilities let you do all sorts of showy stuff, either as you roll dice or as a special effect you activate by spending a Plot Point. Super-strength, for instance, gives you a die to roll in when your massive muscles play to your advantage. You can also spend a Plot Point to pull off fantastic super-strength feats like catching a flying locomotive. Abilities also come with a Descriptor and a Limit. The Descriptor is a keyword that describes how the Ability manifests: heat, magic, psychic power, and so on.

The Limit tells you what can stop your Ability cold. If somebody uses your Limit against you, he triples the die representing his clever tactic. Gear Traits are similar to Abilities in a lot of ways. Their die ratings, Spend abilities, and Descriptors function identically. Where they diverge is their Limit. All Gear has the same Limit: it can get lost, stolen, or broken. RESOURCES Some characters also have Resources that they can call on—Extras and Locations that can give them a hand in specific situations. Normally, anybody can call on the help of an Extra or a Location; it just costs a Plot Point.

They usually only do a couple of things, called specialties, and those things are rated in dice. So you might have Dr. Emil Hamilton Science, Medicine 2d10 or LuthorCorp Security Team Security, Retrievals 2d8. The full rules for Aiding can be found in Chapter Four: Scenes on page 49, but the short form is this: their dice add a little to your dice. Locations are special places that provide a bonus to the people who control them. Like Extras, they are rated in dice. The trick is that you need to play a scene in the Location getting ready. Then, later in the episode, you can let fly with those extra dice. There are five Stress Traits: Afraid, Angry, Exhausted, Injured, and Insecure. As you take Stress, the die ratings start climbing. First, whenever someone rolls dice against you, they can roll in the die rating of one of your Stresses.

Any more Stress to that Trait takes you out of the scene. There are also two reasons you actually want Stress. First, you can pay a Plot Point to roll in one of your Stress Traits. Second, and perhaps most important, Stress is how you grow and advance. If you get somebody to tend to your hurts and reduce a Stress Trait, you add the old rating to your Growth pool. Additionally, when you get to the end of an episode, you can roll your highest remaining Stress Trait along with your Growth pool. Dice The Smallville RPG uses dice to guide how events turn out in the story. Dice come into play in two ways: Contests and Tests. We elaborate on both of these in Chapter Four: Scenes on page WHEN TO ROLL DICE A Contest is started when a character wants to make another character act.

It could be plying him with honeyed words, hoping that he will help you out; it could be punching him in the face, hoping that he will fall to the floor. Watchtower calls these. HOW TO ROLL DICE You roll a number of dice together in a dice pool. To start with, you pick up a die for one of your Values and a second die for one of your Relationships. The collection of dice you can justify rolling makes up a pool. You roll the whole pool and pull out the highest two dice. Add these two together for your result. A high result means you did well; a low result means you did not. TROUBLE Watchtower also gets access to the Trouble pool. Trouble is a little or not so little stack of dice she keeps in front of her. Over the course of the adventure, though, it grows and shrinks.

When things get worse and tension mounts, the Trouble pool grows. When circumstances get better and you can almost hear the audience sigh in relief, the Trouble pool shrinks. Those dice are Complications. Rolling a 1 means something went just a little haywire—maybe not haywire enough to foul up what your Lead was doing, but enough to be a nuisance. Anybody at the table can say what the 1 means: a Freudian slip in the midst of an interrogation, an overplayed hand in an argument, collateral damage in a superpowered fistfight. If there are a lot of ideas on how you screwed up and there usually are , Watchtower picks the one she likes best. Complications never affect whether the Lead succeeds or fails in what he was doing; they are always additional details on top of the die result. Complications also add and remove dice from the Trouble pool. When your Complication dice are added to Trouble, things are getting worse and tension is mounting.

There is a silver lining to Complications, too: they might earn you some Plot Points. Plot Points Plot Points are a game currency that you will spend to affect the plot over the course of an episode. Plot Points give you more dice, make the dice you have more powerful, and let you fire off some of your special abilities. You will need to keep track of your Plot Points somehow. One way is to write them on your Lead sheet as tally marks. Another option is to use poker chips or some other kind of token pennies, paperclips, dried beans—the mind boggles with possibilities. At the start of each episode, you roll all of the Relationship Traits on your sheet. Take out the highest two dice and add them together. The player with the highest result gets four Plot Points; the lowest gets two. All other players get three Plot Points. At the end of each episode, any unspent Plot Points disappear. SPENDING PLOT POINTS Roll More Dice.

Before any roll, you may spend a Plot Point to roll more dice. In this way, you may roll in another Relationship or Value, or more than one Asset or Resource. Include More Dice. After any roll, you may spend a Plot Pointinclude more dice in your result out of those you just rolled. In this way, your result may be three, four, or five dice added together. The only limit to how many dice you may add to your result is how many dice you rolled to begin with and how many Plot Points you have available. Useful Detail. You may also spend a Plot Point to exploit a Useful Detail from the story an improvised weapon, a damning piece of evidence, an advantageous position on a staircase and add a d6 to your pool.

A Useful Detail lasts for the remainder of the scene, and you can add it to your dice pool as often as you can justify it during that scene. Add A Relationship. After the first scene with that Feature, the Relationship steps back to d4. You can step it up during tag scenes if you want to maintain this Relationship, or if the Feature is only around for one episode you can eliminate it. See Chapter Seven: Drives for more information. Activate Assets. Some of your Assets may have triggers or Spend abilities that give you a benefit when you spend a Plot Point. When Clark catches a falling truck or when Oliver just happens to own a very useful item, they spend a Plot Point for the privilege. See Chapter Eight: Assets for more information.

Get Help From Resources. If you spend a Plot Point, they can Aid you by giving you a die to include in your result. See Chapter Nine: Resources for more information. Typically, spent Plot Points go into the supply pile in front of Watchtower. Watchtower may also spend Plot Points on her rolls; when she spends Plot Points in a roll against you, she gives them to you. Whenever you get Plot Points like this, keep them separate from the Plot Points you already have. You earn Plot Points when your Complications are activated and when you use some of your Distinctions. Remember how earlier I mentioned that those dice that rolled 1s could earn you Plot Points? Sure, they represent little bite-sized servings of disaster, but nothing makes a hero fight harder than a setback.

Your little setback has increased the tension, and things are getting a little more difficult but at least you have a Plot Point! Sometimes you only earn the Plot Point when your Lead chooses to do something a little stupid. Sometimes you pick up the Plot Point when you pull your punches or make the situation worse. Collaboration and Responsibility When you play the Smallville RPG, you work together with your friends to tell great stories. Sometimes you discuss what to do and how to move forward. And superpowers. Those are fun, too, I hear. Sure, everybody else at the table is going to give you intriguing suggestions and push you towards different choices, but at the end of the day, you have to decide how to handle your responsibilities. Which suggestion will you take? Is now a good time for this choice, or will the story work better if you hold off for a few scenes? Collaboration, superpowers, and choices. Here are three short lists of what everybody is responsible for. Create brand new characters from the ground up.

Give them their own city, foes to fight, relationships to establish and fight over , and villainous plots to foil. Or maybe you know nothing of Clark Kent, Chloe, Lois, and some town named Smallville. Introducing Pathways Pathways is the system we use for creating new Leads in the Smallville RPG. This system calls for all the players to sit down and work together to create an all-new cast of characters, including many of the locations and supporting characters—Extras and Features—that populate your version of the Smallville universe. All of your Drives, Assets, and Resources come together as a result of following this unique and personalized path, which is connected to the paths of all the other Leads.

WHAT YOU NEED Kicking this off is easier than you might think. Your entire first game session is devoted to Pathways, so be ready to spend a few hours on this. You need a group of players and someone to be Watchtower. How many players you have at your table is up to you. Some groups gladly play with as few as three, while others welcome as many as a dozen. Because of all the Relationship connections, the Smallville RPG is probably at its best with four players and a Watchtower, but there are ways to accommodate more. Pull some chairs up to a table and clear some space.

Place a big sheet of paper down in the middle of the table, within reach of everyone. Make sure there are enough markers or pencils to go around and that all players have access to at least one copy of this book. Permission is granted to copy the Lead sheet on page , or you can grab a copy from www. com and print off as many as you need. You can still collaborate on a Pathways Map without it. Many gamers have one of those wet-erase vinyl mats covered in squares or hexes, and those work just as well. A whiteboard, laid flat on the table or standing in an easel, is another good option. You can always tape together a bunch of smaller sheets of paper to make a big sheet of paper. And if all you have on hand are index cards or sticky yellow memo sheets, you can throw together a Pathways Map right there on the dining room table. Just make sure you take some photographic evidence to refer to later. YOUR SETTING Where would you like your game to be set? You can, of course, always choose Smallville or Metropolis.

Want to create a parallel story to that of Clark, Chloe, and Lois? This is your chance to walk the streets and call the shots. You could also consider another city in the Smallville universe such as Star City, Coast City, or Gotham, just to name a few. They have many opportunities to travel and explore your universe. You just want a shared hometown to start with, where some of the backstory takes place and some Resources—especially Locations—can be found and included fairly frequently. YOUR PEOPLE It takes more than a single super hero to recreate the exciting drama found on Smallville.

It takes a cast of characters—Heroes, Side Kicks, Rebels, Specialists, and a Foil or two—who care enough about each other and the plot-of-the-week. To start your game, you not only need to design a Lead for yourself, but you need to build the core cast of characters at the same time. To develop your Lead, you use the Pathways process; to assemble the cast, you use the Pathways Map. Even minor supporting characters—Extras—come out of this process. Before you begin, decide as a group how far along the stages of Pathways you want go before you start to play. See Rookies and Veterans on page 17 for more details. You may select any of the Life-Changing Events, regardless of the position of your Road box. You make choices and those choices give you various benefits. As you work through the charts, you also add to the Pathways Map, which develops the world around your characters: the people they know, where they spend their time, and the relationships that connect all those people and places.

The boxes also restrict which boxes you can select in the next stage. You start on the Early Years chart by picking your Origin, which describes what sort of background your Lead comes from. Then you make your way down the chart. As you go, you can either choose the box directly below you, or the one to the immediate right or left. You continue down the chart following this rule. Of course, your group might decide that any option is fair game, jumping across columns we even do this with Zod in the examples. want to stop right here and begin playing episodes that directly address your LifeChanging Events see Rookies and Veterans on page For those that want to play Leads with a little more experience and ability Veterans , move on to the After the Event chart. Because the most recent stage of development was a Life-Changing Event, your Lead probably made some dramatic life changes. Therefore, you may start After the Event by choosing a Priority at any position, then move down the chart as in Early Years until you reach your Identity.

At each stage, you add new people and locations to the Pathways Map or create new connections between them. With each box you select, you add new Traits to your sheet or step up the Traits you already have. The most significant changes to your character sheet come from your Origin, Life-Changing Event, and Identity. All for one and one for all. SQUARES, CIRCLES, DIAMONDS, AND ARROWS While the Pathways Chart develops your own individual Lead, the Pathways Map develops your own Smallville RPG world. Completing the Pathways Map gets you a cast of characters and a collection of locations to rival any comic book soap opera or Dickensian serial.

This is exactly what Watchtower needs to direct your episodes and build campaigns. You discover who owes you favors and to whom you are indebted, who you love and who you hate, and where everybody connects to the important people in your setting. Take a look at the example Pathways Map. As you can see, the map consists of squares, circles, diamonds, and arrows. Each shape represents a different element of the campaign; the arrows show how those different elements are connected. Squares represent the Lead characters. As everyone takes turns adding to the map, other players may connect other elements to your Lead, creating characters that hate you, work with you, went to school with you, or maybe have a crush on you.

Only you, however, can connect your Lead square to other elements on the map. Only you may decide how your Lead relates to his world. Circles are other characters: Extras or Features. When you add a circle to the Pathways Map, the character starts as an Extra and is added to your Resources section at a 2d4 die rating. If another player draws an arrow from his Lead to one of your Extras, decide with the other player whether or not to turn that Extra into a Feature. Features are then removed as Resources from the two Lead sheets and added as Relationships. For more information on how to turn Extras into Features, see Chapter Five: Episodes. Diamonds are Locations—significant places or settings important to the campaign. When you draw an arrow to a Location from your Lead square, the name of the Location goes in the Resources area of the Lead sheet with a beginning rating of 2d4. Arrows are the lines that connect all of these elements together making a web of background, plot, and setting.

Arrows should have a label describing in a word or three how the first map element is related to the other. A second arrow can link back, describing how the second element relates to the first. Otherwise, leave it open and another player can make that decision for you when Pathways gives them the choice. ADDING AND STEPPING UP TRAITS As you develop your Lead, you get the option to add or step up Traits on your Lead sheet. Circles give you access to that character as an Extra; Diamonds give you Locations. Both flavors of Resources start at 2d4. Add an Asset: Some stages on the Pathways charts give you Assets Distinctions or Abilities. All new Assets start at d4. New Abilities start with one Special Effect each, which you can choose at the end of Pathways. Add a Relationship: When one of your Extras is upgraded to a Feature, you move him from Resources into Relationships. You keep the die rating of the Extra, although the rating goes from two dice to one.

A 2d8 Extra becomes a d8 Relationship. All of your Relationships with other Leads also start at d4, though if you have a group larger than 4 players you might get a bonus. Step Up A Trait: On many occasions, the charts allow you to step up a Drive, Asset, or Resource. Imagine the scale of possible dice in your head: d4 steps up to d6 which steps up to d8, and so on. If you have a d6 in, for example, the Impulsive Distinction, and you choose the Lofty Road during Pathways, it allows you to add a new Distinction or step up one you already have. Since the next die rating after a d6 is a d8, you step up Impulsive from a d6 to a d8. If you and another player turned an Extra into a Feature giving yourselves a Relationship in the process you may step up that Relationship whenever the charts offer the option to step up an Extra. Values can only be stepped up through the charts. All Values start out at a d4 in the first stage of the Pathways chart; when you step up your Values, you usually have a choice of two: Power or Glory, Truth or Love, Justice or Duty.

Making Features with Pathways Watchtower can use Pathways to make Features, even at the same time as the other players. If Watchtower is creating a new Feature not on the map, add each of the Leads as starting Relationships. Because they might go up and down throughout the course of Pathways, you should leave this to the end, using the unfolding back story narrative as a guide. It might be tempting to just use the Pathways Map labels for statements, but if you take your Lead as a whole, you might find that you prefer a statement to be reflective of something else. Take a look at the Lead sheet on page Here you can track all your ratings in Drives, Assets, and Resources, as well as your Value and Relationship Statements. Some players like to record a lot of information about their Leads—even keeping journals to record their thoughts and actions.

Some groups keep an online blog for their Leads and write short stories out of their game episodes. These are great ways to keep up on the drama from episode to episode. The breakpoint is the LifeChanging Event, which is when your Lead is ready for play as a Rookie. If you continue on to the After The Event chart, you end up with Leads who represent the more experienced, developed, and settled cast, around Season Five. If you start play immediately after the LifeChanging Event, each player adds three steps to his Values to bring them up to the right number of steps. The whole table has to agree about when to stop. No fair having some Leads be Rookies and some be Veterans. For more information on this option, see Seasoned Veterans on page Pathways Descriptions On the following pages, each stage of Pathways is more fully detailed and explained, with examples of the Ninth Season group creating their Leads and drawing up the Pathways Map.

PATHWAYS MAP This is the set of directions for all players so that they know what to write or draw on the Pathways Map. Take turns in following the directions; some players might want to wait until there are more circles or diamonds on the Map before they decide where to draw those arrows. THE FIVE CHOICES This lists the five different choices you have available at this stage of the chart. Sometimes you only have three choices, since the choice you made previously on the chart may dictate the choices you can make here. For Origin, Life-Changing Event, and Priority, the choices are wide-open. Each of the choices presents a bit of a story element for you to consider, some questions to make you think, and the changes you can make to your Lead sheet. While the story element and questions are entirely optional and just there to give you some ideas, the instructions for stepping up or adding to your Lead are part of the process.

PLAY ADVICE: A Convenient Summary Get your group together. You all create Leads and the Pathways Map together at the same time. Start Pathways by following the map instructions for the first stage, Origins. Add your Lead as a square to the map. Draw an arrow from your square to the other squares, then draw an arrow from your square to a new circle an Extra and label the arrow to describe this connection. Since your Lead square is linked to the other squares, add all the Lead names to your Lead sheet under Relationships.

These Relationships start at d4. If you have a group of five players or more not including Watchtower , one or more of these Relationships starts as a d6. Your Lead square is also linked to that circle you added. Once everyone has followed the map instructions, pick your Origin. This gives you Traits to add to your sheet and opportunities to step up other Traits. All six Values start at d4, and the chart tells you to immediately step two of them up by one or one up by two. You also get a new Distinction, which you can select from the Big List in Chapter Eight: Assets or create your own see page You may then step up or add other Traits depending on your choice of Origin. Move down the Early Years chart to the next stage. Choose an option either directly below your last box or from the ones below and to the immediate right or left. Choose any of the Life-Changing Events regardless of your Road. Follow the map instructions and apply the Trait steps to your sheet.

If you want, switch out one of your Resources or Relationships with a new Resource or Relationship at the same die rating. You can also remove any d4 Relationship or 2d4 Resource and step up an existing Relationship or Resource. If your group wants to continue with Pathways, choose any Priority on Pathways: After the Event. Add to the map as directed in the Priority stage and apply the steps from your chosen box to your Traits. Move down the After the Event chart in the same way as you progressed through Early Years.

When you complete Identity, you may switch out one of your Resources or Relationships with a new Resource or Relationship at the same die rating. You may also remove any d4 Relationship or 2d4 Resource and step up an existing Relationship or Resource. Add the finishing touches: Name, Appearance, Vital Statistics, and of course your Statements for Values and Relationships! ORIGIN This is how and where it all began. Whoever your parents were, when they brought you into this world or possibly some other world , this was your start in life. arrows from your square to all other squares. A childhood of ponies, catered birthday parties, and a guesthouse just for your toys is what you know best.

You were just another child, born to average parents in an average town. A community hospital in the mid-west or infant number 18 born that day in a large city hospital? Perhaps your IQ was advanced to say the least , your precociousness was freaky, or your skills in something were out of this world. Running at three hundred miles an hour? Other times it might be from growing up in a foreign country, a very small town, or a world-class city. Whatever your circumstances, you were destined to stand apart from a crowd for just being you. Who were they and what were they like? What did you do and how did they object? Are you eccentric, outlandish, or merely peculiar? What was it like? How did your parents arrive here? Did you grow up knowing you had this secret, or was it sprung on you when you least expected it? Compare the Norman Rockwell childhood Clark experienced with the Kents to that of Lex Luthor and his Faust-like father, Lionel.

How you built on your Origin in your Youth has an effect your future. Jock Your letter jacket read like alphabet soup. Or, on the other extreme, were they abusive, showing you no support and always letting you know what a loser you were doomed to be? your friends share your enthusiasm or do they find it odd? Not only did you not fit in with any of the clique options or associate with any particular crowd, you were possibly shunned by them. A favorite hiding spot? A library of books? There may have been many nuances to your center of attention, but this one was the granddaddy. Keep in mind that your Focus can be something you strive for but never quite seem to attain. With enough wealth you can buy houses, cars, lives, and deaths. Or have you built it all from nothing?

A good job and a steady relationship got you through the rough spots. Maybe a hot bath at the end of a long day and a nice cold beer. Living the life you were meant to live? Right, get married, and finally start a family? Whether the source of your influence was the business world, Hollywood, or the realm of politics, when you talked, people not only listened but took notes. Your bedroom, living room, and garage were full of doohickeys, components, and equipment pieces from the experimental to the historic. com your homepage? It might have given you new abilities… or warned you of the abilities of others. Do you fly solo or work with a team? This is the means by which you justified your ends.

Risky In pursuit of your Focus, you were willing to put it all on the line. Few things in your life were sacred enough to not be in jeopardy of your ambitions at one time or another. Maybe you were labeled a goody-two-shoes by some, but you were confident in your choices and secure in the knowledge that you were doing the right thing. You chose what you considered a noble route to your ambitions —sometimes acting the hero, other times the martyr— and while some recognized you for your graciousness, others may have seen through the veil, finding you haughty and disdainful. After all, sometimes an act is really just an act. Or perhaps you put yourself there? You had connections all over the place of the wink-and-a-nod sort. All those numbers in there can open any door.

You deliberately chose to take the high road and serve the greater good, willing to make sacrifices for what you knew was right. While some people see the world as a rainbow of challenges and questions, do you see it as a black and white reality of right and wrong? Despite your development up to this point, one day something happened that was essentially out of your control, and it changed your life forever. It happens in and around Smallville all the time. People from all walks of life, doing what they do, living their lives, and suddenly BAM! Nothing is the same again. Regardless of where you are on the Road stage of Early Years, you may choose any box for the Life-Changing Event. Your choice here comes with a significant boost in Traits. You also have the option of pruning one of your Resources or Relationships that no longer has any relevance to your Lead and acquiring a new one at the same die rating. Advancement Perhaps it was a promotion, entrance into a secret society, or a substantial achievement that brought you into the limelight, redefining your position and announcing your arrival on the big scene.

As a result, you had to step up, pull yourself together, and develop new or strengthen old relationships to survive. How did it change your life? Somehow you came into contact with kryptonite—or something else—and have never been the same since. While many meteor freaks revel in their newfound abilities, some are wary and concerned. Regardless, all have gone a bit nuts, to put it lightly. It would seem the blessing of a meteor power is also its curse. Are there special people in your life that give you moral support or is there something you need to do to stay in control? Knowledge is power. Or had it been searching for you? Did it reveal a skeleton in the family closet? Some are fated to save the world, others to destroy it, and still others will play a small but vital role when the battle begins. How did you learn about it? You can do this advancement in-game. For the first four episodes, focus your plot on storylines that touch on each of the four stages of Pathways: After the Event— Priority, Modus Operandi, Motivation, and Identity.

Pathways: After the Event Begin the second chart by choosing your Priority, regardless of where you ended in the first chart or your Life- Changing Event. Then follow the rules for moving through the chart as you did with Early Years. Your Priority is what you cling to in the hopes of finding that sense of grounding. At night, when you lie awake in your bed, this is what occupies your mind. They have always been there for you, regardless of what you were going through. However, at what point does a safety net become a security blanket? What is your history with them? Is it the same as what you were doing before? All that matters now is what future you can make for yourself. Are you starting to believe those lies yourself? Or have you buried the hatchet and washed your hands of them? You can see your goal clearly in your mind and you push yourself harder and harder each day to reach it. What happened? Insider-trading, knee-capping the competition, stacking the deck—these are all methods you might employ.

By not pandering to popular opinions, you can strike right at the root of a matter. Would you abandon a friend? Break the law? Oh, do you have connections! When the going gets tough, this is what inspires you to make the choices you do. Random acts of kindness? You bet. Which one and what do you do? Can you give an example of a time when you had to do so? What happened and how has it affected you? There is some sort of movement to which you are a dedicated supporter. Is it social? Some do this without any real emotional connection, others with their hearts fully in it. Whichever you are, you know how to get the job done right. you ever questioned those orders? Sometimes those threats come from villainous masterminds, evil political regimes, environmental destroyers, or intergalactic consortiums. The Sidekick You may not be the smartest, fastest, bravest or most skilled, but you will always be there.

As a close companion to a Hero, you provide assistance, friendship, and backup using your unique brand of resourcefulness. role do you play? Your strength comes in your ability to antagonize. With your skills to provoke, irritate, and misdirect, you can have a surprisingly profound effect on a villain, a Hero, or just about anyone that stands in your way. stands in your way? By refusing obedience and order, you go against the group and do things your own way, which ultimately makes you a bit of a scoundrel. You have the potential to overthrow leadership, but that would mean becoming a leader yourself. Where do you fall in the spectrum? You can count on one hand the number of people alive who can do what you do and who know what you know—and the competition is fierce.

makes you the best? You are dedicated to fighting the good fight, to protecting the innocent, to combating threats against humanity. Some Heroes have amazing Distinctions, superhuman Abilities, or advanced Gear. All are willing to put their lives —and even the lives of those they love—on the line in the service of good. Pathways allows for that—the Early Years chart gives you enough backstory to start telling the story of, say, a farmboy beginning to come to terms with his alien powers, with the Life- Changing Event providing lots of fuel for your narrative fire. Think of it as Season One, or the Rookie level. Finishing the After the Event chart of Pathways reflects Leads who have had some time to grow, so that farmboy is now out on his own and genuinely beginning to realize the impact he may have on the world.

Perhaps your story has been on the air for 5 or 6 seasons at this point. These guys are Veterans. If you have a Heritage Distinction, you may only step up or add Abilities associated with that Heritage. If you step up an Ability or a Heritage Distinction, you may also add a Special Effect to that Ability or to an Ability covered by the Heritage Distinction, but only one Special Effect may be added to an Ability per season. Remember to add statements to any new Relationships you add to your Lead sheet. It helps to come up with story arcs for your Lead to use as backstory, too, especially if you work with the other players to connect them all together.

By this point, you should all have a good idea of where you want things to go as a group. Seasoned Leads like this are always going to be superior to Leads generated with just the normal charts, which is pretty much the point. Just a few last details and your Lead is ready to take on the world. At this point, you should have worked through Pathways, have a thoroughly developed Pathways Map and, most importantly, have a pretty good idea who your Lead is. You might even have made him a more seasoned or experienced individual. Your Watchtower is probably chomping at the bit to put you to the test, and your head is likely swimming with future drama you will cause. Hold up for just a second. There are just a few last details for you to do. Does it reflect your ethnic background?

Do you go by a nickname? But this gives you all the more reason to give the other players some verbal images to let their imaginations form a picture of your Lead. Another really good option, put forward by a number of talented game designers and players, is to have everybody choose an actor or actress to play your Lead in the television version of the game. This lets you grab an image of that celebrity off the Internet or out of a magazine and clip it to your Lead sheet for easy reference. Current city, occupation, and education? Think Facebook, here. Provide your basic biographical details based on the events of Pathways and your fevered imagination. And if other players have cool ideas for you, give them a shot, too. You can use the labels from the Pathways Map as guides, or come up with something snappy and interesting from scratch. DRIVES Values are fixed at six specific types, while Relationships are different from campaign to campaign.

In this chapter, we go into a little more detail about what each of the Values and Relationships tells you about your Lead, how to use Drives, and how they change. For even more examples of Drives, including their statements, take a look through Chapter Ten: People to see how some of the Smallville characters are defined by their Values and Relationships. What the Dice Mean Drives pair up to give you your two core dice to roll for appropriate Tests and Contests. Your statements are your guides to when and why a Drive is applicable, and that lets you bring in the dice.

So with that in mind, what do the die ratings actually mean? The best guide, however, is other Leads and Features. Somebody with Justice d10 is just more into the question of how to approach law and order than somebody with a d4. Look at the statements, then at the dice. The story starts right there. But so do a lot of things. Your Pathway choices and backstory help prioritize these for you. The ratings you give them and, more importantly, how you define them with respect to your Lead, affects how your Lead succeeds or fails, and this is where the drama comes in. Your Values are going to go head-to-head with those of your opponents—and your friends.

When your Lead rolls for anything, you always add the appropriate Value to your dice pool. His Values look like this: Duty d8, Glory d6, Justice d10, Love d8, Power d6, and Truth d4. As you can see, our hero has the deck stacked in favor of Justice, followed closely by Duty and Love. The statements for your own Smallville Lead reflect a particular view of each Value— and your options are endless. If Glory is your most important Value at a d10, how does your Lead live up to this? Is he an attention seeker who believes even bad PR is good PR? Or does he, paladin-like, willingly martyr himself in the quest for renown? The same is true for your Lead. You will have opportunities in the game to change the die rating of a Value and to rewrite your Value statements as appropriate see Challenging Values later on this page and Changing Values on pages 83— Start with Values. Declare the action or reaction you wish to make and begin by asking, Why am I doing this?

Is there a Value that speaks to this deed more than the others? By committing this action, will you live up to your Value statement? If not, see Challenging Values below. You can challenge a Value when the action you wish to take is in conflict with your declared Value statement. So what happens when your Value statement conflicts with the action you want to take? If it were I must keep the truth safe, you could justify it. So what can you do? In these situations, you are challenging your Values. In game terms, this means you can roll triple the die rating of your Value die; however, the challenged Value steps back by one for the rest of the episode. When you challenge your Values, your worldview is shaken up just a little bit. In this case, Clark wants to convince Plastique that she should let him deal with Tess. Cam takes up three six-sided dice and adds them to his pool for this roll, but he also has to step back his Power to d4 until the end of the episode.

In this game, who you do things for—or against—is just as important as why you do them, and arguably both matter more than what you actually do. Relationships are Traits associated with other Leads and Features. Anytime you roll dice, you may add a die to your dice pool for an applicable Relationship. Your Relationship with another character may have as much impact on your success as a Distinction, Power, or Gear. When dodging a speeding car, it may not be your strength or speed that saves you, but the die you rolled that represented the woman you love. She is your reason to live—which helped you dodge that car. Sometimes the people we hate motivate our actions as much as or more than the people we love. Example: Clark and Oliver have always had an interesting friendship. They have also both been involved with Lois, which makes things complicated at times. Lois and Clark mean a great deal to each other, perhaps more than any other Relationship. Oliver keeps things a little cooler with them both.

Not at all. The solution? Rewriting Relationships Just as your own Values may shift and change over the course of a story, so too can your investment in other people. In fact, your Relationships with other Leads and with Features can change frequently, often dramatically. This is all part of the unfolding narrative in any Smallville story, and it keeps things interesting. Just as with challenged Values, at the conclusion of the episode, you have a chance to rewrite your Relationship statement and how your Lead sees the other person. Any Relationship that was stepped back during the episode may be restored during the tag scene to its previous rating, but because you challenged it, you rewrite the statement to reflect your new perspective. Alternately, you can leave it at the reduced rating and add a die equal to its original rating to your Growth pool.

Unlike Values, your Relationships can come and go without any reciprocal stepping up or back of other Traits. You may also step up a Relationship during a tag scene by using your Growth pool, just as you would with Assets and Resources. You have to put work into a Relationship to make it better. Example: Tess and Chloe are trapped in Watchtower as the security systems go into full lockdown mode and Checkmate breaks through the firewalls. Prior to this point, Chloe and Tess came to blows over Clark and his ultimate destiny. The two women are forced to push aside their mistrust of each other and work to escape a dangerous situation. The only way to get Checkmate off their trail is to kill Tess and thus nullify her tracking implant. In the tag scene— involving Chloe resuscitating Tess with the paddles— both players step their Relationships back up, having reached a mutual accord, and rewrite the statements. Mary now has Chloe believes in the cause d8, and Bobbi writes down Tess is willing to make sacrifices d6.

In addition, Bobbi successfully rolls Growth to step up the Relationship from a d6 to a d8 to reflect the stronger bond between the two women. These are just suggestions—instead of choosing from this list, use it as inspiration for writing your own statements. Get creative! used to be so nice. Keep in mind that a d4 rating might not add much to a roll, but it has a one in four chance of coming up 1. That means more Complications, more Trouble, and more Plot Points for the player who has it sitting in front of him. In contrast, the d12 has a greater potential to win Tests and Contests, so its impact is greater. What the Dice Mean Assets work like other Traits, giving you a die to roll into appropriate Tests and Contests. You can always roll in one Asset for free, with the others requiring a Plot Point to add in.

Both Distinctions and Abilities come loaded with neat tricks that let you earn more Plot Points, directly affect the story, or twist the rules somehow. The Asset die ratings also measure the impact of the Asset for a Lead or Feature. You can divide Distinctions into three broad categories. The first covers attributes of your personality. Are you brilliant, athletic, or artistic? Do you have such a big heart that you always give in to help others? Or are you mean and sarcastic, always with a harsh word on the tip of your tongue? You might have spent years breaking through government firewalls or training in Israeli combat techniques. Clark has a Kryptonian Heritage, John Jones has a Martian Heritage, and so on. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3.

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This document was uploaded by user and they confirmed that they have the permission to share it. If you are author or own the copyright of this book, please report to us by using this DMCA report form. Report DMCA. Home current Explore. Home Smallville Rpg Smallville Rpg Uploaded by: Jacob McGrath 0 0 November PDF Bookmark Embed Share Print Download. Words: 66, Pages: LEADS, FEATURES, AND EXTRAS Your Smallville stories will be populated by all sorts of characters: heroes and villains, damsels in distress, plucky sidekicks, untrustworthy scoundrels, and everyone else who lives in Metropolis or wherever you set your story.

Characters come in three flavors in the Smallville Roleplaying Game: Leads, Features, and Extras. Leads are the characters that your stories are about; a different player controls each Lead. Features are the characters that fill significant roles in the rest of the story. Features push the Leads to act, whether by hatching some fiendish plot or by falling prey to one. Extras are the characters that mostly live in the background. This player is called Watchtower. Watchtower knows all and sees all; she plays characters off of each other while remaining in the background; her influence is pervasive and subtle, inescapable in its scope. Sound familiar? Watchtower controls the bad guys, sure; but she uses those characters as tools to provide the Leads with opportunities to tell a good story. Players also decide when what their Leads are doing is important enough to roll dice, not to mention when and how the Leads grow, change, and develop as characters and as people.

Traits The character sheets that describe Leads and Features are mostly lists of Traits. The three big categories of Traits are Drives, Assets, and Resources. This book calls out most specific Traits by using small caps, like this. Each Trait has a die rating. Most Traits also have a couple other notes listed underneath the die rating. These give you tricks to keep up your sleeve and to push the story in interesting directions. Each one has a statement in italics and a die rating. The statement describes his impression of each person or value. The rating scores how much he cares about that Drive. When you call Clark frantic for help, you can challenge that Value. When you challenge a Drive, you get to triple its die— instead of rolling one d8, you throw three. You also note the die size in your Growth pool on your Lead sheet, which is really important.

Whose Story Is It? What she does is create opportunities for the players to make their stories more interesting. She sets out challenges and obstacles, provoking the players into making choices both big and small—but always significant. Each Asset has a die rating and one or more notes underneath it. The die rating shows how powerful that Asset can be. The notes beneath give you access to nice little bonuses. There are three kinds of Assets: Distinctions, Abilities, and Gear. If you stripped away all the super stuff, what would be left? Those are your Distinctions. Each Distinction has three triggers—special things you can do in the game—that unlock as your rating in the Distinction increases. You get the first trigger at d4, the second at d8, and the third at d Each trigger gives you a benefit and exacts a cost, and most of them allow you to add to the story in interesting and often unexpected ways.

Abilities are things that you can do beyond normal human effort. Not everybody has Abilities. Abilities let you do all sorts of showy stuff, either as you roll dice or as a special effect you activate by spending a Plot Point. Super-strength, for instance, gives you a die to roll in when your massive muscles play to your advantage. You can also spend a Plot Point to pull off fantastic super-strength feats like catching a flying locomotive. Abilities also come with a Descriptor and a Limit. The Descriptor is a keyword that describes how the Ability manifests: heat, magic, psychic power, and so on. The Limit tells you what can stop your Ability cold. If somebody uses your Limit against you, he triples the die representing his clever tactic. Gear Traits are similar to Abilities in a lot of ways. Their die ratings, Spend abilities, and Descriptors function identically. Where they diverge is their Limit. All Gear has the same Limit: it can get lost, stolen, or broken.

RESOURCES Some characters also have Resources that they can call on—Extras and Locations that can give them a hand in specific situations. Normally, anybody can call on the help of an Extra or a Location; it just costs a Plot Point. They usually only do a couple of things, called specialties, and those things are rated in dice. So you might have Dr. Emil Hamilton Science, Medicine 2d10 or LuthorCorp Security Team Security, Retrievals 2d8. The full rules for Aiding can be found in Chapter Four: Scenes on page 49, but the short form is this: their dice add a little to your dice. Locations are special places that provide a bonus to the people who control them. Like Extras, they are rated in dice. The trick is that you need to play a scene in the Location getting ready. Then, later in the episode, you can let fly with those extra dice. There are five Stress Traits: Afraid, Angry, Exhausted, Injured, and Insecure.

As you take Stress, the die ratings start climbing. First, whenever someone rolls dice against you, they can roll in the die rating of one of your Stresses. Any more Stress to that Trait takes you out of the scene. There are also two reasons you actually want Stress. First, you can pay a Plot Point to roll in one of your Stress Traits. Second, and perhaps most important, Stress is how you grow and advance. If you get somebody to tend to your hurts and reduce a Stress Trait, you add the old rating to your Growth pool. Additionally, when you get to the end of an episode, you can roll your highest remaining Stress Trait along with your Growth pool. Dice The Smallville RPG uses dice to guide how events turn out in the story. Dice come into play in two ways: Contests and Tests.

We elaborate on both of these in Chapter Four: Scenes on page WHEN TO ROLL DICE A Contest is started when a character wants to make another character act. It could be plying him with honeyed words, hoping that he will help you out; it could be punching him in the face, hoping that he will fall to the floor. Watchtower calls these. HOW TO ROLL DICE You roll a number of dice together in a dice pool. To start with, you pick up a die for one of your Values and a second die for one of your Relationships. The collection of dice you can justify rolling makes up a pool. You roll the whole pool and pull out the highest two dice. Add these two together for your result. A high result means you did well; a low result means you did not. TROUBLE Watchtower also gets access to the Trouble pool. Trouble is a little or not so little stack of dice she keeps in front of her. Over the course of the adventure, though, it grows and shrinks.

When things get worse and tension mounts, the Trouble pool grows. When circumstances get better and you can almost hear the audience sigh in relief, the Trouble pool shrinks. Those dice are Complications. Rolling a 1 means something went just a little haywire—maybe not haywire enough to foul up what your Lead was doing, but enough to be a nuisance. Anybody at the table can say what the 1 means: a Freudian slip in the midst of an interrogation, an overplayed hand in an argument, collateral damage in a superpowered fistfight. If there are a lot of ideas on how you screwed up and there usually are , Watchtower picks the one she likes best. Complications never affect whether the Lead succeeds or fails in what he was doing; they are always additional details on top of the die result. Complications also add and remove dice from the Trouble pool. When your Complication dice are added to Trouble, things are getting worse and tension is mounting.

There is a silver lining to Complications, too: they might earn you some Plot Points. Plot Points Plot Points are a game currency that you will spend to affect the plot over the course of an episode.

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Smallville RPG - Free download as Word blogger.com /.docx), PDF blogger.com), Text blogger.com) or read online for free. Download Here - blogger.com smallville rpg highschool year book pdf Download Smallville Rpg - Corebook Type: PDF Date: November Size: MB This document was uploaded by user and they confirmed that they have the permission to share it. Smallville blogger.com - Free ebook download as PDF File .pdf), Text File .txt) or read book online for free. Scribd is the world's largest social reading and publishing site. Open navigation menu Download Smallville Rpg Type: PDF Date: November Size: KB Author: Jacob McGrath This document was uploaded by user and they confirmed that they have the Pathways is the system we use for creating new Leads in the Smallville RPG. This system calls for all the players to sit down and work together to create an all-new cast of characters, Smallville RPG - High School blogger.com - Free download as PDF File .pdf), Text File .txt) or read online for free. Scribd is the world's largest social reading and publishing site. Open ... read more

We elaborate on both of these in Chapter Four: Scenes on page The same is true for your Lead. Featured All Images This Just In Flickr Commons Occupy Wall Street Flickr Cover Art USGS Maps. Players also decide when what their Leads are doing is important enough to roll dice, not to mention when and how the Leads grow, change, and develop as characters and as people. Effect comes first. LUCK Things have a tendency to go your way, whether this is a conscious decision or not. d8: Add a d10 to Trouble to Reroll a die whenever secrets you know come into play.

As everyone takes turns adding to the map, smallville rpg pdf download, other players may connect other elements to your Lead, creating characters that hate you, work with you, went to school with you, or maybe have a crush on you. Activate Smallville rpg pdf download. Featured All Books All Texts This Just In Smithsonian Libraries FEDLINK US Genealogy Lincoln Collection. You may add more Special Effects by spending a die out of your Growth pool, which might represent sending the Gear into the lab or tinkering with it. d8: Spend a Plot Point to Reveal a fact about security holes or other exploitable weaknesses in the target of your hacking.