On this third Monday of the month, our look at game rules takes us to the character sheet and the concept of traits, special abilities which can be purchased on character creation or during the course of the game.

 Since The Broken Hourglass employs a point-buy experience system for character advancement, a natural question is, "Exactly what can we buy with those points?"

There are two major categories of assets "on sale" to a character in our system. Attributes and skills make up the first category--these are ability ratings which are measured on a scale from 0 to 100 (except for Health, which has no ceiling). Additional points in these abilities can be bought over and over again.

The other category of point-buy asset is the trait. Unlike skills and attributes, traits are one-time, either-you-have-it-or-you-don't purchases. Traits provide specialized benefits which are not easily expressed through the standard skills and attributes, or provide special "synergy" bonuses for characters with a prerequisite set of skills.

In some systems with special features or feats, those perks can only be bought at certain times. In The Broken Hourglass, a trait can be bought during any point-buy session so long as the character has enough points to pay for the trait. And although some systems consider the purchase of one feat to be equal to the purchase of another, in The Broken Hourglass, more beneficial feats cost more points than those which offer only a modest boon.

There is a special class of traits which can only be chosen upon character creation. Typically, these deal with special circumstances of a character's birth or upbringing. For instance, the trait Cold-Iron Birth, which gives a person innate resistance to magic but also makes it difficult to wield magic, can only be selected when a character is initially created. Most traits are not "at creation only" traits.

Lyrio, Maron, Zephra and Aenarii are back in this month's installment of On the Fly. If you missed the first three chapters, read them here.

On the Fly
By Bonnie Rutledge
Chapter 4

Share the fear.

Zephra did not look happy. That thought crossed Desonir’s mind first, but he could live with her unhappiness a while longer. And so could she.

His second thought concerned the elf’s robe. Cotton. The postman could obviously sense his malevolence toward the garment and tugged self-consciously at his collar.

"My apologies, Councilor," Lyrio said. He showed more courage than Desonir had expected, especially for a civil servant. Most men in his situation would have been too concerned over his future safety to do more than sputter and bow. "I did not learn of your preferences in clothing before Mary--uh, Maron--brought me at your invitation."

"Your invitation?" Zephra gaped at the pair of them. "His invitation?"

"I appreciate your embarrassment," Desonir said casually. Zephra tried to unobtrusively swipe a lump of fabric off of the floor and hold it out of sight behind her back. Ah, the dress.

He was surprised that Zephra believed that he would not notice her shoddy treatment of his gift. Studying the high color in her cheeks, Desonir reconsidered. She had expected him to notice and assumed his comment had been meant for her. Somehow, that was equally troublesome. "Had I anticipated conscientiousness from you, Postman Bregna, I would have made certain you were advised of my house rules before you arrived."

He eyed Zephra, who returned his stare measure for measure. He could recognize the signs: she was trying to read him--she was calculating--but there was an air of frenetic desperation about her that made him hesitant to look too closely. Damning himself for a coward, he turned to the curious postman.

"I realize that my preferences must appear eccentric to you, Mister Bregna," Desonir continued, "but you must admit a man in my position cannot be too careful."

Lyrio glanced about the carved marble alcove--the intricate detail of the blind arcade honed in relief on the walls, the depressed arches lined in gold leaf and rubies, and the brilliant stained glass shining in the afternoon light. He cleverly dodged his line of sight around Zephra as he examined these palpable displays of wealth then looked at Desonir with hapless earnestness. "I suspect I have no idea how a man in your position feels, sir."

It's the first Monday of the month, so we bring you a new glimpse into the world of The Broken Hourglass. Learn now about the elitist Adepts of the independent island nation of Argoniss and their down-home spellslinging counterparts, the Mageborn.

Magic, Mageborn, and the Island of Argoniss

The nearest neighbor to the Tolmiran Empire is the independent island nation of Argoniss. Argoniss is, in no particular order, home to the region's finest magical scholars, a chain of mostly inactive volcanoes, and lush plant life. In the Empire itself the use of magic is uncommon and not studied or cultivated with any degree of formality. On the other hand, the people of Argoniss are entirely devoted to the development of magic and mages. It is commonly believed that the vast majority of human Adepts are concentrated on the island of Argoniss, though the truth of this may be exaggerated. The mages of the island have limited contact with the outside world, usually limited to trading magical services and items for supplies from Tolmira. Goods are often teleported directly to and from the island, as no outsider is allowed to set foot upon their shores--ships which approach find that the winds and currents turn against them, and are sometimes sunk to the bottom of the sea by storms that arise out of nowhere and fade just as quickly.

Only prearranged passenger ships carrying adepts and students to and from the island are spared this mysterious prohibition. Officially, the birth rate on Argoniss is zero, as Adepts are firmly discouraged from producing children during their training. Therefore Argoniss replenishes its numbers by searching the mainland for youths that show the great mental potential required to master magical disciplines. Many within the Empire disapprove of this practice, believing that the mages are stealing away the best and brightest, and there are unsubstantiated rumors of the midnight abductions of those who won't go along willingly. The training of those invited (or taken) lasts for as long as fifteen years in some cases, and many are unable to take the strain and isolation. These washouts are returned to the mainland, sometimes establishing themselves as hedge mages and alchemists.

The Broken Hourglass uses a novel scripting language under the hood called wscript. Here's the official definition of wscript:

The WeiNGINE scripting language wscript is a strongly-typed functional programming language with parametric polymorphism, first-class functions, and variable updates in the style of Objective CAML.

Don't worry--you don't have to understand all of those terms in order to successfully edit and compose scripts in a WeiNGINE game. (Although it certainly doesn't hurt.)

Two important concepts to know and understand are:

·        wscript is object-oriented. Every thing in the game can have a number of predefined engine attributes (such as location on a map, or a Strength statistical value) as well as any number of arbitrary variables attached to it.

·        wscript is event-driven. Scripts are evaluated and run whenever a script hook event takes place. There are dozens of script hook events in the game, ranging from the manipulation of doors and containers to the computation of an attack roll, to a creature joining or leaving a party.

The Way Of Things

Resources such as items, creatures, and spells all fall under the umbrella of a scripting "thing." We refer to things in wscript with a matched pair of strings, separated by a double colon. Generally speaking, the left side of a thing is the name of the thing, while the right side is the type of resource it is.

For example--

"makarios"::"CREATURE"
and
"greatsword"::"ITEM"

are both things--the creature internally named "makarios" and the item internally known as "greatsword", respectively.

On this third Monday of the month, our look at game rules takes us to our magic system, designed around flexibility and action, instead of consigning spellcasters to worry about "saving" their spells for the next big encounter. Here's a look inside.

Explaining how magic works in The Broken Hourglass is best done by first explaining how it does not work. Although TBH may well be the first CRPG for some players, many people have considerable experience with and preferences for different methods of representing magic in a game setting.

 Is and Is Not

 Our magic system is:

 - Not a spells-per-day/"hung spell" model. In our system, you do not commit your spell choices a day in advance, or make a career decision to only cast a small handful of spells over and over again. Casters have access to any known spell and spell effect at all times, provided the caster still meets the requirements.

 - Not a potion-collecting model. In our system, you do not guzzle potions to restore your magic ability. When CRPGs turn away from the spells-per-day system, the usual alternative is a stock of spell points which are depleted with every cast spell and replenished by consuming a bandolier of vials. Here, tied-up mana is restored either by dropping magical effects, finishing combat, or resting.