Skip to content

Action Checks (Part 2)

In Part 1, we explain the core concepts needed to understand base mechanics of action checks. In this section, we will further detail more specific mechanics and use-cases players should be aware of.

Fast-Paced Encounters

With further details on the page The Conversation and Spotlight, Witchgates does not explicitly list out a turn-order by which player actions must occur in. Players may freely jump in and out of the spotlight, just as in a normal group conversation. However, to evenly manage moment to moment action, the GM may use an action tracker to ensure no one individual is taking the entire spotlight. When tracking actions, players should limit themselves to a single nearby movement and single main expression of effort. Some merits, such as the superspeed of celerity, may allow a character to move further than normal within a single action.

Miss-Fortune

Miss-Fortune acts as the silver lining to failure, and a check to prevent bad-luck from steamrolling a character. On every character sheet, each attribute has three notches beside it to record miss-fortune. These are marked when an action check fails; the highest result as a miss. Players should record a miss-fortune under whichever attribute most closely relates to the action.
A player can spend (erase) a miss-fortune  to increase their own action pool by 1 or that of an ally. If helping an ally, the player may explain how their character does so.
A player can also spend a miss-fortune to take a complex flashback.
Unspent Miss-Fortune can be converted to XP on a milestone project at a 2 to 1 ratio: 2 miss-fortune for 1 XP.

Lengthy Tasks

Some actions require minimal narrative for what would take a long time to perform. These actions keep a character occupied during otherwise uneventful times within a story. Lengthy Tasks require time to complete and can be used to make head-way on and accomplish long-term goals, to rest and recover, or to resupply.

Generally, players can declare a lengthy task during periods of respite within the game, such as while traveling, exploring a new town, or while waiting for an upcoming event. These often occur between sessions, but can also occur whenever a time-skip would occur. 

Concentration

Some actions may require Concentration while performing. Characters can only concentrate on one task at a time, though they may take other tasks that do not require concentration. They also may need to make additional action checks to continue performing the task without being distracted by major events (such as being attacked).

Concentration action checks will often require an attribute instead of a skill, such as a resolve check to avoid distraction, or physique to avoid a lax in strength.

Unique Common Actions

Restorative | an action to recover marked boxes on a merit

Restorative actions are lengthy task whereby a character utilizes their skills and items to recover marks on a merit or to lower the penalty of an injury. Remember, normal effect levels clear 1 box from tracks.

  • Unique: A success with a hit increases the effect level to high, clearing an additional box.
  • Spend 1 esoteric to heal or repair a merit.

Acquisition | an action to acquire a new esoteric or lost word

Acquisition actions are lengthy task whereby a character wants to take some time performing an action to acquire new esoterics of a specific description. While esoterics can be acquired during an adventure as unique opportunities appear, initiatives to acquire specific materials take time and a fair amount of focused effort. However, due to this focus, roleplayers have more control over the description of what type of esoteric they are looking to find and what type of benefits it might provide if used in any type of craftwork.

  • Unique: A success with a hit allows the player to add an additional descriptive word to the esoteric found
  • Upon success, the character acquires 1 additional esoteric of the declared type they were searching for. Acquisition examples:
    • Hunting/Foraging
    • Searching storages for lost items or useful exotic material
    • Bartering in a market
    • Petty theft and pickpocketing
    • Playing music in a towns square for some spare cash and conversation
    • Gathering rumors in a tavern or listening to stories at a campfire
    • Hitting the library to pick up scraps of knowledge
    • Taking time with a telescope to explore the cosmos

Craft / Create a Temporary Merit (TM)| an action to combine esoterics in order to gain a temporary merit with a specific effect.

A lengthy task whereby a character can take some time to scrap together shoddy but useful devices, concoct an alchemical potion, or otherwise create a temporary benefit for themselves or others. Temporary Merits (TMs) represent items and abilities that characters create from esoterics to provide a brief benefit. Each time a character benefits from a TM they mark 1 box on the TM’s track, removing the TM once all of its boxes are marked.
Examples include: temporary weaponry, bolstering meals, potions and concoctions, and gadgets. Creating a TM can be one of the first steps a character takes towards making their own unique merit.

  • Unique: Players can spend 2 esoterics to attempt (action check) to create a reusable merit with a description based on the esoterics spent.
    • A TM starts with a 5 box track that is then reduced based on the benefits it provides.
    • Whenever you benefit from a temporary merit, mark its track.
    • Temporary merits provide a benefit pulled from description of the esoterics and/or action that created it. For example:
      • An electric creature’s shock gland is wired up to some mechanic’s gloves to create a weapon that deals shock damage.
      • An electric creature’s shock gland is cooked with some exotic wild fruit to create a food that imparts shock resistance to whoever eats it.
      • Some strange floating rocks are ground up and added to an acidic goo to concoct a salve that makes whatever it coats buoyant for a short time. 
    • Success with a hit: The TM is successfully created with benefits relating to the manner and esoterics of its creation.
    • Success with a glance: The TM is created but has some negative trouble it causes or fewer uses than intended.
    • Failure with a miss: The TM is not created and the player chooses one of the esoterics to salvage from the process and recover.

To craft a unique TM, use the below table with a base track of 4, reducing the track per the costs of each benefit

Benefit Effect Cost
Durable The TM is unusually durable.  0
Expert Tool When using this TM for its intended use, turn a glance into a hit.
 1
Caution Ignore cut in specific instances or on a specific type of action
 1
Impact Increase Effect in specific situations 1
Mobility Provides a limited but additional method of moving 1
Utility Provides a small but occasionally helpful ability.
Upgrade: Remove an additional box to reduce the limitations of the utility or increase the number of situations where the ability may help.		 1
Damaging Deals an additional mark of a specific type of harm at melee or long range. 1
Insight Can be used to learn a piece of information within a limited specified context 2
Resistance Harm of a specific type deals less damage. Any trouble dealing harm to you is lessened 1 rank: Major->High->Medium->None 2
Sensory Provides a new way of sensing the world 2
Professional Automatically perform a specific type of difficult action without needing an action check 2

Create a Scene Aspect | an action to add to a scene’s description

Scene Aspects are elements of a scene’s description which characters can utilize to their advantage or the disadvantage of others. Creating a scene aspect can be done as its own individual action or on top of another successful action which had spare hits or glances. A player can also spend a lost word to create a scene aspect connected to the phrase.

For example, a scene aspect might involve the chandelier in a room which players use to swing about or cut-down to knock down onto enemies. A player may maneuver away from a monster’s attack while knocking down books and shelves, creating an obstacle that might be useful later.

Flashback | a brief reference to a previously undeclared action taken in the past

Narratives are not always strictly linear and confined to the present. Flashbacks allow characters to roll for an action in the past if it would be relevant for the present. Players may freely take flashbacks for simple actions – actions which don’t involve elaborate motions, a lot of time, and of which their character had ample opportunity to take. To take a flashback that would have required more character effort, such as bribing a guard or researching a facility’s layout, a character should either spend 1 miss-fortune or 1 mark of stress harm on any merit.

While flashbacks represent actions taken in the past, they do not alter the pre-established fiction; aka, a flashback does not allow time travel. Similar to normal actions, a game master has final adjudication on whether the action was possible and if it needs an action pull.

  • Good: A group of players arrive at a closed building and one player attempts a flashback to have bribed a guard to leave a door unlocked.
  • Good: A group of player characters arrive at a restaurant and 1 player requests a flashback to have ordered their food online while someone else drove there.
  • Bad: A player character gets food poisoning and attempts to use a flashback to have ordered a different meal. The past cannot be changed.
  • Bad: The player character driver who brought everyone to the restaurant attempts a flashback to order the food online during the drive. Their past narrative was too busy (driving) to have also ordered the food.

Order | a command from a faction leader to a lower ranked role

High ranking faction leaders may attempt to command other characters within their faction of lower rank to perform a specific task in exchange for a resource. Ultimately, orders are best utilized by leaders to assign quests to their low-ranked members, and they allow leaders to pursue multiple goals with the assistance of others.

    • An order cannot give more than one command to a character at a time.
    • The task cannot promise harm to the character or any of that character’s factions.
    • Characters must pursue the command as soon as possible, or per your requested timing.
    • Failure to pursue a command, or failure to reward successful completion of a command, can lower a character’s rank within a faction by 1 if the commander or follower chooses.