Towerlands Rules

From AdamWiki

Towerlands is a fantasy role-playing game for two or more players (preferably four to six). The play group will role-play the adventures of their own characters in a fantasy setting they invent during play. The theme of the game is that nothing comes for free. The characters will struggle to balance their alliances and players constantly must judge how important things are to them (and their characters).

In game terms, almost everything on a character sheet is a connection to the setting. That's where a character's real power comes from. The system uses dice pools and is somewhat "crunchy," with one dice system that can resolve conflicts with a single roll if the players choose. The same system can be drawn out to give a multi-round blow-by-blow resolution with a little tactical gameplay.

Overview of Play

Each player creates a character. The entire play group -- players and one game master (GM)-- create the setting as they go. The elements of the setting are recorded on note cards and players connect their characters to these setting elements. These connections are the abilities and powers the characters have.

The GM looks at the connections the players have chosen for their characters and creates problems for the characters to solve. Problems include threats to important connections, dilemmas in which two connections need help and the player must choose which to help, and simpler cases where a connection just needs a little help.

In the pursuit of a solution to these problems, the players will seek additional resources, called boons, that make their job easier. Boons are new abilities, also in the form of connections to setting elements. The of gaining boons is, itself, full of hardship and peril but the rewards can be great. Furthermore, gaining boons can cause the characters to accrue additional debts of kindness, promises, oaths, and allegiances that the GM can use to create new problems later.

Eventually, the character comes face-to-face with his problem, uses his abilities and boons to confront it, and either succeeds or fails.

Setting

The GM and players create the setting together. If the group prefers a more traditional setup where the GM creates the setting and the players explore it, they can do this, but even in this case the GM should yield to a player who asks, "Hey, is there a secret society of wizards who practice dark magic?" Yes, of course there is, because the player wants it for his character concept. The veto process is left to the gaming group to work out, but nothing in these rules automatically grants it to the GM solely.

The best play will arise when the GM and players work together to create the setting and inclusion or exclusion of elements (the aforementioned veto process) depends on group concensus. This creates maximum "buy-in" for the group. The more the entire group invests in the setting, the better play will proceed.

You would think creating a setting would be a daunting task, but it doesn't have to be. You're not writing the Fantasy World Encyclopedia. You'll focus on the core setting elements that inform play. That is, if you can't use it immediately, don't worry about it. This is much like the process that writers use when writing your favorite fantasy novels.

Get a stack of index cards. Record the setting elements on these cards. Each element is a "thing" of importance in the setting:

• a faction or group
• an important person
• a monster or spirit
• a deity
• a tradition, such as the magical arts or a fighting style
• a place

Each element has a name and a brief description. More important are the resources each element offers to the player group. The players can tie their characters to these elements and use the resources. Likewise, the GM can use an element as a story antagonist and use that element's resources to make the lives of the player-characters more difficult and more interesting!

Here are some example resources. The element is listed first because resources are meaningless without the context of the element which owns them. The numbers are the strength of the resource. The rules will explain these later.

• Element: The Towerland of Essonay [faction]
  • wise leader, King Essonay (6)
  • watchtowers for rest and security (5)
  • the Iron Guard militia (3)
• Element: Spirit Magic [tradition]
  • summoning ancestors (7)
  • banishing ghosts (3)
  • knowledge of history (2)
• Element: Coliadru ei Seuna, dragon of the hills [monster]
  • enormous size (6)
  • fiery breath (3)
  • wings (1)

Note that some of these resources cannot be shared. While one can imagine that the Towerland of Essonay might lend you some militiamen to fight an invader, the dragon Coliadru cannot lend you is fiery breath. These are generalizations, of course, as creative players might come up with explanations using magic or other means to "borrow" these intrinsic resources. Play groups are asked to use common sense to determine what can be borrowed and what cannot.

The play group will create new setting elements (on cards) throughout play. The setting will grow as needed and as the players' ideas materialize. Remember, GMs, when a player asks, "Does this world have a..." or "Is there anything like a...", they're making their desires known. They are telling you what would make their game more fun. The play group should discuss each idea, improve it, and try to incorporate it. But sometimes an idea is just bad and the play group must recognize this and fix or veto "broken" setting elements. Of course, "broken" is extremely subjective. For example, a player might suggest that all the world's magic is really alien technology and want to include aliens and flying saucers into your fantasy world. If the rest of the group thinks this is cool, then you'll go for it. If the rest of the group thinks this is an awful idea, then you'll veto it.

The rules do not supply the mechanism for working out these issues. It is of vital importance that each group develops its own way of deciding what is "worthy" of the setting. More often than not, a player won't feel that his game will be ruined if something isn't included, but often a player will believe that a game will be ruined if something he doesn't like is included. Keep this in mind as you consider systems like "majority wins," "GM rules all," and "anyone can veto."

Characters

Sample Characters

Towerlands characters are the movers and shakers of the world. If you want to play a lowly peasant, you can, but that peasant will have the potential to change the world through play. If you want to play a dwarven king or a powerful sorcerer or an ancient water spirit, you can do that, too. Each play group must figure out what is acceptable.

Think big. If you dream of your character becoming the foremost swordsman in all the land, why wait? Start there. You don't have to "earn" your way up to the character you want. It doesn't really matter how powerful you make your character. Being king doesn't necessarily mean everything goes your way. Keep in mind that you still must purchase the advantages you believe your character has. If you create the King of Essonay, you better connect him to the Essonay element and give your character a lot of kingdom-related boons, else he'll be a pretty ineffective king. In general, though, you can give people orders, take money out of the treasury, or whatever. It's good to be the king!

In mechanical terms, a character is defined by two things. First, a character has scores in five domains that represent her intrinsic abilities. Second, each character has list of connections to extrinsic setting elements and each of those connections contains boons (resources) that the character can borrow during play.

Domains

The character has five intrinsic scores which represent how well he relates to the world in five distinct domains. The descriptors after each domain in the list below are examples for clarity, not specific abilities.

• Physical -- muscle, grace, speed, agility
• Mental -- reason, memory, instinct, alertness
• Emotional -- maturity, self-control, courage, empathy
• Social -- charisma, popularity, smoothness, affability
• Spiritual -- faith, divine favor, holy connection, magical power

Each player gets 25 points to distribute among those five domains. Each score must be a whole number and no value may be less than 1 or greater than 8. You could go with all 5's, or you could use 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 in any order, or you could use some other combination that adds to 25.

The scores are the number of dice you'll get in any conflict that falls into that domain. For example, if your character is fighting, that falls into the Physical domain, so you'll use your Physical score to determine how many dice you get to roll against your opponent. You'll be dividing your dice between three dice pools (offense, defense, and control) for each conflict, so you'll probably want one domain that you use most often in conflicts. Sometimes your opponent gets to choose the domain for the conflict, though, so there is definitely a down-side if you short-change one or more of your domains.

The scores also are the number of burdens (wounds, sorta) that you can take. Each burden will reduce your effective score in that domain by 1, so if you have a 4 in your Physical domain and you take 1 burden (say it's "broken arm"), your net score in Physical will be 3. If a score in a domain ever is adjusted to 0 by burdens, you automatically lose all conflicts in that domain.

Connections

The character starts with connections to elements of the setting. These confer resources (called boons) that the player can use to influence rolls during play. Connections vary by type and each type has its own rules for use.

Factions are a very common type of setting element. These represent any group of people with a common purpose. "People" can be pretty much any group of thinking creatures, so don't get hung up on that word. For example, it could be a family of dragons, an entire race ("the Elves"), a village or city (really, its people), the cobbler's guild, an army, or a colony of intelligent man-sized bees.

Traditions are formal philosophies, beliefs, and practices that have lasted for a number of years, often for centuries. In fact, these practices have become ritualized such that they take on power of their own. Without this consensus of its practitioners, without the ritual that comes with years of repetition, the ideas and actions would not form a tradition. Moreover, while it's tempting to treat Traditions like just a category to lump useful skills, it's a lot more. These are Traditions that make demands of the characters in ways simple skills do not. Some examples of traditions are The Way of the Six Swords, spirit magic of the North, Gaia worship, and dwarven asceticism.

Allies are individual people who are generally disposed to helping your character. Allies will often ask you for help, too! Allies include friends, mentors, pets, loyal henchmen, friendly people with power, and even spirits and ghosts and otherworldly creatures.

Fetishes are objects that are imbued with special power. This isn't necessarily magical power in the fantasy-world sense of the word. It could be the power of familiarity of an item long in your possession, the power of personal pride in a family heirloom, or the power of quality in a well-crafted object. In any case, a Fetish is a thing that has transcended the everyday nature of that thing. It's not just a sword; it's the sword your father gave you, and because he gave it to you, it has additional power in your character's story. Whether the power granted by a Fetish is truly magical or entirely "metagaming" or somewhere in between the two is up to the play group.

Destinies, a special type of Tradition, are prophecies or predictions that may or may not come true.

Origins, a special type of Faction, are the culture or race with which one identifies. This is an unchangeable fact about your character, as one cannot change where one came from.

Family, a special type of Ally, are the people to whom you are related. These are unchangeable facts about the character, as one cannot change one's family.

Enemies' are a special element type. These include monsters, villains, and the like. They're essentially an individual threat. Perhaps surprisingly, characters can create connections to enemies and gain boons from them. Generally, these boons are drives created from hatred, revenge, a sense of justice, or some other desire to overcome the enemy.

Recall our examples from an earlier section:

The Towerland of Essonay is a Faction. It represents a group of people with a common geography and culture. Spirit Magic is a Tradition. Its special rituals allow its believers to banish ghosts and summon ancestors for help. Coliadru ei Seuna, the dragon of the hills is an Enemy. A player might connect his character to the dragon, thus tying their past or future with the monster's.

Connections at Start

Each character will start with 5-8 connections (it's up to you how many). Create the elements in the setting or choose elements others have created and add them to the Connections section of your character sheet. Explain how you are and the element are connected. It is not necessary for your character to be aware that the connection exists. For example, Essonay might be secretly helping you without your knowledge.

Boons

Boons are, more or less, favors or debts owed to your character by a connection. These are resources that your character can call upon when the circumstances are right.

Each boon will be assigned to a domain. That is, there are physical boons, mental boons, emotional boons, social boons, and spiritual boons. When determining to which domain you will assign a boon, consider how it will be used. A retinue of guards will probably be used for physical conflict, so it goes under Physical. A wise advisor will be used for her intellect, so it's a Mental boon. A kind mother, present or not, will give you heart with the words she used to tell you, so it falls into the Emotional domain. The boon will be useful only within the boon to which it is assigned.

Any time your character takes a boon from a connection, the character becomes a burden to that connection element. Write your character's name on the element card. If you have more than one boon from that element, put the number of boons after your character burden on the element.

Types of Boons

There are three main types of boons. These boil down to having something (aid), being promised something (support), and knowing something (knowledge). When you write down a boon, you should note the type of boon it is in [square brackets] after the boon's description.

Aid means that you are given something that helps you immediately. An example is the Kingdom of Essonay sending a small cadre of soldiers with you on your mission. They will help you in most matters, as long as they are present. Another example is a magical sword's enchantment; as long as you have the sword, you can use its enchantment.

Support means that someone has pledged to aid you if you need it. This is generally used as a threat. "If you help me defeat the marauders, I will get the Kingdom of Essonay to send wagons of food to your village." That only works if Essonay has pledged support to you in some way (or you know you can get it). You can say those things without support, but that's just bluffing.

Knowledge means that your connection to something grants you knowledge or wisdom. For example, you might have a connection to the Kingdom of Essonay with the boon "knows secrets of the kingdom [knowledge]." Whenever knowing secret stuff of Essonay might help you in a conflict, you can use the boon.

Boons at Start

Each character will start with 10 boons. Rank your domain scores from highest to lowest. The highest gets 4 boons, the next gets 3, the next gets 2, the second to last gets 1, and the lowest gets none. If you have tied scores, you can choose the order of the tied domains.

In a given domain, you may not take an knowledge boon unless you have an aid boon, and you may not take an aid boon unless you have a support boon.

Thus, for your highest-ranked domain, you have several options:

• 4 support boons
• 3 support boons and 1 aid boon
• 2 support boons, 1 aid boon, and 1 knowledge boon

For your second highest-ranked domain:

• 3 support boons
• 2 support boons and 1 aid boon
• 1 support boon, 1 aid boon, and 1 knowledge boon

For your third highest-ranked domain:

• 2 support boons
• 1 support boons and 1 aid boon

For your fourth highest-ranked domain, you have only one option:

• 1 support boon

Of course, for your lowest-ranked domain, you have no boons.

You can make up boons that aren't on the cards. You have complete creative power here, as long as the rest of your group goes along with what you're doing. Each boon must come, however, from one of your connections. Don't forget to add a character burden to the connection element.

You don't have to use all the points at start. If you have unused points, note them under the domain they come from. You can spend them at any time during play to buy boons on the fly.

Conflicts

Throughout the game, your character will face all manner of conflicts. Players will use dice to resolve them. Conflicts earn tokens, which a player can use to grow his character. The riskier the conflict, the better the reward.

Usually play will evolve to a point where everyone is saying what they're doing, but it's unclear how things will turn out. Save the dice for the exciting, interesting scenes. Don't roll dice to figure out if the local cheese shop can get you a nice Camembert, unless that's somehow critical to the plot. When you're not rolling dice, the player is automatically succeeding. Roll the dice, or say yes.

Roll dice to answer the question: Can our intrepid heroes get past this obstacle in order to accomplish their goals?

That is, if the conflict has nothing to do with the player's (or character's) goals, don't bother rolling dice. This means that the GM won't be dumping "random encounters" into the game, either. Every encounter is either directly pertinent to player goals, indirectly relevant to player goals (like earning a boon that will help them later), or irrelevant to player goals (in which case, the character succeeds automatically).

Clear Goals

Before even reaching for dice, everyone should be clear on what they want out of the conflict. That is, what does each player hope his character will achieve? All the rolls you make, all the actions you describe, will be steps leading closer to or further from the achievement of that goal. It might be as simple as "keep that dragon from killing me."

The ultimate resolution of the conflict through the dice system will determine whose goal comes to fruition.

It's possible that everyone involved achieves his or her goal! If none of the goals are in opposition, and nothing happens during the resolution of the goals to stop anyone else's goal, everyone wins. For example, Adam might want the dragon to kill and eat Bree's character. Bree might want to escape. Those two goals clearly oppose each other. But Carrie might want to steal the dragon's gold. The dragon gets to roll dice to oppose Carrie, certainly, but Carrie could steal the gold regardless of the result of Bree's character becoming dragon food.

Generally, keep the statement of goals short and clear. If it starts getting complicated, you're doing too much or not being general enough. Avoid the urge to "do too much" in your goals. That stuff you're saying is fodder for your narration while you actually resolve the conflict with dice. In other words, don't describe in your goals how you slay the dragon. Just say you want the dragon to be dead.

The Dice

Towerlands uses 20-sided dice, collected in groups called pools. A pool of five dice might be annotated in this text as 5d20.

In most cases, you do not roll your entire pool at once. You'll pick up a couple of dice from the pool and roll them. The highest value rolled is your result. If you roll 5d10 and get 1 1 4 12 19, then your result is 19.

Any time a certain value shows on more than one die, you can combine them. Each additional die adds +1 to the value. For example, if you roll 1 7 14 19 19, this is the same as rolling a 20 (the additional 19 adds +1 to the "19" value). If you roll 1 12 19 19 19, that's the same as rolling a 21 (the two additional 19's each add +1 to the "19" value: 19+2=21). Sometimes the highest die isn't your result. You might roll a number of lower-numbered dice and they might net a higher score than the highest face value showing. That's fine. For example, you roll 1 14 14 14 14 16. The four 14's convert to a 17! You can use the 17 as your result.

Once dice are rolled, you calculate the result using the method above, then return the dice to the dice bag or wherever you keep them. That is, the dice are spent and aren't used again till you generate a new dice pool.

Conflict Domain

Every conflict has an domain, which is one of the five domains: Physical, Mental, Emotional, Social, Spiritual. Sword fights, archery contests, moving boulders, and long distance running fall into the Physical domain. Chess games, remembering obscure facts, outwitting opponents, and sensing traps fall into the Mental domain. Feats of willpower, choking back tears, and fighting a love potion fall into the Emotional domain. Charming the local barmaid, convincing a king to release you from jail, and bluffing an opponent fall into the Social domain. Purifying one's soul before a ritual, working magic, and forcing the gates to the underworld fall into the Spiritual domain.

If both sides of a conflict agree on the domain, then that's the starting domain for the conflict. When one side disagrees with the other, they must determine the domain through a die roll. Each side picks up as many initiative dice as they like and rolls them using the dice method described above. The highest result chooses the domain.

Dice Pools

Each player gets a number of dice equal to the domain score minus the initiative dice. So if you rolled 2 initiative dice and the domain is Physical, and your Physical domain score is 7, then you get 7-2 = 5 dice for the conflict.

Split the dice among three dice pools: offense, defense, and control. The offense pool will be used to make attacks. The defense pool will be used to defend against your opponents' attacks. The control pool will be used to augment offense and defense and to change the domain. You can put no dice into a pool if you like, but you'll be vulnerable without defense dice! Also, you cannot put more dice into your control pool than you have placed into either your offense or defense pool. For example, if you have 7 dice, you could put 3 into offense, 2 into defense, and 2 into control, but you couldn't put 2 into defense, 2 into offense, and 3 into control (3 is more than 2).

Rounds

Each conflict is divided into rounds. A round is typically an exchange of attacks back and forth. Every participant in a conflict gets one action per round, and it's most often an attack. An "attack" in a Physical conflict might very well be punching someone in the face or a series of sword blows. In other types of conflicts, however, the "attack" might be more figurative: an Emotional attack in which one tries to make a colleague feel guilty, a Spiritual attack in which one tries to penetrate the mysteries of a divine relic.

Each round, every participant describes what they're attempting to do. If they're making an attack, they remove any number of dice from their offense pool and push them forward at their opponent. Players can adjust the number of dice in their attack dice at any time. Once everyone has had a chance to adjust, offense dice are locked in and defenses are declared. Everyone who is being attacked can take a number of dice from their defense pool and push them forward. Defense dice can be adjusted, too. Once everyone has had a chance to adjust, then everyone rolls dice.

Offense dice are compared to defense dice. Ties go to the defender. When an offense result beats other player's defense result, the defender gets a burden in that domain. The offensive player gets to make up a suitable burden and the defender must write it on his sheet under that domain. Next to the burden, write the offense die result that caused it.

Boons

Remember those boons you wrote on your sheet? You can use them in conflicts to reroll dice you don't like.

During any conflict, after you've rolled any dice, pick a boon. Describe how your character uses it to his favor in the context of what is happening right now in the game. Then pick one of the dice and reroll it. You'll probably pick a low die. It might improve your overall result; it might not. You can continue doing this as much as you like but you may use each boon only once in a given conflict. That is, until you refresh your dice pools from your domain, you cannot use that boon again. Keep track of which boons you used -- one easy way is to put a small pencil mark next to the boon when you use it, then erase them at the end of a conflict.

Burdens

Whenever an attack succeeds, it causes a burden on the injured side. The attacker gets to write the burden and it can go under any domain. The burden will stay on the injured party till they remove it in a special burden-removing conflict later (the rules explain this later on, don't worry). As mentioned earlier, each burden reduces the effective score of the domain to which it pertains by one point.

The description of the burden should be brief and clear. Here are some examples.

Physical

• broken arm
• exhausted
• a large, infected cut across his chest

Mental

• periodic confusion
• distracted by the illogic of what Ilzar said
• single-mindedly focused on revenge

Emotional

• depressed for no obvious reason
• afraid of combat
• no will to travel anymore

Social

• a revolting scar across her face
• he brags about his exploits and annoys everyone
• mocked for his terrible defeat in battle at Jaratomb

Spiritual

• cursed by the gods
• out of tune with nature
• possessed by a minor, but troublesome, water spirit

After each burden, write its strength, which is the highest die on the winning roll that caused the burden. This is the number of dice that will oppose you when you try to remove the burden.

Don't adjust your domain score when you add a burden. Keep track of the original score and the modified score, or just count your burdens and subtract that number from your unmodified domain score when you gather your dice in a conflict.

You can always avoid a burden by voluntarily losing your conflict. That is, after you learn what burden you'll have to accept to go on, you can choose instead to give up the conflict you're in. This forfeit avoids the consequence of that particular burden at the expense of your greater goals. Whatever goal you set at the start of the conflict, you fail at. This might mean you no longer block your opponents' goals. If your goal was to get away from the dragon, you won't get away from it, and if its goal was to kill you, you'll die.

Control

The control pool is very useful. It lets you react to bad dice situations by giving you extra dice when you need them. At any point, you can take a die out of your control pool and put it in either your offense or defense pool (where it must stay). You can roll it immediately and use it as part of your dice result for your offense or defense roll, too, and you can do this after you've already rolled the offense or defense dice. It's as flexible and as powerful as it seems. Control dice are awesome and you'll probably allocate as many dice to it as you can in every conflict.

Remember that, when you're dividing up your domain dice into your offense, control, and defense pools, the size of your control pool is limited by the other two. Control cannot be larger than either offense or defense.

The other extremely important use for control is to refocus a conflict. At the end of any round, any participant in the conflict can attempt to change the conflict's domain. Use as many control dice as you like, but you cannot use offense or defense dice. Participants who wish to oppose you can use as many of their control dice as they like. You can use boons here, too. Play it out like any other conflict but do not inflict burdens. Instead, the winner of the refocus conflict gets to pick the domain for the next round.

Whenever a conflict is refocused, everyone gets more dice from the chosen domain. So if you refocus from Physical to Social, everyone adds their Social dice to whatever is left of their Physical dice. They're divided into offense, control, and defense pools as usual, with the same limits on control, with a twist: the amount you add to control cannot be more than you add to either offense or defense.

Then play continues with the next round, with the participants resolving a conflict in the new domain. Don't get hung up on the "different domains" of dice in the pools. For example, you might refocus from Physical to Social and add 4 Social dice to your offense pool that already has 2 Physical dice in it. They're all Social dice now. The conflict -- at least until the next refocus -- is a Social conflict now, not a Physical one. The leftover dice just amplify the new conflict.

When Dice Run Out

Eventually, someone will run out of dice. Or, perhaps, you will put no dice into one of your pools for some reason. When you don't have dice to roll, treat this as having rolled a 0 result.

If you have no offense dice, you can still describe what you're doing to attack, but you'll get a 0 result and lose (or possibly tie against someone's 0 defense). Don't describe a weak attack. You're a hero! Describe a bold, perhaps desperate, attack that still fails to bring the dragon down. You can narrate a fumble if you want, of course, but it isn't required.

If you have no defense dice, you can still describe your defense, but you'll get a 0 result. Unless your attacker also gets a 0, you're going to lose. Remember that you're a hero. You can describe a valiant defense overcome by superior power, if you like. You don't have to turn your character into a sword-dropping stooge because you ran out of dice.

If you have no control dice, you cannot augment offense or defense (no dice to add, after all) and you cannot refocus (no dice to roll in the conflict, after all).

Ending the Conflict

The conflict ends when everyone runs out of dice. Then what?

Well, if you want, you can follow it immediately with another conflict. Start from the beginning of the conflict procedure, with an initiative roll to see who determines the conflict domain.

The rules allow the players to scale encounters in different ways. If you want a blow-by-blow conflict with lots of colorful description, use only one or two dice for offense and defense. If you just want to find out who wins the conflict, push all your offense and defense dice forward, and divide your control pool among them. You're thinking, what if my opponents hold a couple offense dice in reserve to get in free wallops on me? Well, remember that you can adjust your dice pools before moving on. If they hold offense dice back, you can take a few back, too. Basically, scale encounters to the taste of all the participants.

Rewards

Why should players do the things they do? Certainly everyone comes to the gaming table for the love of the game, for the time they get to spend with friends, and for the creative outlet. But specifically, what else? What drives a Towerlands player to make certain decisions? What kind of player behavior should the rules reward?

Towerlands is about making decisions about what is most important to you. The game tests you with clashing priorities. The game isn't about winning challenges. To reward for winning would be to miss the point.

So what does Towerlands reward? Choosing.

Whenever the game master puts a dilemma of any kind in front of you, and you commit to a choice one way or another, you earn a Consequence, which is a point of game currency that you can use to buy new boons, buy off burdens, and do some other nifty things.

To be continued...

Magic

Towerlands is a fantasy game and thus magic has a special place in the genre and the rules. The theme of the game -- that everything has a cost or consequence -- is etched into the magical system. Essentially, every use of real magic comes with a cost.

The Nature of Magic

When most people hear the word "magic," they think of sorcerers shouting arcane phrases, waving their crooked willow wands, maybe bringing blasting enemies with lightning or turning them into toads. Magic in Towerlands is so much more than that.

Magic is power from the otherworld. It is metaphysical by definition. It comes from outside of this world. It is a stranger here. It does not belong, yet here it is. It is sacred, holy, and always dangerous.

Towerlands magic does not always manifest as flashy spells. You don't have to be a wizard to use magic. The peasant village who pray for rain and get it might be using magic. The warrior who reaches deep within his rage to find extra strength in battle is using magic. The slick cat burglar who never seems to get caught, who manages somehow to always stay a step ahead of the law, isn't lucky; he's using magic. Sure, a sorcerer might stand atop a tall tower, raise a long rod of pure jade high in the air on the first day of summer, and curse the gods, stealing their power and killing every tree and plant within a hundred miles. That's magic.

Real Magic

Every group will have to determine what they consider "real magic." This is a place where the players must come together and decide what real magic means to them, in the setting they are creating. In essence, the game is asking you to split all magical power into two kinds: "simple" magic, and "real" magic. In game terms, real magic grants boons and inflicts burdens; simple magic narrates colorful effects, might change the course of the story, but doesn't change dice stuff.

The easiest way to do things is to say that all magic is real magic. No magic is simple. This makes magic very, very special. This means that the fantasy world is likely to have very little magic in it and, when magic does make an appearance, it is frightening and wondrous.

On the other end of the spectrum, magic is commonplace and nothing special. In essence, all magic is simple and no magic is "real" magic. It is not wondrous. It is not dangerous. It is not costly. For many reasons, this is probably a really boring option. I recommend you don't do this.

Likely, you will find real magic somewhere between incredibly rare and incredibly common.

You can section off types of magic as simple. For example, you can decide that using magical devices or enchanted items is simple magic, or that reading spells out of books is simple. Perhaps only magic that has power over life and death is real magic in your fantasy world.

You might divide magic based on obviousness. That is, magic that can be explained away as coincidence or natural power is simple, and obvious miracles are real magic. So your friend healed so quickly because of the herbs you gave him, not your healing prayer. You found your way out of the dark, tangled forest because you're lucky, not because you were guided by spirits. If you use this method, consider whether the magical practitioner knows for sure that the magic is real, or not. It might be interesting that even the wizard isn't sure if he's just lucky!

You could decide that the worldly cost of the ingredients or rituals determines if the magic is simple or real. Maybe a living sacrifice changes a spell from real to simple.

Whatever you choose, keep in mind that magic is far more interesting when its use is painful and costly. Most of the better fantasy fiction demonstrates this over and over.

Magical Burdens

Why all this attention to real versus simple magic? Using real magic inflicts a burden on the character.

Whenever you use real magic, you must tell your opponent at the table whether your burden will be Spiritual or non-Spiritual. Then they write a burden for you under one of your domains. If you chose a Spiritual burden, it goes under your Spiritual domain, obviously. If you choose a non-Spiritual burden, they may choose any domain and write a burden under it. The strength of the burden is equal to the roll you get for the boon you receive for the magic.

Only if you accept the burden may you use your magic. You can duck the burden, but you lose the action you were taking.

Spiritual burdens decrease your metaphysical power -- that is, when your net Spiritual score reaches zero, you can no longer use real magic. This should encourage you to choose the non-Spiritual option more often, since you have a lot more points in the other four domains, certainly. No?

Non-spiritual burdens are dangerous, too. If the GM chooses your Physical domain every time you use real magic and choose non-Spiritual, you could quickly reach a point where you have no dice for physical conflicts. You can be captured, even killed, pretty easily unless you can change the domain of the conflict. And don't forget the power of a few words under an Emotional or Social domain, too. Whatever is written, you're bound to play out. An Emotional burden can make your character fearful, make them love someone inconvenient, force them to fly into uncontrollable rages, and so on.

In other words, a burden isn't just a single die. It's a serious change to your character.

Magical Boons

So you've taken a burden for the real magic your character is using. What does that get you? It gets you a boon, on the fly, right in the middle of a conflict. If you think about it, this is pretty powerful. All the other boons your character has are collected during play. Those favors must be paid back later. Real magic draws power right out of your Spiritual domain -- right off your character's scores -- when you want them.

At any time, you can say you're using magic, describe the effect you want it to have, accept a burden, then gain a boon for it. The boon is whatever you want and you can use it right away or write it on your sheet. Record that it's a magical boon. You can never have more magical boons than your maximum Spiritual score.

Use the magical boon like any other boon.

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Design Notes

See also Towerlands' Power 19 for more design thoughts.

Design Principles

• Focus play on balancing the needs and wants of forces external to the player character.
• Give players tools, via the character sheet and game procedures, that let them do cool fantasy things.
• Characters start out awesome.

To-Do List

The rules are in an almost-playable form but I'd like to add some content yet:

• Create a character sheet with sections for five domains and their burdens, plus sections for recording different types of boons (Loyalties, Friends and Foes, Kingdom, Spiritbonds, Oaths, Paths and Traditions, Fetishes).
• Figure out how to use a pool of pre-rolled results as Fates.
• Write soliloquy rules using a three-minute sand timer.
• Write a fan-mail mechanism.
• Make sure characters start awesome.
• Write notes about using magic and taking burdens.
• Consider using pools of d20s instead of d10s.
• Integrate the Towerlands as the core default setting. [1]
• Create strong rules for the GM so he knows how many dice his encounters get. Base this on the card elements somehow.
• Tie the risk mechanics directly to the reward mechanics.
• How do characters all end up together? Talk about crosses, bobs, weaves, etc.
• Make character generation rules that create characters with a certain number of boons and burdens.
• Write up rules for specific kinds of boons and their use.
• Talk about different kinds of authority.
• Consider voluntary burdens to reroll (or perhaps discard?) opponent dice.
• The game needs clearer "at stake" rules to make conflicts relevant to what the player wants and a way to "give" to avoid a burden.
• Write rules for death, generically as increasing the stakes for more dice.
• Mention that when an element grants a boon to a character, the element takes on the character as a burden. Systematize this.
• Create an advancement system that gives players points to spend unchecking used boons, buying new boons, and removing burdens.