The Shadow of Yesterday
written by Clinton R. Nixon
copyright 2003 Anvilwerks
updated 04/19/2003
Rules for Story Creation
Basic resolution
In order to perform any action that has a variable outcome in The Shadow of Yesterday, the player needs to state his basic intention. This is not a full description of the action, as the dice provide a randomizer that let the player know how well this action happened. After stating the character's intention and deciding on the relevant skill, a Skill Check is made.
The Skill Check
In order to determine your character's performance at a task, you must make a Skill Check. The process is pretty simple: roll two six-sided dice and add your character's score in the relevant skill to the total. Taking this total, compare your result to the Success Level Chart.
| Success Level Chart |
| 8 or below |
Failure |
| 9-11 |
Success Level 1 (Mediocre) |
| 12-13 |
Success Level 2 (Good) |
| 14-15 |
Success Level 3 (Great) |
| 16-17 |
Success Level 4 (Amazing) |
| 18-19 |
Success Level 5 (Legendary) |
| 20-21 |
Success Level 6 (Ultimate) |
| 22+ |
Transcendent |
With a Success Level of Mediocre or more, your character has succeeded at the task, albeit poorly. The higher the Success Level, the better job your character has done at the task. No task ever requires a higher Success Level than Mediocre: the Success Level only represents how well the task was done.
Note: No more than 6 Success Levels can ever be achieved without a natural roll of 12 on the dice with a 10 in the appropriate skill.
After the Skill Check has been made, the action should be fully described, either by the GM or player.
Further talk about the Skill Check
Although the Skill Check I described above seems very simple, there's more involved than it seems at first glance. Every time your character takes an action, there are four steps involved: Intention, Initiation, Execution, and Effect. Here's how these break down:
- Intention
- The player announces the intended action for the character. No movement or action has happened yet, though. The intention and its consequences may be discussed among the GM and players and changed.
- Initiation
- The player has committed his character to the task, and no changes can be made now. The dice hit the table.
- Execution
- The character completes his action. The player looks to see how well the character did on the Success Level Chart.
- Effect
- The players and GM decide what the effect of the task is, whether successfully completed or not.
Now, that sounds like a lot to go through every time you roll the dice. Normally, this all happens without thinking too much about it, making it quick. A player states, "My character's going to do something," he rolls dice, everyone looks to see how the character did, and a decision about what happened occurs.
The reason I bring up the four steps is because if you never think about them, you can cause tension among the players and GM. Imagine a player, Joe, stating, "Jack, my character, hits the priest right in the chest with a sword blow." Now, following the four steps, you realize this has not happened in the game, but is just Joe stating his intention. (While his statement was incorrect, in that he stated it happened, and it was an intention, this is a common way of stating intention in role-playing games. I don't encourage it, though.)
Carrying on with this example, though, what if the GM is confused about the four steps? He may take this as initiation, for example, and when he says, "The priest grabs his black mace," Joe might want his character Jack to back off. If the GM thinks the above statement was initiation, though, Joe can't do this, and may get angry at the GM for withholding the information that the priest had this mace.
And in the end, what if the group is confused about effect? If Joe's roll is successful, a confused group might think that Joe's stated intention for Jack is what happens. This is not necessarily so: the outcome of the dice and disposition of the players might determine a different effect entirely.
The point is this: take your time to make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to a character performing a task. While the first game or two might run a bit slower than normal because steps are being heavily delineated, the speed will pick up as everyone gets used to following them.
Bonus and penalty dice
While a skill score determines the range of your character's ability, bonus and penalty dice are a mechanic to determine the consistency of your character's ability. When making a Skill Check, bonus dice add to the number of dice rolled, as do penalty dice. However, a player cannot have both bonus and penalty dice: they cancel each other out on a one-for-one basis.
If a player has bonus dice when making a Skill Check, roll two six-sided dice, plus the number of bonus dice. The two highest dice are used to calculate the player's total on the Skill Check.
If a player has penalty dice when making a Skill Check, roll two six-sided dice, plus the number of penalty dice. The two lowest dice are used to calculate the player's total on the Skill Check.
Players can always spend one point from the associated pool to get one bonus die on a Skill Check. If a Skill Check has penalty dice, this must be done before the roll in order to cancel out penalty dice. If a Skill Check has no penalty dice when it is rolled, this can be done after the roll.
Opposed skill checks
Sometimes, a character will be opposed in a task. When this happens, which is relatively often, the two players' rolls + skill score are compared, with the higher total winning, during the execution phase of the Skill Check. If the two scores are tied, then the characters are at a stalemate. After the winner has been determined, then the players consult the Success Level Chart to see how well their characters did.
Opposed Skill Checks can happen in several different ways:
- A character is competing against another character. In this case, both players roll for their characters, and both, either, or neither of them can succeed. If successful, a character has completed the task; however, the one with the higher total roll has completed the task better. For example, if two characters were racing to a location, and one rolled a 13 (Good Success Level), and the other a 15 (Great Success Level), the one with Great wins the race, but both complete the race in a timely fashion.
- A character is directly opposed to another character. In this case, only one character can complete a task. One example would be a character trying to hide from someone. The first player (with the hiding character) would roll using his character's Stealth skill, and the other player would roll his character's Awareness skill. Whoever has the higher total roll wins, and the other character fails. If tied, no one wins.
Using skills together
If you want your character to perform a complex action that uses two skills together, decide with the GM which skill is most appropriate to the action and which is secondary. The secondary skill is used first and the Success Levels are used as bonus dice on the second Skill Check. The GM and player will have to decide what happens if the first Skill Check is failed: in some situations, the second Skill Check can still be attempted without harm; in others, the Skill Check can be attempted with a penalty die; and in others still, the second Skill Check cannot be attempted.
Example: A character is trying to sneak a key into his hand using Apportation. While he is using Apportation to actually move the key, the Stealth part of the action is most important. The player makes an Apportation Skill Check. If successful, the Success Levels are converted to bonus dice on the Stealth Skill Check. If unsuccessful, however, the key does not move, so the Stealth Skill Check cannot be attempted.
Example 2: Another character wants to approach a wild bear without getting attacked using Animal Ken. In order to help with this, he's going to attempt to remember what bears like to eat and see if he can find some, using Woodscraft. The Woodscraft Skill Check is secondary, and if successful, will add bonus dice to the Animal Ken Skill Check. If unsuccessful, there is no complication; the character just must approach the bear with no food gift.
Complex resolution
At times while playing The Shadow of Yesterday, especially in combat, the timing of actions will come into question. When the order of actions in important, complex resolution is used.
Determining order of actions
Every player that wants his character to take an action must make a React Skill Check. The actions are ordered by the total rolls made, setting an initiative order. Actions are taken from highest roll to lowest, and when a character takes his action, he goes to the bottom of the initiative order. (One suggestion I've found to work exceptionally well in play is to write down character names and important statistics on index cards, and place these in initiative order during complex resolution.)
Players may have their characters hold their actions, moving them down one space in the initiative order.
What can be done in one action
In one action, a character can perform one action that requires rolling the dice. What this means for the player is that if he wants the character to use two skills together in order to get bonus dice, this will take two actions.
However, the character can perform small, quick actions that do not require rolling the dice in addition to his normal action. If a player wants his character to run 15 feet and attack during an action, that's fine: running 15 feet is a quick action that shouldn't require a dice roll. If a player wants his character to run the same 15 feet across a swamp filled with snakes, tree roots, and thick mud, that would require a dice roll, and so the movement and attack would be separate actions. Likewise, if the player wants his character to charge, using the Success Level from an Athletics check to add bonus dice to his Melee Skill Check, that would require two actions.
Surprise
Characters can be surprised in three circumstances:
- When another character attempts to sneak up on them, and makes a successful Stealth Skill Check against them. (They may or may not get to resist this Skill Check with Awareness, depending on circumstances.)
- When a group of characters sets up an ambush, with one character making a successful Battle Skill Check against them. (Again, they may or may not get to resist with Awareness.)
- Whenever the GM determines that a character is surprised based on circumstances.
In the first two examples, all surprised characters have a number of penalty dice on their React Skill Checks equal to the Success Level of the Stealth or Battle Skill Check. In the last example, all surprised characters have one penalty die on their React Skill Check. Until the characters come up in the initiative order, they are still considered surprised, and may resist actions taken against them with Open Skills, but may not use any other skills or Secrets.
Damage
A character can be damaged either by failing to dodge or parry an attack in combat, or by hazards, traps, and the like. If attacked, the damage done to the character equals the Success Level of the attack, plus the damage of the weapon used. Hazards, traps, and the like have a set damage.
Damage is the only time in this game where the normal Skill Check rules do not apply. When a character is hit in combat, the player writes down the damage on his character sheet, adding it to any current damage. Whenever a character is damaged, the player must roll 2d6 + Stay Up, and get a total equal to or higher than the character's total damage. If this roll is failed, the character is bopped and gets a penalty die to all actions. If this roll is failed again, the character is collapsed.
If a character is collapsed, it is incapable of action without spending a point from the relevant Attribute. This point does not cancel the bopped penalty die. If a third damage roll is failed, the character is killed.
After a combat is over, every character is allowed a Stay Up Skill Check. If successful, a number of damage points equal to the Success Level of the Check are removed, and the character's status moved to bopped if collapsed, or normal if bopped. In addition, every character is allowed a Stay Up Skill Check for healing whenever Grit is fully refreshed (that is, a good night's sleep is achieved.)
Pool refreshment
Whenever a pool is not at its full level, it can be refreshed, restoring it to its full level by the character performing an in-game action.
- Vigor: eating a hot meal and spending a night in revelry (drinking liquor, taking part in exuberant sex, using drugs, or going to a loud and wild music performance, for example.)
- Grace: performing a substantial act of physical exertion for purposes of enjoyment or exercise, not because of danger. This could be anything from a five-mile run to a night of dancing.
- Force: besting someone without assistance in a contest of any sort.
- Wits: engaging in a substantial act of intellectual stimulation, such as having an intelligent argument with someone, going to a play, or reading a book for a few hours.
- Grit: a good night's comfortable rest.
- Charm: either having sex or spending a few hours in the exclusive company of an intimate.
In addition, before each session of play, all players, including the GM, should be dealt a number of tokens equal to the number of players at the table, again including the GM. One point can be refreshed to a character's pool at any time by any player if the character uses a skill associated with that pool and the player describes the intended action in such a way that the giver thinks that it's exceptionally cool. Pools cannot be increased beyond their maximum this way: however, if a character's pool is full and the player describes an action that will cost points from the pool, any player may give that player a token, reducing the cost of the action by 1.
All attributes are refreshed in between adventures. This is different from sessions of play: an adventure may take up several sessions.
Advancement
There comes a point in every player's life, no matter how dedicated he is to theme and story and drama, when he wonders, "Hey, when is this character going to kick more ass?" In The Shadow of Yesterday, that time should come pretty often.
The exciting thing about this game is that the player decides exactly how the character is going to advance. Interested in a story about a man torn between his vows and his love? You can not only make that character, but get the chance to advance to telling that story.
Setting the standard advance
Before play, the GM and players need to decide how long they want the game to be, and how fast they want characters to advance. Each group, and each story, can work differently in these respects, and so The Shadow of Yesterday can be easily changed to accomodate this.
The standard advance, how many experience points it costs to buy an advance for your character, is normally set at 5 XP. This will accomodate a style of play where your character will gain one or two advances at every session, normally, which is pretty quick compared to most RPGs. I suggest moving this standard advance up in increments of 5 XP to change play speed. Set at 10 XP, characters will earn an advance every session or two; set at 15 XP, characters will earn, on average, an advance over two to three sessions; and set at 20 XP, characters will earn an advance every three or four sessions. It is not recommended to set the standard advance higher than 20 XP.
Key Secrets
Key Secrets are the main experience "engine" in this game. Every player should have his character take one if he wishes to advance with any speed. It is important for both the GM and the player to be very aware of his character's Key Secrets. The GM needs to use these to construct adventures, and not doing so deprives the player of a chance to generate the story he wants for his character. As for the player, he should mention any time he feels a Key Secret has come into play and that he should earn experience for it. The GM cannot be expected to remember every character detail in the heat of play, and the player does himself and the GM a disservice by not reminding him of details.
When a Key Secret comes into play, the player should receive the experience points immediately.
Key Scenes
The GM controls a secondary experience engine: Key Scenes. Key Scenes are similar to some fantasy RPG experience systems in that they are particular junctures in the play session that the GM has decided beforehand are worth experience to the characters. These are not particular outcomes, though. "Saving the princess," "killing or thwarting the evil overlord," and "taming the wild beast" are not good examples of Key Scenes. Key Scenes should be tense, have multiple outcomes, and force players to make a decision for their character. (In this, they are like Bangs from Ron Edwards' Sorcerer.)
"Discovering the princess is trapped in a high tower," "meeting the overlord," and "confronting the wild beast" are good Key Scenes, as each can result in multiple outcomes and do not put restrictions on what the player decision is for his character. Whenever a character is present in a Key Scene, he earns 1 XP.
Buying advances
As mentioned in Chapter 2, advances can be spent in the following ways:
- Increase three skills rated at A by one point.
- Increase two skills rated at B by one point.
- Increase one skill rated at C by one point.
- Increase one pool by one point.
- Gain a new Secret.
Advances can be bought at any time by the player, but he should be courteous to the group in this: grabbing the rulebook and ignoring the play to find the perfect Secret is bad form. A suggestion for players is to write down the next Secret or two you'd like for your character on the back of your character sheet. As you gain advances in play, you may then quickly spend them to raise skills you need, or to buy those Secrets.
Players: always tell your GM when you are using an advance. This is important.
