Player's Guide

Basics of Role-playing

The core essence of role-playing is to take on the role of a character in an imaginary game. This is something most of us have been doing in one form or another since we were children playing “make believe”. Role-playing has elements of improvisational acting, storytelling, and deductive reasoning in addition to gaming. Your character can be very similar to you, or everything you are not… depending on the world your character inhabits you might be a wise wizard, a cunning vampire, or a noble space marine. The more effort you put into creating a unique persona and acting out that character in the circumstances you find yourself in the more enjoyment you will get out of it.

In a role-playing game, one player takes on the role of the Storyteller (or Game Master, Dungeon Master etc) with the responsibility of describing the world the characters inhabit and telling the players what they can see, hear, feel, touch, and taste. The Storyteller is also responsible as the name implies for coming up with a story to set the players in. This story is not already written with neatly defined roles, but simply a rough framework. The players are the main characters in the story, and their actions determine what happens next. The Storyteller needs to be prepared to adapt to the other players choices so the most experienced player in your group of friends should probably start with the role of Storyteller. As the players get comfortable with the game, consider trading off the duties of the Storyteller.

This guide will focus on the role of a player in a game, responsible for a single character in the fantasy world of Lorithandar. For more information about the world of Lorithandar itself please consult the Lorithandar Campaign Guide.

About the Brilliance & Shadow System

Brilliance & Shadow is a tabletop roleplaying system designed for epic fantasy where players take on the roles of powerful characters called Fated in a world of faerie, trolls, and magic spells. What makes Brilliance & Shadow different from many other games is the epic scope of the game. Players begin play with powerful abilities and skills far beyond ordinary mortals, and only become more formidable with time.

Dice

Like most role-playing games played around a table, Brilliance & Shadow uses dice to determine the outcome of actions. Anytime a character performs a non-trivial action the player rolls dice to see whether the action succeeds or fails. This system uses 10-sided dice. We recommend that each player have 10-20 dice on hand. The better your character is at performing a task the more dice you will need. The dice rolled to represent your characters attempt is called a “dice pool”.

Statistics

Characters possess a variety of numbers, describing their natural capabilities, trained skills, and how much injury they can endure before death. These numbers are fully described in the following chapters.

Modifiers

Modifiers are Bonuses and Penalties applied to the dice pool you roll to determine success. In most cases, bonuses add the listed number to the dice pool as additional dice, while penalties remove the listed number from the pool.

Rolling the Dice

When your dice pool has been modified by all applicable bonuses and penalties the remainder are rolled to determine success. Each dice is a success on an 8, 9, or 10. Some actions require only a single success, while others improve the result the more successes are rolled. Additionally rolling a natural 10 (0 on the dice) allows you to re-roll that dice. Some powerful spells and powers can expand this allowing re-rolls on 9s or 8s as well. Sometimes dice pools suffer penalties that would reduce the dice pool to below 1 dice. In these cases your character still gets to roll a single dice.

Types of Actions

There are a variety of actions your character can perform, but nearly all actions are a combination of one Core Statistic + an applicable Skill. Some typical examples are below:

Static Rolls

To calm an angry forest bear your character would roll the combined dice pool of their Charisma Stat + their Handle Animal Skill. The Storyteller would set a number of successes for the attempt to succeed. The required number is referred to as a Difficulty Check (DC).

Opposed Rolls

To sneak unnoticed past some observant guards, your character would roll the combined dice pool of their Dexterity Stat + their Stealth Skill. They would apply any modifiers such as bonuses for night time, or penalties for broad daylight. The resulting dice pool would be rolled and successes would be compared against the guards Perception roll.

Combat

Combat is treated the same way as other forms of rolls. An applicable Stat, and Skill are combined, Modifiers are applied, and the results indicate the success of the attack, or spell. Unlike many other tabletop games, rolls to hit and rolls for damage are combined into a single roll. This helps keep combat moving quickly so players don’t spend the bulk of the game waiting for other players to roll.

Equipment such as weapons and armor, dodging, and parrying are factored into the combat rolls as modifiers granting bonuses or penalties. A few common examples:

Mar wants to hit a city guard with his longsword. His Strength Stat is 3, and his Weaponry Skill is 4. His raw dice pool before Modifiers is 7 dice. Longswords add a 3 dice bonus to attacks which raises his attack to 10 dice. The city guard is wearing leather armor, and a light shield. Leather armor adds 1 to defense, while the light shield adds 1. The guard also has a Dodge of 1. This makes his combined defense a 3. This defense is applied as a penalty to Mar’s attack roll reducing his dice pool to a total of 7 dice. Any successes Mar rolls with this dice pool are applied as Lethal damage to the guard.

Damage Tracking (Health / Vigor)

Your character gets a number of Health Points (Constitution + Racial Modifier) for tracking lethal damage, and Vigor Points (Constitution) for tracking non-lethal damage. Lethal damage is applied to Health Points. When Health Points are reduced to 0 you are disabled and begin to bleed out into Negative Health Points. A player has a number of negative Health Points equal to their Maximum Health Points. Some special powers and abilities will allow characters to continue to perform actions or fight while at Negative Health Points. Any additional damage when at Negative Health Points (including non-lethal) is dealt as lethal. When the player reaches the last Negative Health Point, they die. Non-lethal damage is applied first to Vigor, when Vigor runs out any additional non-lethal damage is applied to Health Points instead.

Mortal Damage

Most damage is either Lethal damage (axes, swords, fireballs) or Non-Lethal damage (falling, weapon damage reduced by armor, sorcerous Backlash). However, some rare and dangerous sources may deal Mortal damage. Creatures take Mortal damage from inimical sources (ex. Undead take Mortal damage from fire). When a source deals Mortal damage, calculate damage as normal and then double the result. If a Fireball spell would deal 3 damage to a zombie, it would instead deal 6.

Health and Vigor Recovery

Players naturally recover one Health point after a night of restful sleep. A successful Medicine roll can increase this to two Health points per night of restful sleep.

Players naturally recover one Vigor point every 15 minutes. This may not be improved by Medicine, however, some Traits may allow characters to recover more quickly. Sorcerous Backlash reduces Maximum Vigor but this maximum recovers one point every 15 minutes.

Magical Healing

Each point of magical healing heals 1 Health Point, or two points of Vigor with Health Points being replenished first. Some magical effects may replenish Vigor directly however. Magical healing may not repair Vigor Maximums from Backlash unless it expressly says it does.

Story Points

Each character begins play with 4 Story Points that may be used to provide 3 bonus dice on a roll. Only one such point can be spent each round. These Story Points are replenished as a reward by your Storyteller for finishing a chapter in the game. Your Storyteller may also reward good roleplaying by individual Story Dice that must be spent in a particular session. No more than 3 Story Dice may be spent in a single round regardless.

Creating a character

1. Concept

Before you can create any sort of stats you should create a character concept.  To help you get a handle on your character’s identity and motivation come up with a short, two-or three word description of him/her. Examples: “shadow priest”, “Imperial mage”, “wandering mercenary”. Often looking through the available races can help narrow down your concept as some races are much more suited to certain lifestyles.

2. Select Race

There are nine playable races in Brilliance & Shadow. Each offers distinct advantages and disadvantages. There is no “best” race, but some races are better suited to certain professions and roles. Trolls are known as fearsome warriors, while having little aptitude for magic for example. See the Races section for more details.