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What is Dark Saga? 2. The Narrator 3. Characters 4. Character Gender and Naming 5. Attributes 6. Skills 7. Traits 8. Items 9. Goals 10. Rolling Dice 11. Combat 12. Morale 13. Adventures 14. Healing 15. Completing Goals 16. Character Death Appendix A - Skills Appendix B - Traits Appendix C - Items Appendix D - Monsters WHAT IS DARK SAGA? Dark Saga is a role-playing game system used for generating epic stories. This system can be used to create video games, write stories, or even play out with a gaming group. It was devised simply as a way of simulating life in a fantasy world. The definition of a role-playing game (RPG) has changed over the past few years after the dawning of the computer RPG industry. It used to be that RPGs were games in which you generated characters, then made decisions for them and acted out their conversations. RPGs were generally played with pencils, paper, dice, and a group of friends around a table. Each gaming group had a person called the game master, who was assigned the task of mediating the players' interactions with the fantasy setting that the game was based in. Now with many popular computer games labeled with the RPG tag, RPGs can be defined as any game in which you control the actions and development of a character. Over the past few years the computer has replaced the game master and the social element of RPG gaming to some extent. Many would argue that computer RPGs are far from being true role-playing games, but computer companies still persist in creating games which they label as RPGs. Examples of traditional RPG games are the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game by TSR and the Shadowrun game by FASA. Examples of popular video RPGs are the Final Fantasy series and the Dungeon Master series. THE NARRATOR The central player in a Dark Saga game is the narrator. The narrator has nearly complete control of the game and is responsible for interpreting the player's actions into game terms. The narrator must create and run all of the adventures the players choose to go on. The narrator also controls all of the characters and monsters that the players interact with in the game. CHARACTERS Characters are essential to all RPGs. Without characters, there would be no medium in which players can interact with the theoretical world that the game master had created. Characters in an RPG game are the players' counterparts in the fantasy setting of the game. Most popular role-playing games make the players generate random character statistics that affect the character's performance in combat and adventuring tasks. Dark Saga works the same way, except for the way character statistics are generated. To allow full player control of the characters, Dark Saga characters are assigned statistics by the players themselves. Of course, there are limits to how powerful a starting character can be. The character statistics used to gauge the character's power are called attributes. Each character has four major attributes, which are described in the Attributes section. CHARACTER GENDER AND NAMING Before any attributes are assigned to a character, the gender and name of the character should be chosen. The gender of a character has no effect on creating characters except in naming. Males are equally powerful in all respects as women and vice versa in the Dark Saga game. When naming a character, you should consider two things. First, different naming conventions may be used depending upon the gender of the character. Secondly, the region the character is from has a great effect on the name of the character. Character names should be region-specific. ATTRIBUTES The four major attributes are coordination, agility, strength, and endurance. Coordination is how much accuracy your character has in his attacks. Agility is how good the character's reflexes are. Strength is just as the name implies; it's how much muscle power your character has. Finally, Endurance represents how much torture your character's body can take before he collapses. Assigning scores to character attributes is simple in the Dark Saga game. Each character begins with a total of 80 points to distribute to his character. No single attribute can be assigned more than 20 points at the beginning of the game. The minimum amount that can be assigned each attribute is 10. After assigning the attribute points, any remaining points can be used to purchase character skills. SKILLS Character skills are what makes the characters fun to play. A character skill is simply something the character knows how to do well. Examples of character skills are horseback riding, sorcery, or blacksmithing. Any points remaining from assigning character attributes can be used to purchase skills. TRAITS In addition to attributes, each character receives ten trait points. Trait points can be used to purchase natural abilities or features. Any trait points not used before the beginning of the game are lost. Traits cannot be learned, since they are abilities that the character was born with. Some examples of traits are hair color, racial abilities, or abilities given by divine power. ITEMS Anything a character can pick up and use is considered an item. Items include clothing, weapons, or tools. GOALS Before the game can begin, each character needs a goal. It may also be beneficial for all of the players to agree on a common goal if there is more than one player controlling a character. After each player has a goal, the game master must create an adventure with the players' goals in mind. It may take several adventures to complete a goal. ROLLING DICE All dice rolls in Dark Saga are rolled with ten sided dice. There are two types of dice rolls, percentage and success check. Percentages are rolled by rolling two ten sided dice. The first die represents the tens place and the second die represents the ones place. A roll of two zeros represents 100%. To succeed in a percentage roll, you must roll LOWER than the percentage chance indicated. The second type of roll, the success check, is the most common to the Dark Saga game. To succeed in a success check, you need to roll a number lower than the score you are checking against. To roll a success check, you roll a ten sided die. If a ten is rolled, you must roll again and add the result. If you keep getting tens, you have to keep rolling and adding the result. It's cumulative. COMBAT Combat statistics are derived directly from attributes. There are four combat statistics: Attack, Dodge, Damage, and Absorb. Attack is derived by taking the Coordination score plus a ten sided die roll. Dodge is calculated by adding a ten sided die roll to the Agility attribute score. Damage is the result of the Strength attribute plus the weapon damage plus a ten sided die roll. Finally, Absorb is the armor defensive rating plus the roll of a ten sided die. To make an attack, the attacker must roll an Attack and the defender rolls a Dodge. The person with the higher score wins. Ties are always won by the attacker. If the defender won, the he had successfully avoided the attack by blocking the blow or by getting out of the way. If the attacker won the roll, then the attack is successful and damage is rolled. To find out how much damage is caused, the attacker then rolls Damage and the defender rolls Absorb. Then the results of the Absorb roll is subtracted from the results of the Damage roll. The end result is how many points need to be subtracted from the defender's Endurance attribute. Note that loss of Endurance from combat is not permanent, but can be healed at a rate of one Endurance point a day. Characters who reach 0 Endurance points die. MORALE No living creatures want to die, so the morale score is what simulates a creatures will to live. Each creature and non-player character has a morale score. Every time half of an enemy group falls in combat, the remaining enemies roll morale checks to determine if they surrender or flee from combat. To make a morale check, roll a ten sided die. If the number on the die is equal to or lower than the morale score, then the character stays and fights. If the number is higher than the morale score, then the creature surrenders or flees, depending on whether they can outrun the players or not. If a fleeing or surrendering character sees that there is no escape or mercy from the players, it will continue attacking reluctantly. ADVENTURES Without a place to explore, the game would be pretty pointless. The narrator is responsible for using the players' goals to make adventures. An adventure is a setting or series of events that the characters are caught in the middle of, whether willingly or not. An example of an adventure may be "The Quest for the Elixir of Life". The theme of this example may be to search an ancient ruin for the powerful Elixir of Life. It is the narrator's job to make the map of the ancient ruin and describe the things the characters see as they explore it. The game should unfold like a story. HEALING Adventuring is dangerous business, and all heroes are bound to get hurt during their adventures. Heroes can heal at a rate of 2 Endurance points per day. All other creatures and characters heal at a rate of 1 Endurance point a day, unless otherwise specified. There are also other means of healing such as magic and potions, but those are described in later sections. COMPLETING GOALS Eventually, the characters will complete their goals. It may be after a series of adventures, or after a single adventure. But once a character has completed his goal, he has two choices. The character can either retire from adventuring and settle down, or he can declare a new goal and continue his adventuring career. CHARACTER DEATH Sometimes a character never survives to complete his goal. This can be caused by traps, monsters, or a wide variety of reasons. In the case of character death, just create a new character and start fresh. As with any game, you cannot win every time. That wouldn't be fun. APPENDIX A - SKILLS pts description Sorcery 10 gain ability to learn spells Weapon Skill 1 ability to use a specific item as a weapon Fireball 3 causes 1d10+10 damage to a 5 foot radius. targeted creatures roll an Agility check to avoid and only take 1 damage. Requires Sorcery skill. Lightning Bolt 3 causes 1d10+10 damage to a 20 foot line. Requires Sorcery skill. Invisibility 3 character becomes invisible. Requires Sorcery skill. horseback riding 1 ability to ride a horse blacksmithing 1 ability to make a metal item in a week of work rock hurling 1 ability to hurl rocks at opponent that causes up to strength score of hurler in damage. heal 3 lets caster heal himself or another character. Characters that are healed with this spell regain all lost Endurance points. Requires Sorcery skill. APPENDIX B - TRAITS pts description Pointed ears 3 character has pointed ears slender 3 +1 bonus to Agility infravision 3 character can see in the dark odd hair color 3 character has an abnormal hair color irregular size 1 1 point can be spent for each foot beyond normal size. miracle 3 character gains a unique ability APPENDIX C - ITEMS price in silver coins description staff 1 weapon that causes +6 damage gold coin 10 monetary unit worth 10 silver coins spell book 100 a blank book where spells can be transcribed robes 10 basic clothing club 1 weapon that causes +6 damage gemstone 25 monetary unit worth 25 silver coins healing potion 50 allows imbiber to regain all lost Endurance APPENDIX D - MONSTERS Ogre att 5+d10 dod 3+d10 dam 10+d10 abs 1+d10 morale 4 endurance 10 skills - club, rock hurling traits - irregular size (7’ tall) items - club, silver coin, gemstone #+–¨FRÐ Ú W r °ºÚà{w{rm{i{i{i{i{i{i{i{( (  §¬"‚Ž±·Äʱ"»"%%‘&¡&é'ø')+).){w{w{w{w{w{w{w{w{w{w{r( .)/):)<)_+a+b+c+¾+À+M,O,f,,„,‡,ˆ,“,™-œ--ž-¾-{vr{r{r{r{r{r{v{v{r{r{( ¾-Ø-Û-ð-ñ-ü-\/q/#0{wrwrw{w( !#-EWgˆ˜¤°»ÆÙæó)?qq àÀ!?Ti}”–ª¡¶rDFTÎ Ð Ü é £ U W t ß ®°°¼?ØÚâ–¥§®$€‚ ¯±¹tt’ýÂÄÌû &"¯"±"½"Æ#%%%!&&‘&£&ç'é'ú')))&)()<)f)¢)F*Ÿ*æ*+S+À+h,j,,,•,Á,â,-H-’-À-Â-Ö-Ö-Ø-þ-(.]..º.ã./Z/\/s/u/{/¥/¼/Ù/ü/!0#0.)¾-#0abcd?°t)Ö-#0efghijTimes New RomanÐþ   à=Ð/ÐV  à=Ð/ÐVdCompObjÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿUÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ