Turnsheets

Six months will pass between each Temple Session.

We need to know what you get up to in that time. To do this, you submit a turnsheet describing your character's plans. You can see an example of one here.

The deadline for your turnsheets is Friday at 11:59PM. We'll try to look at turnsheets that arrive after that time, but we have a lot of people to work through and at best you'll be left until last.

Your turnsheets are written up here, on the website. You can email them to us, but it makes it a lot easier if you put them up here.

First, go to http://brokenworld.chaosdeathfish.com/start?do=login. Type in your user name and password. You should now see a few more options on the top right.

You should now have an option at the top of the page to go to your user page. Click this button.

Now, scroll down and you'll see a list of Turnsheet links. Click on turnsheet 1 and you'll come to a blank page.

Finally, you can click “edit this page” in the top right to write your turnsheet. You have all sorts of fancy editing buttons here that make it easier for us to read, but you can just copy paste something you wrote in word.

What follows are the rules for turnsheeting.

Each turn you have 8 Action Points (AP) to allocate on as many actions as you wish.

Action Points represent a rough mixture of the time and effort you expend on the task. Thus a 1 AP action would be a minor thing taking a few weeks, or very little effort, whereas a 4 AP action would take three months or be a significant effort.

We would recommend performing 4 x 2AP actions a turn.

Some people like the risk of losing. Others don't. In Broken World, you can tailor your turnsheets to take this into account. For each of your actions that have some sort of penalty for failure, you must state whether you are being risky or cautious.

Risky - You're willing to make sacrifices, or put things at risk in order to succeed. You or your clansmen could well end up dead depending on what you are doing. You are more likely to succeed if being risky, but failure will be worse for you.

Cautious - We'll go easy on you. Your character would rather fail at the task than risk their neck, so cut their losses and halt the action. Unless someone is actively gunning for you, you are very unlikely to die or lose resources on a cautious action.

By default, actions are cautious. Of course, if you can fulfill the objective with ease, the effect is the same no matter whether you are being risky or cautious.

This makes the difference when there is a chance that your character will fail in what they do. If they are being risky, they will press on regardless and hope it turns out well, which involves an element of chance. If they are being cautious, they escape unharmed but without achieving the objective. Thus you make the choice between greater chance of achieving the objective or greater chance of safety.

There are many different kinds of actions you could perform in a turnsheet. For each you assign AP, write a description, and list any traits/skills/useful things you think would provide you with an edge in this example (and if possible, tell us what level of edge you think they are).

The most basic, but best way to do things. You're simply doing something you're good at. Examples:

Raid neighbouring fragment (Risky, 2AP) - I jump across, strike down anyone in my way, pick up whatever food and valuables I can find and run back with my booty. I decide to go in recklessly; after all, what could possibly go wrong? Relevant things: Fighting 3 (Major Edge), Axe of Smiting (2Pt heirloom, Significant Edge)

Getting your Clan to do things is similar to doing things yourself, except you're likely to be using skills like Oratory and Strategy instead of Fighting and Subterfuge.

Raid neighboring fragment (Risky, 2AP) - We lower the boarding ramp, march across, grabbing whatever food and valuables we can find. We're going in recklessly and will kill anything that gets in our way! Relevant things: Strategy 2 (sig edge), Trained soldiers(sig edge), Automated Loot Grabbing Device (major edge).

Planning a Funeral? A Wedding? A gladiatorial competition? Whatever the occasion, hosting an event is likely to bring prestige and honor to the host and a boon to the host's clan.

Events are a chance to get lots of players in the same place at the same time. They are generally confusing and dramatic, and will get a decent writeup of the results. The more AP guests and hosts put into an event, the crazier the results.

When hosting an event, the organizer is free to put as many or as few AP as they like into preparations. Roleplay events require no investment, though an ambitious but poorly planned event may dishonor the host.

Guests only need to put a housekeeping action to turn up, although they can again put as many AP as they like towards the action if they're planning something special. (Stealing the trophy, poisoning the wine, making a memorable speech)

You make, develop or research something using Technology, Natural or Civil Studies. To do this you spend enough AP to get the number of build points the thing takes to make/develop, or less if you're feeling lucky or don't mind it working so well. For more information on R&D skills, go here.

Examples:

Brew Slowing Potion (2AP) - I develop a poison that will slow someone's reflexes. Relevant things: Natural Studies 2

Fortify my Settlement (6AP) - I build walls all around my clan's settlement, to keep out intruders. Relevant things: Civil Studies 1

If you have magic, you might want to cast one of the rituals you know of. To do this, you get together whatever requirements the ritual needs, rope in as much help as you can get, and cast the ritual. For Examples, I will be using the most secret magic of Custardmancy.

Custard fountain (Risky, 4AP) - Using my Ancient Sultana (Significant Edge) and two of my scoops of custard powder (Minor edge each), cast the custard fountain ritual, causing a geyser of scalding hot deliciousness to erupt under the camp of Eric the Delectable on the other side of the fragment. Get the help of a couple of family members in drawing the necessary glyphs and chanting at appropriate moments. The ritual may be more difficult than I thought; in that case I'll press on ignoring the possibility of myself being the receiver of scalding custardy death. Relevant Things: Custardmancy 2, Family Influence .

Sense Pudding (2AP) - By sitting and meditating, try and look for any puddings in the nearby area, and hence locate Suvik the Sweet-Toothed's armies. Use one carton of Ambrosia (Major Edge). Relevant Things: Custardmancy 3

You get better at doing something. This can take the form of reading in your library, fighting hoodlums in a bar brawl, or working with a superior painter to learn some brushwork. Each training action you perform gets you a new specialization in a skill. Examples:

Learn more about badgers (2AP) - I spend some time in my library reading up on attack badgers and trying to learn some more about them. Training action for Natural Studies.

Go to market (4AP) - I go to the market and try to flog my wares at the best price I can get. While there, I practice haggling people down when buying goods. On-the-job training action for Oratory

You can trade in specializations to gain a skill rank. It costs 0 AP to level up, provided you have the Specializations. For ease of administration, this Must be declared in your turnsheet. We will not accept level up requests via email.

Levelling up happens at the start of your turn, so you may use your new ranks and specializations for all actions that turn. You may not level up using specializations gained on the same turn as the level up request.

Level up Fighting to rank 3 - I would like to trade in my 4 Fighting specialization to level up Fighting.

There are a million and one things you'll want to do, a lot of which require no effort on your part. You put these under Housekeeping at the bottom of your turnsheet.

These actions include: giving players permission to use your stuff, sending messages to NPCs, undertaking something for flavor purposes only or turning up to something (but not doing anything special there).

Note that the spontaneous combustion trait is available for players who push what they can get away with in housekeeping. It isn't housekeeping if it fits any of the following:

1. Requires more than 42 words to explain.
2. Requires more than a sentence in response from the GMs.
3. Grants you a tangible bonus in terms of edges.
4. Other players are going to oppose it.

Housekeeping - Allow Lucas Giorge to examine the strange rock formation in my mine.

Housekeeping - Inform the Mundy family that Lucas Giorge is gathering an army unlike anything the world has ever seen.

Housekeeping - Climb to the top of the tallest hill on our fragment and scatter the ashes of my dear husband, Lucas Giorge.

Its not only the GMs who write the News, and this is a game about misinformation. You can add one rumor to the news for free. This could be advertising what you got up to , or what someone else didn't get up to or pretty much anything.

Simply give us the rumor, and tell us which news page you want it to go in.

If you have Clout, you can add requests to your allegiance briefing. PCs and NPCs will have some obligation to fulfill your request, though if it doesn't server the interests of the allegiance, you could have some questions to answer.

Its a real shame that players don't get to see some of the stuff you guys come up with. Where we can, we want to take the more inventive bits of turnsheets and put them on the fridge in the news for all to see. If you've just invented something, declared war on someone, killed someone important or discovered something interesting, we heartily laud you for writing about it.

We're more likely to use something if its written as a third person account, and reasonably accurate. A certain amount of colony bias is allowed in articles, but complete fabrications that are going to give someone an in game advantage will cost AP.

For reasons of fun and fairness, the Broken Worlds setting operates on dramatic timing. If you turnsheet to protect your settlement, you'll be there when the attack happens. If two people turnsheet to explore the mysterious temple, the likelihood is they'll do it at exactly the same time.

If you are building a device, training a skill or learning a spell, you can assume you have it available for all other actions in that downtime, even if this means bending the chronology a bit.

Turnsheeting that you hurry to do something will give you no system benefits. In particular, leaving the gathering early to be first to the prize will yield no head start. It spoils your fun, and that of the other players who feel equally obliged to curtail their plotting.

If your make a plan that specifically requires you to beat someone to the punch, you will need to put 2AP into getting their before them, have the support of someone who can arrange it, or simply be better than them.

For example, you want to be the first to the fountain of youth. Your rival is going to travel via Bob's Ferry Service. If you can persuade Bob to delay his departure, you'll get there first. Otherwise, it'll come down to skills

• 8AP in total.
• Downtime is 6 months (180 days) between sessions
• Deadline is Friday midnight.
• Turnsheet response will be short indicators of success or failure; there will be more detailed briefings in session. Group Actions will get a bit more of a write-up.
• When writing an action with a penalty for faliure, decide whether to be risky or cautious. This decides whether you press on and accept the consequences, or cut your losses and give up on that action for now.
• For each action, write down what edges you can bring to bear on the action, and what level they are.
• To better skills, you need specialisations. You can get one of these to put towards the next level of the skill by doing a 2AP training action, or appending 1AP to an action appropriate for the skill.