In this chapter you will learn how the character interact with the world the GM places them in. This chapter is small, simply because the rules are few and also because they are not so important in a story based game.
Rules wise, the main difference between diceless and dicefull games is that in DRPGs the result of an action is uncertain, but not quite random. Players make their own openings and control their own fate, not some flimsy plastic thing. Nonetheless I have included optional mechanics for those who wish - for whatever reson - to use some sort of randomizer (cards, coins, dice, etc). I feel that using randomizers sort of beats the whole purpose of ARC, but you may use them if you are so inclined.
To emphasize the theatrical nature of ARC and to get rid of tiresome movement and timing rules, all actions take place in panels; as in comic book panels. As you will see below, his frees players from the constraints of rounds or turns, and allows them to concentrate on building a fun story for everyone.
Players should forget about the typical "I swing my sword" attack mantra that pollutes other games. Vivid and theatrical descriptions that explain what the player is trying to do, as well as how, are required, but without bogging down to details. In the case of combat, for example, a player doesn't have to describe exactly how he wields a sword, or which part of the opponent's body he is aiming at, unless it's important to the story. This is probably the most important thing to remember: details may be important to individuals but usually not to the story.
The trick is to visualize the scene as it would appear in a comic book and describe it.
Be carefuly not to get carried away and to start describing the actions of other characters. For example, saying "I kick the Evil Supervillain and as he falls back I perform a spine-rattling uppercut." is considered taking too much initiative. It's better to say "I near the Evil Supervillain and seek for an opening to smash his face with my fists." and then declare your action score (see below for the mechanism of resolving actions). Notice that I'm overusing simplified examples
The game time it takes for a character to accomplish an action is irrelevant, only panels are taken into account. For example, in the middle of a battle a character tries to quaff a potion (one panel) but a bad guy fires an arrow and breaks the flask as he is about to drink it (second panel). In another example, a character may read a hefty tome entitled "Ye Oldie Spellbook" and take only a single (panel). In game time the first example was much quicker than the second, but when working with panels, time is thoroughly arbitary and may be mutilated beyond recognition in the name of theatrical entertainment.
When players request do something, the GM has to determine whether they succeed or not. If the action is vital to the plot line and it absolutely has to succeed, then so it does. No need to think about it too much. If the action has to fail, then it fails. This might seem odd, like restricting the players. But in reality, if the GM does a good job of building the story along with the players and not on his own, then it really doesn't matter. The result is the joint work of all players, the GM simply announces it.
Most of the time, the story will not be so rigid, that actions absolutely have to suceed or fail, so the above rule does not apply. In these cases the GM along with the players has to do a bit of thinking. If an action is very trivial then, at the GM's discretion, it automatically succeeds; similarly if it is humanly (or elvenly or dwarvenly or whateverly) impossible then it simply fails. This is simple enough to understand.
For the actions where it's not apparent at first sight if they succeed or fail, the GM should take a look at the character's characteristics and which of them help and which hinder the action. Better yet, the player should do this and mention it in his action's declaration statement. The player now has to determine his action score by adding the appropriate characteristics' ranks (both positive and negative) together. If a characteristic is not associated with a rank (a background for example) then the player adds or subtract one depending on whether it's beneficial or hindering.
The GM then thinks about how difficult the action is to perform and determines a number that mathematically indicates this. This is called the difficulty. The GM decides what factors of the enviroment play a part in the action and adds them or subtracts them from a base difficulty (see below). The difficulty is, in a sense, the GM's action score. The difficulty can be anything. The following is a list of base difficulties to help you get a feel of the system:
Now that both the action score and the difficulty have been determined the GM must compare these two numbers to see if the action is a success or a failure:
Due to ARC's theatrical nature and lack of hit points (as you will read below) I have attempted to make it harder to die unless everything goes really wrong. Let's say for example that a character attempts to jump from a rooftop to the rooftop of the building next to it. A Critical Failure would most likely mean that he tumbles down to the ground but mere Failure should be much more forgiving: the character simply falls into through a window of the top floor. As you can understand, Failures often help the game progress in new directions.
If the action is opposed, that means that it's actively opposed by another creature, then the GM totals all the appropriate characteristics - in the same way as the player - for the NPC and adds this to the difficulty of the action. In opposed actions, the most common difficulty is Average, which doesn't affect the number. Using other difficulties will make it either easier or harder to accomplish the opposed action.
Combat in most RPGs is reminiscent of tabletop wargames. Not surprisingly, considering that RPGs evolved from wargames. Unfortunately too many RPG authors feel that they have to keep tons of pages of modifiers and rules in order for combat to be "realistic". This is silly, roleplaying games model violence as realistically as Monopoly realistically models the business of real estate.
Forget all that. Combat in ARC has a theatrical flair and any actions taken during a combat encounter are exactly the same as any other action. There are no long weapon lists and other specific information that bogs down play and serves no really purpose. For instance, no one worries about weapon caliber in movies or novels, why should you?
ARC emphasizes character choices and discards the notion of wargame-like tactics (attacking from the rear, with a berserker double stroke or whatever). Character choices are important to the character and they are the type of choices characters in movies make. Whether to fight or not, whether they wish to kill the enemy or not and so on.
Combat in ARC is descriptive. This means that the players describe what they wish to do and then the GM resolves the action like any other.
Notice the word "describe". Players should forget about the typical "I swing my sword" attack mantra that pollutes other games. Vivid and theatrical descriptions that explain what the player is trying to do, as well as how, are required, but without bogging down to details. A player shouldn't have to describe exactly how he wields a sword, or which part of the body he is aiming his opponent, unless it's important to the story. This is probably the most important part of combat in ARC. Details may be important to the character but not to the story. Thus, the player has to make his decisions according to what will make the story more fun and enjoyable for everyone.
There are no hit points or wound levels in ARC. There anything but realistic and they obstruct drama. ARC uses the following simple logic to determine if a character is alive, dead or wounded: if a character, for example, is trying to kill another and succeeds then the other character is dead. If a character is trying to disarm another and succeeds then he is disarmed.
You might be thinking: "What a silly system this is. My character will constantly die." Not quite. You see, killing someone is vastly more difficult than disarming him and the difficulties the GM chooses should reflect this. When you're fighting with someone the top priority is usually not dying and not so much about killing your opponent. So wounding someone enough to scare him off or disarming him are often better tactics than slaughtering everything in sight.
Another factor to take into account is character importance. The mobs of dumb goons which will give their life to protect their villainous master, for example, can be made to die easily if the GM modifies the difficulty approprietly. Or maybe not - this depends on how much your GM hates you :P
In a diceless system such as this, a player has to create his own openings. If he wishes to kill an NPC he should play in a manner that creates a vulnerability in the NPC's defense so he may attack. No more of this "I hope I roll a Critical Hit" crap. Combat in diceless systems is not a roll-a-thon but a very intense dramatic experience when done right.
Despite ARC being a diceless RPG I've gotten requests from people who like ARC's overall concept but want something closer to the original dicefull RPGs. So, here I have collected a number of optional methods you can use to spice up action resolution. The problem with most of these methods is that they interfere with the dramatic aspect of roleplaying. I disagree with them, but they are provided here if you wish to use them.
You need a standard deck of playing cards to use this method (if there are more than three or four people you'll probably be needing two decks).
First of all, your game must use four attributes (or multiples of four). If you use the eight specialized attributes, then define a suit for each of the base attributes and consider the specialized attribute that belong to that base to be the same suit as it's base (I hope this last sentence makes sense :)
Suits are assigned as follows:
Anyway, when the game starts, all players (including the GM) are dealt four cards from the deck. When the time comes for a player to attempt an action, the GM assigns the action an attribute (for instance, jumping over a pit requires Coordination, bashing a door requires Physique, and so on). Both the GM and the player choose any number of cards from their hands and play them. Any number of cards may be played (yes, even none).
Cards of the same suit as the attribute related to the action add (++) to the score of the player who played them, while cards of the related suit, that is of the same color but of different suit add (+). Cards of different color do not affect the score if played.
All players who played cards re-fill their hand so that they have four cards.
The obvious question here is: "Won't players always play as many cards as possible?". The obvious answer is: "Not, really". The reasoning for this is that, players generally keep their "good" cards for when it's really important, because they don't know what cards they might draw later.
This method provides uncertainty to the result but it's not really random. It's also vaguely based on Castle Falkenstein (which I've never played, but have heard a lot about it).
This is the "traditional" diceless RPG mechanic for action resolution and it's usage is very simple. The player and the GM play a short game of SSPaP and the winner adds (+) to his score.
This is a random method.
When a player tries to accomplish some action, both he and the GM flip a coin. If the coins show different faces (one head and one tails) then the action score stays as is. If both are heads then the action score increases by a (+) and if both are tails then the action score decreases by a (-).
This method is simple and adds a certain degree of randomness to the action resolution.
Dice are generally not easy to use with ARC. I guess, you can probably use FUDGE dice or something to add randomness but since not everyone has FUDGE dice I'm not going to bother. Instead, I've been thinking about how to use normal dice in a non-random manner to affect the result of an action. But, I'm still in the thought process :)