Page 44 - World of Darkness

apply when your character responds to coercion, injury When creating your character, you must prioritize his
and influence. Resolve tests his ability to resist efforts to capability with the Attribute categories. His Mental,
direct his mind, Stamina helps him shrug off physical Physical and Social traits must be given primary, second-
trauma, and Composure helps him recover from horrify- ary and tertiary emphasis. If you want your character to
ing experiences or social tension and still maintain con- be active and hardy, Physical traits might be primary. If
trol. his ability to react to and deal with people is nearly but
Thus, you don’t usually check Strength when your not quite as important, Social Attributes could be sec-
character is challenged in a social situation, because brute ondary. That leaves Mental traits as tertiary. He’s not the
force doesn’t apply where Composure (social recovery) is sharpest tack in the box, or life just hasn’t demanded that
concerned. Similarly, Dexterity doesn’t typically have bear- he exercise his cognitive potential.
ing when interpreting a foreign language. That act calls You get to allocate five dots among your character’s
upon the power of the mind and is the purview of Intelli- primary Attributes. You assign four dots among his sec-
gence. ondary Attributes. And you get three dots to divvy up
among his tertiary traits. The dots available to each cat-
egory can be distributed among its three Attributes as
Attribute Dots evenly or unevenly as you like. So, you might decide to
apply three dots to your character’s Strength, one to his
Attributes are rated 1 to 5 for ordinary Dexterity and one to his Stamina. That’s all five of his
people, and each score suggests the degree of primary class allocated. Two of your four Social dots might
your character’s raw capability in that area. go to each of Manipulation and Composure. And, you
might assign one of each of your three Mental dots to In-
Dots Talent telligence, Wits and Resolve.
• Poor. Unexercised, unpracticed or Remember that the fifth dot in any Attribute costs
inept. two of the dots you have to spend at character creation.
•• Average. The result of occasional Each Attribute also gets one free dot automatically before
effort or application. you start assigning anything.
••• Good. Regular practice or effort,
or naturally talented.
•••• Exceptional. Frequently applied, Attribute
tested and honed, or naturally
gifted. Descriptions
••••• Outstanding. The peak of normal
human capability. Continuously The following is a breakdown of what each Attribute en-
exercised or naturally blessed. tails and how it may be applied. Some tasks rely on your
character’s Attribute dots alone and these traits are rolled or
Normally, it’s not possible for a character even combined to determine how well he performs certain tasks.
to have zero dots in an Attribute. That suggests Such feats are typically ones any unimpaired person can per-
the absolute vacancy of any capability in the trait form, such as holding one’s breath or lifting objects, and don’t
in question. Now, a person could be physically, require any special training or expertise. The Attribute tasks
mentally or socially disabled or crippled. Those detailed here are comprehensive. They’re activities that rely
conditions are reflected with Flaws (see p. 217), exclusively on inherent talent (Attributes) alone, rather than
however, not through zero-rated Attributes. on the learned capabilities of Skills (see p. 54). It’s therefore not
Just about the only instance in which an At- recommended that you invent other Attribute tasks during play;
tribute can be reduced to zero (and usually tem- almost all other actions that characters can perform involve a
porarily) is by supernatural means. A spell, curse combination of an Attribute and Skill.
or affliction is imposed on your character that
eliminates all of the dots in his trait. In these Mental
cases, no roll can be made at all whenever the
Attribute in question would normally be called
for. So, if your character is afflicted with total Intelligence
loss of bodily control (zero Dexterity), you make
no rolls for any situation that calls for Dexterity “I’m sick of this,” Becky announced in frustration. She
in a dice pool, even if he has dots in a pertinent immediately regretted her outburst as her words echoed
Skill or has access to tools that would be helpful. throughout the musty old library. Fortunately, this late at
Your character can’t even hope to aim a gun or night, even during exams, no one else was there to hear. She
direct his movements. In essence, the action fails had been working on her thesis for weeks without getting
outright. anywhere. Once again, she wondered if a degree in Linguis-
tics was a good choice.

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ATTRIBUTE DESCRIPTIONS- MENTAL