Poäng, the Rules in English

Points

Points is a system where in you should use a form of metagaming to get ahead. One should be able to use strategic choices in unison with roleplaying to survive and handle various situations.

The Game centres around a form characterpoints that can change name and meaning depending on the genre of the specific setting. In certain settings the Points might be called “Grace” (as in “I Kejsarinnans Hemliga Tjänst”) and be your social status without shich your characters life would be meaningless and unbearable. In others it could be Physique, Heropoints or Hope. What ever is the settings central aspect and without which the character would be considered unplayable works.

Points are important since they are to represent the central theme of the game the method used to create things, control things or destroy things in the world.

The Basics

The Mechanism of the game is that if a conflict arises in which there is no certain winner one of the active parts roll a die, a six sided die. If the result is four or more it’s a success for the party that rolled the die with a six being a spectacular success. If the roll is three or less it’s a failure with a one as an extreme failure. The player is urged to play out the outcome herself, failure or success, with the guidance of the GM instead of letting the GM define the worlds reaction to the effect of the roll.
If there is need to define the level of success in more nuance you take the actual roll of the die minus three to get an effect. (this is used if there is a damage system involved).

What the Points does

The player may, by crossing out one of her points, re-roll a failure and in effect roll twice (making the chance of success 75% instead of an even 50-50). The points may also be used to grant some sort of effect otherwise not allowed. When this is done the player is called Subtracting a Point.

When a person is attacked and damaged or in some other way suffer an adverse effect, something negative to her character as an effect of the outside world, you remove Points from her as a form of punishment. This is called Crossing Out a Point.

When all Points are gone the character is dead, unplayable, removed or whatever may be fitting depending on what the Points represent.

How many Points do you start with?

All new characters start with seven Points and ten (Points plus three) Creation Points to buy Qualities and Drawbacks with. Creation points has no meaning beyond the Character Creation face and must be spent.

Qualities and Drawbacks

All players have Qualities and Drawbacks who are bought during the character creation face of the game.

Qualities are divided in three different categories: Improvements, Knowledges and Advantages.

Improvements give the player plus one on the dice roll in specific pre-defined situations or a plus two on the effect (if the actual roll is successful) in certain situations, also pre-defined. Depending on the width of the situation defined by the player the cost of an Improvement is either one or two Characterpoints.

Knowledges are Qualities who give the player the right to do certain things that would be, for the general populace of the setting, impossible. It can be things like Neurosurgery, Magic or Superstrength. This can also be dirt or social information that the character may have on another player.
Depending on the width of the Knowledge and its “power” (a very subjective term for a reason) in comparison with the rest of the world, the cost is between one and three points.

Advantages are specific background details or objects in the characters possession that give her and Advantage against others. This can be a form of social status or a magical or technical object. It can also be strong family ties that would give the character the ability to call in favours. The cost of an advantage is either one or two if it is something that the character can lose or two or three if the object or detail is something that cannot be removed from the character.

Certain Knowledges and Advantages demand that the player spend Points to create an effect. These are called “Costly Qualities” and cost (a bit an oxymoron I guess) one less to buy during character creation.

Drawbacks are actually an enormous advantage for the player since they give back points that have been lost. By playing out a Drawback the character regains Points that has been lost to a certain source definied during character creation. Drawbacks are divided into three categories: Tied, Restrictive and Free depending on how effective they are getting back lost Points and what kind of lost Points.

Bound costs three Characterpoints to buy, Free costs two and Restrictive costs one.

Bound Drawbacks give back Crossed Out points from a certain source. This source most be definied at the character creation.
(For example: “Narcolepsy, gives back Crossed Out points lost to exhaustion”)

Free Drawbacks give back Subtracted Points from any source. Only Points Subtracted by the player can be regained through Free Drawbacks.

Restrictive Drawbacks gives back Subtracted Points from a certain, specified source, for example “physical exertion”.

To make adventures and sessions longer all players also gain, for free, the Drawback “Wounded” (or Hurt, Mauled, Mortified, whatever can be used to define some form of temporary damage to character). Whenever played upon the Drawback gives back one Point for every setback the player gives her character until the GM says she is “healed” (or whatever term is appropriate). The reason for this is that the player can then herself play out damage, and pretend to be weakened and gain from it instead of having it forced upon her.
There is one way to regain points lost since you cannot possibly buy enough drawbacks to cover all bases. That is through experience points.

Experience and Character progression

There are various methods of gaining Experience Points depending on the setting and what the Points are in that specific setting. How they are gained and what they represent is up to the players but all characters should gain atleast one XP after each session and somewhere between three and five XP extra after a campaign or a series.

With these points one can buy Qualities and Drawbacks (they cost double the amount they would cost during character creation), raise their Point (which costs the amount you want to raise it to times two for each level (sixteen points for the next level)) or regain Points lost to the cost of one XP per Point.

The Concept

The idea of this system is to act as a basis for gaming. It’s a frame to be reformed and changed depending on the setting instead of remaking a setting to fit the system. Points, Qualities and Drawbacks aswell as XP should all be renamed and refitted to strengthen the mood of the setting.