Conditions represent ways in which the story has affected your character, and what she can do to move past those events.
Players don’t buy Conditions; events in the game apply them and they remain until certain resolution criteria are met. A character can’t have more than one copy of the same Condition unless each applies to a distinctly different thing — for example you may be Delusional about both spiders crawling under your skin and your friends plotting to kill you. You’d have to resolve each independently.
Characters can gain Conditions as a result of various factors.
Magic may inflict or grant a number of Conditions.
A player can also choose to take a Condition relevant to the situation as a result of an exceptional success, and breaking points can cause Conditions as your character deals with them.
Sometimes, the Storyteller will inflict Conditions based on the circumstances of the story.
The listed resolutions for each Condition are the most common ways to end its effects; other actions may also resolve it if they would reasonably cause the Condition’s effects to end. Work with the Storyteller to determine Condition resolution. When your character resolves a Condition, take a Beat. If a Condition has a natural time limit and then fades away, don’t take a Beat — just waiting the Condition out isn’t enough to count as resolving it.
Some Conditions are marked as Persistent. These Conditions typically last for a long time, and can only be resolved permanently with a specific and impressive effort. Once per game session, a character can gain a Beat when a Persistent Condition impacts her life.
Improvised Conditions
Storytellers shouldn’t feel limited by the list of Conditions; As a rough guideline, a Condition typically consists of a modifier between +2 and –2 dice to a certain type of action, or to any action taken with a certain motivation.
A Condition is removed when the character’s done something significant to act on it, or when she addresses the original source.
The sample Conditions later in this book have examples of how to resolve them, but you can also resolve them after other events if it makes sense in the story.
If play would bog down as you search for the right Condition, just improvise one and keep things going.
Lingering and Persistent Conditions
Conditions are designed as reminders that events that happened earlier in the story have repercussions later. Usually, Chekhov’s gun applies — if you put the Condition on stage, it should fire by the end of your story. But storytelling games are slippery things, and sometimes a story thread represented by a Condition is better to drop for the sake of the ongoing narrative.
Some Conditions are Persistent, which is to say that they last longer than normal Conditions, and offer multiple Beats. These Conditions have a “Beat” entry in their descriptions. When that thing happens, no more than once per Chapter, take a Beat.
For example, an emotional state like Wanton might no longer be relevant to events in the game because a long time has passed, or it might have been the result of a conflict with a character you don’t care about anymore. In those cases, it’s perfectly fine to just cross off the Condition. We recommend awarding a Beat as if resolving it, but that’s at the Storyteller’s discretion.
We recommend doing this sparingly, but bottom line: If a Condition doesn’t feel relevant to the story anymore, just let it go.
Appendix of Conditions
- Addicted
- Amnesia
- Blind
- Bonded
- Broken
- Charmed
- Connected
- Defeated
- Deprived
- Disabled
- Embarrassing Secret
- Enervated
- Fugue
- Guilty
- Humbled
- Informed
- Inspired
- Leveraged
- Madness
- Megalomaniacal
- Mute
- Notoriety
- Obsession Condition
- Rampant
- Shaken
- Soul Shocked
- Soulless
- Spooked
- Steadfast
- Strained
- Swooned
- Thrall
- Triumphant