Ensemble
Threeforged #1599, Phase 2

Introduction

Think of the fight scene in Balin's Tomb, in the movie The Fellowship of the Ring. "They've got a cave troll." Samwise defends himself with his frying pan. Frodo dodges around columns, just trying to keep himself (and the Ring) out of the cave troll's reach. The great wizard Gandalf is reduced to fending off orcs with his sword. Only the fighters rack up any sort of body count. Later, Merry and Pippin leap onto the cave troll's back, doing little damage with their daggers, but enabling Legolas to shoot an arrow down its throat, killing it.

Each hero contributes according to their own abilities. Some fight, some distract, some protect the McGuffin... Different sorts of conflicts (physical, social, skill challenges) spotlight different heroes, while the others find ways (effective or comedic) to support the spotlighted characters.
The purpose of this system is to encourage a wide variety of actions during a conflict. Characters really shine when they work together while playing to their own strengths. It assumes the "standard" GM-player setup. The examples assume heroic fantasy, but the system is designed for any genre.
 
Characters
Each character has from one to three (1-3) Gifts, from three to five (3-5) Skills, a Problem, and a Goal. A player may have as many or as few Gifts and Skills as they like, within the minimums and maximums above. There are some advantages to having less, which are explained in the section on conflict resolution.

All of these are free form in nature. A Gift is a word or phrase representing one of the most important and iconic abilities or strengths of the character. A Skill is also a word or phrase, representing an important talent or learned ability that it is reasonable for the character to have. 

Examples of Gifts are things like Sorcerous Pact, Berserker, or Famed Explorer. Examples of Skills are things like Dancing, Linguistics, or Swordplay. More examples can be found in the sample characters below.

If a particular ability is reflected in a Gift, it does not have to be represented as a Skill as well. For example, if someone has a Gift called Troubadour, one shouldn't feel the need to have a Skill called Singing, though it is also OK to double up in that fashion is one wants. There's advantages and disadvantage to both approaches, which should be made clearer in the section on conflict below.

A Problem is a flaw, code of honour, fear, obsession, stubborn misapprehension, or other personal disadvantage, such as "Afraid of Golems" or "Forgetful."

A Goal is something that could be achieved in the current scenario. It's OK to use a Goal to drive play in interesting or new direction, including introducing new facts or people. Example Goals are things like "Prove I'm the firstborn bastard child of the King" or "Win the Autumn Festival Dance Competition."

During character generation, the players should working together to create interesting overlaps with their Problems and Goals, and perhaps even small conflicts of interest. The GM should design or modify the scenario to reflect these Problems and Goals.

Below are several sample characters. Again, these examples are for heroic fantasy, but one could choose different Gifts, Skills, Problems and Goals appropriate to a different genre, as befits the setting.

Thelma (Burglar)
Gifts: Street Thief, Sneaky, Second Story Woman
Skills: Eavesdrop, Acrobatics, Ambush, Conceal
Problem: Doesn't trust elves.
Goal: Steal the jade idol.

Frank (Warrior)
Gifts: Love of Battle
Skills: Intimidation, Running, Feat of Strength, Battlefield Tactics
Problem: We will succeed as a team, or not at all.
Goal: Take over this caravan.

Wanda (Wizard, Half-Elf)
Strength: Wizard of the Red Order
Skills: Research, Decipher, Arcane Lore, Heraldry
Problem: Fear of spiders.
Goal: Revenge upon Dr. Korzu!

Carillion (Con Artist)
Gifts: Excellent Liar, Charismatic, Negotiator
Skills: Scam, Flirt, Disguise, Read a Situation, Distract
Problem: Ultra-competitive.
Goal: Prove that I didn't kill Aurelius.

Hadrian (Holy Man)
Gifts: Cleric of the Golden God
Skills: Preach, Courtly Speech, Divine Lore
Problem: Greedy.
Goal: See the elves' hidden domain.

Conflict Resolution

This system can be used for any form of conflict.

Running the game requires tokens of some sort, which these rules will call Stones. It's best to use something like glass beads. There should be a central place for the Stones in the middle of the table, which we'll call the White Bag, because having a white bag to store the tokens is very convenient, especially as the players shouldn't be sure how many Stones are in the Bag most of the time. There is also a pool of tokens next to the GM, which we will call the Black Bowl, since it's convenient for the GM to use a bowl that's a different color than the 

At the start of every session, there should be at least twenty (20) Stones in the White Bag and twenty (20) Stones in the Black Bowl. The GM may choose to increase the number of Stones if there are a lot of players, so long as both the Bag and the Bowl start with the same amount of Stones at the start of every session.

Players may not count the number of Stones in either the Bag or the Bowl, but the GM can count the number of Stones in the Black Bowl. If the White Bag is an actual bag, players may pick it up to see if it's empty, but not finger it and count the Stones through the cloth.

Conflict is conducted in Rounds, because it usually literally involves going around the table. Each Round starts with the GM describing what the NPCs are doing, which may be proactive or reactive as appropriate. Then each player gets a turn, in whatever order the GM likes, usually just going around the table clockwise. The GM can use a different order every round if they like.

Though the GM always goes first in a Round, we're going to talk about what the players can do now, as the GM's turn makes more sense with that context.

On a player's turn, they can do one of the following:

•	Score
•	Fumble
•	Pass the Ball

In order to Score, the player must have their character take an action that fits one of their Gifts or Skills. The player declares the action and the relevant Gift or Skill, and pulls a number of Stones from the White Bag equal to the number of Gifts they have (if using a Gift) or number of Skills (if using a Skill). Then they take one more Stone out of the Bag for every time they've used that particular Gift or Skill in that conflict. So, using one of the characters above as an example, if Thelma uses Sneaky for the third time in a given conflict, she takes three (3) Stones out of the White Bowl because she has that number of Gifts, plus two (2) more because she used Sneaky twice before in this conflict.

If the bag does not have enough Stones for the action, the character fails to Score, and the conflict ends poorly for the characters. The player puts all the Stones back in the Bag that they just pulled, and the GM secretly adds from one to ten (1-10) Stones from the Black Bowl to the Bag. The more important the conflict, the more Stones the GM should add. If the GM doesn't have any Stones in the Black Bowl to add, the conflict should be described as ending in sort of a "tie" or "draw," but otherwise the GM describes how the conflict ends in a defeat for the characters.

If there were enough Stones in the Bag, all of those Stones are then handed to the GM. If the GM chooses to Intercept, he puts those tokens back in the White Bag, and takes from one to three (1-3) Stones out of the Bowl, and secretly puts them in the Bag. The GM then describes how the character's action failed. If the GM has no Stones in the Black Bowl, they cannot Intercept.

However, most of the time the GM will allow the character to Score. In that case, the GM puts the tokens they were just handed into the Black Bowl, and the player immediately describes the success of their action. This action cannot be described as ending the conflict, but otherwise anything goes.

Optionally, the GM can ask the player who just Scored if they want to end the conflict. If the player agrees, one (1) more Stone is pulled from the White Bag and put in the Bowl, and the player describes a spectacular success. All the other player may (but are not required) to describe their characters doing something amazing as well, at no cost in Stones. The descriptions should combine, perhaps with GM embellishment, to describe the conflict ending in the favor of the player characters.

Assuming the Score did not result in ending the conflict, play passes to the next person.

If the player does not Score, they can choose to Fumble. They describe their character failing, and the GM must secretly put anywhere from one to three (1-3) Stones from the Black Bowl into the White Bag, depending on how severely the character worsened the situation. If the failure somehow relates to the character's Problem, the GM must double (x2) the number of Stones put into the White Bag. Describing a failure in an action that would fall under a Gift or a Skill does not count as a "use" of that Gift or Skill for the purposes of Scoring.

If the GM does not have enough Stones to reward the Fumble, the player may describe the Fumble as accidentally setting the characters up for a win! At that point, the conflict ends in the character's favor, and is handled exactly as if they chose to win after Scoring, above. Otherwise, after the character describes their failure, play passes to the next person.

Optionally, before play passes after a Fumble, the GM may offer anywhere from one to ten (1-10) Stones from the Bowl to the player to decide OOC to lose the conflict. If the player agrees, the GM puts the Stones in the Bag, and after the player describes their failure, the GM describes how the player characters are defeated, as if the players had run out of Stones while trying to Score. Only the player who Fumbled gets to make this decision!

Finally, if a player doesn't want to Score or Fumble, they can Pass the Ball. This involves doing some sort of minor action that will help another character down the line, such as distracting the enemy so another character has more time to line up a shot with his bow. The GM secretly adds from two to five (2-5) Stones from the Bowl to the White Bag. Like a Fumble, if the GM is out of Stones, then this means the characters win the conflict, as above.

On the GM's turn, they describe everything the NPCs are doing, and describe them as automatically succeeding or not as he likes. Depending on how good or bad this in the fiction, the GM takes from one to five (1-5) Stones from the Bowl and secretly places them in the White Bag. Any of the players may then describe their characters as reacting in some way to mitigate the problems, so long as they're not completely invalidated, pulling one Stone from the Bag to pass to the GM for the Bowl for each character that reacts. If the GM has no Stones, the NPCs should be described as utterly failing, and the players win the conflict in the same way as if the GM had allowed them to win after Scoring. Similarly, if the players don't have enough Stones in the White Bag to cover their reactions, the conflict is lost in the same manner as described when the players cannot Score.

If, after a conflict, either the Bag or the Bowl is empty, the GM should take all the Stones and divide them evenly between the White Bag and the Black Bowl. The GM may also choose to do this after any conflict where he ends up with more Stones in the Bowl than are in the Bag.

In general, the GM should keep track of how often the characters Score, how often they Fumble, and how often they allow the NPCs to complete their actions without mitigation. After a certain number of Rounds, usually no more than three (3), if the characters have successfully Scored and mitigated more often than they Fumbled or decided not to mitigate an NPC reaction, the GM should start offering a chance at a win whenever a character Scores. On the other hand, the GM should offer chances for a loss after most Fumbles from the get-go, assuming they have the Stones.

If, at any time, in or out of a conflict, a character succeeds at their Goal, if the Black Bowl has more Stones than the White Bag, the GM must empty the White Bag, put in all the Stones from the Black Bowl into the White Bag, and all the Stones from the White Bag into the Black Bowl. In other words, trade the amount of Stones in the Black Bowl and White Bag. If there are more Stones in the White Bag than in the Black Bowl, the GM secretly adds a number of Stones into the White Bag equal to the number of players. If the GM doesn't have that many, they just put them all in the Bag. Once per session, the character may change their Goal, with no other effect. This is often done if they fail at their Goal.