A bag of colorful “effort” tokens belongs to each player. So long as the bag isn’t empty, the player can make a pull from the bag to mark that they’re exerting special effort. Simply pulling from the bag gains the character certain bonuses. Pulling unusual color cubes may have other effects.
A character must use effort to trigger most heroic or magical abilities.
A character may use effort to win a challenge. During the bidding phase of a challenge, a character can spend effort once to make a bid, which matches their opponent’s last bid for score. A character can spend effort a second time during bidding, but must explain how they are overexerting themselves, and suffer a consequence after the check as a result of the strain. If they still lose the challenge, the consequence of their overexertion will be even more consequential.
Refreshing
A player adds 1 standard effort cube to their bag at the start of every session. A player may take a
A player gets the ability to spend more effort by having their character’s hang-ups invoked. Every time another player (including the GM) calls out one of your hang-ups, you get one of the effort cubes set aside for your character. In a typical session, the first two cubes set aside for you will be standard. The third and final cube will be advanced.
You can veto one of your hang-ups being triggered, but doing so adds a red (doom) effort to your bag. That’s not a good thing.
Experience & Colorful Cubes
Every time you pull an effort cube, there’s a chance you’ll advance the skill you’re currently using. Check the color of the effort token you pulled, and the chart below:
- Yellow (Standard) – You exert yourself normally.
- Green (Advanced) – After exerting yourself, add one yellow (standard) token, and one blue (epiphany) effort token to your bag.
- Blue (Epiphany) – Your effort brings you to a new realization about this skill. Add one to the skill you used during the challenge, or the skill the GM offered if you did not use a skill with this challenge.
- Red (Doom) – Your effort fails. If you were spending effort to bid, you lose the challenge. If you were spending effort to activate a heroic ability, the ability fails to trigger. If you were activating a magical ability, or bidding during a magical reverie, you suffer magical backlash. Most forms of magical backlash will also cause you to lose the spell.