It started when they raided your village. You and your friends tracked down the raiders to their hideout, dealt with them, and found they were taking orders from somewhere else. You investigated, which took you through a lot of ruins and city sewers and cobwebbed wizard towers to figure things out. Now you’re on horseback beside the king of the realm, contemplating how to crack the fortress of the lich who’s been pulling all the strings, and maybe tonight is the end of it all or maybe it just keeps going after this. It all depends if Jerry can still make Thursday nights work with his schedule. This is TorchLite, a pulp-fantasy tabletop roleplaying game of action, intrigue, and exploration built on the Cortex Lite rules framework. These simple and extensible game mechanics will take you through epic landscapes, thrilling action sequences, and startling-yet-satisfying plot twists. All you need to provide is a little imagination, which we trust you’ve got in spades. The game is made up of two big pieces: colorful fantasy adventurers, and the dangerous challenges and locations they encounter. Not coincidentally, the main sections of these game books are Fantastic Adventurers and A World of Dangerous Challenges. Each one details key pieces of TorchLite and you can start anywhere you like. If you want to build a character, well, Fantastic Adventurers is your ticket. Or if you kind of already know that you’re going to be running the game, come take a peek at A World of Dangerous Challenges; we’ve got you covered. Whatever you do, have fun—and always check for traps. TorchLite evolved from Cortex Lite, a simple roleplaying game compatible with the Cortex Prime roleplaying game. Cortex Lite is available for free on itch.io.

Your World

In a tabletop roleplaying game like this one, each player takes on the role of one or more characters. TorchLite characters adventure through a fantasy realm chosen or created by you and your group, and the players use the rules to determine the results of their characters’ actions. This game makes certain genre-based assumptions about how your world will work, so those assumptions are explained here, so that you can build on or change them—or set them aside—to fit the kind of adventures the players wish to have.

Medieval Fantasy

Much of the world’s culture and technology is roughly equivalent to that of the medieval or Renaissance period in lands surrounding the Mediterranean—Southern Europe, West Asia, and North Africa. Societies are dominated by monarchs, warlords, and aristocrats hungry for dynastic prestige. Wars are won with fortified castles, archery, and armored soldiers on horseback. Yet these real-world inspirations are mixed with fantastical elements like magical spells and mythical creatures. Peoples such as elves, dwarves, ogres, and goblins have separate cultures and history. Dragons hoard gold in hidden lairs, herds of pegasi graze treetops, and undead walk by night.

Post-Apocalyptic Peril

This world has seen great empires with monumental architecture and well-guarded trade routes—but they’re gone now. Civilization exists only in isolated settlements separated by dangerous swathes of wilderness. Travel in any direction means crossing a vast expanse of dangers, abandoning safety to face roving bands of marauders and unpredictable monsters. The few existing maps of areas more than a few miles from population centers are likely sketchy or inaccurate. This fallen land conceals great opportunities. Without unifying empires or superheroic champions, the player characters take center-stage, making decisions of great consequence that change the world around them. Furthermore, the collapse of past ruling powers has left behind remote ruins, misremembered relics, and unrecovered riches. Few adventurers return from expeditions to trap-filled dungeons or crumbling, spider-haunted temples, but those who do often bring back priceless treasures.

Magical Spells & Enchanted Relics

Magic is a fundamental part of the world. It can be used to fuel the casting of spells by a variety of means: focused will, metaphysical knowledge, inborn talent, attunement to primal nature spirits, pacts with eldritch entities, psychic abilities, empowering items, etc. Long ago, artificers learned to infuse sorcery into objects, an art forgotten by all but a few. These magic items are more precious than gold or jewels. Finding such wonders is often the main motivation for adventurers delving into ancient ruins. Places may be enchanted as well, creating magically warded towers, beguiling forests, hallowed temples, and the like. As societies rise and fall, spellcasters have used defensive abjurations and deadly traps to protect important treasures and locations. It takes great skill to circumvent these measures, which is a major reason why adventurers often have shortened lifespans.

Tangible Divinity & Scant Medicine

Religious faith is far more than just a social phenomenon. This game doesn’t tell you what belief systems are prominent in your world, but it does assume that the Divine actively intervenes in mortal life to some degree. The influence of higher powers is an observable fact. Devotion to deity allows clerics, some paladins, and others to manifest divine spells and other miracles. This holiness—channeled through the laying of hands—is the most powerful and reliable form of healing in a time when medicine is relatively primitive.

The Great Unknown

Due to the current dark age following the decline of civilization, not to mention the vast strangeness of the cosmos, the world is little understood. No scholar can tell you the full history of the world or the nature of all the planes beyond. Even geography is shrouded in mystery, since communication and travel between settlements are so limited. One small region might hide many dangers, with so many cultures having risen and fallen and left their remnants behind. This status quo makes the GM’s task simpler. There doesn’t need to be a map of the continent, a timeline of ancient history, or a defined cosmology. The GM just has to have a handle on where the PCs have been and where they’re likely to go next session. They can make other decisions about the setting—world-building can be loads of fun on its own—but thinking one session at a time is all the game requires.

Cosmic Forces

The world is pressured and shaped by opposing cosmic forces, including Chaos, Order, Good, and Evil. For the average person the tumult and conflicts between these powers are like the weather, interactions that can affect their lives but which are beyond their ken. Certain folk are aligned with these forces (and certain creatures, such as angels or demons, even embody them), but these are a minority. Most people are unaligned, and even aligned mortals retain free will. Aligning with Order doesn’t mean someone obeys or agrees with every law, and while the fey are beings of Chaos, they are also strictly bound by ancient pacts and customs. A champion may wear the mantle of Good, but actually being a good person is much more complicated. Few willingly align with Evil, but those labeled as “evil” by a society may be the ones living the principles that moral authorities espouse.

Other Planes of Existence

There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in mundane philosophy—and Heaven and Earth are far from the only worlds. Beyond the frontiers of everyday reality, there are elemental planes where everything is fire or ice, astral and ethereal planes where the spiritual is substantial and the physical is ghostly, wild fey realms, various temporary afterlives, an impossibly huge World Tree with branches that connect every plane, a river running through the underworlds, and more. Each of these other planes seems to be dominated by one theme, whether it is an element like Ice or Fire, a phenomenon such as Life or Death, or the cosmic forces of Good, Evil, Chaos, or Order. The energies of these otherworlds leak into each other, and into the mortal world, allowing them to be drawn upon for magical effects. In some places, different planes touch or cross over. Sages view the mortal world as a nexus of intersection between these extremes. Most inhabitants of other planes are aloof, uninterested in affairs beyond their native dimension. However, certain otherworldly beings seek interaction or service from mortals. They sponsor cults and other secret factions, make pacts channeling the energies of their home planes for warlocks to use in spells, and seek pawns for intrigue and conflicts with other entities.

How to Play TorchLite

This section remixes the player-facing rules from Cortex Lite. You can grab that complete game for free on itch.io. If you want to jump to the fancy new TorchLite stuff, that’s in Fantastic Adventurers.

PCs & GM

As in many tabletop role-playing games, one player takes on the role of the Game Moderator, or GM, rather than playing their own character. The GM frames scenes, portrays supporting characters (called GMCs, or Game Moderator Characters), controls the opposition (including rolling dice), and ends scenes. The characters portrayed by everybody else are called player characters, or PCs.

Rolling Dice

During play, everybody contributes to the story, but at some point you break out dice, introducing just enough randomness so no one knows what will happen until events unfold during play.

Traits & Dice

Each character has a number of traits, which are things—abilities, skills, useful items—that can help them accomplish their goals. Each trait is rated with one of five die sizes, each represented in this text with a symbol: a 4-sided die or d4, a six-sided die or d6, an 8-sided die or d8, a 10-sided die or d10, or a 12-sided die or d12. Each trait in a set is rated with a die size: d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12. Generally, larger die sizes make a trait more effective, so d6 is better than d4.

Trait Sets

Traits are organized into trait sets. Examples of trait sets used in TorchLite are attributes (Agility, Alertness, Brains, Brawn, Charisma, and Composure), roles (Scholar, Scoundrel, Scout, Soldier, and Speaker), and signature assets (items or other factors that provide an advantage, such as Hidden Knife or Magnifying Glass). One example trait set for a character might be the attributes Agility d6, Alertness d6, Brains d6, Brawn d10, Charisma d8, and Composure d8. When you want your character to do something, if there’s nothing getting in your way, you just do it. If there is opposition (such as an opponent, a difficult environment, or a time limit), you roll the dice for certain traits to figure out if you succeed or fail.

Your Dice Pool

When you roll, you pick the most relevant trait from each set and roll the die for each of those traits, all together in one pool of dice. (An example dice pool might be Brawn d10, Cunning Rebel d8, Scoundrel d8 and Hidden Knife d6)

Your Total

After rolling, you add two of the die results together for your total. The total is often, but not always, the two highest results. So if my highest rolls were a 6 on a d10 and a 5 on a d6, I'd probably want to add those two together for a total of 11.

Your Effect Die

After choosing die results for your total, you pick one of the other dice you rolled to be your effect die. This choice doesn’t affect whether you succeed or fail. It’s kind of like how a die for damage in the most popular fantasy RPGs is separate from your attack roll to hit. If I rolled d6 d8 d8 d10 for my dice pool, and used the results I rolled on the d6 and the d10 for my total, I’d use one of the remaining d8s as my effect die.

Opposition

When you roll, another player (often the Game Moderator, or GM) builds their own dice pool and rolls it. You compare your roll’s total to theirs, and the higher roll succeeds. If I roll and get a total of 11 and the opposition gets a 9, I win. The player who rolls first sets the bar for how difficult the roll should be, so that player wins ties.

Success

If you win, the size of your effect die (not the number it rolled) determines how big of an effect your success had. You might say, “My effect die is d8.” For example, if you roll to hit someone with a weapon, your total determines whether you hit (like comparing an attack roll to armor class in the world’s most popular RPG), and your effect die would be how much damage you inflict. Your total tells you whether the story goes your way; your effect die tells you how far it goes.

An Example of Play

Perhaps your cunning rebel character wants to reach a door, but an enemy knight stands in her way. You describe the rebel trying to fake the knight out, feinting a retreat before lashing out with the knife she has stashed up her sleeve. The GM asks you to roll dice to see if she succeeds. You roll her Brawn d10, Scoundrel d8, Cunning Rebel d8, and Hidden Knife d6, getting 6 on the d10, 2s on the d8s, and 5 on the d6. You pick the 6 and 5 to add together, making your total 11. You use a leftover d8 as your effect die. The knight’s total against her is 8, and since 11 is higher than 8, your rebel wins. She gets to inflict her d8 effect die on the knight. Her thin blade slides through a joint in her foe’s armor, stabbing deep into his flank.

The Shape of a TorchLite Game

If that explanation all made sense, then you know how to play TorchLite. Everything else in the system fits into, bolts onto, or adds a twist to this single mechanic. The rest of this section breaks down other rules that build on those fundamentals.

Session Zero and Safety Tools

Playing a tabletop RPG can become a bad experience if everyone involved isn’t on the same page about the topics and themes they’ll be exploring in play. The best way to align those expectations is usually having a formal process, making sure everyone has a chance to be heard and set appropriate boundaries. That process can be a part of a “Session Zero”, a conversation before actual play begins that can also provide a chance to make characters together, discuss the game, build anticipation, and decide what content should or shouldn’t be a part of the game. You should also use appropriate safety tools, such as Lines and Veils, the X-Card by John Stavropoulos or Script Change by Beau Jágr Sheldon. Script Change is especially recommended, because the framework it provides can improve the experience of playing a tabletop RPG even when content concerns aren't an issue. What’s important is choosing the tools that work for you and your group.

Sessions, Scenes, & Beats

Games are played in sessions. A session is however long your group gathers to play at a time, whether in person or online. Sessions are divided into segments called scenes, just like a play, film, or TV show. Player actions take place in units of time called beats. A beat is simply how long it takes to complete one action or one piece of a larger action (including both the die roll to do something and the roll opposing it).

Tests

The most basic kind of die roll is a test. You say you want to do something, and if it requires a roll, but that roll isn’t directly opposed by another significant character (or PC), the GM just grabs some dice and rolls. Usually the GM sets a difficulty, choosing two dice depending on how hard they think the roll should be: d4 d4, d6 d6, d8 d8, d10 d10, or d12 d12. d4 d4 is very easy; d12 d12 is very hard. For a test, the GM rolls first, their total sets the difficulty, and then you roll. If your total is higher than the difficulty total, you succeed; if it is equal or lower, you fail.

Action Order

Normally, a player can just roll a test or describe their character’s actions whenever it makes sense, as part of the game’s ongoing conversation. When it’s helpful to organize things a bit more, the GM can move things into action order. When the game is in action order, the scene splits into rounds. A round is nothing more or less than the amount of time it takes for every participant in a scene to take one beat’s worth of action (often called a turn). Usually, the GM chooses one player to go first. After a player takes a beat, they choose who goes next. The GM and any GMCs active in the scene get to take their own beats as well. Once everyone has taken a beat to do what they want to do, the round ends. Whoever goes last in a round chooses who goes first in the next round, and players can choose themselves!

Plot Points

This game uses a special currency called plot points (abbreviated Ⓟ), which you can spend to affect the story. You’ll likely earn and spend plot points all the time. Every player gets at least one Ⓟ at the start of each session. The most important uses of plot points include: You can spend a Ⓟ to instantly create a d6 asset. When you add up die results for your total, you can spend one Ⓟ to add in the result from one additional die, increasing your total. You can spend a Ⓟ to make an asset useful to a whole group of people instead of just one. When an asset would go away at the end of a scene or session, you can spend a Ⓟ to keep it, starting the next scene or session with the asset still in play. Unless specified otherwise, you can spend plot points at any time, even when it isn’t your beat or turn. Any unspent plot points are lost at the end of a session, so it’s best not to hoard them.

Hitches

When you roll 1 on a die, you can’t count that die towards your total or use it for your effect die. A die that rolls a 1 is called a hitch. When you roll a hitch, the GM can grant you a plot point to give you a d6 complication (which may step up a complication you already have). When the GM rolls a hitch, it’s called an opportunity. When the GM rolls an opportunity, you can spend a Ⓟ to step up an existing asset or step down a complication.

Extra Effects

When you want to achieve multiple outcomes from a single roll (including affecting more than one target), you can do so by spending plot points to keep extra effect dice beyond the first. For each Ⓟ spent, you can choose one extra die from your roll to become an effect die. You can’t choose hitches or dice that are already effect dice or part of your total. If you run out of dice to choose from, you can’t keep more effect dice. Each effect die must do a different thing. For example, if you are fighting a pair of thugs on a swinging platform over a chasm, you can use two effect dice to assign an Unbalanced complication to each thug, or to assign both Unbalanced and a Frightened complication to the same thug, but you can’t use extra effect dice to assign Unbalanced to the same thug more than once with the same roll. Also, if you assign effect dice to multiple targets that each have their own dice to roll, each target gets their own opposition roll against you. Only those you beat take the effect. When you step up a d12 effect die, you gain an extra d6 effect die for that roll.

Effect Dice

When you succeed on a roll, your effect die usually becomes an asset (a new temporary trait that benefits someone) or a complication (a new temporary trait that makes things harder for someone). When an asset or complication is created, it gains a name to go with its die rating, such as Blinded d10, Blackmailed d12, Bound Wrists d6, Cunning Plan d6, Hiding in Shadows d6, Inspired d10, Shield Spell d8, or Stolen Horse d8. The player who creates an asset or complication gets to name and describe it. Assets and complications aren’t added to every roll; like other traits, they only apply when it makes sense in the story for the particular action described. The default assumption is that assets and complications go away when a scene ends. Most rolls create some kind of complication or asset, but there are a couple other things you can do. You might simply roll to change your situation, such as by opening a locked door. In this case, your effect die just measures your degree of success: a d4 might be getting the door open just a crack, while a d12 busts it wide open. You might also roll to step down or end a complication; this is called recovery, and the rules for it are explained later.

Heroic Success

When you succeed on a roll, if your total beats the opposing roll by 5 or more, you’ve scored a heroic success. This means that you not only achieve what you set out to do, but surpass your own expectations in doing so. For every 5 by which you beat the opposing roll, your effect die steps up by one size.

Comparing Effect Dice

Even when you fail a roll against someone, your effect die still matters. If your roll fails, but your effect die is larger than the opposition’s effect die, the opposition’s effect die steps down.

There’s Always an Effect

Every roll always has a minimum of one d4 effect die. If stepping down dice, removing dice due to hitches, or any other situation would prevent a roll from having an effect die, give that roll one d4 effect die before resolving it.

Complications

A complication is a temporary trait that makes things harder for you, so you don’t roll it yourself. Instead, your opposition can roll it against you, and if someone else has a complication, you can add it to your dice pool when rolling against them. Here’s a sample list of complications that you might inflict (or suffer) during play: Cursed with Sores, Distracted, Entangled by Vines, Indebted to Donna Ricci, Notoriety, On Fire, Outflanked, Out of Arrows, Out of Mana, Poisoned.

No d4 Complications

Unlike other traits that run from d4 to d12, d4 complications do not exist in TorchLite. When you take a new complication, if it would be d4 or smaller, it becomes a d6. When an existing complication would step down to less than d6, it just goes away.

Taken Out

If a complication on any character would step up to a die size larger than d12, the complication stays at d12, but that character is taken out. When you are taken out, you are unable to influence the story—one way or another, you’ve been overwhelmed and can no longer participate. When someone gets knocked out by a brigand, falls through a trap door into a prison cell, or is transformed into a statue, they’ve been taken out. Being taken out usually only lasts until the end of the scene.

Stepping Up Complications

An important rule of complications is that an existing one can be stepped up by further actions that inflict the same complication. So, if you already have a Tangled Up d6 complication, and someone throws a lasso around your arms and torso, that complication could step up to Tangled Up d8. Each time another roll worsens your complication, its effect die steps it up. If the effect die is larger than the complication’s rating, the complication steps up to that effect die’s size. When naming a complication, it is best to use a name that leaves room for things to get worse—it might get stepped up, after all. Instead of naming a complication Knocked Out, it makes more sense to call it On the Ropes or Woozy or Concussed. So if a spell that would turn a character to stone inflicts a complication rather than taking the character out, the complication might just be called Turning to Stone, as the character’s body slowly petrifies and their limbs become heavy and slow. Complications can also be renamed when circumstances change. If a character already trapped in a net is then pushed into quicksand, their complication might go from Tangled Up d8 to Restrained d10, changing the name to include all the problems limiting their ability to move and escape.

Stress

The most common forms of complications are called stress. These are the kinds of consequences that befall characters all the time. While they work just like complications in all other respects, they have their own rules for when they go away. Four kinds of stress are used in TorchLite: Damaged stress, Demoralized stress, Enthralled stress, and Exhausted stress. Each type of stress represents a different kind of situation, as follows: Damaged is physical, bodily harm, like getting punched in the eye, cut by a blade, poisoned by an assassin, burned by flame, etc. Demoralized stress represents becoming frightened, insecure, discouraged, disillusioned, worried, pessimistic, or any other mental state that makes you feel like you might be better off quitting. Enthralled stress is when you are fascinated, tempted, distracted, hyper-focused, charmed, smitten, emotionally overwhelmed, or just caught up in your own thoughts. Exhausted stress is fatigue, burnout, tiredness, exertion, lack of energy, or simply an unmet need for rest.

Failure & Stress

When you fail a test, you take d6 stress. The opposition chooses the type of stress. Perhaps a character feels Demoralized by their lack of success, Exhausted by the wasted effort, or Enthralled by an interesting problem they can’t seem to solve yet. Generally, if a character tries and fails to cast a spell, the stress they take is Exhausted, representing the drain on their personal magical energies.

Stress vs. Complications

When something happens that makes things harder for a character, but it isn’t covered by one of the stress types, represent it with a free-form complication instead, such as Grappled, Prone, Enraged, Nauseous, Deafened, Tangled in a Giant Spider-Web, Turning Into a Frog, etc.

Assets

An asset is a temporary trait that grants an advantage. When you create an asset, you choose whether it is for you or for another character. Usually, only the character you choose can use it. Sometimes, an asset becomes permanent, making it an ongoing advantage that a character uses all the time. Such assets are called signature assets.

Multiple Assets

A default rule for assets is that, unlike other types of traits, more than one asset can be added to the same dice pool, as long as each asset is being applied to the activity for which the player is rolling. Assets are possibly the most basic trait in the game, but there are a lot of ways this versatile trait can feature in your fantasy game.

Creating Assets

You can create an asset with a test. Your effect die becomes the rating of the asset, which you may use for the rest of the scene. Here’s some assets that you might create during play: Cloaked by Shadow, Conjured Fireballs, Fame and Glory, Fat Purse of Doubloons, Grove Spirit’s Blessing, Intimidating Demeanor, Recon, Under Cover.

Shutting Down Assets

Whether it is disarming the dread lord’s cursed sword, quashing the bloodlust of an angry mob, or revealing a hidden sneaking rogue, you may want to remove the assets of characters giving you trouble. To do so, you roll against that character, and they get to include the asset in their dice pool opposing you. On a success, you either: ▶ shut down the asset if your effect die is larger than the asset
▶ or step down the asset if your effect die is equal or lower When you step down an asset in this way or make it unavailable, it remains so until the end of the scene. Any player may do this by inflicting a complication larger than the asset’s rating. You can do it all in one go, or by starting a low-level complication like Loosened Grip and stepping it up with later rolls. When you step down an asset in this way or make it unavailable, it remains stepped down or shut down until the end of the scene. If the asset would’ve gone away at the end of the scene, that happens normally.

Recovery

Complications and stress can be downright crippling. Getting rid of complications or stress is called recovery.

Downtime

During a scene when characters have a chance to recover—by resting or some other form of self-care—all stress dice step down.

Expiring Complications

Complications go away at the end of a scene or when they are no longer narratively appropriate.

Seizing an Opportunity

When the GM rolls an opportunity, you can spend a Ⓟ to step down a complication or stress.

Recovery Rolls

Other characters can try to help you recover. (Generally, you can’t recover your own stress unless you have an SFX that allows it.) To do so, the helping character rolls a test against a difficulty of d8 d8 plus the complication or stress die that they are trying to help you with. On a success, they either step down your complication or stress (if their effect die is equal or smaller to its die) or remove the complication or stress entirely (if their effect die is larger). On most failures, nothing happens. If they fail with one or more hitches, your complication or stress steps up and the GM gives both of you a Ⓟ.

Fresh Start

At the start of a new session, all complications and stresses are removed—unless the last session ended in a cliffhanger and the new session picks up right where you left off. (If that’s the case, players keep their Ⓟ as well.)

SFX & Dice Tricks

Your character gains SFX, special effects that give you added influence over the story. These reflect your character’s extraordinary abilities or their powerful role in the narrative. Many SFX require you to spend plot points to activate them. Other SFX allow you to impose a disadvantage on your character in order to earn Ⓟ or another reward. For example, the Hinder SFX lets you earn a Ⓟ by rolling a smaller die. Using an SFX is always a choice; you are never compelled to activate your character’s SFX, unless that SFX is a Limit. A Limit is an SFX which can be activated by the GM. Some SFX allow you to add your own complication to your dice pool. A complication included in a roll can’t also be included in the opposing dice pool, so using such an SFX also prevents the other side from using that complication against you.

Doubling Dice

Sometimes, the rules tell you to double a die in your pool. When you double a die, you add another die of the same size to the pool before you roll.

One Roll

Unless the text of the SFX itself or another rule says otherwise, when you step up, step down, or double a trait using an SFX, you only do so for a single roll.

Reroll

Some SFX allow a reroll of some or all of the dice in your pool after you first roll them. You can’t use SFX to reroll the same die roll more than once, though other players might use SFX to reroll it. Usually, SFX of this type specify how many dice are rerolled. If an SFX says to reroll all the dice, or if it doesn’t specify, reroll every die rolled as part of that dice pool.

Stepping Up & Stepping Down

The rules sometimes tell you to step up a die, changing it from a die of one size to one of the next larger size, (such as changing d4 to d6 or d8 to d10) or to step down a die (the reverse, such as d12 to d10). When you step up a d12 in your dice pool, you keep the d12, but add an extra d6 to your pool as well. When you step down a d4 in your pool, you remove that die entirely.

Stepping Down Assets

When an SFX allows you step down an asset for some benefit, that asset remains so indefinitely unless the SFX says otherwise. It can still be stepped up by normal means (such as activating an opportunity). If an asset is stepped down below d4, it is eliminated. Signature assets are restored to their full value at the end of the scene.

Stepping Down Stress or Complications

When an SFX lets you step down a stress or complication, it remains stepped down indefinitely, as if with a successful recovery roll, unless the SFX says otherwise. (So if an SFX lets you step down someone’s Damaged, for example, you have applied healing to their injury.)

Using Your Own Complications

Some SFX let you add your own complication or stress to your dice pool for a roll. When you do so, the opposition doesn’t get to roll that complication or stress against you—you’re already using it to your own advantage, so in that moment it isn’t a disadvantage for you.

Conditions

A great deal of fantasy gaming’s nitty-gritty consists of conditions: getting turned into a frog, using a magic ring to turn invisible, being disarmed by an rival swordmaster, running out of the magical energy that fuels your spells, gaining increased confidence from an inspiring speech, and the like. In TorchLite, these kinds of conditions are modeled with assets, complications, and stress.

Spellcasting Conditions

As a default, hitches on rolls to use magic almost always inflict Exhausted stress on the caster. Some practitioners talk about an inner well of “mana,” “quintessence,” or “vim” that powers their spellcraft. Exhausted stress describes that internal resource dwindling. Hitches might occasionally result in other conditions, as the GM determines. Flinging hitched fireballs might singe your own fingertips, for instance, and inflict Damaged instead. Botches can inflict big Exhausted stress, but they can also be opportunities for mistargeted, uncontrolled spell conditions going terribly awry. Other complications can interfere with flinging magic. A spellcaster who is Silenced, Gagged, has her gesturing fingers Bound, or suffers a similar impairment has those complications rolled against her in tests to enact magic. She might also Hinder a distinction to recognize the limitations of her training—and pick up a sweet Ⓟ for her trouble.

Tactical Conditions

A simple test can inflict complications such as Surrounded, Outflanked, or Exposed, or create assets like Under Cover, In Position, or Got the Drop On You. If an asset applies to multiple characters, spend a Ⓟ to let everybody in the group use it. A feint can inflict a complication to the tune of Distracted or Unbalanced, which can then be leveraged in a later roll to inflict more lasting Damaged. Disarming an opponent can also work as a complication. If the item is represented by an asset die, inflicting a complication of a higher die size makes the asset inaccessible until the complication is recovered.

Morale Conditions

Intimidation both on and off the battlefield is neatly handled by inflicting Demoralized stress. That stress, in turn, can be rolled into other actions seeking to inflict Damaged or other conditions. It can even be added to dice pools to scare opponents into quitting the battlefield altogether. The trade off is that, in most situations, Demoralized stress is likely easier to recover than “more serious” conditions like Damaged, which might require skilled help or specialized tools. Any character can offer encouragement to any other character as an action intended to recover Demoralized stress. Characters can even attempt to psych themselves up and recover their own Demoralized stress.

Magical Conditions

A whole raft of magical conditions can simply be flashy ways of inflicting basic stress. A fascination charm inflicts Enthralled. A necromantic curse stripping away your life force inflicts Exhausted. And of course fireballs inflict Damaged. Sometimes you might want something a little more tailored to your circumstances, in which complications come into play. On Fire is a perennial favorite. Blinded, Poisoned, Rooted, or even Chilled work great, as well. Cursing a man to have a donkey’s head, if we want to get all Shakespearean, can also just be expressed as a complication. Casters may also spend a Ⓟ to keep an extra effect die. This way you can inflict a standard stress like Damaged as well as a flashy complication like On Fire. Some magical conditions, such as turning someone into a pig, can get tricky. Here the intent is not to complicate their later actions, but to remove the character from the scene entirely. Such a complication may need to be rephrased as an active but unfinished process, like Slowly Becoming a Pig.

Stealth Conditions

Characters sneaking past guards or into rooms without being noticed is usually resolved with a simple test. However if the player intends to leverage that “stealthed” status in later actions, they might spend a Ⓟ to gain the asset Stealthed or In the Shadows. Alternately, a character might take action to distract sentries or other opponents. Their intent may be to strike while distracted or shepherd less-stealthy characters past. Such a distraction can also be handled with a test, this time inflicting Enthralled stress, to represent the target’s attention being focused elsewhere, or a temporary complication representing a specific distraction, such as Burning Tapestry d8. Both the surprise attack and other characters’ stealth attempts may then add the complication into their die pool. Both assets and complications are eliminated whenever they are no longer relevant. When a Stealthed character reveals themself, the asset goes away. When the sentries are no longer distracted, the complication goes away. The classic Rogue tactic of striking from the shadows can combine both a Stealthed asset and a distracting complication, which is one of the reasons this tactic is so popular and effective.

Wealth Conditions

Treasure, loot, and shopping in town are hallmarks of fantasy roleplaying. The GM can freely offer characters an asset to represent treasure in an adventure: Fat Sack of Doubloons d6, Stack of Credit Marks d8, Giant Ruby d10. Alternately, players may “search for loot” and create an asset to represent what they find. Shopping is as simple as creating an asset with a test. Treasure assets can be added to these rolls, and on a success might be renamed (Half-full Sack of Doubloons), stepped down, or eliminated, depending on circumstance. Like any other temporary asset, treasure assets only last for one session, which emulates how wealth works in most fantasy stories. Characters like Conan the Cimmerian or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser would come into a small fortune, only to have spent it by the start of their next adventure. A windfall is likely to be used immediately for something relevant to the plot. If a treasure is stored away or saved up, it doesn’t disappear, but either it’s no longer relevant to the immediate story and therefore is no longer worth a die, or the character should spend the 5 XP required to gain it as a signature asset, representing more permanent wealth or an interesting item they intend to carry with them on their adventures.

How to Be a Great Player

As a TorchLite player, part of your job is to respond to the challenges the GM lays down as well as interact with fellow player characters. The game works best when you go hard: describe your actions with cinematic energy. Instead of “I hit the ork with my sword,” you can leap into battle, feint and riposte, taunt with cutting repartée, entangle the ork’s axe, or any number of other options. There’s no increased risk to your character when you get creative, so let your imagination run wild. One enthusiastically descriptive player is entertaining, but the good stuff is when the whole table starts riffing off each other’s antics. Keep an eye out for opportunities to interact and open yourself up to others piling on to your fun. Be vocal: say “I need to shake this Demoralized stress!” or “I’m gonna pin them in place with a complication, so you can finish them off!” The game works better—both tactically and narratively—if everybody is a part of everybody else’s stories. There’s literally no limit on what any of you can describe except the nature of the story itself, which means the tone and mood of the game is entirely in your hands. This is a collaborative effort; it’s not the sole responsibility of any one player to decide what is or is not too silly, or too dark, or too outlandish. Talk about the kind of action, drama, and comedy you want to see in the game. If things start drifting in a direction that’s not fun for you, speak up so you can all stay on the same page.