Tropes

Tropes describe a character's competence in broad areas of endeavor that heroes in adventure fiction regularly engage in. There are five tropes: Brains, Combat, Heroics, Savoir-Faire, and Skulduggery. Characters begin the game with a d4 in each Trope and may spend CPs to increase their rating as shown on the table below. With GM permission, a player may lower ONE trope to 0 (which means the player does not add a trope die to rolls involving that trope) in exchange for an extra Character Point.

Trope Die	CP Cost
d4	Free
d6	1
d8	3
d10	6
d12	10

Trope Descriptions

Brains

Brains represents the character's ability to absorb, process, retain, and apply information. It's often used to bridge the gap between player and character knowledge and experience. For example, the GM might call for a brain roll to determine if the character knows or remembers something that the player doesn't, or whether the character notices a clue that the GM can't describe in a way that doesn't scream "this is a clue!" It's important to keep in mind that Brains measures intellect, not education. A character with a high Brains will know more than their less brainy compatriots, but the sorts of things they know is more a function of the character's hooks than their Brain score. A high Brains die can represent a scientist's advanced education, a thief's intuition and resourcefulness, or an elder's hard-won wisdom and life experience.
Use Brains to:

• Remember what you're supposed to say after "Klaatu" and "Barada"
• Figure out how many people are going to St. Ives
• Analyze blood spatter
• Research a monster
• Notice the secret compartment in a desk drawer

Brain Die	Sample Interpretation	Example
0	Life is hard, but life is harder when you're dumb.	Forrest Gump
d4	You ain't the sharpest tool in the shed.	Kelly Bundy
d6	You don't really know how the curve works, but you know you're in the middle of it	Jesse Pinkman
d8	You're smarter than the average bear.	Veronica Mars
d10	Your mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.	Nathan Ford
d12	"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"	Lex Luthor

Combat

They say violence doesn't solve anything. At least in the realm of adventure fiction, that's just not true. In fact, many fictional heroes primarily or exclusively use violence to solve their problems. While not the most constructive method of conflict resolution, it is the most exciting and can be quite viscerally satisfying. A high combat die could mean you're a walking meat tank whose punches land with the force of a mule kick, a lightning-fast Kung Fu master, or a patient sharpshooter who makes every bullet count. The hooks and other stats you choose and the way you play the character can be used to refine your character's combat skills.
Use combat to:

• Take the shot
• Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge
• Recognize that Bonetti's defense would be fitting, given the rocky terrain
• Use the five point palm exploding heart technique
• Absolutely positively kill every motherfucker in the room

Combat Die	Sample Interpretation	Example
0	You've had your ass kicked by inanimate objects. More than once.	Steve Urkel
d4	You're more of a lover...	George Michael Bluth
d6	You can handle yourself in a fight.	Judith Grimes
d8	You have your own battle theme.	Machete
d10	You are all out of bubblegum.	Buffy Summers
d12	You eat concertina wire and piss napalm and can put a round in a flea's ass at 200 meters.	Lobo

Heroics

If your game was a movie, most of the actions that require Heroics rolls would be performed by the actor's stunt double. It doesn't measure a particular quality so much as an overall combination of qualities that includes athleticism, timing, precision, dumb luck, and sheer chutzpah. Most action scenes that don't involve combat rely heavily on Heroics rolls.
Use Heroics to:

• Chase down a bad guy
• Parkour your way up the side of a building
• Swing through the trees like Tarzan
• Use a conveniently-lowered tow truck bed to jump a moving train with your car
• Jump a shark on water skis

Heroics Die	Sample Interpretation	Example
0	You consider crossing the street to be an impressive feat of skill, courage, and endurance.	Sophia Petrillo
d4	You're not really the heroic type.	Jack Tripper
d6	You are a person. You deserve the ball.	Lois Lane
d8	You're a person of action, possibly square-jawed.	John McClane
d10	Danger is your middle name.	Laura Croft
d12	Evel Knievel has nothing on you.	Jackie Chan

Savoir-Faire

Savoir-Faire represents your character's interpersonal skills, social perception, and empathy. Savoir-Faire rolls provide an equalizer when there's a clear gap (in either direction) between player and character abilities. A successful roll means that the character's pep talk was riveting and inspirational even though the player stumbled their way through the dialog and didn't really make any sense. On the flip side, a charismatic player who gives a terrific performance still has to roll to make sure their lout of a character wasn't spitting on everyone and unapologetically farting through the whole exchange.
Use Savoir-Faire to:

• Haggle over the price of ammo
• Talk your way out of a speeding ticket
• Convince someone to give you information through friendly conversation or formal interrogation
• Win over the crowd during the Battle of the Bands
• Make friends and influence people

Savoir-Faire Die	Sample Interpretation	Example
0	You suck the energy out of every room you enter just by being there.	Debbie Downer
d4	People tend to remember they've got somewhere to be when you show up.	Wesley Crusher
d6	Most people outside of your immediate circle don't have s strong opinion about you.	Piper Chapman
d8	Gosh darn it, people like you.	Betty White
d10	It's good to be king.	Elvis Presley
d12	You can talk your way into or out of just about anything.	Tom Sawyer

Skulduggery

Skulduggery is your character's skill at deception, misdirection, and general sneakiness. While Skulduggery is most strongly associated with criminals and scoundrels, it's in fact common for more heroically-inclined characters--from intrepid reporters to international men of mystery--to engage in the kind of trickery covered by Skulduggery on a regular basis.
Use Skulduggery to:

• Sneak into an enemy base
• Perform a magic trick
• Disable a security system
• Forge a prescription
• Filch someone's security badge when you "accidentally" bump into them

Skulduggery Die	Sample Interpretation	Example
0	You can't even steal third base	Dudley Do-Right
d4	You believe honesty is the best policy, because you suck at lying	Gomer Pyle
d6	You can be deceptive when you need to be	Hermione Granger
d8	Lots of shady characters, lots of shady deals.	Hudson Hawk
d10	You have a very particular set of skills.	Natasha Romanoff
d12	You may be a trickster god in disguise	The Stainless Steel Rat

Trope Overlap

You can only add one trope die to any given roll. It's usually obvious which one you should use, but in some cases they might be equally relevant or there's a good reason (often based on character concept) why a different trope makes more sense in this particular case. In these situations, the player can roll the better trope die.

• Substitute Combat for Brains to determine what weapon was used to kill someone.
• Substitute Heroics for Brains to judge how much of a running start you'll need to jump to the next rooftop.
• Substitute Savoir Faire for Brains to convince your art professor that you put way more thought into your project than you actually did.
• Substitute Skulduggery for Brains to recognize a criminal's gang affiliation based on their neck tattoos.
• Substitute Brains for Combat when performing a vivisection.
• Substitute Heroics for Combat when using acrobatics to dodge or evade an attack.
• Substitute Savoir Faire for Combat to sell a staged or choreographed fight, or to take a convincing dive.
• Substitute Skulduggery for Combat when making a sneak attack.
• Substitute Combat for Heroics the break down a door.
• Substitute Brains for Heroics to avoid the flame spurts in the Fire Swamp by listening for the popping sound that precedes them.
• Substitute Savoir Faire for Heroics to outrun the bad guys because your admirers are intentionally getting in their way.
• Substitute Skulduggery for Heroics to engage in thrilling heroics stealthily.
• Substitute Brains for Savoir Faire to win a a court case by relying on complex legal arguments.
• Substitute Combat for Savoir Faire to impress someone with a war story.
• Substitute Heroics for Savoir Faire to win over a crowd with your daring deeds.
• Substitute Skulduggery for Savoir Faire when an interaction is based primarily on deception and trickery rather than persuasion: a short-change scam, for example.
• Substitute Brains for Skulduggery to open a puzzle lock.
• Substitute Combat for Skulduggery to circumvent an alarm by smashing it.
• Substitute Heroics for Skulduggery to pick someone's pocket while they're engaged in melee combat.
• Substitute Savoir Faire for Skulduggery to use social engineering techniques that rely on gaining the victim's trust.