Skip to main content

Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells - Character's Complications

Artwork by Louis Glanzman

Let's check out another preview of Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells rules! Today we look at how to use character's Complications during the game!

Using a Character’s Complication


Nothing is so bad that cannot get worse. Characters’ lives are full of adventure, they run into trouble looking to gain something in the end, but sometimes trouble comes looking for them.

During character creation, every player establishes a Complication for their characters. Not only this helps develop a stronger foundation for the character in the gaming universe and provides the Overlord with possible hooks, but the player can use the Complication to insert even more trouble in the adventure. But why would he do that?

To get a temporary point of Luck. By activating his Complication, the player gives the Overlord the permission to insert the character’s Complication at any moment he deems appropriate for the immediate benefit of a temporary point of Luck (that will go away at the end of the adventure if not lost before that). That means the Complication doesn’t have to come into play immediately, and the Overlord can use it later, in a more dramatic moment, to make the lives of the players characters more exciting! This can be done once per adventure, and the Luck score can’t go higher than 5.

Having almost ran out of her Luck points, Alice says she is activating Kaylia’s Complication to gain a point of Luck. Now, whenever he thinks it would be dramatically appropriate, the Overlord can insert the “Crazy Evil Twin Sister” to torment her.

If you like what you've just read, check out my books over RPGNow and Lulu.

Popular posts from this blog

My RPG Zine Trilogy is on Kickstarter!

 I can't believe I didn't post about it here! The Dead are Coming, Screams Amongst the Stars and Running Out of Time are on Kickstarter right now! These are 3 complete games, made using the system of Electric Bastionland and Mausritter as the basis (and with some modifications to fit my vision for each of them). As with my games, they all come filled with many tools and tables to generate gaming content, adventures, locations, NPCs and much more. They are compact, easy to use, and equipped to provide you with years of entertainment! Here's a brief description of each of the games. The Dead Are Coming The first of them is called The Dead Are Coming, a minimalist, OSR style RPG about survival in a post-apocalyptic world where the dead have risen and other survivors can be much worse than the undead. Characters in this game are common people who have been struggling to survive, find their loved ones, keep them safe and just trying to keep living. They all carry resources like

How to never describe a dungeon!

Artwork by Luigi Castellani I've heard it a thousand times. You probably heard it too. Some people , I don't know why, say that dungeons , especially large ones, are boring . The endless repetitions of rooms and corridors and having to choose to go left, right, north or south depresses them. I don't know why. Actually, I do know why. Because they don't really know how to run a dungeon in play. It seems easy, effortless. Just say what's in the room the PCs are in and where the passages going out of it go. But it's not. They get bored with the "you get to a intersection and there is a door to the north and two passages, one going east and one going west" because that's a terrible way of describing a dungeon environment and gives nothing really useful to the players to choose from. You never describe a dungeon like that . There's a lot more going on that we can initially see. A good referee will take all the context of what the dungeon w

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets - Complete Game Text

November was NaGaDeMon (National Game Design Month), and I decided to create an Action Horror RPG using my system (updated with all the modifications of Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells). Inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, X-Files, The Chilling Tales of Sabrina, Grimm and many more TV Shows, comics and books, I quickly worte Dark Streets & Darker Secrets . It is written in a very direct and simple way, similar to Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells originally was, but with uodated rules and a lot of tools and tables to assist the Referee in creating adventures, NPCs, locations, artifacts, monsters and much more. The book itself will eventually be release in partnership with Gallant Knight Games , but the text is already written and ready to be used, so I am sharing it here with you all! There is no official character sheet yet. I am working on it. But a simple Index Card will work just as well! So here it is:  https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QlFYafvxvJAyk