Riddling

Attributes: .................Discipline x2

Level: .........................DF: 3 BCS 40%; 500 Exp

Resisted ....................Riddling + PSF%

The character has learned the art of Riddling, a common pastime in the days of olde.

Riddling Games are played with others, each opponent in turn poses a riddle that the others take their time to solve. The guesser must make their Riddling TSC% - PSF% of the Riddler. If successful then the guesser becomes the riddler and the game repeats with the roles reversed. When you are stumped by a riddle you are out.

If a wager is placed on the outcome of the game, sometimes money, but often of some request or service from the loser. Abiding by the terms of a riddle wager is even in the code of honour of monsters and especially the enchanted races, no one wants to unbalance their luck by breaking the riddle terms. Some suspect that there is a deep magick at work, that binds folk into the riddle, perhaps an ancient binding magick with a powerful compulsion.

The skill can be used by characters to interpret mysterious inscriptions or prophesies that take the form of some sort of conundrum. The game master can apply penalties to the skill checks depending upon the complexity and nature of the riddle with mods ranging from minor -5% to overwhelming -50%. On a failure the character is unable to find any meaning in the riddle. He can however return to the problem and start deciphering a riddle again every 7 days - 1day x PSF% / 9 in the riddling skill. At PSF 63% he can try again once each day. On each success the character will get one ‘Hint’, a clue or some other snippet of useful information. If he rolls a success with a crit die of 10 he just solves the riddle outright. The character can get up to 21 clues to a riddle after which, if not solved, the riddle remains unsolved.

You can either come up with a riddle as a game master to challenge your players along with the clues they might be given along the way. Or you can simply state that a riddle exists and it general form, using dice to resolve everything and giving general descriptions along the way allowing the dice to resolve the characters progress.