Introduction And Objective

The objective of Personae is to facilitate rewarding, enjoyable roleplaying game experiences. Personae provides a rules system for resolving conflicts within the confines of a shared, collaborative interactive fictional environment consisting of one or more players and the chorus, referred to hereafter as “the fiction”.

• Every player controls one or more identities (may be abbreviated as IDs or idents, as a shorthand): unique entities from the perspective of the game’s mechanics that are capable of issuing or answering challenges. Identities might be creatures, people, places, ideas, or phenomena. Every player begins play with at least one identity—their main character—but might control additional identities as play progresses. Some identities may last a long time, and some might be more volatile, depending on their relevance in the fiction.
• The terms identity and character might be used interchangeably, but whether an identity is a character is predicated on the circumstances of the fiction; identities and characters are, for the purposes of the game’s mechanics, identical.
• Unless otherwise specified, the pronouns of identities and characters are they/them. Identities that represent non-people objects, obstacles or other such phenomena may be it/them where appropriate.
• The chorus may control one or more identities in addition to the players’ main characters, such as supporting characters, at any time during play. The chorus’ identities might be on the same side as the players’ characters, against them, or somewhere in-between. The role of the chorus is explained in greater detail in "Moderating a Personae Game”.
• The success or failure of actions undertaken by identities is addressed by the issuing or answering of challenges. Challenges are resolved by the rolling of one(1) or more ten-sided dice by either a player or the chorus. The faces of the dice are labeled 1 to 10. The outcomes of the dice rolled interact with and may be modified by an identity’s relevant game mechanics statistics, referred to hereafter as “stats”.
• Conflicts are resolved through methods of social interaction such as teamwork, problem-solving, critical thinking, improvisation and cleverness, undertaken not only by the players and chorus outside the fiction but within it as well by the identities under their control.
• Other players, as well as the chorus, might offer suggestions as to how an identity might act, behave, perform or function within the fiction, but every player has principle authorial agency over their main character’s details, thoughts, behaviors and actions by default. Any influence over a player or chorus’s identities that come from the chorus or other players may only impact the fiction if the controlling player has given consent; the controlling player has “final veto power”.
• Unless otherwise specified, the pronouns of identities, characters, players or the chorus are they/them by default.