Weight & Mass

Physical Presence in a Performance Copy link

WEIGHT represents how strongly a Hero’s physical mass, stability, and presence manifest during a Performance. It can be an advantage when holding ground or exerting force, but a disadvantage when attempting to move lightly, quietly, or without disturbing the environment.

Weight is not inherently beneficial or harmful.

A Hero with little Weight may pass silently across fragile ground but struggle to resist a charging creature. A Hero with substantial Weight may be difficult to move but poorly suited to disappearing without a trace.

Certain Keywords identify when Weight matters to a Performance.

WEIGHT PROFILE Copy link

A Hero’s Origin Kind determines which Weight Profiles are available to them. The Hero chooses one legal Weight Profile during Hero creation.

A Weight Profile always places three Weight tokens permanently into the Hero’s Shade Bag. Each token bears an anvil with a printed Weight value of 0, 1, or 2.

Weight Profile does not measure a Hero’s strength, competence, or exact physical weight. Instead, it describes how naturally the Hero’s body expresses physical presence during a Performance.

Balanced and Grounded both possess a total potential Weight of 3, but express it differently. A Balanced Hero can reveal anything from no Weight to substantial Weight depending upon the tokens drawn, while a Grounded Hero always brings at least some physical presence when a Weight token appears.

Weightless is reserved for beings whose physical presence is extraordinarily slight or supernatural and is not normally available to ordinary Heroes.

WEIGHT TOKENS Copy link

Every Hero carries exactly three Weight tokens.

Weight contributes 0 Power when WEIGHT is OFF or not relevant to the check based on the action or narrative. When WEIGHT is ON or matters to the story, the applicable action, Keyword, or narrative circumstance may allow it to contribute 1V, contribute 0V, or reduce the current Performance by 1V. ON never grants an automatic or guaranteed minimum of 1V. The printed 0, 1, or 2 is the token’s Weight value, not a default Power value. Apply specific LIGHT or MASS rules only when relevant.

When a Weight token is revealed during a Performance:

• It generates its normal Versatility.

• Its printed Weight is considered whenever the Performance references Weight.

• Weight does not normally contribute toward the Performance’s Difficulty.

• When WEIGHT is OFF or irrelevant, it has no additional effect and contributes 0 Power. When relevant, resolve its contextual contribution or reduction using the applicable rule.

Multiple Weight tokens may be revealed during the same Performance.

When a rule requires the Hero’s revealed Weight, add together the printed Weight values of every Weight token revealed during that Performance.

Example: A Massive Hero possesses Weight tokens of 1 / 2 / 2. During a Performance they reveal their 1 and one of their 2 Weight tokens. They have generated 3 Weight. If all three Weight tokens were revealed, they could generate as much as 5 Weight.

Weight represents the Hero’s physical influence during that particular action. The Hero’s actual body does not become larger, smaller, heavier, or lighter depending upon which tokens are drawn.

LIGHT Copy link

LIGHT identifies a Performance where minimizing physical presence is advantageous.

A LIGHT Keyword is followed by a number:

LIGHT # Copy link

When a Weight token is revealed, compare its printed Weight to the LIGHT value. For every point of Weight above that value, reduce the Versatility generated by that Weight token by 1V, to a minimum of 0V.

LIGHT 0 Copy link

LIGHT 0 represents circumstances demanding exceptional delicacy, silence, or minimal physical disturbance.

Example — HIDE: A Hero performs HIDE — LIGHT 0. Their Weight 0 token generates its normal 1V. Any Weight 1 or Weight 2 token revealed generates 0V for that Performance.

LIGHT 1 Copy link

LIGHT 1 allows moderate physical presence before Weight begins interfering with the Performance.

Only the affected Weight token loses Versatility. Other tokens revealed during the Performance are unaffected.

This naturally makes lower-Weight Heroes more reliable when silence, concealment, delicacy, balance, or minimal physical disturbance matters, without granting them a universal advantage.

MASS Copy link

Where LIGHT rewards minimizing physical presence, MASS determines whether a Hero can bring enough physical presence to bear against substantial resistance.

Creatures, objects, obstacles, and environmental forces may possess a:

MASS # Copy link

When a Performance attempts to physically move, stop, overpower, resist, brace against, or otherwise contend with something possessing MASS, compare the required MASS to the Weight revealed by the Hero.

If the Hero’s revealed Weight equals or exceeds the required MASS, the Hero possesses enough physical presence to produce the MASS-dependent effect, provided the Performance otherwise allows it.

MASS SCALE Copy link

Because every Hero now possesses three Weight tokens, and ordinary Hero Weight Profiles range from a maximum revealed Weight of 1 to 6, MASS should be scaled around that Hero range.

This scale represents required physical presence, not literal pounds, kilograms, or creature dimensions.

A MASS 6 obstacle does not literally weigh twice as much as a MASS 3 obstacle. It requires substantially greater physical presence to meaningfully move, stop, resist, or otherwise contend with it.

Most importantly, MASS 7+ deliberately exceeds the natural Weight ceiling of ordinary Heroes. Such effects require extraordinary circumstances, assistance, supernatural effects, equipment, environmental leverage, or another rule capable of modifying the interaction.

WEIGHT PROFILE & MASS Copy link

A Hero’s Weight Profile establishes the highest MASS they could naturally meet if all three Weight tokens were revealed.

This is a ceiling, not a constant value.

A Heavy Hero does not automatically generate Weight 4. Their Weight tokens are 1 / 1 / 2, so the amount of Weight brought into a particular Performance depends upon which of those tokens are actually revealed.

Likewise, being capable of meeting MASS 4 does not mean the Hero succeeds at every physical action involving MASS 4.

PERFORMANCE & MASS ARE SEPARATE Copy link

Meeting MASS does not automatically make a Performance successful.

Likewise, succeeding at a Performance does not necessarily mean the Hero possesses enough Weight to achieve a MASS-dependent physical effect.

They answer two different questions:

PERFORMANCE: Did the Hero perform the action effectively?

WEIGHT vs. MASS: Did the Hero bring enough physical presence to bear to produce this particular physical result?

Example: A Hero successfully Strikes a massive creature. The Performance succeeds, so the Strike itself is effective. If knocking that creature backward requires MASS 4 and the Hero revealed only 2 Weight, however, the creature is not displaced.

Conversely, a Hero might reveal enough Weight to meet MASS while still failing the Performance because the rest of their token draw did not meet the Difficulty.

Weight therefore modifies what a successful physical Performance can accomplish without replacing the normal Performance system. This preserves the distinction already established between Performance success and MASS-dependent physical effects.

MASS & THE WorldKeeper Copy link

NPCs do not normally generate Weight.

Instead, creatures, objects, obstacles, and environmental forces possess a fixed MASS whenever their physical scale, momentum, stability, or resistance matters.

When MASS is not already provided, the WorldKeeper assigns an appropriate value based upon the fiction.

MASS is contextual.

A creature digging its claws into the earth might temporarily possess greater effective MASS when resisting displacement. The same creature falling through the air might present much less MASS to an attempt to redirect its movement.

Similarly, a heavy object on wheels may have a lower effective MASS for being pushed than the same object resting directly upon the ground.

The WorldKeeper should assign MASS according to the physical result being attempted, not merely according to what the target is.

WEIGHT IN PLAY Copy link

READING REVEALED WEIGHT Copy link

Because Weight is generated by the tokens actually revealed, use the following scale to interpret the Hero’s physical presence during a Performance:

A Hero’s Weight Profile describes their body. Revealed Weight describes how much of that body’s physical presence enters the current Performance. MASS describes how much physical presence is required to produce a particular effect.