Firstly, it’s worth reading A Discovery of Tradecraft if you haven’t done so already. The article deals with Tradecraft in general, but it angles toward its value for plugging the gaps in Abilities.

What is a Mark?

I recommend thinking of a Mark as plot armour or steps toward finding a means to defeat an enemy or obstacle (in the example from A Discovery of Tradecraft, Gallowglass is not strictly an enemy, but while he distrusted Matthew for consorting with a witch, he wasn’t going to be any help).

It often happens in books or TV that a series has an enemy that appears and faces off against the good guys but isn’t defeated in one encounter. Imagine a series where a vampire is the enemy.

You need to:

• Rob the creature of the earth from its resting place [Magic],
• Discover the cult protecting the creature [Access], and
• Have possession of a special mirror to reveal it isn’t human [Kit].

You need to have all of these things sorted BEFORE you can fight and destroy it, and each Mark is bought by expending that type of Tradecraft.

Wrong Again

A common question is what happens if you start a mission, but make the wrong choice of Tradecraft. And how do you know what the right one is, anyway?

Well, that all becomes part of the investigation/adventure, as the Agents uncover the vulnerability, assistance, and/or means of identification to handle a threat. These don’t all come at once.

Effectively, realising that the vampire might have a vulnerability, as explained above, means that for Session Two, the group chooses Magic and then depletes the Mark to acquire the specific knowledge during the course of play.

What about session one? What happens when you don’t understand the true nature of the threat?

Well, most of the time, you have to assess the proposition and hope you choose well. But, you cannot be certain that you will choose the perfect Mark. It’s the responsibility of the Game Moderator to play the part of the “handler” for the briefing — whether that’s Mister Garland, a minion of Walsingham’s secret service, or somebody else — offering what foresight they can in explaining the mission. There’s no imperative to state you’re up against a vampire. Or, maybe the signs point to a vampire-like creature, but the truth of it is that a Zmaj Vuk lurks behind the scenes.

A Plan of Action

But, for the moment, assume that it is a vampire, Session One might just turn up a plan of action without real progress being made toward defeating the creature. If you choose Kit for Session Two, you might acquire the mirror. Access? You work out what cult is assisting the vampire, and find a way to neutralize their involvement.

In the end, it will take four adventures to resolve the story, but you might have other adventures in between. Imagine that this is like TV, and there are eight episodes, perhaps, but only four of them feature the vampire. The rest might reference it, but it doesn’t make an appearance.

That said, even if the vampire doesn’t make an appearance, you can still strike off the Marks if the events in those adventures allow. It’s a narrative flow that both the table and the GM should support. It’s meant to be a way to battle an enemy that cannot be laid low by force alone but by the clever accrual of items and knowledge defined as a mechanic within the game.

For the former, The A-Team occurred to me, for some reason, though I can’t account for the precise connection. I had the notion that Saturday afternoon serials had this tendency to gift their characters with talents and connections that didn’t survive beyond the end of the episode.

The latter might well be the montage breakout from The A-Team as well, but it also connected to the notion that often players can’t account for all variable, and sometimes survival depends on pulling a rabbit from a hat. The revelation that saves their skin against an enemy. On the other hand, I also had the notion of End of Level Bosses from platform games that you can’t quite defeat on the first meeting — they survive to return later… and then again after that. You have the chance to recoup and find new weapons and power-up in the meantime, learning from your experience fighting the first time.

A Discovery of Witches

It features in the Recommended section at the back of the book. Season 2, that is. Watch the whole series at your own peril. If you haven’t watched it, do. If you plan to and don’t care for vague spoilers, don’t read on until you’re around Episode 3 or 4.

As an example of Tradecraft, here’s a quick (and inaccurate) synopsis of Episode 2, as a session of The Dee Sanction:

Diane and Matthew start their session of The Dee Sanction. They have been challenged with finding an answer to the question of Diane’s shadowy past and seek The Book of Life to bring clarity — Diane’s very existence otherwise might bring more terrors upon the Realm than the Pope, and King Philip combined.

The players chat and decide that their efforts might best be served by choosing System as their Tradecraft. While the who you know of Access might seem a possibility, it feels like what matters more to influence some obvious parties who could offer assistance.

In an encounter with Father Hubbard, Matthew chooses Politics as a weak spot in the teams’ Abilities — he uses the General Ability approach of Tradecraft to account for that. He manages to convince Hubbard that actions of the past might be resolved by reinforcing the relationship between Matthew’s family and Hubbard empire within the capital.

Over the course of the adventure, Diane uses Politics to swing both the Queen herself and John Dee to believe that a trip to Bohemia to see the Emperor might be worth their patronage — in both cases swinging the power of the Book of Life itself as a lure on the hook and indicating the value in asserting waning influence and power.

In the end, Matthew actually chooses to Deplete the Tradecraft, trading it to remove the Mark that would otherwise make his old companion in witch-hunting, Gallowglass, an enemy. The Mark dissolved, Gallowglass is turned — the GM and Players alike make notes on this point. For the GM, that change in balance will affect future adventures.

As it happens, the Depletion of the Tradecraft before the conclusion of the adventure means that neither Player has the know-how to de-rail Cecil’s suspicions or counter Hubbard‘s decision to raise the attention of Matthew’s father to his consorting with witches. But, perhaps the alliance with Gallowglass will make the difference.

Next Time

There. I hope that that makes some sense. As I say, I can’t ensure understanding in a single example, but I’ve tried. Oddly, I think there might be another comparable example if I walk through the plot of The Expendables 2.

In some small part, the map of the Ossulstone Hundred aligns with the same concept. Wards and streets, stores and alehouses, traders and warehouses… Such details fall to the need of the Table and the story’s progression. Perhaps I took something from Free League’s Forbidden Lands and the notion of a map to be annotated. If the GM or I spend our time delineating every home and storefront across the map, what’s left for Player engagement?

Like Ex Libris or Lost in Translation‘s villains, I think The Dee Sanction benefits from focusing progress and plot on difficult decisions and desperate solutions. That’s not to say that the Agents always lose or that every ending becomes mired in shades of grey. But everything is not set in stone, and situations can arise that embrace the loose threads of the past, allowing the Table to create the fabric of their Elizabethan world together.

Remember the guiding principles on page 6, What It Isn’t About… fabricate rather than procrastinate. The Table should never freeze with the paralysis of concern that events might not perfectly match the canon of history. The story should be about what you want it to be about. Agents should engage in the sort of missions and adventures that entertain everyone. It demands that the Table works together, and the GM might need a little more time and a bit of leeway when it comes to a retcon or two. Or at least the opportunity to correct a bit of history if the session’s excitement means creating an unintentional dead-end in events.

This is where Journals matter and the concept of playing characters beyond a simple core. Suppose Players handle the history and take notes on events, people and places. In that case, the GM can focus more on fleshing out events, weaving old threads into the fabric of the whole, and creating a satisfying world.

The five characters in the Pre-Generated Character Set include various occupations (all from Table I), with Abilities and Resources all chosen. The set also includes a blank on page 6 of the PDF.

The characters all follow the principles and options set out in the Core Book, apart from Gage the Courtier. Gage came into possession of a Focus — the Cheirokmeta — not included in the book, and both their Alchemy and Bluffing Abilities stem from that volume. As a Focus only has two Ability options, you have all the information you need on this character sheet to use the book in your game if you wish.

If players want different characters, visit Mr Garland on Twitter, then assign Resources and Abilities. Take a note and get playing.

For those who have a copy in hand (and those who don’t can safely stop reading now!), the following key changes were made to the original release.

What Changed between 0.9.9.8.1 and 0.9.9.8.3?

Aside from a peppering of minor spelling mistakes, the key differences between the two releases boil down to:

• Addition of the annotated Character Sheet in the Becoming Agents of Dee section — as a guide to where a reader can find the elements explained and/or generated.
• Tweak to Back Story around using the tables for character generation—you use Association, Focus and one of the Occupation tables.
• Change to both Favours and Abilities to note that there is no list of definitions for either and that it is down to the Table to make final decisions on reasonable limits.
• Abilities contain a bit of clarity over how many to start with and from where to choose them.
• An overhaul of Tradecraft, explaining the process of choice, use and expenditure, along with an ongoing example.
• Expanded explanation of Challenges—success as well as falter; lower than D4, higher than D12; insurmountable challenges.
• Availability of the Tools of Arch Defence.
• A small revision to Fortune.
• Additional explanation around Consequences and another instance where no specific definition exists.
• Brief description of Graveshorn added in Bestiary.
• Overhaul of the Glossary of Terms.
• Update of the Bookmarks, including adding entities and enemies mentioned in the book—where notable—into the Bestiary.

What Next?

All being well, the final PDF will follow, then the print run of soft and hardcover copies can proceed.

I’m dealing with basic mechanics first; the next section will be the broad brush of character creation. The system will always use the interaction of several tables to create a lifepath specific to that game. That core aspect of Character Creation will be tied to the setting, so the Utility System itself isn’t fitted one—although I might give something very simple and generic a bit of thought.

As well as the current version in Dee, I already have some tables sketched out for Safety Lies in Fear and Brace for Impact, a sci-fi game that will tie into the random tables of the supplement of the same name and Some Kind of… I’ll likely jettison the existing rules in Brace at that point in favour of the Utility core set.

There’s a living document in progress, with playtest potential in some measure, and will expand into a releasable state in the near future, including a blank character sheet and basic tables for one (or all) of the games mentioned.

As ever, I welcome feedback at any time. If you want to get early sight of the document, become a patron through Patreon.