Staff Blog: The 8Fold Soul System

You wanna know what I, as a World, have always hated? Alignments.

When you look at how people play their characters they inevitably end up being sociopathic monsters, clinging to the absolute moral codes that alignment systems offer. Even worse are those that cling to the idea that the complexity of human behavior can be summed up in a single archetype – sort of a carry-over from the monotheism that dominates theological thought in the western world.

People are more complex than that. They – and you, as a player – deserve better when you’re portraying them. How would you feel about being rewarded, immediately and tangibly, for playing in character? It’s probably the thing that took the longest to develop in the 8Fold Soul System, but it was definitely the one that was the most important.

The hardest part of portraying a character is getting inside her head, doing the things that she would do, so I wanted a system where those goals could be quantified, immediately, and defined by the person playing that character. The player could always look to that list and understand not only his character, but where she was coming from and why she would do the things that she does.

Better yet, that player is rewarded for playing that character in accordance with the dictates that he, himself, defined. This means that the player has every reason to play his character properly, to try and understand how that person would act and why in order to increase his potency of his playing experience.

How do we accomplish all this, you ask? Simple. We have an Energy in the 8Fold Soul System called Soul. Every character has a Statistic called Talent, and they can spend a number of Soul up to their Talent to add die to any roll they make at any time, where one point of Soul spent equals a single bonus die. All well and good, you say, but how does one regenerate Soul?

By playing in character. The only way that a character can gain the Soul they need is to play within the bounds of the character that they have created, to work within the ethos and beliefs that they have given this person. Sound complex? It isn’t, really. You can download our free sample character creation file to see how it works for yourself.

Try it out.

I promise you’ll like it.

Aaron is the principle author and creator of the Triune Legacy mythos and the 8Fold Soul System. Find out more about Aaron and the rest of The Triune Legacy Team. This Staff Blog entry was posted on October 27th, 2009.