Welcome

The central premise of the antagonist system started with the desire to create a game where the players could lose without dying. What emerged from that premise was a game that provided a variety of tools for adjudicating conflict, including mechanics for determining the health and importance of a character's reputation and financial well being, things that are treated in the system as being nearly as important as their physical health.

If you've ever played role playing games before you're familiar with the idea of turns, wherein each player or non-player character swaps off taking some sort of action, often during a conflict of some sort. Usually this is meant to handle only conflicts of a physical nature. Antagonist expands this with two types of turns, each for a different sort of conflict. As with most rpgs, there is a turn that can represent anything from a few seconds to minutes, usually reserved for swordplay or very precise gibing. In addition, however, a second sort of turn represents an entire week of activities wherein players can engage in large scale shenanigans, taking turns to devastate rivals or enact their schemes.

Regardless of which time scale a conflict entails, players get a pool of action points that they spend or save until later in the turn. Potent actions may take most or all of these action points, while another player may be able to get off a few less impactful actions during a given turn.

When circumstance demands, the dice mechanic for Antagonist almost uniformally uses a "success gradient," that is a way to generate different levels of success or failure. Three ten sided dice are used, each typically adding a different character statistic to it. For each dice that reaches or exceeds a target number it steps up the character's success level. If none of the dice reach or exceed the target number, the player can expect an abject failure. How this system is used, and what each level of success means in various situations is explained in depth in the rules.

The game uses a similar mechanism for all forms of conflict, with designated economic and social attacks that can damage a rival's reputation or financial base, potentially driving them to dishonor or ruin. Characters will of course need to be wary of those same tactics being used against them, ripping away their support and all they hold dear, and potentially even getting them banished from the empire!  

While the system is technically classless, a character's background has a significant impact on how they'll develop throughout play. What a character has done, and who they've been will affect how difficult it is to develop attributes, and will invariably provide the character with a set of unique special abilities and flaws that only characters with that background have. Characters aren't necessarily limited to one background either, and may choose a multitude to replicate a diverse set of life experiences. Or they can eschew all backgrounds, gaining neither any of the special abilities, or the drawbacks afforded to them by a more complicated history. Once a background is determined, players will purchase attributes with costs based on what backgrounds they chose. 

There are nine attributes, or virtues, that are used for the game, separated the the three categories of Personal, Economic, and Social. The personal categories have more traditional attributes representing a character's physical prowess and talent with magic, but these aren't by any means the only things important to a character in this game. Economic attributes include a character's business sense, their ability to handle large groups of people, and their ability to uncover information about the world around them. Social attributes govern how well a character manages their reputation, from their sense of Glory and their ability to impress, to their ability to appear honorable and trustworthy. Finally, intrigue allows a character to perceive the motivations of others, and potentially even predict their behavior.

Virtues in antagonist are used during conflicts or tests to see if a character will be successful at some difficult task. They are not the only thing important, and in addition to virtues a character will also have resources, one for each of the three categories. Determination is the personal resource, and represents a character's ability to push temporarily past their limits. Wealth is their access to large swaths of resources that can grease the wheels of society, while influence represents networks of favors they can call upon as well as their status in society. Each of these resources can be spent in different ways, and for a myriad of different effects.

Finally, some few characters may decide to learn magic. Magic in the empire is considered disreputable at best, and is actually outlawed in some of the regions within the empire, but for those seeking power, the temptation to learn just this one little spell this one time might be too much to pass up. Sorcery within Arkeria is not reliable, with a system based more around the magic one might find in a Grimm's fairy tale than a sword and sorcery novel.  The disreputable status comes not just from unwarranted superstition, but also from the very real chance that an inexpert sorcerer can be dangerous to themselves and the people around them.