This document is intended to be a distillation of the base system mechanics for Schismata. Absent from this document is the lore or implied setting. The hope is that this will support extension of the system and enable the creation of derivative works, new implementations, etc., without burdening the individual game developers with unwanted flavor text that does not fit with their game ideas. That is, Schismata should be able to form the basis of any kind of game. Covered here are: the basic action resolution mechanics of Schismata, which are effort-based dice pools; the rules around expending, depleting, and replenishing action pools; the definition and characteristics of actions; rules for how these mechanics work for character creation and advancement; and additional support mechanics necessary to run a game, namely time and movement.

Philosophy Note: Why another system? Don't we have enough systems? Sure, that's certainly a defensible position. Aren't there already systems like this one? This also is defensible, except to say I haven't seen one that works quite like this one. Schismata does in fact derive from a number of systems on the market. The concept of Action Pools comes from both MURPG and Invisible Sun, who nevertheless approach these things in very different ways. The concept of a Target Number is nothing more than D&D's Difficulty Class and appears in numerous forms throughout the TTRPG world. What I find lacking in those systems is what I am synthesizing here, together in one document. Namely, I wanted to find a way to import effort mechanics into something that still had the shape of a D20 derived system. This allows a deemphasizing of ability scores (themselves quite suspect and increasingly difficult to defend) in favor of capacity to exert more effort to accomplish goals. I admit this is a subtle distinction, but there is a difference between ability scores that are prescriptive determinants of actual ability and action pools that represent extra reserves of capacity that one can use. Ability scores tend to suggest to players what they can and cannot attempt with their characters, and this encourages thinking based entirely on ability scores rather than encouraging mechanically supportable narrative approaches to taking actions in game. Action pools say nothing about whether one character is better at something than another character is. Instead, they say only that one character's tolerance for additional effort toward an action is greater than another character's tolerance for effort put toward the same action.