Primary and Secondary Abilities

The Quick Action Resolution Deck (or just QARD) is a tool designed to let its wielders vicariously act out the lives of costumed adventurers. Whether they be good, evil, or somewhere in-between, these folks stand apart from others by donning some manner of conspicuous ensemble or another, all the while engaging in activities that ostensibly involve exceptional, if not super-human, capabilities.

Players utitlizing the QARD cannot do so, however, without a basic understanding of what these costumed adventurers are capable of. And the essential traits of every character in the game, no matter how strong or weak, can be described by their ability scores.

Standard Abilities

Almost every character made for use with the QARD is represented by six ability scores. The four primary ability scores are Strength, Agility, Intellect, and Willpower, while the two secondary ability scores are Hand and Edge. All six character traits are described here, with generalized statistical comparisons to give one an idea what a certain level in each ability score means in the course of play.

 

Strength (s): "Perhaps I am stronger than I think."
- Thomas Merton

Strength exemplifies the raw physical power one's body possesses. At its base, Strength refers to how much weight a character can lift. It also determines the amount of brute force a character can apply to their environment, or in other words, how hard and how accurately they can strike in melee combat, whether punching, kicking, biting, or even smashing a foe with a baseball bat.

Strength is more than just a damage rating, however. It describes how well one may apply their power over time, as well. Such indications involve how fast a character can run over distances short and long, how competently a character can swim or how high they can jump, and how much weight a character may carry on their person without being slowed down by it.

 

Agility (s): "There's no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves."
- Frank Herbert

Agility is the means by which a character's inherent coordination and nimbleness can be measured - it is both manual dexterity and one's sense of balance. Agility exemplifies grace, if not grace under fire, and is used whenever a character physically interacts with his or her environment. Such interactions can involve anything from carving a statue to operating machinery to catching a Frisbee ™.

Agility also comes into play when piloting vehicles of any type. Of course, Agility is the primary measure of one's prowess in ranged battle, as well. It is used to handle almost all non-adjacent combat actions, whether flinging shuriken or firing a handgun. When attempting an offensive or defensive maneuver involving ranged combat, Agility is the ability score which handles such concerns.

 

Intellect (i): "Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him."
- Albert Einstein

In loose terms, a character's Intellect score is an indicator of his or her IQ - a measure of intelligence and the capacity for logical thought. It describes one's ability to create items either from scratch or from the spare parts and salvage of others, as well as his or her ability to understand and operate equipment from the simple to the arcane. So basically, Intellect helps when mastering either geometry or German.

Practically speaking, Intellect also shows how well your character can retain knowledge - both in the short and long-term - which comes in handy when trying to solve a crime or graduate from college. This is utilized for recalling the features of a person's face, specific details of an encounter, or even the schematics of a device you've invented after some villain makes off with them.

 

Willpower (w): "He who gains a victory over other men is strong; but he who gains a victory over himself is all powerful."
- Lao Tzu

Willpower is the sum of a person's wisdom, common sense, and that sense of self that (most) people possess. A counterpart of sorts to Intellect, Willpower tends to rely upon inspirational leaps and bounds as opposed to logical deductions - a fine distinction, but an important one. It also helps to gauge a person's awareness of his or her surroundings, showing just how in tune with the multiverse they really are (or aren't).

Willpower is used to showcase a character's mental might, too. It acts as a descriptor of the sheer strength of will and force of personality a character has, which helps either when they steel themselves against the influence of others, or attempt to exert their own on the world at large. Willpower is thus a counterpart to Strength as well, providing an inherent barrier against damage of the supernatural sort.

 

Hand: "Life may not have dealt you a great set of cards... but who says the one with better cards will win?"
- Manoj Vaz

The QARD, unlike most role-playing games in the wild, relies upon cards instead of dice to resolve actions. Thus, each player character will be dealt a Hand as play begins, with which they can attempt any number of feats both mundane and fantastic. And the larger a Hand each character has, the more options they have at any given moment when they make such attempts.

Hand also represents the ability of a character to withstand damage that gets through their Strength, Willpower, and/or defensive powers (if any). Any damage that makes its way past these barriers will subtract from a character's Hand, which rapidly reduces their options in battle. Non-player characters, on the other hand, will simply make use of a flat sum of Health, as they aren't dealt their own Hand.

 

Edge: "The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over."
- Hunter S. Thompson

Representing a character's experience, karmic balance, and/or sheer luck, Edge is a trait that showcases their ability to perform amazing feats above and beyond the norm, and which may in fact seem downright impossible! Using their Edge, characters may play more than one card from their hand per action - if the value of that card is equal to or less than that of their Edge score.

One's Edge is generally determined by their Hand Size, the former being of a value that is two less than the latter, barring character hindrances or augmentations that dictate otherwise. Thus, characters with a Hand Size of two possess no Edge to speak of, which is why they require some hero or another to rescue them from calamity so often.

Special Abilities

Each character, in addition to the six standard attributes that are used to describe their basic functions, may also be quantified in terms of special abilities. These are those traits that are not common to every single entity in the game, and may in fact be unique to a specific character. There are four types of special abilities, including powers, skills, contacts, and callings.

Powers: powers are what make super-humans super, as opposed to being 'just' a random bystander. Most player characters have at least one power, whether it takes the form of an inborn ability, a sample of high tech equipment, or studied equivalents such as spells or psionics. Just like primary abilities, almost all powers are gauged by intensities - though some can be rated as modifiers instead.

Skills: skills are talents that may be learned by virtually anyone, whether they be super-human or not. Instead of having an intensity, almost all skills offer a reduction in the difficulty of a given action, making the character far more proficient in that area than someone who does not have that skill. With enough skills under one's belt, there is almost nothing they cannot accomplish!

Contacts: a contact is a person or an organization that a body can rely upon when needed, for either information, resources, or whatever else may be required. Contacts are automatically considered friendly to a character for the purpose of NPC aura readings. A character's contacts may help to shape their origin, and are extremely useful for background information.

Callings: something of a baseline motivation for a character, their calling is what eggs them on into action - or inaction, as the case may be. One's calling is not their entire personality rolled into a one-word summary, but it does help to describe how they might react in a given situation. This can be useful for players who need help running a character, as well as fodder for their foes to exploit.

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