Players may have aspirations for their characters immediately in some cases, but even if not, eventually the city will impinge on their lives, and they're going to have to step outside of their daily routines to accomplish things. The rules below detail how these things are accomplished using Energy.

Energy

Energy is a generic term that represents any of a number of different things. Physical resources such as food or materials are part of this, as is money as a representation of credit for such things.

Energy Availability

Net energy is available each day. Energy not used is “lost,” though we imagine that the character expends it on things unimportant to the plot of play. Energy is gained at various points during the day, but is abstracted.

Energy Loss

A character's full net energy may not be available for any of several different reasons. One is lack of proximity to the sources of their energy. If they are in a cell somewhere, they may well not have any of their usual sources of energy, for instance (instead relying on the jail food to keep them from going to negative energy).

Negative Energy

If a character should ever go to -10 Energy, the character dies.

Investing Energy

Investing is essentially storing energy away for a later expenditure. The nature of the investment has to be either general or specific. General investment is very inefficient, but allows flexibility. Specific investments dedicate energy to a single project, but are far more efficient.

General Investment

General investments represent such actions as resting, or recreating in such a way as the character has a little of the energy involved available at a later date. For every 5 energy so invested, the character has 1 more energy the next day. These energy decay at a rate of 1 per day, or 5%, whichever is more.

Specific Investment

Specific investments represent long-term projects that a character simply can't finish in one day. For instance, a campaign to get elected would be a specific investment. For every 5 energy invested, 4 is added to the pool for this specific project. These decay at the rate of 1 per day, or 5%, whichever is more. If a character cancels a project, they may recoup 1 energy for every full 10 invested, which then count as though they had been generally invested (can be used for anything).

Specific investments should be tracked in separate pools for each project.

Task Energy Cost

Each task has a cost to accomplish. This cost is set by the GM, but often has a set value if it is one of the particular types below.

Contesting

Things are difficult enough to accomplish without a character having to face opposition. But often they do. Very simply, when facing opposition, the task energy cost is increased by the energy expenditure (including ability), of the opposition. In many cases opposition is direct, in which case the opposition's total commitment becomes the task energy cost.

Knowing the Cost

The player never knows the exact cost of any task, but may well have a good idea based on what tasks typically cost. A player can have their character attempt to discover the precise energy level, if the player so chooses. This is yet another task, with an energy cost set by the GM. So it may well cost a player energy to know what the cost in question.

Character Commitment

Energy Commitment

The player commits an amount of energy that they're willing to expend on the task at hand. This can be up to as much as they have available for the day plus any stored away through general investment, plus any energy specifically invested towards this goal.

Ability Selection

The GM selects the pertinent ability and it's rating is added to the energy commitment to get the total character commitment to the task.

Success Detemination

If the total character commitment is equal to, or greater than the task energy cost, the character accomplishes the task in question.