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Table of Contents
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.
Invest
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).
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.
