Lenses

You can treat common variations
on templates as “lenses” through
which to view the basic design. A lens
is a package of advantages, disadvan-
tages, and skills that adds to the base
template, changing its emphasis. It
might be specific to just one template
or applicable to several (or all) tem-
plates in your campaign. Some lenses
are mutually exclusive; others can
“stack.”
A lens should not add traits that
oppose or that are redundant with
those on the base template(s). If this is
inevitable, explain what to do when
conflict occurs. A lens should also be
compatible with all other lenses the
player can select at the same time (but
don’t worry about mutually exclusive
lenses).
The player adds the cost of any
lenses selected to the cost of the base
template and writes down both sets of
abilities.
Example: It is possible to represent
the “heroic knight” in our example as
a “warrior” template modified by
“heroic” and “knight” lenses: