Prologue

Looking at the following expanded rules you will notice that life is getting much harder for your hero: Suddenly she has not only got virtues but also flaws. And, additionally, rising in level will not automatically allow her to improve his virtues. To test her talents will normally be much more difficult than to test just her virtues. Virtue alone was never enough in an adventurous world. Last but not least fighting and improving the fighting techniques will simply be much harder.

This, in itself, produces the uncomfortable question: Why should you go through a whole bunch of obstacles ? What do you gain by applying new rules?

This is not really simple to answer, because the game works alright with the basic rules, at least for the beginner and there are a lot of groups who never need to swap and get forward to an advanced stage in gaming technique, which is absolutely not the same as role-playing. As many roleplayers, however, choose the expanded rules we ought to say, there are mainly two reasons for that: First of all, the satisfaction of mastering greater obstacles motivates the players. A game of chess is always more interesting if both players start without any advantage and a computer game will only be enjoyable if you go through it in a higher level than just novice. The second reason, the game becomes more "real", i.e. when you equip them with a wider background. And this wider background is in essence to discover their weaknesses rather than their strength. A hero who suddenly looses her temper because of a flaw called irascibility is much more a character than a superhero. A lesson you learn from storytelling and role-playing...

A third reason, applying for the expanded rules, is the bigger variety of character types you can choose from to define your hero. This enables you to divide your group of heroes in a better way. The higher the choice of talents to be improved the higher the specialization of the hero will be. So in the end your group of heroes will star people who are dependent on each other because they are such specialists - a typical adventurers' band walking hand in hand through thick and thin against any evil...