How to Play Vaesen

Whether you’ve been playing TTRPGs for a long time or this is your first one, you’ll likely not be surprised that you play Vaesen by rolling dice!

In all seriousness, this is the breakdown of how to play your character in Vaesen:

Skill Tests

When you choose to take actions as your character, you will look to the skills list and the corresponding attributes on your character sheet. In character creation, you will have put numbers in the boxes; you will add the numbers together and roll that many d6s. No matter what, you may always roll 1d6 for a test.

For skill tests, you will need at least one success (2 for challenging tests, 3 for nearly impossible tasks). For the game of Vaesen, a success is a 6 rolled on a d6. This means that if you can only roll 1d6, you still usually have a chance to complete most tasks. If you have 3d6 you can roll, you have the possibility of accomplishing impossible tasks; the more d6s you roll, the more likely you are to complete a task successfully.

Some objects give you an extra +1, +2, etc. for your check. This means that the object gives you an additional d6 to roll, not a +1 or +2 to a roll’s number, as it would be in D&D.

For example, my character, Oskar the Vagabond, needs to make a Manipulation check. I look at Manipulation to see a 2 and that it is an Empathy related check. I check my Empathy attribute to see another 2; 2+2=4 so I get to roll 4d6. On a real roll, I get a 4, 6, 1, and 6– TWO successes!

Combat

For combat, the same general rule applies from skill checks– except that instead of getting a specific number of successes, you must BEAT the number of successes of your opponent.

You start combat by getting initiative, but instead of rolling (as in D&D), you draw from cards numbered 1-10 (which limits the number of opponents or groups of opponents, but not drastically if you group opponents who are the same/similar). The LOWEST inititative (the character who drew a 1) goes first. You can also SWAP initiative with an ally at the beginning of combat or round of combat if your characters could speak to each other (“I need you to hold it down so I can [insert action here]!”). You can also SWAP initiative with an opponent if you roll extra successes on your combat roll, possibly giving you extra opportunities to finish combat in your favor. WARNING: this could work in reverse as well!

In the case of Vaesen, a round is not an exact measurement of time, which is different from several other TTRPGs; it’s just a concept in which characters can take action in order. Similarly, Vaesen is not particularly interested in EXACT distance. Instead, it measures distances in “zones.” If an enemy is in your zone, you are in close combat; this could be that you are in the same fairly small room. If an enemy is in one zone away, you need a ranged weapon to reach them– a throwing knife, a hatchet, a pistol, etc. If an enemy is two zones away, you need a rifle (the longest distance weapon). (It’s not explicitly stated, but three zones away is so far away that they can’t be targeted.

Conditions

Conditions are the negative effects on your character. There are two categories of conditions, physical and mental. There are two ways that your character will take on Conditions.

The first is fairly straightforward: you take damage while in combat. Likely, this will mean that you take on a physical condition, though I could see some Vaesen using abilities which cause you to take a mental condition.

The other method is that if you FAIL a check, you (the player) may decide to PUSH yourself. This allows you to roll again, keeping your already rolled 6s, showing your character’s extra effort. At an additional failure, your character takes a condition.

Regardless of how you gain a condition, they result in the effect of rolling one less die in your tests for either physical or mental tests.

For example, you need to push the wagon off a half-buried talisman you need to retrieve for a ritual. You need two successes because it is very heavy. You only get one 6, so you fail your check; you push your character and roll again (keeping the 6 you have already). You don’t get another success. The game master allows you to retrieve the talisman (because it’s necessary), but you gain the exhaustion condition. Because you have the exhaustion condition, which is physical, you roll one less die in physique and precision tests. You do, however, always roll at least one die.

FINALLY, and MOST IMPORTANTLY: if you check all other boxes in a condition category, physical or mental, your character becomes BROKEN. They are incapacitated and are likely seriously injured or temporarily insane.

Mysteries

Similar to D&D’s adventures, the basic story block of Vaesen is mysteries. This is not a game in which the heroes are expected to fight to slay the vaesen– these are roleplaying mysteries in a darker, mythical version of our own world. As such, the benefit of working together should be obvious: each character has a set of skills which are helpful to the end goal of placating, banishing, or otherwise ending the problem with the creatures.

Thank you for reading!

This is just an overview of how to play Vaesen; there is a lot of nuance in the books. I’m preparing to run my first game of Vaesen now and I’m excited to give it a shot! I hope this was helpful; if it was, please hit like, subscribe, and consider making a donation which will help me continue to pay for this site.