The Stand Game:

I have grown dissatisfied with many previous methods for assigning “unusual” powersets in systems. Allowing players and GMs to freely make their own results in powers that are far too convenient and coherent to reflect the source material, and assigning them with some kind of roll table still limits them to a finite number of powers proportional to the original designer’s imagination. As a result, I have written this process, that is very much centred on the idea of creating a JJBA stand. At the beginning, you start with a (potentially) relatively straightforward power and over the course of the process it is warped by the actions of other players and the whims of chance, growing and being stunted outside the parameters of what anyone would have been able to come up with on their own.

There are 6 steps in this process. At each of the first 5 steps, you choose one of the modifiers available, which can result in alterations to the portfolio of your stand and others. For the most part, I have tried to immediately define any ‘keywords’ in the process immediately after the section that mentions them, but confusion is bound to be frequent nonetheless. Each of the choices you make in the first 5 steps has a point value. Your goal should be to have a neutral or positive NET point value by the end of step 5. A positive point value will award a relatively small amount of bonus XP, with diminishing returns for greater values, for your character to spend at start or keep. A neutral value is fine. A negative point value is not fine.

Lastly, Stand users often kill just to keep the abilities of their stands secret. Unlike many other systems where it is considered good form for party balance to reveal your intentions during character generation, in The Stand Game, you would be wise to share as little as possible about your stand. Not only can other players use this information to anonymously screw you over far more easily than helping you, the amount of information about your stand that is made common knowledge has implications for how savvy adversaries may choose to fight you during play. At many stages, depending on people’s choices, incomplete information about other stands at the table will be revealed to some parties anyway. This is intended to correspond to the fact that stand users are drawn to each other and often have prior firsthand or secondhand knowledge of each other’s capabilities, or mysterious insights that allow them to quickly identify substantial features of a stand from innocuous details.

When it is time to introduce the completed characters to one another, you should reveal no more than the immediately obvious facts about your stand, such as the appearance of its spiritual body, common scenarios that it is utilised in, and its name. Ideally, you should be giving just barely enough away about the nature of your stand that anyone who found something out about it, or contributed to its features during the character creation process can identify that yours is the stand they saw, either immediately or within the first session.

Step 1: Trauma Select one of: - You define the core concept for your stand’s power, and additionally roll its stats and write up its initial draft. (-2)

- The GM generates your core ability premise, while you roll your Stand’s stats and write up the initial draft of your powerset. (0)

- You provide your core ability premise, and the GM rolls your Stand’s stats and writes up the initial draft of its capabilities. (0)

- You provide nothing but your stand’s name in the form of a musical reference to another player at random (note: random always includes the GM, at which point a random NPC is aware of this information), at which point they will generate a core ability premise, roll your Stand’s stats, and write up the initial draft of your powerset. (+1)

Core Ability Premise: This can be *literally anything*, but entries in the format of powers that intrinsically make sense, are to the point, but might be more specific than your average superpower, such as “Sand manipulation” work well. If you want to slightly annoy your GM, something like “Video game creation” is perfectly fine, but “Video games” is not, as the premise is not by itself interpretable as an act that could be perpetrated. “Being video games” is a grey zone, in that what is happening is only partly resolvable. Powers which are open to considerable reinterpretation under unusual contexts are absolutely fantastic. Something like “Oil vision” is nearly ideal because while everyone can immediately imagine what Oil vision is, whether that is predicting the future using oil, detecting oil, or spraying a torrent of oil out of the eyes would very much depend on who you ask. Stand stats exist to shape and solidify these possibilities.

The core ability premise also should not suggest much if at all about how the user utilises the power, or its limitations, as this is a job for later stages of stand generation. After all, even a stand with a relatively unimaginative power such as “Flinging heavy objects” may end up with none of the strength that implies, able to fling objects further the heavier they are, but barely able to heft a styrofoam cup. A stand with “Technology destruction” may not even be able to break or

destroy anything itself, and simply informs its user of the available ways that technology around

them could be destroyed.

Overly complicated ideas such as “Rearranging weekdays” are acceptable, but it bears warning that abilities only get weirder from here on out, and an ability that starts out strange may become especially labyrinthine and confusing by the time it is finished, and stand users are not necessarily safe from the consequences of their own stand. Time manipulation in general, much as it is not uncommon for stands in the canon material, is usually going to fall within this category. *Especially* when consideration is given to the fact that without breaking a stand rule (See here), the universe’s overall timeline cannot be effected, and with a different stat array, The World and Star Platinum’s ability of “Stopping Time” might not even leave its user aware of or able to act during stopped time.

Stats: Stands can be anything and do anything, but as a general rule they possess a spiritual body that can freely affect, or not affect, the physical world, but can for the most part only be harmed by other stands. This body reflects damage onto the stand’s user (and receives damage from its user), and that body in turn is capable of utilising the stand’s signature power in some fashion, sometimes through touch, projecting it as a wave of energy, firing a projectile, imbuing an intermediate object that subsequently contacts the target, displaying it upon its own surface, or even more esoteric means. To summarise the capacity of a stand to act, into a finite number of simple metrics is difficult but let us proceed on the assumption this is possible.

For each stat, (Power, Speed,

Range, Durability, Precision,

Potential) roll 1d100, in order.

None: 01 - 03

E: 04 - 22

D: 23 - 41

C: 42 - 60

B: 61 - 79

A: 80 - 97

S: 98 - 00

Power: The Strength of a Stand’s Physical Body, and the Destructive Power of its signature power.

None: Incapable of exerting any force on spiritual or physical bodies whatsoever, while being pushed around by them helplessly. The stand’s signature ability is irrelevant in its capacity to destroy, makes no physical impact on the world around it, or is usually easily withstood by even non-stand users. E: Exceptionally weak, with a spiritual body strength comparable to a baby. Its signature ability can only destroy fragile objects, wreaks destruction only over a long period of extended use, or might be otherwise of little direct consequence. D: This stand is weak by human standards, but still generally capable of carrying and operating objects a human could. Stand users can generally directly resist the action of its signature ability with a degree of effort. Its signature ability’s gross destructive power is probably comparable to an unarmed drunkard going wild. C: This stand’s spiritual body is of similar strength to a human being. Its signature ability is totally insurmountable to anyone who isn’t a stand user, and is a dire threat to a stand user if it takes effect. It is capable of inflicting severe injuries and can dismantle objects and structures when used craftily. B: Under conventional circumstances, this stand is perfectly capable of using immediately lethal force, either through exertion of its spiritual body upon the physical world, its signature ability, or both. It is capable of at least making a sizeable dent in almost any mundane structure or material. A: This stand is extremely strong, capable of dealing great amounts of damage even to structurally reinforced objects, it can fling cars like basketballs, or use its signature power to level buildings. S: A Cosmologically unstoppable force or infinite energy source. May be capable of damaging the fabric of the universe or at a conceptual level by simple brute force. Mitigating the effects of the stand is a futile effort.

Speed: The speed with which a Stand’s physical body can move, its reaction time, the timescale over which its signature ability takes place or can be adjusted.

None: The stand is totally stationary, either absolutely or relative to its host, or it might be an object that needs to be operated by its user. Its signature ability may need several days spent in an area just to take effect, or relies on the user to take steps towards the power being in effect. E: Exceptionally slow, inching along inexorably at snail like speeds. Its signature ability can only ensnare the people who are unwary or immobilised, or perhaps creates a condition that worsens glacially. D: This stand is slow by human standards, but might potentially outpace them using shortcuts and other tricks. Its signature ability likewise can advance or change at a speed that allows it to trap victims in dead-ends or other circumstances that limit mobility, but is easily escaped on open ground. C: This stand’s spiritual body is of similar speed to a human being. Its signature ability is inescapable unless potential victims are warned or actively in combat with the stand, in which case effort matters. B: This stand is capable of matching the speed of vehicles such as cars and prop planes, and responding to threats far faster than a human ever could. Its signature ability can be adjusted rapidly, possibly even improving the reaction speed of the stand user to compensate if the stand lacks any autonomy. A: This stand is capable of matching the speed of missiles and bullets, and carries out its orders near instantaneously. Its signature ability is impossible to dodge, the only options are to withstand it or hope that the ability misses entirely. The latter of which may be possible if its precision is poor. S: This stand’s actions are literally instantaneous, and it can travel faster than the speed of light. The moment it becomes aware of a need for actions to be taken, they are fully completed. Its signature ability is always in effect where it would be relevant, in the correct configuration.

Range: The area within which the stand’s spiritual body and signature ability can operate effectively.

None: The stand is not even capable of reaching the exterior of either its user, or the object to which it is bound. They must be bought inside somehow. It may only be able to effect targets bitten by its user, or perhaps effects weapons as they penetrate into the user’s flesh. Alternatively, it may have no need to influence others, providing a purely internal benefit such as structural reinforcement or improving the health of its user. E: Not quite bounded by the surface of its user, this stand can at least guard against mundane harms perpetrated against the stand master, and allow them to damage stand spiritual bodies with their own limbs if the stand’s power and durability allow it, but its signature ability cannot effect anything more than a few centimetres away from the user’s touch, so it is largely dependent on the user being able to hit targets. D: This stand is at least worthy of the name, being capable of standing beside its user and intercepting threats. That said, it is incapable of leaving its users immediate personal space, and its signature ability doesn’t reach a whole lot further than that. It is able to act at Point-Blank range. C: This stand is capable of reaching somewhere between 5 and 10 metres from its host, generally able to function as a separate combatant, but always within their general vicinity. Its signature ability generally operates within immediate line of sight. It is able to act at Close range, or maintain control of its power to Near range. B: This stand can achieve considerable autonomy. Generally by this point the stand can either share its senses with its user or has a separate mind able to make decisions, but ultimately it is able to operate anywhere within the same building as the user, to state an example. On open ground, its user would still quite visible from the stand unless camouflaged. Its signature ability is capable of ‘Sniping’. It is able to act at Near range, or maintain control of its power to Long range. A: This stand can operate several kilometres away from its user if necessary, and its signature ability

can affect anywhere in the world provided the conditions are right to target it. It is able to act at Long Range, or Extended ranges if highly autonomous (Possessed of good precision and potential, or ignoring the rule that it is bound to its user). Its ability can be maintained anywhere. S: This stand can be anywhere in the universe, and still follow the directives of its stand user. Its abilities meanwhile are capable of even following marked targets into the past or other timelines should they try to outrange them this way. It is able to act or utilise its power anywhere.

Durability: The toughness of the stand’s physical body, as well as the persistence or “stickiness” of its signature ability. The former factor is notable given that stands reflect damage to their body onto their user, so a stand which is weaker than its user may endanger them by allowing a relatively weak blow to the stand to completely shatter the user’s body, or alternatively a very durable stand can be sent into danger without fear, as normally lethal force will not be able to reflect any injury worse than some surface scratches back to the user.

None: This stand is potentially a hideous liability for the user to which it is linked, seeing as even the weakest of stands could destroy it more or less as quickly as they could move through it. Alternatively, the stand may be bound to a relatively fragile physical object, allowing even non-stand users to damage it. Its signature power is largely instantaneous, or is disrupted by any movement of its target. E: Exceptionally fragile, this stand’s spiritual body has a consistency akin to cardboard. It is able to offer some defense against attacks by weak stands, but its only defense is a good offense against stands with a power of C or higher. Its signature power is easily disrupted by any plausible complication or defensive reaction, or only lasts for a second or two. D: This stand is weak by human standards, but it is no longer a weak point for its user necessarily. Stand users can generally be effective in a direct struggle against its signature ability, but it takes a degree of effort. Its signature ability has some persistence, maybe even 10 seconds with effort, or has some other fairly glaring weaknesses that allow it to be escaped once it has activated. C: This stand’s spiritual body is of similar vitality to a human being. Its signature ability might be able to operate for about as long as its user can hold their breath, or be difficult but hardly impossible to escape once the trick is figured out. B: Unnaturally tough, this stand can survive even stand-based attacks that would be lethal against a

human. It is for example, bulletproof, even if the bullets are stands, albeit it would still be hurt a little. Its signature ability could only ever be broken free from or disrupted under a handful of very

specific and rare situations, or by defeating the stand user. A: This stand is extremely tough, capable of bearing great amounts of damage, as if it were made of an extraordinarily tough metal or diamond. It can act as a good bulwark against stand based attacks on its user without even needing to respond to them. Its signature ability is probably inescapable without the use of a stand ability that specifically counters the ability, even defeating the user may not be enough. S: This stand is totally indestructible, it would be capable of shielding its user against an apocalypse if it weren’t for the atmosphere and all sources of food and water being destroyed in the process. If this stand is highly autonomous, it will likely be present at the end of the world. Its signature ability is totally irresistible once it has struck home, and victims will continue to suffer until the stand user specifically reverses the power.

Precision: The dexterity and perceptiveness of a stand’s spiritual body, and the precision and

accuracy with which it utilises its signature power.

None: This stand is totally unable to control its strength, evade simple obstacles, or accomplish delicate tasks, as it always applies itself by the most direct path possible to any task while remaining blind to its surroundings. If its Power is insufficient, this may make simple obstacles such as a waist high fence totally insurmountable, or indeed if its Durability is insufficient it may be a great danger to its user. Its signature ability also lacks any finesse, perhaps immediately affecting every valid target within its range without exception, offering no control over its ability once it has begun, offering its user absolutely no protection from its effects despite them being the epicentre of the ability, or perhaps simply being unable to activate or deactivate its signature ability willfully and relying on external triggers instead that the user cannot reasonably control under normal circumstances. Fortunately, even the most incompetent stand cannot directly destroy itself with its own power. E: The stand’s spiritual body is extremely clumsy, uncoordinated, barely able to sense the world around it, and it is unlikely to apply much thought to changing factors in its environment when executing orders. It is not uncommon for it to make mistakes due to oversights on the part of its user. Its signature ability can be directional, but that is the most positive thing that could be said for its precise applications. D: The stand’s spiritual body has very diminished senses, but is nonetheless able to transmit these to its user to some extent and thus operate remotely in a somewhat intelligent seeming fashion. It has trouble limiting its strength or accomplishing complex tasks but can do so with some difficulty and focus.

C: The stand can see, hear, or has other means of perceiving its environment such that it is roughly equal to a human, and can exert fine control of its force for anything that wouldn’t be difficult for a human either. It has a degree of control over its signature ability that “manually operated” might imply. B: The stand has very good senses, likely possessing one sensory ability that is well beyond human. It is capable of coordinating a large number of separate aspects of its signature ability at once, and is capable of using it to handle delicate situations such as rapidly defusing a bomb with telekinesis. A: The stand is exceptionally perceptive, able to perceive details of its environment that no human being could reasonably identify, such as noticing that some brush strokes of a painting are different to others, the product of a different brush, painter, or time. Combined with good speed and potential such a stand would be impossible to ever surprise. The stand’s signature ability is capable of feats of finesse that stress the limits of complexity, such as using an ability that controls magnetism to write programs onto a computer’s hard-drive. S: The stand has a sensory range that makes it near omniscient, (in which case its user likely cannot process enough of its senses to benefit from this directly) or is otherwise capable of fully identifying all possible sensory information about objects it perceives at conventional ranges. Its signature ability can work at any level of finesse conceivable, using it to reassemble atoms into different isotopes where necessary, or combined with good speed, rewrite the DNA of entire lifeforms.

Potential: The most notably different from the source material. Potential is the analytical intelligence and problem solving ability of a stand’s own separate mind and thus its ability to act upon thoughts or other types of orders received from its link with its user, and the flexibility that the stand has in using its signature ability creatively.

None: This stand is incredibly inflexible and will only act or utilise its powers under a set number of highly specific scenarios, in specific ways. The user probably does not even have conscious control of the stand, or the ability to prevent it activating. Make a list of these scenarios, and assign them to the GM to adjudicate when your stand activates. E: The stand only responds to very simple verbal orders at any given time, and has absolutely no initiative in their execution. Alternatively, a number of conditions must be satisfied to utilise this stand, and its powers in turn can only be utilised in a few set ways directly related to those conditions, which naturally limits its flexibility somewhat. Above all, anything this stand does should be completely unsurprising to anyone who has seen it used once before. D: The stand is of mediocre flexibility, capable of using its spiritual body and signature ability in a marginally versatile fashion to accomplish other effects not directly related to its portfolio by say, rolling barrels off of buildings and the like. It occasionally manages to pre-empt its user’s most obvious orders. The stand can understand many different types of directive, but cannot execute particularly complicated or multi-step orders. It may well be expressive enough to get very basic concepts across to its master. C: The stand is of considerable flexibility, capable of comprehending orders with the acuity of a human being, and adding its own creative flair sometimes in accordance with its rudimentary personality and initiative. Its signature ability can be played fast and loose on occasion, having some flexibility to accomplish effects outside of the obvious. B: The stand has considerable hidden depths, and can execute orders in any form of any complexity or length as intended, barring unforeseen complications. When it is not under time pressure, the stand and/or its user can burn 6 general ability points and 1 investigative ability point to innovate and gain a flair, inventing a surprising new application for its signature ability. It may be capable of holding a proper conversation with its master. A: The stand is very unpredictable, and immediately comprehends the intent behind any orders or communication it receives, and is capable of formulating complex plans under its own initiative if somehow isolated from its user or faced with unforeseen complications. At any time the stand and/or its user can burn 6 general ability points and 1 investigative ability point to innovate and gain

a flair for the session. S: The stand has nearly limitless possibilities, and constantly changing and impermanent. At any time the stand and/or its user can burn 6 general ability points and 1 investigative ability point to gain a flair for the session, or 12 general ability points and 2 investigative ability points to gain a new effect for the session. It is able to transfer its own conceptions back to its master as easily as it thinks of them.

Step 2: Denial Select one of:

- Raise one of your stand’s stats by one, and decrease another by one. This cannot take its stats above A. Then edit its draft accordingly. (-2) - Select someone else at the table, either another player or the GM, and task them with assigning a different core concept to your stand, and writing up a draft in line with its stats that functions as similarly as possible to the previous draft. (-1)

- Select someone else at the table, either another player or the GM, and task them with rerolling your stand’s stats and writing a new draft for its signature power function in line with those stats. (-1).

- Select someone else at the table, either another player or the GM (In which case they will substitute your stand with the most suitable NPC stand), and swap stands with them. (0)

- Roll 1d6 / 2 to determine which of the next 3 steps of Anger, Bargaining, or Depression you will not participate in. (+1)

- Elect to be the first to receive a stand weakness in the event that the option is chosen by anyone, rather than a random player. (+2)

Step 3: Anger

Select one of:

- Assign an extremely common weakness to stands in the setting, (each stand has a 50% chance of being affected) that only your character knows (-2) (IT MUST BE PLAUSIBLE NO-ONE ELSE NOTICED THIS)

- Assign a weakness to all stands in the setting (0)

- Assign a weakness to another stand randomly selected at the table (Again, random includes the GM, in which case a random NPC is affected) (+1)

- Select another player at the table and insert a fight with them into both of your backstories. Both of you have an elevated chance of your stand abilities becoming generally known as a result. Reveal your current stand information to each other. (+1)

- Select two other players at the table, scribble on a piece of a paper, and force them to use this as the basis for a drawing of their stand. If the number of stands who would be depicted this way exceeds the number of stands at the table, those who selected this do not gain points from having

done so. (+1)

Stand Weaknesses:

Weaknesses are free form, and are simply additional constraints and conditions that need to met by the stand’s ability draft. They can be an issue with the stand’s spiritual body or signature ability.

Weaknesses for a stand that are made with consideration to its abilities might be fairly lenient, simply identifying and widening holes in its potential powerset. For instance, a stand that controls a certain type of animal might be able to be thwarted by the actions of that animal’s natural predators, and designating this as an actual stated weakness of the stand merely requires that the stand’s ability either does not stop this from taking place, or somehow seeks to thwart its intrinsic defenses against this scenario: in the example above, if the stand augments the animals it controls, it either does so in a way that offers them no protection from their predators, or augments the predators as well.

Weaknesses which are created blind during the Anger step generally end up being much harsher. A stand that can set metals on fire that can’t be used in the presence of fire becomes relatively confusing, but not necessarily incoherent. People assigning such weaknesses should exercise restraint since there is always at least a chance that their own stand will receive the weakness, and in applying weaknesses that were made blind onto their stands, player’s should feel free to be relatively lenient.

Step 4: Bargaining Select one of:

- Both your stand, and another stand randomly selected at the table, gain the same new effect of your choice. Unlike signature abilities, this is not a far reaching or comprehensive power, but rather operates at one level lower in all stats than the signature ability. It is however, a simple and separate core concept for what the ability does, potentially offering great versatility. Both stand users must come up with an explanation for how this new ability is achieved by the same underlying powerset that accomplishes their signature ability. Examples might include being at home underwater, flight, invisibility, beam weapons, or other typical superpowers, but something like “time travelling bomb” that is just as complicated as a Core Ability Premise is also fine. Examples of how to justify this include such stretched logic as Killer Queen’s ability to explode things it has touched in the past being related to its ability to blast itself back in time. Whether or not the effect is subject to any weakness your stand may have is up to the GM during the Acceptance step. (-2)

- Your stand becomes a combat type stand, which increases the level of its spiritual body by one rank in all stats, and decreases the level of its signature ability by one rank in all stats. This cannot take a stat above A. Another stand randomly selected at the table becomes a support type, which does the opposite (-1)

- Your stand becomes a support type stand, while another stand randomly selected at the table becomes a combat type. (-1)

- Select one of the rules of stands. Both your stand, and another stand randomly selected at the table cease to be subject to this rule. The way in which this is true may be determined by each stand user after the fact, with consideration to their stats and signature ability. (-1)

- Both your stand, and another stand randomly selected at the table, gain a flair for their abilities. Flairs are very minor capabilities that seem to logically follow from the stand’s structure, stats and signature power, but not necessarily intrinsically. The greater their power, the greater the reasons for them to be used only rarely. A good examples would be Silver Chariot’s ability to fire its sword as

a ricocheting bullet, or Magician’s Red’s use of flames as rope. Each user decides what flair they gain. (0)

- Select a statistic. Your stand drops in this statistic by one step. A stand randomly selected at the table increases their rank in this stat by one step, three times. This can take a stat above A. (+1)

- You have an unknown nemesis. After character generation is over, the GM formulates a future hostile stand that is designed from the ground up to perfectly counter your own stand. You are fated to encounter them without the entire party present. (+2)

THE RULES EXIST TO BE BROKEN: The following is the list of rules that are generally true of stands. Each rule is nearly always true for stands in general, but for a given stand to break one or two of the rules is not nearly so unusual. Extremely high or low stand stats, as well as suitable signature abilities, may result in severely stressing the limits of the stand rules, but only by receiving an exemption as part of Step 4 or 5 of this process are you truly free. When a stand ceases to be subject to one of the rules of stands, you must consider carefully what that means for it. In particular, it should not operate with such creative freedom as to render a stand statistic useless as a descriptor, unless it already possesses “None” or “S” in that statistic. For example, by ceasing to be bound to its user, a stand should not still be able to exist anywhere, it should still have some kind of limiting origin point to define its stand range from.

#1: Each user can only have one stand. A stand which breaks this rule may possess features such as multiple separate bodies, forcibly anchoring other stands to its own user, or forcibly making other people count as its user for the purposes of shared damage and senses or the like.

#2: A stand is bound to its user. Stands are so named for standing ominously beside the user due to the limited range of many stands, but this is only in most cases. A stand that breaks this rule might be bound to an object, a place, or even something abstract like a thought, and manifest from there.

#3: A stand is a spiritual body visible only to other stand users that manifests to protect its user, and withdraws when not in use. Stands that break this rule may have an actual physical body visible to non-stand users that does not dissipate when their user is defeated, be invisible even to stand users (In which case this would probably also apply to its own user), have no body at all, or perhaps assemble one from nearby materials or animals using their signature power upon activation, in which case only attacks that destroy the bulk material itself deal damage to it.

#4: A stand can only be directly damaged by another stand. Stands that come to possess physical bodies as above generally have some vulnerability to damage dealt to their physical form, but for the most part, despite observably being solid to much of the world around them given their ability to effect it, Stands cannot suffer injury and serious consequence from the reaction force that would imply, unless it is inflicted by the spiritual body of another stand. A stand with low durability and power may not be able resist bullets fired at it, but if so they just pass through it harmlessly. A stand which breaks this rule might have a spiritual body that can only be effected by physical force while being immune to stands, receive injury to its spiritual body only through mean language (or something similarly ubiquitous, ignoring this rule should not make the stand functionally undefeatable) or be able to inflict damage on other stand’s spiritual bodies using physical objects as an intermediate, for instance a telekinetic stand that is still able to injure stands by throwing normal rocks at them.

#5: A stand is a part of its user’s body, and so its user shares its senses, and damage received by the stand also affects the user. Stands that break this rule might be totally autonomous, lacking any telepathic or wound sharing connection to their user (and thus likely continuing to act while the user is unconscious or dead) and acting *only* on verbalised commands, thus possessing an exceptional initiative and sense of self for a stand, or the stand might only receive information and wounds from its user and not the user from the stand. In other situations, this might lead to a stand that controls the movements of its user’s body, not the other way around. Stands which break this rule have higher autonomy.

#6: A stand’s power is proportional to its range from the user. Signature abilities for stands are less powerful the further from the stand user they operate, with range merely defining the upper limit that the power can be maintained at. Likewise stand’s bodies tend to be smaller and weaker at large distances from the user. Stands that break this rule may become stronger the further they are from the user (Up to the limit of their range) or have aspects of their abilities that operate at the same intensity regardless of range. For example, most time manipulation stands manipulate time for the entire universe, but have a very small range within which their user and immediate surroundings can move, or hypothetically, if targeted by a stand which traps victims within new and bounded areas of space, its time manipulation couldn’t ‘reach out’ far enough to affect the broader timeline of the universe outside. Another example would be a stand which always looks as big to the user regardless of distance, resulting in a skyscraper wrecking monster at long range. Another hypothetical stand might use this exception to make an asteroid from the Kuiper belt home in on a target, its (limited) range still defines who the asteroid is seeking, but the ability is still able to exert force on something well outside of that using its stand power.) Step 5: Depression Select one of:

- Select one of the rules of stands. Both your stand, and another stand randomly selected at the table cease to be subject to this rule. The way in which this is true may be determined by each stand user after the fact, with consideration to their stats and signature ability. (-1)

- Select another player. You both reveal your stand’s current stats to each other, and whether they are combat type or support type. If two or more of your stand’s stats match each other (With consideration also given to the modifiers applied by types, IE a Power B combat type would match with a balanced stand of Power A or C, as those match its spiritual body and signature ability respectively), you should consider yourselves related by blood. If you both agree, view each other’s current stand ability drafts. Discuss ways in which your stand’s signature abilities could operate in a more thematically similar fashion and consider adapting your drafts in view of this. (0)

- Choose a potential use of your stand’s signature power. Your character has a great fear of actually using their stand in this fashion, and will never do so willingly unless their life is at stake, and even then only with significant further encouragement. If your stand performs this action under its own autonomy, you are horrified. (+1)

- Make a call for your stand’s name. Every single player will contribute a musical reference to serve as a potential name, with or without knowledge of what your stand actually does. You must select one of these as the name for your stand, and render the activation of its power at least somewhat conditional to match themes of that musical reference. (+1)

- Your stand has a limitation or weakness in its spiritual body or signature ability that even you, the user, remain unaware of. The GM will be able to dictate situations where your stand’s abilities

function unusually or not at all in light of this weakness. (+2)

- Select another player, not the GM. That player reviews your stand’s current signature ability and stats. Your stand gains a very significant but not necessarily obvious weakness in its spiritual body or signature ability that is best exploited by that other player’s stand, of their design. (+2)

Step 6: Acceptance

Finalise the draft form of your stand. This is your last chance to consider further modification of your stand’s core abilities. Take stock and ensure you factor in every step which has affected your stand during this process. For instance, if you break one of the rules of stands, your stand MUST break, evade, or heavily bend that rule. While the integrity of your stand’s physical body can be easily gauged, now is also the time to verify that your signature ability still makes sense with respect to all the conditions imposed upon it by your stand’s stats.

For instance, a stand with a core ability premise of telekinesis but a “None” rank in Power cannot actually use telekinesis in a conventional sense, but may possess the ability to immediately detect and locate stands or other supernatural phenomena through perception of any forces in its environment, however small, that seem telekinetic in nature, or it might be able to immediately determine the steps that need to be taken (by its user, or other stands) to cause certain distant objects to move in specific ways.

If it doesn’t already have something defining its spiritual body’s (or possibly physical manifestation’s) appearance, ensure that a depiction, or at least a description, is included, as in most cases this is the most obvious component of the stand’s action.

At this point, the GM should make a final review of your stand. Besides simply verifying that all processes have been followed, an important part of this is to ensure that the stand is not obviously unbeatable contextually speaking. No stand in JJBA has ever reigned supreme over all others forever, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tbc7Zch7-E

Finally, the GM should get back to you to confirm a few important additional factors about your stand that should have been fairly obvious by now, but the specifics of which are ultimately down to

their vision of the setting:

- The level of autonomy your stand possesses (A consequence of Range, Potential, and other factors)

- How communicative your stand is (A consequence of Precision, Potential, and other factors) - How safe your stand is to use (A consequence of Precision, Durability, Potential and other

factors) - An example of your stand’s effects on a character in the system (A consequence of Power,

Speed, Durability, and other factors.)t - How subtle the activation of your stand’s ability is (A consequence of Speed, Precision, and

mostly other factors) - The size of your stand’s physical body (A consequence of Power, Durability, Range, and other

factors)

Use of a Stand during play:

You might be wondering at this stage, how on earth will I use my stand in this game? What does it roll?

For the most part, stands do not roll. They simply exist, and they perform at whatever level they are capable of, in accordance with the user’s commands (unless they are very autonomous, at which point disobedience may become possible). If they are commanded to utilise their signature ability, it takes effect at whatever speed is feasible.

The accuracy of the signature ability is a function of their precision if that is of relevance, and this is the only common time a stand might need to roll, but even then, only if it is a situation where precise aim is necessary by a stand with low to moderate precision, which may not even be possible given the nature of

low precision abilities. The difficulty in avoiding a signature ability is a function of its speed. To withstand the immediate effect of the ability and prevent it from disrupting your actions is more difficult as its Power increases. The difficulty in escaping the ability once it takes hold is a function of its Durability, but how precisely that is done is likely to vary wildly. In most of these cases, it is the victim who decides the whims of chance. If a stand’s spiritual body is sent to fight someone, they can mount very little in the way of defense against it, and so it is entirely down to their ability to avoid being hit.

But what if a stand is sent to fight another stand? At this point, some modicum of strategy enters the mix. The situation in which a clash between stands takes place, and the tactics with which they are ordered to fight, will ultimately determine which stats are important. Even range might potentially

become an important factor if two stands are ordered to engage each other. For example, if the stands decide to just go wild with ORAORAORA at close range then the stand with the best overall compromise between Power, Speed and Durability is likely to be victorious.

If this is by a large margin, victory likely comes immediately. Otherwise it might take several turns, during which the users may attempt to do other things, or focus their efforts on instructing their stand’s tactics to try and change the outcome. For instance, by setting off a smoke grenade, a stand that was previously a clear winner becomes hampered by its combination of low precision and potential, rendering it unable to coordinate with its user and find its opponent, while the weaker stand is able to share good enough senses through its link to its user to see the other stand clearly. The other stand user devotes their turn to instructing their stand to use its signature ability to make a hurricane to clear the smoke. While this is successful, because the first stand user did not need to

abort their stand’s attack, their stand is able to spend the turn beating on the opponent while it is distracted, possibly making for a much more even fight once the status quo returns.

If on the other hand, the stand had been highly autonomous and with passably decent Potential, it could have independently arrived at the decision to clear the air. This would not save it being beaten on by the weaker stand, but it would leave the user free to act, possibly hitting the enemy stand user themselves.

Even though Stands can be seen as a minion in some ways, a source of additional action economy to be left to its own devices after initial instructions, their successes and failures do reflect back on the user during this process. A stand user whose stand is in a losing battle can expect to see a lot of damage coming their way even if they’ve done everything in their power to keep their own body safe. As a result, high Health is a recommendation for stand users.

Furthermore, stands that aren’t fully automatic and autonomous from the user are, in some ways, a manifestation of their fighting spirit. Someone who is severely beaten down generally finds their stand dissipating, and it is incredibly difficult to bring forth its power again immediately. Unless the nature of your stand provides a convincing reason otherwise (Entirely possible), in the event that your character is Hurt or Seriously Wounded by an attack, limitations are imposed. Any time you would need to make a Consciousness roll, you must also take a Stability roll of equal difficulty or be

unable to draw out your stand until either the next time you make a Consciousness roll, or when you are healed and thus no longer hurt. Once Seriously Wounded, your stand is itself extremely heavily damaged, and its function is severely limited. Your stand’s signature ability and spiritual body gain additional weaknesses subject to the GM at the time, and likely decrease their effective statistics. Subject to the GM, this may be less of an issue for a character following their drive.

Wait on a second, what was that “Stand” skill you mentioned elsewhere?

The Speedwagon Foundation has become intensely interested in the power of Stands ever since Joseph and Mohammad Abdul brought them to their attention. And their investigations haven’t been fruitless: part of the reason you are working with them now. Stands have very little in common, but the experiences of the Stardust Crusaders were able to provide enough generalisations to create a fledgling field of study:

Stand-ology (Academic) (Investigative)

You have taken advantage of your opportunity to be trained in a field limited to a privileged few, that of the nature of Stands. While the Foundation has certain experts who attempt to remain appraised of this mysterious force that may be behind so many of the world’s stranger occurrences, those who do not possess stands, and thus cannot see them, will always be at a disadvantage. Even for those who do enter this field, there is a lot more that remains unknown than what is known. Your expertise, nonetheless, gives you an edge in investigating the unnatural.

You can:

● Identify objects in your environment that are only visible to stand users ● Identify aspects of a scene that implicate a known stand user ● Identify a stand that is operating autonomously ● Gauge the immediate intent of a stand’s user through the body language of their stand ● Determine the relationship between a non-humanoid stand and its user’s human body ● Quantify stats of an enemy stand as they are demonstrated

HAMON: The Sun’s Golden Ripple

The Speedwagon Foundation has a long history of cooperation with the Hamon monks. Many people go their whole lives in monkhood seeking to become a master of Hamon and still fail to do so. Such individuals are occasionally incredibly useful for the Foundation, in times where their skillset is called for. But as the Foundation is fundamentally an investigative organisation rather than one which crusades against well known threats, this occasional availability is far less useful than a wide number of people who know the basics.

To talented individuals with an interest, the Speedwagon Foundation sponsors short, several month intensive courses in the use of an ancient breathing technique with incredible powers. It’s great for employee health, and it could save your life in a pinch too. Any company that was as aware of the secret risk of vampiric infiltration as the Speedwagon Foundation is would be glad to propogate an art that makes their presence extremely obvious.

Unlike other Special Asset Skills in GUMSHOE, Hamon has many different applications, and in fact is almost exclusively utilised in stressful situations. Anyone who has seen Part 1 and Part 2 should have a fairly solid understanding of what Hamon is capable of. What this skill does not represent however, is mastery of Hamon, or indeed much in the way of personal stylings or technique. Only very simple and straightforward applications fit with the rudimentary and

group oriented training provided, and as there is none of the time or intensity of training necessary to instill a perfect grasp of breathing technique, these techniques are exhausting to use and so still use the normal GUMSHOE rules for supernatural abilities, with the exception that a user’s Health is only at risk once they are forced to spend points from their Stability pool.

In view of this, to acquire Hamon requires 6 general ability points for the first point, and 1 for each point thereafter.

To restate the book:

Using a paranormal ability is like any other General ability use: roll a die, add any points you spend,

and compare the result to the Difficulty. However, you must spend at least 2 points from your ability

pool if you can. If you have insufficient points in that pool, you must spend points from your Stability

pool instead. Points spent from your Stability pool do not add to the die roll, however... After using a

paranormal ability, you must make a Difficulty 5 Health test or immediately lose 2 Health and

become Hurt for the rest of the scene. (If you are already Hurt, you become Seriously Wounded.)

This represents a profound, bone-deep exhaustion approaching shock, not an actual injury.

Paranormal abilities do not refresh until after an operation.

Hamon can be used in the following scenarios:

- To greatly stiffen or pressurise an object or surface capable of conducting it, such as

hair or water.

- To conduct force safely through a conductive object into the other side, or place a

small fissure into a non-conductive object.

- To imbue the user with energy to slay, or defend against, entities which are weak to

sunlight.

- To send a jolt of electricity into something.

- To heal an individual as per Medic, save that the second most recent injury is

affected instead.

The difficulty of tests is determined as follows:

Condition Difficulty Modifier

The user’s circulation is impeded by strangulation, frostbite, or being drunk by a vampire.

+2

The user is holding their breath.

+2

The user is channelling through a solid, inorganic material.

+1

The user is able to swing a blow directly into what they intend to effect.

-1

The user is trying to affect a living fiber, the ideal hamon conductor.

-2

The user is able to breathe deeply several times before acting.

-2

Examples of use…

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4: 「We All Go Together」decides that given the tremendous lack of precision and

potential of its main power, it would be good to have an extra effect for some versatility.

This effect will of course have (None) ranks in both precision and potential, meaning it is

activated and deactivated automatically by certain conditions being met. 「We All Go

Together」’s player begins considering how this will play out, but their effect of

“Evaporating liquids to create steam” is determined to also go towards 「Erasure」, which

is already quite a strong and versatile stand. As an effect, 「Erasure」’s one notable

weakness, its D rank in speed, is now going to be an E-rank for this. Consequently, it’s a little

difficult to envision how this will work for a stand that fundamentally targets people, not

liquids with its core ability. Remembering that Jojos using very bizarre logic at times, and

homeopathy states that water has memory, the GM and 「Erasure」’s player collaborate

on a variant of 「Erasure」’s ability that can target volumes of water and open portals to

the memory that water has the most emotional attachment to: Whenever it was last in the

sky as a cloud.

Step 5:

Step 6: Most of the party’s stands are well understood by the GM by now. There are one or

two things that hadn’t been properly considered, namely that while the size of 「Bees Geez

」is typical for a stand, the stats of 「Dogs of Rotterdam」, in combination with the already

present drawing of it from Step 3, suggest it is smaller than a person, being only a medium

sized dog. 「Erasure」and 「We All Go Together」are less conventionally shaped stands,

and their stats on which size is dependent, Power, Durability and Range, are overall above

average, so their spiritual bodies are a little above human sized.

It is noted that 「Dogs of Rotterdam」breaks the stand rule that it reflects damage back

onto its user, but its durability isn’t good enough to render it unkillable, even if its S ranked

speed suggests it is difficult to attack. Therefore, the GM has to think about what exactly

happens when the stand is killed. A suggestion was made that the visions of dogs by its

victims be the source of a new stand spiritual body. This is unacceptable, because it would

make the stand functionally impossible to ever kill, but still doesn’t resolve the situation of

leaving behind a stand-less stand user. Eventually, the GM decides that the stand must be

resurrected by transmogrifying an actual real dog (being by all means the truest depiction of

a dog), alive or dead, into the next 「Dogs of Rotterdam」, a process not elaborated on

further but probably taking place over a relatively short timespan at touch range.