Tips and Tricks
From TSOY
For the player
Using two abilities is usually better than using one. If both of them are Competent or better, you'll get bonus dice and really shine.
When Bringing Down the Pain, give up. Do it often. In other games, each combat you were in might have been to the death. That's been my experience, at least. If you try that here, it will drag out. Every round, you should think "is losing so bad? Can I deal with a broken arm, or sullied reputation, or whatever ?" Chances are, if you're losing, that you'll lose a lot more by staying in.
When you're physically tore up, get in an argument and Bring Down the Pain. If you've been socially massacred, get in a fight and Bring Down the Pain. Harm shakes out afterwards. A tussle's good for the soul.
Don't forget about gift dice. Use them and ask others for them.
Bring up your Keys whenever you use them.
Picking two Keys that are at odds with each other (the classic example is the Key of Conscience and the Key of Bloodlust) means you can get experience points for whatever decision you make in an applicable conflict. And it makes your character more interesting.
If you're losing in Bringing Down the Pain, you can spend advances to raise the ability you're using right then and right there. Don't forget that.
When you're in real trouble, buy off a Key. Sure, it changes your character permanently, but that can be a lot of fun.
Use pool refreshment like a rock star. You are more than allowed to refresh more than one pool at once. Get a sexy man or lady to pour wine down your throat, oil you down and get with the friction, and then make with the bedtime reading. You'll be all refreshed and have a great scene.
For the Story Guide
This game doesn't have a lot of perception-based abilities. Sense Danger's the only one and it's used for active physical danger. That's on purpose. If it is interesting for a character to see or hear something, like a clue, they do. The exception is when one character actively tries to fool another. When that happens, a player can roll React - or Resist, if more applicable - in a resisted ability check against whatever the other character is using.
Hey, Story Guide! Don't hold back. Seriously. It's no fun. To be more explicit, you might in some other role-playing game had this whole campaign where you were trying to find clues leading to something big. Don't do that in this game. If, for example, one of the most powerful people in the world, who gains her feral strength and near-immortality through drinking foul poisons and eating human flesh is going to be part of your campaign, have her show up early. One of your players might do something crazy like say, "Ooh! I take the Key of Unrequited Love with her right now." That is fun.
Don't you dare play your SGCs like complete fatalists. You need to give up Bringing Down the Pain, too.
Feel free to set nasty stakes for crazy attempts your players will want to make. There's nothing wrong with saying "If you lose this ability check writing a song for the duke, you'll take level 5 harm in Instinct, and be banned from the kingdom."
If your players don't Bring Down the Pain against one of your SGCs, and wipe them out with a regular ability check, bring that bad guy back in two or three sessions. Recurring enemies are awesome.
Use pool refreshment like a rock star. Your best chance to introduce some new characters in the game is by making player characters meet them in order to refresh a pool. If a player says, "I need to refresh Reason," and doesn't say how, she's begging to be clubbed with your imagination. Seriously, this happened to me and I got to play a dead guy with a theremin.
