Introduction to the Elements Part 3- Frames.

Note: This post is out of date. For an up to date explanation of the Elements, go here. 
  
Here are Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, in case you somehow arrived here first. The rest of this post will only make sense if you've read them.


I've significantly rewritten this post from its original version. The original wasn't clear enough. I've tried to make it more straightforward.I've removed some of the mechanical detail in service of my goal of making the borad concepts clear. I'll cover the specific rules of the Elements in future posts.

Frames are containers or conduits for Powers, Attributes, or even other Frames. In other words, they hold things.  They cannot hold loose Functions. 

They give context to what they contain, such as helping to define a ranged attack as a bolt of lightning, or the ability to manipulate objects at range as a power of the mind.  Each Frame has a Rank or gauge that governs its existence or scope. This Rank or gauge can have a negative value for some of them, indicating an inversion of the Frame's role. 

The seven Frame Elements are BOND, CHANNEL, DRIVE, FOCUS, HOUSE, INFLUENCE, and POOL. Each instance of a Frame should be given a Name, like "Body" or "Fire".  

BOND: A link to another character defined by an attitude, such as love or hatred, and its target.  A BOND contains benefits or drawbacks for the character that activate when the target of the BOND is relevant.  BONDs don't need to be reciprocal. They make actions relating to the subject of the BOND more reliable when their Rank is positive, and less reliable when their Rank is negative. 

CHANNEL: A medium or bridge for the expression of Effects, such as fire, a limb, or language. Anything passing through a CHANNEL is modified by the CHANNEL's contents.  This means that an attack that uses the "electricity" CHANNEL will have different side Effects than one that uses the "water" CHANNEL, and they will interact in interesting ways. CHANNEL's Rank determines the maximum point cost of Effects that can pass through them at any one time.

DRIVE: An urge, need, or protocol that delivers an Effect to the character when it is activated. Positive DRIVEs represent compulsions and grant a bonus to actions taken in service of those compulsions, and negative DRIVEs represent aversions and inflict a penalty to actions taken when the DRIVE is active. 

FOCUS: Skills, aptitudes, or handicaps in certain areas. They are also used to model situational modifiers. They make Effects more reliable when their value is positive, and less reliable when their value is negative.

HOUSE: Shelters for your Powers, Attributes, and other Effects. They represent possible planes of conflict in a campaign, such as "Body", "Mind",  and "Soul".  Similarly, the setting itself is a HOUSE, commonly referred to as "The World". A HOUSE's gauge has a fixed number of health boxes by campaign, so that each box represents a fixed fraction of the total health of the HOUSE. When all of a HOUSE's Health boxes are VOIDed, the HOUSE is destroyed, along with anything in it. 

INFLUENCE: A source that constantly delivers its Effects to the interior of whatever Frame contains it, creating a perpetual set of modifiers to actions there. Usually used with HOUSEs. For example, gravity is modeled as an INFLUENCE in the HOUSE of "The World".  It's Rank determines the maximum number of points  worth of Effects it may contain.  

POOL:  An array of optional Attributes, Powers, or Frames that you and anyone who shares the POOL can draw from. If you want to model the ability to shapeshift into 3 different things,  you want to place a few alternate "Body" HOUSEs into a POOL.  POOLs can also model things like a sorcerer's ability to create effects on the fly, or FOCUS dice that apply to a wide range of activities, such as all physical attacks.Anything taken out of a POOL needs to be put back or otherwise restored before it can be used again. Its Rank determines how many points worth of Effects the POOL can contain.

Next: Powers