Introduction
Talents represent the potential of a character.
Combined with skills, they make up the ability to succeed at feats.
Totte discerns six talents.
Each is rated on a scale of 0 to 6.
Talents are acquired through genes and can be enhanced a little during youth.
Once maturity is reached, a character's talents are fixed.
Talent list
The six talents are:
- Strength (str): Strength is sheer physical strength, both in arms, legs and other parts of the body. It determines how much weight you can lift, how far you can throw, how fast you run in a sprint and how hard you can hit, among others.
- Health (hea): Health is a combination of physical health and endurance. It is a measure for all kinds of physical endurance, including long distance running, holding your breath, etc. It also includes resistance against injuries, diseases, poison, hunger and thirst, heat or cold. Regeneration / recovery speed also depends on health.
- Dexterity (dex): Dexterity is the sum of physical suppleness and agility, balance, (hand-eye-) co-ordination and reaction speed, as well as finger dexterity and a little sense of touch.
- Charisma (cha): Determines basic convincing power and ability to befriend, seduce, coerce, intimidate or otherwise influence other people. It includes physical beauty, reasoning power, speech intonation, debating tricks and more, plus much body language.
- Perception (per): Perception includes the six senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and the eye in your back), but also the ability to interpret the signals that your senses send to you. This means it also includes pattern matching and alertness to aberrations.
- Intelligence (int): Character intelligence is a talent that is easily confused with player intelligence. In Totte, it only represents game-specific matters like the ability to solve problems with information that the player lacks. It includes memory, reasoning ability, pattern recognition, power to abstract, learning speed, wisdom, etc.
Talent scores
Player character talents
An average character has a score of 3 on every talent.
Of course there are few average characters.
Some are strong but stupid; some witty but clumsy; some sharp but weak; and so on.
People's talent scores are unevenly distributed, though most cluster around the averages.
For player characters, the recommendation is to allow players to set the scores of their characters as they see fit,
by allowing them to distribute a number of points among the 6 talents, though always within the 0 - 6 range per talent.
0 points will create a total loser; 18 points are enough to create a Joe Average; 36 will maximize all scores, creating a god-like hero/heroine.
It is up to the GM to set a total.
Most GMs set it high enough to create characters that are on the whole somewhat above average.
Non-human characters
Talent scores for most humanoids will be quite similar to those of humans, but animals, monsters and aliens are a different matter. For example, what is the dexterity of a snake that has no hands and cannot jump or run, but can strike lightning fast and is more supple than any other vertebrate? What is the charisma of a dragon that is frightening to behold, but speaks with a silken tongue, weaving magic through its words? Because the possibilties are so varied, this game manual offers no guidelines on this topic. The bestiary has a few tips. GMs are advised to use common sense and determine non-human talent scores where an when they are needed. These scores can be lower or higher than the human 0 - 6 range and vary from one feat to another!