This universe is all YOUR fault.

It’s not YOUR fault. Nothing’s YOUR fault. Hey, there’s this bunch of guys sitting up in some Statosphere or something who basically decide everything that happens to you. So if they decide you’re hosed and the next guy’s not, that’s it. Now there’s nothing left to do but remind everyone else of how suck they the world is. There’s nothing wrong with YOU. YOU could have been as powerful as Alex Abel if only you hadn’t been screwed over by fate. Hey, YOU could even have ascended if only…

Symbols:
Any sort of complaint where action could be taken. What constities that will depend on your own opinion.

Taboo:
Taking positive action to remedy a situation. Keeping quiet about your problem. Having less than 4 notches of some form (hardened, failed or a combination, it doesn’t matter) in Helplessness.

Channels:

0-10%: All whiners, at some level, want sympathy from others. At this level, you may add your Avatar: The Whiner level to any social roll made to induce sympathy in someone else. You may not add more than 20% to a roll this way. This only works if the person you’re talking to would normally be sympathetic to your whining.

10-20%: The 0-10% channel now works even on people who would NOT normally be sympathetic to whiners.

20-40%: A reputation as a whiner can be a horrible thing. How can you get anyone to help you when they’re all dismissing you just because you’re a whiner? It’s not YOUR fault, after all! Make an Avatar: The Whiner roll to make somebody forget, for one interaction, any reputation you have as a whiner. They’ll treat you as if you’ve never whined before, even if you’re only intending to whine at them again now. They will not forget that you have spoken to them before, or any information that you told them when you did; they’ll just forget you’ve ever whined before.

40-60%: You took AGES to talk to them and explain EVERYTHING to them, and yet they STILL won’t help you with your problem – scumbags! Enough of that. If you’re whining at somebody and they try to discontinue the conversation with you, you can make an Avatar: The Whiner roll. If successful and under 80%, you force them to continue the conversation with you for a number of minutes equal to the higher of the two digits you rolled (whereupon you can use this channel again, and so on). A person affected must actively continue the conversation with you – they can’t just sit and listen, they must also pay attention, consider and respond. They can do other things at the same time as long as they don’t break the overall conversation with you.

60-80%: Rather than forcing people to talk to you, you can make an Avatar: The Whiner roll against the Soul stat (or any appropriate skill granting resistance) of anyone who you’ve whined at to inflict your problem on them. They will suffer from whatever problem you were whining about for a number of days equal to the higher number rolled or, until they cure you of your problem. No matter what they do, they cannot cure themselves early unless they cure you first. But, when the days run out, the problem will be cured for them either by luck or by the sudden realisation of effort – and the method by which it’s cured for them will never be one that will work for you.

80-100%: Find someone you’ve whined at for at least two hours (total, cumulative across conversation and encounters) and have NEVER used a channel on. Make a hidden Avatar: The Whiner roll with a -20% shift. If successful – they now know the solution to the problem you whined about. It’s exactly right, it will work, it will not be too much effort for you, and they know exactly the words to say that will galvanize you into action. Only problem is, they don’t realize it, and you don’t know for sure either. So they’ll have to make an effort to think it through in order to come up with the solution they know. Will they still do that after you’ve whined at them for two hours? By the way, if you use another channel on them afterwards, they forget the solution.