Variation Die: Things to say

Another thing I perhaps didn’t clarify enough about the Variation Die in the Blade & Crown rules: You can use your Variation Die roll as inspiration for an original, evocative thing you say. It doesn’t just have to be a description of what you do; it can equally be a description of how others perceive your actions, or what you just outright vocalize.

Illustration of a brush-stroked twelve-sided die with a 'V' on one face(The sample of play hints at this, but I didn’t make it very explicit in the rules.)

A lot of snowclones are likely examples. “That has to be the mother of all X!” and “I don’t care how many X there are, I am determined to succeed!” are good examples of quantity-related quotations that are possible. There must be a billion variants on “You think that’s going to stop me? I X easier things than that for breakfast!” and the like.

Making a quote truly evocative and original can be tricky, but that’s where context comes in. What you say is going to depend heavily on the particular situation — cool things to say while dodging a sword are usually going to be different from cool things to say while saving your friend from a fall. And the situation will give inspiration for specific original things to say.

All that makes it difficult to come up with a single list, but here are some general ideas to serve as inspirations.

  1. “Well, that wasn’t so hard!”
  2. “All in the wrist, my dear. All in the wrist!”
  3. “Sorry about the mess.”
  4. “Just in the nick of time!”
  5. “Nice and easy… Slow but steady…”
  6. “You haven’t seen the last of me!”
  7. “Now, that’s a bit more of a challenge!”
  8. “Come on. Just… this… once…”
  9. “It’s either you, or me. And it’s not going to be me.”
  10. “You have to pay attention to the little details, you see.”
  11. “I’ve been practicing.”
  12. “It just took a little finesse, that’s all.”

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