SPECIAL (role-playing system)

SPECIAL is a character creation and statistics system developed specifically for the Fallout franchise of role-playing video games. SPECIAL is an acronym, representing the seven attributes used to define Fallout characters: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck.

SPECIAL is heavily based on GURPS, which was originally intended to be the character system used in the game.

Design

The SPECIAL system involves the following sets of key features:

• Attributes (listed above) represent a character's core, inborn abilities. Attributes stay largely constant throughout the game, though they can be temporarily affected by drugs, altered indefinitely by conditions such as the wearing of Power Armor, the presence of certain NPCs or eye damage received in a critical hit, or permanently changed at certain points in the game, through use of certain items.
• Skills represent a character's chance of successfully performing a group of specific tasks (such as firing a gun, or picking a lock). They are represented as percentages, though these percentages can extend well beyond the expected maximum of 100%, at increased cost for skills over 100%. The SPECIAL stats continually add bonuses to skills. This is done passively, i.e. if the SPECIAL stats change, the bonuses are automatically and instantly adjusted. Skill Points that are earned each time the character levels up can be used to raise skill percentage. At character creation, the player also selects three Tag Skills — Skills which can be increased at multiples of the normal rate, starting at one skill point per 2% skill at under 101% skill.

The SPECIAL system has thus far been used in the role-playing video game Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel. A heavily modified version of the system was used for Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout: Warfare, a tabletop battle game available on the Fallout Tactics bonus CD.

Aside from Fallout games, modified versions of SPECIAL were also used in Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader (also referred to as Fallout Fantasy early in production), a fantasy role-playing video game that involved spirits and magic in addition to the traditional SPECIAL features, as well as the cancelled project Black Isle's Torn.

See also

External links

• SPECIAL article at The Vault, the Fallout wiki