Passions represent a character's friendships, enmities, beliefs and dislikes. A positive passion is a feeling of friendship, loyalty, respect or duty towards a person, a nation, a group or an idea. A negative passion is a feeling of distaste, disgust or aversion. A 1st level character has 4 points to allocate to passions. Passions have a minimum value of 0 and a maximum value of 4.
Characters receive the value of a positive passion as a bonus to all skill checks relating to that passion, and receive the value of a negative passion as a penalty to all skill checks relating to that passion. When characters succeed or fail at a skill challenge that involves a passion, they receive half the value of the passion as a self-esteem bonus or penalty respectively to all other skill checks for a number of days equal to the value of the passion. Self-esteem modifiers stack, but cannot exceed a total bonus or penalty of 4.
Passions fluctuate in value as they are tested. When characters undergo a skill challenge relating to a passion or learn something that may affect their feelings about a passion, they attempt an Insight skill check (usually average difficulty). If unsuccessful, the character is driven by their emotions, and the value of their passion shifts by 1. If successful, the character's head rules their heart, and the character chooses whether or not the value of their passion shifts. A positive passion with a value of 0 that worsens becomes a negative passion with a value of 0, and vice versa.
Characters gain drama points when key events happen, such as great successes or disasters. Characters of major importance begin with 2 drama points, while characters of typical importance begin with 1 drama point. Minor characters don't have drama points.
A character can expend 1 drama point to receive one of the following effects.