Willpower

Willpower is one of the seven Aptitudes, the basic statistics that paint a character in the broadest possible brush strokes (from a mechanical perspective). As an aptitude, it is meant as a coarse representation of the character's capacity for intuitive or non-linear thinking - this is best contrasted against the other three "mental" aptitudes, Analysis (the capacity for applying hard logic and direct deduction) and Presence (their capacity to direct mental effort in social situations), and Intuition (the capacity for leaps of logic and non-linear thinking). The statistic is as the basis of a number of pools.

Use of Willpower Checks

Since Willpower is actually the basis of a relatively small number of skills, it's not uncommon to ask for a willpower check. These are commonly used to resolve questions of a character's ability to shrug off a current event, be that attempted mental domination (through the use of magic, if included in the setting) or any other situation the Facilitator deems it appropriate for a character's strength of will to be relevant.

Use for Pools

While pools are as varied as the settings that use them, there are a few common pools predefined as starting points that are available to setting developers to include whole-cloth in their settings. Several of these are derived from Willpower:

• Potency, an optional pool used in the Wisteria setting as a cost pool for spells.
• Grit, an optional pool used in the Howl Basin setting as a basis for skill roll modifiers.
• Sanity, an optional pool used in the Howl Basin setting as a potential hazard when dealing with Strangeness, the game's magic equivalent.