Social Boosts & Injuries     To provide actual consequences to certain social actions, Legends uses social boosts. Unlike certain other effects quantified in degrees (such as degrees of trauma or injury), degrees of social boosts can be either positive or negative. Positive social boosts are the result of a healthy and supportive social life, and benefit your character. Negative degrees, also called social injuries for their resemblance to the physical injury rules, can significantly hamper your character's mental health. Both positive and negative degrees can affect your character's WILL, insight, trauma factor, and/or social rolls. Just like physical injuries, social boosts/injuries come in different types - in this case, Security, Confidence, and Acceptance.

    Social boosts/injuries are distinguished from trauma by their social nature. Whereas trauma is a psychological and physiological response usually unaffected by who was around you at the time, social boosts/injuries are solely related to your character's social existence. If your party never enters the Study of Appeal, never uses social actions, and never makes a social enemy, these rules may be largely irrelevant. But for highly supportive parties or campaigns with a lot of social conflict, this chapter can have huge effects on your character.

Gaining & Removing Degrees     Unlike physical injuries, you do not gain or lose social boosts/injuries by comparing a number to injury factor. Rather, specific rules in this chapter and elsewhere will tell you how many degrees you gain or remove from a given event. Positive degrees cancel out negative degrees, and vice versa; for example, gaining two degrees of Security boost will either increase your Security boost (if already at 0 or positive degrees) or reduce your degrees of Security injury. You can have 0 degrees in a given type, but cannot have both positive and negative degrees of the same type. You can however have positive degrees in some types and negative degrees in others simultaneously.

    Unless otherwise indicated, you always choose the type of boost/injury received. That is, if a rule calls for you to take two degrees of social injury (and does not specify type), you choose between Security, Confidence, and Acceptance. This decision might be made on the basis of which penalties you'd like to avoid, or it might have to do with what you think is appropriate in-character. You cannot split the incoming degrees between multiple types, unless you hit the maximum of 4 degrees in any one type, in which case you choose another type for the remaining degrees to go to (this applies even if a rule specified the initial type). If you are already at a full 12 positive degrees (4 in each type), you simply ignore any further positive degrees, and likewise ignore further negative degrees if you have 12 of those.

Overnight Zeroing Roll     Over time, a character's social psychology tends to return to neutral. Once per day (normally overnight), any character who currently has at least one degree of social boost or injury must make a d4 zeroing roll. The character must remove 1 degree from each boost type in which their total degrees (either positive or negative) are at least equal to the d4 result. For example, a result of 1 would mean that the character must remove a degree from each type they can, while a result of 3 means they need only remove a degree from types in which they have 3 or 4 degrees. This means that higher degrees require more effort to maintain over time, and also that a character's degrees will eventually reset to zero.

Social Boosts/Injuries & Roleplaying     Just as in other chapters such as Trauma and Social Actions, the rules here are not meant to replace or fully control how you play your character. Boosts/injuries do not force your character's personality to change in a specific way, and you retain control over your character's intentions and development. The 3 types of boost/injury are deliberately kept vague and open to interpretation for your particular character. In many cases, they can portray intrusive or even subconscious thoughts - thoughts that your character cannot help but think, regardless of what they decide to do with the thoughts. You might find it useful to draw roleplaying inspiration from social boosts/injuries, but Legends doesn't specify the exact effect that a given social event will have on your character's mind - only the associated bonus/penalty.

Boost Types     The listed effects for a boost/injury replace the effects of all lesser degrees of the same type.

Sources of Social Boosts/Injuries     Most "normal" usages of boost/injury rules come from Social Actions. Some general rules, as well as less common sources of boosts/injuries, are found here.

Social Endurance Rolls     Although no number is compared to a factor to determine degrees of social injury, a strong-willed character can do more to resist negative thoughts. This is reflected by a social endurance roll on WILL. The die size will be given by the rule that asks for the roll. If the roll succeeds, your character takes no social injuries. If the roll fails, your character takes 1 degree of social injury, plus another degree for every 4 by which they failed the roll.

    Some rules call for both a social endurance roll and an additional amount of social injury, such as the Character Death rules below. The additional amount is not affected by the roll, regardless of success of failure. If the injury type is not specified, you may choose a different type for the degrees from the endurance roll and the additional amount. Resolve the effects of the additional amount before making the roll.

    The reactive +TN from using Willpower cannot be applied in social endurance rolls.

Social Boost Rolls     Social boost rolls are the inverse of social endurance rolls. They reflect that a certain amount of willpower is helpful in overcoming negative thoughts long enough to listen to positive ones.Social boost rolls are rolled on WILL, and the die size will be given by the rule that asks for the roll. If the roll fails, your character receives no social boosts. If the roll succeeds, your character receives 1 degree of social boost, plus another degree for every 4 by which they succeeded on the roll.

    Some rules call for both a social boost roll and an additional amount of social boost. The additional amount is not affected by the roll, regardless of success of failure. If the boost type is not specified, you may choose a different type for the degrees from the boost roll and the additional amount. Resolve the effects of the additional amount before making the roll.

    The reactive +TN from using Willpower cannot be applied in social boost rolls.

    If a character who has Medium Rapport with your character passes, you must make a d20 social endurance roll.

    If your character loses a Medium Rapport relationship due to personal conflict, you must make a d12 social endurance roll.

    If a character who has High Rapport with your character passes, you must take 4 degrees of social injury, as well as make a d20 social endurance roll.

    If your character loses a High Rapport relationship due to personal conflict, you must take 3 degrees of social injury, as well as make a d20 social endurance roll.

    All social injuries for character death/separation must be of the Security type (if possible).