Crescendo's a game about character development in a mythological world, where Mortals and Immortals push their agendas. Crescendo defines characters in three principal ways: their Tenets, Limits and the setting's Movements. Interacting with these elements produces a metacurrency called Stones, which you can use to make sure your agendas succeed. It's meant to be played over a long period time: thirty sessions, forty,
Tenets are the things about your character that you find to be worth fighting about. Tenets are what your character deliberately goes and gets in trouble for. When you write Tenets you are telling the GM and the other players what you want the game to be about. Tenets are in the format of a sentence, usually short.
"My father can be saved."
"My sister is the last hope."
"Violence as a last resort."
The bar for these Tenets is if your GM can challenge them. If he doesn't like them then work with him to make it something he wants to challenge and that you want challenged. In general you can expect to only make dice rolls related to your Tenets; the rest are handwaved (or denied if you're asking for absurdities). The point is to get to a situation that matters for your character and then hammer that situation as hard as you can, bringing out the dice to see what could happen when it matters to you most.
Limits are what your character is, no matter how hard he tries. Limits come back and haunt you at inconvenient times, reasserting themselves when you wished they hadn't. Unlike Tenets, which can be changed whenever the players and GM find appropriate, Limits change much more slowly, usually after an arc of play. They're usually one or two words.
"Impetuous"
"Noble"
"Jaded"
You start with two Limits. You can't have more than four Limits at a time. Pick Limits you'll have fun bringing up into the narrative.
Movements are not the player's mechanics, but they are really important to character growth. Movements are what the GM has going on in the world, his top three priorities. These are statements of grand, sweeping narrative, currents of the world the players find themselves caught up in.
"Kalir's barbarians are destroying the town. 19"
"Vena is corrupting the mayor. 15"
"Saboteurs will destroy the Jarini Dam. 10"
Movements are happening no matter what you do. They will move forward unless you stop them. Assuming, of course, that you want to! There's a number at the end of every Movement. At the end of every session the GM rolls a d20. If he rolls equal to or above that number he lowers that it by 1+margin of success of that roll. Players can modify these rolls by their actions in-game. Once that number drops to 0 the Movement is accomplished. If a Movement goes above 20 then the GM must write a new Movement.
Schemes start at 20 (subtle background stuff), 15 (something just beginning), or 10 (urgent, well on its way to being completed). Each Stone the players earn increase or decreases a relevant Movement's counter by one, player's choice; the player's earning of Stones changes the world around them.
Characters in Crescendo won't have formalized goals. This may sound backwards at first; isn't the game about players pushing their characters' agendas and thus evolving into heroes? You are correct! It would make sense on paper to have a Goal for each character. I've played games similar to Crescendo where there are formalized goals and it works... well enough. But I don't think it works great. The essential part of a game like this is to subvert information and twist the characters against themselves. And that means that Goals can get in the way of meaningful character and story evolution; it takes time to rewrite Goals and there is a very strong Pavlovian element going on with them, which can straitjacket the narrative. Pavlovian elements aren't bad, but they have their place in a game about character growth. So I think it better to put vectors (Tenets, Limits, and Movements) on the table and have the players put the pieces together however they want.
Which finally brings us to Stones, this game's metacurrency. You push your agenda and get rewarded! Pavlov rings the bell!
There is only one prerequisite for getting Stones, of which there are three kinds: did using this Tenet, Limit, or interacting with this Movement meaningfully change the story y'all are telling? If so, you get a point!
Did you betray another one of your Tenets or Limits or a Scheme to get that Stone? Great! Get two Stones instead! Crescendo is about complex characters, which means you should get something special for making characters who are conflicted but utterly sincere in their inner conflict.
There are three kinds of Stones, each for a different element: Favor (Tenets), Dynamis (Limits), and Persona (Movements). Favor is help from the Immortals, who enforce Fate Herself. Favor is when circumstances change in an odd way, usually with an omen from the Immortal who helped you; the Challenge Dice is lowered a step (d10 to d8, for example). Dynamis is your inner world forcing itself upon the outer world; reroll your Stat Dice. Persona is when your connection to the world makes you stronger; increase your Stat Dice by a step.
The last bit of the Stones Cycle is that all spent Stones become XP. XP, as you can probably guess, is used to improve your character. But suppose you're not spending a lot of Stones? Crescendo has an OSR approach to rolls: if you must roll it's a challenge a gauntlet thrown. Sometimes that's not going to be an issue. Stones are good but you may not use them. Perhaps you won't roll a single dice in a session! And y'know what? That's fine. I don't see that being a problem, given how Stones are situated in mechanical spots you want control over, but it is possible. So any Stones you don't use can be converted to XP. You can't transfer them back, however! That change is permanent. So there will be no bloat. I hope.
Crescendo is meant to produce a flexible framework for all the players to get invested in. The reward system doesn't guide what you do, but rewards what you're already doing: telling a story about your character and their development. As you play out the story what that looks like will change, right along with the characters. When you get to the end, thirty, forty, or however many sessions later, you'll find the characters and story to be different, but familiar. They've been through a lot. And you've had a hand in their change every step of the way.
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